Hello everyone and welcome to a very much needed and overdue update! As in the past we have been far too silent but that never means that we haven't been working!
So it's been almost 2 years since our last update back in the Halloween of 2013, but we have been busy working on a fair few things. As you can see we have made the jump, much like other projects, and not all W3D ones at that, to W3D Hub. This is something that we had been in talks with before the community was formed just like ECW, but we took a little longer than them to properly come over.
This was a pretty tough choice to make after being at Final Warrior Productions for so many years and with so many great people. Things had become pretty silent all together over there, what with Omar having to focus on his studies meaning Tiberian Redux wasn't getting any attention and E! vanishing for long periods of time.
So when things finally kicked off with W3D Hub and we were offered a place, we could hardly say no! So many fantastic games and talented developers gathering in one spot is a no brainer. It's a healthy environment that is breathing life into not only Battle for Dune, but every other project here!
As our project continuously moves forward, so does our art direction to keep as up to date as possible. One aspect of our game that we feel is lacking are our infantry, even more so when compared to our vehicles. So we felt is was due time to start our updates with the Atreides infantry.
The Atreides Light Infantry carry a pistol, a medium ranged distance rifle and a anti-vehicular explosive. Vulnerable to most weapons, they are nevertheless valuable anti-infantry units and the core of House Atreides army.
For awhile we have been playing with new ideas about repairing and how we'd like to approach it in Battle for Dune. From repairing Main Frames directly (as it is currently set-up) to having something like the Apocalypse Rising nodes. An idea we came upon recently was inspired by what unique ability we wanted to give each Engineer, the Harkonnen's is equipped with Claymores, the Ordos' has anti-vehicular mines and the Atreides Engineer has repair fuses that speed up repairing times!
The idea we have been planning and gradually fleshing out is to have two to three repair rooms or sections in rooms in each building. These would be kitted out with non-intelligent computer systems that regulate the structures functions that Technician and Engineer classes can repair the building at a good rate. They would also be equipped with sockets/terminals where your Engineer can place their fuse!
So a couple of weeks ago now we poked our heads out of the dark corner that we had been lurking with a new quick shout out. This consisted of announcing that we were no longer part of Final Warrior Productions and now part of W3D Hub (as mentioned in the Exodus) and a new screenshot of the game.
There is much more to come on this in the future, but for now it's still a work in progress.
Since we joined W3D Hub we also moved to scripts 4.3, this means we have some extra bug fixes added to our workload. Doing this we have access to some extra features from 4.3, as we now also have full source access, which means some bugs can be fixed with better ease. We also plan to move to 5.0 in the near future after we make sure our current 4.3 build is stable. We are currently facing some annoying bugs such as mouse steering on vehicles, this sounds better than it is, trust us. 5.0 will open new doors for us for instance some graphical features which Methelina is working on but I can't go into too much detail about that yet.
5.0 will also bring some addition features we could advantage of, like the more advanced game info when you hold "K". Another feature we could use is the new sprinting system brought about after our own version of the concept. It's a bit more open in terms of being able to run forever, but we're dealing with Arrakis here where water is scarce, so our sprint feature will still have stamina. This keeps in tune with the feel of our game and the universe it's in.
We have a lot more stuff to show off in the next coming updates, we'll also more likely be shifting between dev updates and blogs, depending on how much we have to show off.
That's it for our break in silence, be sure to keep up to date with all our news here, on our forums, Facebook, and Twitter!
wow! awesome progress
Gosh, I've been waiting for a new Dune game forever ! I hope this project will be completed unlike so many.
Good to know that this great project is still in progress :) keep it up this exciting game!