Wow, sure has been a while hasn't it?! Along with this development blog, I'm pleased to announce the news that the Pre-Alpha 0.25 version is now 100% complete and off the testers for a few weeks for them to play around.
The conversion over to TGEA sure has been quite a long one. Longer than we had expected anyway. But looking back at where we were and to where we are now after the change, I don't think any of our developers would want to go back to the old Torque engine due to the enhancements we get from TGEA. I personally love the 8x Anti Aliasing. Smooth edges and graphics are nice to play around in!
The game itself is coming along nicely. The modelling team, lead by Chris, have been hard at work building up the city whilst Andy and his very short-numbered programming team have been converting everything over to TGEA. Not only is this the actual game that needs changing, but all the servers Andy has programmed along with it. A tough and agonising job but one job well done, I must say! Unfortunately this means there aren't many new features with this build and it is pretty much the same as the last....however...
Voice chat! Working like a beauty! So much easier to talk face to face (Well, you know what I mean) than typing into the chat box or tabbing to MSN and sure is a laugh too! Myself and Chris were playing and testing last night, and were in hysterics after a zombie jumped off a ledge and mauled him to death in the blink the eye whilst we were meeting up to explore the sewers! Oh, and we couldn't exactly leave without having a classic sniper war....which needless to say the producer scored victory over his creative lead worker. There is always next time Chris!
It is time to work on the AI. Hopefully we'll have a bit more functionality from the current zombies and a new teaser out showing you the work as we progress through it. It won't be easy, but sure is an important one relating to the game! Then again, they still give me the shivers when one runs across a doorway in front of you...
Which leads me onto the next point. Design! Currently Braveheart is leading the design team which has very little members....none in fact. The design department is one which is extremely important to the success of development and so I'll be personally working towards a solution where we can have a more effective design team put in place, which includes bringing in members of the community specifically to expand on those suggestions from the forum and turn them into fully working ideas! And you'll be treated as a developer when becomming a designer so keep a look out for any news on that coming up soon. This may just be a chance to become apart of ZDay! In the meantime, you can always work on building up ideas from the "Ideas and Suggestions" forum yourselves to help us further.
On behalf of the whole development team here at ZDay,
Watson
for textural inspiration check out the Ultima 3d remake at website peroxide.dk/projects_old.shtml .. best tree & grass textures I've seen on that game.
I reckon zombie themed shooters are the best & most ethicly correct variety of FPS.
Amazing achievements in graphicly compression award still goes to .kkrieger game at website theprodukkt.de 3 full, 256 vram style, 3d FPS levels in 9kb (yes kilo bytes!).
looking forward to z day!
post any download links to me please jobs99@<nospam>wily.com.au thanks!