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20 September 2008 — Descent

Sirius

16:02 GMT

Alright, there have since been a few changes to the level section here; it should be easier to track down what you're looking for, and I've put the best-known works on this site on a special "Featured" page.

Along those lines, Anthology is now (finally!) on this site. Most people will have played it by now but it makes a good reference I guess. Another level set that has been something of a collaboration between a number of designers (including Darkhorse and myself), "The Enemy Within", has recently been finished; something for that will hopefully be up pretty soon.

1 March 2008 — General

Sirius

06:34 GMT

A few weeks ago, I finally finished my magnum opus, Anthology, and released it; it will come to this site soon, but I have a few tweaks to make first (the first of them are already visible). In the meantime you can find it on descent2.de.

15 April 2007 — General

Sirius

23:23 GMT

I'm still alive - just too busy to make many updates lately. Long story short, the level is still underway, although much nearer completion now; this site is still kind-of in progress (it works but has more potential), and there are still a bunch of other things cooking. Maybe.

Things will be posted as they are finished, at any rate.

2 November 2006 — Descent

Sirius

21:21 GMT

Added The Scorpion's Lair SE to the Levels section (Descent 2 naturally). It has been played a little bit so it's about time there was an easy way to get it.

6 July 2006 — General

Sirius

09:33 GMT

More technical changes to the site today. Hopefully some more interesting stuff to come.

I'm still working on the level, although I am actually making progress now. Just a matter of grabbing ideas as I come across them. Beginning to suspect I'll need a higher cube cap eventually as well.

27 May 2006 — General

Sirius

10:18 GMT

Switched hosts again. I'm still working on some improvements to the site but they are relatively minor.

Currently I have a D2 co-op level (restricted to D2X-XL because of size) still under development. I am hoping, however, to bring that project to a close soon since some people are growing impatient...!

26 November 2005 — General

Sirius

12:47 GMT

Taken some time to get on to it, but stage two of the SQL overhaul is in progress; the news system is now being converted. In functional terms, this will make no difference to the operation of the site. It just makes it easier to manage.

26 July 2005 — Descent

Sirius

10:55 GMT

Lately most of my Descent-related work has revolved around an application to read in and display aspects of polymodels. It's been going fairly well but is probably some distance from being recognisably useful yet; nonetheless I hold out hope.

So, just to keep you updated. I have also been working, although more slowly, on a level project; not sure when this will see the light of day though. I'm currently working on it nearly room by room, but a little more should get pieced together soon.

7 July 2005 — Descent

Sirius

08:22 GMT

Well, it's been a while since I've done one of those boring blog-like 'what I plan to do now' posts, so I'll just make up for lost time. (Feel free to switch to another page to escape if you wish.)

Descent. Hmm. Like it or not it just about doesn't exist any more, but it doesn't seem to be becoming less popular any more, because there is remarkably little space to go that way these days. :) Thanks largely to Stealth and Phaser's efforts in the Descent 2 Revivals, the persistent fanaticism of the Descent Rangers, and some Kali denizens who have never really gotten enough of a life to do anything else, and of course Diedel's massive work on D2X-W32 - whether or not you like it - it seems to be becoming more popular these days. I seem to have come back from the dead, so to speak, with it and am doing a little more work myself - such as resurrecting old material for use in Legacy of Chaos. (Excuse the rather terrible pun there... but I just had to. :))

That used up most of the backlog of stuff I've never finished. I still have some more though. There are a few rooms completed so far of a purpose-built co-operative level designed around the sense I got from Descent 1 level 3 (as opposed to the physical level, which ironically is quite different). So, I might as well finish that next before moving on to anything else. There is other 'unfinished business' I have, though.

Firstly, since there is actually an Entropy mode in Descent 2 now, I think I should put in my bit to actually use that. Firstly, though, I'd like to actually play the game mode. And I still would like to actually play FV-24B in a real multiplayer situation. At the moment I have nothing more to say whether the level is actually any good than just guesswork.

Secondly, I ought to make some anarchy level or other that for once makes use of D2X-W32's other features. Doesn't need to be anarchy, I guess... but I'd like to see what I can actually do with it now other than rehash what has already been possible for nine years.

Finally, Darkhorse and I still have something sitting in the pipeline that takes such concepts even further. Whether it'll eventuate is a tough call but we are being reasonably cautious to keep the project within reachable levels... reach up, not down. In other words, this isn't going to be an Obsidian 2.

Ah, Obsidian 2... promised the instant I saw the epilogue Wizard had written. And that was six years ago. I remember I said it would be in Descent 3, but that's blatantly wrong; it won't be Descent at all, and even some copycat game like Core Decision would be a surprise. O2 is quite a lot more grandiose in scale now than I ever thought it would be; I'm just waiting for the knowledge and resources to make it happen.

Not a good sign it ever will, of course. I may very well be twice the age after Obsidian 2 that I was after Obsidian 1... but the end result I am hoping would be worth it. :)

Oh, and coding work. We'll see how it goes, but I could be looking at something VERY interesting soon, provided I have the commitment. But I still have that week... and yes, the weekends next semester... if all goes well...

7 July 2005 — General

Sirius

08:11 GMT

Okay... three things have happened recently.

  1. My last host went down due to data loss or something like that. So, eventually (being a couple weeks ago) I finally got around to re-registering, and we're back in business.
  2. We actually aren't because they go down permanently due to malicious efforts by other people the next day. Thank you, guys. So, I find another host (slower, but it lives) and get the website back finally. I swear, it's spent more time down than up... or at least in recent years.
  3. I, shockingly, used (some of) my time for something useful and picked up SQL. First practice implementation: this website's level system. It turns out SQL processing as opposed to XML processing is much, much simpler. I really should have thought of it the first time around - getting that level list to work truly was a pain.

I guess next up would be these news things... but it's a tough call how easy, or not, such a conversion would be. Probably not too bad - the level list took all of a day to alter (and another day to actually get access to the administration tools on the website... yes, the server IS THAT slow. At least sometimes).

I'm thinking somewhat of adding pages to list the maps for various Blizzard strategy games (hint, old, as in not WC3... yet) I've been messing around with. Since I still have a spare week and a half before next semester starts. And, while I like to think I can make progress on things during semester time, we all know I just lie to myself... a lot...


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