View source for UnderlightSOT v2 Pre-press release

Friday June 13th at 9pm EDT in IRC channel, #underlightv3.

=Chat Log=

<@Acerbity> Thank you for joining us tonight.

<@Acerbity> Please PM all questions to me after each time that I open the floor for questions.

<@Acerbity> Due to the high volume of questions that I expect to have, please be patient.

<@Acerbity> I want to begin by saying that this is a pre-press release.

<@Acerbity> What that means is that, due to the loyalty of those of you here, our dedicated playerbase, I have elected to make you privy to information before any other persons or institutions are made aware of them.

<@Acerbity> At this time, those of you here know just about as much regarding what i'm going to discuss as each of the Shades of Truth GMs do.

<@Acerbity> But before I discuss the side project that this pre-press release is all about, I want to bring up an issue that I brought up the other night to a much smaller audience.

<@Acerbity> Recently (about the time the side project was mentioned) I have received numerous reports from GMs stating that players, friends of their's, are grilling them for information that in truth, they don't even have.

<@Acerbity> But I want to stress the importance of not performing that action, regardless.

<@Acerbity> Remember that, if you do so, each time that you grill your GM-side friends for information, you put them into a bad position.

<@Acerbity> And that each time, they know that they either need to report the incident, or face the loss of their position on the GM team should it surface later on.

<@Acerbity> But that's not the only problem.

<@Acerbity> When someone grills a GM for information, and it's a close friend of their's, it puts alot of pressure on them, which will inhibit their performance, thus the project's performance.

<@Acerbity> But that's not even all.

<@Acerbity> If you happen to be friends with one of the higher ups in this project...

<@Acerbity> They may be under additional contracts, far more than their NDA.

<@Acerbity> And if you put enough pressure on them, and they do end up telling you...

<@Acerbity> They could end up sued for an amount up to 10,000.00 USD

<@Acerbity> It's a bad idea overall, and I just wanted to make it clear exactly how bad it is to grill your friends for information.

<@Acerbity> But, we're here to discuss much happier things.

<@Acerbity> I simply wanted to utilize this time to make that public service announcement.

<@Acerbity> There is a side project in the works that was born numerous months ago, but wasn't persued until recently.

<@Acerbity> I want to clarify that this project is completely unrelated to Shades of Truth, and is NOT manned by the Shades of Truth GM team.

<@Acerbity> About 5 weeks ago, I made the official decision to begin the development of a mainstream MMORPG, which I will remind you again has no relation to Shades of Truth or Underlight whatsoever.

<@Acerbity> At this time, I have only raw, basic concepts to share with you, but here is what has been amassed thus far:

<@Acerbity> First, there will be numerous unique servers, with numerous unique rulesets.  Hopefully, no two servers will be the same.

<@Acerbity> Rulesets being...

<@Acerbity> Roleplaying (which will be enforced like Underlight, with a GM team associated with it.)

<@Acerbity> PvP

<@Acerbity> Invasion

<@Acerbity> Small-scale

<@Acerbity> And large-scale servers

<@Acerbity> Second...

<@Acerbity> We are looking into taking a totally new approach to NPCs.

<@Acerbity> Imagine a game where you can't simply click on the NPC.

<@Acerbity> But rather, you have to approach them, and coax the information out of them with random, unique scripts and triggers.

<@Acerbity> An example being...

<@Acerbity> You may be looking for information regarding the wherabous of...

<@Acerbity> Horrace, the evil toad.

<@Acerbity> And in order to get that information, you may have to approach... Nancy, the nimble NPC.

<@Acerbity> Instead of clicking on Nancy...

<@Acerbity> You will have to initiate dialogue with her, and speak to her just as you would a player.

<@Acerbity> Nancy should respond to threats, take bribes, and react to compliments.

<@Acerbity> Another topic being considered...

<@Acerbity> Is the need to make guild systems a little bit more intensive.

<@Acerbity> By requiring numerous pledged members in order to form a guild, and offering statistical benefits to the leaders and inner council members of a guild.

<@Acerbity> I'm going to open the floor to questions right now, please send them to me VIA pm and wait patiently.

<@Acerbity> I'm going to begin answering questions as efficiently as I can.

<@Acerbity> <cooki> If you're supposed to lead up this project, though it doesn't have to do with SoT...where does your limited time go into SoT

<@Acerbity> My position on the Shades of Truth team is a position of Out-of-Character administration.

<@Acerbity> My job, at this time...

<@Acerbity> Involves approvals and organization, neither of which will be affected by another project or any other undertaking.

<@Acerbity> <CONMAN> I have heard many many concerns regarding this, from other players ... as far as your direction with this new MMORPG idea.  Many feel that you may take dedication and time away from the project at hand, in addition to the current playerbase, which is already small.  Any comments?

<@Acerbity> As I said, the Shades of Truth GM team will NOT be working on this project.

<@Acerbity> That includes the technical team.

<@Acerbity> Shades of Truth GMs will need to apply to work on it just like anyone else.

<@Acerbity> <Xyn_Rhade> I am just curious as to where you would like this project to go

<@Acerbity> At this time, the intent is to build a cutting edge MMORPG, supported by a powerful marketing campaign in order to find large-scale investors.

<@Acerbity> By that I mean, we will attempt to market the game to major corporations once we reach that point, and attempt to secure a bidder.

<@Acerbity> <Gina> Why on earth would you start up a completely new project, when we have such a little player base for SOT as it is, and abandon it even more with something new?

<@Acerbity> This game will not be marketed as something simply for the Shades of Truth community.

<@Acerbity> Game development takes years, not weeks or months.  You will find that by the time this new MMORPG will be in any kind of operating condition, that your concerns will not be warranted.

<@Acerbity> Don't think weeks, or months...

<@Acerbity> Think years.

<@Acerbity> Not one or two, more like five or six

<@Acerbity> <cooki> What about the time that players who are working on this side project. What happens to their time in SoT

<@Acerbity> That's up to them as individuals.  I would recommend a player-driven marketing campaign for those who are concerned about the numbers in Shades of Truth.

<@Acerbity> I also want to re-iterate that five or six years is a very liberal number.

<@Acerbity> Cutting edge games end up taking five or six years when there is a team of multiple hundred coders working on them 40 hours a week.

<@Acerbity> That won't be the case with us, so you may find that by the time this game were to actually launch...

<@Acerbity> You may have even forgotten that it exists in the first place.

<@Acerbity> <Ken> How do you intend to create the NPC AI to be interactive?  Keywords, allow the players to use "intentions", far too many staff that possesses them?

<@Acerbity> It will likely be fueled with some sort of out of game keyword database, but truthfully, I can't elaborate on that for 
you.

<@Acerbity> I don't know exactly how it works, I simply know that i've been assured that it does work.

<@Acerbity> I completely respect all of your concerns, but I don't think that you have very much to be concerned about.

<@Acerbity> Rather, this was a reward to our loyal playerbase, by way of being the first to hear about this.

<@Acerbity> I'm out of questions at this time.

<@Acerbity> So what I want to say is this...

<@Acerbity> I am hiring for this project, and i'm looking for a significant amount of employees to fill a significant amount of jobs.

<@Acerbity> We are in need of almost any technical skill that you could imagine.

<@Acerbity> Additionally...

<@Acerbity> We are looking for creative designers, who simply need to have an imagination, patience, and some think-tank oriented skills.

<@Acerbity> We are looking for English experts, to write and edit information.  This position is a little bit more demanding, and i'm only looking for individuals who can show 100% proficiency.

<@Acerbity> We are looking for marketers for the future.

<@Acerbity> Anyone who applies, should have the following skills:

<@Acerbity> You MUST be able to work as part of an intensive, critical team.

<@Acerbity> You MUST be driven, and interested in working on a long-term project with strict deadlines.

<@Acerbity> And you MUST have the time to do this, please don't apply if you forsee yourself being unavailable for any long periods (months) in the long-term future.

<@Acerbity> Additionally...

<@Acerbity> This is on a volunteer basis, HOWEVER...

<@Acerbity> Should everyone do their job well, and show the dedicatio needed to make this work...

<@Acerbity> They WILL become paid positions with the possibility of an on-site location once we have a product powerful enough to procure business loans.

<@Acerbity> Send your resumes to GM.Acerbity@gmail.com

<@Acerbity> If you don't have a resume, throw one together, there are tons of resume builders available if you simply search google.

<@Acerbity> Thank you for coming tonight.