As of July 6th:
+C, +V and I had a conference call last weekend and went over the current plan of attack for the remaining coding needed for the facets. We're going to meet again this week or next week to go over the plan in more depth, prioritize projects, and determine if anything should be shelved for after the facets are already opened.
During our meeting, +C laid out his plan to set him and +A a 3-month window to complete all of the facet coding on the finalized list. They intend to begin this facets coding binge in mid-August or early September. Their intention is to focus solely on facets coding, pausing here and there as needed for bug fixes or issues that crop up on the live shard. They may take a few brief breaks here and there if they're getting burned out, to code things that are more fun or interesting, but for the most part their intention is to work entirely on facets coding for 3 months straight. During the coding process, they will meet with me and/or +V before the start of each project, and then at least once a week during the coding of each individual project to cover any difficulties they're having or any changes that may need to be made.
The plan is for them to knock out the bulk of the coding, and then I will begin beta testing with players on each system after the 3-month period is over, and then they will revisit these projects to fix bugs, until every system is stable enough to go "live". I'd like to do as much beta testing on a separate test server as possible, but that is still up in the air.
After everything major is in, stable enough to start working with, and the major bugs zapped, then I will begin my portion - the actual creation of the facet. Populating the dungeons, making all of the quests, populating the towns, making the vendors, factions, artifacts, rewards, and everything that you guys will actually see and do.
At present, Elysium is empty but for a few design projects and things I have built. Until the coding side of things is done, I won't know how each system will end up working - a lot tends to change or be redesigned/rethought during the coding process and sometimes what we end up with is very, very different than what was originally envisioned. This is usually a good thing, but it means that any quests or towns/dungeons/etc I already made in Elysium might have to get redone, so for the most part I am saving my energies and plan to knock out the actual creation at the end, so that I can make everything once (instead of like poor +V, who has had to redo the bulk of Touria area 1 about 5 times now as new functionalities were added
).
As for things which have been previously mentioned to y'all, here's where we're at with them:
- Elysium crops are almost completely coded, they're just needing a few rounds of bug fixes
- Plant BODs are mostly coded, the points system for how the rewards are distributed needs to be coded and various bugs need to be zapped
- Cooking is partially coded, I believe that the recipes and ingredients are mostly coded and that the cooking system revamps have been started on to some extent.
Once we have our next meeting, and finalize "The List of Things that Must Be Coded", I will add another post here and update y'all. One of us will periodically post in this thread with updates and information.