Consistent Progress At Last

We've implemented a "Virtual Office" system that seems to be really working- combined with the amazing efforts of the new locals. Nothing like having somebody actually be able to kick your butt to keep you moving and motivated. And that motivation seems to be spreading to the CWS Software Remote Nodes (AKA people who aren't physically Here). We've had a lot of time schedule conflicts- life does go on, after all- but seems like we're getting people back into the fray. I'm contemplating activating our sound engineer, something I can't take lightly (talk about busy! This guy makes me feel shame), at least if we keep this forward momentum.

The new engine work is coming along great. The resource editors are making some serious headway- being implemented almost as fast as we can define the fields. Tonight, I hope to see some planets, and maybe some jumping, along with another resource editor completed. As far as the scenario goes, we're filling it in with detail very quickly. I had always assumed that most of this detail was going to more or less fill itself in, and that we (that is, the writers) all had a pretty good idea of what was up. Crafting this world has revealed just how wrong that was- I'm revealing all sorts of important details that I hadn't even considered and wondering "how could we do XYZ without having known that?"

In any case, in my humble opinion, the world of Sephil Saga is going to be extremely interesting and rich. We're still trying to hold to the ideal of a hard sci-fi environment, which I think we're doing OK at, but some of the things we put in the original turn out to be anachronisms after more research, so we find ourselves needing to change some of the setting, but overall this should be pretty darn believable. It's interesting to me what the additional power of the engine adds storytelling wise. Before, we were pretty constrained; fuel types were problematic, explaining some of the immutable mechanics of the engine limited what we could do or say. Now we can just write a script and change the way it happens. Coolest part is that we can do that and leave the base engine operating in a mode much more reminiscent of the original, so that ports and stories that take place in other environments won't be out of place. We're adding a lot of new stuff, but mostly we're redefining it to streamline it and add power. All the decisions are being weighted with a respect for the past, so hopefully the purists will find enough to like that they can forgive some of our new ideas.