It's been more than 6 months since I joined the game "The Mana World" and was asked to join the "Aethyra" team by its head artist only a couple months later. They later branched from TMW thinking that things weren't developing fast enough on that end. Now, the three founding members of the project are gone (mostly busy with other things), and those who are left are adamant about surviving for the next year and more.

It's interesting. The group we split from doesn't seem to think that the players can drive content or even provide good additions to the game, in some ways. But we've based ourselves on the premise that the players MUST drive the content and the additions to the game. Every developer not only works on the project, but plays the game. From an artist's prespective, this means that a monster or item that we've created can be seen in use. Something we're not always used to having happen. And it's quite heartening to see. Even if what we've added isn't always top of the line.

Anyways, it's been a trip working with these guys, and now that I'm head of the art department, I'm plotting with pyrestryker about ways we can get more people involved with the art. Nothing more than vaporware on that front so far, but we'll see what happens when one of us finds employment.

For further info on the game, check Pyrestriker's journal. [link]

Now, I've just installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my machine, and while I'm pleased with most of it, there's a menu bug that's just annoying the living daylights outta me. Open Office (and even a few other programs) have the text in their menu bar/dropdown menus replaced with dashes or underscores. I can't use the software like that for some reason. I don't think I remember where half the stuff is supposed to be on these programs because I don't use them much. Ah well. When the horse farts, if you're not riding in front, you're gonna smell it, and you can't always be in front of everybody.

Fury out!