How many members of the Dev team are actively working on Y2?

[sjunaid 1]

Pretty much as the title says.

 

Bonus question: Do the devs also read these forums?

[isadorbg 8]

They are Legion.

 

Yes.

[Legate of Mineta 0]

Junaid;

 

There's always at least one; it depends on our schedule.

 

And yes, in fact they do.

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

Well, for sure it's at the very least a place to draw some inspiration from.

 

Though for sure it *also* means that certain voiced expectations are bound to be subverted in the most painful manner possible.

[Schwarzbart 1,048]

given that to my knowledge part of the team actual do this work as unpaid hobby we can't ecpect them to work full force on the single projects.

[sjunaid 1]

No I just wanted to know so I could make up non-sensical man-hours figures in my own head and comfort myself that Y2 will come. Someday.

 

But seriously though how many man-hours did Y1 take?

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

I don't suppose you'd be willing to give a percentage of completion that Y2 is presently at?

 

I bet it's likely somewhere between 90 and 95 percent done. I think most of the time between now and launch is getting DLC 17 and Steam out of the way so all of the team can focus on that final push required to make Y2's launch smooth and perfect.

 

Really, the thing that eats at me is all the uncertainty. I would like to know of the mile markers left and root heavily when one more is past, but. alas...

[Schwarzbart 1,048]

The Legate already told us some weeks back that chances are really small that Y2 will make it into this year.

Apparently the team current work serious on the UI of Y1 for the Steam release.

For the writing we actual never can say they are finished as there will be just a cut at some point what go into 1.0 and the rest go into the first DLC but I suspect if it would be just for the writing then we already could have Y2 some months back.

[dyrhet 4]

As much shit as we normally give them around here, I think I'd just like to say "Thanks, mysterious BSS members reading this forum, for some fun games!"

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

Oh, don't mind me. I just like heckling. It gives me something to spend my energy on.

 

Also, to the team:

I see why the Vernin towers were abandoned. They were using Gates magic in order to replicate the functions of the Wall (hence the appearance of one of the new gods at one of their towers,) which was something that the Aultrines had managed to do. (why DiCossa was so eagerly captured, no doubt. They probably encouraged him to learn Gates, though probably not Mastery) and eventually summoned dragons to them in order to exploit their magical power, using the towers themselves to enervate the beasts enough to be partially contained. Eventually though catastrophe was bound to happen and so the towers were locked up so that everybody can pretend that the towers never existed. The cold forge's 'master' is a dragon from one of those experiments. Am I right?

 

[Albert 1]

No idea about "The Towers", but clearly Vernin isn't what they once used to be when they seemed to have several Towers and more students.

 

Maybe it was the low standards of the students they accepted and maintained, aswell as lax security and oversight that eventually caused trouble. Though, at some Point there were Vernin students enrolled in Gates classes I guess. But I doubt it was one of their primary pillars, since there was another college that held that pillar as their own specialty. Just as there was one focusingon Mastery.

 

Who knows, maybe there are some interesting things to be found in those locked down Towers. I'm sure several of those secrets, which are now guarded by the Legate won't be safe for us until later years when we can handle them.

[Hypergeometer 0]

The Legate already told us some weeks back that chances are really small that Y2 will make it into this year.

 

And on wiki we have "The sequel (Year 2) is aimed right now for a release toward end of 2014, maybe 2015 (well, "when it's ready") as revealed to a question in the forum." Can someone informed update that, please?

 

As side note:

 

Concerning human-dragon relationship (including mutual expoitation): I wonder, if time of draconic rulership was as bad as lore makes it appear. After all, all those texts describing horrors of being ruled by dragons are written by humans. I think it would be enlightening to read what dragons though on that issue back at the day. To learn draconic language as one of language skills for this purpose would be interesting.

 

[Legate of Mineta 0]

Let's see...Y1 took 4 years of time, and that was actually full time at various points for the Dev team. Writing and editing was ongoing through the whole of that time.

 

Free;

 

No comment.

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

Well, to be fair, you weren't working on any "SEKRET PROJECTZ" which kind of slowed down Y2's progression. Plus there undoubtedly was a lot of coding needed to improve on Y1's shortcomings and areas that were going to need lots of improvement

 

All in all, if DLC17 finally gets finished this year I'll be happy. Oh, and the save converter. Can't forget that, no sir. I can wait til next year if we get at least that.

[Legate of Mineta 0]

Free;

 

Hmmm- for at least a bit of that period, there were some Secret Projects going on, but mostly true.

[Albert 1]

What Engine is Academagia using anyway?

[Schwarzbart 1,048]

Firebrid is the database they use to my knowledge and the Database is actual the most important thing for a game like Academagia.

[Legate of Mineta 0]

albert;

 

It's a custom engine.

[sjunaid 1]

So....yet another year. *Sigh*.

[EllestarRus 0]

 

 

 

Firebrid is the database they use to my knowledge and the Database is actual the most important thing for a game like Academagia.

 

Yeah, it's Firebird. You can actually connect to it too if you want.

 

But database is not the most important thing. Say, Civilization 4 C++ and Python game logic is open for modding (so you can see for yourself how it's done), it stores similiar game data in XML files and works fine. Academagia uses some weird format to store data, why do they need that weird persist_entity table, anyway? For some weird way to make the game backwards compatible?

 

Civ 4 XML files can be edited directly. Academagia data are impossible to edit without a tool. I would say that Civ 4 storage design is superior to Academagia one - it's easier to use and it takes much less time for updates to get to the game (that Academagia tool is ridiculously slow, how do they test changes with it?)

Edited September 1, 2015 by Ellestar

[Metis 1,101]

(that Academagia tool is ridiculously slow, how do they test changes with it?)

In a word? Slowly.

[Schwarzbart 1,048]

Firebrid is the database they use to my knowledge and the Database is actual the most important thing for a game like Academagia.

 

 

Yeah, it's Firebird. You can actually connect to it too if you want.

 

 

 

But database is not the most important thing. Say, Civilization 4 C++ and Python game logic is open for modding (so you can see for yourself how it's done), it stores similiar game data in XML files and works fine. Academagia uses some weird format to store data, why do they need that weird persist_entity table, anyway? For some weird way to make the game backwards compatible?

 

Civ 4 XML files can be edited directly. Academagia data are impossible to edit without a tool. I would say that Civ 4 storage design is superior to Academagia one - it's easier to use and it takes much less time for updates to get to the game (that Academagia tool is ridiculously slow, how do they test changes with it?)

They have a newer Mod Tool but can't make it public do to licence issues.

Also publish a mod is much slower then publish official content as it check everything if there was a change.

[Legate of Mineta 0]

The Y2 Mod Tool will be released, but the fix for the Y1 Mod Tool requires a license that we are not likely to renew- the reason is that the Y2 Tool can be used with the Y1 content.

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

Oh, cool!

 

Full backwards compatibility? And shorter wait times? Can't wait to see it!

[freespace2dotcom 1,023]

When the greenlight finally comes to pass, and DLC17 is released... About how much manpower will be transferred to working on Y2? You've said that you only really had around 1 person working on it at any given time. Do you expect that to increase significantly?