Status Update

[Lance Hawvermale]

So what's the latest and greatest on this awesome project?

[Doirche]

Work is pretty much at a standstill on the project. Last I heard, Halaster was still having a very difficult time locating an artist willing to work for free for the project.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Ok, time for an update.

As most of you can see, the project is once again stalled and dormant. Lots of things going on with the few members of the development team. I have not been able to contact Doirche for months now. Not sure what's going on. I hope everything is ok. I know he had some rough stuff he was going through awhile back. Unfortunately, he has all the dungeon dressing card info we developed, and I never got that from him. I'm hoping to hear from him soon so I can assess the overall development and have all the maps in Illustrator format and the dungeon cards and what not to archive in redundant safe places.

As for myself, it's been difficult. Real estate sucks. We've lost 33% of home values since 2006, in comparison to the Great Depression, where we only lost 31% of value. It took 19 years for us to recover back then. Now is not a good time to be in real estate. So I may be chucking that ball and chain later this year. Most likely, actually.

However, the other jobs demand a lot of time. My side job eats up the entire weekend. And now with school full time, I am reading roughly 350-500 pages each and every week. On top of homework and tests. That's a lot of reading! Between school and research (mostly my main job), I figured I read close to 1,000 pages a week.

By the time I finish, it will have been well over 16,000 pages of work. Yeah, I need a speed reading course!

So I've had a hard time being able to find time to unwind, sit down, and CREATE. And the problem right now is that I've been away from the project for so long that it's hard to sorta pick back up until I get all the material on hand and inventory it, read it all over, and get back in writing mode. I'm hoping to hear from Doirche soon so I can get the latest version of the maps in Illustrator format so I can get them printed full size. Makes it MUCH easier to write when I can see the entire dungeon level at a glance.

So hopefully I'll get some free time worked in over the next few months and get it going. I'm determined to finish this if it's literally the last thing I do before I die. We're past the point of no return...it's longer to go back than to steam ahead and finish.

Level 7 is done. Arachnia is pretty close to done. And Level 8 is pre-planned and just needs to be written out. It's just a matter of finding time to wrap it up.

The bad thing is that the last artist we hired (and paid an arm and a leg to), could not honor his commitment, and stalled and stalled and never produced squat. Lucky for him I got a prompt refund.

So we still need art. And looking for an artist is a full time job. Plus, the budget is to tight right now that there's no option to pay an artist. Which makes it a nightmare because with artistic ability seems to come the belief that everything you do must be charged for, and can never be done for fun or glory.

So, if anyone hears from Doirche, or finds an artist, please let me know!

[McDeath]

I hope Doriche is ok. Seems pretty weird no contact at all.