Sir Kalthorine

'Cal Jones', on 09 May 2012 - 18:27, said:

I am very glad to see this active again - it has the potential to be one of the most interesting NPC mods around. Welcome back!

Cheers my friend, all the good will messages since I got back have been really encouraging.

Diary Entry 12: More comebacks than Michael Jordan

In my previous developer diary I stated that "She will be finished, no matter how long it takes me".

So glad I didn't put a timescale in there, I can only hope that there are still such items as physical keyboards and mice by the time I get Chrysta out among the masses. Rest assured, however, that even if I'm the only one still playing the game by the time I finish her I will still get her out there.

This is only a short developer diary for now, but I thought I owed it to myself (and to others who so kindly welcomed me back) to confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that I am back and committed to seeing Chrysta through to completion. Don't worry if things are a little quiet on here for the next couple of weeks - I'm not daft enough to plough on without taking some time to re-acquaint myself with all the work previously done, to recruit some new Chrysta team members, and to catch up with any modding developments in the last 3 years. Once new content starts to be added I'll post another Developer Diary entry in a few weeks time.

I just want to finish for now by saying a huge thank you to the SHS site. Thanks to them (and the fact that I am a paranoid SOB when it comes to losing data), the Chrysta Workroom forum - containing all the work previously done on the mod - is fully intact. So no recreating of previous work is necessary, which when I discovered was the case was a huge boost to morale. Yay SHS!

Ah well, back to doing some serious catch-up...


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Comments, suggestions, feedback and inane blabber are all welcomed concerning any element of this Diary or mod development in general, and a Chrysta Developer Diary Comments thread exists for precisely that purpose.
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'Lava Del'Vortel', on 05 May 2012 - 11:24, said:

I sent you a PM with some questions and other stuff
BTW - shouldn't this project be marked as active (in-progress) again?

PM answered - and if anyone knows how to make Chrysta an "Active" project again, please help get it done!

'Lava Del'Vortel', on 04 May 2012 - 23:45, said:

I am a bit... well... I lost my muse etc, but if I have the right mood, I may be helpful, I suppose. Yet I'm not such a good coder as Liam. However, I may try to help, if you need some support.

I appreciate the offer, Lava, thanks

I would be perfectly happy to PM you with the password to the Workroom so you could get a better idea of the monster I am trying to create - the only thing stopping me is the desire not to spoil things (and Chrysta is a VERY spoiler-sensitive mod as I am a total coding masochist!) if you eventually want to play her.

I'll leave the choice up to you - either way, either helping from the inside or supporting from the outside, your interest is very much appreciated.

Fortunately I am, and have always been, paranoid about losing mod content - so I am pleased to say that ALL dialogues, story outlines, banters and even copies of work done on portraits and an alpha version of Chrysta's kit are ALL still stored safely within her Workroom...

...and I even remembered the password

So in other words, still a LOT of work to do but there is no soul-destroying "bugger-I-have-to-start-again" issues with her. I am spending this weekend reacquainting myself with where I got up to and I'll post a proper Developer Diary on Monday with - hopefully - some kind of realistic plan and timeline of where we go from here.

My only concerns are:

1) What advances/changes in modding have happened in the 4 years (yes it has been that long!) since I was last active

2) I have always been a writer/planner/ideas man rather than a modder - I've always sucked at the technical side - so I'm going to have to re-recruit a technical team to help me with the implementation and coding. And given the age of the game I know there is an ever-reducing number of interested parties out there to recruit a team from.

But where there's a will (and there IS definitely a will), there's a WEH HEEEEY! So watch this space