Skotos Monthly Report

[Prometheus]

Dear Skotos Community,

Hello there! This is the first in a series of monthly updates that we will be providing to you on the things which we're working on behind the scenes!

First, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Scott Roberts, otherwise known as StoryHost Prometheus. I am the Director of Customer Experience and Quality Assurance for Skotos Tech, Inc. In this capacity, I am introducing a new series of monthly announcements in which we will keep you informed of the behind-the-scenes activities here at Skotos Tech, that you may get a better idea as to what we are doing to improve your experience with our services.

I welcome and encourage comments on these posts. Feedback from our customers--and potential customers--as to what it is that they desire is one of the most important keys to improving our services. Your commentary will help us to set priorities and adjust our work to provide the sort of service you desire and deserve.

ENGINEERING

Skotos' Engineering department is hard at work building improvements to our SkotOS engine--the engine which drives all of the games in the Skotos family. Major architectural refinements, designed to bring our code base to a new height of refinement and ease-of-use for our external and internal design teams, are the primary current focus of our Engineering department.

Name Purge

By the end of September, we should have completed a purge of old character names from our Castle Marrach database, eliminating those characters which were created for trial periods and never played again. This should free up a lot of popular name choices for new characters.

Darkness

We are in the process of developing a detailed darkness and light system with various light levels based on light sources. This will be applied to the upcoming Lovecraft Country game (sometime after December 2001) first, with possible future implementation elsewhere in 2002.

Crafting

Work continues on a variety of systems to enhance crafting skills. We're really looking forward to releasing this one in the next few months.

Detail System

We're working on a new detail system where the details of objects, rooms and people can change in response to certain commands. This system will allow our builders to create objects that will change their descriptions, effects, or other features in response to actions taken in relation to them or scripts that
are run on the server. While it might not seem like much from the
description, this complex system will enhance all Skotos games when it is developed, with primary effects on future games, and a possible implementation on our existing games (Castle Marrach, Galactic Emperor) sometime in 2002.

DESIGN

Lovecraft Country

This game is undergoing intensive design work by Brian Moriarty, the author of Loom and Trinity. We're looking for a December 2001 beta release of the Miskatonic University setting, where players will roleplay amidst the center of intrigue, scholarly research, dark magic and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

Og

Wingnut Games' popular "Og" roleplaying game is under active development here at Skotos Tech. We hope to have a one-shot Stage out for players by the end of the year, with more rich and interesting developments by 2002.

IMPROVED CONNECTIVITY

Skotos Tech will be bringing up a seperate, dedicated connection to the Internet backbone for our games. Our current connection handles traffic for our web site, articles, and forums as well as our games. The new connection will separate all game traffic into a new dedicated pipeline, optimized to reduce lag and improve connection stability for the players of all Skotos games.

CASTLE MARRACH

Skotos Tech, Inc. is pleased to announce the promotion of StoryPlotter Keegan to the position of Lead StoryPlotter for the Castle Marrach game. Additionally, we would like to welcome StoryPlotter Deri to the ranks of Castle Marrach storyplotters, where she is taking over for the now-retired StoryPlotter Carroll.

The game is firmly in the hands of the players, with CE lending a helping hand from time to time. We've also added a new dedicated builder to the game from amongst the playerbase, who has volunteered to add new objects and plot devices to the game for the StoryPlotters. Welcome StoryCoder Aziel
when you get the chance!

We'd also like to welcome StoryGuide Marath to his new position as Lead StoryGuide for Castle Marrach!

We're in the process of implementing a limit on characters within
Marrach--three characters per player. This will NOT affect those of you with more than three characters currently; except that if you want to make new ones, you will need to delete down to two.

GALACTIC EMPEROR: SUCCESSION

Skotos Tech, Inc. is looking for a volunteer to serve as a host and event coordinator for Galactic Emperor: Succession. Interested applicants should contact Customer Experience at ce@skotos.net with the subject "Application to Host GE". This person would set up trading meets and schedule roleplaying events within the station.

That's all for this month! Please feel free to post comments or questions in your replies to this thread.

--Scott Roberts
--StoryHost Prometheus
--Director of Customer Experience and Quality Assurance
--Skotos Tech Inc.

[Prometheus]

I realized (after having it pointed out to me by Ra'Dorcha--thanks!)--that players can't reply to posts in the Announcements forum. So I've moved this here. Thanks!

[Edward1968]

What is the status of Paranoia development?

I am only asking because I have a submission on hold pending an announcement.

Ed Wisniowski

[Ra'Dorcha]

No problem, I might as well re-post what I was going to say.

A public thanks for these reports. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is interested in what the general timelines you all are working on are.

My only real question had been about the new games coming out. I look forward to trying both Lovecraft and Og, though I'm more interested in a few other games (and still mourning the retirement of Arcania). In regards to new games though, I noticed no mention of 'Bane' which on the main games pages is listed as coming out late 2001.

I was glad to hear about the new pipelines as well. I normally don't notice too much of a lag problem, and it normally is fixed pretty quickly. But more is always better.

For Marrach: Congrats to the new SPs, SGs, and SC (StoryCoder) especially to those who got promotions to lead those groups.

Keep up the good work, all.

Ra'

[Ravelyn]

Supposedly, Bane has gone the same way as Arcania , but it would be nice to have this confirmed by someone on staff.

- Carmen

[Atama]

I guess I count as staff. I'm pretty sure if Bane was canceled that us developer types would have heard about it (especially since some of us are waiting for the systems that will be available when it comes out... like combat!). It should still be coming out late this year, though games get delayed all the time.

[Prometheus]

To answer your questions:

Skotos intends to release Lovecraft Country, Og, and a strategic space simulation game by the end of 2001. We've reassessed our priorities and have pushed back development on the Bane accordingly.

As for Paranoia, we are still seeking developers for that property. Please feel free to mail us such proposals to:

Skotos Tech Inc.
Attention: Submissions
1512 Walnut Street
Berkeley, CA 94791

[David Mandrak]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the update. It's good to see what Skotos is working on.

If this is the place for quibbles, nit-picks, and requests, here is mine: I would love to see the cursor remain in the Alice client text-entry box after one has alt-tabbed out of the window and alt-tabbed back.

Thanks,

Dave

[miyaa]

We're in the process of implementing a limit on characters within Marrach--three characters per player. This will NOT affect those of you with more than three characters currently; except that if you want to make new ones, you will need to delete down to two.

That's great, but will there be an option on the start-up page that will let us delete characters, instead having to e-mail CE to request that deletion? (I don't mind e-mailing CE, but I have the feeling that CE probably has better things to do than deleting characters.)

---Miyaa

[Atama]

CE said in the past that they have only waited on the 3-character restriction because they haven't implemented the ability to delete your own characters. They said that once we are given that ability, that we will be restricted to 3 characters. So once they institute the restriction, yes, we will be given the ability to delete our own characters. Otherwise CE would be unable to handle the delete requests.