September Update: Team Return, Unite!

With another month gone by, things keep progressing with Ultima Return as we all work together toward a single goal.

But first, you might already have noticed that there have been some updates in the last month, as well as some changes on the website. Now if you missed it, don’t forget to have a look at our Character Creation video on youtube and note that you can download it here at NWNVault to try it out yourselves!

Also while it doesn’t include all the logic behind the skills system, it will also give you a good idea of what we are aiming at with them.

You might also have noticed we have put a new Team Roster page, and most importantly a media page which includes some WIP screenshots of the area Kenneth has been working on lately. For indeed I can say it: actual worldbuilding have now begun, and both Kenneth and Dan (which has been transferred from coding to worldbuilding for the time being) are doing a very good job!

On the writing front we have pretty much finished writing the detailed NPC profiles for the area we are working on, and actual dialogue writing should begin very soon. I’m also happy to announce that a new talented writer Chris aka Midnight Crow has joined our writing team as well. We also have another potential one waiting, so stay tuned…

On the musical front, Panu has produced us two wonderful new musical themes. First a dungeon theme, which I dare say it, puts to shame any of the generic crap dungeon music we tend to hear in game nowadays. But most importantly, he has written us a brand new Character Creation theme which is nothing short of breathtaking. Partly inspired by Ultima VI’s character creation, it is both a blend of old style and new music, which gets very reminiscent of the traditional U6 music while evolving into its own thing. Alas I’m afraid we will be keeping it to ourselves for now, but I can promise you our music will not disappoint you!

On the coding front, things have progressed more slowly as there are not that many feature left to implement, so Jaakko is focusing for now on crafting a fully unified system which includes all the stuff we have created during this year in a single and unique module.

Most importantly, we have been giving careful thought about dungeon design – and it became obvious to us that we do NOT want the dungeons in Return to consist solely of repetitive hack’n slash crawls and offer more variety, in the veins of what you could find in Ultima VII, VIII and IX. As such we have been working on trying out any kind of puzzles, secrets or trap we could think of with the NWN2 engine to try out there feasibility – and we’re pleased to announce that short of Jumping Puzzles, pretty much anything IS doable and we will be working very hard on doing dungeons you can all enjoys and worthy of the Ultima name.

In addition we’ve also been trying out the workability of scripted events in the veins that you could find in Serpent Isle and Ultima VIII – and needless to say: they work!

So this is it for September, but we of course need to finish with our usual reminder:

WE NEED YOU!

We still need many more motivated team members, and we are notably sorely lacking in 3D Artists. Also, we could definitely need some extra hands in writing and worlbuilding so if you feel you have a knack for good dialogue, or that you can handle the NWN2 Toolset like a pro do not hesitate to contact us!

This project will not be finished without you!

See you all next month!