State of Topaz: May 8th, 2009

Wow, a month already, that's gone by fast. I'm glad that activity hasn't dropped dead yet, thanks to people who go largely unrecognized like MeekRhino and Pika-Freaka who have made good efforts to keep the posts coming. I'd obviously like to see more people posting, but it is a busy time with finals and summatives on my side and I'm sure on many others, so sub-par activity is to be expected. We did hit the 1000 topic mark and the 1000 member mark since last State of Topaz. We might have to prune some inactives away to keep the member mark more realistic but 1000 topics is always nice to achieve (especially since we don't get very much spam).

I'm happy to report quite a bit of progress since the last State of Topaz, mainly in the spriting department, but we're still rolling in other areas too (especially one coming up that I'll mention later on).

So, first and foremost, I'd like to introduce Shiny Metagross as our newest Valued Topaz Contributor for contributing a total of 24 icons currently, and promises to work on backsprites and now, on the Caldera/Kirant Pokedex. He's been a big driving force for our progress the last little while so everyone give him a warm welcome and congratulations!

On that final note, I am pleased to announce that the Caldera/Kirant Site Pokedex now has the two required people helping me, Phoenixsong and Shiny Metagross, which is an immense relief. This takes a lot of the burden off of me. I'd also like to recognize Kisa's contributions in this area, she helped with a lot of the tedious work too and gave some valuable advice on how to work in some stuff.

So, Topaz has now pretty much officialized a crapload of images, the only thing required being to add them to the Photobucket account (need to get neon for that). Here's a list, on the site I'll also add the pictures so you can see them for your self. The artist has been put beside each sprite:

Icons: Trillogill - Chronicler Duval - Chronicler Pyroon - Chronicler Misticade - Shiny Metagross Cascadet - Shiny Metagross Tidasale - Shiny Metagross Quiisord - Shiny Metagross Tsunall - Shiny Metagross Ampure - PapaLulu Celsinge - PapaLulu Echoise - PapaLulu Fincherp - PapaLulu Firant - PapaLulu Jalsida - PapaLulu Lupine - PapaLulu Mogel - PapaLulu Traplent - PapaLulu Venap - PapaLulu

Backsprites: Spidream - Reliability Arachmare - Reliability Harskrow - Reliability Lupine - Novoni<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>With 26 more that likely will be officialized soon. To check out the spriter's topics, you can look over here: http://www.pokemontopaz.net/forums/showthread.php?t=794 http://www.pokemontopaz.net/forums/showthread.php?t=775 http://www.pokemontopaz.net/forums/showthread.php?t=837 http://www.pokemontopaz.net/forums/showthread.php?t=887

Also, I'd like to point out the awesome work Zeroality has been doing with the site. It's actually a little funny. He comes up in the admin boards, says that he's got a neat piece of code from old PR days he can implement, then finds out sadly that it's incompatible with our boards. Then a couple of days later SHAZZAM! It works on these forums! You might want to check it out on our snazzy new homepage: it's a "Latest Annoucements" box!

Since last month we finished 9 Pokedex Entries and set up 3 more topics! Only 12 more to go, 8 of which don't have topics! For those 8, if more of you guys could try to attempt entries at them in the fodder topic we can get these done much faster.

In Wild Encounter Rates, things haven't been moving too quickly, especially since Red Rocket seems to have lost interest. In any case, Mt. Frost was done so there is some progress, though of course it's not optimal. This is also largely my fault because I haven't had much time lately to contribute to all facets of the project like I usually try to.

Which brings me to Orange Islands, where Caldera/Kirant is going slower than it could. Sorry guys, mainly my fault, as my time frees up after Monday I'll try to ramp up on the progress on that side. (It's up to Gallea City now).

Revamps and NPC Lines have dropped dead, the Slo family has received 0 progress since last month, and Eeveelutions a little more but still not very much. Though they're not super important right now, I do encourage people, especially new members, to go and check them out and contribute and comment, it's a good way for those non-spriters and non-programmers to help out!

And so I'm brought to my last announcement, which is that we might finally get back on track with the programming! I have asked my friend to look into Ruby and see what he could do with Poccil's, and he says that the code doesn't seem to difficult, and that he thinks he can code some of the moves if we provide enough information, the first of which being how the Topaz moves work in double battles. You can help figure that out here.

And so ends this pretty long update. Thanks for sticking by this project and I hope each and every one of you finds some inspiration to contribute somehow!