State of Topaz: August 20th, 2009

Woo an on-time SoT, this is awesome! Luckily there's a decent amount of stuff to talk about. So, let's start!

I'd like to congratulate our two newest Valued Topaz Contributors, ragingprimeape and Phoenixsong!

Ragingprimeape has been a gigantic help around the forums lately, helping a ton with data sets, encounter rates, and especially NPC lines of which he's contributed hundreds of cool and witty things for the NPCs who fill up towns and breathe life into them.

Phoenixsong should have gotten this a while ago, but her efforts with the Caldera/Kirant Pokedex has been very helpful and even though they've stagnated lately, her work has certainly saved me... over 20 hours of work. Maybe more. Shiny Metagross was also helping out and saved perhaps 40-60, but he's already been recognized XD. She's also done data stuff like EXP Yields. Anyway, she's been a big help and so I felt she deserved recognition.

Speaking of recognition, for those who haven't noticed, just a couple of days ago our Credits Page got redone. It's now much more up to date. What happened to all the old spriters and graphic artists and such? Well, their stuff has either been scrapped or has disappeared, so they've been moved to the Special Thanks section... and the "People of Immense Contribution" is just my little section for people who I personally have seen contribute a lot to Topaz since I joined.

Those aren't the only changes to the site. You might want to take a look at the Trainers Page, oh and maybe the Map Page, especially Neo Bay. See if you can spot the differences! The little descriptions for each city will be getting a very very very much needed update, and currently all the cities in the demo have been updated with more up-to-date information (where applicable, some things didn't change). I'll be updating every city eventually, and every SoT I'll put up another map! Stay tuned for that!

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../neobay6aj.png

So... now for game related stuff:

Pokedex Entries are so close to being done! (At least with respect to all the new Topaz Pokemon). It's fun looking at the Links Topic and seeing the column of stars that was once so broken. There's only 5 left, two of which have topics! (Cirroft and Serberine are done, and Trillogill has a new topic). For the ones that don't have topics (Engil Line, Cumuloft and Kuranpu), we just need more ideas for the entries, so that I can post up the topic to be voted upon. Post them here.

World of Topaz updates have started again, so if you'd like feel free to check them out. Flavour is yummy.

Also, we're doing a couple of names renames that need your opinions. Firstly, our two heroes (who are unnamed as of now) both need the 4 little default names that you can choose in Pokemon games, any ideas? Post them here. Second, Wolflower needs a rename! Quick, this is probably one of the only renames that will every happen in Topaz, so come help us out!

On a bright note from the spriting side, Reliability has been working hard on backsprites, namely for Tellure, but also for Iglonia, Kuranpu and Moocalf and he needs feedback! Usually I'm the only one who gives it to him, but both he and I have expressed interest in seeing other people's opinions! Do you like them? Or do you not? Tell us and explain why!

There's also been some progress on Wild Encounter Rates, which are nearing an end with not too much to do... some caves, a few water routes and that's it I think. Much has been officialized, but what's not deserves your opinions! There's also Fishing, where you can be an absolute gigantic help and help us decide when each fish will appear in the game! This is the only thing left before I can finally post a finalized Caldera/Kirant Dex with proper numbers, please help out on this front!

The Little Corrections Topic still has a couple of issues in contention: Change Caribrisk from "Tundra Pokemon" to something else? Remove Calm Wind from Cumuloft's moveset and replace it with something else. If people could voice their opinions that'd be great.

In general there's some little stuff that still needs discussion, things like Move Tutors, revamps, Safari discussion, Demo item appearances and such. Most of the little data stuff is done, so thanks to all who helped out with those.

Random NPC Lines are being worked on by ragingprimeape, who's been doing a wonderful job but I'm sure would like to have more people comment on his work. Also, feel free to contribute yourself, it's something easy that you can do and it doesn't bite.

Battle Platforms has also finally received some progress, but still needs a lot of work. These platforms are probably one of the easiest things to sprite (at least some of them) so for those looking to improve their skills, this is something that you can attempt which will improve your range of abilities! Anyway, the ones that we have so far are as such: http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/676...assdayedit.png http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/786...snightedit.png http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5803/waterw.gif There's lots more to be done so come and help out!

And now for the final announcement. On Fangking Omega's advice we're starting a Topaz TCG (Trading Card Game) forum to generate interest and for fun! You don't have to contribute, but it's a fun thing that we can all help out on and build from scratch. We do have concept art we can use, and we can all get involved thinking up moves, Pokebodies, Abilities, everything! We can even make unique blanks, if we want! Get involved in the Topaz TCG Forum!

So... yay progress! (End)