State of Topaz: February 9th, 2010
Whew, it's 2010, isn't it? Well as you may or may not be aware (probably the former), the boards crashed in an upgrade to the new VBulletin and so now we lost most of our posts. As said before, the data was all saved though in a very difficult to read and search format. So, the process lately has finally shifted recently from restoring some of what we had to progress again. I must say, I'm VERY impressed with a lot of your efforts in keeping Topaz alive, even during the time where my life was eaten up by set construction/painting and set moving rehearsals, especially with the returning Pokemon Pokedex Entries. Those are moving along quite nicely! There are lots of relatively intelligent ideas and though I'm often harsh on them, be assured I'm proud that I've only sometimes had to correct minor grammar mistakes and that some people are contributing so many ideas.
Two people have especially worked hard at this and have really shown an absolute ton of dedication to Topaz: ragingprimeape and Mediocrity_Incarnate. Which brings me to the first sad news: Chronicler has found that he can not keep up with his duties as a mod (and admin on Pokemon Turquoise, looks like life's really busy for him) and is stepping down from his role. His nomination for his replacement, an option very well accepted by the rest of the mod/admin team, was ragingprimeape, so I'm also glad to announce that ragingprimeape is our newest mod! Not to downplay Mediocrity_Incarnate's work, but I figure that having more than two mods is perhaps a little much, and that Mediocrity_Incarnate can always help ragingprimeape with his duties (for those who don't know, they're brothers). So, congrats to both of you!
So, since the last State of Topaz (I swear it wasn't 5 months ago, I must have forgotten to update it when I updated the website) there has been actually a really great amount of progress! Let's see, where to start?
Firstly, Irot_Rebod, our resident super-ultra-mega-composer, has taken the liberty to upgrade all our music into MP3 format! Though I haven't yet listened to them (my iTunes broke T_T) this likely means a HUGE increase in sound quality! I'm sure Irot_Rebod would love some comments, as there haven't been any yet. Take a listen at the soundtrack topic! In midi form the songs were already amazing, I can't imagine what they're like in MP3! One concern though is that it'll greatly increase the file size of Topaz, but hey, internet connections are getting faster every year and so I can't imagine too too many people being turned off by a possibly 100 mb game as long as it makes up for it with music quality ;)
Also, zeroality, the admin who maintains our site and moderates the general forums, has been making the crash worth it by installing lots of neat forum mods. I'm sure he'd like feedback so go feed something back to him!
The ever-reliable Reliability has continued to work on backsprites, and I daresay he's improving a lot. With each successive sprite his sprites seem to get cleaner and better!
Firstly, a Jackalant backsprite made by PikangX and edited by Reliability has just gotten officialized, though not uploaded into the Topaz Photobucket yet (the sprite's link is broken).
Also, Reliability has been working on some other sprites, such as:
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6847/seraph2.gif (Edit of DracoNyon's original)
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/7874/phantern.gif
I'm sure he'd like some more comments (though recently it's been more than me, which is already a big improvement), so drop by his topic and give him some critique!
Also, X-Antibody, formerly PapaLuLu27 (time to update the credits page again I guess, especially now with Red Rocket -> XTS as wel), has made us a shiny new Chloreon icon, which is pretty fine looking if I do say so myself:
http://i49.tinypic.com/fkntd0.png
Pokedex Entries have been rolling along very nicely, thanks mainly to all of you keeping it pumped with ideas. 9 Pokemon so far have received entries, and more are to come (they just need a few more yeses!) Also, the one Topazmon we still haven't decided on an entry for is Engil, understandably so since it's so hard to make an entry for that isn't mind-numbingly generic. Since Piro's back hopefully he'll provide us with some of his fantastic edits, so cross your fingers.
NPC Lines could always use a couple more ideas. Also, for those who were working on item sprites, if you could repost them in Topaz General so I don't have to scour the old database for them I'd be extremely grateful. Same goes for the heroine's overworlds, MewLoverEX. Thanks! Also for anyone who'd like to try their hand at card faking, you can try your hand at imitating the Venap and Traplent cards X-Antibody and I made here but with different Pokemon. Use Cascade Gonpory's blanks, they're pretty excellent.
Finally, though progress is being made on the forum Pokedex, I'm sure a few of you aren't aware that a site Pokedex is being made. I've already got a few people interested in helping out but if you'd like to help out as well get a gmail account and PM it to me. Basic HTML knowledge is not required but preferred.
Finally, the "contact us" part, except not really. If you'd like you can join the Topaz Facebook Group, or follow the soon to come Twitter feed. Thanks for sticking by!
