State of Topaz: March 28th, 2009

It's been a little more than two weeks, and while member-side activity has been really slow, I'm happy to report that the ball is rolling at least as fast if not faster than before due to lots of behind the scenes action!

So, Fangking Omega announced on Acanthite that he has finished college for the year and so his free time is opening up. This is a very good sign, and means that we could possibly be getting a lot more done until next August/September! I remain optimistic, though that optimism could really be spurred by some member activity *hint* *hint*.

Work on the Caldera/Kirant Pokedex has been moving along slower, mainly due to business on the side of Pheonixsong and I, so I'd like to remind you all that we are still looking for one person to help out with this! Some knowledge of HTML is preferred, but we mainly just need someone willing to help out with this long process!

Tropius finally finished its revamp, though there was ONE non-me post there since the last State of Topaz. I've put up a new one in Dunsparce. And Flygon is receiving a laughable amount of attention, when it's really important for getting Osiro done once and for all. I'm very disappointed here. There are literally no words for it.

Items is moving along pretty much purely due to kippybird, so thanks to kippybird for that, but we need more opinions! I decided to completely close item discussion, because no one cared anyway, but we've got some new sprites and we need to know what you guys think could be improved, come and help!

I'm going to take the lack of non neon/Inevitable/me opinions in Trainer Sprites Decisions as a yes to Therma, who now has a thoroughly awesome sprite: http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2851/thermaedit7.png What a saga her sprite has been, from MewLover's concept, original concept splice, massive amounts of edits on her part, then mine, then finally neon came in with a great pose and amazing dress, while Inevitable decided to make her hair great, and all together we now have a collab sprite that rivals Froy's! So, I've got my friend 83.6 to draw me a Hanzo concept art, and so as soon as that gets to me we'll start working on Hanzo!

Thanks to Red Rocket for a heads up on Phantern on Wild Encounter Rates. I didn't realize it evolved by Moon Stone and thus it's been taken out of all routes. Also, thanks to Rocket and my work, we now have rates for Routes 233, 234 and 235, and so while it go along faster, it is going along. However! This has been a two person endeavor so please come along and bring your opinions with you! We want more input! It's going worse over on Safari Discussion, which has completely died out.

Pokedex Entries are still trudging along, despite a break since eight days ago. Thanks to Malphis for bringing his very professional opinion, we got a fresh wave of votes, though of course we need more on all except Neichia, Frostorm and Gypseer, which have been finished. Some of the entries literally need one more vote with opinions *coughWhispawcough* to tip the scales, so please go and do so. We also need more fodder, so we can get topics up for the ones that don't have topics yet: Trillogill Tidasale Chiarame Serberine Sirene Cirroft Cumuloft Caribrisk (topic going up soon) Engil Benengil Duval Malduval Kuranpu Unicrown That's 14 pokes.

NPC Lines would like some more, sir.

And now for OI news: Caldera/Kirant on Orange Islands is moving along quite quickly!! Pretty much everything is done up to Abaddon Swamp, and so the TRPG will be coming MUCH faster than I originally anticipated! My guess is sometime as early as May, but if stuff comes up it could be later! This is where a lot of progress has been made so stay tuned!

And so ends the progress part of the State of Topaz. I'm sorry for the large amount of cynical overtones spread throughout the first half of the post, until I got to Therma's sprite which was good enough to pick me up. But there is a lot to be cynical about. Activity is down in the dumps, and though member registration is good, I'm worried about all these new members who sign up to be disappointed by the lack of activity, and even more so by all these new members who feel absolutely no inclination to post whatsoever. So please, new members, feel free to post! Don't worry if you sound stupid, just read the Forum Rules and the Topaz FAQ and you're set to go! And people, if you know someone who would be interested in the Topaz project, please ask them to come and join our forums! Make sure they don't feel shy about spreading their opinion!

Let's keep this ball rolling!