State Of Topaz: June 26, 2008

In order to keep everybody up to date on the happenings in Topaz as well as to keep track of progress, I am going to be writing these sort of update "blogs" every two weeks or so. I am of the belief that the best projects are those in which the administration keeps a close relationship with its workers, and you guys deserve to know a little bit about what is going on behind closed doors. Expect tl;dr ahead.

First off, I would like to extend my appreciation for the hard work that has been put in thus far in the data department. Since the reorganization of those forums, we have been able to get a significant amount of Pokemon knocked out in a very short amount of time, and if we keep pushing it, I am of the belief we can get all Pokemon into moveset by mid-July. Of course, that will involve the efforts of everybody, including us admins, to make sure everything gets finalized. To that end, please, go back through and look at all the posted stats and see if there is anything you would like to see changed. Bump topics so that they're visible, even if you were the last person to post in it. I am also very impressed with the dedication of those working in movesets. Your work is noticed and appreciated. Let's strive to get this done.

Right now, we really need to start focusing on graphics works. Specifically, we need back sprites for Pokemon. If you have any sort of ability in spriting, I would ask that you at least try to start creating some of the "back sprites" for Pokemon. While revamps are certainly appreciated, let us focus on getting what isn't yet done first before we go back and try to tweak already submitted sprites. My apologies I am not able to help more in this, but I suck at spriting, so the best I can do is enlist the help of the talented few. If you happen to know of any good spriters who might want to do this in their spare time, I'd like to ask that you try and convince them to do some work for us at their leisure. Also, mapmakers and trainer spriters are definitely also needed.

In terms of programming, I have noticed that many people have started to show concern that board is quite barren, with no topics started as of yet. Unfortunately, programmers have traditionally been one of our hardest positions to fill, and that rule certainly has no exception right now. I have been told by neon that he has a few friends who might be interested in assisting him with programming the project, but there is no certainty in that field, and our current programmer, white sky, seems to have gone MIA. Again, I hate to ask, but if you happen to know of any good programmers, or even people who might be able to do emulator hacks, please inform myself or neon as soon as possible.

Our next major milestone is going to be getting all the information for the demo ready. In this, we will need many things; I will be drawing up a checklist with neon of the specific information, and I will be setting a timeline for this; we can't afford to fall behind anymore than this project already has. I aim for that checklist to be up for your perusal within a week.

Finally, in terms of Topaz Staff positions: Currently, we have made Topaz Staff very limited in terms of any actual 'perks', and while we hope to change that in the future as we get further along, you just have to expect right now that the position is pretty much just a glorified name, and that there lies little distinction between a Topaz Staff member and a regular member at this point. There is very little in the Staff Forum right now.\n\nThank you for taking the time to read through this. If you wish to ask any questions, or just have a discussion about some element of Topaz you disagree with, feel free to PM me, email me at pirotechnix@hotmail.com, or just post within this topic. I will be happy to field your questions to the best of my ability.