Discuss our latest development status update here and click here to find the latest update!

First a huge thanx for this overview.

It looks like alpha is still a long way away, but we will see how quick things develop from here. It would be nice to know which parts need to be which color before you feel good enough to start alpha.

There are some things that i noticed and where i would like to get more input:

1) Player owned stores, marked as already complete. I don't remember reading anything about that and it does sound pretty nice.

2) Alignment system, complete as well. Is that the system that will mark me as either villain or hero?

Thank you again for this update, i really do like this approach.

1) We've coded that already, but we're trying a few things with it. We're letting players rent store space from career mode players that own stores or you can use consignment stores if you want to partner with NPCs. That is also coded already.

2) Yes it's in-place, but we're still working on some details on the content side as all our content being developed at this moment is for heroes. Heroes naturally have priority.

I think you guys will suddenly find your job much easier once you have a decent alpha up on Steam, since the publicity will bring more money your way.
However it's definitely important you don't rush it, as the first impression is gonna be everything.

Career Mode is when the cape is in the dry cleaner i.e. Clark Kent mode? Looking forward to a blog at some point in the future lining out how it effectively plays out in the game (Burger turning mini-game )

Also what ZeeHero said. The few MMOs released in the last decade that could have been on a similar popularity level to WoW broke themselves by a bad first impression. Being alpha will excuse much of course but at that point ppl also will start judging based on how you proceed. And they usually tend to be as unfair as unrealistic.

If career mode really is "Secret Identity Mode" I hope it is optional. Not every hero has a secret identity, and some have.. technical difficulties with their secret identities.

For example, one of my heroes from Champions Online is paralyzed without her armor. Unless a wheelchair could be implemented for her in game, I'd view being forced to walk around without the armor for any period of time to be extremely immersion breaking and probably refrain from re creating such a character in the first place due to that.

ZeeHero wrote:
Even in the case something had to be picked at char creation I doubt that will be enforced activities. But overall I do hope its optional but varied enough that anybody could find and want something. Batgirl became Oracle, a hacker computer genius mastermind behind the scenes, after the Joker paralyzed her. I bet she could also create & sell some kick ass web-pages for an day-job income if she had to

i have a "parralized" char in CO also arch raven, shes had her brain placed in a mechanical carriage after suffering catastrophic injury's fighting arch nemesis/partner. so i get you on the technical difficulty's shes a 8 foot tall android with metal wings from what ive heard and read i will be optional.
although optional often ends up being a mater of how games balanced and what it rewards compared to other options.
cant wait for a proper alignment system again, i miss taking a defender to the dark side or a brute to the light although it wont be like that but its still nice to have your choice of actions have a real effect on character

Check out the latest update... valiance.shogn.net/forum/bulletins-annou...-development-updates

Also, regarding career mode... The civilian system is separate and is for combat players. It lets the player switch from their combat character to a secret identity or civilian.

AEGIS wrote:
Does this mean a seperate mode in which enemies no longer recognize you as a Super Hero/Villain and don't attack and you likewise cannot fight them?

Also correct me if I'm wrong but from that chart it looks like the private alpha may launch sometime this year?

ZeeHero wrote:
The system is still in development so we'll see... but as an example, with "Scientist" as the first profession, you'll be able to sell chemicals to any alignment of player. We're planning to eventually allow the player to take their careers down a dark path and after awhile you are unable to work for honorable organizations. So instead of working at a Valor life-restoration plant, you would be forced to work at an underground Leviathan lab making poison. Based on this, heroes and villains in the world will act appropriately towards you.


We're not giving a timeline as with a small team and limited budget it is hard to give estimates... especially when the unforeseen happens like losing one of our artists this week and the issues with the latest Unity update. Check back each week for the latest roadmap "snapshot" to see our progress. But it is probably safe to say yes to Alpha launching this year.

That's fine, I really do believe once you get the alpha out your job will become much easier, but only if you don't rush things and the alpha is quality enough to impress. The stuff we saw in pre alpha definitely won't do for the brutal steam community, so hopefully you'll have something much more polished ready when you do launch.

New roadmap has been posted!

That alpha's looking closer and closer! maybe it will even launch before my birthday!

Semi Related question (was going to PM you, but I couldn't find where to do that).

For your project outline are you using Trello? I ask because we are looking at that for a PM tool for our group at work, and I wanted to grab your thoughts on it.


Also, these updates are great by the way. I'm happy to see the progress being made.

Latest update posted! (scroll down to view)

valiance.shogn.net/forum/bulletins-annou...-development-updates

nicoliy wrote:
Yep, it's Trello. We use some other things but Trello is a good tracking and overview tool.

New roadmap posted!

Have you guys cut out the stuff that is not necessary for alpha? It looks like you are getting very close to your alpha start.

Is the Power Database almost done? There is no information about it except in the first Dev Update...

Or did you make the choice to focus on the alpha release at the time?