I don't think Eternal is any more disorganized than any other scenario out there. I just wish I had more freetime to work on it :-( I put in work on it whenever I find the time. More excellent map makers helping out on Eternal wouldn't hurt, so you know where my vote goes.
: When was this? After Mark V, when Eternal X was starting?
: I never really 'decided' to revamp. That had been the plan all along. Get the
: first five Marks done, just to get something DONE. Then spend as long as
: needed making it as close to perfect as possible. That has meant, for the
: most part, that I'm not doing much of anything myself besides textures,
: interface, term picts, and other such graphic arts, and tweaking bit of
: the maps. I'm leaving the things I suck at - mapmaking for one - up to
: people far more qualified than me. I don't mean to be insulting, but your
: mapmaking skills seem more down around my level, which is why I never
: really got back to you. I'm not very good at turning people down :-(
: Organization was what drove away a lot of people during the earlier
: development. Schedules, to-do lists, specified tasks for everyone... it
: made the whole thing too much work and a lot of people quit. Most of the
: earlier Marks got done because I constantly bitched and screamed at
: everybody and then when they didn't come through with the goods, pulled
: something out of my ass overnight and said 'good enough'. Which it's not,
: and I don't map any better taking my time than I do pulling an
: all-nighter. I need people like Don and Adam and Goran to make really,
: truly good maps. Which is why Eternal X exists.
: I've got a perfectly good to-do list for Eternal X. You wanna see it?
: All maps need to be looked at by people more skilled than I am, and revised
: or replaced as needed. Presently, levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, and 12 are
: "done" with this process. Level 1 and the Failure Dreams (7, 17,
: 27, 37, and 47) are mostly done but may need further revisions. The
: prologue and epilogue, the Success Dreams, and level 6 are presently in
: progress, as is (theoretically) one of the Ch3 levels.
: Some of the textures could still use revision. I'm in charge of that, and it
: happens whenver I get feedback from a mapmaker. However, we need somebody
: more versed in Anvil and it's CLUT wackiness to import the lores textures
: into the Shapes file without looking fugly. Goran used to do this, but
: he's on hiatus.
: We need someone to model three new monsters, new Player sprites, and new
: weapons. Maarten ("•M") Tromp was working on one of the new
: monsters but I haven't heard from him in a while. I was going to do the
: weapon sprites myself but my old Maya skills don't seem applicable to any
: of the free 3D programs, and I really can't afford Maya. I've probably
: forgotten most of it by now anyway.
: Something that I need the most is just someone who can make Anvil fscking
: WORK! Physics, sequences, CLUTs, and so on. It's a big, fuddled mess and I
: can't deal with it. Various monsters are buggy, I want to get some more
: monsters from M1 ported over but whenever I try to do it myself things
: just get buggier, the weapons will need tweaking for the new sprites (and
: there's a new weapon entirely, too).
: At some point, after I finish revising all the terminal texts and
: reformatting them for the new term pict logos (which is something I should
: actually get started on soon, I'd forgotten about that), I'll need someone
: to make more interesting, artistic term picts, so that they're not all
: just maps and logos. Anaphael was going to help with this but he seems to
: have vanished again.
: I had planned for a lot of music. I've been reconsidering that lately, both
: because 52 tracks would make the large version of Eternal X (the
: "Extended Edition", as opposed to Standard [medium] and Limited
: [small]) more like the Insanely Huge Please Order Me On DVD version... and
: because none of the three musicians I had lined up except Craig has made
: anything. (Though Blake37 from here has stepped up and made some
: interesting samples that could possibly go somewhere).
: I think that pretty much covers it. Lots of mapping, but most of it revising
: or replacing existing maps. New weapons and a couple monsters. Maybe more
: music, and some terminal picts. Lots and lots of hax0ring and tweaking
: shit with Anvil that I cannot and never have been able to deal with. And
: that's it.
