Updates and what have you
Posted by: Ruel Knudson in DPnP, Developer Blog, Overall Development, RompIts been a productive week. I have learned a lot about programming and moved in large steps towards a final demo of DPnP’s character generator. I have been able to close up a lot of gaps development wise and learned a bunch of good tricks and such. Self-teaching yourself to program is no easy task. Unbelievably, it is paying off.
Some may wonder why I would post about being over tasked in one post, and then follow it up with another about taking on something like this. The answer is that the latter is a result of some thought on managing the former. You see, finishing DPnP will actually make my product development faster in the long run. Even finishing the character generator demo will actually advance production by cutting some development process by at least 1/10th of what it was. Once other components are back online, the process will actually be much faster. I should be able to process these ideas of mind quicker than any other method would allow.
The only true difficulty will be the virtual tabletop application, which, as it stands, is so far beyond my ability to program I don’t realistically no a way to accomplish the task. However, that is truly the last component that is needed for development. It may even be something I could outsource or get from someone else in a partnership deal of some sort. The true key to DPnP are the applications that lead up to the actual virtual tabletop. The ability to create and manage your games, and how those are used. These are all details I cannot get into detail with for now.
Its the key components that make up the spine of DPnP. With this completed DPnP will take on its intended role within Ironwood and the gaming community. The virtual table top is a perk, not the actual draw of this project. At least in my eyes. The true draw is the ability for me to complete projects much faster, and much more coherently. In that way, it almost becomes a development tool. But even that sells short the possibilities and scope of the project.
As of this writing a basic character generator is working. It needs the campaign elements added, but overal functionality exists. I even have the actual GUIs working for much of the other components. Tying them together is still a task and requires still more learning.
Desecration testing is still on hold. This weekend I have a serious cold. I am writing this while wrapped in sickness. About the book itself…almost done. It really just needs that final rewrite that must wait until after testing. It is truly a shame to be so close to the end of this project but still be so far away. I eagerly await its release. But it must be handled properly.
The other content stuff I decided to wait until after the coinciding DPnP components are finished. After that I can really spit things out in a much faster and methodical fashion. Truly, the abundance of content one person could release once this is done is staggering. As for ROMP, well, lets just say that the core book has long been done. You won’t hear much more about this until I finish the modules for series one through three at least. At which point Romp will be released in bulk. This will also likely hinge on the development of the DPnP components as focusing on something like Romp will require other projects with DPnP to be finished first.
Will there be a Romp DPnP? Likely not for the end user. There may be a DPnP development tool for Romp games but honestly Romp doesn’t really fit into the DPnP mold. Romp could work better as an actual video game, rather than a virtual RPG simply because if it were to be played online it would leave the GM with nothing to do. This is not an admission to creating anything at all for Romp to be played online. I’m not closing that door, I am just not even looking in that direction at the moment. Romp is, at this point, intended only for table top play. Developing it into a virtual application down the line will remain up for discussion, but only down the line. Absolutely no further talk about it will be answered for until then.
I have also considered my personal programming limitations for DPnP. The truth is, if it appears beyond my resources to get the virtual tabletop to work, I may settle for releasing the development portions separately. While the character generator will remain free, other components will likely be retail. This will do two things. What that means for the xustomer will have to wait until I settle on it. The truth is, I have to weigh the customer’s needs. Does the customer want an online experience, or tools to create offline content?
