The Weekly Shizz – Introductions
Greetings, fellow future Nightsiders!
Well, as many of you know from both Fish’s Dev updates & Shosh’s Nightside News reports, development in the world of Nightside is moving along quite swimmingly. While I know many of you haven’t heard nearly as many juicy snippets as you may have liked to, I can only say this one is going to be worth the wait!
So, hopefully in the interest of keeping you entertained, and revealing in general concepts what this Nightside is going to be like, I have started this weekly column here on the FPG Blog. Why me? For those that know me, it’s quite obvious; for those that don’t, here is a little secret: I know almost nothing about software development. In point of fact, I am just a gamer (have been for quite some time) who happens to have quite a knack for breaking things. My role at FPG is more of a business oriented one at the moment, but will also include a significant amount of testing when the time comes.
And why this ‘column’? Well, we have been reviewing a lot of the comments & posts on the forums, and have reached the conclusion that we haven’t really clearly defined a place to discuss the shape of SoN as a whole. Sure there is lots of info making its way out there regarding our ideas on Lore, Mechanics, Gameplay, Musical & Artistic style, etc, but nowhere does it all tie together. My hope is that this is that place. I probably won’t ever get into a whole lot of deep lore here. We won’t be delving into build & skill mechanics. We will, however, do our best to conceptualize together what this monster we are creating is, as a whole, and watch it take shape before our eyes.
I think the first place to start is at the beginning, with the company that is producing Shadows of Nightside – Flowerpot Games, LLC.
Flowerpot Games, LLC (or as we shall refer to it hereafter, FPG) was, as many of you know, founded by a group of independent developers. We are a somewhat ragtag crew of gamers, engineers, software developers, tennis instructors, students, graphic designers and, most importantly, dreamers. We all got to know each other over a period of several years while gaming in other MMORPG’s, and eventually decided to create a game of our own, partly because we knew we had some good ideas up our sleeve, and partly for our own enjoyment!
This company stretches pretty far across the world and many time zones, which brings in all different sorts of thoughts, ideas, and processes, making our development process and eventually our product a wonderful, multifaceted work. I will warn you though, don’t expect an overnight release! We all work a day job to pay the bills, and FPG is what we give our free time to… It is our passion, as well as a spring of joy to us, seeing the fruits of our long labors begin to take form. Personally I think people doing something because they want to most often turns out much better results then people doing what they have to!
All in all, FPG is our baby, the brainchild of people who love a good story and enjoy slaying dragons. Here’s to you, our ‘following’, for lack of a better term… I look forward to buying you a pint at the <insert major city drinking establishment> some time soon!
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So I WILL get to kill Dragons.
>:D
Ahhhhh (satisfied sigh). Many thanks Shizz, this filled in some irritating gaps for me. I can now reset my expectations clock. Looking forward to the weekly updates (I thought about getting a life once, but luckily it was only a passing thought).
I’ve worked out a good strategy for us to kill dragons with, HFB: I’ll run away and hide, and with any luck it will choke to death when it eats you. Cunning, no?
Yes, yes, there will be dragons… some will be for killing, still others may end up becoming quite good friends with many an adventurer
Also, this week’s edition of The Weekly Shizz is slightly delayed… Hoping to finish it before this weekend so stay tuned!
-S