Elthos RPG ODS Rules - 1st Draft Release

Today is the big day! I released the 1st Draft of the Elthos RPG ODS Rules to the Literary Role Playing Game Society of Westchester for their review. Very exciting! I already got some neato feedback, with a very keen observation about how experience is calculated. Looks like I may just need to fiddle with a couple of numbers or a formula on that. :)

I'm very pleased that Tim kicked me in the pants to get the ODS Rules out there. Otherwise who knows how much longer I might have dallied in the Valley of Unsuredness? There comes a time when a man must leap into the fray! And now is that time for Elthos ODS!

:)

Much Ado About Something

Things are moving along with OTHER aspects of the project than the website, since I am STILL waiting to hear back from my Lawyer... this is taking far longer than I expected, and my only hope is that it won't be far more expensive than I expected as well.

In any case, I'm working on other aspects of the project in the meantime. Most recently I've recieved Chapter 3 of the Elthos Story, Work-In-Progress title "Revenge of the Weasel King". It's coming along but this is a rewrite of an existing story and so it's rather trecherous work. I've hired a good friend of mine to do that work, and it's coming along very well... but it's difficult.

The Elthos Tarot Deck is very near completion now. I'm very excited about this. While some of the cards still need some polishing it really is almost there. So that's great news.

The Elthos ODS Web Application is stable. I am, however, adding functionality that is based on the Elthos Prime Client Application. That is coming along, albeit in fits and starts as I review and analyse exactly what needs to be done. That will include database as well as interface changes to the Web Application. Fortunately the current application is designed for expansion so it's not too difficult.

And finally, I'm also continuing to work out the details of the Seeds Of Destiny system. That's making good progress and will coordinate with the Elthos Tarot Deck rather nicely.

All in all, progress is being made, though you might not know it by looking at the website.

Seeds of Destiny

The mills of the gods grind slowly but surely.

Ineed. Now that I've gotten the website itself online (still waiting for the Lawyer to finish up on various things before I can start the "Closed Beta") I'm starting to do work on the World Weaving aspects of the Elthos RPG. Lately my old pal David has been encouraging me to focus on an idea that I didn't quite ever finish working on but showed great promise: The Seeds of Destiny.

Basically it ties in with the Cosmological System of the Elthos World, and allows Gamesmasters to run a Meta-Game which is an overview game of the cosmic history of the world. In this game the players play Elkron, aka deities, of the Elthos Universe, and create in the process (among other things) Seeds of Destiny, which Heroes seek to accomplish. If they do they get rewarded. In addition, if the Hero completes the Seed of Destiny then the Elkron who created it also gets rewarded with more power ... for the End of Ages final battle bewtween the Elkron. And *that* should be a rather interesting game!

:) Yah!

Polishing ... and waiting

Things are coming along well. I have the website up and it's running but I have not openned up the Closed Beta yet. I'm waiting to hear back from Charles Kramer, my lawyer. He's taking his jolly sweeeeeeet time! Hah. Anyway, that's to be expected. In the meantime I'm working on the site polishing things up and trying to find whatever bugs I can before the Closed Beta starts. It's coming along great. I've fixed one serious bug and have polished up some reports which look a little better now. The entire site needs a look-n-feel overhaul but that comes after the nuts and bolts stuff. Anyway, quite exciting, despite the world falling apart and all. Yay.

Tinkering

Well, things are coming along, the website is up and working, but I'm having some technical issues with the application. Just a few, but still they're quite annoying. I have on my development server code that works fine, but when I put it on the production server being hosted by a third party company, bang, stuff breaks. Their answer: "Recode". I'm like... uh, I shouldn't need to do that. But that's how things go in the real world. SO I'm working on getting it all together and making a final round of fixes to the last short list of stuff that doesn't work yet. The good news is that 99% of the site does work. Yay. :)

The Prismatic Wall

Ok, well things are moving along with the legal stuff in regards to the Elthos Web Application project. It's very complicated stuff. Much worse than physics or neuroscience (which at least makes logical sense). I call it The Prismatic Wall. You go in thinking it looks pretty and colorful, and you come out with seven kinds of fatal injuries. Yay. But anyway, I'm slogging through all that slowly (and expensively). Once I'm through with that then I can launch the site in "Closed Beta" Phase. However, even then, I still have some thinking to do regarding working with The New York Group. Wanna do it, but the terms are too difficult for me. I'll try negotiating. More on that topic another time...

The Beta Phase

A lot of hard work and six months later... I have uploaded, finally, the Elthos ODS Web Application online for the Closed Beta Testing Phase. Everything seems to be working. The Closed Beta will be for friends who I have invited to kick the tires on the application for a while, and provide bug reports and feedback. I'm also considering working with the old New York Group on a more advanced concept for the game system, which would take us between one and seven years to complete, with probability set on about two years. That's a long time. I would also have to relinquish some control over my side of the project, and to some degree a certain amount of ownership. Not necessarily crazy about that aspect, so I have to think about it. In one case I will continue to work on and improve the application over the course of this year, in the other case I will put this down for a while and work on the Advanced Aspects with the New York Group. I'll give myself a week or two to mull it over.

Anyway, I'm very excited to have the application online in any event. While not open to the public yet, I have met my goal for 2008! Very happy about that! :)