Delays but all good.

Development of Eterium has been moving along quickly.  We have a character artist on board who has given us some great samples of the work he intends to do for Eterium.  We'll be posting some of his work soon.  Also I've been working closely with a writer to come up with a more compelling story while keeping much of the foundation we already have.  He has suggested that we have the game take place a little bit earlier, during the actual formation of the FRV.  This seems like a much more exciting time.  He is currently working on an outline and I can't wait to read it.  Eric has redone the lighting again and this time he has outdone himself.  The lighting looks a lot superior to the earlier versions.  Screenshots have been posted on the blog (and I attached a couple).

The beta has slipped a bit.  We ran into a few complications and difficult bugs.  It takes a long time to play test the 22 missions in the current beta (we will be adding more missions for future beta releases) and deal with some of the bugs we've found.  But the beta is now ready and has been submitted to Desura and is awaiting approval.  Once it is up, I will start handing out keys to those at the beta level.

The plan for the next two weeks is to get the final story hammered out, fix bugs and implement the remaining features.  I don't plan to add any new missions until we have the entire story outlined.  But there is plenty of work outside of mission creation to do.  I am also working on adding a simulator, similar to the one in the Wing Commander games, except in our simulator you will not only be able to fight off wave after wave of enemy fighters, but also play "historical" missions that are tied in with the backstory and use the mission generator to create a custom procedural mission.

I'll be sending out another update in two weeks.  If you want to stay more update-to-date, remember to check out the blog at www.rogueearth.com and our facebook at www.facebook.com/eteriumgame.

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Got the email from Desura for downloading the beta unfortunately I am down to the wire on my limit so I will have to wait .

Downloaded the beta yesterday after a bit of messing about with Desura.

Looks like Wing Commander, plays like Wing commander so if you have played any of this sort of game before you will be right at home :biggrin: recognized my Attack3 joystick and even told me which button to push 😎 although it keeps telling me push hat1 up.

It is very well polished although not all the features have been added yet my only minor criticism is with the anime style avatar you can interact with between missions just think they should have some animation to them not as in lip syncing just some basic facial expression like blinking of the eyes or a smile or a frown.

Have not got that far into it yet as as I got myself killed a few times and I seem to have problems with the save game as it give no confirmation that the game has been saved As for bugs it did fly me straight into the asteroids after the cut scenes and the only other bug I have seen so far is hitting the F2 key which crashed the game but I read on the forum that the change view have not been activated in this build.

New version coming out soon, got through a few of the mission yesterday and have been enjoying the game.

Last week saw the first release of our beta.  Since it took two weeks for the beta to be cleared on Desura, by the time it came out it already really felt out of date to me.  I am working to have another beta submitted to them within the next two weeks.

Most of my time last week was spent bug-fixing and polishing.  We have started adding new sound effects into the game and more polished versions of the music.  The simulator that I talked about in last update is now up and running.  We've actually found that the simulator helps us with testing because we can just dial up a mission to fit our needs!  I've also added a ship library and a weapon loadout screen.

There had been a lot of requests to be able to customize your weapon loadout, but I was afraid that allowing custom loadout of weapons would take away from the balance of the gameplay.  For example, if I built a mission with a destroyer hidden at nav 2 and the player, not realizing there will be a destroyer, traded in his dumbfire missiles for FF missiles, it would change the balance of the mission making it a lot more difficult.  I liked in the original Wing Commander how you had to learn to make use of all your missiles.  In Eterium, I have been known to take out an enemy fighter with a dumbfire from time to time (that's not easy!).  My ultimate conclusion was to do both.  When you first start out the game you can view, but not change, your ship's loadout.  As you progress through the story, the loadout screen will be unlocked.  Also during appropriate simulator missions you'll be able to modify your loadout as well.

Over the next two weeks we'll be reworking the current missions we have to fit better into the new story, this includes removing some missions, modifying others and writing entirely new missions.  We'll continue with bug fixes and polish and push toward a new beta release.

 

Fresh update from Kickstarter have to keep an eye on the blog see what they are doing with the Characters.

We have broken Eterium into 2 acts.  We plan to release both acts as the same game.  Act 1 ends after the Beid evacuation which is currently chapter 4, although I am planning to add another chapter before Beid.  The two acts are quite different in the kinds of missions that you will be flying.  In the first act you serve the UEA in a proud and official capacity, but by the second act, the war with the Revi starts to go very badly, and your tactics change accordingly.  The second act becomes much more about the Canopus and her crew's struggle for survival when they find themselves stuck behind newly forming enemy lines.

The new story for Act 1 has been outlined and most of the missions have been created (many of them you've already played in the last beta release).  Those missions have been polished up and few new ones have been added.  While we have an outline for the first Act, we have not done any actual writing yet.  So most of the dialog is still just notes.  I will be submitting an updated beta soon with the mission-complete Act 1.  The only work remaining to do on Act 1 is to play test the missions and ensure continuity and write the rough draft of some missing mission briefings.  The character interaction (seen in the bar and hangar decks) will not be written for this beta release.

My main concern right now is that I have added many more scripted missions to the game, and there are a lot more missions that make you feel like you are part of a bigger battle.  I really like these missions, but I find it difficult to balance them out.   I have done my best in the new beta release to keep the challenge of the game fair and increasing as you advance.  Although there are some occasional easier missions, this is intentional to give the player of a bit of a break.  Once the new beta is out, I would love to hear some feedback on the difficulty.

The new beta update will also have an interactive ship library (find it on the Hangar Deck) and a Simulator with a mission generator (find it in the Rec Room).  The Simulator currently only has the mission generator, but there will also be "historical" missions added at a later date that allow you to experience both some of the back story and current story from alternate view points.  The simulator will also have some mini-series missions which take the player on an adventure that spans several missions.  The most notable that I am thinking of right now is playing as a pilot aboard the UEA Farragut during her secret mission.

We are starting to get deliveries of the characters from our Character Artist and will be posting some images of those to our blog soon.  I'd also like to introduce the forth playable ship (not playable in Act 1, but you will get to see them in action), the Saber Class Medium Fighter.  Stay tuned for a new beta release in a few days.

 

Few delays to the release date but I think we can forgive them.

The updated beta was released last week. Already there are some known issues with it. It looks like there's a crash whenever you load the new ship library.  Rather than patching the issues as we find them, I'd prefer to push forward on development of the game.  It'll be fixed in the next beta.  We are on schedule to release the next beta in about 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, on to some bad news, Eterium has been delayed.  We've been suspecting the delay for a while.  It's taking a lot longer to gather the additional hired talent and receive deliveries from them than we had initially expected.  Rather than attempt to push forward on an uncertain path, I've spent this time adding new features such as the simulator and ship library.  We will be delaying the sending the rewards until after the game has been released.  This delay will probably push the release into November.  But we are continuing to work hard to finish up this game.

The writer and I have finished outlining Act 2 (the rest of the game) and I've started work implementing the missions.  The first chapter of Act 2 is shaping up to be a unique experience.  Almost the entire chapter takes place within the atmosphere of a gas giant where the radiation interferes with shields and ship's systems.  It's an entire new take on the game when you are forced to fight without shields.  Don't worry though, I am keeping the missions balanced with the difficulty of the rest of the game.

Remember to frequent our development blog at www.rogueearth.com for more frequent updates.

 

New update, seems to still being delayed due to waiting for art.

With Act 1 more or less complete except for writing dialog and maybe the addition of a mission or two, I have started concentrating my efforts on Act 2 as well as polishing the game in general.  Since we are giving our character artist a lot of leeway with designing most of our characters, I am waiting until I see the final result before writing too much dialog, aside from story-critical dialog of course.  I want to make sure the dialog fits the characters.

While Act 1 is about the characters and fighting the war against the Revi, Act 2 is a more desperate story about being stuck behind enemy lines.  In Act 2 we find out the reason of the war, whereas in Act 1 we just took it for granted that the Revi are evil.  I am a little over halfway through creating Act 2 (which is the final act).  I am waiting for Dave to finish up work on the new fighter cockpit and the UEA Farragut's flightdeck before I proceed on to the next chapters. In the next and final chapters, the player get behind the controls the new "super" fighter attached to the Farragut, previously only seen being flown by others. It's akin to the Rapier from Wing Commander. In the meantime I've been working on updating the graphics to add another layer of realism. Simple things like adding scratches to flight decks, a layer of dirt on the texture of older ships and darkening some of the windows on ships to add an extra layer of immersion.

I am doing my best to keep things interesting; in each chapter, I introduce something new.  Games like Wing Commander, where you essentially fly from nav point to nav point can get pretty tedious after a while.  To fight this tedium, I am coming up with creative variations of the missions.  For example in Chapter 3 (Act 1), you'll escort a group of Marines to steal hardware from a Revi space station.  Act 2 starts out with Chapter 5, with the Canopus hiding inside the upper atmosphere of a gas giant, where shields do not function, while she searches for an abandoned outpost.  I've also added a new rapid fire missile, it works a lot like the FF missile but it is less powerful and has less range; it's ideal to use in swarms or when combined with the ship's guns.  This missile is great for crowd control and can only be carried by the Heavy Fighter (in place of a torpedo).  I have found that on harder difficulty levels missions flying the Heavy Fighter can be very difficult.  You quickly learn to adjust your tactics.  The heavy fighter works best at a distance and carries enough missiles to hold its own for quite a while.

Eric just finished improved joystick handling code that is significantly faster than the library we were using before.  People playing with joysticks should be seeing an improvement in framerate in the next beta.  Since this is a pretty major change, we'll be testing it internally for a while before releasing it with the next beta to test among a wider audience.  There are likely to be bugs, but we feel the performance improvement is worth it.

We've run into some delays with our character artist, he has recently delivered us some great sketches of the work he is doing and does not seem to be too far away from final delivery.  However, he has been experiencing several delays.  It is unfortunately, but if he does not deliver the final art soon, we will be forced to seek out a new character artist and essentially start all over again.  I don't need to tell you guys how frustrating it is to have to find a replacement artist this late in a project's development cycle.

I've been putting together ideas for simulator missions.  I'm excited about the simulator because it will allow us to give the player a different perspective on the story.  Not only do I plan to have "historically" important missions such as the Battle of Procyon, but also simulations of missions that take place parallel to the main story, such as the UEA Sirius at the Battle of Regulus and the secret mission of the UEA Farragut that take place just before and during the first chapter of the game.

 

Big update about what has been going on with Eterum.

• I Played Eterium with an Oculus Rift
• Final Music has Been Delivered
• Writing the Final Missions
• First Look at the new Saber Cockpit in Game
• Desktop Wallpapers
• How you can Help

I played Eterium with an Oculus Rift

I had a chance to play Eterium using an Oculus Rift devkit the other day. Eric has been working hard to add alpha/beta level support for Eterium. What does this mean exactly? Well because the Oculus Rift allows you to look all around, we don't have complete enough cockpits to surround the player. At first glance this is not a problem, but once you start looking far enough the cockpit abruptly ends. Full Oculus Rift support was among our stretch goals but since we did not reach those goals, we don't have the resources or time to create full cockpits. Hiding the cockpit, creates for a great feeling, although there are still some graphical glitches and clipping when looking at your own craft. We are working to fix some these issues.

For those who do not know, the Oculus Rift is a headset based virtual reality type system. You place two screens over your eyes which not only gives you stereo 3D depth, but also allows you to look around by turning your head. Oculus Rift is different than just screens over your eyes because the screens and resulting FOV provided from the game, are stretched in such away as to simulate peripheral vision! You really feel like you are there! Of course it is not without its downsides, the current dev kits are quite low resolution, due to the way the screen simulates peripheral vision, the effective resolution (the number of pixels you can see straight ahead of you) is pretty close to 320x240. It quite literally makes Eterium look like you are playing Wing Commander back in the 90s! Except with complete immersion. Due to the level of immersion, you quickly forgive the low resolution. But from a design standpoint, particularly for a game that was not been designed from the ground up to support Oculus, it makes text very hard to read. Both because the resolution is so low that the text is unreadable and because a lot of the text tends to be placed near the edges of the screen where it will wind up in your peripheral vision.

Eric is busy working on fixing text placement and some of the text resolution bugs to make Eterium at least a playable experience. But as the Oculus Rift hardware stands at this point, I don't see it being anything more than a novelty for the near future. It's important to remember that commercial versions are not yet available, so the only way to experience an Oculus Rift game is to own one of the dev kits. From what I've seen of the Oculus Rift so far, and particularly in Eterium, I think that in a couple of years it might become the "must have" peripheral for space sim fans. But until then, it remains a curiosity and something for enthusiast to experiment around with. For that reason I don't feel bad stating that Eterium will only support Oculus Rift to an alpha/beta level, which means incomplete cockpits, some unreadable text and other unforeseen issues. While definitely worth the experience, I would not want to play Eterium with the Oculus Rift mainly due to the Rift's current resolution limitations and also because I can see just how much more it could be. Once games start being developed from the ground up with the Oculus Rift in mind, it will make for some amazing experiences.

Final Music has been Delivered

Our musicians, Chris Murguia and Scott Sorenson, have delivered the final version of all the game's music and it sounds great! The final soundtrack will come in at about 22 minutes, which is better than I had expected. I've also got all the new music in game and it really helps with the feel. Chris and Scott have been working on redoing most of the sound effects for Eterium. In the next beta build, be ready to hear the game like you've never heard it before. New lasers, collisions, engines, etc. All sound really great.

Writing the Final Missions

I'm on the final push creating missions for Eterium. This game is very close to being mission complete. Once it has been completed I will be working on filling in the missing writing and dialog. The final missions are where things get very exciting and fast paced. A lot of the final missions will be very intense and thus difficult to be create and properly test. I am being very careful to make sure I keep with the level of quality of the rest of the game. I am very excited to finish this game and started final testing, but I want to be sure that I don't rush the ending.

First Look at the new Saber Cockpit in Game

In the final missions of the game, our hero will be flying the Saber Medium Fighter. This is an experimental new fighter, that is like a hybrid of the Changdao heavy fighter and the Talwar light fighter. For those of you Wing Commander fans out there, think of the Rapier, but with a little more of a medium fighter feel. I don't want this ship to be too overpowered. Anyway, it's great fun to fly. Dave has been working on putting the final touches on the cockpit and we have a version in game right now that is pretty close to final!

Saber Cockpit

Desktop Wallpapers

When I'm not working on finishing up the missions and bug fixes I've been helping out with the art side of things. I have always pictured Eterium have a bit more of a dirty look to it, so I've been modifying textures to give a little more wear and tear to the ships and cockpits. Every time I update a new ship, I like to do a render of that ship. I've created a few desktop wallpaper sized renders. Head over to www.rogueearth.com to download the resolution best for your desktop.

How You Can Help

We are getting down the the wire here. I know our original release projection was last month. I don't want to state another estimate for a release at this point because I want the game released when it is ready. But that release date is coming up very soon, which is where I need your help. We'll have a new beta out soon. Once the new beta is out, it would be really helpful if all backers with beta access start testing the game and reporting bugs on our forums. I'm interesting in hearing your thoughts from game difficulty and design and receiving your bug reports so we can have a smooth release for Eterium. I'm not sure the exact date of the new beta yet. I'm expecting it soon after I finish up the final missions.

 

This is looking damn fine! Soooo glad I backed it. :girlcrazy:

update from Eterium.

As I finish up the missions in Eterium, I find it difficult to not rush them. A lot of games have a rushed feel toward the end, mostly due to time constraints. For me, though, it's due to excitement of completing this game. The funny thing is, it's actually taking me longer to make these final missions than it did for any other group of mission in the game. A lot of the story culminates in the final chapters and as a result I am scripting a lot more in-game cutscenes and creating a lot more difficult missions. I spent several days working on the dreadnaught encounter mission alone. You'll encounter the dreadnaught twice before the end of the game. The dreadnaught is easily the most powerful capital ship in the game, particularly since its shield are impervious to your weapons. Aware of this problem the crew of the Farragut have been working on a weapon capable of disabling the shields, but at the time of your first encounter that weapon is not yet ready. The balance of this mission was particularly difficult not because of the strength of the dreadnaught, but because of the size of the battle. Three friendly capital ships with their fighters versus five enemy capital ships. It took a long time to get the mission just right. Too few enemies and the friendly forces easily overwhelms everything but the dreadnaught, too many enemies and it becomes a frantic defend-the-carrier mission. The dreadnaught is the focus of the mission, so I needed to balance the mission in a way that it allows the player time to examine the dreadnaught and attempt to attack it, while still keeping a massive battle going on all around the player. I am quite pleased with how the mission turned out.

 

 

 

interesting update from Eterium.

• New Character Artist
• High Res Backgrounds
• Status of Game
• Difficulty / Skipping Missions
• Help Out With Com Chatter

New Character Artist

We have a new character artist! Expect to see some of her work soon!

High Res Backgrounds

I have decided to rerender all the backgrounds at 1080p.  I've also gone with a more photo realistic approach.  While our characters are still cartoons, the new backgrounds look a lot better with new characters than the old backgrounds did.  The backgrounds were rendered using Daz Studio with assets that I had licensed from the Daz3D store.  I am pleased with how well many of them have turned out and they look very good in game.

Canopus Rec Room

Status of Game

I have completed chapters 1 - 9. The remaining three are short, fast-paced chapters the involve the showdown with the Revi Dreadnaught and a final battle that I don't want to discuss because it would ruin the story.

All the missions in the first 9 chapters are complete, and I have been going back to replay and test them. Each chapter contains at least one unique and scripted mission that goes beyond the normal patrol, escort, defend mission pattern. For example in Chapter 9, you'll disable a Revi Destroyer and protect a troop shuttle while it docks and steals technology.

The writing is the last thing that I plan to do. I want to get all the missions up to a final state before I really dive in deep with all the character development. I'm also waiting until I see rough sketches of all the characters so I can use those as a guide to exactly how the characters behave and speak. The only writing in the game right now are rough drafts of the elements critical to the story.

Difficulty / Skipping Missions

I've been playing through the game from the beginning again, this is necessary because as I create new missions in the game I find and fix bugs or add new features. These fixes and new features can, unfortunately, break older missions. So I must play through the game again and fix things. For example, a fix to the AI for a cinematic in Chapter 8 broke a simple mission in Chapter 1.

I started the game off on the Ace Difficulty level. In Eterium, there are two difficulties, the one the player selects and the one the game decides. The difficulty the player selects determines how fast the adaptive difficulty adjusts, it also determines other difficulty aspects of the game (that do not adjust based on the adaptive difficulty) such as whether heavier enemy ships carry FF missiles (FF missiles being a lot more difficult to evade than standard Seekers). The Ace difficulty level is probably a bit beyond my ability, at least in the later game. But I feel that it adjusts to my skills the best of the difficulties. It also makes the earlier missions challenging, whereas at a lower difficulty the early missions would not pose any challenge to me at all but the later missions would.

I was very impressed while doing my most recent playthrough. I started on Ace difficulty and I was facing a good challenge and having fun. Then I ran into a mission in Chapter 2 (of course I had my debug info up, so I could see exactly what the adaptive difficulty was doing). This mission was particularly brutal and I came very close to dying, it was only by luck and a little bit of skill that I survived. The adaptive difficulty adjusted the game's difficulty from Ace's default of 0.7 down to 0.31 which is easy. The next mission was, obviously, quite easy for me. But by the time I had finished that mission the difficulty was up to 0.4. Within about 3 more missions I found my balance at a difficulty of between 0.45 and 0.55. The rest of the game felt perfect for me. I died a few times, but never to the point of being frustrated.

It is my hope that this adaptive difficulty works as well for people of all different skill levels. I know there are pilots out there who are a lot better than I am. I know this is my game, but when playing Wing Commander III and IV, I never could play on much harder than Veteran. So I am sure within a few days of release, there will be people playing Eterium on difficulties that I would consider impossible, which is why I included higher difficulty levels. The problem is, with a team as small as mine, it is really difficult to completely test the game with a wide variety of skills.

So I am posing a question to you guys. Should there be a way to skip missions that the player finds to be too difficult?

I have two thoughts on how mission skipping could occur:

The first is actually already in the game. If you eject, you skip the mission. You don't improve your "score". But I have not decided yet if I will ever show the player his score (aside from the kill board). I don't like games that remind me that I am playing a game, so I think the score might be something I keep internally. Also with ejecting there are some missions where ejecting would not make sense. In chapter 7 you are on a ship that is only carrying 2 heavy fighters. If you were to eject and go onto the next mission it would break the story because there would suddenly be a spare heavy fighter for you to fly. Originally I had intended to do something more with ejecting, such as a branching storyline, but that is just out of scope for this project. My solution was to have ejecting during these missions result in death and you have to replay the mission. Thus you cannot skip these missions.

The second is to have a menu come up after the player has failed a mission 3 times giving him the option to skip.

My question to you guys is would you prefer to allow eject as a means of skipping the mission for all missions, even if it does not make sense in the context of the story or should I leave ejecting the way it is and add an additional option to skip a mission after 3 tries? Or do you prefer that there is no missions skipping at all? Please discuss in the comments below.

Help Out With Com Chatter

With all the pilots in Eterium, I want to keep the com chatter interesting. There are several different things pilots would say and I would like you guys to help come up with some com chatter.

• Response to Break and Attack: "Breaking formation and engaging!"
• Taunt Enemy: "Die Revi scum!"
• Report destruction of an enemy fighter "I got him! I got him!"
• Report destruction of an enemy capship "I am pleased to report the destruction of an enemy capship."
• Response to Help me out: "Help is on the way"
• I need help: "Help! I'm getting eaten alive here!"

Responses to status queries for "Report Status":

• No damage "No damage to report." 
• Medium damage "I've taken a few hits, but I'm okay." 
• Heavy damage "I'm in pretty bad shape here." 
• Critical damage "It's a miracle this thing's still flying!" 

Messages sent when taking damage: 

• Shields down "I've lost shields!" 
• Armor hit "I'm taking damage!" 
• Critical damage "I've taken severe damage!" 

Anything you guys can think of please share it. I'd like to get as much com chatter as possible in the game. Please discuss in the comments below.

 

Like the adaptive game play and choice to skip a mission if you fail 3 times in a row, made GTA 5 a lot more fun to play.

Also if you have any suggestion for comm chatter post them on the Kickstarter.

New update

Thanks for all your guys help with the com chatter in the last update! You guys gave me some great ideas that I've started adding to the game.  Today is our tenth development update and we are nearing completion of the game!

• New Beta Awaiting Approval
• Progress Status
• Lucida System

New Beta Awaiting Approval

Last week I submitted a new beta to Desura. The beta contains the first 9 chapters of the game (minus the Lucida system, talked about below). The gameplay in these chapters is pretty close to final. There's a few missions I want to tweak. A couple mission in the Teide system come to mind. But for the most part, I feel these missions are well balanced and provide a good challenge. But I'll have to wait for the final tweaking once our beta testers have got their hands on it. Desura is sometimes slow at approving betas, so we'll just have to be patient. This beta does not have final story or dialog yet. There is another beta coming very soon that will have final story and dialog as well as all the missions.

 

Progress Status

I am finishing up the script and have it in front of some people to edit right now. We're streamlining it and polishing it so that it will sound good when read in game. The trick is to convey the information in an immersive and realistic manner while keeping the text short enough to not turn people away from wanting to read it. Since we don't have voice overs, we want to keep the reading to a minimum while still telling the story.

 

I am creating the missions for the final chapter this week. I'll have a complete beta of the game very soon, which we will test internally for a while so that I can squash some of the more major bugs. I am planning on releasing the final beta to our testers after the holidays, early January. Our internal playthroughs have yielded a lot fewer bugs than I expected, so I am hoping that low bug count will hold true once it gets out to our beta testers. We're going to start getting the Kickstarter rewards together in January as well.

 

Lucida System

The transition from Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 was a little abrupt. We go from helping the Farragut in the Teide System, which was our primary assignment, to assisting in the evacuation of Beid without any explanation. I have decided to push Beid to Chapter 5 and add a new system in Chapter 4 that helps explain what is happening in Beid and how we get there from the Teide system. The Lucida system is a short chapter of only 3 missions, but it adds a good sense of transition from Tiede system to the Beid system. The addition of Lucida system does not change the final chapter count (or mission count) because I cut a short chapter toward the end.  Once I had the missions designed out for the Merak system (which was to be chapter 10), I realized that they interrupted the fast-paced flow of the final 4 chapters.  I decided it was best to spend the time I would to create those missions creating the Lucida system instead.

 

Lucida system is the only system where you'll launch from within an asteroid field. Usually capships don't go into asteroid fields, but the fields in Lucida are not very dense.  

 

Looking good :biggrin:

New beta out.

I have completed all the story missions for Eterium and all art assets have been delivered.  We are concentrating on internal testing right and to polish the experience for our next beta release which will be early January.  For those who cannot wait until then, the current beta release has been approved by Desura and is now available.  This beta does not have final dialog or character art, however there are significant improvements to in-game graphics and the gameplay is more or less complete.  Chapters 1 through 9 are available.  So if you guys have time, check it out.  Otherwise you can wait until our next and complete beta release early January.

 

Think I will wait after the all the shenanigans with Deaura.

Big update from Eterium part of which I have reposted here.

Eterium Development Status

Hi everyone, as many of you may have noticed it has been three weeks since my last update. I took a week off around Christmas to spend with my family and just get away from the computer and Eterium development altogether. I've come back refreshed and ready to final Eterium.

This is an exciting update because Eterium is essentially complete and ready for testing (see What's Left to Do and How You Can Help for details on what's still on the table). Eterium is now code, graphic and story-mission complete. That means that game is very close to being ready for a final release. I have two more beta's scheduled for release and possibly more if you guys find too many bugs or show-stopping problems. It is my hope that by the end of January we will have Eterium tested and ready to go.

This will be my last regular Eterium Development update. I will continue to post updates as I have information to share, but there will be no more regularly scheduled (two-week) updates.

Beta Version 1.0b3040 in Approval Process

I have submitted the first complete beta version to Desura yesterday and I am awaiting for approval. Once it is live I will post a quick update informing all our testers. Once it's up, I could use all your help to hammer on the game and find as many bugs as you can. There is at least one more beta scheduled.

Demo Version 1.0.3046

So much has changed since our pre-kickstarter demo was released that I have released a new demo based off the latest beta. This new demo contains the first 4 missions of the final game, just like the old demo, but has updated music, much improved graphics, the new character art, multiple bug fixes and, well, everything we've been doing these last 4 to 5 months!

http://rogueearth.com/demo/

 

Also if you have not yet voted for them Steam Greenlight, then please do. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148853023

Second trailer for Eterium and an update.

Desura has just approved the upload of our. We are considering this our first release candidate. If after testing we have not found any major bugs, then this will be the version of the game that we ship.

A while back GOG.com requested a copy of the game for evaluation. So after this version has been tested for a couple days I'll send it their way. I think it would be great for Eterium if we can sell through GOG.com because they offer direct downloads and are DRM free!

I'd like to ask everyone at the beta level to please pick up the latest version and give it a try. We are very close to releasing this game and I want to make sure that our final release is as bug free as possible! Please head over to our forums and post your computer specs and experience in the Post Your Computer Specs thread. This will help us determine what our game's minspec is as well as get an idea of how it runs on different hardware. And of course, please post any bugs or issues you find. Also comments are always welcome.

It's been a long, difficult road to get a game as large as Eterium to the level it is. We are very close to releasing! I hope you enjoy playing the latest beta. And thanks for all your support!

 

Think I will have to wait until they send out the disk version of the game as I have been having problems with direct downloads from Desura.

That's great news about GOG. I hope it appears on there.

Game has been greenlit on Steam and theirs a AMA on reddit.

Hey everyone, I'm going to be doing an AMA(Ask Me Anything) in /r/Games on Reddit today at 3pm PST. Come join us, ask some questions, or just show your support for Eterium. You'll also get a chance to meet our newest team member, James, our new Community Manager.

Also, after months of support from our awesome fans, we've finally been Greenlit on Steam! Expect to see our full Steam page up soon.

 

Update from Kickstarter and an odd request why not just send the Steam keys out?.

Hey backers!

We're looking for some good beta testers to help us test out the Steam version of Eterium. Come sign up for the forums( http://www.rogueearth.com/forums/ ) and post in the "Looking for Steam Beta Testers".

 

Got a request from Kickstarter the other day asking for a address so it look like they are getting ready to send out the boxed version of the game. :gamer:

Eterium will be hitting Steam and desura on the 15 of April

As many of you may have already noticed, Eterium has been set for release April 15th on Steam. We are planning for a simultaneous Desura release. All our backers who are receiving a digital copy of the game will be receiving both Desura and Steam access. The Desura version will be DRM-free and can be played either with the Desura client or through a direct download using an installer I created. The Steam version will not have encrypted DRM, but it will still require the Steam client (and internet connection if Steam is not in offline mode) to play.  The Steam version will also have Steam Achievements. I strongly recommend playing one of the versions that requires a client because updates will be automatic and go much smoother. I spent most of my development time working on the game itself, I had very little time to polish the stand-alone installer. But I know stand-alone is important to many of you, so it will be offered.

Reward Updates

The rewards have started rolling in. If you haven't responded to our survey yet, please do so.

I just received the shipment for the sew-on patches that many of our backers will be getting and they look great!

Eterium Patches

I've also got a preview for our t-shirts. Your t-shirts will be just like mine, except they won't have the "Developer" tag at the bottom.

Eterium t-shirt

Check us out of Steam!

Check out our Steam Page

I really appreciate all your support for making Eterium possible. I'd like to remind you that we're not done yet. The possibility and success of our future games is contingent on the sales of Eterium.  If you have friends that you think would like Eterium or know people who would like to have backed the project, but were too late, remind them that Eterium is releasing soon!

Please like us on Facebook

and

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel - I'll be posting some new videos of later missions soon.

 

Nice patches wish I had got one of them, hope they will be sending out the physical copies of the game soon.

Bit of a mix up with the Desura keys but look like the full game will be out on the 15 of this month

It seems that some of you are have already received your Desura key and it indicated that the key is expired.  It appears that Desura sent out the keys early to people who already had Desura accounts and for some reason it's reporting that the key is expired.  I am working with Desura to figure out why and how to fix this.  The message should indicate that the key will be available to be retrieved on April 15th.

I apologize for the inconvenience.  If anyone has any problems retrieving their key after April 15th please contact me.  Thanks.

 

Seem to have been a bit mix up with Desura they seem to have their own keys but we are still waiting on them sending the Steam keys for the game.

I downloaded it last night on Desura once I got the email about it's release, damn good fun I must say. Certainly has that Wing Commander 1&2 vibe going on, I like it! :girlcrazy:

At last I have found where Desura has being hiding the Steam key :pilot:

Activated it yesterday but what this 520 odd meg download on Steam but only 300 on Desura?, think it will have to wait until next month to down load it.

Just got it download from steam :dancing:  had a quick look and it has changed a bit from the early version of the game, 😎 now where did I put that joystick.

Also an update through Kickstarter from last last week.

First Patch

The game has been release for about a week now and we've already received some bug reports (nothing too major so far) and a couple feature requests.  I plan to release a patch very soon to address these issues.  If you have noticed any issues with the game, please report them on our forums (www.rogueearth.com/forums) so I can get them in the first patch.  There is a list of all the changes that will be in the patch at the end of this update.

Reward Status

We plan to have the rewards ready in a couple months.  The reason for the delay is that one of our largest rewards is the physical copy of the game.  And I want to make sure I get a working version of the 1.0.1 patch on the disk.  It also takes some time to order and manufacture the number of rewards we are dealing with.

Digital rewards will be ready soon.  In the case of the digital poster, I want to make sure that it looks good printed before I send that out.  Digital rewards will be hosted in password protected directories on our website.

Patch 1.0.1 Fixes and Features

Bugs

• Pressing Left on Dpad of Xbox 360 controller activates some menus.
• Mission 202: Failure music plays after last enemy encounter even if mission is successful.
• Crash when starting game with hat down assigned to launch missile
• Can resize joystick test dialog

Features

• Alternate mouse controls that control like a first person shooter - We'll be offering both the current style and new style of mouse control
• Deadzone and sensitivity settings for each axis
• Ability to swap sticks on the Xbox 360 controller
• Mission 102: Replaced the first 2 S'tra fighters with 2 Stri'kal to reduce difficulty
• Keyboard only controls
• Launcher will (optionally) close when launching the game.

Stretch Goals

• Rudder Pedal Support  - This is in progress and going well
• A couple additional simulator missions - I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to this for this patch
• Better logging to improve my ability to help you troubleshoot.
• Support for a separate throttle (that is not attached to the primary joystick) - I'm not sure I'll be able to get to this one, and if I do it will probably only support the axis and not the buttons in this patch