First of all, nope, i am not dead.
I have been waiting anxiously with posting because this is my 10,000th post!
And for that special occasion i wanted it to be for the Bug Mods Topic.
Because this is what is keeping me in modding for Blockland.
Even though i might not have been the best scripter around, i have had a good time working on mods.
Including mods for the Bugs and MAS mods, especially with our great leader, Army Unit.
I'll go more deeply into our cooperation later on.
But now, why have i waited so long?
Well, you see,
the first bugs mod topic was created on the 14th of May in 2009.
Now i may be a bit early for you American sillies, but i am already on the 14th of may.
So that means, the bug mods are now officially 4 years old!I wanted to do something better and bigger for this occasion, but it just didn't work out sadly.Four whole buggy years have passed since Army showed the forums his first bug model.
Later the topic for that in modification discussion transformed into what became the bugs mods topic.
The start of Bug Mod 1, including the famous scorpion, worm, spider, mite and of course the bug.
After a while the topic caught my eye and i was interested.
Army's models looked promosing and quite fitting and he seemed like a nice guy.
So i sticked around the topic for a while.
After some time of sticking around, i created some Ai edits, which got me starting in Torquescript.
Just looking at what others did, fiddling around with values.
I already had a tiny bit of experience with a completely other way of scripting, but that was nothing like this.
I am not sure how i even got anywhere at that time, from what i know i haven't really been following tutorials or whatever.
So after a while, i offered Army my help with scripting.
Army recognised my friendlyness around on the topic and was interested.
And after a while i started working on what was going to be the most delayed part of the bug mods.
The poison script.
I am not sure if that even was my first 'job' at the Bug mods.
But i am pretty sure that was one of the first tasks i had.
When i say tasks, i don't mean Army exactly orders scripts from me.
It's more like, we discuss what needs to be done, i look through the list and see what i like and work on that if possible.
And that's exactly what it is like today.
And i am so sorry guys, but i can't really put myself to work a lot on it these days.
I was actually planning something bigger for this special occasion, but school got in the way, games got in the way, everything.
All silly excuses, the worst part is that i want to keep to our promise.
We will not stop before this is all done.
But i am not sure if that is still something i can keep myself to.
For now, i'll try to sneak in some work on the bug mods and the MAS mods (especially the Bug Mods. BM2 has been delayed for far too long now. :X), but my interest is at an all time low to be honest.
But as i said, Army and i have been working together on things.
Not to mention the great help of Kevin on stuff and probably some other guys as well if we look at what the mods contain.
Even though most of the crew is American, maybe even all except for me, i try to talk to Army whenever i have the chance.
Army is a good friend of mine and from all i know, we can get along pretty good. :)
We talked about many stuff, not only the Bug mods or other mods, but also personal stuff.
It made the bond between us a good one.
We don't talk too often, mostly due to timezones, but i certainly try whenever i can.
Now back to the Bug Mods and MAS mods, you might think and/or say, geesh, 4 years of development and so far we only got BM1?
Well, yes and no.
As for the Bug Mods, yes, only Bug Mod 1 so far, with Bug Mod 2 coming soon (Valve trademarked).
However, what you might not think about is what else we worked on, which just isn't done for release.
The poison script (which is one of the main reasons why BM2 got delayed so long) is nearly done right now, other Bug Mods are already in the works, Army worked on changing all the bug mods so far to the new default Blockland AI/bot system and more minor things.
Then we also have MAS related stuff, like:
The released versions of the Carrier and Swarm Fighter
The work in progress versions of the above and the Gunship.
HeightControl, which originally got developed by me to make the Gunship fly better.
The released MAS weapons: Bug Zapper, Orb Launcher, Heavy Rocket Launcher.
We also have a new zapper currently being used on the server, though it is still not ready for release, it has been changed quite some from the original and took quite some work.
Mostly because with that i also started the foundation of how the MAS energy weapons will work.
We also released the first ASN with it's according weapons, the dual orb launcher and duela zapper.
One of my favorite things.
Besides, we have something big in the works, like literally, which is the Mech of MAS, the Power Armor.
There are more things in the work, but it's already quite a long post so far so i am gonna finish up.
The above is not all we have done so far, there are many more things we worked on for the Bug Mods and MAS mods, but don't forget we worked on other projects as well.
For instance, the Dragon mods, the Berg Mod were both projects we worked on.
Well, i wasn't really involved in the Berg Mod, but Army surely was.
And probably more that i forgot.
There is just so much and mostly, most of the modding for the Bug Mods and MAS mods have been done by only 2 people with the exception of some small things and Kevin's part on the Power Armor, which he actually designed if i am correct.
There is just so much and we are only so little and on top of that, we do not do this for a living or anything.
We just do this for fun, for you guys.
But mostly because we enjoy making new stuff, stuff that doesn't fit in with your generic weapon pack (or well is not really the same) or vehicle packs.
We make things that Army thought of and most of these things are pretty different from your usual add-ons.
There is a whole story behind this, Army is still working it out and will share it with everyone once he is done with that.
In the meantime, our group of builders, map makers, fans, beta testers, coders and moddelers have shrinked, but now, the team is slowly growing.
With the recent addition of HanHan as one of the builders and Lego Lad as the video maker, we made some new friends and the team grew slightly.
And we love them for their friendly help and dedication.
But still most of the modding is being done by Army and well, me i guess.
I mostly work on the more difficult parts of the code.
Army can handle himself in quite some ways and is doing so most of the time.
As for the future of the MAS and Bug Mods, i am not certain.
I am recently very unmotivated and have been thinking about just leaving the team.
Especially since i don't get much work done.
I have talked with Army about this and he welcomes all help and is glad i can do something to help out.
However, with my study and future plans, i will eventually come at a point where i will have to seriously consider stopping with this project and move on to real game development.
My own games and all.
As some of you might know, i study for Game Developer.
The first year of me on the forums was while i finished high school.
I had a year of relative freedom since i worked for 30 hours, at the local supermarket.
I tried to find a better job, but it just didn't came to it sadly.
After that i studied for about 2 years with the study that is i think called, Computer Science.
The whole study would've took 4 years but sadly, last year i was forced to stop the study because i didn't make the requirement to go to the third year.
So i took a bit of an other road to still reach what i desire to become.
No, no a pokémon master, but a game developer.
Now with Army also beginning his study, getting things done will become even harder.
Communication will become harder for me a well.
PM's on the forums are not really the best way to communicate.
A direct chat is always preferred.
But we will keep you informed and for now, you don't have to worry.
If i stop with this project, Army will have all my work and if someone else comes along to work on the code, he can freely do so.
I would like to thank all of you for bearing with us.
It's been 4 long years and we know you would like to see more stuff being released.
We are working on it, don't worry, we know you are getting older.
We also welcome initiatives like HanHan's builds and Lego Lad's videos, but that doesn't automatically gets you beta stuff. ;)
Last but not least, all have a happy Bugs Day.
Watch out for the Dread Centipede though...
And the tremor mites.
And the praying manti.
And the mites.
And the spiders.
And everything else. :)
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