Well, I'm finally taking some actual time off, but it took getting sick to do it. I'm fairly certain I'm already over the worst of it, so I should be back to normal before Friday. This Friday's Patreon/Subscribestar post is a poll about development anyway, so I don't feel too bad about not having enough done for a test build. And with me being sick and not getting as much done this week, that poll is going to be all the more important.
To avoid being vague, the poll is going to be replacing the "which Estate is next?" polls that I held for the first half of Act 2, and instead is going to be more about how I want to handle my usual monthly releases, since there's an increasing likelihood I won't be able to finish v0.17 before the end of September, and v0.18 is likely to be of similar size and complexity. This might apply to v0.19 and beyond as well, since what I want to do with the first half of Act 3 is yet again something I've never done before.
I have still gotten some work done, though. Something I'd wanted to add more of but never got around to adding to the mountains - segments of the wilds - are already blocked out in a general sense for the South Desert. There's five segments in the new region, one of which is already map-complete. There are also four new enemy types - so far. I wanted to take a crack at making wilds maps that weren't just paths with sections of mazes, but without a decent variety of landmarks and enemies, they might actually be "big empty maps" like some people like to complain about. I take enough pride in my work that I don't want that to actually be true, so I still want to find at least two things to make unique about each map that gives you something to find or do besides fight enemies, and I might still make another enemy or two to try and round things out a little more.
But so help me, if I get the complaints anyway, v0.18 is going to have maps so big and so empty it'll make the Deep Wilds look like Times Square, and I've already got the lore justification for it.
The three Estates in the region are also a little different than usual. You've already met Evdokia and know everything about her that the story needs you to know, so exploring her Estate is entirely optional. Then there's the Emmerich Estate, where you can finally meet Emily's Master and unlock the opportunities to invest in tier 4 and eventually tier 5 gear (which will unlock a little non-linearly; he'll explain it when you get there). Lastly, there's the actual story segment for the update with the ancestral Wickham Estate, home to Viridius' older brother, Aridius.
The other two Estates will probably still get their own blog posts as I develop them, but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll be doing my best not to talk about Aridius' Estate too much. Though I will say that it, too, is going to be a little different from the way you've been interacting with other Masters up to this point.
It was actually based on that difference that I was starting to become hopeful I might be able to get v0.17 done more quickly than I was anticipating, but that was before I got sick and lost two and a half days (so far; it's likely I'll be losing the rest of day three and most to all of day four), so there definitely won't be a test build on Friday, and it's impossible to say how that'll affect the rest of development for v0.17 in general.
That feels like it should be the end of this post so I can hopefully get more sleep and get over this cold faster. If you wish you could send me soup and nyquil, maybe consider becoming a Patron or my first paying Subscriber. It's basically the same thing if you think about it.
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