Plan for L Foster

Off to get married, so I figured I would post a little update.

Since I am going to be gone for the next 10 days and have some time before my flight I figured that I would post a little update here instead of finishing my packing...

As some of you already know I am off to get married this weekend in Vegas. This is something that my fiancee (Erin) and I have had planned for quite some time and as anyone who has gone though this
can imagine it's a pretty busy time full of planning, organization and appeasing families and family members. Thankfully, everything seems to be ready to go, and aside from a few last minute curveballs we are about as ready as we ever plan on being for the wedding. After the wedding is over we are off to Southern California to do your typical tourist stuff.

Some of you are probably going to ask, "Why Vegas?", and the simple answer of it is that we thought that it would be a great place to be. Why do the stuffy atypical wedding with the ceremony, 2+ hours of boredom, some food and a dance when you can go have a great time in the "City of Sin" that is chock full of unique entertainment. We wanted to have a great time and have our guests who are able to make it down this far south (from northern Canada) to have a good time too with a bit of a vacation.

To answer your next question, no there will be no Elvis, Cars or Klingons involved either (since all of those can be involved in a wedding ceremony in Vegas), just your typical ceremony. Though it might be fun afterwards to do some of those as a gag ;)

So aside from the wedding what else have I been up to?

Lore Invasion

Two weeks ago we released Lore Invasion and the reception has been great. Everyone who gets into the game loves it and thus its quite heart warming when you see someone praising your game knowing that all your hard work is paying off.

So if you haven't tried it yet, go and get the demo downloaded, you won't be sorry!

One of the coolest things that I have found though from this release is that you really get to find out which sites honestly care about gaming (ie. Gameshark and 3DGamers to name but two) and providing news irregardless if you are a AAA studio or not. I have had a great experiance dealing with these guys the past couple of weeks and whole heartedly recommend them as great gaming and news sites.

I have also been really impressed by the Linspire community. These guys are great and are hands down an awesome group of people, heck even the Linspire IT team has setup a Lore Invasion server because they love the game so much (and they have been great at helping us test the Linspire build). If any Linspire users are reading this I just want to say thanks for being so dammed awesome to support, I would gladly make another product for Linspire in a heartbeat.

Oh and while I am talking about gaming/new sites, I have a small beef that I would like to air about a predominently Linux web site, SiteA (name changed to protect the innocent). Like most of you I read SiteA daily, and like most of you I am well aware that Linux gamers want and need games to play natively, in fact this is something that SiteA bemoans and high lights whenever it can. Now my issue is this, for a site that demands Linux Games and acts as a community focal point for this demand, why in the hell do they not post news about new Linux based games when other Linux gaming sites (such as linuxgaming.com) will and instead focus on providing non Linux gaming news? I found this very silly especially there were Lore players and Linux fans sending in news reports about the release of Lore Invasion for Linux during the release weekend (so it wasn't even the devs pestering them about the news). I don't know about the rest of you but I found this a bit insulting, here we (Max Gaming) are trying our dammedest to support Linux gamers and these guys who are basicly the torch carriers for this cause won't put a single ounce of effort into letting Linux users know. So if you are reading this and you are a Linux user who has enjoyed Lore Invasion, I would love it if you could let the guys at SiteA (you probalby know who I am talking about by now) know what a mistake they have made by missing this news post.

Okay, so enough with my rant, let me discuss what I am currently working on (and can talk about) with Lore Invasion that you guys will be interested in hearing...

New Missions - There are a couple of new missions in the works that we will release for free to all retail users of Lore Invasion. I can say that one of these missions is a unique city environment where teams will battle for a king of the hill type supremecy.

Video Trailer - I have completed a first draft of a video trailer that quickly showcases the exciting action that you will fine in Lore Invasion. A second film will come out after I return that will focus more on the game story itself and quickly cover what has gone on in the game world and introduce you to Lore Invasion.


Realm Wars

Realm Wars continues to be developed slowly and surely by a great group of guys that I have the pleasure of working with. Even though the team is smaller (only 6 of us) in comparison to the community project, I am always amazed by how much work gets done and the extra effort to go that extra mile. I know that it will make this project great and cannot wait for everyone to see their work when it comes time, I am so very proud of what they have accomplished.

This first milestone is basicly being done to get a working action/combat game rolling, nothing too fancy or unique yet, just laying the basic foundation down so that we can move upwards without having any fundemental flaws or issues. What you can expect though is almost every aspect of the game from the last public release to be retooled and rebuilt so it is sharper, cleaner, professional and most importantly entertaining.

So when exactly is the next release due out? Well we are hoping to have a milestone 1 release ready for mid to late May (it will take some time post milestone 1 development to do final tests and get the builds ready provided that there are no delays). This build will be a demo though.


Kinda Secret Project

I am working with my friend Justin Mette and the guys from 21-6 on a new project. I cannot say much else right now about the project except that its pretty unique in both design and style and thus will define its own little niche on the market.