Hello,
we have spent another week doing fulltime bugfixing for the 0.10 release. This includes working through the backlog of bugs accumulated for past couple of months as well (quite a few train related bugs have been fixed). The result is 0.10.2 which will be released later today. We had a small issue with the updater in 0.10.0 and 0.10.1, so 0.10.2 needs to be downloaded manually for Windows users having these releases. From then on it should work as expected. Eventually we will make an explicit 0.9.8 -> 0.10.x update package that will work for all the distributions.
Since last week's Wednesday I have been staying with a friend in Warsaw (capital of Poland). He works remotely for a British company and I worked "remotely" for Factorio. This has been a small experiment for our team regarding the remote work. In my opinion it turned out quite well. I felt I was even more productive than usual due to little distractions and positive "get things done" pressure.
We've had occasional skype "standup meetings" with Kovarex and Blue Cube regarding the done and upcoming programming work. Jabber chat has been another great tool we used to keep in touch with everyone in the team. The result was that the development carried on without problems. So maybe Kovarex's dream about sitting on the beach, drinking a shake and coding Factorio is a real possibility one day:)
The summer is here. The weather in Warsaw doesn't look like that, but still. Summer means vacation time. We've had very little vacation for the past two years since Factorio started and we decided we want to change it this year. Recharging our batteries. Kovarex will be away for most of the July and then a little bit in August as well. I will be away a little bit in August, saving my vacation for the winter (escaping cold Prague weather - maybe for warm Asia :)).
What does this mean for the development? It will be slower, of course, but it will go on. After 0.10.2 we (me and Blue Cube effectively) are back to the multiplayer branch. There might be more bugfixing work needed for 0.10.x but it shouldn't be a full time job anymore. The multiplayer is the top priority now again. Kovarex has progressed with the determinism quite a bit. We hope to finish the network and synchronization logic in July and then put all the pieces together in August.
The new player model is still under construction. Yes, it is taking a lot of time. But we want to get it done right. Sometimes things go fast, sometimes they go slow. There is not much that can be done about that.
The good news is that after tons of sketches, ideas and prototypes, we have settled with the new player model. The original "power ranger" feeling is gone. New player feels like a lonely explorer, equipped and ready to deal with the hostile environment. Also as the player progresses through the game so will its visual representation. In the images below you can check out renders for no armor (early game) and basic armor (mid game) models. With the basics done now, Albert is working on different player animations (walking, mining, etc.).
The Friday Facts commenting thread is ready as usual.
