Saturday 6 October 2012

Halloween Update

I'm just writing to let you all know that I'm still alive, and that Dead Frontier will be a getting another large update in the next month or so. Here is what I'm working on right now:
  • New Missions. I'm looking to add total of around 60 new missions to the game. In addition, there will be two new missions per day rather than just the one that happens currently. I apologise that these have been such a long time coming.

  • Larger Inner City with a new, much harder end zone.

  • Increased level cap. The new maximum level will be 220, allowing players to completely max out their stat points.

  • A massive range of new standard (non limited edition) equipment. Everything from weapons & armour to purely cosmetic items. We're looking at close to 100 new pieces in total.

  • Various improvements & updates to the weekly Top PvP and Top Survivor competitions.

  • Dead Frontier: Outbreak 3 :D

  • A bunch of general bug fixes and optimizations to the game client.


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I also wanted to use this opportunity to come clean about what I've been doing recently.

[braindump]

I started work on Dead Frontier back in summer 2007. Prior to that I was a small indie game developer, who generally launched a new title every 6 months or so. I always had so many game ideas flying around in my head, that even with these ultra short development cycles, I could never even come close to keeping up with the pace of my own creativity.

Moving over to Dead Frontier was something completely different to me. It became so popular that it would of been a crime to let it stagnate; so I did my best to keep the updates rolling in. Unfortunately I started to find that even as early as 2008 I was itching to work on something new again. At the end of 2009 I essentially rewrote 90% of DF from scratch, which was a lot of fun and helped me to exercise my creative urges all over again.

However in early 2011 I was again desperate to start a new project. I knew that I still had plenty of work to do on DF and that starting something else now would be a bad move. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep myself focused on DF. 

By December 2011 I had finally gotten DF onto much more solid ground, but it was definitely not yet finished. It then dawned on me that DF could never be finished. Even if I put in all the features I planned to put in, that wouldn't by itself keep everyone around forever. I'd always need to add things to DF. My previous plan of finishing DF 100%, and then working on something else would never really work.

So after much deliberation I decided the only way I'd ever have a chance of satisfying my creative side, whilst not letting DF die, would be to try and work on two projects at the same time. And that is exactly what I've been doing. Since the end of 2011, I've been working on a small fantasy duelling game titled "Doom Warrior". I'm doing my very best to split my time equally across the two projects, and I plan to continue doing that for the foreseeable future. 

Whilst I'm sure this news will come as a disappointment to some of you, I want to assure you that this does not mean I'm no longer interested in Dead Frontier. DF has occupied more than 70% of my adult life and it will always be important to me. I always have, and always will be massive zombie fan after all.

No matter what happens with Doom Warrior, Dead Frontier updates (actual features & content, not just LE items) will keep coming every 3-6 months, most likely for the next 5 - 10 years.

[/braindump]