As of now, you need to create a new character to play season 2. And you said you would be keeping S1 going as long as until it becomes inconvenient.

I'd like to see a way to transfer myself from S1 to S2 (after most of the bugs are fixed), with all my dp's all shiny and ready to spend over as you promised.

At the moment, there seems to be no way of doing this besides pestering you or a mod into giving me the points after creating a new character.

When S2 goes live, your character will be copied to S2, reset to Newbie, and given back all the Donator Points you've ever had. For now, S2 is in testing phases, and there's little point in doing a transfer (it's a pretty big job).

Stamina system is up and running again, converted to storing its information in a multidimensional array in the player's moduleprefs. Seems a lot happier now.

Round-up since the last post:

Stamina system is hooked up and running, both with core combat and with World Map travel. It's using a hacked-together emulation routine to hook it into the things that add or subtract Turns, as a temporary measure until I write some dedicated events that actually affect Stamina.

Weapon icons are in place.

Mount Accessories are being rewritten so they don't suck so much.

That's it, for now. I'm thirty quid short of my rent, still have no transportation and I have six weeks to get the van sorted out. In two weeks' time I'll need to pay $174 for the Island's dedicated server. So, as of tonight, development on S2 has temporarily stopped, while I do some design work to make some fast money.

I'm aware that the Island is a good earner and provides consistent income when it's doing well, and as such I'll do everything I can to keep it running and get S2 sorted as quickly as I can. For now, I'm going to get cracking on some website design stuff.

Updates will follow when I get back to S2.

Thanks to a generous donation from an anonymous benefactor, I'm now working on the new Mounts. Existing Mounts have had their statistics brought in line with the new Stamina system. They've also had their descriptions or stories altered, and in the case of Budget Horse, extended with the blackest of black humour.

I'm hoping for around forty new Mounts, with accompanying accessories, in time for S2 going live.

Still working on the Mounts. Tweaking the Clan Buffs module, fixing bugs in the new Implants. Here's the list of what needs to be done before we can go live - the rest can be added throughout the season:

Implants
Mounts
Mount Accessories
Race Balancing (with Stamina etc)
(secret feature)
Insults
Boss Monsters
Consumables Gifting
New Consumables
Plot

On the new consumable items, and the method by which to gift and trade them... Gah.

Right now I'm not using any sort of dedicated item system. The consumable items and their effects are hard-coded, written in a single file. Do I make myself a serialized item system like with the Mount Accessories and Stamina system (which will take a while, but save me some time and give more flexibility later on), or do I just carry on hard-coding, get this done as quickly as I can and sort out an inventory system for Season 3?

Decisions, decisions... And my S3 potential to-do list is growing.

Hmm.

Went for hardcoded in the end.

After a very, very long coding session (just coming up on 9am, now!), eBoy's Trading Station is done. eBoy now trades in stuff that you can actually use, rather than tea and coffee and suchlike. Each outpost has its own trading station, and the prices are different for each station. Everyone sees the same prices, and prices change every day. Should provide for some entertaining teamwork (or not) from the more capitalistically-inclined. (is that even a word? I've been awake too long...)

Three new items have also been added. Go see what they are.

There aren't any hard limits on how much stuff you can buy or sell in a day - I hope that I've balanced it well enough that I won't need them. Time will tell.

Now, no point in going to sleep - so, back to Mounts, I guess.

Well, I didn't go back to Mounts. I went to the Gift Exchange. Check it out in Kittania. Provides unlimited gifting of any consumable items, to any player, at any level, at any time, subject to checks for alt-type naughtiness.

Packages are dispatched from Kittania overnight and delivered to the giftee the following morning in a big box, complete with gift wrapping.

Well, it's half twelve in the afternoon. Should I sleep, do you think?

BED.

Three-hour nap, chat with Emily, more coding, maybe start work on the Ultra-Awesome Super Secret Killer Feature...

More friggin' laptop surgery. Sodding keyboard went tits-up on the bottom row. Have yet to determine whether it was the work of a dodgy connection or an accumulation of (bizarrely, conductive) dust and Caveman Hair, but after disassembly, blowing on the connectors and removing accumulated nastiness it seems to be okay. Time will tell whether this was all down to Conductive Caveman Hair or something more sinister.

The target date of March 1st is looking a bit unrealistic, if I'm to actually implement the plot modules and Secret Awesome Feature. However, there is definite, noticeable progress, which is good for my morale.

VOTE:

Should I make "Conductive Caveman Hair" a jungle monster?

Go for It! (I cant wait to read the full description)

Oh yes. Then they can go compete with sentient Midget pubic hair, if you're accepting that one.
"Rah! Git eet 'way!"
"BZZZZT"

Day job day job day job. I do not like having a day job. It kicks my arse hard, and then I end up spending Saturday nights catching up with shit.

I may make a start on mmmmMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEAAAAAT system now.

No, actually, fuck it - serialized item system. Like I should have done three sodding months ago.

Uhm, no, fuck that. It'll take forever, and will probably involve rewriting the battle system and doing completely new equipment.

The idea is that I'll be able to assign any stat to any item, and weapons/armour/sidearms/etc will also be classed as items.

Here's what I've got so far, and this is only a plan for very, very basic functionality without being able to use items as weapons:


SERIALIZED ITEM SYSTEM

CORE - just allows items to be held and viewed in the inventory. Modules can query whether an item is held by the player, IE for quests and such.
db
Itemid (local id, short and memorable)
name (verbose name)
pname (plural name)
description
Serialized Modulepref
Itemid

QUANTITIES - for when items aren't unique or for quests.
db
Itemid
playerquantitylimit (set to 0 to disable a quantity limit)
Serialized Modulepref
Itemid
qty (player's quantity of this item)

PERSISTANT ITEMS - for when items need to be preserved across DK's.
db
Itemid
preserveacrossdks (bool)

BUFFS - allows buffs to be added to items
db
Itemid
buff1newday (is the buff active on newday, or...)
buff1activate (...does the buff need to be activated?)
buff1rounds
buff1atkmod
etc

ITEM ACTIONS - allows items to be activated in specific areas
db
Itemid
villagehook
fightnavhook
foresthook
worldmaphook
shadeshook
hookmsg (message shown when item is used)

ITEM HITPOINTS - allows items to take damage and be destroyed
db
Itemid
startinghitpoints
destroyable (is the item destroyed when hitpoints reach zero?)
damagemsg (message shown when item is damaged)
destroymsg (message shown when item is destroyed)
Serialized Modulepref
Itemid
hitpoints

CONSUMABLE ITEMS
db
Itemid
usepoints (unset for infinite-use items)
destroyafterdeplete (is the item destroyed when it has run out of uses?)
usemsg (message shown when using the item)
depletemsg (message shown when item is depleted)
Serialized modulepref
Itemid
usepoints

ITEM COMBINING AND SPLITTING
db
Itemid
split1id1 (where "1" is an incrementing number - the id of the item that will come from splitting this item)
split1qu1 (where "1" is an incrementing number - the quantitiy of items with id specified above that will come from splitting this item)
split1link (link text for split 1)
split1msg (message shown when splitting item)
combine1id1
combine1qu1
combine1link
combine1msg

ITEM CARRYING LIMITS
db
Itemid
weight
bulk
affectsweight (item is, for example, a rucksack in which additional items can be stored)
affectsbulk (see above)
Modulepref
carrylimit
maxweight
maxbulk
curweight
curbulk

BASIC EXAMPLE SHOP MODULE - example, assuming that this particular shop module is called "Sheila's Shack." For more shops, add more modules.
db
Itemid
sheilashow (bool - shows up in Sheila's Shack?)
sheilagoldbuy (Sheila's buying price in gold)
sheilagoldsell (Sheila's selling price in gold)
sheilagemsbuy (Sheila's buying price in gems)
sheilagemssell (sheila's selling price in gems)


DUKE NUKEM FUCKING FOREVER. Serialized item systems can wait for S3. Or S4.
So, what to do in the hour or two before I'm going to have another chat with Emily and then go to bed...

...meat? Insults? It's hard to come back to this after a two-week break for Emily and day jobs...

Take your time. We can wait a bit for S2, and S3 is probably quite a distance away from our thoughts.

Oh, and...

CURRENT ETA FOR IMPROBABLE ISLAND SEASON TWO:
Some time in the summer?

A little time is good... we've still got two or three Weathervane scenes to finish...

So, CMJ, I think it'd be cool to revamp good ol' Audrey a bit. I know she's the crazy cat lady. That's awesome. But so far, the only thing you get are unmatched cats, matched cats, and hedgehogs. I think you need another negative in there to balance it out. Maybe snakes? Dogs? Spiderkitties? Whatever, but they make you LOSE five jungle fights or five charm.

Just a thought.

Update:

STRUCK DOWN BY VICIOUS MAN-FLU

That is all.