My current plan is to make alpha release until weekend. While I certainly would like to take some more time for further polishing and finishing stuff, I do feel that releasing something currently will benefit the game as people would be able to see how's it going and comment on it.



Originally I thought about omitting any exploration from it, but then it would be really troublesome to get more slaves with unique races and exploration is one of the core parts of the game to me. As of now main part of exploration is complete (not combat though, as I leave it entirely for later) and you'll be able to fight, loot and capture others around. It's still same 'zone progress' but now bit more clear about that.

However, encounters and enemies are still far from done and I'll probably only fill them briefly. To put it simply, whole encounter system is way more advanced now allowing to be easily expanded in most directions you'd want to, and has pretty nice options regarding randomizing stuff. The fun thing is basically 'race pool' which is an ability to fill up enemy race based on area you encounter him in. While I did it, I thought it would be kind of nice to make multiple race-specific towns with better chance to encounter races native to those towns around (maybe with local slave guilds featuring related races too), but right now making more towns and bigger map is pretty huge amount of work.

Another thing I added as I was working on the exploration and enemies, is new 'captured' state. As it's not very realistic to talk someone into instantly obeying you after you basically forcefully take away their freedom, now they will have 'captured' state, which means they were... recently captured. While in this state, their obedience won't go above 50 (so nearly all actions will be disabled, altho i may change this later), so it's pretty much a penalty for capturing others against their will. Initial 'strength' of this state is based on courage, confidence and origins. Life-long slave will accept his new fate pretty quickly, while others won't be as cooperative. This state dissipates over time, but you can also speed up process by administering punishments, keeping them imprisoned and even lift it with some side help. Naturally, those bought from slave guild or recruited different ways won't have this penalty on them.

This should be last message until alpha release, so see you soon.