My laptop has pretty much become a lost cause. Within the time I ordered my adapter and the time it came in, I managed to completely destroy where it plugs into the laptop. I've tried some basic soldering with it, but I'm a novice when it comes to that. Progress on Core is suffering because of that, but I still have the free time I work, so I've been spending it working on developing ideas. I have more than one project planned, Maeva of course is my main one. I came up with some ideas today that should probably increase my network efficiency quite a bit. I also just wrote a whole bunch of stuff about storyline and important events that will happen during the course of the game. I'm wavering a little about how I'm assembling my mobs. I was considering breaking them up just "head" "torso" "legs" rather than each arm and leg, but I may just go with those anyways, I found a neater way of handling my models in Blender.

I've been toying around a bit with the idea of having someone help me work on my projects, if they are interested in them. If I were to do that, I'd definitely have to do it in a "black box" style, where we each have our own clearly defined parameters to work under. I have the following projects planned, if any of them sound interesting to someone, let me know, I'd be happy to expand on them:

Maeva: Same project I've been working on for years, only in 3d this time. The complexity of it has increased a whole lot, and on paper, it's pretty well nailed down now

The rest of these don't have names yet, they're just ideas:

X-COM style game: If you haven't heard of X-COM UFO Defense, find out about it. It's easily one of the best games of all time. I'd like to create something in the spirit of it, but in an online form, with the ability to play as part of a human faction, or as an alien force. This would be played at a number of different "levels", and would involve a lot of procedurally generated content. Again, I have a lot of this planned out, but I'm still working on my engine to make it happen.

Newton Physics Robot game: I was very inspired by Robot Arena 2 and it's use of Havok Physics to create drivable battle bots. I've been wanting to develop a game (I might even consider selling) where you control a little robot that manipulates physical objects in a world and snaps them together to create machines and vehicles in order to solve puzzles or meet challenges and advance through an adventure.

Mini-game.....game: I really liked the idea of Nintendo Mii's, and I thought it might be neat to try my hand at making a similar system. This would basically be where I'd create my 3d version of Bomberman Arena, only it would just be one of the games available. I'm envisioning a heavy use of unlocks similar to Bomberman Arena for customizing your avatar, which are awarded for performance in a vast array of mini-games. Your avatar would be used in all these games in some way.

There's other project ideas I've had cross my mind too, as well, of course, but I can't even complete one project, so I need to focus on one at a time.

In other news, Jesse and I got a house together finally. It's SO nice not having to stay with her parents anymore. They're still over a lot, but it's not their house, and her mother no longer has any right to complain to us about it. The house is fricking perfect, it has 2 barns and a shed which we've converted into a rabbitry. If there are any BYONDers out there who live near Pittsburgh, or Beaver County, let me know, perhaps we can do lunch or something. I already know Gughunter is up in Akron, and I'll have to visit next time we're up there for a rabbit show. I'm still working at UPitt, and I still have basically nothing to do here. We set our wedding date for July 27th. It's probably going to be a little tight trying to get it set up, but it'll be worth it. Jesse and I work well together, and we can still make it in a pinch. Jesse just got a nice job offer at Lowes where she'll be able to choose her own hours.

Just for the hell of it, I'll do a poll about those games