The Shining Source

HI all, I'm Skye somwhat the second admin of Bowie Online. Don't think Stordarth (the boss) made any topics about BO here. Anyway I'll post any news about our game in this thread.

August 3 @ 16:20
By Skye

Grans Island (the overworld) is 90% Completed, screenshots will be posted at the forums & website this week! We can't work on 100% because our host isn't online all the time because he moved. Anyone that wants to help Stordarth when he's back from his vacation just visit our forums http://shiningmania.com/Bowieonline and make a post in the BO Jobs board. That's all for now.

Would you like this news to appear on the Shining Source newspage or is it mainly meant for the hard-core fans only?

From what he has posted, it may be better to leave it here for now.  It's not that big a deal for us.  When we start beta testing, then you can surely put it on the Shining Source newspage.  But until then, this, I think, is just for those who happen to read it.

Besides, we've just recently had a run in with a very evil 'employee', and I think it would be best if those who are known (even if its only a bit) around here only request a job.  I know I can trust the people around here.

Oh if you want to post it that would be great, just this text plz :

- Grans Island Overworld is almost finished.
- Problems with host, switching soon
- Waiting for tiles
- Anyone interested in building on Bowie Online please go to our forum : http://shiningmania.com/Bowieonline




That's all for now.

Skye: Good to see you around! It's always nice to get extra projects around here, and I look forward to seeing Bowie Online develop over the coming months (years is more like it, trust me )

Noma: I see you've found yourself a project! Would you be able to divulge any more information on the evil employee? From experience, and what other people have said, there are three types of nefarious team member;

1) Those who do no work, or are always behind schedule, saying they'll get to it after this has been done.

2) Those who rip other people's work off, and put it forward as their own.

3) Programmers and developers who procrastinate

Hopefully BO (as it is unfortunately nicknamed) can now avoid these problems and go from strength to strength

This 'evil' employee has been known as Draconis, or Magus.  He had refused to follow directions and critisized others work when his own was disgusting.  Id list him as a 1.  I haven't seen him since we gave him the boot, so be on the lookout.

On a better note, yes, I have found a project I'm comfertable working with.  Those I work with are never any less than ready to do what is needed, and are all very nice.  The project is running very smoothly from what I've seen.  I was glad to see the TSS was ready to help us out.  It gave me a reason to hang around here some more.  Thanks for giving us even more confidence in our work ^.^ .

If you're just wanting to post project progress updates, you'll soon be able to use the worklog feature on the site.

Ok, I'll check the forum (you'll tell us when we can right?)

Yep. Once my thumb grows back there'll be more updates (I cut off part of my thumb so it's a little tender to type at the mo.)

*appears in a burst of red smoke*

I recent word in from Stordarth and a discussion between myself, Stordarth, and AlmightyG, has led us into the very final stages before the game release.  This was posted on the Bowie Online forums just today, and I thought I'd pass the word around as soon as I could.


Stordarth Says:

Thats right folks, the end is nigh.

Almost 1 whole year of working on BO is coming to an end.

Thanks to the log files, which have been unchanged since the very beginning, I was able to pinpoint our exact anniversary date to the 26th of February, and in light of this, Me and AG, essentially the co producers over time, and with the input of our 3rd active Administrator, have decided to do some spring cleaning, and execute some major changes.

1st and foremost, I should highlight a change to our current server. I mean no offence Redhawk, but for some reason the server was down an awful lot at times when we needed it, and as a result, the admins agreed to a change and Zylo47 is our new host.

2nd, A rather dramatic change...

AG and myself have embarked upon a more corporate stance, and have become Co-owners of the company '-149 Degrees'. This company will produce freeware. Programs that we feel need having price tags removed will be programmed by AG, and distributed by our company site.

Within -149 degrees is the subdivision Shining Empire, which is the shining fangame development department. Bowie Online is now owned under Shining Empire, and is thus now Co-owned by the original creator (AG) and myself. This doesn't change the game's development, as I am still the head of the project. But as always, the aim of this is for us to have fun making it, and i only lead the project as far as crucial decisions go, which will be adjudicated in staff meetings anyway.

Dont worry, the corporate jargon wont affect the forums or the game development, it will just make distribution a whole lot easier when the time comes.

That's all for now.


Some content deleted because it was directed at specific members of our staff.  

We're reaching the very peek of development now, and this area of work will probably be the hardest we've had in all the time we've been working on the project.  I hope to update again very soon, only this time, with a link to a client download.

See you all soon.

There's been another big shake up at Bowie Online folks.

We recently discovered a new game client thanks to our old employee Bowie.

We wrestled with some hard choices:

stay at player worlds, keep the maps, and pass up the swanky extra options, or move to our new engine, lose the maps, and be swept up in option heaven.

we chose to move ultimately, and because of the move, new things have developed.

we are implementing a dual promotion system for each character. in other words, each hero can be promoted twice.

we are therefore expanding our sprite collection massively (which will benefit the TRAP as well), and including a selection of edited sprites based on the originals, to give a total of 360 hero character sprites (instead of simply having the 30 promoted sprites we have now.)

The bad news is that we are effectively beginning afresh as far as the game goes, and a release is once again no longer on the cards for the near future, but the wait will be worth it.