SEE Fans & Players, and everoyone else that do give a damn...
I know a lot of you have been wondering about the status of SEE, and after some really heavy months of work (as in regular job), I'm starting to come back. That is; find time and energy to return to T3A. Usually I give a heads up before I leave, but this time I didn't really leave on the other hand. I sorta got "hung up" on life that for example involved a seriously demented young woman. But lets not get into that. Mostly it's due to all g*d d*amn problems that have been affecting SEE ever since the team had its first split up. This time the problem lies with a second round of road bumbs within the team. Let's sum up the history, for all you new guys:
SEE started as a one man show. A small alteration of "Marks Full GamePlay Mod 1.04b" with even further emphasis on "realism" and movie feeling. I mostly re-balanced the whole game towards the imagined realism, and reskinned as many units as I found nescessary to reach a higher level of movie resemblance. Eventually, SEE grew into a somewhat big project, for its size, and goals. And with that, the mod found a large fan base. Amngst those, new modders came forth offering help. Some donated things, and some offered help with the everyday modding. Once Sûlherokhh joined as Coder, I could concentrate on what I do best - organizing, planning and administering models and whatnot, as well as doing art and skins. Together we transformed SEE from a pretty big, but "narrow" mod (looks and balance mostly), into what became the biggest and most advanced mod for BFME2.
This was never my intention really, even though it's great fun to have reach there. But there is a BIG downside to this, and that is that as a Mod Author and Team Leader you grow 100% dependant on your team, once you've crossed that line of what could possibly be done by you alone. I could never ever even dreamof finishing SEE by myself. I am TOTALLY dependant on Sûlherokhh to code it, as I am on modelers such as Ed of the 3rd Kind, Flameguard, etc to deliver models to match Sûl's coding and my skinning and the expectations overall on a mod like SEE. There's so way in any dimension that I could do this alone anymore. And there haven't been for ages...
NOW, with this said, we have established that SEE stands and falls not with me, but with the SEE Team together. I try to be the strong foundation that holds the entire chain of links, but sometimes people just lose interest, and when they do, work might be lost or left unfinished. This is unfortionately the case with the single most important item for Beta 4.7 - the Rhûn Fortress (Evil Men's faction fortress). Without this model fully working, there's nothing to build on. It would be like building a house without a ground. I really really really need to see the fortress 100% complete before I can even tell the team what's next.
We do have a fantastic original model by DigiByte, but it lacks all Expansions and Upgrades. I do have the almost finished work on those, also sent to me by Digi, but unfortionately, this work is neither finished or fully up to the same standard as the fortress model itself. It's quite easy to see that Digi lost interest somewhere between the fortress model and these expansions. What I'm trying to do know is to wait for someone to fix them up. Finish them and polish them. Ed3rd has taken it uppon himself to try this, and last time we spoke he needed the textures that I aparently never sent him. He'll get them as soon as I see him online, and with that I hope he can do an equally great job on this as he did with SEE's nowadays completely stunning Easterling units.
So to sum up...
1) We are all waiting for Ed3rd to put the finishing touches on the Rhun fortress. IF he would fail or lose intrest, give up or whatever, there's nothing we can do but to wait for the next modeler to offer help. SEE will not go on until this model and all its parts are complete. Once we have those, Sûl will hopefully find time and motivation to start coding again...
2) Flameguard needs to finish and send me all the remaining Harad models. I can't guarantee that he's even around. We haven't spoken for ages...
3) With the Fortress and the Harad models, I think we could have a Bea 4.7 in a couple of months or so. But it all stands still atm, waiting...
Some good news:
- Robnkarla just donated DWARVEN ARCHERS using the Miner model and gondor archer bones. Looks great and it will look awesome once I skin them, hehe. He also did the long awaited model fixes for our THORIN and DWALIN heroes, so at least Erebor faction is coming along nicely
With new things such as these, my motivation is coming back. I just hope it will affect others too (that are onvolved in the most important production).SEE's not dead. It's just struggling with motivation, time and real life. Somehow and someday, it will be 100% finished, even if I'll have to hire professionals to get there
