The Royal Road - Our development journal

[rez]

Greetings Total War Center!

In an effort to maintain better communications with the Total War community, Rise of Persia has created a brand new development journal - "The Royal Road."

The Royal Road will strive to post updates of the current situation of the Mod whenever new changes occur. This first edition will have considerably more to say than the rest as I will be setting out which members are working on what. When new work begins or some work has been finished i will post in The Royal Road to keep YOU, the fans, updated.

With this new system you can keep up to date with our progress and we, the team, can stay in better contact with our beloved fans. So without further ado, I present to you the team's efforts -

With the impending release of our 1.5 Beta, Nero666 has been working on the code to wrap up the finished package. So far we have several seperate code packages that need to be put together for the final release.

Spurius is also working on our map for the 1.5 beta so that the campaign will be as enjoyable as possible, with the finishing of the map changes and the code issues the 1.5 beta may be ready sooner rather than later. Hold on a moment more my dear readers, it will be worth it!

Goscinio and FliegerAD have worked incredibly hard to produce a new finished faction - The Babylonian Empire! Needless to say the quality of work that is shown in the Babylonian army is extraordinary to say the least. I ought to mention that this is the first reconstruction of the late Neo Babylonian army ever attempted to the best of our knowledge.

As if this was'nt enough the dynamic duo have recently finished the Lydian models and are currently working on their textures. Again this is the first full reconstruction of the Lydian army we can think of, and again this will be a truly unique and interesting faction to behold.

At present an extremely well constructed debate is taking place amongst our two most distinguished Hellenistic Historians, Zenith Darksea and FliegerAD on the armour of the Greek soldiers in our mod's period. Undoubtedly the fruits of this discussion will be reflected in the utmost quality we strive for in our historicity.

I myself have been working on balancing all the unit statistics for better gameplay in our Modification. With every faction that you will be able to play as in our upcoming beta rebalanced properly for accurate and intense warfare!

I have also been working on the faction pages for our Website at http://www.riseofpersia.com, although I've only had time to do the Median and Persian pages just yet, the Babylonian page is in production as we speak.

In his spare time Nero666 has been experimenting with building reconstruction in order for a more immersive set of towns to fight in. So far the results have been very promising. He is also currently coding the Babylonian faction into the game - with some hilarious concequences for our horse models i should add! I would love to show you but it would spoil the Preview!

Nero666 has also proposed a faction specific way of recruiting units for the campaign. Goscinio, Celticman and Spurius have given us valuable advise on the gameplay side of these features. Whilst Myself (finally back on history), FliegerAD and Zenith Darksea have been discussing the historicity of how factions recruited their armies. New proposals have been put forward and speculation on our more mysterious factions is being discussed.

The Rise of Persia team hopes you have enjoyed viewing our progress and advises you to watch out for the Babylonian preview, it's going to blow you away!

Lastly I should reiterate that future issues will be much smaller as they will be in fact short updates of this post. I will try to maintain this feature everytime we make significant progress.

Regards -

The Rise of Persia team

[hellas1]

Hey Rez,

What's up man?!

I have Iranian classical music. Could you use this in the mod?

I presume that you are Iranian, so this might be irrelevant. It's an offer to the team man.

Continue the work.

Btw, when will the 1.5 version be out bro?

Hellas1- Relative of Iskander! (Not really :laughing: )

[MithradatesVI]

Goscinio and FliegerAD have worked incredibly hard to produce a new finished faction - The Babylonian Empire! Needless to say the quality of work that is shown in the Babylonian army is extraordinary to say the least. I ought to mention that this is the first reconstruction of the late Neo Babylonian army ever attempted to the best of our knowledge.

As if this was'nt enough the dynamic duo have recently finished the Lydian models and are currently working on their textures. Again this is the first full reconstruction of the Lydian army we can think of, and again this will be a truly unique and interesting faction to behold.

At present an extremely well constructed debate is taking place amongst our two most distinguished Hellenistic Historians, Zenith Darksea and FliegerAD on the armour of the Greek soldiers in our mod's period. Undoubtedly the fruits of this discussion will be reflected in the utmost quality we strive for in our historicity.

This really excites me to no end! I can't wait to play this!

[rez]

Well the 1.5 version currently needs the map done most primarily. Since im not the guy working on it i couldnt tell you. But almost all the other facets of the beta are done. Just a few minor issues to clear up.

And if you have good music for the mod please contact Celtic man (the celt on TWC) hes our music man. Im sure he'd appreciate it And he can whack those tunes in no problem

[rez]

First update:

Yesterday the rising star of the modding community Kaweh K agreed to join Rise of Persia as a 2d artist. Welcome Kaweh!

Our forums have also been suffering from a database problem, however Nero666 is currently attempting to fix it. If anyone has any information on forum database issues please contact Nero666 if you wish to help.

Lastly the first of the Lydian skins has begun to be created and its looking mighty fine.

Regards

The Rise of Persia team

[hellas1]

Hey Rez,

How do I contact Celt?

Actually he PM'ed me sir. Please disregard this.

Thanks, Hellas1

[rez]

Greetings TWC for the second update.

We are currently in the midst of a forum crisis as our database is crashing. I myself could'nt tell you the details but I want you to know that we have two excellent coders (Nero666 and Spurius) working hard to fix the problems.

I would like to ask that you bear with us for a few days and understand were slightly delayed for the 1.5 release because of this.

In other news the Lydian textures are progressing very well indeed. The richness of king Croesus will be brought to life!

Regards

- The Rise of Persia team

[rez]

Greetings again!

With much thanks to Spurius and Nero666 The Rise of Persia forums appear to have been stabilised, although changes may still occur. needless to say now that we can all post again development is back on its original track.

Goscinio and FliegerAD have continued the progression of the Lydian skins, the infantry and most cavalry looking mighty fine!

FliegerAD has also produced a rather fantastic set of research on the Egyptian army of the period. The few tweaks and issues raised are currently being debated (albeit its an uphill struggle against Flieger!)

The Babylonian faction story is practically finished, just awaiting the final approval and upload.

I have also begun to look into the Median faction, a speculative adventure if ever there was one!

Zenith Darksea is currently researching our Thracian faction.

Thanks to Hellas1, Celtic man is sampling and hopefully approving some new soundtracks for the music beta.

Goscino has begun re-skinning the strat map models so we don't have to look at the nasty vannila chaps!

Kaweh K has also begun a rennovation of a few of our faction symbols.

And for the stuff that baffles me to no end - Spurius and Nero666 are currently coding our work into the next beta build.

Goscino also found time away from his busy schedule to make the team developer badges, similar to the TWC style. however you will see them more on our official forums than on the TWC.

I may have missed some stuff but you get the gist of it

Stay tuned folks!

- The Rise of Persia Team

[hellas1]

Hey rez,

Just trying to help man, that's all

BTW, I told Celt to give you a copy of the Iranian songs. You might like them.

Cool Musique, man!

Hellas1-Persians and Greeks, first fighters, now lovers of mods! :laughing:

[rez]

In recent news our mod has had offers of help from many worthy contributors!

Lentonius the team modeler of Mediterranaean Total War has offered to help us out - much appreciated!

Kallikratis an upcoming skinner/modeler has also agreed to join the mod.

Antiochus Epiphanes has returned and offered his services and we are still awaiting a confirmation of his wishes.

Nero666 has been sorting out the recruitment problems for the 1.5 beta amongst the usual coding fun

FliegerAD has produced some fantastic research on the Egyptian army in 559 B.C. A ground breaking reconstruction!

I myself am preparing a Median army list which again is utterly ground breaking and hopefully up to par with your excpectations!

I have also begun the Lydian faction story for the website and celtic man has begun the story for Egypt.

Goscinio has been finishing off the Lydian skins with help from FliegerAD's expertise.

Regards

- The Rise of Persia Team

[rez]

Salutations one and all!

Rise of persia has recently tripled its production with the addition of lentonius and kallikratis to the team. we are currently enjoying the fruits of their labour!

FliegerAD's wonderful Egyptian army list has begun to come to life through the works of lentonius. Our new modeler/skinner has got well and truly stuck in to the flow of things.

Kalikratis has been given the honourable task of putting the finishing tweaks on the Persian army under my instruction. Whilst no massive changes are planned its the little things that count. Not to mention a few suprises...

Goscinio has almost finished the Lydian list and will be moving on to work with FliegerAD again on the Scythian factions of the mod.

Zenith Darksea has begun an indepth study of the Thracian tribes to determne which one will be our strongest pick for a faction. Currently he has picked his favourite and is producing some excellent research on them.

I have finished the concept for the Median empire and i think im allowed to say im fairly proud of it considering the utter lack of any real sources on the military! However The Medians will have to wait for a modeler to free up in our team.

Nero666 has been coding in units as per usual but lately doing some excellent work on our 1.5 map with the help of our historical team.

Thats all i can remember for now folks, See you soon

- The Rise of Persia team

[rez]

Greetings TWC!

After a recess which has allowed further work on the mod and general wheeling and dealing the Royal Road is back on track. With the release ofthe beta being kept under wraps before we announced it I found it hard to write without giving it away!

But now i can tell you all the news from the Rise of Persia camp.

With both Babylon and Lydia completely finished thanks to the fantastic work by FliegerAD and Goscinio the previews of these two factions are on their way. Goscinio has been putting together some beautiful renders for the Lydians. His Babylonian renders having been finished for a while.

Vote now to say who you want to see first!

FliegerAD has produced a large set of userbars for our factions and when Kaweh K finishes our faction icon revamp, Flieger can finalise the userbars. After this we will post them for you guys to enjoy.

Kaweh K has been working on icons as i said, but also on a brand new Persian themed Interface for the strategy and battle map bars. This work being in the final stages.

In the history department FliegerAD has put together a brilliant unit list for our Indian faction. Overcoming all the historical odds Flieger worked a beautifully unique and visually stunning faction out of difficult and sparse sources. However the difficulty of this task has as always failed to make Flieger comprimise historically. This list will be as accurate as is humanly possible - as with all our factions.

On that note Flieger and I have both been able to collect our final changes for the Persian army. These tweaks being mostly minimal and simple, there won't be any new units but some of the appearances will be different. Some being wholly changed, as always the interest of utter accuracy has motivated our joyous relief in sorting some problems out.

I have been wrestling with the "Bactrian" faction recently and i hope to produce work up to our usual high standards very soon.

With the beta release Nero666 has been working with the community to sort out whatever technical problems that arose. The rest of the team has been answering questions wherever we can and taking the advice of the community.

Nero has also been working both the Babylonian and Lydian codes for the team to test, the testing having been mainly carried out by Flieger. These tests resulting in wonderful representations of the respective armies.

An interview with the Eagle Standard is also on its way folks so look out for that gem!

I am quite sure i have missed some of the development news we havefor you, but the above covers the main aspects of our recent work.

Regards

The Rise of Persia team

[rez]

Salutations fans!

A quick update on our current situation after the beautiful preview of Babylon.

Goscinio and FliegerAD have finished putting together some extra touches on the Lydian renders for their preview. A set i can't wait for you guys to see!

I have worked the first stage of the research for Bactria. A very interesting faction which is a historical mountain to climb. We now have the base for an army list to be drawn up and when the time comes you will see the great units we have planned for the faction.

Goscinio is almost ready to take over from lentonius and work on the Egyptian faction. Their development will begin within the next few days.

Kaweh K. has also continued his work on our faction icons. Some stunning icons are now on their way.

Nero has done a great job in converting our forums and we now have a fully functional base of operations. The minor hiccup in the database being swiftly solved by Nero's expertise.

The venerable Kscott has also offered his services to the Rise of Persia team when he has some more free time, a gesture welcomed by the team.

Public research on our site has picked up and we are happy to discuss with all of you our ideas and works. Come along and join in!

Thats about all i remember for now, so see you soon TWC

regards

- The Rise of Persia team

[rez]

Greetings and Salutations fans!

The Rise of Persia project has soared swiftly onwards and upwards since our last update. With al the major factions either finished or in development our goal is looking very promising. However much work remains to be done!

Firstly Goscinio is in the process of creating the egyptian faction with advice from Flieger and his research, having created all the models he is now skinning his creations. They are sizing up to be a really good looking faction.

Palissa has joined our ranks and after i created an extensive reconstruction of the Median army and state we have begun to build the Median faction. Palissa's modelling skill is easily apparent as his models are looking great. Unfortunately the Medians will be on hold whilst Palissa is on holiday. Have fun mate!

Flieger is also advising Vikrant on the Indian faction and let me say folks their work is shaping up VERY well! This will certainly be a faction to remember. Vikrant is proving to be an excellent addition to the team.

Nero has as ever been masterminding the overall project and working on all that behind the scenes coding i never see! whilst also tackling the problems of sorting out specialist win conditions and settled mercenaries. The common sense advice of Nero, the Celt and all is ever present and ever helpful.

Octavius our newest coder is working like an express train! His work takes him from historical ponderings to coding in all our traits and ancillaries. Furthermore he's got a whole set of map advancements up his sleeve!

Now its very late and im absolutely sure that ive forgotten something so please forgive me. When ive figured it out ill be sure to notify you.

Regards

- The Rise of Persia team

[rez]

Hello there my friends!

Just a small update today as there have been a few developments worth mentioning.

Most of the things in the above update are all continuing as we speak. The traits and temples being coded respectively by Octavius and Nero are moving along nicely. The Egyptian ancillaries in paticular are a real treat to read.

Nero has also coded in the Babylonians to our build and i am working with him to iron out all the little bugs with them. (I say "we work" but Nero's the one with all the hard stuff!)

Nero has recently begun to code the Lydian faction in and i look forward to clashing with what looks like the most fearsome army i've seen in a long time!

Spurius is working on some rather interesting projects that i probably shouldn't reveal to you just yet. Needless to say that groundbreaking is one of the words that pops into my head. Watch this space...

Flieger and Goscinio have managed, with the donations of Beee amongst their own work, to finish entirely our Thracian faction. I would not be lying when i say these are my favourite thracians i have ever seen.

Furthermore Kallikratis has finished the Greek colonists of Kyrene. His hoplites are also amongst my favourites, truly some great art work.

So you can expect some more lovely eye candy in the next few weeks.

Spurius has also been revamping our website, im doing my best to help with some cool faction stories to click on when you visit our overview. You can take a look now at www.riseofpersia.com but none of my stories have gone up yet so you will have to wait for those. As ever the coding, testing, researching and creating is going on behind the scenes and the whole team is in an inspirational work "Zone" that i feel tired just watching them.

Regards

-The Rise of Persia team

[Cemendur Telcontar]

do u have any idea of when the mod will be completed? other than beta that is

[rez]

Thats always a hard question to answer. But with all but two major cultures uncompleted the better part of the graphics and units should be completed soon.

coding progress and our new systems may take longer to complete but hopefuly nero666 can give you a clearer answer

[Demokritos]

The reports all sound very promising! Thumbs up for your work!

[rez]

Greetings fans!

With our second beta on its way to you VERY soon i thought it wise to update you with a little information on how are progressing.

Firstly and fantastically, Nero has coded into the build all the factions we have previewed for you. As such our new beta will give you a far larger set of factions to choose from. Of which there is a good diversity in culture and gameplay style to choose from. Try your hand at the savage Thracians or the noble Lydians, its all there for you!

Secondly, the recruitment system is currently being hammered out by the team. Our new system is an entirely fresh idea and will let you gradually win over the people's you conquer with your might. I can't say more just yet but i promise its a real treat.

The coding team have put a huge amount of effort into removing those nasty placeholder units we used in the last beta and filling out the map with the right approximate units in the right places. Finally you can fight the right sort of units in the right areas rather than those same old boring falxmen!

As some of the older fans may have noticed, Rise of Persia is characterised by a resurgent cycle of reinvention. The Persian army has gone through at least 5 incarnations! so it is with great pleasure that i can announce that FliegerAD, myself and Goscinio have been working together to finally refine the Persian army and add all the officers and standard bearer's they need. They will be the final preview before the beta release.

The coding team has also been working with the Historians to decide the AoR areas for the mod. We have managed to figure out the general principles of the idea and are just ironing out the specific units.

Personally i have just finished working on a podcast segment for this weeks release! So get on over to the podcast subforum and await that download! There is some VERY juicy information in ther that i think a lot of people will want to hear. Thanks go to Spurius for editing the piece and adding the music.

Well there sure is more i can add to this im sure, but it both slips my mind and my time constraints! So il see you at the podcast!

Regards

-The Rise of Persia team

[hellas1]

Hi Rez,

Cool man!

I await a full version of ROP w/ baited breath!

Hellas1- Opa!