These are the modifications made on the game interface:

- New Logo – We have a new logo made from 2 crossed swords and a shield, This logo will represent from now Imperial Ages and we already use it on our laptops(using stickers) and on the coffee cups.

- New Game Header – We liked the knight very much, but since he occupied too much space we decided to let him go. Instead we’ve put a dark zone in which special type of messages will appear.
- Map Redesigned – The map was the worst part made by me for the game. It was made in a hurry because we needed a way to see the map and i didn’t have the time back then to implement something more complex. It was a simple map made using table cells. Now we have a new map, which looks really great, occupies less space(although it shows almost the same number of villages) and now has a Map Legend, making it easier to see your villages, Villages of the alliance members, Alliance Allies villages, the villages of those that are at war with you and so on.

- There are other minor changes in the game interface, but most of them can be seen only by those who take a look in the game code.

All these things are done but need to be implemented in the game by Ricko.

Things I need to finish in the near future:

- Large map. A way to see the entire map in one glance. Probably it will be huge(maybe 800*800 pixels) and it will give you the possibility to customize the map. For instance you`ll be able to chose the colors for your villages, your alliance villages, allies, neutral and so on. Of course you`ll have a fixed number of colors you can choose from.

- Village Variations – Now there is just a village you can have. When we`ll launch the game or even sooner you`ll have around 10-15 different villages(different resource order) which you can conquer.

- A few extra buttons for the game interface, some small modifications to the layout.

- A WordPress theme for the blog, which will be available to download for free to everyone.

- Wallpapers with our new logo.

We got a designer working on the resource/village area and on the buildings. He’s working in 3D and so far we like how it turns out. Obviously, the buildings will be very small in the game, but I thought you’d appreciate the large version in detail. Here’s the Barracks building as a small preview.

The test version

Probably a few days after the designer finishes the village graphics we’ll launch the open test game. That would mean 10 days from now or maybe 2 weeks. It will be a bug hunting version, so don’t expect a fully working game. I’m secretly hoping that we’ll finish with the test in 3-4 weeks so we can launch officially in October, but I’m not holding my breath.

The Forums

Mars is working on modifying a free VBulletin template to look the same as the game when it comes to colors and buttons and he’s almost done. Just a bit more work on some buttons but it’s 99% done. Here’s a preview of the forums in case anyone is interested to see how they’ll look like.

For Totte

Don’t know if you saw my reply in the Contact page while we had the old theme so I thought I’d post here. That free WoW theme we tried was legal as far as I know, because they were using graphics given by WoW creators for fan sites. Still, it didn’t worked well having a theme from another game for our blog, so I changed it. Unfortunately this theme doesn’t show comments on pages, just on articles, so I don’t know if you saw my reply there before we changed it. So, I replied here.

Well, the graphics of the game are almost finished. In the past 3 weeks I had to modify a certain template to match our own needs for space and look. Although it was a really nice template, it was more suitable for a flash page than for a strategy game. I had to make the look simpler and a bit brighter and at the same time I needed a lot of space which I didn’t have in the original design.

Now, i`m pleased with the look and the space we have and I’m continuing to work on finishing all the pages(alliance, market, etc) so that the programmers will know exactly what to do. This week i`ll probably finish the general look and starting next week i`ll do the hardest thing – the village. A good thing will be the fact that i have the next week free, so i`ll be able to put all my effort into the game. That`s a plus. I`m not sure if i`ll be able to finish all the work but at least i`ll be a few steps closer.

More info soon.

For those that don’t know, we’re a team of 4 working in our spare time on this game. None of us is a true designer, and after 6 weeks where we couldn’t get the graphics done with the designers we contacted, we decided to buy a template to modify ourselves, according to our needs, because this delayed us quite a bit. That was done, we bought this template. The reason we bought it was mainly the  freakin knight from the top, that we loved. Just woke up and found a comment together with a link pointing to the original source that the original designer used. Yeah, he stole an image from Guildwars and used it on the template that we bought in the end.

Needles to say, we’ll take that knight out of our template, but this pisses me off as hell, because he was the main reason we bought the template in the first place. We’ll need to buy an image from iStockPhoto, or whatever its name is, and modify it for our design. The open alpha test would’ve been launched by now if the graphics were done on time.

As for the comment that let us know, I’d just like to point out that design has nothing to do with how the game works. As I said, none of us knows graphics well enough. We’ll take out that knight because it’s only normal we do that, but we’ll continue to use the rest of the template. When we’ll afford a very good designer we’ll change the look of the game.

The good part, at least we found out about the knight image now, while we’re still working on modifying the template for what we need.

Also, I noticed we have some visitors coming back and checking for new articles. I suggest subscribing by RSS or email (both options in the right sidebar), and you’ll be notified when there are new articles on the blog. Just to spare you the time of checking the blog, since we’re sometimes updating at longer intervals :).

We’ve decided to go the payed route for the graphical interface to make sure we have something of quality. Though Mars knows a thing or two in Photoshop, he’s not perfect in this department. We realized that we need to make an investment here and pay someone to do the graphics for the game with as much detail as possible.

Hopefully it will be something truly remarkable. The units will still be made by Mars, but the general look of the site will be done by someone that makes a living from graphics.

I for one am really excited about the future look of the game. We already have an idea on the level of detail that we want from the game, and if the designer will be able to do what we want, then it will be the kind of look that makes users want to subscribe even before they know what the game is about. Then again, if it doesn’t come out looking ok, the previous statement might come and bight me in the ass. Time will tell :).

After a long period of time,due to different factors, I`ve managed to complete an alpha version of the graphics. It`s not much and definitely its not what I`ve imagined it would be, but at least we can understand what`s happening in the game and mostly if the game is working as it should. Now, the programmers are working to implement the graphics into the main game, so in max 2 weeks we`ll have a closed alpha test of the game. It will take this long, basically because the programers didn`t saw, until now, a lot of small options which need to be implemented ( countdown timers, auto-refresh, etc). I didn`t start working on the statistics page, or the alliance page, and I won`t until we are sure that the game is working at least in an acceptable way. Our biggest concern is that the game will be totally unbalanced, or that the main things won`t work as they should. We have some reserves on the battle system, which should be pretty realistic and fair but we still need to test it and see if it works as it should be. Another big thing is the general work of the game, automatic gathering of resources, raids, etc.

For now, the programmers will do they work, i`ll continue improving the graphics and Alex is still thinking on some new ideas. YES, every time we finish implementing an idea a brand new one just pops up from nowhere. Some of them are really nice, some are acceptable and some are impossible to implement, but we are trying to have a game oriented on user experience, and for this reason a lot of new ideas are implemented every month.

More news in a short time.

Ok, I`ve started working on the graphics. Until now, all the 5 basic units for every race are complete. There are 7 more to go. The bad part is that now i need to work mostly on the interface, because the programers keep complaining that they don’t understand much about what`s happening in the game.

So from now on i`ll work on the graphic interface. This should be interesting.

I`ll attach 2 pictures,the real ones will be a little smaller, of 2 of my favorite units.

Heralds

Woodsmen