It’s been a month since the MS10 build was released, and I’ve been working on preparing a Steam Greenlight campaign for MMORPG Tycoon 2.  Most of this work is going into (finally!) improving the state of the art in the game, to make it a little more presentable in trailers and screenshots.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll start posting bits of the new art that’s been going into the game.  Starting with some of the new buildings.

The image here is a ground-level view of a small village.  These are still being procedurally generated, but in a much more interesting way.  Plus, it’s modder-friendly;  very, very easy to add new building pieces to the game to create new building themes.  And the goal is for these models to have their colors and general structure be modified by the player in-game (those aren’t yet implemented, but I’m not anticipating that either should be difficult).

The AI subscribers understand these buildings like they understood the previous buildings;  they know not to walk through their walls, how to navigate around them, how to enter/exit via doorways, etc.

I have several other building themes in progress, but this is the one that’s closest to a final state (although even this one needs a lot more pieces of wall decoration to be made available!).  The minimal-texture look is intentional, partly to make it fit into the rest of the game’s visuals, and partly because it makes the buildings very easy to visually parse even when viewed from very far away, or from high above.

But the real reason I’m making this post right now is slightly different.  As I mentioned above (and once or twice before), I’m working on putting together the game’s Greenlight campaign right now.  But the game won’t be going up for release or even early access any time soon;  the reason I want to get through Greenlight soon is so that I can use Steam’s distribution network for distributing builds to testers, instead of the cumbersome system I’m using now.

I’ve mentioned a few times that the MS10 build was going to be the last publicly released build of MMORPG Tycoon 2, and that’s still the plan.  Beyond this point, all future builds will be tested privately, and (I hope!) on the Steam platform.  But you’ve all been so helpful with comments, feedback, bug reports, and enthusiasm that I’d like for you all to keep testing, if you’re willing.  If you’ve tested any of the earlier builds at any time, and especially if you’ve given me feedback, please fill out the form below so that I can contact you, and I’ll make sure to set you up with a key just as soon as we’re through Greenlight;  that will get you access to the alpha/beta testing, and a free copy of the game, once it’s released.

Thanks so much for being a part of this adventure with me!