Blue Lotus: Current Status

I'm just posting this as a sticky to save people having to root around. I'll update it as things change.

Rough estimated release date:
A new patch is comming with bugfixes, estimated date unknown.

Requirements:
Rome Total War with 1.5 patch

Progress:
Open Beta.
a Patch is being made, in which all bugs will be fixed and certain aspect will be overhauled for balancing issues,... (With a lot of thanks to Son Goku, who's updates you can read furhter down in this thread.)

STATUS OF BETA 2 (80%):
Done:
Bugs fixes-100%
New building tree implementation-100%
stat system human factions-100%
building 2d art - 100%
regional recruitment - 100%

To do:
testing and tweaking units. - 60%
inserting new demon stats - 30%
building descriptions - 33%
unit descriptions - ?%
possible scripts and traits/ancilaries (+2D art) - x%
installer - to be started (0%)
custom battle maps - 40%
3D Buildings - see Son_Goku's posts below...


Team Members:
Son Goku, Blindfaithnogod (inact), Sykotik Rampage (inact), Dromikaites(inact.), hoggy (inact.), big_feef (inact.), Moros, Opeth666 (inact.), Sheogorath, Ikon, Nicodemus, Oscar Reeve.

Just a memo for all those who are still visiting this forum:
The main BL development team has moved; a major revamping of BL is in production.
Ill post here about progress from time to time.
For now, we got most... no wait. We got all campaign crashes (as far as I can tell) fixed; but we decided to go a step further and balance/redo major aspects of BL tech, culture and unit trees. Also, some game mechanics have been changed and need to be tested now.
Stay tuned...
Son Goku/Rinsui/ToBe

Very good news. Where did you move to? Any new screenies? Good luck to all you guys....

A patch removing all bugs and completely revamping the building tree has just been finished. Check out the news at the new Blue Lotus Forum:
http://bluelotus.forumup.be/?mforum=bluelotus after registering in the entrance hall.
Rinsui/Son Goku

Ah, well. To be exact: for now all errors on the campmap have been removed, and the nex tech and wonder tree implemented. So don`t shout just "hooray" yet. Next steps are:

1. Gertgregoor/Moros will assign the Units to the new buildings
2. Balance Step 1 (closed Beta)
3. Assign 2D Art to the new buildings
4. Faction specific descriptions for about 50 Buildings to be implemented.
5. Assure the correct appearance of the new buildings on the battlemap
6. Balance Step 2 (open Beta)
7. Alpha release.

Since we are doing all this work alone - anyone ready to help, especially with Step 4? Then sign up at

http://bluelotus.forumup.be/?mforum=bluelotus

2D Art assignment and remodelling (was harder than expected, because of many new buildings added): finished for Akagi and Zensen.

Quick update:
2D Art assignment finished for Zhuanshi, Yuwan, Karazai and Choson.

Building Artwork 100% completed now. Moving on...
Rinsui

Screens? :grin:

Hahaha, give us a sec to finish the build ^.^/
Not a heavenly lot has changed since the original, though; yes some new 2D building arts have been introduced, but there is little we can do to outperform Hoggy in the 3D department. Yet the comparatively minor graphical improvements we made should be quite immediately visible for those who played the buggy original before. Most of our worktime though went to technical things like building tree restructuration, a region- and culture-based recruitment system, new mercenary pools, new wonders, unit coding, bugslaying, balancing... As you are explicitely mentioned in the new title screen (surprise! surprise!), I guess you will immediately notice the differences.
Son Goku/Rinsui

İ am glad that you guys continue the work on this project
Good luck!

Well, ok, I guess I can tell that much. There will be some edited (new) 3D stuff, too. I`ll for now load up the new Government buildings for the Monks. (Pictures 1-5). The rest of the pictures is just to make you remember what beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of art we are talking about here. Damn, I could definitely need some manpower here. Doing this all alone surely tires (rewarding as it is^^/).
Ah. I could have attached the new building tree pictures. Well, too late. Next time ^^/
http://gallery.filefront.com/Rinsui//677577/

(Forgot the pics. Typical me...)
https://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?...6863735nd7.jpg
https://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?...9828689pp0.jpg
https://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?...8308959yn8.jpg
https://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?...0905368sk0.jpg
https://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?...battle4ob4.jpg
https://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?...battle1dc8.jpg
https://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?...battle2mw4.jpg
https://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?...battle3qt2.jpg
https://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?...battle5uk7.jpg

keep up the amazing work
I enjoyed the first beta but actually thought the mod died, glad to see its still alive and progressing

Nah, no worries.
Doing most of the graphics stuff (nearly) alone just costs an awful lot of time... throw in all the scripting and balancing, and I guess I have some pretty good excuse ^^/
Stay tuned though, within the next days pictures of the new LV 3 Walls should emerge.

First post updated.

Next release is comming soon!

This is looking really good.

I haven't tried Blue Lotus yet, but may very well download it tonight - the work I've seen on this forum is of a really high standard. Thanks guys.

Jesus, jesus.
After long and careful consideration whether it was worth the work or not, I mistakenly decided on a "yes" for a major redo of all walls. Samurai walking on air (-> Japanese walls and Chinese walls with small damage), impassable gateway traps (-> Yomi), flickering wall surfaces (-> Chinese) or vanishing towers (Yomi again) just aren`t worthy of this mod. I had heavily underestimated the workload to remove all major graphical and technical bugs though (there were about 100.000 around every corner - and many of them were vanilla bugs - shame on CA, twink ^^/!)... so it took me some time...
To cut a long story short:
- Hopefully all big wall bugs removed
- New scalable wooden walls for all, and new stone walls for the Yomi (the old ones were bugged beyond hope - and I guess the new ones look better anyway, see link below)
- New damaged Tower/Gateway/Wall Graphics for all factions now.
I hope I`ll never have to skin in 3D Max again \>.</

https://img227.imageshack.us/img227/...ate1un9.th.jpg

Great work!