[ShadowWolf_IH]

Mission 1 of CoW 1 has been tested and repaired, even better, the 5 mission demo for CoW3 has been built.  Not tested yet.  The table trimming for the demo (so we don't give secrets away) has been done. 

Still do to on the demo: CB anim, testing, and Voice acting.  Minor Background tweaks.  Don't get freaky on me, I'm doing the demo first so that it can be auto released when it comes time to voice the main campaign.  We'll voice the demo at the same time as the voicing for CoW 1.  Release date however is still a few months away, as I said, I want to get it done and then mothball it.  That way when we release it, you know the time is short until the main campaign is released.

The testing done on CoW 1 mission 1 has been both embarrassing (as the fredder 9 years ago), and quite informative.  If this is a taste of things to come, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the testers.  The best part is it's kind of like good intel....fact is separated from opinion.  I love that.

Anyway, on with the show.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Cow 1 -- Half the Campaign has been gone through, tested and repaired.  My fredding was terrible in those days.

Cow 2 -- No changes as yet.

Cow 3 demo -- No significant changes

Cow 3 --  The missions of OP 1 are complete and ready for testing when the time comes.  Starting the building of OP 2 today.

[Rand al Thor]

Good to hear and lookin forward to it. Never got around to playing the original CoW 1 and gave up after a few attempts when SCP changes left it behind.

I reckon I'll have to do some major campaigning durning the summer.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

OK.  My comp died, I got it running again after a fashion, but here's the update:

CoW 1 -- All missions gone through.  It is ready to be voiced, and I need to finish the Skyboxes for the Adhara system.  No one is overly happy with CoW1, but no one ever was.  We aren't doing a full rebuild of it, just repairing it. 

Cow 2 -- Untouched

Cow 3 Demo -- Entering testing.  Need to complete skyboxes for Adhara system, cb anims, and voiced.

Cow 3 --  OP 1 is complete, OP 2 has 2 missions remaining to be built.  Need to build OPs 3-6, CBanims, Finish the Skyboxes for the ADhara system, minor table and effects tweaks, Cutscenes, custom music tracks, and testing obviously need to be done yet.

[Narwhal]

Well, going thing you are redoing CoW I and CoW II. My critic was "great ideas ; poor implementation". With your current experience, you might do something great with it.

My comment on the wiki, back then :
CoW 1 is a sub-average campaigns. While the missions and objectives could have been very original, the campaign was planned big executed poorly because of faulty FREDding, not on par with the complexity that would have been required . Therefore, there are a huge number of FREDding problems, the most gamebreaking ones - but by no means the only ones - being that in most mission the player has no idea of what he is supposed to do, and has to RTB himself to see if he passes - or not. Missions are also either too easy or too hard. Apart from those FREDding, the story has a lots of plotholes, and the player has an hard time understanding what/who exactly he is facing and what he is doing. On the other hand, CoW 2 is a rather good campaign, with similarly complex missions but with the FREDding skill to match. CoW 2 could have been "very" good if the last three levels were comparable to the first seven. Unfortunatly, the last missions of CoW are closer CoW 1 (lack of) quality. If the team was to correct the few bugs in CoW2 and review / remake the CoW 1 with their experience from CoW2, this campaign has potential to become a GREAT one.

[TopAce]

I paid special attention to reporting gamebreaking FREDding mistakes. I also made some recommendations on how to make your objectives clearer. Many - though unfortunately, not all - errors that I reported are fixed. A complete storyline overhaul would have required the recreation of all the missions from the ground up, and a lot of additional brainstorming. Shadow isn't willing to do that - He's heavily into CoW3 at the moment, which is "The Main Project." Only one CoW1 mission was recreated, that's the one where

Spoiler:

you're following an Isis in the nebula.

I liked the concept very much myself, and gave a long list of all kind of errors, which were (mostly) fixed.

As for CoW2, I played through it twice, and I found the last couple of missions (not necessarily the last three) overwhelming,

[ShadowWolf_IH]

ok, sorry about the 2 months away, i'd rather not discuss what was happening, but i'm back.

[Rand al Thor]

Good to have you!

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Cow ! has been gone through and fixed.  Working on Cow 2 now.  Cow 3 demo is nearly ready for testing, and Cow 3 main is nearly 1/4 built.  Still to on CoW 1, voices, backgrounds, and final testing.  Then we can rerelease it, other than repairs, voice, and backgrounds, the only change in it is taking advantage of some HTL ships.  Other than that, I am steadily working toward completion, most voices are done, stll have a good bit out there to do if anyone feels like helping out there.

[TopAce]

Will you submit the reworked CoW1 files on the internal?

[ShadowWolf_IH]

oops, ok. 

[ShadowWolf_IH]

CoW 1 is fully voiced, HTL ships added, Backgrounds in place.  It's in final tweaking right now, and soon enough it will be opened for Beta Testing.

After that, a prerelease for those who took part in the building of it, and then release.

Cow 2 is now under repair and reconstruction.

Cow3 backgrounds are underway, missions are 20% built, still needs of mission work, and custom music tracks.

[Mobius]

Do you need any testers?

[Locutus of Borg]

how was my voice work :S

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Sorry, your voice work waas fine.

Update:

Between Topace and Mobius and the awesome debugging and suggestions that they put forth, CoW1 has gone from really crappy to something decent.  We have just entered final testing for it. The only visual changes are an HTL Aurora, HTL Typhon, and skyboxes.  This was never meant to be a full upgrade, but was  instead was meant to be a debugging and fixing of the campaign.   Look for it around Christmas.

Currently rebuilding the last missions of CoW2....more on that later.

CoW3 demo has undergone a few changes, which make it more appealing to play.

CoW3 fredding has slowed down while i concentrate on some other things,  ie Music tracks, skyboxes. 

[General Battuta]

I would like to try this. Well done all around, chaps.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

The debugging of CoW 1 goes on.  My testers are a pain the a**.     Seriously, while it may grieve me to refix and refix and refix the same missions, i have to say that the quality mission building that these guys push me to is great. 

We've gone from fixing the bugs, to rebuilding some missions entirely, to fixing remaining bugs, and just when I think we are nearly done, they find other things wrong.  Awesome job.  I could not be happier with how they are doing on a truly poorly made campaign to begin with.   I had hoped to have it by Christmas, although that wasn't a firm deadline.  I'm not doing deadlines, but instead giving time.  These guys are also forcing me to do something that will help CoW3 immensely.  Focus on the process, not the product. 

Anyway.  Status is....
CoW 1 continued debugging and testing.
Cow 2 end missions which people hated being rebuilt.
CoW 3 demo no change
CoW 3 .

For CoW 3 we are getting deep, and because I am refusing to let my guys down, I am exploring realms of immersion that I hadn't explored before.   If you are looking for the straight shoot em up with little character development that is CoW  and CoW 2, look elsewhere.

I've always wanted to try this but never had the guts to try, for fear of utter failure.  But as with any good team, these guys won't let me fail.

This period has been marked with work proceeding on CoW 1 and 2, and further conceptualization on CoW 3.

Basically your status update is....we are working on it. 

[Satellight]

Glad to read we will have soon a new well-polished campaign to play ! Hold on ! 

[TopAce]

Looks like we'll have to harass Shadow with CoW1 a bit more. I have some suggestions about one of our missions.

By the way, I'm confident we've found all of the game-breaking bugs already. While CoW will, predictably, not be the greatest campaign ever, we can promise an uninterrupted, enjoyable gameplay experience.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

With the release of CoW1, we are now moving into CoW2.  Cow 2 will be repaired as Cow 1 was, with a few notes.  The last 2 missions have been scrapped are being rebuilt from scratch.  This is progressing. 

Cow 3 demo is still on the shelf, waiting for us to get to it, it has been fredded but I want to make some changes to it and bring it more in line with what we are doing with CoW3. 

CoW 3.  No change other than backgrounds, although I do have a few ideas for some things that I want to do in it.  If you are reading this and can help with a remake of a certain texture (one of the textures for one of our capships needs somethings done to it), please let me know.

That's your new update.