[Nightmare]

I would call such version a Release candidate 

No that's only for Delta testers.

That being said, I'm afraid testing alone won't help Exile 2 come into existence.

[Nyctaeus]

Exile was Alpha-tested by team, than Beta-tested by selected community members... Than Gamma-tested by additional team again, after some serious reworks.

As for SG, it won't be continued. I'm not interested in this project anymore. I PMed CT27 about certain details about SG plot. I guess I may find and redact this PM to reveal rest of the story... Wait. Nope. I'm lazy. CT27? If you have this PM somewhere, go ahead and post it in SG release thread.

If I ever release any more FS project, it's likely to be Exile 2. There are couple of reasons why I'm not working on continuation, but mostly it's lack of team and willpower to conduct such massive endeavour. I have 75% ready design doc, couple of assets and of course - overambitious plans. At least I'm Nyx. If I release a thing, it must be big and shiny.

In fact I was always the face of Exile and SG, while rest of the team was always remaining in shadows because they just wanted to. Excluding main Freder and co-leader - Macielos, who was active from time to time. Currently every member of former Exile team is commited to other, even bigger project... But this project is not a mod. And it's not FS related.

[CT27]

Since he gave permission to say what was said in the PM:

There were four planned chapters of SG.  However, forget about it.  Nyctaeus isn't interested in that anymore.  It's dead.

 In contrast, it may not be active right now but at least there's hope someday for Exile 2/3.


Honestly, that may be for the best.  I'd rather have him focus on one project (Exile) and get it done eventually rather than divide attention between Exile and SG and get neither done.

[Nightmare]

So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?

But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?

[Nyctaeus]

Script for the Schism is 25-mission long. I have few incomplete assets like mass-produced Sabre variant that replaced the Encantona in Exodus Fleet but nothing besides that.

[Nightmare]

Are there many new ships needed for Exile 2?

[Iido]

And there we go, act 1 done. Was an amazing campaign, thanks for all you guys' hard work you put into it! I got 11/19 achievements.

So SG won't be continued? Eh, tbh, I got to thinking last night, both of these projects seem so massive, especially if SG was also planned for 4 acts, and it takes so much time and effort to create just one campaign. I actually thought it'd be better if you guys focused on just one instead of trying to tackle two Sathanas-sized projects at once. And after finishing act 1 I am MUCH more interested in seeing Exile continue than I ever was SG, so no complaints here.

Have you guys thought about recruiting more team members? I've got no experience in designing campaigns so I can't do anything to help, but I'm sure there'd be many willing to pitch in and held to make Exile 2 a reality!

[Nightmare]

BTW, here's the SG farewell discussion: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83942.msg1882661#msg1882661

[Nyctaeus]

Have you guys thought about recruiting more team members? I've got no experience in designing campaigns so I can't do anything to help, but I'm sure there'd be many willing to pitch in and held to make Exile 2 a reality!

You really would be surprised how many similar questions I received since the release

The truth is more complicated. ItDW was possible due to specific conditions inside da team. Exile was made by people who know eachother from countless years. We're coders, digital artists, FREDers, modellers, texture artists, writers... We know ourselves, we know our skills, our visions and our capabilities. We're friends in real life and we all have real life. Also we all want to move on. I want to make Exile II, but I also want to move on... And rest of the team want to move on more than make Exile II. With overwhelming amount of work a mod of this size requires, so far we decided to use our skills to make projects with wider future.

I don't say no. I say "not today and not tomorrow". Proper Exile II would be possible only in original team composition, sharing the fate with Blue Planet... And FreeSpace 3.

[Nightmare]

Did the Exile team move on to other games (as hinted earlier) or something else?

Probably you should've made SG and Exile just standalone projects instead of chapter based things.

Are there many new ships needed for Exile 2?

So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?

But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?

[Macielos]

Did the Exile team move on to other games (as hinted earlier) or something else?

So the SG/Exile team is making non-FS games now (guessing from not-Mod, not-FS)?

Yes, we're working on a standalone game. I don't want to reveal any details yet, so let's just say it's gonna be huge and overambitious like our previous projects, with lots of assets and rich, multi-layer storyline. It will take some inspirations from both Freespace and our mods, but as it will go commercial, we will try to be more mature and less controversial in narration .

Probably you should've made SG and Exile just standalone projects instead of chapter based things.

Probably true, but when we invent a storyline, in the end it's always far too long to fit in a single campaign .
On the other hand both SG1 and Exile 1 can be stand alone campaigns. just with open endings .

But are they willing to work on Exile in the future? I mean, making something like Exile takes years, the missions alone, and with just 2 people it seems almost impossible. BTW, has anything been done yet aside a semi-complete design doc, and are Acts 2-4 of the same length as Act I?

Well, the problem with Freespace mods is that you have to put lots of effort working on obsolete and... a bit rough tools like Fred and non-trivial game mechanics requires making hacks to make it work because Fred was simply not designed for them. Checkpoints, dialog systems, achievements... A good example can be Dirty Job mission that required tons of copy-pasted sexps managing interactions between each drone and each asteroid (so 10*20=200 sexps). Sexps that I had to modify in notepad many times when I fixed something in drones' behaviour. Of course if I did this mission from scratch today, I'd use LUA, but still... Now I'm working in Unity on our own game and there's so much more possibilities that it'd be hard to return to modding Freespace. And last but not least - own game can be commercialized, and a mod can't.

Nothing serious was done for Exile 2. Nyx already told you about some assets he did, he also made bases for 2-3 missions, but nothing more.

Act 2 was planned to have 25 missions. Acts 3 and 4 were not planned in details, but probably they'd be of similar length too.

[Nightmare]

Good luck to the Exile team and that game project then!

[0rph3u5]

A good example can be Dirty Job mission that required tons of copy-pasted sexps managing interactions between each drone and each asteroid (so 10*20=200 sexps). Sexps that I had to modify in notepad many times when I fixed something in drones' behaviour.

Something like that might get much easier in the future (I think).