Aethria is Coming! (Inkborne, Seraphel, Teripets etc)

[Onyx]

 

**As a head's up, while this thread has been recently revived, it's an old thread and the site is actually open now, though we aren't releasing new items at the moment while we work on figuring out some post-early-beta programming tweaks**

 

I am VERY PLEASED to be able to make this post regarding Aethria, as until recently we were at a stand-still due to lack of a competent and reliable programmer.

 

As a recap, for those who may have previously been following development of my Inkborne/Seraphel sites, who may have been members of Aluriya in the past, or whose hopes of a revival of Teripets were dashed when we encountered so many difficulties in reviving the site -

Instead of developing all these ideas into separate sites, we decided to create a single virtual world with different lands within, each forming a sort of mini-petsite with different activities, different pets and different ways to obtain those pets.  Items obtained in all areas however, can be used across the entire site!

There is so much to tell you about Aethria that I don't even know where to start!  But I guess the best place is to share news regarding where we actually are now with development.

The basic site framework is up!  Previous members of Aluriya will recognize some features of the layout, as the world of Aethria is Aluriya's home world   You can view the front page here, though registration is not open.  www.aethria.com

- We have most of the basic functionality working, including forums, private messaging, user inventories, news, help desk, banking and currency system, item creation, friends' list and similar site functions.

- We have different methods of pet creation in each different land, and thus far have worked through:

-----the "growables" system is functional up to the point of actually having added the first growable base and growable "seed" item via the admin panel, and are ready to actually start testing the system, which is essentially in place, but will require some tweaking to bring it in-line with aethria game play.  The growables system will be used to obtain pets in the land of Calligra (Inkborne).  

-----the "custom demo" system is also functional to the point where we are able to load up the bases and markings into a  working pet demo, and will soon be at the point of testing actual pet creation.

- Item creation is fully functional and we have already loaded about 150 items to the site with more being added every day.

- Main map and essential locations for the land of Aluriya are in place.

Regarding Art Assets

We already have a huge amount of art in the process of being uploaded to the site!  We have enough pet bases with markings and enough items to put us well on the way into our first opening months without having to scramble.  We also have packages of Limited Edition pre-opening items ready to go, and a Limited Edition alpha tester pet base for Calligra!

However, pets previously featured on Aluriya still need to have their shading re-created to match Aethria style.

What's the Plan, Stan?

The current plan is to open the site when all basic functionality is in place and with a minimum of two Lands open and ready to use - Aluriya and Calligra (Inkborne).  Once the site is open we  have plans to add new lands for Seraphel and a mini-Khimeros Land.  We are also strongly considering a Teripets-land if there is interest for such, using the same pet and site concepts but with all pets redrawn to avoid  the kind of conflicts with former site artists that we previously encountered.

We hope this news is as exciting for you as it is for us!  If so, please follow our thread in Game Development as we'll be posting most of our updates there, though we may post some milestone news in the News section as well.

We also encourage you to like and follow us on Facebook as we will post some exclusive content sneak peeks there  

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Onyx

[Onyx]

All fixed, whee!

Edited July 2, 2017 by Onyx

[WinterBlues]

@Onyx You can 'Insert other media' at the bottom just above submit reply?

Also I thought you had to use [ IMG] tags? Not HTML? I could be wrong though but worth a shot 

[Onyx]

thanks I'll try img tags!

 

[runeowl]

I can just paste in the .png URL and it automatically adds images ^-^

[Onyx]

Yeah I guess it's acutally LESS complicated than I was expecting

[Digital]

Wow, impressive, I cannot wait to see registrations open, and cannot wait to hear of any new updates!

[Andou]

Wow, the item art (as is everything else!) is phenomenal !

[Onyx]

Thank you!  Most of the art was created by Hibbary, Trippy, and TehTwi with me working as "art monkey".  There are some things like the island map that are 6 or 7 years old, having come from Aluriya, and may have had other artists working on them as well

[Blaire]

Woah, this looks really interesting and the art is totally drawing me in.

Love the layout of the site as well.

I'm not on facebook though, is there any other social medias I can follow?

[Onyx]

We do plan to work on a tumblr in future but for now, you can follow us here

1.  

[Blaire]

Okay, thank you very much! 

[Nate]

This is great news. Teripets was one of the vpet sites that I spent most of my time on in the past haha.

[Nova]

It's beautiful! I can't wait to try the game out

 

EDIT: I'm now really addicted to scrolling through your Encyclopedia to look at all the artwork

 

EDIT EDIT: I'd like to add this game to the directory as an "In Development" game. Would you say this is more of a "Virtual Pet Game" or a "Pet Sim"?

[Onyx]

@Nova 

Oh please don't get too attached to anything in the Encyclopedia, I didn't realize that it was available for the public to see and that's actually images and info for my old site Aluriya and you may even be seeing some stuff from my existing site, khimeros.   ^^;  I will ask the programmer to take the Encyclo offline until we can fill it with current info and images.  I have been planning to add the site to the directory, just haven't had time yet... would like to get some coherent info together first

[Nova]

@Onyx 

Oh no!  Well either way, it's very pretty

[Camy]

Really really love that layout!  It's so relaxing and gorgeous.  I don't think I heard of the past games before but it looks like a lot of fun already!

[fivestars1975]

WHatever happened to this idea? I miss Teripets SO bad.

[NintendoDS19]

Yes! Where is Teripets?

[Onyx]

I still have the entire teripets site but scapped developing it as a site of its own due to backlash from former artists.  I still hope to some day include a "teripets land" of some kind into aethria.  I had toyed with the idea of putting the old teripets site back up and just dealing with individual artist complaints as they came, but unfortunately that would require an operating budget, and these days people are just not willing to spend on petsites like they used to, so I can't support it financially.

[Mobotropolis]

I'm curious what you mean by "backlash from former artists". 

Feel like people are willing to spend on the right game, but generating interest is harder than it used to be since there's much more competition than there used to be. 

[Onyx]

Basically artists were claiming they were owed money for art.  Other artists said no, there was never any cash payment given for art, and no one was promised any pay, that they were paid in site perks.  The former owner also told me that no one was owed or promised money.  But it basically ended up in a big ugly mess that stymied development.  I had put a lot of resources already into the site, after purchasing it and buying new art etc, and the prospect of funneling more money and effort into it only to end up with a lot of ugliness surrounding the site just wasn't appealing.  I'd like to see the site go back up for old time's sake, but it's not a modern game in any way, shape, or form and would never be a high-earning game in its current form, unless people are lots more nostalgic than I think they are

 

[Mobotropolis]

Shame that a game that seems to be memorable to many people was derailed by drama. 

I guess if anything can be said about such a thing is that it can serve as a lesson learned on the game you're currently devoted to. Not just in how artists could or should be compensated -- but about how things might go should things go South like they inevitably seem to do for any project. 

Knowing how to PR is an invaluable skill. 

You are already demonstrating a great skill there; your honesty about what had happened. And it is appreciated. 

It may be worth-it to have a General Interest Survey when you have time. The people you often hear about are the so-called Vocal Minority. Those who cry and scream loudest about things that may not be in the best interests of the general population.

How do you know what the General Population wants? You ask them. 

You can also look at data, but that doesn't come until later in this case. ?

What I've found, especially around here, is that there are more people lurking than they are talking. So you can't really use what people say as a good indicator for what they want. You may have to make a case and throw up a poll for that. And don't get discouraged if one or two people tell you otherwise -- especially if the data shows otherwise.