The Erebus - Future plans and progress discussion

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Dylan4ever

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Jul 29, 2019
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Hello fellow people,

I am here today to make a post about the Erebus, which you may or may not have heard of. Basically, an update on the way the team is organised, our plans for the near future, and some other things that have happened. Let's start.

History lesson

I started the Erebus back in May 2012. I was fairly new to the modding community, had helped some mods as a creative brain, but I was useless. I truly couldn't do anything. I collected a bunch of people, but it wasn't until half a year later that it finally started ''taking off''.
Unfortunatly, it was messy. Rather messy. The code was, my managment was, the plans were, everything was. The lead coder then left, because due to time differences, it was incredibly hard to communicate. The Erebus went into a dormant state.
Then, one day, I was contacted by Dave (vadis365), the current mob coder. He had never worked on any public mods before, and showed me some of his modelling and coding work and offered his help. I can't thank him enough for that. Him being there, helping out, kept me motivated for the project until I assembled our current team. Dave is a wonderful person and a great coder.
I asked chylex via MCF to join because I thought it was worth a shot, even though I never expected him to accept. He did, and that was absolutely wonderful. He was (and is) an incredibly talented coder, even more so than I had thought, and he has done some amazing things.
I asked Ganymedes01 by mere chance, and he was also interested. Yet again, an incredibly talented coder, who has done a lot to help Dave keep his code clean, and overall has worked on a ton of things.

Then we land today, back to the actual subject, namely the Erebus itself.

Future plans

The Erebus was fairly random during the 0.1.x branch. We added what we felt like, but were mainly busy cleaning up and rewriting huge parts of the mod. These features were nice, but there was a severe lack of direction, making it feel like an assembly of random items with seemingly no coherence at all.
That will be one of the main goals of the 0.2.x branch. Make the Erebus feel like one mod, make the player explore all different parts of the mod to collect resources and items to craft the many items we offer.
Here are some of the concrete plans:
- Animation magic. Dave has added a variety of cool items to the mod, such as the Wand of Animation, and we want to intertwine that with the Erebus lore, make it feel like part of the mod instead of something seperate. Animation magic will offer a lot of different uses, such as a currently not even properly planned spell system, customizable armour, control over living blocks, etc. Use the power of life to imbue different things and rule. That sort of stuff.
- Farming. For people following the Twitter or the modded news thread, you might have seen some sneak peeks about the ant farming. We also have bee farming planned. These two will be closely related and give you the ability to create huge farms, following a nice progression system that gives you the ability to do either one of the two on its own, but work better together.
- Cooking. The Erebus adds a lot of items without a use, and to make everything feel useful, many items will be usable as ingredients for custom foods. Instead of set recipes for different food items (which there will still be), you will be able to combine different ingredients to create completely original foods that have different effects, depending on the combination of ingredients, both positive and negative.
- Dungeons. The Erebus is a nice place, but we want to offer adventure for those that crave dungeoneering (which I personally do). Again, intertwined with the lore, you will be able to explore many dungeons and defeat a variety of bosses, collect many different loots, and just have fun. Each biome should eventually offer something for you to explore.

These are some big plans. We do not expect all of them to be done soon, especially not because of the progress, or rather, the lack thereof, which leads me to my new subject...

Trouble in paradise

We are a fairly small team for such a prestigious project. We should be able to manage with so little people, but when someone has some real life stuff to attend to, progress sure takes some major hits. Ganymedes01 has been somewhat absent, and chylex has also been less active.
Ofcourse, the managment I've provided is lacking. Part of the lack of direction can be traced back to my own lack of direction. Chylex has apparently been hitting his head over some things, yet I've managed not to pick up on that. No wonder he lost part of his motivation for the project...
That's why I am trying to do a better job at it. Reorganising the plans, getting the priorities sorted, etc. I'm currently seeking people to help (one or two more), so we are less dependent on the three coders we currently have, so everyone has some freedom to move around. You can surely offer yourself if you think you have the expertise to do great things, but I will mainly be searching for people myself, so don't worry.

Anyway, that ends my rant. I want the Erebus to live up to its priorities, so I need to do my best to make everything run smoothly, so the coders can do what they need to do without having to worry too much. I hope you found it interesting to read up on the current state of the Erebus project.

~ Dylan
 
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RealSketch

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Jul 29, 2019
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I look forward to all future updates, the current 1.6.4 version is amazing, and I am speechless for words on what to say about what 1.7.10 will be like.
I am most looking forward to customize-able armor, something every adventurer wishes for and requires, and also farming, which shall be very beneficial.
The direction The Erebus is heading is unique, I've never seen a mod that add so many aspects into it: magic, tech, battle, adventure etc.
Best of luck for the future! :)