Progress Report

Okay, so...news is mixed. Not horrible, but not fantastic. We'll take them one at a time though.

Left Hand Magic

*sigh*

The good news here is that I'm actually a couple of days ahead of schedule regarding renders. I'm anticipating being done by the 26th, instead of the 28th which was my original estimate. The bad news, unfortunately, is that delays with the other rewards have kept me from getting any of the writing and programming done so far. And I'm not anticipating being able to do so until after the renders finish. Since I'm expecting writing/programming to take roughly 8 days, and there will only be 5 days left to the month when I'm expecting to be able to start on that...I'm expecting a small delay again.

Of course, the delay shouldn't be that bad. Unless something goes majorly wrong, I doubt it will be more than 3-5 days of delay, which is honestly what we've been dealing with since December. I also warned everyone this might happen again, though I'll also remind everyone again that I've stated unequivacly that it won't be allowed to happen (barring something beyond my control) again next month, even if that means a smaller Haven's Port release. As it is, we've basicly been carrying the same delay forward since January, rather than there being a new delay each month. So hard-stopping that cycle should hopefully end the delays, at least where the game release cycle goes. 

Mixed Media/Comic

This one has been an aboslutle brat the entire month. And the screwy part is that I can't evem figure out why. For some reason basically every single render took significantly longer than it should have (averging around 12 hours). I have my suspicions that a few of the assets I acquired this time that claimed to be Iray compliant, actually weren't. But, as I fundamentally don't understand exactly how the differences work (I sort of, kinda of, understand parts of it, like the lighting, but the materials and shaders are a lot more murky to me), I can't prove that. 

Whatever the issue, I only just finally finished the rendering for it earlier today. You know, a good 4 days after I was expecting to be done. And even then it's a bit shorter then I'd originally intended, render wise, only being 16 renders rather than the 18 or so I was orignally shooting for. I'll be doing the post-processing on the renders, then starting on the writing. Hopefully, it will be up late on the 24th or 25th.

Short Story

This is actually done. I just need to give it an editing pass and I can post it. It's not as long as I usually aim for with ME:FE, but it's still about the length for a normal short (around 5,000 words). The length difference had everything to do with me fumbling around how to handle the time skippy bits. What I settled on was doing a set of interludes, probably just two, each covering a few major events that happen during the years between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3. No, that wasn't a Typo. Since Cerberus is already toast and Oriana knows about the Collectors in advance, the events of Mass Effect 2 are kinda...not relevant.

Interlude 1, which is what I will be releasing this time, will show brief snippets of some highlights between Mass Effect 1 and 2.

Interlude 2 will (next time ME:FE wins a poll) show highlights from the events of Mass Effect 2 that weren't covered already (and are still relevant). Including, of course, some recruitment of team memebrs and such. Also things like how Wrex already having a Genophage cure will effect the Krogans. 

After those, the much-altered events for Mass Effect 3, which will bare almost no actual resemblance to Mass Effect 3's kinda mediocre plot, will start. Or, at least, that's my current plan.