Well, it's been way too long since the last update, but you all should be happy to know that Masks of the Elders is still being made, despite all of the forum problems. The next Demo should finally be up by Friday (more to give me time to prepare/do school work than anything else), and the teaser stories should start up on Wednesday.

Now, for progress: The forum downtime got me thinking seriously this summer, and I've decided to make some fairly radical changes to the way Act III plays out. Originally, the idea for the middle section of the Act was to have a Metroid-esque progression, where going through a mini-dungeon would give you an item to go to the next mini-dungeon until eventually you could get to the next main dungeon - then I realized this would give the player too much too fast, so it would have to be changed... then I remembered that there were a few islands still unexplored, so now, you'll be going to the island of Stelt instead. Don't worry - the items from what would have been that part of the game will still be obtainable, but they'll be in a side-quest instead.

Also, another radical change: I was looking through the equipment list and realized I had given far too few equipment upgrades to each character (a mere five each, at most), and that, in making those pieces of equipment, some characters were capable of wielding elemental weapons, and others weren't, and that only certain elements were represented, so I decided to add a new system, which will be implemented in Act III: Crafting. As part of this, each character will get a host of new weapons to use, including the full spectrum of elemental staffs, spears, disks, etc. You'll also be able to craft new healing items, and craft existing ones for much cheaper than buying them. Speaking of which: As of Act III, you'll want to craft all your new weapons, not buy them. It'll be much, much cheaper.

Oh, and here's a screenshot of the new Za-koro crafting house:

The building's still imcomplete, so there will be more crafting machines in there when it's done.

Also, as far as Act II's release goes, I'm going to try to get both the regular and enhanced-soundtrack versions released simultaneously.

Oh, and before I forget, I've got a bit of a weird surprise in store for Piraka Mania fans, and when I say surprise, I mean it: Don't even try to guess what's on its way. Just stay tuned, and hopefully next week it'll get posted.