Well, before I go to the annual family gathering where I eat many buffalo wings and watch the "Christmas with the Joker" episode of Batman: The Animated Series, I figured I would talk a bit about MotW's future.

We've been quiet lately, not just because the last arc is in production, but also because of generally busy lives (ArtBane especially these days). We do fully intend for Arc VII to be completed within the next year, and hopefully closer to spring rather than winter. A decent amount of work has been done on it (some done during Arc VI when we thought it was going to be part of the same arc), and I personally have been making strides with the writing.

Enkur also had a nice streak where he completed numerous battlers for the previous arcs, including veteran characters like Andau and Morias. Those two and others will make their debut with the next release of the game's previous arcs (Super Duper Ginormous Pack? I dunno). This revision will also showcase ArtBane's extensive work on the battle system, which hopefully will address some of the complaints the more critical players have had. I don't have a concrete release date for that bad boy, but art and battles will be the prominent changes...we feel like we tackled the mapping stuff last time.

Hard to believe we've worked on this game since 2005...time flies when you're having fun. I was just getting out of college when we started, and now I'm married with my own place and faced with the discomforting fact that yes, I am an adult now. Imagination, though, is timeless, and I don't plan to ever lose mine (barring Alzheimer's or something, I already have a tendency to forget random things, oh boy...)

Thanks to all of you for your continued interest and support. Happy Holidays!

(That's right Bill O'Reilly, I said that and not "Merry Christmas." Bring it. I'll kick your ass)

ARC VI DOWNLOAD

Arc VI, the second to last arc, is finally here! Click it like it's hot.

We hate to do this again, but the more we get done on Arc VI, the more we realize there is left to do. I'm sure you recall that some time ago we announced that Arcs VI and VII would be combined into one massive final chapter. The rationale for this at the time is that the standalone Arc VII was looking like it was going to be on the short side, not really suitable for the concluding chapter of a game this size.

However, now that we're about halfway through, we're confronting certain realities about the large-scale story we've set up over the last few years. There are many loose ends to tie up, questions to answer, plot points to address so that nobody feels like the game has ended prematurely. There were many who finished Arc V and wondered aloud questions like "How are they going to deal with all of this?" I don't think any of us knew how right you were.

When all the needed plot points are lined up, it amounts to a lot of extra content. Enough that will stretch Arc VII to a pretty respectable length.

So the bad news is that we've been going back and forth on this like clumsy politicians. But there is a lot of good news in this scenario. Wondering what that is? For one, Arc VII is now going to have an additional dungeon! It will utilize some puzzle ideas that ArtBane tried out for V but ultimately nixed. But the best bit of good news for you all is that because I said we were about "Halfway done" that means that returning to the two arc approach will make Arc VI ready for release as early as August.

So sorry to change things up on you again, but game design is a tricky thing. I can't imagine switching again, especially once we get another completed arc out there. Please look forward to it!

Another year of the Misaos comes to a close, and this year Master of the Wind gets two. Best Dialogue and Best Level Design! I have to say, I'm very pleased to finally grab that Dialogue win...and to win for Arc V, which has easily the most personal story...it's a nice feeling. ArtBane gets to add a second win in the Level Design category to his internet mantle, though we all know he should have about five or six of these.

Some friends of ours also had success this year. Anaryu took Best Non-RPG for SkyE, and Reives took home another big haul with wins for Quintessence as well as the cinematic Do You Remember My Lullaby short. Congrats to them and the other winners.

Thanks to all who voted this year, and we hope to deliver Arc VI before this next round of awards!

P.S.: As with last year, we'll reward you guys with a screenie, but I'm not sure which one yet. Details to follow.

That came quick, eh? Well, voting is open for this year's Misao awards and Master of the Wind has been honored with six nominations this time - Best Lead Character (Stoic), Best Dialgoue, Best Storytelling and Direction, Best Level Design, Best RPG and Game of the Year.

Vote here!

I doubt we'll win Game of the Year two times in a row...that sounds excessive even to me. Still, some of those awards would make me quite proud. In particular, I've lost that damn Dialogue category 3 or 4 years in a row. Kate Winslet broke her losing streak this year....will I?

Thanks everyone for supporting the game year round!

I plan on releasing a patched version of the Super Duper Pack (arcs I-V). I haven't tried to cover up in the past that the Master of the Wind battle system is a bit of a mess. It just became much more apparent in the later arcs with more and more physical skills becoming useless. So I've gone back and made some changes and now all skills are based almost entirely on attack power instead of static damage points like before.

Why didn't I just do this in the first place? Well, dear reader, that's because in the past I've had issues with dual wielders attack power being much greater than two handed wielders meaning their skill damage was significantly higher. But, with a little more thought, I realized that I could base skill damage on just the first hand weapon So now skill damage is entirely based on just the weapon in the main (right) hand. This of course meant I had to go back and retool all the physical skills, but I'm happy to report now that every skill is viable in combat, even initial skills like Bludgeon.

The update will replace the main download on the site. I imagine though most people will just want to wait until arc VI to experience the battle changes. Either way, I'll edit this post when it is available.

Just uploaded the Super Duper Pack again with all the fixes to the bugs posted in the beta thread. Thanks everyone who helped out. You can get the game at the same address as before.

In addition, the individual arcs are no longer available for download. I want there to be just one definitive version for now. If you played the standalone arcs though you won't have to worry about there being any problems when transferring your save file to arc VI. Everything should still be in order. If you were in the middle of playing the standalone games you can attempt to transfer your save files to the Super Duper Pack but I can't promise there won't be issues.

On the arc VI front, the first dungeon of the arc has been completed and believe me when I say it's a substantial one. So much so, it's broken into three parts. I may drop some previews in the near future.