Welcome!

Hello everyone and welcome to Gekkeiju Online's development journal. I'm Suvi Aalto also known as Lamex in Gekkeiju Online. I'm the founder and lead developer of the game.

I used to keep a development blog about the game several years ago but stopped doing it because of the lack of time. However, now I think it's about time to restard this as it'll also work as a diary for myself later on, and no doubt will be of great help.

I'll be posting development news about Gekkeiju Online and possibly some rants and what not about the game.

To those who don't know what Gekkeiju Online is or found it just a while ago, the game is a free-to-play, fantasy-themed multiplayer online role-playing game. The game is playercount wise still too small to be called MMORPG while technologically (server side) and content wise the game is enough to be one. The game has been playable since early 2002 (the game turned 7 years few months ago) but it has been redone almost completely several times already.

Gekkeiju Online has always been a hobby project for me which is why I have almost single handedly coded it. Of course a very big thanks goes to all the Open Source libraries, like Genesis 3D, Jet3D and Irrlicht, that were/are used in the game. Without these I couldn't have made anything playable so quickly.

The game started with a very small public beta in 2002. It was way too early which I had to learn the hard way. The graphics were ugly and people kept leaving because the game was simply too unfinished. People who end up leaving games this way usually never return because they think the game will be the same even after years. Sadly I learned this only some years ago when I noticed people having some horribly wrong ideas about the game in different discussion forums.

Currently I'm in process of, yet again, redoing the game almost completely. This project is called the New World (we call the old one the Old World). The project was first planned to be just a bigger update of redoing the area maps into bigger ones but eventually it turned into a massive graphics and content update. Many of the old features, like crafting, were completely redone, and some older features, like fishing, were added back. Also many new features have been introduced and many are still under construction like the Auction House-system. The newbie-friendliness has also been the top priority of the project.

So far I have mostly worked alone on this project with the exception of getting some level design help during the Old World from one of our admins. Some community members also stepped forward to donate all kinds of models and other resources for the game which was also helpful. However, during the development of the New World, I got a graphics artist to help me with the game. This has been a very huge help as I have now been able to concentrate on the coding side and not have to make textures myself all the time.

During the development of the New World I have also noticed how horribly the Old World and other previous versions of the game went wrong. I'll most likely be writing somekinda small post mortem about them at later time.

But welcome to the blog :) hopefully you'll enjoy your stay here.