Shadowbane: Expansion # 2 (Throne of Oblivion) is starting to get the press that comes with a launch. MMORPG.com has a nice preview with some nice screenshots that shows off how we use our normal mapping technology. RPGVault has a nice rundown as well. HomeLanFed has a interview with my Producer. RPGVault was also nice enough to call us one of the potential sleeper hits of the fall season.

For those who want more detail, we answered a lot of questions in this House of Commons chat with Stratics.

Where are we? This is really close to hitting the beta server. Really, really close. As in, we’ve been ordered to stop checking in changes unless they are crucial. For the most part, we feel pretty good about where we are. Nearly all of the art and design/data tasks are done. Worldbuilding and coding have a couple of small things that won’t make phase one but should easily make the next patch. Right now, design is waiting for bug reports from QA and doing a myriad of minor data changes which turn on code functionality of new features (which explains how I have time to post this during work).

I don’t want to morph into a marketing shill or anything – I don’t want to pawn my soul off quite yet — but overall, I’ve been really excited about how this expansion pack has gone. It’s extremely ambitious on all sides, and really has an opportunity to change how Shadowbane is played. I can’t wait to see it in action.