Hello all, long time no post.
The BIG news is that I’m now engaged to a very wonderful woman. 
This has, understandably, been consuming a great deal of my free time of late. I haven’t even been playing many computer games of late. (Other than Morrowind… not buying Skyrim until it drops in price.)
I also haven’t had a lot of vacation time lately, I’m taking two weeks in December here for the holidays. And my first priority is to get the house cleaned up; my office space (also my developer space) is very disorganized and messy. After that, I think I’ll see if I can pick back up the CRPG work.
I left off with the combat system, trying to get the sprite FX working. Which it wasn’t, so I was trying to debug to find out what’s happening… at one point I had a nasty VDP crash going on, but now it just mysteriously does nothing. 
I’m always thinking about changes to the game framework, some of the ideas that Ultima IV brought up. But the combat engine graphics are pretty static and can work with anything driving them underneath, so I think I’ll plow ahead on that for now.
Congrats mate, that is awesome. Now you’ll have to add her as a character in your game.
Something like “Anne Armageddon”?
On Skyrim:
I don’t get why people wait for it to drop in price. This is one of the few game (like Morrowind & Oblivion) where you really get something for the regular asking price. It has hundreds of locations (the dungeons are fantastic, way better than in Oblivion) and more importantly: Hundreds of quests – all of them in higher quality than before. This is “a world to be” – perhaps the game more successful at this as Ultima 7. It’s absolutely terrific, the most atmospheric RPG I played in years and I can wholeheartedly recommend it to any CRPG player, except the really tactical-minded crowd that needs parties and battle rounds.
However, two things apply:
a) It is – still – really bug infested.
This is one of the two reasons I can imagine to avoid playing it. I made the mistake to buy the PS3 version because I wanted to play it on the big telly with the good audio system – this version is the most problematic of the three because gameplay gets increasingly lagger after some time so you have to quit&reload. Add to this half a dozen dead quests and you probably have one of the most problematic console games ever. Thanks Bethesda for completely ruining my PS3 experience!
So: Get the PC version, register it with Steam (you can’t sell it used!) and be happy – when the quest bugs are fixed sometime next year! It will be very likely a Game of the Year edition with additional DLC content by then…
b) When you play it you will bury the rest of your spare time!
It’s one of those “I’ll just play this tiny little mission and then quit!”-games where you suddenly notice that dawn is breaking outside. I’m now somewhere close to 190 hours in the save file and still have lots to do. The main story missions are not too hot but not as shabby as some reviewers wrote – but the heart really lies in the many other missions, sometimes as simple as storming a castle with companions or clearing a dungeon, sometimes cleverly constructed – making the most out of the resources of the game (you will see what I mean). The thieves guild missions also feel more authentic than in the earlier games, for example.
IMHO: Not playing it isn’t an option for modern CRPG players (see exception above) but try to make the best out of it. My suggestion to you: Try to play it when you are married – she can’t escape that easily when you have forgotten her name over it…
I think this project is dead….
Project is not dead, just resting.
I’m getting married next month, so I’ve had precious little time for other things.
wow !