Small note on those images:
I see no reason to change the host. They've been hosted from the same place (my webserver) since day one on the old forums. If you're having trouble seeing them may I suggest that it is an internal issue? If all of the images suddenly go out on both forums for more than one person then we can safely say there is a hosting issue, but until then please do use the originals.
A note on the mod:
Things are coming together finally. It seems to be more and more like a worthy expansion. I find myself
playing when I should be play
testing. Much of what you see here isn't final and shouldn't be expected. When I get a beta release out then we'll know more what to expect from a first official release. I just wanted to be more clear about this because I had Deceitful create this thread and he has been a little more verbose than I expected. It's not a bad thing, but it does give away a lot that sometimes hasn't yet been discussed or finalized.
Here are some things I have rather officially implemented on this build:
1. the world was expanded (8,400 x 6,000) I just arbitrarily didn't expand the width this time... I might later.
2. I have added these new tiles/walls
-Granite Block
-Granite Brick
-Granite Brick Wall
-Pyroclast Block
-Pyroclast Brick
-Pyroclast Brick Wall
-Magmatite Block
-Magmatite Brick
-Magmatite Brick Wall
-Carbmacite Block
-Carbmacite Brick
-Carbmacite Brick Wall
-MoleCity Block
-MoleCity Wall
Some things aren't 100% yet. For instance, I don't yet have some colors on the map specifically the walls and mole city block, I don't have all the recipes coded, I haven't verified all of the dust and sounds. Most of that is rather trivial though. What I do have is just so friggin awesome. The Pyroclast specifically looks just fantastic. It has taken over for Magmatite as the primary tile for the bulk of the Middle Earth layer. It is now the lighted tile that Magmatite was; with a darker secondary tile being Magmatite. Carbmacite still dominates the core and surrounds the geodes. I've shrunk the lava layer down considerably as per the suggestion of several followers and team members. The Middle Earth layer and Core layer were increased instead. This was a good decision, I think, because it still retains much the same feel as the large lava open area and geode spawn area and it gives us more tile layered area to play through. Because of these changes, I now think the Middle Earth area is now my favorite. It just looks so damn cool. The Core will still be my baby... though i am having trouble thinking of what I'd like to see in a mostly solid layer of material (there are no caves in The Core).
3. I've added a music track to the deep crust, the middle earth, and added the old core track back for the lava and core layers. There are also additional tracks added specifically for each of the biome areas we're adding: the Mole City, the Dwarven City, the Soul Pit, the Mothership, and the Core Dungeon.
4. The Mole City was moved out of Middle Earth and into the Deep Crust layer. The Deep Crust layer isn't really new per se. What I've done is made the area where the caverns transition from water to lava more distinct. The enemy spawns are more tightly controlled and change. The primary tile changed from stone to granite and the secondary tile from dirt to stone. Lava is still the liquid for the area. The music changes and possibly we might throw in a new background or two. This area didn't have much in the way of biomes/mini-biomes. The mole city just made more sense here. It has it's own tile and wall now. Soon it will have it's own NPCs and special drops/chests items. Think of it as a more elaborate spider cavern.
5. I revamped a feature I call Guest Mode. This feature allows you to let players visit your world without worrying about griefing. The revamp gives you the ability to disable individual locks out that Guest Mode uses. I found this idea while reviewing some online Terraria servers. Sometimes people do want to PVP, but not edit a world. Sometime to not PVP or be able to summon bosses, but edit a world and build things. This new feature and lockouts are documented in the new dedicated server config file. Guest Mode for now (perhaps always) is either on or off for hosted games. To get the granular settings, you have to use a dedicated server config file. It only made sense to me do do it that way. People hosting local games aren't going to care much for detailed settings like this I presume.?
6 alpha. The public feature hasn't had much in the way or code progress yet, but the idea has been given much thought. I know mostly how I want to do it. Again, only with dedicated servers you can set one up to enable public access. Your server will appear in other players' games when they do something. This 'something' concept has some contention at the moment. I think the general intention is to use the already implemented World Gate Tile and mechanics to open a Star Map as we call it. From there things aren't agreed upon.
-What I want personally:
I want to see dynamically populating beacon/planet/World icons appear. With a simple hover you get information about the world (name, player count, guest status, etc). Clicking the world should take you there. There would likely be the same function disables used already with the World Gate like when you're hosting a game locally (If you left you'd take the world down for other players). There has been discussion about population of the worlds dependent on ping criteria. IE worlds with less lag to you populate first. Take all of this is a we'll see basis. I think you can expect something for public games though. It's a feature I plan to make happen.
Currently, I'm working on the NPC spawns to get them situated with the new world lines and new areas. It's mostly finished. Now I need those new NPCs to spawn!! As a further ramble I did some fun testing. I've read about all sorts of limits for spawns from different sources. Other than the 200 NPC limit the game currently has and the 60 frames per second limit there just aren't any limits. Last night, I set hell to spawn with a 200 limit at a rate of 1 (the default is 600). My client choked a lot on that
0-4FPS. The server was fine fully maintained it's 60FPS. Just for fun thought. The Terrablade wasn't enough to hold of this spawn rate. I could never clear the area. There were just so many coming constantly (60 per second). These were only normal hell enemies not even hard mode. Single hit kills from the Terrablade. Okay rambles done... for now.