Thanks to the new forums, and an enthusiastic attitude from all content contributers, development on the CXP has resumed after only a slight hiccup. I have set a submission deadline of July 31st for all CXP content. In addition, I will keep an updated Master Content List for the CXP to make tracking content versions much easier. I will now be assuming a role equivalent to a Bittorrent Tracker; seeing who has what content and maintaining a master list of everything. However, it will be up to the individual developers to coordinate on issues as there will be no real head of the entire development effort (unless someone steps up). Outlaw will be managing the mappers, and I might get another CXP developer to manage the skinners if need be.

If everyone plays their cards right, we should have polished, release-ready content in the Master List by the end of July. After that, I will do very basic bug testing of all the submitted content, weeding out serious functionality errors but not going in too deep. I will then package up everything by mid August and release it to a small testing group to make sure it works without major issues. We hope to release the CXP to the public before the end of August. No concrete date can really be set at this time.

To keep up with the latest CXP development work and Project-related discussion, the forums are still your best bet. I won't have time to post progress updates here very often. I will still attempt to post current screenshots and the like, but as for development news, refer to the board.

With any luck, we should be able to pull this off. I have confidence in our community. We'll get this done one way or another.

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Thanks to Mematrix, we now have a new set of VBulletin forums up! I encourage everyone to register there and help us get the CXP rolled out. All CXP devs should post the most recent versions of all their content in the CXP subforum so that I can assess our situation and estimate a possible release date. Under the leadership of OutlawSkot, our mappers might well turn out 20+ maps for the CXP, including a few more conversions from Halo. I'm making every effort to keep this Project together through the release of the CXP, and your support is greatly appreciated.

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This post is very hard for me to write. I guess I knew it would come to this someday, but that doesn't make it any easier. In the fashion of nearly all the mod groups that have ever thrown their dice into play, Project Torlan's days will soon come to an end... but not before one last hoorah.

Today, Exodus--who has been, quite frankly, the only reason I did not have to write this message long ago--departed from the Project. His life right now is a great struggle, but out of respect for him I will not go into details. As many of you understand, the world can be a cruel and cold place with disheartening consistency. It smashes even the most noble dreams and brings even the most resolute among us to their knees. At the same time, the world can offer joys and happiness that move us to forget the bad moments. Either way, it is the struggle with life's cruelty and life's bliss that takes priority over anything we may aspire to do here, in cyberspace. Exodus has left us so that he may take up that struggle, and I'm afraid that I must, as well. Therefore, the Project is ending.

However, since we have survived for over a year and completed so much, it would be shame to simply end the project without some sort of farewell gift to all the fans that have been so loyal to us for so long. That gift will be the Community eXtras Pack, or CXP, which has been in development for the past few months. I can't say exactly when it will come, or what exactly what it will have, but I can promise you that it will be big. Pretty much everything that you have been seeing screenshots of in the CXP WiP galleries will be released. We will attempt to assemble it all into a respectable package and get it out to you before the Summer is over.

After the release of the CXP, I will formally release all current Project Torlan teams members from the squad and suspend the Project indefinitely. I will talk with Steve about keeping the site active, and I will attempt to keep some forums active in some place or another. But development on the project will cease until someone with a ton of free time, leadership abilities, experience in modding, and blind determination comes along and wishes to resume it. Therefore, the Project might possibly resume sometime in the future if such a person offers to take it on. Otherwise, the site should be here and our content will remain on various file servers for you to enjoy as long as people play UT2004.

I promised you that I would see this Project out to whatever conclusion was in store for it, and apparently this is it. I'll post an update soon about a possible release date for the CXP.

Thank you all! It's been an incredible ride.

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Thanks to Majai, the HaloUT Community Server is up and running. You can check on the status of the server, see who's playing, and even join it directly through our Server Status page. Make sure you have the q3px plugin installed.

See you there!

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After the longest outage yet, the Torlan site is finally active again. Our host had family issues and technical issues but has finally gotten them all resolved. It will take a few days, possibly even over the weekend, to get all the new WIP pics posted. Even though our site has been down, the forums have been as active as ever. The CXP is still on track, and there are easily over 100 new pictures on my hard drive ready to be posted. Bear with me as I get them all converted and posted.

Thanks for your patience over the last month. Let's pray this doesn't happen again any time soon and focus on getting back into the swing of things.

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I just realized that this week marks the one year anniversery of the founding of Project Torlan. In light of this, I felt it appropriate to say a few words in retrospect...

When I began Project Torlan way back in April of 2004, I was the only member of the team, and the first screenshot--posted on a page of the most basic HTML you can imagine--was one of the Silent Cartographer mesh viewed in Maya. Since those humble beginnings, we have come farther than I ever could have dreamed. Through Pack 1.0, Pack 1.5, Pack 1.75, and in little while, the Nexus CXP. We have accomplished so many incredible things, and we are still looking to accomplish more.

The road to this point has not been an easy one. One of the first members of the team to bring us content was a contemptible person who went here by the name of "Scully". We later learned that the content Scully was giving us was stolen from a developer named Mark Jensen. This revelation about Scully's true "talents" resulted in his/her (we never found out Scully's actual gender) immediate expulsion from the team. While Scully was the worst, there have been other members since that have tested our resolve through subversive actions. But we have weathered them all, and the determination of this Project has been hardened as a result.

The support of our community has truly touched me on a number of occasions. At the best of times and at the worst of times, our fans have been there to cheer us on and pledge their unwavering loyalty to and love for this Project. It nearly brings a tear to my eye when I hear how much you all have enjoyed the content that we have released, and how much you don't want us to go under. For all of this and so much more, I truly, deeply thank each and every one of you.

In addition to the fans, I'd like to extend an equal amount of gratitude to all the developers, past and present, that have contributed content to the Project. You are the true creators of our success. Also, I would like to say a very special thank you to Exodus, who came on board when we were little more than a struggling mod group, saw our potential, and has played an incredibly vital role in making us ten times greater than we could have ever been without him. He has spent more time on this Project than anyone else (including myself, I must admit). I could never repay him for the limitless devotion and self-sacrifice he has expressed.

As we look toward an always-uncertain future for this Project, the only thing I can really promise you is that we will see it through to a conclusion. So many mod projects have come and gone because of issues that Torlan has encountered. We have beaten them all so far, and this has made us stronger, I think. The Total Conversion is still planned, but when it will come I cannot say. It will take as long as it takes for us to do it absolutely right and of the highest quality. We know that you expect nothing less.

Here's to another exciting year of Project Torlan!

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In addition to adding about 50 new pics to the CXP WIP, I have split up the area into three subsections: Maps, Models, and Other. This is mainly to cut down on load times and make it easier to browse specific CXP content pictures. Entries updated or added in the last site update will now have a gold star by them, and sections with updates or additions will also have a gold star by their name.

Let me know your feelings either way about this new system.

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Due mostly to a lack of submissions from the community, from now on I am going to be choosing new Pictures of the Moment only on Sundays. Unless I start getting inundated with above-average PotM submissions on a regular basis, the format will remain weekly.

In other news, the CXP is coming along wonderfully. Also, we have acquired a new coder and new a modeller to help us work on Pack 2.0.

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I am now going to archive the Pictures of the Day at the bottom of the PotM page, so all the pics that had made it to PotM will be preserved.

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