NEWSFLASH: The sultanate of Shapeir is currently enlisting brave and devoted adventurers who are willing to assist the authorities in making the country a more stable and enjoyable place to be. Some time ago, the land was overtaken by a particularly elusive and persistent kind of creature, called a programming bug. In order to rid the land of these pests, Sultan Harun Al-Rashid (May He Live Forever!) in all His wisdom, sought out the help of a small band of valiant heroes to do battle with these abominations. This band fought long and hard and the bug population was drastically reduced over time as a result of their efforts. However, the remaining members of the population have become wary and have gone into hiding, only showing their face in very specific circumstances.

Because of that, additional adventurers are requested to journey to Shapeir and assist the Sultan's bug-exterminators in tracking down the remaining bugs that still plague the land. Because there is no reward in Dinars posted, the adventurers Shapeir is looking for should be self-sacrificing Paladin-type personalities who do not shun long, hard and tedious work for no compensation but a boosted personal honor stat. In addition, these adventurers should have a keen eye, analytical mind, a long attention span and the ability to think outside the box. Prior experience with the land of Shapeir is not mandatory, but the previously stated personality traits most certainly are.

Those adventurers who are interested and understand that their journey to Shapeir will not so much be a vacation, but a noble and necessary quest that involves them sacrificing their own enjoyment of Shapeir for the cause of the Greater Good, can scroll down and click on the link below.

Okay, all the poetic analogies aside... Quest for Glory 2 VGA is going beta and we're looking for suitable volunteers to help us test. If you have a lot of time to spend and have the qualities stated above, please apply and we may pick you as an official QFG2VGA beta tester. If you've looked through the progress reports thread and frequently thought to yourself: "I could have spotted those." you may be suited to the task.

Keep in mind that actual testing probably won't start until after new year, so testers will need a lot of time to spare even after the holidays.

If you think you have what it takes to help us give the game that extra bit of polish, please click on the link below and fill out the application form.

Sign up here.

P.S. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Just posting a quick note to mention that progress on the game's development is on-going, despite the lack of updates being posted here in the designer journals.

For the latest news, please check the following forum thread, where we'll post updates from time to time:

QFG2VGA Updates thread

At the moment, we are testing the alleyway system and fixing all known bugs that can appear during the Earth Elemental encounter. I recently finished a full play-through as a thief and noted down all of the glitches, and fatal crashes that I could find in the game - I combed through it pretty thoroughly. Currently, we're working through fixing the issues mentioned on that list, and it's kind of on the large side. However, the good news is that over half of these things have been addressed already. After all of the thief-related bugs have been taken care of, I'll repeat the process with a Magic User, and then again with a Fighter. With luck, this refinement period will stabilize the game to the point where it's manageable enough to commence beta testing. We're still aiming to start the beta testing phase this year, but of course, that'll be dependent on how soon our bug list starts to subside...

Last week I was cleaning up files on my hard drive, when I came across an old Quest for Glory 2 VGA build that was compiled back in January 2004 at around the time when we had originally intended to release the game to the public. Curious about the progress that had been made in between then and now, I fired it up. I can fully admit that I was shocked at how bland the game looked back then. None of the GUIs were updated, the backgrounds were not pixel-edited to perfection, and many scenes were unpolished and very rough. This made me feel all the more impressed at the additional level of quality that the extra years of effort have brought to the project. And suddenly I started thinking, "I'm glad we've spent the extra time on this and didn't release it back in 2004."

QFG2VGA is getting much closer to completion now and major progress has been made in the past month. Over 1000 entries were eliminated from our master to-do list and the remaining issues list seems like a manageable amount for the first time ever. As we finish up programming on the game and approach beta testing, please keep in mind that Quest for Glory 2 is a very large and complex game. Beta testing will likely take several months as we want to make sure that the game is as bug-free as possible before releasing it to the public. Finally, we want you to bear in mind that the long wait has made the game so much better than it otherwise would have been. We have hit the home stretch now and with luck, the months ahead will see us move into the final stage of development and prove beyond all doubt that QFG2VGA will be in your hot little hands before you know it.