Hi everyone!
Time for a long overdue update!
So it's been nearly 2 years (yikes!) since I started working on my co-driver. What started as a side project for my own personal use has now exceeded 10,000 downloads. This is crazy and quite bewildering to me but I'd like to start by saying a massive thank you to everyone who has downloaded and enjoyed the mod and supported this project.
Of course things have changed this year with Janne's incredible V3 beta now out in the wild along with V3 Luppis pacenotes. It was always my plan to upgrade 'Darren' for V3 compatibility once i felt the time was right. The community have been very patient (either that or no one really cares :P) and I've only had a handful of enquiries - which slightly surprised me - but is also somewhat welcome as I've been really busy and haven't had much time for RBR in general.
So with all that said I'd like to share my thoughts on the future of 'Darren' and where I see things going over the coming months.
What's happening?
Darren V2 is going to remain unchanged and continue to be available in all it's different forms. There is still a real purpose for it, particularly for people who don't need the detail or complexity that comes with V3. I will continue to support it as best I can. At some point in the future we might get to a point where V2 becomes obsolete but for now at least it will stay put.
Darren V3 will definitely happen. In fact it is already happening. It is a complete rebuild from the ground up with 100% V3 compatibility. The amount of work involved is immense. It is many times bigger and more complex than V2 which took me a couple of months even when i was able to work on it several hours per day. This time round I have less time and way more work. On the plus side I do have a tried and tested workflow which will help get through things quite efficiently so there will be a lot less time spent figuring things out on the fly.
Initially I'm starting with a generic numeric ascending scale. Other scales will follow but not until some point in the future when everything is working. Purely from a language (and my personal) perspective, some calls will be slightly tweaked or changed from Janne's mod but not radically. I'm open to feedback on improvements or other things you might like to see, but my initial goal is just to get a functional V3 on the table and fine tune afterwards.
Due to the extra detail in V3, calls are significantly more dense. This leaves a lot less scope for added 'flavour'. Depending on your perspective this may or may not be a good thing. A couple of little flourishes might sneak through where it doesn't interrupt the flow but otherwise it will be more like an enhanced version of my V2 'Pro Flavour' mod.
How long will it take?
Truthfully the answer is probably a while. There is a lot of recording, a lot of testing and a lot of tweaking. In my current situation (and assuming everything goes to plan) I could see having the first beta in a few weeks. It's entirely down to how much time I can find to work on it.
Support via donations
If you would like to help support me (and potentially speed up the project), any donations would certainly help. Just to be clear, Darren V3 WILL happen regardless as this is a project I want for my own use, but a little extra would help keep the coffee flowing. If I could raise a bit more then it would allow me to trade work time for time on the project, potentially cutting the development considerably. Here's a donation link.
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=TV77TNRX9JCYY
So that's all there is for now. I'll continue working away on V3 when I can, and will post updates over the coming weeks. Please join my Discord server (link on the right) to stay up to date and get priority access to any beta versions. Thanks again for using my mod. It still blows me away how many people are enjoying it!
Darren.