Delay. It's an ugly word, we know, but it's here. Why...? Well... Let's take a closer look at it.

Those of you who are familiar with our project and are keeping an eye on it (www.farawaystudios.com) surely have noticed 
already... No, unfortunately the year 2007 is not going to be (hasn't been :'-} ) the "lucky year"... But let me put it 
another way: The release date hasn't been postponed from its old "stable" Q3-Q4 2007" indefinitely, neither it has been 
canceled as it happens with many similar projects nor stopped or paused and not even passed to another team (yuck! :-/ )
- the release has only been put off till 2008. Now when you think about it it doesn't sound that bad, does it? Hang the 
delays, the quality is what matters! 
Why has it been delayed? And why is the new release date so vague (2008; no specific day, month or season)? We'll answer 
these questions in the following article. And we'll take it right from the beginning.

In the beginning we've done a capital mistake; a mistake that won't be affecting the final looks or the quality of the game,
but an unpleasant mistake nevertheless: we announced a specific release date. Regrettably. At that time we had no experience 
with developing a project that complex and big as UIG is, taking into consideration it is a freeware project. And as we had 
no experience we couldn't have estimated correctly the time necessary to complete it. We had experience with smaller projects
and experience relevant to ones specialization (graphics, programming, screenwriting, dialogues, sound, music etc.) and even
though this experience wasn't insignificant it was basically useless as it couldn't be applied to UIG - a fact we hadn't been
fully aware of. And so we estimated the first release date mainly from the first few weeks of the development of UIG... 

Yeah, the first few weeks... That's the time when you still have no idea what all you will need... You have no idea that the
project will grow considerably over time. You have no idea that the project will also grow in terms of quality and ideas you
at first considered utopian where suddenly there forming a vital and indispensable part of the game. You don't realize that 
when you are trying to develop an almost proffesional looking game with a "freeware team" where nobody's geting paid for 
anything and therefore has to work and make money by doing something else it surely has to show - and if it doesn't show on 
the resulting quality it has to quite logically show on the amount of time needed to complete the game. You don't realize 
that in the beginning everything is going smoothly as everybody's fresh, full of ideals, looking forward to finishing the 
project, to the reaction of players. You don't realize that there are no bugs that need solving yet. You don't realize that
somebody will have to manage the project, look for new people etc. and that this will affect the development time too... 
There is a lot of it, isn't there :-)? And I could go on and on... Regrettably...

If we had the chance to choose again we wouldn't give out any specific dates and we'd recommend to the players to keep an eye
 on our regular updates to make their own opinion. Yeah, we could have just given you the old "When its done." But we gave 
you a specific date instead and switching to "When its done" is would not be the right idea now. That's why we're giving you
now an unspecific yet firm and clear release date: the year 2008! If you're interested in knowing a more concrete date we 
recommend you (as we should've done in the first place) to keep an eye on our updates and especially the info about the 
current status and progress of the project that we release from time to time. They ought to help you make an opinion about 
the release date yourself.

If you've read the last developer diary... Well ups... you didnt, they are regrettably only in czech now, but we are taking 
into account that we would translate even them into english... Would you be interested in reading the past developers diary 
(2 articles)? Please let us know for example by email or on our forum. But lets get back the to point. If you would read
them, then you would be aware of what we have to cope with on daily basis and how much time and effort it costs. In spite of
all that there's something worth mentioning - the project is still alive and progressing. Does that seem obvious? Well it's 
not! Just take a look at some other comparable freeware projects (taking into account their complexity , ambitions etc.) 
What's that? You can't find any...? 

Let's take a close look at it then - there has been one project (1st person however) developed by some french guys, with nice
graphics (they released some screens without any characters though) almost proffesional looks, no additional materials have 
been released however. Current status? For over a year now I haven't heard a single word about it. There has been a sequel to
 a well know czech freeware adventure game in development. Current state? All the team members have been replaced several 
times (and once even the whole team), the last version of the script (and I've got to say I quite liked it) was completely 
different from the first one, the date is being put off for 4 (?) years already and yet there are still some who beleive it 
will come out one day.There was a project called Sinfull Nights (czech); again, good looking. Current state? It has succumbed
and now you'll have to buy it (congratulations to the authors nevertheless :-) ). There was Penumbra (alright I know, that's
a bit different story and as far as I know it was more of a tech demo than a complete freeware game (?)) Neverthless current
state? It too has succumbed (and according to first reactions it was ever so lovely and full of the sweet scent of the tiny 
bits of paper). And I could go on like this with at least 3 more games... Right now I can only think of a single title that's
still alive. But that's no surprise as it's being developed by a team comparable to a profesionall team in terms of its size
and production. I won't tell you its name as I don't want you to google away from this article :-) However, I'll let you know
it's not a Czech game. And now: think hard and tell me, whether you think that all that happened to these projects more or 
less comparable to UIG was just bad luck? No... what happened was simply the most probable scenario. And vice versa: UIG is 
being the paradox as it hasn't been canceled nor it has switched to a commercial game, but it keeps on going thanks to all 
the work put into it and the endurance of the team and thanks to positive feedback from you, the fans... 

But if you haven't forgiven us till now and you're still clutching that rock in your fist from last time (or maybe from last
year) then you've just got to throw it; it will make you feel better and you'll free your right hand this way - because you
will be needing it... Concretely in 3 weeks when (as no delay can be announced without some kind of compensation) "something"
will arrive to our homepage...Viva la 2008!
Oh and please let us also know if you are interested in the Developers diaries (if yes, we would translate them to english) ?