I'm working on the Metroid Online project again. Me, Lightning, Kirby, Mithos, Teh Lag, and Sc00by are all working on various parts of the project. I also have SonicXtreme of the Sonic Maps fame helping us shoot a vid for promotion for the mod when it's finished up. We have planned to use the existing mod, without the addition of the "defensive beams": Solar Beam, Force Beam, Spazer Beam, or the Super Missile (which isn't really defensive, but it doesn't make much sense and would be sort of cheap).
Double-jump is still out. Morphball is still out. Grapple-beam is still out. Even though I showed the ship in a previous "teaser trailer", there are no intentions of making it a pilotable vehicle, it will either be used as scenery or just for promotional purposes. Tallon IV will not be redone, we are going to utilize other maps to take it's place. I believe the only reason that that was one of the first maps we released is because we didn't have any other completed levels to really put our mod into. We also figured the waterfall would be fun to jump off of, which it was. I feel like I sorta cheated by using Derelict and just putting the mod in it, but I felt the design worked well with the gameplay our mod offered. I guess this leads me into talking about the maps we have planned.
I want to release an Elemental map pack. This consists of Phendrana Shorelines, Magmoor Caverns, Maridia, Fire Deity, and Chozo. Whether all of these make it in is up in the air, but the only one of those maps that hasn't been in game/textured yet is Maridia, so there's a good chance we'll get all of those out except for that one, but I'd love to have Maridia included, mainly because of an unrevealed addition: an underwater booster pack. You may have seen the mishaps we included in the "History" video of that one map where we were trying to get double-jump to work. Well, I think we can refine the idea and make an underwater jetpack of sorts. If done properly, it should add an additional element to the mod and will alter the strategic nature of our mod significantly for the better.
I feel sorta bad for delivering a teaser video last year and never delivering anything from it. This should more than make up for that. I'm also going to see if I can get a frontend made for the mod that is an external program you use to launch it, which allows you to check for updated versions of the maps, if they are released, and have news posted there too, so you will always be up to date on what we are working on.
Hopefully you guys can forgive us for our shortcomings, I believe we'll resolve it and live up to the potential of the talent that is working on this mod in the end.
Here's a proof of concept test of what we have created so far for Magmoor Caverns. It was merely to test out the space and see how easy it would be to maneuver around the lava:
