Eurgh

Typical. I get a clear weekend, and really looking forward to spending some time on the toolset, and I get flu (not just man-flu, but full blown aching joints, blocked nose, loss of balance). So I've not got much done so far, which is annoying me even more. Damn snot goblins in my head. Most toolset time is spent staring dumbly at the screen unfortunately.

At the time of writing, 100 votes cast in the Module of the Year competition. For EU readers - with Eurovision approaching I was dreading a 'nil point', but no fears now :). I've cast my vote (after finally picking between the two contenders for my vote) and urge any readers out there to do the same to support their own favorite mod from 2007. I see PORR is doing well - I played an early version I think of this and wasn't keen, but might be something to go back to now it's a lot more fleshed out.

A few people voting on Dark Avenger mentioned similarities to a series of stories by Roger Zelazny about Dilvish the Damned. I've read, and enjoyed, Zelazny's Amber series but not heard of this so decided to check it out. And it's spooky - the main character is banished to Hell by an evil sorceror, and returns to seek his revenge and track down this mage. And the thing is, he returns with a demonic horse called Black, and manages to acquire a powerful sword too! It feels quite odd that I've inadvertantly paralleled this with my own story. But then I often found inDMing pen-and-paper that I'd come up with a villain idea, only to have a player mention an obscure source where it had been done before. As they say, there's nothing new under the sun. I'm actually now planning on incorporating some of the Zelazny lore into Chapter 3 - your PC hears of someone else who has gone through what you have, and can choose to investigate it!

Speaking of chapter 3 - I find myself more and more thinking about planning that out, and how it will work - rather than thinking about rounding off chapter 2. It will be city based, and there's quite a few ideas that I'm looking forward to doing - e.g. the masquerade ball - but I know have focus on the task in hand - just a shame these ideas are a long way from coming to fruition until I finish chapter 2.

In the news - the NWN Podcast team have put the roundtable discussion up - check it out. There's a preview trailer of Adam Miller's next Dark Waters project on the vault, which looks amazing - really taking the engine and stretching what it can do.

SO not much new to show with this post - couple of early screenshot from a temple shrine and entrance hall below, but nothing special and not quite finished yet. SOme screenshots of Zabados have been requested so I'll grab them from my next playthrough. Every time I work with the multilayered tilesets, I end up regretting it - and find lots of mistakes with missing pillars I have to go back and fix...but it is nice building interiors that arent all flat cave systems. The militia pay homage to several deities, and so their main temple has shrine to each. Touch wood, I've got a system working whereby the altars will automatically heal the priests of their respective deity during combat, so hopefully will add something to that section - the player can benefit from something similar if he/she worships the same.