Monday, June 14, 2010

Agonising wait

Work is busy, and home-life hectic as we wait to finally move into the new house. And the biggest frustration of all is that I've managed about 3 hours on the toolset in the past month. Not just because i'm keen to get bug fixing and working on the polish for WPM, but its made me realise how much modding (and computer gaming) had become part of my routine and a means for me to switch off from external stresses and relax. And that lack of relaxing isn't healthy for me (mentally or physcially, I'm the worlds worst fidget in mind and body), tho I am trying to use things as an excuse to get to the gym more.

But the agonising wait on the house has hopefully crested the hill today, and latest estimate is end of the month to be moving. What's made it all the more irritating is that the house we're moving into has been empty the whole time - just sollicitors and red tape holding up what should have been a simple transaction.

Meanwhile, testing reports have been thankfully positive on the style and content of WPM which has been great to see. I've a slog through SpellPlug ahead of me, and some niggling bugs to fix (immortal creatures that shouldn't be, spurious area corruption), but on the whole it's seeming playable. The main issue is the size - to cover everything would take too many people too long, and it's a lot to expect. But I'm thinking, with a good debug system in place, there may not be too much more to do before this can be released in a workable form.

Thanks to all who've fed back comments so far - I really appreciate your efforts on this. Reposting links to files below; if I'm lucky I can get an update done in the next day or so:

Hak file 1 (78Mb) - put in hak directory
Hak file 2 (176Mb) - put in hak directory
Campaign folder (21Mb) - put in Campaigns directory
Sidequest module folders (216Mb) - put in modules directory
Overland map module folder (70Mb) - put in modules directory
WPM conversion module folder (25Mb) - put in modules directory - new download

Brief walkthrough for sidequests including recommended party level can be downloaded here (Word doc) . Quests range from level 7 to level 16-18, so try any PC group you like and dive in.

A Readme can be found here - please bear in mind my design goals when giving feedback.

5 comments:

EC said...

SpellPlug shouldn't take you more than an hour or two I surmise. Well worth the time.

Shaughn said...

The key to saving time with spellplug is to make sure to turn off the "display alert complete dialogs". I sat there clicking ok for way too long before finding the setting change.

dunniteowl said...

Hey, I know it's sort of a cart before the horse -- or more appropriately -- closing the barn doors after the cows have got out -- but it's probably best to write out your dialogs in some other format (word docs or text files, etc.) before you place them into the module and then spell check them, that would reduce the overall typo situation. Of course, you still need someone to check the of is "of" and not supposed to be "off" and that sort of thing, cause sometimes the word is "spelled right" it's just not the right word.

In any case, like I said, for future reference. I would also be very interested in your experiences using Spellplug (as you have to use it for the first time here, I think it would be great to have your experiential input on your runthrough with that.)

I'm still testing away and loving it for the most part. So who knows, by the time you get to bug squashing, I'll have managed maybe half the whole thing. :)

regards,
dunniteowl

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Good to hear WPM is nearing completion. What with this and Risen Hero (Shaughn) and Islander (Eguintir), there are quite a few to look at coming along.

All the best with your continued work here.

Lance.

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