Wedge the Halfling Under the Door!

Kickstarting Modding?

2012-01-17T13:03:00.002Z

Hello all! Still here - but a lot going on since I was last on the NWN2 scene. Now playing more pen-and-paper RPGs than ever before which is A Good Thing(TM). Also looking at playing/running games over Google+ and their free hangouts - check out the games at ConstantCon. The future for virtual tabletop RPGs? Could well be... I'm pretty quiet on the social networking/blogging side of things, but hook me up on Google+ if you use it (email in profile bar to the right).

I've not opened up NWN2 in quite some time. Been replaying IWD2, dabbling in Skrim, enjoying Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes immensely, kicking a$$ in Arkham Asylum, toying with A SoU/HotU replay, and reminding myself of how much I suck at (but enjoy) FPS games with RAGE.

Was reading a thread that got me thinking today about the old modding scene - specifically about Kickstarter. For those who don;t know, it's a way of scoping out interest and funding for your nascent creative project. Issues with the site/ethos aside, it got me thinking - would people have used this in the modding scene back when we were all trying to make those multi-chapter juggernauts ? Would it have improved productivity? I'd be interested to hear from the ossian crew their thoughts as to if it would have made a difference?

(note: I'm not advocating one way or another here - just genuinely interested in the implications and people's views)

I might start using the blog more for general RPG thoughts rather than anything NWN2 focussed - if that means you want to delist, just giving you a heads up.

Hope all are well!

Mud Sorcerer's Tomb - progress update

2011-05-08T16:54:00.003+01:00

It was a slow start, with being out of the country most of March - and having to reacquaint myself with the toolset after a 6 month break - but have been chipping away my conversion of the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb for Chaos Wielder's Community Project.

I'm useless at remembering to take screenshots in playtests. Here's the entrance where the workers' bodies have been unceremoniously dumped.

Nothing unsurmountable in the playtest, and might put up a link to share soon and get feedback on fleshing out with flavour text. The tomb is more about traps and puzzles, but the few combat encounters can be nasty due to resistances the creatures have. Thing I'm happiest I got working first time is - once inside the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb - any spell cast that calls on water/earth elements (including cold/acid) has a 50% chance of summoning a rogue elemental instead. Caused a few shocks for good old Brigit Chandler in the test run ;) . This worked so well, I might try something similar for the next adventure I'm due to face, when the PCs go up against the druids - reminds me of a spell my cleric in an old PnP game devised called 'Congregation' that could subvert any summoned creaturre called in a certain radius of the PC, making it an good celestial allied to the cleric, rather than the intended creature.

Belated congrats to the recent Hall of Famers - Amraphael and EC Patterson. Very well deserved!

Redesign

2011-04-15T07:09:00.006+01:00

Something I've been toying with for a while (and reignited by Lance's recent post - nudge me Lance if I don't reply!), I'm going to work on a redesign of the blog to also cover more general, non-NWN2 but gaming related thoughts. Plus some projects I'm working on the side that are gaming related.

All of this in my non-existent free time, of course.

More to come, and an explanation for the new blog title, soon

By the way, any artistic types that have suggestions for images/artwork blog header based on that title, let me know!

Still alive

2011-02-13T10:49:00.003Z

...albeit enslaved to the corporate zombification process at work these past few months. Ain't no free time when you're an undead minion...

Glad to see LoWPM still chugging along, despite the bugged areas. Other than rebuild them from scratch, deleting them is a simpler option to solve the bugs (there's enough other areas in there), but I'm loathe to do that. I think the random bugs that some see 9journal updates) and other dont = or that some see with one install that then disappear on a reinstall - aren't helping lure me back to the toolset. But I have been dabbling in a bit of writing, planning, and pen-and-paper D&D, which is good to be inspired in again.

Will try and be around more - got a backlog of new mods to play!

The Future of cRPGS...?

2010-10-15T09:08:00.004+01:00

Am I the only one who reads this list and feels a little disappointed?

What next for someone that doesn't want MMO/MP-style mundanity? Why does it always seem that RPG elements in recent RPGs have to be hidden behind more arcade-y gameplay/graphics?

Don't get me wrong, there's interesting stuff on that list I'll likely pick up, but the grognard / old-schooler in me really feels there's something missing - something new yet harkening back to good old story-driven SP fun that will keep me locked in a room til the wee hours of the morning.

Trouble is, sometimes I keep thinking back to ToEE when I think about what style of game I really want to come out, and so far nothing's looking promising on that front... Fallout: New Vegas I'm expecting a lot from, but we'll see.

What are others looking out for?

Legacy of White Plume Mountain: Released

2010-08-31T19:09:00.000+01:00

I'm happy to report that Legacy of White Plume Mountain is now released on the vault.

Thanks to all the custom content creators whose work I've tried to also showcae in this project, and to the playtesters for perserverance, feedback and advice.

And to those who've stuck with the NWN2 community, I really hope you enjoy my little sandbox in Faerun.

Uploading to Vault

2010-08-30T16:51:00.003+01:00

Weekend was spent mainly doing final bits of testing and tweaking. And getting the final battle in place.
This is me just before the final battle kicks off...

And this is me a few minutes later...

I'm really hoping people get a kick out of playing this. It's not a style to everyone's taste (mine included being story-lite), but I've had a blast building it, and I hope that shows. I'm upoading to the Vault as we speak but it may take some time (>600Mb in optimised RAR files). Will post again once it's approved.

Old School Dungeon Crawl of Doom

2010-08-18T13:26:00.002+01:00

Feel bad that I've not been active on my fellow builder's blogs recently (so much juicy stuff going on for NWN2 now! Hoping I can help play/test your work soon!) but that's due to lack of time - but the upside is that most spare time has been spent digging into the toolset. And hopefully I should be getting close - if all goes to plan, this weekend I intend to run through the main plot path - party of 4 level 7 PCs tackling in order White Plume Mountain, Return to White Plume Mountain, and the climactic Ex Keraptis Cum Amore. That's one long old school dungeon crawl right there, weighing in at a solid few hours. Focus will be to check for balance, but also to see if I can finally overcome the clingy bugs that have been plaguing me e.g. creatures that refuse to jump to a waypoint even when there's no good reason they shouldn't (will likely end up using script-hidden as a workaround). Plus there's a few old-school aspects that will need testing like magic decks of cards that completely screw up your PC (does anything cry classic D&D more than that?).

Since the last few play reports I've overhauled the balance of the entire campaign, but I think tweaking that could go on forever and I'll never please everyone, so I'll likely release soon and make any alterations on the fly. Hopefully the upcoming spate of releases will see more traffic back on the Vault and all new content can benefit from that.

So. If I'm lucky, end of the month doesn't look like too unrealistic a prospect.... eek.

Here's some screenies of the specific dungeon areas i've just finished adding scripts and dialogue to. Strange pools of bubbling alchemical mixtures - drink, swim, or avoid like the plague? Time to make those Wisdom checks....

Suave?

2010-08-02T13:11:00.003+01:00

Needing a break from the continuous debugging of Dead Gnolls EYe Socket (pinned down crash to corrupted triggers, but its time consuming and repeptitive to delete each, test, repeat)... So I dropped into Alpha Protocol. Fun game with very nice ideas for roleplaying. But this, suave...?

Bond, and i'm going to stick my neck ou and say that Roger Moore is the definitive James Bond, would never type that email. if he'd just been given a cover identity inn an arms manufacturing plant ha may have stretched to a "I don't suppose you'd mind cleaning my rifle" with a raised eyebrow, but this...

still, fun game

But back to the debugging...

Building a head of steam

2010-07-18T19:20:00.002+01:00

It was great to finally feel I've settled in the new house by setting up a (disturbingly clean, at least for me) computer desk, and to sit back and have the toolset open. Usually that desk is also piled high with D&D books and scribbled notes - my mind is no way near as organised as that desk. Its slow going at first, getting back into the toolset, but I liked going back to the scripting and refreshing my memory. And after feeling my way round over the first day, reacquainting myself with just what needs doing, I'm starting to pick up speed on the bug quashing and polishing.

So far I've been working my way through the bug reports and the list as transposed over to the Bioware Social Forums. Most are fairly easy, and I've finished scripting a Geminator as a way to lighten the load for all the gem loot drops you pick up out in the field. That list has almost halved, which is a great feeling. Annoying the real time sink has been going into the game to test things out, but that's good in itself to keep me testing the gameplay.

Some screenies from a testing jaunt down into the bowels of Bright Mountain - also to serve as a reminder of the great custom content I'm showcasing from the community in the campaign. Here's hoping the move to the new forums will maybe bring in new/returning NWN2 players.

SomethingAwful : White Plume Mountain

2010-07-12T16:08:00.002+01:00

Stopped by the Something Awful site for the first time in ages and randomly noticed they had one of their WTF, D&D! articles on White Plume Mountain! Might not be to all tastes, but a bit of an insight into the module nonetheless! Plus an omen maybe..?

Finally moved in, and just managed to get computer up and running before the World Cup Final started. So hope to get an update out soon. Got quite a backlog of updates/fixes to work through (on top of the inevitable time to reacquaint myself with the toolset after the few weeks break).

I've had one report of a tester reaching the fane (heart of the volcano, see above screenshot) of White Plume Mountain, meaning completion of two of the module conversion segments, and about as far as its possible to go in the current test version. Next up would be the final showdown in the Arena of Devastus on the Plane of Shadow where Keraptis awaits (below). Also glad to hear the miniquest of obtaining the Holy Avenger was working.

Then there are the bugs (mistyped waypoint tags) and the BUGS (beholders that are immortal despite there being no valid reason why they should be so) to iron out. bugs I am happy dealing with, but the illogical BUGS can be incredibly infuriating. With somethign teh size of WPM, i'm fuilly expecting bug reports to trickle in post release, but as long as I can solve the BUGS, I'm hoping I can get this out by August. And then , finally, to enjoy playing some of the other projects nearing completion (see blogroll, which I've been reading but not commenting on due to limited internet access - hope to make amends). Seem to be quite a few exciting sparks in the embers of NWN2, which is nice to see.

RPGMaker software

2010-07-02T13:25:00.002+01:00

Anyone tried this? A generic RPG making software.

seems like a neat idea. Torchlight is on my list to check out too - any played that and dabbled in the mod making?

Tho maybe I'm getting ahead of myself...

Agonising wait

2010-06-14T15:19:00.002+01:00

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.

White Plume Mountain: Final Testing

2010-05-11T11:49:00.004+01:00

Just posted call for full and final testers on the forums. Due to a house move that will keep me busy over the next month, I wanted to get this out first so reports can trickle in, and i will update in the spare moments I have computer time. All content is there, just a few dialogues needing finishing in the last two chapters of the White Plume Mountain conversions (Return to WPM, and Ex Keraptis Cum Amore). I'll finish these dialogues soon and post when the files are updated. Jumping between modules should see the updates kick in. It's soooo close... so bear with me til I have these done. It's almost there and my paranoia levels about file corruption are through the roof knowing how much work is at stake! Had to reinstall NWN2 and made more back ups of the campaign than you could imagine!

Right, now I need to convince my wife that the computer is the absolutely last thing to get packed up into boxes....

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.

T is for Testing

2010-04-28T08:27:00.004+01:00

(download details reproduced at bottom of post)

Testing is still underway, though the forums and community seem a little quiet generally and in terms of playtesting. From my own testing, I've been really enjoying playing on the overland map, which is getting me quite psyched about the eventual release. Bugs seem relatively minor so far - couple of stupid things like me setting doors to static - but no game breakers so far. I'm updating the files in the links below as I go so they should always have the most recent version.

Last night I tested the assault of a Zhent stronghold which was great fun for mass combat play. The battle set-ups worked quite well; as I ran the gauntlet towards archers, manticores and Zhent Skymages peppered me with spikes and spells from the hills to the side. Talos bless Chain Lightning is all I can say.

This weekend I focus down on the White Plume Mountain module itself and bringing that up to scratch - there's a few subsystems that I implemented later in development I need to go back and include in these areas, some quest scripting, and a final battle to script. I'm hoping its a good indication the buzz I'm getting seeing this get so close! And hope that entusiasm will hook the players too!

----------------------

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

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.

Please use the following format for reporting bugs - feedback form

Testing - Part 1: The Sandbox

2010-04-18T23:10:00.007+01:00

Well, well. Here goes!

As mentioned before, I'm opening up the sandbox portion of the campaign for testing, and would be really grateful for any and all help and feedback. Not just reporting bugs but also mentioning gameplay elements that do/don't work or could be improved. In particular let me know about combat balance and variety, treasure/weapon/armour balance and variety, areas that feel empty or needing a little more attention. And of course the numerous spelling errors that will no doubt creep in.

I've uploaded the overland map, and all the sidequest areas for testing. The main plot (White Plume Mountain itself) is deliberately missing, and I'm finishing off that whilst this test is ongoing. Overland encounters are currently placeholders and will be changed (made more thematic to each area).

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

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 note, I try and set out my design philosophy in it, so don't test this expecting a tight plot and varied romances; and please bear in mind my design goals when giving feedback.

Please use the following format for reporting bugs - feedback form

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help with this!

Joyous sight to behold

2010-04-11T15:28:00.003+01:00

My notepad checklist - full of ticks. Felt damn good checking that last box off today!
What does that mean? I now have a functioning overland map with ~25 sidequest locations ranging from 1 to 6 linked areas each. Checking my loadscreens.2da, and adding on the main quest areas, that's ~95 areas in total across the campaign. This looming testing phase is starting to scare me...

Dungeon of Swords loadscreens

2010-04-09T07:13:00.002+01:00

I'm at that stage where there's no real new content to add (barring something I plan to do whilst waiting for bug reports), and I'm left to go back through the content so far and polish off all the blanck conversations I left as placeholders swearing I'd finish later, and tidy up the journal, then tackle the overland map and all its intricacies. It's all getting there but this last stretch is a bit of a slog - plus trying to complete it on top of work and the looming spectre of moving house is leaving me a little frazzled!

The last sidequest area I finished was the Dungeon of Swords - the loadscreens of each area involved in this overland map location are below. It started off as a mid-level dungen crawl, but then I got kinda vindictive and threw in some higher level beasties with tricks up their sleeves to spice things up a bit, including a half-balor half-dragon I thought would be fun!

Back to it - and hopefully some clear time over the weekend to focus. Been starting to think how I'll handle hosting the campaign for testing; any good reccomendations for hefty filesizes (haks total ~250Mb compressed, and modules more) with stable connectivity (had too many clunk out on big downloads)?

Back from Egypt

2010-03-18T20:33:00.003Z

It's been a long-held dream of mine to travel to Egypt - there's a version of me in a parallel universe that ditch biochemistry at school and ran with my passion for latin, ancient history and archeology instead. True that version is likely broke, unemployed and with moth-eaten straggelly beard, so perhaps I shouldn't feel too regretful, but still...

And so Egypt was our choice of honeymooon destination, to cruise down the Nile and see the sites I'd read of and the depictions of all the deities that captured my imagination from a young age. We started off in Luxor (to see the Valley of the Kings, Colossus of Memnon, Hapshetsut's Temple, Luxor Temple and Karnak), sailed upstream to Edfu (Temple to Horus), onto Kom Ombo (Temple to Sobek, crocodile headed deity), then to Aswan and the Temple of Philae (dedicated to Isis). A selection of snaps below.

And it was all I had hoped for. I love poking about these places, and it was awe inspiring how huge and intricate they were. And what I loved the most was finding these patches of heiroglyph-covered wall that still had the original paint on (see second shot below) - these places weren't just beige stone covered in carvings, they were brightly coloured and intricately patterned. And the detail is incredible. Sights that I'd definitely recommend anyone to see.

So, now its back to reality with a bump. I always find that a break from the toolset means that you then approach it with a bit of trepidation and fear over what you've forgotten. Just before I left, I finished off a dracolich lair that the party might stumble upon. That now brings me to the last couple of areas to flesh out the sandbox. And hopefully i'll have some screenies of those soon.

The Joy of Prefabs (and intermission)

2010-02-26T11:18:00.000Z

Had quite a productive past ten days, despite spending a lot of time bug hunting and testing in game. The Forgotten Ziggurat I mentioned in the last post is finished, and I've gotten a 4 level Worg Warren and 4 level Dungeon of the Hark completed, scripted and 'encounterrified'. On top of that, having seen Lugaid's post about a new prefab he's come up with, I decided it would be a nice way to join the Worg Warren and the Dungeon of the Hark together (as they were in the Living Forgotten Realms campaign I'm loosely following for this) through a jaunt into the Undermoor. This of course mean that I had to go back and ensure that encounters fired regardless of the direction the player chose - which can require quite some mental gymnastics to visualise sometimes.

None of this would have been possible without the prefabs. I'm guessing I now have 5 modules with on average 12-15 areas each maybe, perhaps 60-70% of those are prefabs - the only times I rush to delve into area design myself is actually in White Plume Mountain itself where I'm following the canon maps. That isn't to say that I can always just plug and play these prefabs in - most of them I've spent time playing with the lighting, walkmesh, chucking in some custom content placeables or added a little of my own touches. But man that's such a more relaxing way to build areas for someone like me - I know where to hang a painting but don't let me near the brush, mkay?

The Dungeon of the Hark

In the lost sewers under an abandoned town...

The eagle-eyed will spot a gelatinous cube filling the corridor in the distance

The lycanthropic hordes are under the Hark's command

Showdown with the Hark himself

The Worg Warrens

Goblins and goblin worg-riders stalk the plains

Bugbears defend the snowy pass

Undermoor

Through buried elven ruins...

A fire giant camp

And with that, I'm soon off on belated honeymooon to Egypt for two weeks! A Nile cruise and exploration of Egypt awaits! A long held ambition of mine so really looking forward to it. One last foray to the toolset over the weekend to finish off the areas and encounters in this region of the overland map - then that should mean all the content is in place for the campaign, and all that remains is to go back and finish off placeholder conversations and script some battles. A little intermission in the building should be good, and then I can come back and press on with the final round of polishing and testing balancing and debugging. Hmm... maybe I'll just stay on holiday...

Against your better judgement...

2010-02-16T18:19:00.002Z

Found myself convincing myself I needed to add in some new locations to the overland map - trouble is the last thing I need now is to add more content... But, it makes sense - there are some spots in the overland map are feel a little empty (plus some key canon locations that I'd be neglecting if they weren't included). SO rather than making progress it's kinda been running to stay still.

Here's some screenies from a new location, that's turning into a homage to another classic module, the Isle of Dread. An ancient tribe have turned to dark powers instead of their old ways - go teach 'em a lesson...

Progress update

2010-02-08T11:40:00.004Z

I realised the other day that I don't think I'd gone much into the Overland map I'm using for WPM. I used the 'tracing technique' described on here previously and in the shot above you can see the area map alongside the tracing template. There's some colouring and texturing to be touched up, but I'm fairly happy with it. You'll see in the swamp a slight ridge that is unfortunately due to the terrain megatiles and the need to lower the water level, but its not really noticable in game.

Sidequest encounters covering the southern part of the map are done - barring some dialogue I keep putting off. I'm currently working on the NE swamp sidequests and these are ~80% done, then there's just the NW swamp side quests, of which there are only a few - areas prepped for 60% of the quests, but no dynamic content as yet.

Some shots of the locations on the original map that have translated into the game are below (still playing with overland scripts so there is double the XP at the moment but that will be fixed). Bah, my texturing always looks so much better in the toolset than in game... Lighting settings aren't final, I need to get back to that.

The weekend was spent working on a quest around House Orogoth which as a sidequest has been jumping between the include/drop list more than the others, but I found two prefabs that were just right, and I figured I needed more BIG dragon encounter (now there are 2 at CR > 15 plus one CR 11 and one that's a dragon but then again not...). So Orogoth was slotted in. Then I moved on to some mines occupied by the Zhentarim - who really should have got more love in the existing FR games as bigger villains, although their presence to the west is less than in the Dalelands. I'm playing on the link to Darkhold nearby to justify the presence and give people the chance to kick some Zhen butt. Overland map sidequests are bigger than in SoZ - this Zhent one covers 1 exterior and 6 interior levels, and hopefully sees the challenge increase significantly the deeper the player ventures. This is all part of the goal to allow players (and multiplayers) to pick and choose sidequests if they only want to play for 1 hour - 3 hours on something they can drop in and out of, rather than the core central plot.... which I really should get back to at some point...

b0U/\cYrOc/<: m|sErY sTo/\e

2010-01-27T15:20:00.003Z

I'm on a break from Dragon Age as it lost a lot of charm for me slogging through the Deep Halls. Story was fun, but too much tedium and repetitiveness in combat meant I needed a break. Which has been good for WPM - an Underdark sidequest nearly finished, and some of the subsystems I implemented later on in development now included in the earlier areas.

So for playtime, I've been venturing into the mists of Misery Stone. Been reassuring for the NWN2 community to see the reception and appetite for this. I've got about as much playtime as I had during testing of this under my belt, and am having fun - the difficulty is toned down significantly from what I recall of my testing, tho. But scenery, atmosphere, custom content and execution are top notch. A few niggles for me in terms of combat variance and companion interaction (and psst! the dryad's animal companion is still nameless ;) ) but nothing to detract from it being a great fun game with bags of character.

But as I stood in the whispering woods area early on in the game I got to thinking. The area is great - looks stunning visually and had buckets of atmosphere. And you know I kinda prefer the areas I've seen here (and from other work e.g. by Anduraga, Azenn, Maerduin and Chaos Wielder, and Amraphael's exteriors for Zork) to anything I've seen so far in Dragon Age. But, DA does have better looking character faces - but hang on, Misery Stone has custom faces for the companions that look amazing... So you know what? Misery Stone, just ended up making me want to play DA but in the NWN2 engine. Three years on, it's shown that the engine has a lot to offer still and look current.

Kudos to the team and all involved, especially Jclef.

edited to include authors I shouldn't have forgotten - thanks Starwars!

Loadscr... nah, only kidding! Manticores!

2010-01-24T11:05:00.005Z

Had a little departure the last couple of days to work on something slightly different but related to WPM - Manticore! Hellfire of Robinson Worshop fame had kindly got in touch and offered to give me an advance showing of the manticore model he was working on as I'd mentioned it in relation to WPM. Indeed, the manticore is an encounter inside the mountain, and it's image graces the cover of the original and second printing module itself

These images might have more to do with a misinterpretation of the first encounter which is actually listed as a gynopshinx. But the tail spikes are clear to see. So it was my hope to use the manticore model here and in the later encounter to replace the Spectator Beholder placeholder I had currently -the cover images are to iconic in relation to this module not to use it. The creature in the first encounter is described as mangy and bedraggled and sitting atop a pile of bones. So here we are:

The later encounter occurs in the Terraces of Doom (a level I'm fond of and may release as a prefab)

the terraces from above - run the gauntlet from the entrance to the exit in this inverted ziggurat!

In return for the favour, I offered to work up the creature blueprint and AI. Coding the AI was fun and I emulated Dirtywick's approach to implement the tail spike attacks without using 2da modifications (essentially spell creation) so the model is more widely usable. The script got a little cumbersome to take certain things into account such as deflect/protection from arrows, but now seems to be working fine - while it has tail spikes left, the manticore will unleash them and try to keep at range. If caught in melee, when it gets badly injured and has spikes left, it will try to flee to fire them again. Here some screenies showing the test module I used for trialing this out.

(Without resorting to bundling up more custom content and custom vfx I can't have the spikes fire from a tail node, sadly, but I think this effect works well and is less noticable in game. For scripters, I'm using the SpawnProjectile function and manually coding hit/damage in the custom AI)

This aside, I've also just made 7 stores for a hidden market to be found in the game at later levels. Store building is mind-numbingly time consuming if you want them to have flavour or a theme, so a trip tothe gym might be in order to wake me up.

Loadscreens 3

2010-01-20T23:11:00.003Z

Couple more shots trying ideas out - but I could easily get caught fiddling with this forever without making any real progress. I've made the logo slightly transparent, and tried a frame and title. Kamal's been helping out toy with hiding the logo in the image too. So I guess I'm now left to decide on the presence/absence of the frame, logo, and text.... and after all of this, I think I'm prefering the simplicity of the shots in the previous post, but with the new faded logo)... as ever, comments/thoughts welcome

(FYI the font is that used in the 3rd ed Forgotten Realms logo)

Right, this weekend I stop messing about in photoshop and focus on the content!

Loadscreen take 2

2010-01-18T10:02:00.003Z

Having played with borders and not found one exactly right, I've come up with the following as a sample - using FilterForge's 'Film effect' (at minimally intrusive seting as I didn;t want it too stylised) and I've added the symbol of Keraptis - the arch 'villain' from the White Plume Mountain modules. There's a sample below. The scheme seems to work well, especially given a lot of the interior loadscreens are quite dark, and it's not too intrusive.

I feel I should also throw in the disclaimer, that there's several prefabs in use, albeit most modified to vary degrees - so I haven't suddenly become some mad area-baking fool...!

Loadscreens

2010-01-15T13:51:00.002Z

OK to make up for lack of screenshots, and to give me something to do with the 30 minutes I've had on the toolset before work for the past week or so, I've been starting to collect the loadscreens for the areas. I'm still torn about how to to display them - whether to add a border, if so what type (a full blown WPM border was what I'd err towards but is beyond my artistic skill sadly), whether to 'artify' the images e.g. stain glass, mosaic, brush-strokes etc - or to leave as is. I've be keen to hear any thoughts on this. The basic images I'll use to create the loadscreens from roughly a third of the areas so far are below, some you'll recognise form prefabs/earlier screenshots. These correspond to ~50% of the sidequests done so far, none from inside White Plume Mountain itself just yet.

SO let me know if you have any thoughts about how you like your loadscreens to look

Rock and Gnoll

2010-01-09T11:50:00.003Z

Keep forgetting to take screenshots when I'm testing things in game, which isn't very helpful. Couple of shots above from the latest work - fleshing out the cave known as Dead Gnoll's Eye Socket from the original White Plume Mountain map - see below.

I've used this map as the basis of the overland map as the sandbox for the player to explore, and its regions like Dead Gnoll's Eye Socket that I'm populating at the moment. Gnolls are nice in the NWN2 toolset as they are one of the few 'monster' creatures that let you play with different armour appearances so you get a bit more variety.

Not had as much time on the toolset as I'd hoped over the holidays. But did get to contribute to the SoZ Expansion project led by Chaos Wielder and play through Trinity by E.C. and GPS, both of which I highly reccomend and urge you to check out - those of you still with an eye for NWN that haven't been comepltely seduced by the harlot that is DA:O - be a lady/gentleman and keep in touch with your old loves, especially when there's such great stuff they have to offer you now. Don;t worry, I won't tell ;).

Merry Christmas one and all

2009-12-20T08:37:00.002Z

Mine will be spent recovering from flu, dabbling with White Plume Mountain, and trying to help out in the following quest from Dragon Age (ok, it might be one of the DA modules ideas I've got....)

An Apt Quotation

2009-12-10T20:43:00.002Z

A quote I came across today on a training course at work gave me a wry smile and seemed very suitable to the modders life

"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."
- Sir John Harvey-Jones

Community SoZ Booster Pack

2009-11-29T18:08:00.003Z

Chaos Wielder, currently developing Shagret, has cried out the immortal lines "Modders ASSEMBLE!" in a post over at the forums . The idea is a nice one - and it echos a recent contribution by sterling community contributor Kaldor Silverwand and his NWN2 SOZ Makeover. The idea is to add more content to SoZ by letting players bolt-on community made dungeons to the overland map. In one fell swoop, increasing the content, playtime, and refreshing the game for players. As White Plume Mountain will contain a lot of overland map-linked sidequests, it's the kind of project I'm doing already and am keen to contribute. I have lots of side-dungeons I could contribute, but instead I've decided to do a new specific dungeon for this project, which I'll submit soon, but incorporate into White Plume Mountain too. I've been doing a lot of Yuan-ti quests for the Serpent Hills recently, so I decided on a Coiled Cabal Outpost, which should fit the SoZ plot nicely, plus some Viper's Fangs assassins. Was a nice buzz to be working on something 'new' but that would also fit in with my own project - so I'd urge any other builders that may have/need dungeons for their own projects to see if one can be cropped out to contribute to this idea.

Some screenies below, initially from a WPM area, but the from the in-progress area I'm going to send to Chaos Wielder. And yes, I am too addicted to the jungle fog vfx. It's too good and hides too many sins. Hell, I could be happy just putting down caves filled with that fx and nothing else sometimes....

Thissss issss lassst weeksss progresssss

2009-11-15T16:50:00.002Z

(including a wicked exterior of the Great Petrified Serpent courtesy of Amraphael again! Now populated with appropriate nasssstinessss)

The Legacy of White Plume Mountain

2009-10-26T14:47:00.013Z

(urgh... a nightmare halloween involving a car accident that I have a nasty feeling is going to cost me a lot of money... just in time for christmas, great...)

So, probably around about a year ago now, just over, DA2 had been released and I was working on the first segment of DA3. The party were fleeing the massacre at the militia's fortress and looking to sneak into the city of Marsember. Then, real life got very busy as work took off in all sorts of crazy poorly thought out directions and the staff struggled to keep up with it. And in the spare time I did have, all I could do was feel awestruck by what lay ahead of me to finish the DA series. I still laugh when I dig out my old notes right back from the begining (2006-7) to see that the whole DA series was going to be 5 chapters and each chapter cover 5 maybe 6 areas. Heh. piece of cake, huh? 2 Years, 2 chapters and 20 areas later (OK they were areas made by *me*, but still I mean c'mon), it weren't looking so simple. I had the biggest chapter facing me - a trek through the Vast Swamp, meeting *another* companion (who I might come back to at some point), sneaking into Marsember to find a paranoid Elder, lots of city sidequests involving attemtping a coup in the town, and winning round the Purple Dragons and the fleet, being shadowed by an assassin from the lower hells, culiminating in a showdown with the paranoid hedonist Elder Hasturn in a masquerade ball (natch...). Then, there was the other two chapters, Chapter 4 in a race across the Stonelands to find Elder Porphyrrion's lair, and the final chapter piece de resistance as the players soul is dragged down into Hades and he has to fight against the very devil who gave him/her a chance for revenge - to either redeem the PC him/herself and all the other vengeful souls, or to usurp the Keeper and replace him as the might power on the Planes. Aye, it was all mapped out. Even finally meeting Gork's dead Brother Spirit... (Gork was going to die, but his spirit find rest, so when the PC arrived in Hades, Brother Spirit was there waiting to help him/her).

There wasn't time. As much as I wanted to, this was too unwieldy a beast, and my free time was sapped. So I left the toolset alone. But it never leaves you alone, I find. Anything can be a trigger for a "I wonder if I could do/mimic/use that in a module...?" moment. But I needed a way of working that would allow me to still build with the toolset, and indulge this drug-like habit that modding can be.

So, I took to picking up bits an pieces of old areas, resusing them, dabbling in the prefabs on the vault. Picking mini-projects like the Cormyr Overland Map to try and get more content out there. And slowly, picking the odd hour's time on the toolset here and there, things began to piece together. And the germ of a simple idea took hold. The biggest time sinks in the toolset are area building and writing. So, let's not do either...

Doesn't sound like much of a prospect huh? Not quite from the Azenn school of self-deprecation but getting there. But it underpinned what I thought I wanted to do with the toolset. Something that harks back to pen-and-paper D&D sessions. Exploration and player interaction. I wanted to create a multiplayer (or single player party creation) sandbox game.

So, I started piecing things together. I'd learnt the basics of an overland map, I had a broad array of prefabs to exploit, there was some custom content itching to be used. Now I needed a framework to hang it on.

The Legacy of White Plume Mountain

White Plume Mountain was a classic D&D module (9th all time greatest according to some list that was probably made up), and brought some key archetypes to the game - the legendary sword Blackrazor, some devious traps and tricks in the dungeon that were soon aped in other products and became staple DM challenges. That said, for me it's also a bit pants. The set up is fine, with some crazed wizard clearly up to no good and puling the strings behind the scenes. But you never meet him. You never get to have that showdown, the evil monologue and exposition to explain everything, then, most importantly, stick him with a sword. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, and as was the way with classic D&D modules, there wasn't always this detail included (supposedly to allow DMs to be creative, and fit the module into their own campaigns, but I've always a had a more cynical view that it was just never thought out like that).

What fewer people know is that there are two sequels to White Plume Mountain. The imaginatively named Return to White Plume Mountain, a real mind-fark of a module in terms of what, by-the-book, it does to the PCs, published as a D&D 25th anniversary product, and the staple let's-screw-over-the-players PC killer dungeon Ex Kerpatis Cum Amore published in Dragon magazine (issue 77, folks). Again, the arch villain behind the scenes is still so behind the scenes he's barely noticable.

So, desperate to know more after that dissection of the modules, I bet? Is this his module announcement I hear my one reader (Hello Mum!) cry? Well, it boils down to what makes WPM so fondly remembered - the exploration and the interaction of the players. And what I had time to build - modular dungeons, each room a self-contained puzzle/encounter. I had a lot of WPM crafted already from dabbling in the toolset. And as I picked my way along in my spare moments, it began to take shape into something more concrete.

So, what is the Legacy of White Plume Mountain that I'm working on? It's a retelling/reimagining of the three White Plume Mountain products into one campaign, the campaign I would have run as DM to string these modules together, to be played single player with party creation, or multiplayer, with a main plot the player can choose to ignore whilst they explore the region using an Overland Map looking for trouble. Multiplayer, sandbox. I've relocated the mountain from Greyhawk to Faerun, placing it on the border of the Serpent Hills and High Moor, which fits quite nicely given the geography of the WPM map included in the original module. No companions, although the Dark Avenger companions will make a reappearance in some form; as much as I enjoyed writing for the companions in the DA series, in this format, it's very time consuming and a cutscene every few paces to discuss how bizarre old-school D&D dungeons are would get a bit repetitive. And companion driven story wasn't what I'm looking to achieve here - another time sink I can't afford. But there is party skill use in- and out of dialogue - I've tried to make this quite important and to add flavour to skilled (but dialogue-impaired) party members. Search and Search mode will actually be important. Something in the region of 15 sidequests, all a little more elaborate than the 1 area distractions of the SoZ overland map. Heavy use/adaption/modification of prefabs and inclusion of custom content. Crafting included. Aiming to be in testing around Christmas/early next year, assuming playing Dragon Age doesn't distract me too much.

I'd been wary about mentioning this knowing how things can go despite the best of intentions, but I'd given myself to the end of October to get thigns in shape, and all main plot areas are done and 70% scripted, so it feels like a home stretch now. Sidequests are a different matter, and area basics are there but need more work. I've been fortunate enough to have Amraphael's help on some areas for these, and some screenies of his contributions are below.

Looking back there seem to be a lot of mushrooms

2009-10-05T12:29:00.007+01:00

As I've hinted at, I've been dabbling with an idea, which if things progress as they have been, I'll announce soon (ie if last area finished by end of month...). Something that fits in with a building pattern based on only having limited toolset time, and reusing areas/ideas from other (abortive) projects. Work/wedding planning got pretty hectic, so a plan based on occasional 30 minutes toolset time here and there was needed. Had a quick run through areas over the weekend using the DM Client, which is a handy way of quickly seeing how things look in game, and quite happy with the result. And yes, an efreeti model has come in handy... Some screenies below. More mushrooms than I remembered, but there is a reason...

What do Fernando Torres and I have in common..?

2009-09-28T14:52:00.005+01:00

...hint - it's not that we're both finely-honed athletes, with Mediterranean flair and adoring female fans...

..but we did both just score a pretty sweet hat-trick!

(Soccer reference might be lost on some of you, but any fellow Liverpool fans will know what I mean!)

Check out the AME NWN2 Golden Dragon winners here

Proud, humbled and guilty given some of the competition.

Slowly getting back to reality after my wedding a fortnight ago. Was a great, but exhausting day. It was fun to see the guests reaction (depending on comprehension) to the geeky touches I'd put in - my bride walked down the ailse to the refrain from The Princess Bride, each guest recieved a custom six-sided die with our names and the date on the 1 spot (in the planescape font AvalonQuest), and the tables were named "Worthington", "Braddock", "Wilson", "Bishop" and "Wagner" - 50 xp for anyone spotting the connection! ;)

Pathfinder

2009-08-30T15:18:00.003+01:00

Well, Pathfinder has finally been released (I'm awaiting my hardback copy, but the SRD is online). As 4e D&D really hasn't excited me, I'm hoping this re-envisioned 3.5e might keep the 3rd Ed flame burning a while longer. It's got some nice ideas for some of the core classes, and even each race is treated a bit differently in terms of bonuses. Will be interesting to see how it developed compared to the WotC marketing of 4e.

Meantime, highlighting overlooked custom content, I like mushrooms. Fried in butter and garlic, a little cream. Atop a toasted brioche.

Anyone else have fungi-based recipes to share?

Pet hates

2009-08-14T10:33:00.003+01:00

At the moment, my pet hate is the fact that all the people I work with, who have spent the past 6 months dithering over whether they want me to do something, now all decide en masse they must have their projects done at the same time... so much for the summer lull.

But what are people's pet hates in modules? We often talk about what people like, but what about the flipside -little things that become big turn-offs? Feel free to mention burning horse companions that can't navigate the walkmesh, poor area design, unfinished campaign series... ;) . I guess for something to be a pet hate it has to be common enough amongst different modules to become a grind. Mine is probably lip-flappers on PC responses -perhaps because I read fairly quickly, but I find it slows the flow down too much, especially as 1) you've read the PC options already before deciding on which to pick, and 2) there's no PC voice-over anyway...

NWN2 Golden Dragon Awards

2009-07-28T10:56:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm out of commission for a week with vanilla (not swine) flu (on what was meant to be time off for wedding preparations - so I had even less sympathy than normal due to suspicions that my flu was too well timed to coincide with fittings, shopping and preparations), and the Academy of Modding Excellence announce their nominations for NWN2. Proud and suprised to be included there with 4 nominations! Veteran Author, Best Action, Best Roleplay, and Misc. Custm Content.

Last year was when the quality of the mods on the vault really ramped up as the community showed what it can do (and I think the next generation of releases such as Zork, Trinity, Misery Stone, Better the Demon, Shattered Dreams, amongst several others will be building on that even further). So was suprised to see Dark Avenger 2 up there amongst the great competition from the likes of AmstradHero and others. Good to see the Halloween mod being recognised too. It does make me feel worse for shelving the Dark Avenger project tho... still think it was the right choice, but

Being called a 'Veteran' is amusing given the noob mistakes and fudges that pepper my time on the toolset, and that my only other playable release that year was one-joke-one-trick pony The Elemental Plane of Rats. Was very suprised to see my foraging system up for nomination, mainly as it is quite a simple system, and something I think the goodie system in SoZ takes a step further, but glad if it's been of use to others.

So, NWN2-wise, now my head is less fuggy, and my Fort saves vs. disease seem to be kicking in, I need to catch up on missed writing time for Shattered Dreams. Maybe next time, I'll post more on some other plans...

Dark areas

2009-07-14T07:49:00.003+01:00

Reading this blog post from Kamal made me realise something. I always liked dark areas too, and have my preferred interior lighting to give the desired effect. Dungeons and caves should be dark and shadowy, to be atmospheric and tense places to visit. Most of the creatures have darkvision, so other than roasting hobbits, won't need lots of lit fires. But then along comes the PC. Chances are they will have a torch, but chances are they'll also have a mage. Who can cast Light. Or maybe a race with darkvision. And then all sense of atmosphere is lost. It's something that has always bugged me, but I hadn't quite put my finger on it. The Light and darkvision VFX makes things too washed-out bright - now everything is too stark, the murky cave walls look grainy - all that effort with carefully place lights lerping between phosphorescent colors is wasted. Yes, these effects should make things more visible, but it'd be nice if there was some murkiness left. Maybe having light create an effect like carrying a torch would be a better bet... or tweaking the bloom in these areas so the don't light things up as much (but then would need placed lights being tweaked)...

It's less of an issue in exteriors. In the OD&D campaign I play in, I've always liked the idea that the thief scouts ahead just at the edge of the light source held by the rest of the party, looking for traps in the gloom, but hopefully hidden to suprise the goblins that run down the passage after the main party.

Cormyr/Shadowdale Overland Map

2009-06-06T16:59:00.003+01:00

I've uploaded my overland map covering Northern Cormyr and Shadowdale up on the vault. It covers Arabel in the south west, Hullack Forest and Thunder Gap in the south east, up past the Storm Horns, Tilverton, Shadow Gap and Spiderhaunt Woods, to Shadowdale itself in the north-east.

Part of the shelved project, it has encounters balanced for level 7 (if you set global int nChapter2enc to 1, if left at 0 then tougher encounters will spawn), with some new encounters of my own devising thrown in too. Can be used with the Arabel prefab I've shared too.

It also has several hidden sidequest locations scattered over the map - but I haven't made the actual areas for these and they will need developing by the builder.

The goodie system drove me to distraction - as far as I could tell it should be working, but I couldn't get it going. That said, all the needed ipoints are in place on the map for someone who can.

In other news, David Eddings recently died aged 77. I read the belgariad/Mallorean as a young teenager and absolutely loved them. Might have to dig out some copies for a spot of nostalgia.

The project that never was...

2009-06-01T10:43:00.003+01:00

...has rightly been put out of its misery. Yep, this is the project-that-I-didn't-want-to-admit-I-was-working-on-because-it-was-unlikely-to-go-anywhere-but-really-was-working-on-regardless-and-making-the-same-overambitious-mistakes-all-over-again. I might make parts of it available on the vault - we'll see. Beginning to think it must be a conditioned behavioural response amongst modders - that's it's impossible to make a short, simple mod. I know that there are plenty of short simple mods out there, but I'm talking about proper modules rather than someones dabbling with the toolset. It does make me wonder

if we modders are partly to blame for how the NWN2 community developed
if the same mistakes are going to be repeated with Dragon Age

We all know the reason that's rolled out every time someone asks why so few modules for NWN2 are out there is the longer development time in NWN2 and the increased complexity of the toolset. But rather than tackling these problems, are modders acknowledging their presence then just carrying on regardless? How long have some projects been in development now, and how many of the players that we sought to cater to have long since gone?DA is only going to make things more complicated and involved from what I can tell...

Back on track, the main reason I've abandoned the-project-that-never-was is to help out with the writing on BouncyRock's Shattered Dreams. There's some interesting ideas in this and it's a different setting to writing in which is proving a fresh challenge. You'll have seen some of the development reported on Elysius' blog to give a hint of the effort going into this project.

So in case you thought this blog was going to turn into me sharing my holiday snaps and poorly-formed opinions on things, rather than anything related to building for the NWN2 community... afraid you ain't gotten rid of me that easily.

For the fans of Roman history out there...

2009-05-25T17:46:00.002+01:00

...thought I'd share some snaps I took on my holiday in Tunisia last week. Having studied Latin, I've always had an interest, and theres a lot of remnants of Roman influence in the region that are amazingly well preserved.

Entering the Coliseum at El Jem - the most intact structure of its kind left in thwe world, and used as a basis for the CGI in Gladiator. Amazingly intact, and quite awe-inspiring when entering the area. The 38 degree heat made you feel for those who fought in it even more. You can still head underneath the area to where the animals and gladiators would have lived and awaited ther next fight.

You can still climb up to to the top stands of the Colisuem and take in the view...

... and gaze down at the rows of seats that the crowds would have populated. Strane just how similar it is to modern sports stadia.

Tunisia has a large amount of well preserved mosaics dating back from the first few centuries AD - largely in part due to the different stone theyused in their constructions. There are museums teeming withthese mosaics, and the scale of some is incredible. This shot depicts Neptune and his horses, flanked by a triton and nereid

Finally, a couple of shots from the ruins of Carthage, one time rival to Rome, and has suffered much since its fall. Many of the columns found in other structurs all over Tunisia have been ransacked from the ruins of Carthage. The top shot is me standing above the calidarium in the baths.

MoW review

2009-05-08T11:18:00.018+01:00

Spoilers ahoy!

Having finished the main plot with my good character (Playing as 'Wyrin' himself - Swashbuckler3/Bard5 finishing SB3/Bard7/DivineChampion5 - Rapier and short sword, maxed bluff, tumble, UMD), I thought i'd share my thoughts.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign. It did remind me of the city quests in BG, and the style of quests from the BG series. The companions were well rounded and well-realised and fun to travel with - Mantides being a standout for me and the type of character I enjoy. Their personal quests were very good as well. I'm glad the bulk of their interaction came through interjections rather than having to trawl through their main dialogue for each new snippet. Some of the interjections were just banter back and forth between them, and a little more interjection from the PC would have been nice. Similarly, when it came to dialogue choices with NPCs that had an effect on influence, I felt a few more of these, and a few more conflicting choices where you favoured one companion over another, would have been nice. But hey, you always want more of a good thing, and what there was, was very well done. Writing on the whole was good, although I did feel some of it felt a little too modern (can something be anachronistic in a fantasy setting?) and jarred a little bit - 'D-man' just didn't sit right with me for some reason. But the NPC dialogue had a good tone, and there was a nice balance between cutscenes and NWN1 dialogue. Little touches like the protester really added character to the city and a nice touch of humour (without going OTT). Options for skill use were fairly plentiful, and the implementation of the 'Shady Huckster' as an outlet for the Appraise skill was excellent - clever idea. Voice acting was surprisingly good.

Area design was top notch - particularly the exteriors which were amongst the best cityscapes I'd seen and the Arena area perhaps the most varied and well done area I'd seen. Interior areas were good on the whole but not quite up to the same standard; in particular, more atmospheric lighting (rather than default) in some interior areas would have helped the mood. Good to see that everything I found that could be clicked on had suitable descriptive text too. It did show in some ways that it had been built before the expansions were available, e.g. some placed effects missing that became available later.

Custom content was good and not too glaringly different from the official models. Your nemesis Orbakh was nicely detailed and animated, little touches like the telescope suitably arcane. The behind-the-scenes devil was in fact based on one of my favorite D&D artists work, Wayne Reynolds, who has done some superb art for D&D. The sewer tileset added a much needed change of scene, although I did feel that something more could have been made from it in the area design to make it feel like the party were travelling in dark dank sewers, and it lacked some of the punch of other custom tilesets. But perhaps the least mentioned CC was the best touch to me - the pub and shop signs. Special kudos has to go to Ossian for making their models available so quickly after release to the community.

Gameplay - An 'intelligent' item which risks the user become evil, eh? ;) The mask and 'curse-that-isn't' (i.e. has no real effect) central to the plot was not as intrusive as I had feared, although some means of recovering an alignment shifts due to its use would have been good (I only recall one or two actual alignment changes). I was surprised how easy I found the combats - my builds don't usually have that easy a time - but there was only one reload on combat (spider lair tackled too early on and without all the companions!), and none on any 'climactic' battles, which was a little disappointing. That said, the flow of the battles was good, and I hate being bogged down in reloads just to get past one particularly tough fight, so I'm not really complaining here. I was glad to be playing an arcane caster, and perhaps it was this that tipped the battles in my favour so much. As some others have mentioned, several battles happened as soon as you entered a room often in cramped conditions, and I'm not so much a fan of this, as weaker party members are left exposed. Some consideration of this in the area design would have made the start of some fights less of a desperate dash for the pause key. There was a nice mix of puzzles and skill use thrown in there too, adding a bit of variety. A city adventure by it's nature will involve the standard progress quest - run to transition - load area - progress quest - retrace/rinse/repeat, but this only grated a little and by planning you could group quests by area involved to make more manageable. One aspect of the gameplay that I was a little disappointed by was the lack of open die rolling on skill checks. I like to see which skills are used and what I'm aiming for, particularly for skills that I might only be dabbling in rather than maximising. There were a few times it was clear that the skill descriptor was masking the fact that the outcome couldn't be changed. I'd prefer there to be no implication of a skill check if there isn't one. Skill checks are something to be balanced just like combat. I can understand the decision to hide them, but it's not something I like. Another small thing that struck was around the Knot quest and approaching the deurgar - i happened to guess the bluff that was played before it was revealed, and some means of spotting or sensing that would have been nice (might have missed it?).

Plot - there were many sidequests, each dropped in to the game in different ways and I never felt the 'Oh no suppose I should do this, just to get the xp, let's skim through the are loading screens then..' attitude some mundane sidequests can bring. The miniature giant space hamster homage was fun, although in a way I was glad it was brief before the tone of it detracted from the overarching plot. The dog racing was very nicely crafted set piece for a side quest, and enjoyed that. I felt the main plot lost something almost because of the lack of urgency to deal with the curse-that-isn't. I can understand the reasons not to make the curse intrusive and agree with them, but if the mask stayed in your pocket, there was little reason not to sit in the inn drinking. Perhaps some more nightmares on resting would have helped drive this. Minor niggle aside, the story was well done to showcase all sides of Westgate, the raising money section a nice nod to BG2 - as was the rival factions: I enjoyed the Ebon Claws/Night Masks plot, but did feel it could have been left at that 2-party rivalry without other twists that came at the end with less foreshadowing (admittedly played only the good path). The ending itself did feel a little rushed, with no character export, no resolution with companions.... But it's a testament to the story and how I was drawn along by it that the ending left me feeling a little empty, but wanting resolution. I did think the proper use of vampires becoming gaseous and regenerating was well done - although the number of times somebody dropped some clue as they were fleeing did feel a little hackneyed by the end (especially when the ability to turn gaseous effects all their gear, and I did wonder why an immortal archmage would not factor the time of day into his plans at the end, but for drama and cinematics, I can be less of a pedant ;) )

Glitches - sadly, I did have some problems with respawning dwarven rogues, and two manatides hanging out in the inn. The Okuzu exotic merchant quest semeed particularly buggy to me, with conversations not always recognising quest states, and some set pieces in the shop not firing (webs but no spiders). Might have just been me/my machine - nothing however was game breaking, and given the amount of scriping machinations going on behind the scenes, this was surprisingly stable. Kudos goes to the scripters for some tight work too.

So, in summary a great game in the style of the campaigns most of the community have grown to love since the BG series, with a strong plot that plays well on FR lore. Come for the scenery, stay for the companions, have to flee from Westgate when the plot comes to it's conclusion, but lick your wounds in anticipation of a rematch. £10 well spent. I haven't touched on the issues surrounding MoW's release, and I won't, suffice to say it's a real shame for me as a player and for the community that this fun Adventure Pack, and potentially others, weren't released sooner.

Module of the Year voting opens

2009-04-30T15:01:00.002+01:00

Vote for your favorite module of 2008 on the vault!

Strong year, 2008, and quite a few contenders vying for my vote. My humble submission Dark Avenger Chapter 2 is there, in esteemed company. Despite FoaC and SoT2 calling me, tempted to vote with my heart and go for the BouncyRock Halloween collective, as agreat realisation of what this community could do.

I'd urge you all to go and support the builders with your vote.

Public Service Announcement

2009-04-29T09:57:00.003+01:00

Normal service will be resumed shortly

Sigh

2009-04-03T09:55:00.003+01:00

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am I really thinking of expanding my dabbling into a proper project which is going to run away from me again....

...might need a sanity check...

Feel the pain

2009-03-27T08:42:00.002Z

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I wanted to give a shout out to BrianMeyer/pain for his work at the Citadel, which is amazingly comprehensive analysis and overhauling of the scripting system for NWN2 - and importantly, some of his work, such as sifting through the apprearance constants , is really handy for other builders out there - so wanted to make sure all knew!

A face for radio, a voice for... a novelist

2009-03-24T08:42:00.004Z

I had my first foray into voice-acting over the weekend, at the behest of ActorOfVeil for his planned module. Was an interesting experience, but listening to the playback, I just hope the dull monotone was what he's after! It did make me think how much of a mammoth task arranging voiceovers for a module actually is - deciding the lines of dialogue to be spoken, giving context, recording and cleaning up...

So I don't even have a voice for radio.. which I guess leaves writing..

Speaking of novelists - my main reason for posting is to highlight the imminent relesease of The Third Sign NWN2 novel conversion teaser from Hugie, based on the upcoming book from Gregory Wilson. Hugie had been planning a total book conversion, but with scope creep the way it is, and to coincide with the book's summer release, it'll be a 'teaser' of sorts to give people a feel for the story and the tone. I, with Indira Lightfoot, was only briefly involved in the periphary when Hugie looked for people to help with the project and couldn;t help as much as I would have liked due to time pressures, but having seen some of the detail going into Hugie and Greg's hybrid baby, and having had the priviledge of reading the novel prior to formal release, this is something to be excited about. It's also a unique approach to promote a book through the NWN2 module format, and to get a player involved in the character-driven story. The sheer amount of custom content including full voice acting for NPCs and specially composed music, makes this quite the tour-de-force. If people want a refresher on the background to the project, Hugie and Greg were interviewed for the (one and only) NWN podcast a few months back. I think this is a really interesting unique approach for promoting work, and also for examining the different ways of telling a story in a novel and in the computer game format, and hope it's well recieved.

Happy Pi Day

2009-03-14T23:19:00.002Z

It's real... http://www.piday.org/ !

Saw Watchmen - couldn't wait long after it was released. Was in two minds about how I felt on a movie version, as it is kinda a quintessential comic story. But I loved it. I was amazed at how close the imagery was to the artwork, and some of the shots could almost have been lifted out of the pages. It translated really well, and had a blast watching it. A little sure at first about how they changed the ending (won't go into spoilers) but on reflection it probably fits the modern day better.

In other news, been getting back to doing some writing, which I haven't done properly in a while, and it's been fun.

Weekend plans

2009-02-26T14:04:00.003Z

Being abandoned this weekend, and after a hectic week, looking forward to being a slob in some 'me' time. Looks like some of the time will be spent updating to the latest patch in anticipation of Mysteries of Westgate's imminent release.

On my dummy overland map test, things were going ok - custom encounters now firing depending on terrain, added in a few custom random encounter areas cobbled from prefabs. Everything until the Goodie system - how random items of interestare found on the overland map. The more I've delved into the script system, the more I think that Obsidian had one system in place, and then changed it for another (not just with goodies but a few other things), but left some 'legacy' script functions around. So, I'm left not quite sure how the SoZ system actually works, despite attempts to unravel... might give this up and focus on something else for a bit.

Interestingly, I noticed Tiberius mentioned on the MoW forums that 'Ossian's next release could well be compatible with Kaedrin's PrC pack' - indicating (for the first time to me at least) that their next project is in NWN2 (rather than another system). Good stuff. Along with the Podcast news from a few weeks back that proposals for future Adventure Packs are welcomed, it'd be interesting to see what other plans might be out there.

iPhone apps

2009-02-18T12:00:00.002Z

Picke dup an iPhone a few weeks back. Normally, I enjoy being an antisocial old git, so was happy with my very old phone that people could rarely reach me on. Now I find myself with the iPhone always in reach, annoying my gf when I'm checking the blogroll whilst we're out shopping.

Does anyone have any good Apps they can recommend? Any/all suggestions welcome. I was hoping to find some games that'd catch my eye, but nothign leapt out at me yet. Something in the AdvanceWars / Fire Emblem / Shining Force genre would be cool. Hey, if anyone wants to put together a 2da editor for the iPhone too, that'd be sweet....!

Quick update

2009-02-15T11:56:00.002Z

So, sounds like Mysteries of Westgate is due imminently - as in matter of weeks rather than indefinite months/years this time. Should be interesting to see. I'm hoping a well-received release will spur the Ossian guys on with their other cryptic projects, which they've been keeping under wraps - understandably given the typical comments on the MoW forum... Check out the other blogs in the list for some more projects which seem to be coming to a long-anticipated fruition too.

Trial overland map coming along - some more placeables and colouring to do. Been tricky to build in toolset and fully appreciate the effect of a fixed camera angle on the view in game. Started on the 2da system for wandering monsters too. The rules-lawyer DM in me is enjoying the number-crunching part of that. As an aside, I'm hoping someone wil come up with some different Overland Map GUI - SoZ's default is OK, but could be much more...

Tracing an Overland Map

2009-02-07T22:40:00.010Z

Prompted by Lance and something I was considering anyway, here are my notes on making an overland map using the a vfx to trace from. For obvious reasons I'll steer clear of general area design/texturing tips and focus on what I picked up. Most readers will likely know the ins and outs of this but doesn't hurt to have a record of it for future reference.

1. Picking your area

Most people will know the FR setting so I'll work with that as a base. The image above takes you to a whole atlas of the Realms, and is a handy starting point. (Note, images you crop fromthis will be small but good enough for tracing later...) Obviously, any scanned image of your sketches of a custom campaign setting map will work too. Now let's pick somewhere you'll recognise...

OK, this image might be small, but it shows the region on the Sword Coast just north of Baldur's Gate, leading up to the Troll Hills. Let's say I'm starting a campaign set in BG, and the sidequests will take me into the surrounding areas. I use Paint Shop Pro for my image work, but any editor, and some downloadable online options will do. So first, we go about selecting the image to make into a vfx stencil. When selecting the region to crop form the larger map there's a few things to bear in mind

Decide which features in the map are key to be included. Here I know I want the Troll Hills and Baldur's Gate, but it might be that you wants to use the map for travel between specific cities (BG, Beregost, Nashkell)

These factors will influence the size/shape of the overland map you want to make. Play around with the cropping tool to find a shape that seems to fit your needs and includes the area features you want. Here, a square area suits me best

Exterior areas in the toolset are built in blocks of 4. Now, you'll want to keep the proportions of the image in line with the proportions of the area you intend to use. For square areas, as long as all sides of your cropped image are equal, this isn't a problem. For rectangular areas, you will want to make sure the area has the same relativedimensions. For example, if the region you want to cover is rectangular, dimensions 107 pixels by 245 pixels, round this to 100 x 250 (2:5 ratio), and crop out an image of those dimensions. This would then be usable on a rectangular exterior area that is 8x20 (still 2:5 ratio). Now, some of this isn't strictly necessary to get exact, so if you get bogged down on this, then just select an image and move on

Once you have the image in the right proportions, save it in TGA (Truevision Targa) format. I'm going to stick with this for now as most people can get means to save in TGA format, but DDS format will also work.

2. Making the traceable map

So now, we go to your module in the toolset. If you are working in directory mode (or mod mode you can use the temporary directory) then put the TGA image into your module name directory. Note that if you save files into your module directory in direcory mode, they ill be packaged into the mod file if you later save as a mod, but still be available in game. Alternatively, in Campaigns, you can place it in your campaign folder. Now in the toolset we need to open up the Visual Effect Editor under the plugins menu. This comes with the game. You'll be wanting to create a new billboard fx

Below are the settings you'll want to update - your file name in the texture, the begin size to 20,20 (more on this in a second), Orientation to User-defined/SourceObjectRotation, and Source colour to grey (this puts a tint on your image - grey at 25% keeps the image visible but not too bright)

Now save the file as .bbx into the module/campaign folder you're working with. Staying with the Visual Effect Editor, and keeping the billboard window open for the time beaing, go to the menu and create a new Special Effect (SEF). You'll open a new window showing two humans staring at each other on flat terrain. Now you want to add a billboard event to this Special effect

All you need to do now is select that in the name menu (these don't have default labels so they're just blank entries for now - you can add labels if you wish), and enter .bbx in the definition file box - you'll pick this from a drop down list of all game effects

Now press 'Play' and you'll see your map appear at the feet of the human in the preview pane. Notice how the image fills one square of the quadrant.

Now flick back to the billboard file (or repopen it if closed), and alter the begin size to fit your map dimensions. 20x20 is one square of a megatile, and 40x40 is one 4x4 megatile. So if the playable (walkable) area of your map is one megatile (a tiny 4x4 area has one megatile), you want the begin size to be 40x40. If you have a rectangular area 8x120, your begin size should be 80x120 and so on. Don't worry about the unwalkable area around your map so much in an overland map (you can alter this once you have the hang of it). Save the altered bbx file and flick back to your new SEF file - stop the animation and press play again to see any updates and tweak until you are happy to have the scale right. Save your SEF file in your directory when done.

3. Using the tracing map in the toolset

Open up your module, and the area you want to designate as your overland map. For simplicity, place an AltarGen placed effect at the Centre of your map (Note: you can use the position no snap feature in the properties to align this exactly if you wish). You might want to set the height of the placed effect jst off the ground - nudge up with the PageUp button, then Height/Position-lock.

Then set the SpecialEffect listed in the properties for the one you have just placed to your saved SEF file from earlier. Et voila, your map should appear, nicely scaled to your area.

Now all that remains is to trace out the features in the terrain options with the colour tool. I use Green for the outline of woods, black for roads, brown for mountains and blue for water. Even put some city placeables down to help mark out their location. For mountains, you might also want to draw out the line corresponding to their peak hight as well as their outline - this helps when raising the terrain and putting snow texture on later. If the map effect is height locked you can star to raise/lower terrain too, and see how this nestles in on your map - see my previous blog post for examples. The image below shows how I've quickly droawn in the Troll Hills. In the Show/Hide toolbar button, you can flick the map effect on/off to see your handiwork. Remember the beauty of the colour tool is that white erases all your mistakes.

General Overland comments
- Roads seem to be about a 3 diameter on the terrain brush
- Camera distance is how high the camera sits above the player
- Camera pitch is how the camera is rotated on the up/down axis - bascially what angle you look down on the PC and the rest of the world. 40 seems good for this
- Camera Yaw is how the camera is roated on the left/right axis.
- The shape of the map you choose will effect the best camera angle for you. If the player is mostly travelling along the North-south axis, then a yaw of zero is fine. but if the travel is more east west, you might want either 90 or 270.

I'll upload a sample module soon covering this, along with another system I've been playing with - Map Travel a la Indiana Jones. A simple heartbeat script to add to Overland maps to create a trail of red dashes behind the player as they move - something I always liked in the Indy movies, and could be used for simple map travel in NWN2

Hope that's made some things clearer - let me know and I can edit in some further explanations

Britain in Winter Shocker!

2009-02-06T12:43:00.002Z

OK, it's been snowing over here for a week. I can look out my window I see this. I can be stuck on a train going nowhere and see this. I can be shunted onto a replacement bus service only for the bus to get stuck halfway up a hill and start sliding back down on the ice-covered roads. THis is ok, and makes a nice change to the normal commute into work. But the constant media coverage of it is driving me insane. Not just reporting that it's snowing, but finding umpteen inane realted storeies to analyse. Does me managing to get into work in a slow-clogged London really 'symbolise the great industrious spirit of our nation'? Nah.. especially not the fact that I later slunk off early, managed to get lucky on the trains, and spent the afternoon playing on the toolset...

Gotta say, I do like the overland map system. Been trawling through the scripts and peeling things apart, and its a nice way of handling things. A few slight queries - like why, whene everything else is handled with local variables, does the ginc_overland file define the number of terrain maps for random encounters there, as opposed to on the map area or something - but I like the way it handles the encounters, and the use of 2da's to store data is funky.

Below show my early attempts at making an overland map (bonus points for people guessing the region!). I first made a custom vfx of the region from the FR map, and then scaled it to fit the area I had, then traced out the main features - black roads, green forests, blue rivers etc. That really helped with scale, and getting the right relative distances. As Phoenixus mentions in his post (with some very nice screenies), because you are dealing with things on a shrunken scale, it makes terrain texture management a little more tricky. For example, the Anauroch desert suddenly found itself moved slightly to buy me an extra texture block in a neighbouring megatile.

One thing that has struck me, is a great resource for future overland maps would be to have one core encounter 2da + blueprints that contained all the encounters you might expect in an FR campaign, which builders could then trim as they see fit for their own use depending on their setting/region/terrain. Might have a go at that myself...

Happy Chinese New Year

2009-01-30T10:12:00.002Z

Slightly belated. Enjoyed cooking to celebrate it, and went slightly better than my Burn's Night celebrations earlier in the week. Burn's Night is something that might not mean much to those outside the UK, but the key aspects are haggis and good dram o' single malt whisky (note, no 'e' in this whisky). I cooked haggis canneloni as a varient on haggis lasagne, which still seems like heresy, but went down well.

There's something oddly therapeutic about putting hak packs together and reordering 2da content as necessary. Yes, it gets tedious after too long, but it still has a certain charm, and certain logic, to it. I've been tinkering with a few things on the toolset, and looking at the Forgotten Realms-specific content on the vault to see what there is that can really bring a realms setting to life. Next on my list is to dabble with the Overland Map to get a handle for what's required, and see how much of a barrier to using it there is. Then, with some handy pointers from Lance, I'm planning on picking up on some initial digging I'd done into the new crafting mechanics.

Once, they're done, I'll see how I'm feeling about getting properly stuck into something new

A poll to the right I'd be interested in people's thoughts on - there's a lot of talk about the state of the community, but from the players and builders, I'd like to know what will keep you sticking with NWN2 this time next year? Something struck me the other day - having read through 4e D&D, and having played all incarnations of D&D (and still playing in PnP Rules Cyclopedia campaign), for me 3.5e is where I'm happiest, and where I feel D&D is the most coherent, consistent, expandable and logical system. I can have fun with other editions, but 3e is what I'd come home to. And NWN2 is likely to be the last bastion of 3e D&D for computer gamers. That to me, seems a pretty good reason to stick with NWN2 and the community. I'd be interestd to hear others thoughts on this (and the poll)

Autoupdater news

2009-01-18T08:26:00.003Z

Interesting news on the autoupdater front from GrinningFool on the Vault including some screenshots

Belated New Year

2009-01-12T15:14:00.002Z

Well, it turned out to be a damp squib of a Christmas break for me as i came down with nasty bout of flu on Christmas Day, shivering despite a raging temperature, that knocked me out until gone new year. So back at work, with everyone else rested and rejuvenated apart from me feeling like I need another 2 weeks off..!

Anyways, I'd hoped to have some more screenies building on the Arabel work to post, but I didn't get on the toolset much in my drug-addled state other than to play Fallout 3 some more (which is still great fun, if level progression is a little too swift). Might have something to show in next couple of weeks....

All modders should check out the latest NWN Podcast. Some interesting tidbits from Atari Europe in there....

Arabel (Cormyr)

2008-12-22T19:14:00.002Z

Situated on Cormyr's northern border and nestled against the rough and wild Stonelands, Arabel has always been a frontier city. Throughout the years it has been an independant hold, overrun and occupied by Orcish hordes, and, briefly, served as the seat of government for Gondegal the Usurper King.

Arabel today is a booming, prosperous center of growth. Both newcomers and young Cormyreans are settling in the lands all around it, making Arabel, as the only practical place where they can hire services, ever richer and busier. It's a city of opportunity that is still lacking many of the sophistications of Suzail but not consumers' appetites for them.

Often referred to as the Caravan City or Overland City of Cormyr, Arabel is dominated by land transport. It is a city of trading costers, warehouses, caravan companies, wagon makers, horse- and bullock-traders and merchant investors. All these are ably governed by ex-adventuress Myrmeen Lhal, the king's lord of Arabel

soon to be available on the vault

Renewing my vows with the toolset

2008-12-09T09:12:00.002Z

So this trial separation thing, me and the toolset took some time out, saw other people... but it wasn't the same.... That familiar, safe feeling wasn't there. So after crying ourselves to sleep alone for too long, we're gonna try and make a go of it again.... kinda...

Heh. So after not touching the toolset much in the past few months, I've slowly been getting the bug back, and spent a fair bit of time playing around over the weekend, mainly looking at new SoZ functions and content. That said, I still think Dark Avenger will have to be on hold, as it got too unwieldy, and the time out from it would mean even longer before any kind of resolution came along. I think I need to focus on more managable (more likely to actually finish) projects if I'm going to get back into building. As for what to do, I'm not sure at the moment.

First thing I might try is building a city prefab, as it's an exterior type i've not built before, and i want to test out the limits to which baking can be pushed. Then will see how things take me. Still got SoZ and Fallout 3 to finish - almost at the end of SoZ, and whilst bits have turned into a grind recently, it's still been fun overall. I like the new ambient effects they use like birds and snakes - easy way to get new content into the background of the game. Been nice to see SoZ has stirred up more activity on the forums, even if it is people arguing about the likes/dislikes of the new expansion

SoZ thoughts - a focus on the 'game' rather than the 'story'?

2008-11-24T09:24:00.004Z

Well, I think DW beat me to it, but here's another self-indulgent review. I've been playing SoZ over the weekend, and am finding it a refreshingly new take on the franchise.

It's different, quite different to others in the series, but what I reall yappreciate is how they've focussed on the differences and their execution, and perhaps most importantly on what makes something a game, and pulled it off really well. So many elements of the D&D game mechanic that were only touched on lightly elsewhere have been brough to the fore, with skill checks all over the place - really helping to define the different roles classes have in a party even further (the ranger being an obvious case in point). It does seem like each skill/stat in the system has been looked at and some thought gone into how to build a game around these. The way towns are handled, for example, was a shock at first, but fits well into the game focussed (and without wanting to sound harsh, suprisingly polished compared to some earlier releases)feel.

I quite like the wandering monster/random encounter mechanic - reminds me of playing all those final fantasy games, and I'm half expecting to find a chocobo at some point - although I can see that if I didn't have my ranger I'd be forced into a lot more of these which could get annoying - but not so far (wouyld be nice to have a few more terrains other than all of them being open walkmesh, but still...). Each encounter is prefaced with options to parley, using skills even further to shift the encounter in your favour. Got to admit I'm impressed with the worldmap.

But one thing that I'm actually really enjoying at the moment, is that I have very little cash. Most of it is going on healing kits due to the new bleeding/death mechanic, which also adds a neat dimension to things. My only bugbear here is that potions should be usable on the dying, but I realise this could be tricky to script... the number of times my cleric has been the first to fall, and everyone else if brimming with potions but can't help him... But this is just requiring a shift in how I play. Got to say, even the hamstrung AI is working well, and the battles have been a nice challenge so far. Full party creation was well done. Working towards the new prestige classes, so can't comment on them yet, but I like the swashbuckler style for my main PC.

Areas seem very nicely done at the moment, and lighting settings have been given a bit more attention. Interior design also seems a step up from some parts of OC and MotB - more creative placeable use that you see in some modules. In the toolset there's some nice new placeables and buildings to use. Plus ambient birdies!

So amongst all the glitz, the party interaction is lacking. But I'm a firm believer that player-created PCs can develop a personality through play and dialogue choices, and the party conversation system (and different options each provide based on skill/stat checks) is going a long way to help with this. Some banter would be nice with the cohorts - but after what Mel has done with the Bishop Romance, this should be quite moddable, and I reckon that could be a fun comunity project for the future.

So whilst I love the roleplaying aspects of PS:T, and the story-driven parts such as MotB, I'm also enjoying the tightly constructed adventure game of SoZ so far. Is it for everyone? Probably not. Am I going to miss some developed characters? - you bet. But I think it can hold it's head alongside the other games in the franchise, and bring something new and refreshing to it. I think 'different' is something that was needed.

Change is as good as a rest...

2008-11-12T07:54:00.002Z

...I think it was a case of being around one plot too long, as I've been playing around with another module idea, and feeling quite enthusiastic about it. Will dabble and see where it takes me.

Wanted to thank all the support I got for DA tho. Was great to read and meant a lot. I will see about bringing it all together if I can.

Read a report that computer game sales are going up in the "current economic climate" (seems to be the buzzphrase at the moment). Really, this should be something Atari use to push NWN2....FREE GAMES!! There's been talk that there isn't enough official word to promote the vault and all it's offerings and I agree (although I can understand why a company might want to distance itself from some content). If they'll be officially adding support for PWs via GrinningFools automatic downloader (which sounds like a great tool), would be nice to see some links - something in the NWN2Launcher that promoted all the free modules and gameplay waiting out there for people.

Finished SoT2, which was very impressive body of work. Now on to FoaC, then Trial and Terror. But probably first, got a wasteland still to explore...

Downgrading status

2008-11-03T12:14:00.004Z

Well, I've finally had to admit it that I'm finding it really difficult to get time on the toolset over the past few months as real life has caught up with me, and when I have, it's been harder to feel motivated (looking back I'm amazed how easily I made time for the toolset, but now, it feels more difficult).

So, I'm officially downgrading from 'Modder' to 'Dabbler'. The game and community still hold a keen interest for me - I had fun doing the BouncyRock Halloween project, and will happily take part in more things like that.

What does this mean for DarkAvenger... well, it's sleeping. The prospect of another 3 chapters worth of content was getting too daunting, and I'd do it a disservice by cramming the story into a smaller effort. It was hard to admit I needed to put it on hold, but I've felt better now I've admitted to myself that I'm not going to be modding as much as before, as it feels the pressure I put myself under is gone.

As I said, I'm not retiring from the NWN2 community - there's too much good stuff due out soon that I want to play. And I want to keep my eye in as a builder - hence helping out Indira taking over Hugie's reins on The Third Sign project, and I'd be happy to help with playtesting, some dialogue/companion work or casting an eye over things for people as/when. I've also got some ideas for a smaller scale project I might dabble on in the toolset, but not commit to anything yet (and you know how it goes -anything small scale can easily suffer from scope creep.... I mean the first draft of DarkAvenger way back when didn't have much more than 20 areas....).

So I'm off to relax, play some Fallout3, finish Subtlety of Thay2, work through the list of modules I've been meaning to get to... then see when the toolset beckons again.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T08:18:00.006Z

The Halloween project is finally done and up on the vault!

I've only had time to check out a handful of the contributions, but the standard is great, and it's pretty humbling to be up there. Major thanks to the BouncyRock team for making this happen (and if you download this for one thing, it's got to be Jonny and Liso's house!!! You won't look at NWN2 the same...). As someone mentioned, the campaign, if nothing else, is a great resource for builders - clever scripting, custom content galore... amazing to see what a motivated group can do in a couple of months, and I hope it is the first of many to come. So people - download it, play, enjoy and vote.

Even in the few I've played so far, it's been interesting to see the variety in themes and ideas people have used. Amongst all the fun, Elysius' mod really impressed me, and took me back to some of the old style adventures. Very well executed. Other real stand-outs for me were Vendalus, JasonNH, BlackRain, Anduraga, Ree&Liso and Dirtywick - and I love the take GPS have on the candy they give out. And if Amraphael's house is a hint of Zork to come, I can't wait - nice set ups in there.

Now, I just have to finish off the rest.... before Fallout 3 arrives in the mail....

HalloWyreen is coming

2008-10-15T22:02:00.003+01:00

Just submitted my entry to the BouncyRock Holloween event - fingers crossed for it all working ok! Should be good fun trick or treating everyone else's houses!

Still around...

2008-10-05T22:43:00.002+01:00

...just not being very productive. Slowly working on the HalloWyreen entry for the BouncyRock Collective (see screenie), but otherwise not been on the toolset much at all with other things going on. But made a point to start Subtlety of Thay 2, which is looking pretty sweet so far.

Future tense-ions

2008-09-15T08:43:00.004+01:00

Dropped in on the Academy of Modding Excellence NWN2 winners chat over the weekend - check out the log here. I wouldn't focus too much on my small contribution to proceedings but it's definitely worth checking out what the guys at Robinson Workshop have got going on - myconids and gelatinous cubes!! Oozes are sadly lacking the the toolset and what's a dungeon without a black pudding latrine, or gelatinous cube hiding at the bottom of a pit trap?

Still on a bit of a downer with NWN2 at the moment (not as enthused by it - either playing or building) so not much toolset time the past week, but did make some good progress on the Halloween project. I've finished the cellar part, and am working on an investigation in the upper reaches of the house - which is hopefully good practice for the quests i'll be working on for Dark Avenegr 3. Jclef has put together my exterior building which looks pretty cool. It'll be interesting to see the ideas other have - and how many themes recur across them.

Something that cropped up at the end of the AME chat was a discussion about the future of NWN2, which I couldn't hang around for much of. But I was interested that the overwhelming consensus was that NWN2 would die with the advent of Dragon Age - especially with some big names in the community agreeing with this. There's still an adventure pack, and expansion and many big-time modules from forum/blog celebs to come for NWN2, so I thought there's life in the old dog yet, but maybe things are slowing down? WHat do you guys think? We're quite insular and insulated in the blogging community, but do you sense thigns quietening and the end in sight with Dragon Age?

What's so great about real-time...?

2008-09-05T13:53:00.003+01:00

I never really understood the fuss when suddenly the focus on strategy games went to making them real-time. Maybe I need slower action so my dinosaur-like brain impulses can keep up, but I'm a big fan of turn-based games. This is prompted by me replaying The Temple of Elemental Evil at the moment, which is as close to a D&D 3e similation as you can imagine. And I'm really enjoying it, after the arcade-ified action of NWN2. It's great to be able to move the party with proper strategy, place those fireballs where you want, split your magic missiles amongst enemies - and my personal favourite - give a DEX based warrior a spiked chain and the combat reflexes feat, and let the enemy run into their own death. Some of my favorite games have been turn-based - XCOM, Fallout series... It's FUN to actually use tactics, something many of the real-time games make it harder for me to enjoy (although admittedly, I did like the Dawn of War series). Keen to see how Fallout 3 handles things with the VATS combat, and got my copy on pre-order already.

As you might have guessed, I'm playing more than building at the moment. The toolset doesn't always leave much time for playing, and I'm enjoying the break. Still working on what is now dubbed my HalloWyreen area for the BouncyRock Globetrotter All-Stars, but I'll keep most of that under wraps for now...

.. other than to say "Hail to the King, baby"

No PC, No Toolset - keeping myself busy...

2008-08-26T14:25:00.003+01:00

Computer round at a friends as we work on building me a new one - so no toolset for a week...! Idle hands and all that..

Made a start on my entry for the BouncyRock Halloween Experience (see previous post) before I started taking the old PC apart - going to be one house with two themes 'Trick' and 'Treat'. I couldn't keep my love of the Army of Darkness under wraps, so the Treat section is a homage to that - the other slightly more serious in tone. Should be fun!

From little seeds, giant pumpkins grow

2008-08-21T09:22:00.005+01:00

It started as an innocent request on the forums. Irradiated by a mysterious green light from outer space, it mutated, and grew into the vast despicable be-pumpkin-holder you see above.

Jclef and the bOuNcYrOcK massive are organising a special event for Halloween and calling all builder to contribute. Check out the links above for more details. I'm going to skim through Heroes of Horror to flesh out my ideas - one of my favourite 3.5e splatbooks actually. Readers of my blog last Halloween will know I'm a big fan of the Evil Dead films, but might try a different tack here. Looking forward to seeing how this comes off - I've talked before about how I think it'd be good for the builders to work together more, and hopefully this could be the start of beautiful sweaty limb-thrashing gore-filled relationship

In other news, I officially threw a girly hissy fit during a toolset crash on saving an area after updating to 1.13 the other day. Two crashes since updating which doesn't bode well - but what annoyed me more was that I'd just gotten back into it after a break from building and written two conversations with companion interjections i was quite proud of... Luckily no on around to witness my tantrum... and fortunately the folder I was left with was recoverable, and all the dialogue work was there. A new computer is due in the coming weeks, so really hoping the extra memory will sort out any remaining toolset woes.

Tristor village finally finished

2008-08-11T14:20:00.003+01:00

The more astute among you will notice the area hasn't change dmuch from the post a few below. Mainly i've been toying with the lighting settings and finishing up texturing on the swamp. Lighting has such a dramatic change on an area (and can cover a multitude of texturing sins). In many ways, I think there should be a DayNightStage section on the vault for people to share their work and findings - areas are given a new lease of life by merely straying from the standard settings - but finding the right settings for lighting one stage of the cycle e.g. daylight is hard enough, let alone sunrise, moonrise etc... I enjoyed playing with them in DA2 for the abandoned gnomish village and the interior smuggler's cave to get the darker, bleaker feel - two areas that look and fell very different under normal lighting! I'd bet this goes for the Misery Stone guys too.

Anyway, the village is bordering a desolate swamp and beset by troubles, so I decided against the sunny disposition of the earlier shots and went for more doom and gloom. Which is a bit of depressing theme I seem to be in.... would be nice to write characters that aren;t quite so broken... But then I have always felt you have to be broken to be an adventurer - stomping into sentient creatures homes and slaughtering them...

So speaking of broken characters, the final companion Ruevena is now finalised - after working through many iterations using Elysius' Battle of the Builds, which handily lets you restart the levelling process if somethign goes awry, and gives you the epithet feats for all PrCs. Ruevena will be Ranger 1 / Sorceror 6 / Eldritch Knight 1 / Shadow Thief of Amn 1 - which trust me fits with her backstory quite well. I also like to give enough leeway in the companion's classes that the player can then adapt them to fit into their party in several ways by selecting their level up package. What I'd love to do is give her a themed spelcasting list as a sorceror, which is a fun way of adding personality to them, and explaining what fuels a sorceror's power, but i'll have to stick with defining her selection for now.

Vowing not to touch the toolset until I've done a bit more planning now - I have 4 areas i've been building, and not filled them with any activity yet, so need to get back to that

NOTE: Any players out in Australia... check out the latest copy of Hyper (issue 179) - I was contacted by a journalist who's written a piece on NWN2 modules for that issue, and asked for some DA screenies. Good to see the community being highlighted!

Foraging, complete with tacky cover image

2008-08-05T22:13:00.004+01:00

quite proud of how retro/tacky I got that to look!

Been meaning to share this on the vault for a while - the foraging system I use in Dark Avenger. It's not what you'd call an amazing feat of scripting, but there ground work is there with 29 different plants/molds/fungi placeables that can be gathered and harvested for their respective produce, and it's really simple to add more. Figure it'd be useful to someone, as an easy add-in or a starting point for their own system. Click on the image to head to the Vault.

Interview trifecta now in play: AME!

2008-08-02T09:07:00.002+01:00

Another interview I did for the Academy of Modding Excellence has been posted on their forums!

Check it out here

Thanks to Ben for his orgainisation of the awards and the interview.

Podcast is up

2008-08-01T18:08:00.001+01:00

Enjoy my less-than-dulcet tones!

(Diplomacy: Success)!!

2008-07-30T09:08:00.002+01:00

Two quick announcements of my diplomatic skills this week

I've got engaged! Full proposal, down on one knee etc. She cried. We picked out a ring together. I saw the price tag. I cried. Beautiful....
I'm the next one up for the Podcast treatment! Be sure to check out episode 65 this Friday! Thanks to Liso and the guys for the opportunity

Well, I'm hoping they were diplomatic successes - at least no intentional intimidation involved, but maybe a smattering of bluff.....

...Hmm maybe I could have worked all the 3rd ed skills into my proposal... Sleight of Hand to slip the ring on unnnoticed, appraise to buy the ring cheaply, craft alchemy to slip something in her drink whilst she's not looking.....

Tristor screenies

2008-07-23T18:12:00.002+01:00

Some more screenshots of the village of Tristor, hub for chapter 3 Act 1. Progress on this area has been slow but getting there. The area's split in two halves - a village and a swamp - each with different texturing needs, which makes it a little trickier to handle. I had this problem with the Thornton Hough area from chapter 2 - grassy cliffs and sandy beaches -and you need to plan it carefully so textures management doesn't get too tricky... Progress so far

Shrine to Shaundakaul

Gates of Tristor

Temple of Ilmater

Things always look better in the toolset - that's my excuse anyway...

Baug's Brewery

Sunset by the Hanging Tree

Sunset over the marsh

Moonlight on the windmill

Part of the reason for slow progress is that I've been playing more. Recently played the new release Howls in the Dark - for anyone looking for a good story driven adventure, I can highly recommend it. My reviews on the vault. One of the most enjoyable modules I've played in a long time so congrats to Rasvar. Check it out!

Something that's hitting me as summer finally gets underway overhere (weather system seems to have just realised it's meant to be sunny and is rushing to catch up) - I need to improve my fitness. Never been exactly what you'd call 'svelte', but since my stomach op last year, and all this time spent at the toolset, it hasn't done much good for my health/fitness over the past year. Unless anyone has ideas for combining the toolset and exercise (using a bike to power my PC..?), I'm going to have to start hiking/cycling a bit more...

Rats! Rats! The Elemental Plane of Rats! Rats! The Eleme...

2008-07-14T12:06:00.002+01:00

Call it silly season, too much sun (in the UK??), or whatever...

Just got back from my planar jaunt with my sanity in tatters... the results are on the vault

The Elemental Plane of Rats - the mother of all 'Rats in the Cellar' quests!

So anyways, I follow the old man through the portal and find myself in an inn. A kindly looking old woman greets me with a smile. Obviously, I needed a drink and some information, but sadly, she informed me that she wasn't able to think about any of that whislt she had this problem in her cellar. Turns out there was a rat problem - big rats, that needed the heroic type to sort out. Eating all her grain, drinking her mead, running a protection racket, polluting the river and turning babies into oil to power their gas-guzzling motorised carriages. I'd never heard of the like! Couldn't resist the moist glistening in her rheumy eyes as she begged for my help, so off I trundled down the stairs....

it was one of those nagging things in the back of my head - an idea I just had to put to rest. I'd even come up with a jingle/theme tune for crissakes... So I figured I'd spend a weekend on it, get it out of my system, and move on. Maybe someone can enjoy a moments distraction with it.

But hey, it offers scalable gameplay to any level, infinite gameplay time... Give the peoples what they want I say! What more can you ask for?!

...apart from asking for the singing to stop....

A little sidequest of my own

2008-07-09T12:15:00.002+01:00

Whilst booting up the toolset last night, ready to continue my work in a linear fashion, a wizzened old hermit lept out from behind my bookcase, and begged me to help him. Turns out there's a portal behind my bookcase - who knew? All of a sudden i found myself with three choices - help him, ignore him, or kill him. My girlfriend would kill me if i got blood onthe carpet, so I thought the best thing to do to get him outm of the house as quickly as possible was to go along with him. So looks like I'm doing something else for a little while...

Quick poll to the left - the first half of Chapter 3 will be a standalone sidequest (much like the Raven's Lake area in CHapter 2) and be based on a pen-and-paper module. So I was wondering if there's any interest in converting it as a standalone SP/MP module in parallel. If people aren't sick of me already of course :p

The Joy of Prefab-Terracoppa sex

2008-06-29T18:39:00.002+01:00

As I mentioned before, my plan is to use prefab areas a lot more from now on, to really free up my time. So I've had fun with two areas so far - Teper's swamp and SGK's farmlands. So I've mainly been importing and modifying these rather than build my own areas. In some cases there's some fairly heavy modification, but having the basic texturing done is a great time saver. The Terracoppa tool is also handy for manipulating prefabs to get out of them exactly what you want. Good example - the farmlands prefb had an area that would have been perfect to use - but it was in the unwalkable surroundings - so terracoppa let me easily slice out the section I needed and move it around.

The second half of the screenshots are form an area I needed to make myself. I've kinda got to the stage I often find myself in with area building - all the terrain sculpted and key placables fitted... but now I just stare at the texture pallette and try to work out what to do next. It's this first leap into texturing I find the hardest bit.

Back in Blighty

2008-06-23T10:41:00.002+01:00

Finally back home, back to the joys of UK public transport and delays on the trains from the airport, back to British sandwiches which pale into insignificance next to American ones (pastrami and swiss FTW!), back to poor customer service, back to everything being twice the price... ahh, home! San Diego was fun, if a little hot for my tastes. Got to see Arnie in the flesh (shorter than you'd think), party on the top deck of the USS Midway (bigger than you'd think), drink too much Sam Adams (nicer than I'd thought), and see the Padres beat the Detroit Tigers at the baseball (much more fun than I expected). Man, you guys are really into your sports statistics..!

-------------------------------

Well, thanks for the support in the last post. Very much appreciated. I was doing a quick email check before I left the hotel and spotted on the Bioware forums that the AME Golden Dragon winners for NWN2 had been announced. Links to the right, and in the other blogs that have posted already. I'm the very proud recipient of the Best Roleplaying Module. Winning, especially in this category, means a lot. Roleplaying is what I enjoy, and what I wanted to achieve. Plus my two favorite modes were up against me! - Subtlety of Thay and H&C. When I started DA, I did wonder if people would 'get it', and I'm glad so many did. So thanks again, to players, community and the AME. Cue me crying like Gwynneth Paltrow....
If you havent already, check out the AME forums and the NWN Podcast ceremony, completely trouser free!

---------------

So, flying 25 hours in the past week gave me time to watch quite a few films/shows I'd been meaning to get round to thanks to in-flight entertainment. complete with Four Word Film review synopsis

Cloverfield - not great to watch in turbulence due to camcorder filming (bleurgh!) but OK film. Aliens level Manhattan overnight
No Country for Old Men - love Coen brothers movies, and loved this. Lived up to the press. Fun with an Air-Gun
There will be Blood - I'm fascinated in history by the period of time, 19th through to very early 20th century American - how the growing frontier was explored and settled. Grew from my love of westerns when i was young. I found this film fascinating if slightly uncomfortable viewing. Daniel Day-Lewis shows what acting is about. Worth checking out. Oil man's slippery downfall
Persopolis - I'm a big fan of animation - especially Japanese anime, and comics/graphic novels. I'd heard good things about this film based on an autobiographical graphic novel about a young girl growing up in Iran, moving to the west, then returning. Enjoyed it a lot. Ran from Iran, returned

Also saw Semi-Pro and AvP2 but stopped half way through. Pity as I'm usually up for some Alien vs predator cheesy action, but wasn't taken with it. Watched some TV comedy - mainly Family Guy, old Red Dwarf. Also saw some more of Flight of the Conchords, which is great stuff. Didn't get much of a chance to read some of the Salvatore books I took with me - but did find a copy of a graphic novel version of the early Drizzt stuff, which I picked up.

---------------------

OK, enough of the self-indulgent blog stuff. OK, one more quick thing - I got 4th edition D&D books - waiting for me when I got home. Really not sure what to make of it yet. I always hated the old school D&Ders who refused to even look at later editions just because it represented change. But I find myself falling into that a little with 4e. Some changes I think make sense, but others leaving me a little cold. For a new system it seems interesting. But I don't think they've achieved the goal of making D&D more simple. More on that some other time.

Basically, there's nothing to report with DA3. Coupla early stage screenies from the opening area. Going to be doing exterior work for the next few weeks I think as I lay some of the ground work.

Woohoo!

2008-06-21T18:40:00.001+01:00

WoOhOo!

...more later but i have a flight home to catch

Are you going... to San Di...ego...

2008-06-11T10:08:00.003+01:00

... OK wrong 'San' city and my hair isn't exactly long (or bouffant) enough to have flowers put in it, but the sentiment's there.

Flying out to San Diego for a weeklong conference on Saturday (Arnie Schwartzenneger and Colin Powell are talking! Will have to stop myself heckling with Conan and Red Sonja quotes (for Arnie, not Colin...). Work building up to this has been a nightmare. I find that stress at work saps my creativity generally, which is a pain, as it means my refuge of the toolset doesn't welcome me. I've made a very crude start on the first 2 areas of chapter 3 - one modifying a prefab swamp in part of my drive to use more pre-built content. Actually, i've made major changes to water and lighting (which can alsmot create the effect of a new area in itself), and quite happy with the result.

The second area is a hamlet on the edge of the swamp. It's my chance to build a village properly, as I Like to think my areas have improved form my first starting village in chapter 1 all those many moons ago, so keen to do his one myself.

But work is crazy and not had much time to get things underway. Might be good to have a break for a bit - although I do have 2 11-hour flights to fill in whilst I'm travelling...

New companion - Ruevena

2008-06-03T13:53:00.003+01:00

Feedback on Chapter 2 is positive so far - glad the feel is that its a good development on chapter 1. It's nice to be back on the list on the front page too! Although I think when I released Chapter 1 the minimum score to get in that top 15 was quite a bit lower. 99 modules were released between chapter 1 and 2 coming out. Not bad going really for the community, and signs of it growing and developing..?

As I mentioned, Chapter 3 will bring in the final companion. Ruevena, CE human female Ranger/Sorceress/EldritchKnight/Assassin. She's a 'feral mage' as i've dubbed it - a child of the outdoors with a strong talent for magic she doesn't fully understand. I'll leave more personailty traits to be revealed in game - although I'm not really planning on her being a romance option. I'm trying to pick a good portrait for her, and here are some on my current shortlist, in rough order of preference from left to right. None of them quite right so might have to do a bit more searching. . .

Sharing the love

2008-05-30T12:40:00.003+01:00

Just wanted to quickly post a big THANKS and kudos to a few people

Amraphael - for going above and beyond the call of duty in tracking down a bug with an area that works fine for me but not for others. I got up early this morning and spent 20 minutes before leaving for work yo-yoing over an area transition trying to make the game crash but couldn't! But Amraphael help pin it down to some trees i nthearea, which I'll look to replace for Saturday night's update
Jazhara - who has really helped pick out gameplay bugs
Argoyne - who really helped with testing and release updates
The guys helping on the vault - first release was always going to pick out more problems, but Michael Negranol, eb52t and others for being patient, sticking with it, and reporting back.
Any other's i've missed / not thanked already!

I'm already in trouble with my girlfriend for the amount of time I've been on the toolset this week (usually I don't get to mid week, but I wanted to get 2 updates out asap). But she's out Saturday so I've got a day scheduled to really try and nail any last remaining bugs. I've had a couple of reports of people's inventories being wiped clean on he module transition (basically, the SaveRosterLoadModule function). Companions are fine, just the PC. Not come across this before, and nothing on the forums seems linked. I have to say, it's been a LOT more hassle than its worth to make this an expanding campaign rather than individual mods.

So amongst all the bug reports, I've had some time to think ahead. Still planning with Delak for the city areas for Chapter 3. But I've now got a stronger image in my mind of the next and final companion - Reuvena, a female human Sorceress with a difference. I can see a danger her turning out similar to Contessa, which I'll have to avoid. I like to come up with a history, and then develop the classes around that, and I quite like Reuvena's motivation. I'm thinking she's evil... although there is already one evil female companion, so for balance maybe more neutral would be better.

But no toolset today - time to patch things up first...!

A Cruel Mistres

2008-05-28T08:57:00.003+01:00

With bended knees I daily worship her,

Yet she consumes her own idolater.

Of such a goddess no times leave record,

That burnt the temple where she was adored

A Cruel Mistress, Thomas Carew

The toolset is a cruel mistress. Looking back, there some things that really bugged me about the toolset building the last chapter. The core being that things in the toolset were not that same as in the game. Namely custom content - 2da files in the campaign folder seemed to work fine in the toolset, but wouldn't display in game. Grr.

And a bug that I hoped was an isolated incident in testing, but now appears to be more common - crashing on loading an area. I canoot replicate this at all on my machine. Area loads fine for me in game and toolset, not laggy. Small area too, so not a problem there. But some people are getting crashes on loading it - fairly consistently, but occasionally it will load for them correctly. Any ideas.

It's these little illogicalities that drive you insane. Yet still we come back for more - check out Ernies post and the replies about it.

Thanks Kaida for the first vote and your support for Zabados - there's lot more to come form him in chapter 3 don't worry!! Put together a quick patch for Chapter 2 - a stupid bug I should have caught, thanks to Argoyne for spotting. Also started sketching a storyboard for Chapter 3....

Chapter 2 on the Vault

2008-05-27T08:41:00.003+01:00

Link in the module list to the right!

Good to have it finally up! Although now the tricky bit starts.

People will have to help me out with playtime. I put 5 h as a rough guess, but very dependant on how much you explore - the core plot can be done by covering less than a third of the playable areas. Bit worried it might be short for some - and doesn't seem a great playtime:toolset time ratio :-/

Started The Red Prison yesterday which is fun so far. Also released yesterday with DA2 was Seekers, which I think is an FRW mod. Looks interesting so will check that out too.

It is done

2008-05-26T12:57:00.003+01:00

Chapter 2 uploaded. Should be on the Vault soon

Been a knackering few days bug hunting / fixing.

Thanks so much to all who helped - and any that hadn;t got back to me in time, thanks, and I'll still welcome any comments

I'm going to be pretty busy with work next few days so was keen to get it out now.

Now I need to rest, maybe play the Red Prison, which I've been waiting to do, before all the bug reports flood in!

For all those who supported me withChapter 1, I hope I've done your support justice!

Debugging

2008-05-23T22:25:00.002+01:00

Some quick screenies from my debugging playtests then some questions

OK and now the questions
1. All of a sudden (i.e. not happened before whilst playing NWN2), I exit the game, and I'm getting low virtual memory warnings. Could this be pointing to problems with heartbeat scripts? any other things to check? (I don;t have ideal memoryto play the game anyway, but this has only recently cropped up)
2. Conversation fired from a speak trigger - I know it fires because the conversation abort/end scripts fire correctly. But the conversation doesn;t appear to start or get to/pastthe first node - no text? Given speakers tags are correct (it's two NPCs talking on the first node) - what could be going wrong?

hope the Builders Blogging Brain collective has some pointers!

Just as well I shaved my head again at the weekend...

2008-05-21T10:34:00.003+01:00

... so I can't tear it out now! There's been problems for people actually being able to start chapter 2, let alone whilst running it - so if anyone has got it working, let me know! This is the part I hate - when people with everything installed correctly, can't do what I do routinely to get things going in game. Had a play myself last night and spotted a few bugs and a conversation that refuses to fire, so will have to look into that. Maybe I'll be busier this weekend than I thought. Still, thanks to all who can help and are sticking with it! And anyone else willing to help, do let me know - seems like it needs an surgeons touch!

On another note, I'm thinking of buying a new PC, and would appreciate some advice - I know some of the community have bought new rigs recently - what's good, and bearing in mind a lot of my time is on the toolset, what should I look for / avoid? I've heard mixed things about dual processors and how the toolset can't use them optimally - anything I should be wary of?

Work is also causing me stress, as I'm off to a conference in San Diego in just over 3 weeks and have lots to prepare. I've been given tickets to my first ever baseball game - San Diego Padres hosting Detroit Tigers. Not sure what to expect really, so any pointers?

Alpha test out

2008-05-18T20:39:00.002+01:00

Bit of a slog this weekend and still didn;t finish completely - but there should be a start to epilogue version of chapter 2 now avaialable for testing

See forum post here

Anyone with time to kill who is willing to give me feedback of any kind I'd be grateful. Especially those who were fans of chapter 1 and gave me the support there - you're the ones I'm doing chapter 2 for, so if I've lost my aim, or there's something not right about this compared to chapter 1 and you want to have your say - let me know. It's hard to critique your own work when you're so close to it, and I'm worried I've lost some of the original momentum and feel - so any help appreciated

Now, I need to sleep...

For Kaida ;)

2008-05-18T00:59:00.000+01:00

Pre-alpha gallery

2008-05-17T17:19:00.002+01:00

working hard to do a run-through of chaper 2 myself before releasing an alpha version. Still got a problem of major lag in two areas and not having much luck pinning down why (lighting might be causing one as I did go a bit overboard, the other just puzzles me...). Anybody got experience of lag in an area and any unsuspecting things that might cause it (i.e. other tha grass/trees, what are key culprits or things to check)?

Quick gallery of screenshots fom my playtesting today

Sometimes...

2008-05-13T22:13:00.002+01:00

...writing conversations really drives me insane....

Latest news

2008-05-10T11:17:00.002+01:00

Well, it's almost there. I'm a bit worried I'm rushing the end parts slightly, but part of me is keen to just have something out there being tested. If I'm lucky I'll have something out by the end of the weekend, if not next, at least with placeholder conversations. I played back through chapter 1 twice to pick a save game to send out for people to start chapter 2 with. Strangley I really enjoyed playing a Ftr1/Wiz3 but struggled big time with a spirit shaman build. I think as there is no companion that's a big arcane caster, they can shine a little more. Playtesting will help get the balancing right - from my brief checks so far, it seems really tough, but the I've often thought that before to be told it's just right or people like tough fights...

Other big news is that Delak is going to help me build Marsember - he's putting his Idylls of the Rat King on hold briefly to help me out, and I hope to be able to return the favour at some point. This toolset can be a cruel mistress sometimes, so I know how tricky it can be to stick with something, and acheive what you want in a realistic timeframe - I laughed when i read at the end of DA Chapter 1 epilogue that the sequel would be out in Winter 08...!

Still having real trouble getting a conversation to fire after resting - see this thread. No amount of delays and backlups sem to let me get this dialogue working - anybody out there have any ideas?

Come together

2008-05-06T09:20:00.002+01:00

Well I finally started exporting the areas from my 'testbed development' module and importing them into the main chapter 2 module... so the size has shot up, now at about 350. Not much still compared to some, but that 300 Mb mark is where my PC starts to struggle. I'm not sure if it's this, or just my aged PC, or a combination of factors, but things have gotten a little too laggy in game for my tastes. Particularly in the largest area (screenshot above). Then it's just as bad in the toolset, as these area take a f*!$ing age to load, then are really slow to navigate around... plus you wait for a minute to the screen to respond, hoping that it hasn't crashed.... Maybe it's time for a new PC....

Another problem with the area above is some custom AI I worked on for some guards - spotting enemies, calling for the alarm to be sounded, barring gates, summoning reinforcements... Things got a little slow when all that was going on. So that might be a mixture of area size, scripts firing etc.... Anyway, I'm hoping playtesting will confirm how much of an issue it is for the players. Might be helped by me splitting this Chapter over two modules, which I'm a little loathe to do

Speaking of which, my goal is to release an alpha version in a couple of weeks and I'll be begging for help around then. I have one area left to do - the epilogue - and then it's mainly conversation fluff and some journal entries - which needn't necessarily be in place before testing. I mentioned this on the forums, but if anyone has a save game from the end of DA Chapter 1, I'd be grateful if they could zip it up and send it over to help with my own testing. From my own playing so far, I think a PC mage would do really well, as the companions can't help with big blatty spells much. Something I might need to work on, although I'm planning another companion to come in in Chapter 3 who will be a sorceress....

Area designer (team) wanted!

2008-05-02T14:01:00.003+01:00

OK, as I'm (hopefully) coming into the final stages of Chapter 2, my mind is drifting towards Chapter 3... which will usher in quite a change of scene as the party leave the wilds and rural areas and head to the city. As I mentioned in a post below, I'd envisaged the story taking place in Cormyr, and what the locals are now calling 'Ellesmere Port' is in fact Marsember (reasons why become clear at the end of chapter 2).

Now whilst most know my extrerior areas are a little 'wonky', I'm keen to bring a vibrant city to life in chapter 3. Marsember is an interesting place, and I think translating the map in the image above into three dimensions will create a really evocative place to run around. Well, it would, if it's not me doing the area design...

So that's where my request comes in. I'd love to have a a builder or a small team help me make this area (well, several areas in terms of the toolset) a reality in the NWN2 toolset. I realise my limitations here, and am keen to get help. This lets me work on finishing chapter 2 - and with the area complete, I can dive straight into the meat of chapter 3 without bogging myself down with this task I know I might struggle with. I'd plan on having the area released as a prefab for the community to use too.

Do let me know if you are interested.

And don't forget the IRC chat tomorrow!

AME Nominations Round up

2008-05-01T10:09:00.003+01:00

AME have posted up the second round of nominations:

So full list is now

Community Contribution Award:
Grinning Fool, Robinson Workshop, Tanita

Veteran Author Award:
ENoa4, Adam Miller, John McA

Debut Author Award:
human_male, Wyrin D’njargo, Falloutboy, Zach Holbrook

Best Tileset:
Cryptpit by witness, RWS Deep Halls by RWS, “The Sewer Tileset” by Restless

Best Custom Content:
Building Construction Kit by Nytir, TonyK’s Companion and Monster AI Hak, Sorceress Ashura VFX Pack

Best Multiplayer Module:
Tomb of Horrors revisited by BM Productions, Mystery at Willowbow by Saorsa

Best Roleplaying Module:
Harp & Chrysanthemum by Maerduin, Dark Avenger by Wyrin, Sublety of Thay by dirtywick

Best Action Module:
Tragedy in Tragidor by Phoenixus, The Corruption of Kiahoro by human_male, Moonshadows Chapter 1 by Alex Hugon

Best Adventure Module:
Dark Avenger Chapter 1 by Wyrin D’njargo, Dark Waters Chapter 1 by Adam Miller, Conan Chronicles 1: Legion of the Dead by John McA

Most Re-playable Module:
Pirate Cards by Adam Miller, Pool of Radiance Remastered by Markus ‘Wayne’ Schlegel

Best PnP Conversion Module:
Tomoachan by Enoa4, Red Hand of Doom by sgt_why

Three nominations ! That ties with Adam Miller, of all people! I'm shocked but really pleased. There's some great company and competition (including some of my favorite modules) in each category so we'll see how it goes. Hoping I won't do a Richard Burton. ;) Good luck to all involved!

For anyone interested there'll be an IRC chat (details in link) this Saturday - I'll try and be there, and looking forward to it!

Some more screenies

2008-04-27T15:20:00.003+01:00

This area spun out of a side plot I was musing over, and quite like how it turned out. It's nothing fancy - not many placeables - but happy with the mood and lighting.

So this area came about mainly as the result of the poll into cutscenes during dungeon crawling - so one I started led into a whole new branch of plot - optional but if completed will add a nice touch later on.

So, I finally got annoyed with myself on Friday - I'd let myself get too disorganised, and it was really slowing me down. Check out E.C.'s planning on Into the Forgotten Realms , Amraphael's bug hunting on Zork and Elysius' approach to Faithless as examples of building approaches - really puts my scribbled notes to shame. So I sat back and made a step by step list of everything that needs to be done in order to get this chapter finished, and put it all in perspective. Now, in theory I can work through and cross off each step as it's done. List isn't as daunting as I thought it might be, and a lot of it is dialogue/cutscenes, and rounding out the journal entries. I'm thinking about putting out an alpha version of the main quest minus some of these final touches to get the bug hunting underway - by mid-May if all goes to plan. Any willing playtesters, bug-hunters and proof-readers let me know!

One last thing - for builders, check out Dirtywick's advice on scripting creature AI - really handy stuff.

AME Nominations Part 1

2008-04-24T22:02:00.004+01:00

The nominations for the Community Recognition and Custom Content awards from the Academy of Modding Excellence have been released, and I'm up for Debut Author!

RECOGNITION AWARDS
Community Contribution Award
Grinning Fool
Robinson Workshop
Tanita

Veteran Author Award
ENoa4 (Keep on the Borderlands, Tomoachan)
Adam Miller (Dark Waters, Pirate Cards)
John McA (Conan Chronicles)

Debut Author Award
human_male
Wyrin D’njargo
Falloutboy
Zach Holbrook

CUSTOM CONTENT AWARDS
Best Tileset
Cryptpit by witness
RWS Deep Halls by RWS
“The Sewer Tileset” by Restless

Best Custom Content
Building Construction Kit by Nytir
TonyK’s Companion and Monster AI Hak
Sorceress Ashura VFX Pack

Pretty stoked at just being nominated, will see how it goes - tough competition. Congrats to all nominated, and it's nice to see some of the 'backroom' custom content guys being given recognition for some really great work

Regular(ish) update

2008-04-20T19:07:00.002+01:00

(from the forums)
Progress still a little slow due to that pesky thing called real life. But I've been finishing off some interiors, working on the basics for a new area, and working on some more cutscenes to punctuate the action. I've also had a chance to playthrough some of the quests more - and it's shown that I'm going to need help with the balance for one thing. On the whole it's hanging together fine, but some encounters are a bit too tough, so I'll look into that. Quick question - as a player would you prefer unrestricted resting, or restricted resting in specific locations, opr restricted resting with plot-relevant 'force rests' - e.g. just prior to big plot relevant battles, the party will be fully rested and spells restored?

A trip to the sauna

Evangelical posturing from one of the Miltia battle clerics

The trouble with mercenaries

Pushing an NPC for information

Swedish massages in the cells

Base of the mage's tower

Riddle me this

Colour coordinating your interior

And finally, name that plane

Placing Dark Avenger in the Realms

2008-04-17T11:10:00.003+01:00

Been slowly getting back to the mod since the hassles of the past few eeeks, and got a new area almost finished and was working on some cutscenes last night. In a break from the toolset I actually played right through Chapter 1 (with some of the revisions I've been working on) to give me a saved game to launch tests in chapter 2 from for balancing. I took a Spirit Shaman as a kind of low-end benchmark (although I do quite like the class). With the party limit in chapter 1 it was much more difficult, so will look into that. Thanks to all for voting on that - what i'll probably do is set the party limit at 4 companions, but in the debug book, I'll eave an option for modifying this. In my playthrough, I only got as far as finishing the first sidequest in Chapter 2 (which took a good 90 mins or so). But man, it was tough going. I think I'm going to ave to scale back on some mobs, and I'll probably increase the number of plot-related XP gains to move things along a little more. But I did enjoy playing the sidequest and really happy with some of the set pieces.

So, I know I'm due a proper update, but not got much to show (again). So I thought i'd post some background. As I've said, Dark Avenegr the idea started based on the intro to a song. But translating that to the game I wanted to incorporate some proper D&D and Faerun lore. Because of some of the ideas I had, I didn;t want to commit to a specific area of Faerun - I didn't want people nit-picking any liberties I took. But, once I got going, I did always build with one place in mind

And that was Cormyr. Now this is somewhere that has been done to death in many products - if you've played pen-and-paper as well as the NWN work (Wyvern Crown etc), and many of the novels. SO there is quite a bit out there. But my main reasons were geographical for the type of terain and layout I was looking for. Chapter 3, which will take you to the city I call Ellesmere Port, which will actually be based on Marsember from FR canon. And I'm working in some Cormyr lore to chapter 2, e.g. the Purple (and Blue) Dragon Knights. Gork (the goblin companion) is also tied in with the Goblin Wars that befell Cormyr, but I won't go into that too much. So i'm going to be moving from 'FR-lite' to 'medium' in terms of formalising the setting, but still keeping the town names I set out with.

In terms of Cosmology, I'm sticking with D&D/Grayhawk canon rather than FR - because that's what I'm most comfortable with. There is one 'sidequest' (although many of the sidequests I have are simply different parts of the main quest which can give different options or make portions of the main quest easier) in Chapter 2 which involves planar travel, and more in later chapters (particualrly the climax, whenever that will be). So rememeber to wear a stick of celery in your lapel.