Planning

Been taking more time to plan rather than actively build over the past week - it helps put things in perspective, and i now have a list of things i should tackle in specific order - I think just being able to cross things off the list will help feel like I'm progressing. I carry around a little blue jotter, which i use to write notes, plans, draft conversations, jot down ideas, sketch areas etc - a sample of my scribbles here. When i still DM'd Pen and paper I'd always have a notebook with me too.

Got an area built for me by Azenn on the forums in just a couple of days and looks great - just right for what i need. Only needed it to yet anothe rplot change, but great to have stuff made so quick that the extra work isnt going to be a burden

'Horror' sidequest screenshots

If I were a half-orc, I'd be middle aged...

.... according to the D&D rules, but as a human, I've got a good 5 years yet!

My 30th came and went yesterday. Been dreading leaving my twenties a little, but had a good day. Was given a copy of Hellgate: London which I'd been keen to try despite mixed reviews - mainly as I'd get to play in a post-apocalyptic version of where I work, which was tempting. Opening scene is great, and seems fun for the 30 mins I played so far.

Speaking of the horror of turnign 30, I saw I am Legend last weekend, which I enjoyed. Confirmed my growing interest in survival-horror as a genre. Anyone interested in this or zombie-fiction should check out World War Z or Monster Island - can't reccomend them enough.

I've been delving into Heroes of Horror for inspiration for the sidequest i'm finishing off at the moment. Not a bad supplement, and I'm using some of the taint ideas in a watered down form. The supplement also has a really nice take on a new class - the archivist - a historian divine caster who uses a spellbook, and has bard/loremaster abilities. I'll post some development screenshots soon, as I haven't done in a while.

New Years Resolution

Happy New Year - hope everyone survived the festive season intact! I got a fair few roleplaying related presents - a Chainmail dice bag, Order of the Stick and Full Frontal Nerdity collections, and some metallic d20s. It's my 30th birthday on the 9th, and I can feel a crisis coming on - especially given I had very few 'grown-up' type presents! ;)

Well, my New Years Resolution is quite simple: to be more focussed.

I get too little time on the toolset as it is, and I've found that in the past few months, when I have had 30 mins - 1 hour to spare, I'd load it up, but then start tinkering with something on a whim, rather than foccussing on plot-relevant matters. This is a prime example - I wanted to make a Flask of Elemental Ruin that could capture elementals - only to be released under the players control later. But turns out the simple solution is not possible - and that wasted far too long. (Note if anyone cares to correct me, feel free - I know other options are available, but not having EffectSummon work here is a PITA). But this a a prime example of some idea I get to distract me from writing that next cutscene, or building that next area... (For those interested, I converted the idea into a Gem of Elemental Mastery - you collect elementals inside the gem and based on how many you have is the level of elemental resistance the gem grants).

So I'm going to try and plan my time better, and leave the little distractions until I've progress much further with the plot. See if that will last longer than my previous resolutions. Anyone else have resolutions to share?

Foraging for my Christmas supper

I was interested to see in Maerduin's Harp and Crysanthemum how he's implemented a systems to allow players to collect plants and extract medicinal/alchemical properties. Something I've been dipping into whilst I work on chapter 2 was a herbalism system, inspired in part by the work in Masters of the Wild and druidic infusions - but now looks like I was beaten to the punch ;). Whilst the scientist inside me cannot stand the credence given to homeopathy, I do love the science behind some of the medicinal properties of plants, and how they came to have folklore associated with them.

So I've currently got a collection of 21 placeable plants/fungi, with 21 associated herbalism products (snuff, oils, teas, warding brooches) that can be gathered by PCs with the correct skills. I'm basing the herbalism check on a balance of Survival and Craft:Alchemy - some will require more than the other. For example - you find some Goosegrass or Kelp and think that the sticky mass of frond would make a good impromptu tanglefoot bag - gathering them requires a better knowledge in Survival than Alchemy. Knowing that Ginseng can be infused into a draught and heighten the drinker's awareness and insight - that requires more alchemical knowledge.

I've also included the option to coat your weapon in some items - extracts of acidic green slime, oils from frosty brown mold, and spores from fire lichen. These add a temporary elemental damage to a weapon - handy for low magic settings to add some variety.

Some screenshot examples below. I'll likely add more to the 21 as time goes by. Suggestions welcome!

So, just closed the toolset for the last time before Christmas - tomorrow I'm chef and host - got a huge rib of beef to roast. Am hoping to get some more modding done before the new year, and the dreaded return to work. Also, want to finish Lorft's Wintervall mod - from a quick play it's full of the same wry humour as Cry Wolf. I know Nalencer was planning a holiday release too - EDIT - now looks like it's shelved! :(

Wishing all the NWN2 community a very Merry Christmas - may the players get the mods they wish, and may the modders get the inspiration they need!

Quick update

Well, I'm due a fortnightly update on the forums so I'll keep this brief (easy as there isn't much to report!)

Wrote my first cutscene in a while as previously been focusing on areas, and scripting - man, i'd forgotten how long they can take, including all the conditionals to get the companion interjections right, adding speaker tags... But think it was worth it - the first key sidequest, and it plays a lot on the companion interactions, so there's lots of opportunities where a player will be winning influence with one, but losing it with another. Which will ultimately change the game experience (I hope!). Got some more conversations sketched out on paper to type up - I tend to type on the fly with only rough thoughts planned, and I know when i do write these up, new ideas will come in to play.
Also been playing with the VFX editor (major kudos to Amraphael who is a major talent in custom content, and has been helping me out). It's more simple than I thought, but part of me wishes i hadn't found a new toy in the toolset to play with when i need to focus on plot! Will post details later.

Played H&C. Wow. Nuff said.

Updated the blogroll - I'd encourage any reader (hello...?) to look around these just to get a feel for the hard work going on out there. The dedication and talent out there is great.

Patch 1.11 up - and like others I'm going to wait before looking into this, given some of the reports on the toolset. I think 1.10 has got the toolset about as functional as I'd like - and unless there's new content, I'm not keen to change it too much right now.

More general news... after Robert Jordan's death, it's now sad to report that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. My science background is in neurodegneration, so I know a fair bit about this disease. He's never been an author I've gone out of my way to read, but what I have read I enjoyed and he's got an impressive catalogue. I've also played in enough campaigns DM'd by his fans that I've vicariously picked up on all his humour anyway. Great to see he's taking the news with his usual stoic humour.

Right... convinced my girlfriend to go visit her relatives tomorrow, which gives me a day's uninterupted toolset time to get something worhtwhile to report to the forums... >:o)

New Companion: Zabados

Not much progress recently, as work has been a nightmare, and on top of everything I've had a nasty bout of flu (boy, do I regret turning down the free vaccinations work offers us...). One thing that has happened is a final decision on the new companion I've been umm-ing and ahh-ing about for the past couple of months



Zabados

Aquatic Half-Elf

Figher/Warlock/Invisible Blade (player can multiclass him freely between these)

Follower of Eldath

Without giving too much away, Zabados is met near the start of Chapter 2 and will join the party is treated correctly. Zabados spends much of his time with his twin sister, a druid named Lashandra, helping her defend her sacred grove of small rock pools on the shoreline. Zabados seeks to avoid fights and confrontation if at all possible, but when threatened he can prove an adept warrior. Rather than fight openly, Zabados prefers to make intelligent calcualted strikes, then retreat; a favoured tactic is to inflict some bleeding wounds on an opponent with his knives, then retreat and wait for the sharks to to sense, and deal with, the threat. In this way, he feels he can still honestly follow the spirit of Eldath's teachings. He does this not so much for his own allegiance to Eldath, but also for his sisters strong faith in the deity.

Zabados will develop into a romance option for female PCs, bringing him into conflict with Seich, a conflict exacerbated by their respective choice of deity. With male PCs, he might prove a rival for Contessa's affections.

"I never win anything"

I remember being at a friends party when i was a kid, and sitting through all these party games where they were giving out prizes, and I got nothin'. After complaining that I never won anything (I was pretty morose as a child too) I was promptly award a prize for the best dancer for shaking my butt in time to Madonna.

Not sure what the moral of that story is. I don't think I've won much since, certainly not on the lottery. Did win runner up prize with a scientific poetry competition based on my PhD, but that's the closest I've come. Anyway, last weekend, I actually won tickets to see Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow at a special showing in a swanky cinema in the centre of London (it had ice in the urinals! Simple things please simple minds...). I'm a fan of anime, and Naruto is such a great series. It follows a group of young ninja going through training, each with their own abilities (and their own backstory, which usually amounts to them being outcast/ostrcised/ridiculed as a child and struggling for acceptance). Naruto the main character is a bit of a clown but has a nine-tailed fox demon trapped within him, which grants him great endurance to make up for his lack of skill. It's all great fun, and that's what I love about anime.

Relevance:
Watching the film got me thinking. I find a lot of anime is great inspiration for D&D - their heroes and villains often have great abilities that are fun to mimic - and Naruto is full of these. Ninja that control puppets to attack foes, one afflicted with a disease whose bones can grow out of his skin to attack people, a ninja bound to his dog companion who can share a human-dog hybrid form with his pet. All fun to base characters on in D&D, and to provide unique memorable challenges.

Something I've been thinking about is trying to make some of the boss fights in Dark Avenger more distinct along these lines - something to bring in new tactics. Chapter 2 has the PC confront a military fort, where all the best warriors are stationed, so I'm keen to make some memorable enemies with abilities different/beyond that standard class ones. And maybe something to throw a players usual tactics back at them - it's always great when your standard attacks don't work, and there's that little bit of panic as you desperately try something new to counter this.

In D&D, dragons are a good example of this. You fight through lower critters, where your tactics matter less, and all of a sudden you're faced with a huge monster, with many, varied attacks, that need different resistances. It offers something that toe-to-toeing with a lvl20 fighter doesn't. Prestige Classes go someway to offer the standard humanoid villain something like this. But I'm going to have to look into scripting something....


So - people have their favorite memorable villains - in D&D or in film? Any exciting encounters to regale us (me) with?


EDIT: Woohoo - as I post, just topped 5000 downloads for Dark Avenger - got there eventually!

Back from hols

...and very relaxed (or I was until I snuck a peak at my work inbox...). Mexico and the Yucutan peninsula were great fun, and got to visit some amazing Mayan ruins, as well as cycle, abseil, zip-line, and kayak through the jungle and swim in an underground lake or cenote. I loved the latter, as it got me thinking about dungeons and caves in the D&D setting (especially ropers, given the stalagmites there). Particularly as I'm working on a flooded cave section at the moment.

Results of the Companion poll are in:

• Contessa (14)
• Black Death (8)
• Seich (7)
• Gork (3)
• Briars (1)

As there's more focus on Contessa in Chapter 1 (and she's a feisty teifling) it's more or less the order i was expecting at the top. Only one vote for Briars is a little sad - true he's not cut of the heroic cloth and he's very deferrential to the PC. Hoping the backstory plot I'm working on now will flesh him out a little and make him more appealing - it will bring in more confrontation with Gork too if he's in the party. I'm thinking about another companion to add (a paladin/fighter) but worried it will bring too much work at this stage. Could be done if I write out one of the existing companions (Gork) for the full version of the campaign.... will need to think on that.

On holiday for a few days...

Off to Mexico (first time, and somewhere I've wanted to go for a while) for a bit so no building for me. Tho am taking my notebook to sketch out some areas and draft conversations. Hoping to get to Chichen Itza so will see if it compares well with Tomoachan ;)

Module update of the day has kicked off on the forums so looking forward to reading those on my return (have posted a brief update myself in advance that will go up whilst I'm away.