Looking back there seem to be a lot of mushrooms

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..?

...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

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

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

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

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

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...

...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

1. if we modders are partly to blame for how the NWN2 community developed
2. 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...

...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

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.