Modding Injury!

Well, that makes it sound more than it is - but think my little finger is getting problems from how i hold my mouse when modding - not a great sign of how long I'm on the toolset! I think its also from how i sit when typing. But on a toolset free break for a few days so see how it goes.

Speaking of typing, I downloaded PowerBar plugin for the first time the other day - i've always been a little wary of plug-ins in case of becoming too reliant, and patch issues, but this is pretty good. And the typing link? It has a feature that performs a word count on the module, breaking it into journals/conversations etc. This was interesting; given i have only 2 small journal entries done, and 99% of the text is from conversations, I'm on a word count of 25,000. Interesting, but given that thisis chapter 1 only, and that its a small, scene-setting chapter, i'm not sure if this is over-the-top. I know Thay has >35,000, but is a longer playtime beast than this chapter, so I'm wary of swamping the player with too much text. I always knew the campaign (and chapter 1 specifically) would have a lot of dialogue, but i might have to watch this. That said, the kind of player that doesn't like reading too much isn't going to be the kind of player i'm aiming this mod at...

Anyway I hope things will come out of a pre-alpha I'm planning on chapter 1 soon - aimed more at getting feedback/comments than bug-hunting specifically. I suppose its a bit like the census that hollywood studios do for films to gauge the public reception, before selling out and rewriting the ending to include buxom beauties that need rescuing from their skimpy outfits in the hope that it pulls in more audiences. Not that i'd sink that low.... although now i mention it.....

Weekend progress

Managed to get a fair bit of time on the toolset this weekend, due to my understanding S.O. Got a sidequest scripted, dialogued and journaled. Made some new items too - grafts. THese seem to have come into D&D with 3rd ed. - I dont recall seeing them before. But represent pieces of alien anatomy, particularly form aberrations, that can be grafted on to the PC and grant bonuses. I like the idea - more detail in the Lords of Madness supplement with the Fleshwarper PrC; but also see the pale master PrC in game. I also like the idea of items that have downsides as well as benefits. For example, one graft in question was an ooze graft - smeared on the face it give a penalty to CHA, but bonus to intimidate, susceptibility to fire, but bonus vs poison. In pen-and-paper grafts are a great way to add a twist to your villains.

Spent a lot of time building commoner housing interiors. Man, if i never have to place a bed/fireplace/dining table again.... some discussion on the forum sabout the use of prefabs - I'd love a load of prefab commoner/noble homes - would make things so much easier!

Module contest

The top 3 of the Grimm Fairy Tales contest have been announced: 1. Grimm Brigade, 2. The Birthday, 3. Rampion Champion. Of course, this kicked off a lot of fuss; whilst the internet's great, it does allow too many people to voice an opinion sometimes. Played all 3 of those mods myself, and enjoyed them all. Personally i think the Rampion Champion was fun and hard-done-by in the vault voting, but I have issues with that anyway - just look at the comparative number of downloads the different entries got. More showcasing was needed.

I wont reiterate the comments from other blogs suffice to say congrats to the top 3, and well done to all who managed to get an entry in. I PM'd Rob for some feedback on my entry but didn't get a reply... bit annoying but the I understand he's been inundated by complaints about the contest, so I can forgive mine slipping under the radar. Bit disappointed in the reception A Walk inthe Woods got, myself, and not too clear why; apart from people complaining about my spelling there's not much else there! Thining about requesting some more thorough reviews from either the vault or some of the more vocal reviewers. I know my exterior area design needs a lot of work, and hopefully that will come on in my next mod.

Speaking of which, bandit camp now populated, and very tough, but winnable with some tactics. Working o nthe villagers homes - this is when i long for prefab homes/tiles for interiors..!

Maruts

Ran through the encounter - worked like a charm. Feels so good when it comes together. One thing I am noticcing however, is that the playtests are too much of a breeze - the Marut encounter is really meant to be life-or-death, but none of the party, even Briars with the lowest level, was scratched. So might need to add mutliattack and some other nifty abilities to beef them up. But that's minor tweaking - the cutscene was good and how I envisaged it

Coming out of the mire

Week's kinda been good. And not been on the toolset much, but the time I have its been productive, which is a good thing. Managed to get an update to Walk in the Woods, that SHOULD fix the damned on death conversations. So that's one niggling thing I can cross off.

On Dark Avenger, well only had today to work on it, but I've

1. Put together a scripting system to control my companion influence - its clunky (i could use switch/case if i knew more about it, but I dont so I went the less elegant route, and that seems to work. Feel good as i wrote it from scratch, so maybe a (small) sign i'm getting the hang of this scripting thing


2. Completed the first encounter with a recurring foe - happy with the dialogue too, and this leads on to


3. finished introduction of a new companion. Writing this let me flesh out the background of the other companions too, finding stuff I didnt know, and its pretty good


4. run a quick play-through, which apart from one dodgy trigger, went pretty smoothly

So, Chapter One is getting there, and feeling a lot more positive about it. Might need to up the difficulty - as its story based, fights are more part of the flow of the tale, but some seem too easy so far - but that might also be due to a certain companions uber-ness. He's meant to be uber, but progress slowly so he's out-ubered later on. But somethign I can adress in final stages

Some new screenies (more in the album):

Crisis

Having a minor crisis of faith about the module at the moment. It's due to several reasons. I'm finding getting back to building slow and quite difficult - and working on long conversations that ultimately only take up a minutes gameplay makes it difficult to feel like things have progressed much. Take yesterday - all i got done were two speak triggers and two-and-a-half conversations, and two group scripts. Oh, and an hour playing with an NPC stats until just ending up deciding they were best as they were before i changed them. For a days work, thats a bit depressing. However, its part of the problem of the story-based mod....

Another issue is my nature to question what I've done and to be quite critical of it. I'm worried these confusions are coming across, particularly as I write the conversations - some I'm worried don't flow too well and maybe my confusion is coming across in them. And all this leads on to me worrying that I'm wasting time (a considerable amount of time given how long developing takes) on somethign that wont be well received or match the vision I have.

But that's enough emo-angst from me for now; build through it, publish and be damned! Now on to Maruts. They are inevitables, creatures of logic hailing from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus. Fantasy robots with specific missions. The Maruts punish those who cheat death - their motto is 'Everything must die eventually'. And as you have just risen from the dead, you've popped up on their radar! I've made Marut Alpha and Marut Omega using a tinted/scaled iron golem as the base, and given them their fists of thunder and lightning weapons. I plan on these being recurring 'villains' - retreating back to Mechanus to plan a new attack. I'll pop up some screenshots later. I've always like dth econcept of inevitables as the ultimate planar lawkeepers, and am looking forward to scripting the encounters

World Map

Completed a world map for modules 1-4 of he Dark Avenger campaign.

Used Hexmapper - a nice little utility that can be used to give maps the old school feel. Trying to decide if I should try and set the mod in FR or not... debate is happening on the forums

Flashbacks!

OK, taken a bit of time off building since the rush of the contest and generally being busy. Also spent a bit of time playing jackyo123's Night Howls in Nestlehaven beta release - full version will be up soon and likely get into the top list. Great to see a very fleshed out module&plot and impressive amount of work has gone into it - evven with all the niggling little issues that beta testing throws up but are hard to get the motivation to bother with. It's also been open beta'd via the NWN2 forums, which has been good to see people pulling together to see it released. Good luck to him with it.
But have got back to Dark Avenger in the past week. Found it hard to dive in and sat with the toolset open but not acheiving much sometimes. Had one scare crash during a conversation (huge dialog). Lost 2 hours work but fortunatly doesnt seem to have corrupted anythign else
OK, Flashbacks. As I mentioned this is how I'm planning on opening up the roleplaying experience. You start as someone returned from the dead and due to where your soul went when you died (The plane of Hades - from D&D canon - strips souls of emotion, ambition and memories). And what I want to do in the game is give the player the chance to customise his experience - build his relationship and motivation for the whole adventure, by selecting a series of flashbacks during conversations.

These flashbacks define your personality, how you treat toehrs, and ultimately define why you have been raised formthe dead and why you were killed. THis way, each player will have his own impetus and drive to complete the quest. I think its a fun way to do this, enriches the roleplaying experience and hopefully it will work out well. Just means a lot of dialogue writing.

Posted a discussion about companions on the NWN2 forums - upshot is that I'm going to have to add an extra companion, and rejig the skills/feats of an existing one. Nothing too major, but good food for thought in that discussion.

Next time, I'll post some screen shopts of work so far, and outline a recurring encounter - the Maruts!

Dark Avenger 1

OK, so first test module out of the way, toe dipped in the water, a few bites, ego suitably stroked, it was time for the next project. My own story. Although i'd enjoyed following a 'script' with PotSP in that i could follow the written module, I'd become keen to try from a blank canvas, and towards the end of building PotSP, several ideas were circling round my head. And thus Dark Avenger was born.

To be honest, even now I still have doubts about the idea; mainly as it hints at what a sad old wannabe-rocker I am. Dark Avenger is a song by the band ManOwaR, a heavy/power metal band who often used to be pictured in animal furs and with swords. Bit of a joke to some, but I do love many of their songs - they do good battle metal such as their retelling of the fall of Troy. And they also hold the title of loudest band in the world.... but enough rambling...

Dark Avenger opens, as all good epic metal songs do, with a slow narration, by the great actor Orson Welles. It tells of a man wronged and murdered, spurned by the Underworld and sent back to seek revenge. It's something that has always captured my imagination. In doing the introductory sequence to PotSP, I'd seen some of the cinematic feel you can give a module. So I decided to use the narrative from Dark Avenger as the introduction to my new module. A bare bones from which I could build a great story about revenge. A dark feel, playing a little with tones such as inner battles between good and evil; revenge brings out the darker side of the personality, and can the PC keep that in check? Revenge can affect more people than those immediately involved, creating a cycle of revenge. All great themes to play with.

Next time, I'll post on my Flashback idea - how the player can create his own story.

Obsidian Entertainment module contest

So, as I was starting my first major project that wasn't tinkering wioth the toolset, and that had some sort of thought/overall strategy behind it, a module contest was announced on the NWN2 forums. The theme; "Grimm Fairy Tales". The catch; one month to finish it in.

At first, I wasn't too interested - I'd started something else, and I was no way experienced anough to try this. But then I allowed myself one day playing with the toolset and seeing what ideas I came up with based on this theme. And I found one I actually quite liked - one that would be linear enough to be done in the time. And thus, A Walk in the Woods was born.

The module chose a selection of fairy tales, each to be encountered and played out in turn, amid the back drop of a race to save Prince Charming from an evil spell. As a kid, I'd seen so many Disney films so many times, I was quite influenced by them; the evil witch Melificent is from Sleeping Beauty, and the finale to the mod was (intended to be) similar to that cartoon

I was quite happy with the mod - annoyingly, some changes werent saved or fully ironed out i nthe final version for the contest deadline, so there aree some bugs with the ending. But the flow, the mix of adventure and hack-and-slash, and the writing I was pleased with. I think I've got the nack of doing interiors, but my exterior areas still lack something... I've not used any of the NWN2 plugins to help with these and might have to investigate . I'd learnt somethings from doing the contest too - things about the way I build, so I've taken something from it at least

I was suprised how many contest entries there were. And all seem to be good work (being new to the modding scene, I wasnt sure if 70% would be some 13 year olds effforts at cramming in as much l33t-speak and b00b1es!!1!! as possible), and all have strong plus points. Not really proper ettiquette to comment specifics about other contest entrants (although i think the winner was clear after only a few days...), so I'll leave detailed thoughts for now. Apart from, one thing I noticed was sometimes an underappreciation of people playing non-optimal or non melee builds. I like to try wierd builds and mods are the perfect place to do it. But some don't cater to this. Not just contest entries, but also existing modules. Maybe this is just a personal thing...

Next update - I'll introduce Dark Avenger, my work-in-progress, with maybve some screenshots