Monday, November 10, 2008

A Bunch of Quick Hits

Bunch of things happening, but not many details I can talk about...

Election News
As I said on my very first blog post, I do not speak politics here. This is not because I don't have definite views; it is mostly because I just want to enjoy my hobbies without the real world encroaching, so... Without getting into specifics, I'll just say that one of my long-time friends was elected to the Florida House of Representatives last week. It was a ton of fun and a little illuminating working on his campaign, minor though my role was. It will now be interesting to watch his progress. I know Tallahassee isn't Washington, but politics is still politics. My friend is what I'd call an ideologue, albeit one I agree with, so if this guy is corrupted by the experience, then there are no incorruptible politicians.

Halloween Mod
I haven't kept up with how mods are normally received by the NWN2 community, seeing as how I haven't actually released anything yet. Bouncy Rock's Halloween mod got around 800 downloads within the first week. That's huge by NWN1 standards, but it seemed small by NWN2 standards... but then I guess the game is about two years old now. I really have no idea if I should be disappointed by the reception.

As for the individual efforts, I thought there was a lot of good stuff there... too much, in fact, for me to remember everything. One mod stands out, though... and that's the one by regular reader and comment contributor liso... warped is all I can say. And, of course, I would be remiss in not singling out the homage to one my all-time favorite show, Dr. Who. Now that was cool!

Maimed God
I managed to work my way through all but the details of the most complex series of cutscenes in Act III. It's a group of four scenes that take place back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I know that may sound... uh, fantastic in terms of roleplay value, but it's not as bad as it sounds (or bad at all, really). The PC has plenty of opportunity to speak for themselves, and they make one big campaign decision during this time. The complexity comes from a boatload of characters coming in and out, getting all their animations and timing correct, and playing with the static camera angles so that the correct information is conveyed. Doing that for a twenty minute stretch of play is quite the effort.

Anyway, I was making good progress until something stopped me. What was it...?

Storm of Zehir
HAHA! I got my pre-release version and am quite a bit through the campaign now. It basically soaked away my weekend, much to the non-delight of my wife, who actually thought I might do some work. However, I can't say anything... NDAs and all that. I'll post a full review once it's released and I don't have to worry about stepping on people's toes or revealing what I shouldn't. The main point of this paragraph is just to make you all jealous. So there.

I will say that some of the area design in SoZ is so awesome. I know I say that a lot about a number of different groups, but I am just constantly amazed by the creativity of other people. I see how they set things up, and I understand how they do it by resizing and reorienting different placeables, but it would never occur to me to do any of that without seeing it first.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I sit here feeling a bit warped :P Thanks for the comment? hehe. Thank Jonny Ree for adding Dr. Who :) Matter of fact, thank him for most of it. I came up with the idea at first and he took it to higher and better levels.

I am very much looking forward to TMGS. But hey! you got a new game, which means you must play! I was sucked into Fallout 3 for the last 2 weeks.

I get a reviewers box copy of SoZ some time this week. It will be interesting to see what you all come up with. I plan on a full audio review on the podcast.

Regards
Michele

Anonymous said...

*explodes with jealousy*

Alez said...

It's great to hear that TMGS is coming along well! I'm really looking forward to it.

I want SoZ, though I am more of an interactive-companions fan. Still, it should be fun.

Anonymous said...

Me too Alez. I like my companions to have some life in them, :)

Tiberius209 said...

Yeah, I'm a bit mixed about that aspect of SoZ too. It is fun to create any oddball combination of characters you want. I took the opportunity to expand my horizons by taking three classes I've never played before: the new swashbuckler, a bard, and a druid along with the well-played wizard. However, you lose the opportunity to craft a really tight story where the companions are crucial and are interwoven with the narrative ala MotB and MoW (if that ever comes out).

I'm overall not as high on SoZ as I was on MotB; it's not really my style, but there certainly is some fun value to it.

Anonymous said...

I consider myself blessed that I really enjoy both approaches. MotB was one of my favourite games in a *really* long time, much because of its excellent writing and story. Though what I think put it over the top to being really excellent for me is that I always felt like I had choices how to deal with things. This is very important to me, and I always felt like the NWN2 OC was dragging me by the nose throughout it (even though you have some choices, it never really feels as if they matter).

On the other hand, I'm very much a fan of games like Fallout 1 and Darklands, where the story is basically *really* thin. Not necessarily bad, but just serves the purpose of empowering the gameplay and player interactivity rather than pulling the player in with heavy narrative.
I've also long been missing an old-school type of RPG with a focus like that, and I hope SoZ will deliver on it.

And hey, Rob states in his patch preview that the DRM system will finally be implemented in the next patch (the SoZ patch basically). So hopefully MoW will soon be out after that. :D