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.

Halloween Mod Revealed

Warning! Spoiler Alert! Turn Back Now to Remain Spoiler-Free!
OK, so what's my mod all about? I would call it light. Heavy-hitting drama it is not, but hopefully people will find it a fun little romp.

The crux is that the player must enter a land of fiction to beat fictional villains, the greatest of which is Count Dracula, created and brought to life from the vast number of stories from the mind of the master-bard named Tiberius. Tiberius, obviously, is a good guy, so he was forced to create these monstrosities. Once in the land of fiction, the character makes his or her way up to Dracula's castle where there exists a series of puzzles that must be overcome before reaching the climactic showdown.

However, just as Tiberius created the fictional villains, so can he also create fictional heroes to aid the player, preferably heroes from his own stories. Thereafter the player can search through his manuscripts to find the following three potential companions:

Tancred of Calimport from "The Maimed God's Saga"
Yes, the intrepid ranger is temporarily taken away from Navatranaasu to aid in the battle against Dracula, and he brings his snarkiness with him!


Charissa Maernos from "Mysteries of Westgate"
Alan Miranda at Ossian was kind enough to let me use the companion I wrote for "Mysteries of Westgate," and so here comes the Tyrran priestess with an attitude. Who would have ever thought that the average NWN2 gamer would have traveled with Charissa here first!


And yes, Saleron Pymnot from "Saleron's Gambit"
OK, so I couldn't do this without the wiz, so he finally made the jump from NWN1 to part deux.


Here's a shot as the group approaches Dracula's Castle.


I took care that each companion had something to say about each puzzle. Some are helpful hints and clues, many are not. Here Tancred gives his input about the Modern Prometheus (aka the Frankenstein Monster)


And then some are just blatant excuses for more companion banter... like this exchange in Dracula's study.


So I'm not going to give away any of the jokes and/or puzzle solutions, so that's it for a preview. Hopefully, people will enjoy the 45-60 minutes it will take to complete this mod, and I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with.

Halloween Done!

I submitted my module for Bouncy Rock's Halloween project last night... several nights later than I first envisioned but still well before the October 13th deadline. It was really a case of perpetual polishing - i.e. continual rephrasing of some of my dialogs, tweaking the visual effects, adjusting tints... but I'm now tired of looking at it. Barring any unforeseen bugs, I'm done.

Stay tuned for screen shots in the next day or so... and then maybe I can get back to TMGS.

Halloween

I'm more or less finished with the essentials of my Halloween mod, and it's been pretty thoroughly play-tested. That said, there is still one slight issue I have to deal with. Essentially, I need to check at the exit to my house to verify the player doesn't have any of my companions attached and remove them if they do. There might be a slight logic /continuity issue if they start my little adventure, leave to go do some other houses, and then come back, but I think I may opt for the simplest approach and just have the player "start over" if that happens. After all, I have no idea what may happen outside my little environ.

So, there's that one little script and then I want to add some extensions to a couple of the dialogs... in essence, I want the companions to joke around a little bit more. I may then add one or two extra rooms to Dracula's Castle with a couple "script-lite" encounters. Then finally, I have 7 more play-throughs from scratch (one for each of the possible companion cominations), and I'm done. The deadline is Oct. 13th, but I don't envision working on this past next Sunday Oct. 5th.

Once I ship the final version, I'll post a much more extensive write-up of exactly what I've done.

Halloween Mod in the Crosshair!

Maimed God progress since last post = nada

Of the three projects I mentioned last time:

I'm mostly finished with the proposal and will be completely after tonight. Check that one off the list.

My pictures have been organized and identified. I still need to do some filing.

Now what the NWN community is probably more interested in. The Halloween "item" for Bouncy Rock is shaping up nicely. In general, I'll be submitting a short sidequest that begins in my "house" in the main village. There won't be much in the way of combat, although there will be some, but it will be puzzle-heavy. Unlike all the rest of my work, it will also break the so-called "fourth wall" with regularity. It will be rather light fare, hopefully with a lot of humor and inside jokes for the NWN community.

I'll post specifics later, but it will feature most of the traditional gothic villains: Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc., and the main point will be to advance through a series of puzzles in Dracula's castle. If anyone remembers the old game "The 7th Guest," it'll be a bit like that, although nothing nearly as elaborate. Right now, there are three puzzles, though I may add more if I get all the scripting for these finished and playtested and still have some time before the Oct. 13th deadline. To aid you, there'll be three companions who may give clues to the puzlzles if you're stumped. The identities of these companions may be a bit of a surprise... but I'll save that for next time.

Quick Update

I decided that I would allow myself the Labor Day weekend to work on Maimed God as much as possible and that I would thereafter turn to other projects with more immediate deadlines. As of last Monday, when I put TMGS down, I was mostly (80%) done with the Act III scripting and had done a significant amount of playtesting on Act III as well (maybe ~40%). I've done a ton of bug-squashing on Act III, and the first two-thirds of it is pretty polished.

The last part of Act III is fairly cutscene-intense as the story comes to a close. Once those individual scenes are scripted, there won't be many bugs to hunt down. Overall, I'd say Act III is pretty close.

However, since Monday, I've turned my attention to three projects, two of them non-NWN-related, that I simply must finish before returning to Maimed God. First, I'm going to categorize, annotate, and file the 400+ pictures I took in Europe. I'll make a post with some of my favorites when that's done. Second, I have a round of proposals for my own private business due on September 28th, so I need to knuckle down on that. Third, I have agreed to submit something for Bouncy Rock's Halloween project, and that's due October 13th. My idea is set, and I've finished a fair portion of it, but I'll wait until later to provide further details.

So it doesn't look like much progress will be made on TMGS until Oct 13th (or earlier if I can finish the Bouncy Rock stuff ahead of schedule).