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.