As always, beware of MoW spoilers below.
A Word on Official Product "Editting"
One of the comments last time got me thinking that maybe it would be good to give some incite into how the internal review process goes, or at least went in the case of MoW. Every word I wrote went through three levels of review before it made it into the game.
The first level was Ossian, who generally wanted to guarantee that nothing we submitted would be embarassing to the company. This meant verifying the writing was of professional quality and that the topics and language were appropriate. This was the level that weeded out Gracie's possible suicide in the Tortured Hearts quest, although this was done early in the design stage, probably because Alan knew from experience that it wouldn't pass the next level of review...
The second level was Atari, whose sole interest seemed to be to eliminate anything that would garner a mature rating for the game. I remember this level as being pretty benign, probably because the Ossian brass did such a good job of self-editing.
The final level was WotC, who cared mostly that their intellectual property was respected and accurately depicted in-game. There was a lot of discussion about allowing the player to become a vampire at the end, as the powers and limitations had to be strictly enforced according to the official rules that governed that transition. This was also the level that required the change in Porthyria's illusionary race in The Knot of Shou Lung quest. There were a slew of comments that came back about changing the genders and races of several characters, I guess in the name of maintaining diversity within the Realms. That Porthyria comment was the only one that affected one of my quests, but I remember several characters were changed from male to female, though I don't remember exactly which ones changed in quests that weren't mine. I've always admitted to being human-centric, but I guess a dude-centric adventure is the result of having all dude designers.
Random Elements
I'm sure that everyone already knew that the designers handled the side quests, the companions, and the layout of the main path (though the main path was done long before I came on board), but the list of other things designers handle is pretty extensive. For example, there are over 100 unique items in the game - I think it's more like 130 items - that all have individualized descriptions. There are the landmarks around Westgate, the ones that give the Tourist feat if you visit them all. There are the curiosity items in Mintassan's shop. Then we had to do the descriptions you can read when examining every creature and clickable object. Finally, all the ambient characters and one-off encounters you see throughout Westgate that make the city seem alive. The designers are also the ones that decide where the loot is to be found and how it's to be spread around the campaign.
There are so many of these little bits that I wrote that it's impossible for me to remember them all, though I certainly can pick them out as I'm playing through the game. In general, if an item is found in one of our subquests, it's one we designed. One item I do remember clearly is Mordecai's Mesh, a suit of armor found in the Trouble at the Track quest. Originally, the armor was infused with spider glands that gave it the On Hit: Web spell property, which I thought was a really cool idea. However, when Alazander was playing testing the quest, the spell went off so often that the insane graphics slowed his computer to a crawl. So now it has the Hold Person spell instead. It's not nearly as cool, but people won't have their computers explode playing the game now.
There is one ambient character I created that I became rather fond of, and that is Bohemund the Beligerant, the street "entertainer" who had multiple vitriolic exchanges with his audience. The idea came to me from all the entertainers you see throughout many of the larger cities in Europe. I've always wondered what kind of outrageous acts you might be able to get away with, and I've thought about an over-the-top insult comic... a guy who thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and so he insults them because he hates that he has to demean himself for money by performing stupid tricks for the great unwashed... (Note, this is not to say street performing is demeaning; this is simply his take on it.)
Anyway, this thread in the MoW forums is rather funny (scroll to the bottom two posts). For the record, Bohemund was never intended to be a companion in MoW; he was always a one-off, BUT... I came to like the character so much that in one of Ossian's now-defunct proposals for another project, I suggested using him as a companion, and the suggestion was accepted. So yes, there was a point in time in which he was slated to join the PC in future battles. This, of course, necessitated a complete character concept including a reason why he was in Westgate in the first case. So, in short, Bohemund is one of those seemingly vague one-note characters that I now have four pages of background for. If you want to know the true background of Bohemund, just drag your mouse below.
Bohemund, originally hailing from Halruaa, is actually a loose ally of the Harpers (though not a member of the organization). He is in Westgate in pursuit of a Priest of Cyric who is escorting a very dangerous child to the eastern lands and plans to catch a ship across the sea. His Harper allies have rented a house across from where Bohemund performs and are scanning the crowds attracted to his act. Not long after the events of MoW, the Harpers are ambushed and killed, leaving Bohemund alone and in need of allies.
Main Path Characters
At the putset, the main path characters were all divied up to the designers by Alazander. The first toolset work I did for Westgate was Captain Merrig's dialog, meaning he was written in February of 2007. I was quite nervous at the time, as (1) he was the first character I had ever written that had been invented by someone else and (2) it was the first "official" toolset-level work I did for Ossian. I ended up going through the Westgate design document twice highlighting every word I could find about Merrig. That amounted to about 3-4 sentences, so the character was still pretty undefined. However, one of the things that Alan had mentioned to me on the phone during my interview was that there was a character named Merrig who he envisioned as needing to spit to clear his mouth every two sentences. I don't remember that detail being in the design document, but I included it in the game anyway.
An additional consideration is to economise every dialog that had to be VOd. Merrig was alotted 750 words of VO budget, and that meant that everything he said had to be condensed into 750 words. That's not a lot to be able to get all the plot in and still give a flavor for a unique character. Alan's spitting idea helped with the latter, though, and I also thought a while on coming up with a good, yet cheesy, pirate-themed joke to start the conversation off. Writing for a VO budget is a not-inconsiderable restraint, but hearing the actual words you wrote out loud is a thrill, so it's a net positive in my view.
Other main path characters I wrote include Kajeel, the illithid (including baby Kajeel), Latasha, Orbakh's female vampire henchman, and Rumboldt's butler, cat, and safe. In fact, it was I who made the suggestion to add the ability for rangers and druids to ask the cat for the safe's combination. As far as Latasha, the Westgate document called for meeting her three times over the course of the adventure: in the ship, in the safe house, and finally in the catacombs. I was certain I wanted the player to be able to brag about already beating her twice upon meeting her for the final time, but that then necessitated the need for a good retort. That's why writing her final dialog was a bear. It's frankly difficult for someone whose ass had been kicked twice already to believably have a sufficient amount of bravado about round three.
Voice Over
One of the most commented on aspect of MoW is the lack of voice over. I can't speak to the exact cost of VO, but I know it was expensive because of how strictly controlled it was compared to everything else. A 750 word budget on Merrig, for example, didn't mean exactly 750 words, but we couldn't be far off.
This was especially problematic with the companion quests. We were given 750 words to introduce the companions, so all their initial introductory dialogs are completely VOd. Luckily, this only had to cover a few plot points and the flavor of the character, as we'd be able to continue developing them later. However, we were only given 1000 words for their related quests, and this didn't remotely cover everything for the Tyrran Enclave. I tried outlining what I thought was important, but it wasn't long before I was Skyping Alan begging for a bigger budget. Eventually, I wheedled another 500 or so words out of him. I also inquired as to whether there was a male actor I could use for a few words. As it turns out, one of the male actors had a few words left over because someone else's dialogs had come back a little lite. This allowed me to voice some of Sneed's dialog exchange with Charissa, but I still only had enough of a budget to cover the lines that I thought were most crucial to the character development arc, such as when Charissa argues with herself over Sneed's eventual fate or her reflections on her actions after leaving Sneed's chapel. People have argued that the in-and-out VO was distracting, and I agree somewhat, but I can honestly say I argued for as much as I could get, and Alan stretched what we could do to the limit.
As an aside, the VO was done by a professional studio Alan had worked with while at Bioware. I think the same studio had done the VO on a lot of the BG series including ToB. Early on, a copy of some of the early takes of the dialogs was passed around to the Ossian team. These contained some bloopers, some of which were hilarious. I rememberthe actresses for one of the female companions (I believe it was Charissa, actually) was trying to make the death gurgle for her companion sound set - something like "aargh!" - when she just busted out laughing and said, "Boy that sounds pornagraphic!" And it really did. That was not the death sound that made it into the final cut. In fact, I remember probably a 10-15 second clip that was just a concoction of different death sound attempts by the actors involved that was rather humorous. Maybe I'll see if Alan can put that up on the Ossian download site.
The Schedule
For those interested in how long it took the team to accomplish certain tasks, my recollection is as follows. I came on board on just about Feb. 1, 2007, at which point toolset work had been going on for two to three weeks. I guess story development and approval and project planning took from around October 2006 to just past New Years of 2007. We were pretty much done with the main path writing by the middle of March and had a couple weeks of testing just that. Throughout April and the first half of May, we finished up all the sidequests. The second half of May and June were filled with the extraneous design stuff I outlined above. From July through September was play-testing, fixing bugs, and adding stuff that had been overlooked. That means that by July 1st, the heavy work for the designers was largely concluded, and we became extra play-testers on occasion. The level designers and scripters were still working hard through August. By October 1st, 2007, the project was more-or-less in the can. One year from the initiation of project discussion to ready for distribution. That shows what a talented and highly-motivated team of around 15 people can do. The delay after that I won't discuss.
Questions?
So I think the four parts together are a pretty good representation of what was going on from my vantage point, but there's obviously only so much I can put on a page, and I've tried to write only the most interesting bits. However, if there's anything I've left out that any of you are curious about, feel free to ask. The only thing MoW-related I know I won't answer at this point are questions about the delay.
Showing posts with label Mysteries of Westgate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mysteries of Westgate. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Westgate: Behind the Scenes, Part 3
As before, spoilers for MoW follow.
When I first came onboard in early 2007, my second initial task done in parallel with the development of my companion concept was the creation of several sidequests. These sidequests were broken down into four categories: companion, "fed ex", minor, and major. These categories are pretty self-explanatory, but a couple comments are in order for the last three.
"Fed ex" did not mean literally what we think of: i.e. bring me a book or deliver this wood to the shop at the corner. Rather, it meant a quest that could be done in 10-15 minutes using only one or two encounters with "encounter" meaning either a battle, a trap, or some kind of character interaction. Contrary to the traditional fed ex quest, there was supposed to be some kind of twist to it that made it interesting. Minor quests were to be around 30 minutes and major quests around 45.
I was fortunate to come on the project late in that I could peruse the sidequests already developed by the others and so try to do some different things from what had already been done. For example, if I had found a lack of hack-and-slash quests, I would have written a couple. Had there been a lack of skill-heavy quests, I would have focused in that direction. As it turns out, with one small exception (outlined below), I didn't really find any inbalances, so I could proceed with the type of quests I like with an easy conscience. Beyond that consideration, the only instruction I was given was that Alazander thought Undergate was a bit bare and so wanted me to direct some of my quests to that quarter.
Minor Sidequest: Trouble at the Track
I finished Saleron's Gambit, Part V in the summer of 2006. One of my sidequest ideas for that module was to place a halfling village in the Hullack Forest that the PC would pass en route to the penultimate showdown with The Priestess. In the village, the PC would meet a halfling who had made a drunken boast - followed by a sizeable bet - that he could outrun a deer, a bet he would have to pay off if he couldn't somehow rig the race. Que the PC... I had visions of a cutscene with the halfling hasted in some way allowing him to speed across the finish line ahead of the deer.
Ultimately, I decided the quest was out of place. At that point in the module, the player was rapidly moving towards the end, and it didn't make sense for someone to stop to help someone rig a race. But the core idea was one I still liked.
Eight months later, Ossian gave me the opportunity to resurrect the idea, but the different setting of Westgate demanded that the specifics be changed. The seediness of the city allowed gambling readily enough, not to mention the idea that people would try to rig the races, but the deer had to go. Fortunately, dog racing was common enough in civilization. The idea of a gambling house in a city filled with criminal elements led me to change the one rigging the race from the quest giver (in the original SGV quest) to the entity the quest giver is racing (in the final version). One nod to the original idea was that I kept the quest giver as a halfling.
I immediately envisioned the house owner being a thug of the fighter class. The new idea that the house was magically rigging races naturally led to the inclusion of an arcane caster that could brew the potions. The need to maintain the animals led to the inclusion of a druid. With this, I only needed a rogue to complete a balanced enemy party for the player to battle. In my design document, I therefore gave the tavern owner a brother named Haman, a rogue who formed his connection to the Night Masks and explained how his profitable business could be allowed to operate without molestation. These four, then, would form a suitable final boss fight.
However, I generally love to include ways to utilize character skills in the completion of quests. This led to some of the design choices for the other encounters. First, the player has numerous skill-based ways to get past the half-orc door guard: bluff, lock pick, and so forth. Second, players can brew the antidote to the speed potion if they have the Brew Potion feat. Third, there is a guard that the player can talk into giving up the antidote with any of the talking skills.
In my envisioning of the inner workings of the gambling house, I pictured a slave-goblin doing all the menial cleaning. This led to the encounter the player has with the goblin when it witnesses the player tampering with the dog bowls. The goblin runs away no matter what the player does, but I thought it was a cool flavor encounter that might ramp up the tension that maybe the party will be discovered.
One pain that the sidequest presented was the obvious thought that the player could just slide a potion of speed into the dish, so why go through all the rest of the work to come up with a specially-made potion? This necessitated the confiscation of all potions of speed by the door guards. While at first I thought that made things unnecessarily complicated for relatively little added roleplay value, I came to appreciate it because it did remove the ability for the player to use one particular buff (potion-wise) during the final battle.
As an aside, I was incredibly pleased by the work the map designers did on the Track. It looked better than ever thought it would and far better than I could have done. I do know that there were several rounds of cursing on the scripters' part as they tried to get the racing cutscene right. I guess the pathing proved problematic at points, so all I can say is thank God it wasn't me!
Overall, my satisfaction with the way this quest turned out was a 10 out of 10. It was pretty much exactly as I envisioned. As I'm not going over the Tyrran Enclave again here, I'll say that my satisfaction for that quest was a 9 out of 10. In case you think I'm being too much of a homer, my grades for the next two I designed will be decidedly lower.
Fun fact: Originally, I wanted to call this quest "The Amazing Race," but the title was vetoed due to copyright concerns regarding the popular reality TV show of the same name.
Fed Ex Quest: Tortured Hearts
It may seem odd, but making a fifteen-minute quest unique and fun is actually incredibly hard. There are, after all, only so many unique one-off encounters you can do without blatantly ripping off old ideas. I'd actually rather just do a full sidequest than a so-called fed ex quest. Anyways...
Back when I was young - I'd say in the range of 10 to 12 - I remember watching an episode of the old Twilight Zone in which a woman has been in a tragic accident that required extensive reconstruction surgery. Her face is entirely covered in bandages with only slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth visible. The whole episode is essentially a series of home-life vignettes and trips to the doctor's office in which the doctor tries to prepare her for how she'll look disfigured and deformed when the bandages come off. The episode is unique in that the view is always shot so that only the woman's bandaged face is visible. Everyone else is seen from behind, standing in a shadow, at an odd angle that only shows their lower body, and so forth.
Finally, at the end of the episode, the bandages come off to reveal a total hottie, but when they give her a mirror, she screams in disbelief at how ugly she looks. Then the camera pans back to show the doctors and nurses staring at her, and the viewer sees that they all have the same series of disfigurations, meaning that in this world, the disfigured is normal, and what we see as normal is disfigured.
Place that idea in the Forgotten Realms and add a magical rationale for the "disfigurement," and you have Tortured Hearts. Two factors went into the exact form the quest took. First, the fact that I could use almost any race for the protagonist was what ultimately allowed me to use the idea without the need for bandages, etc. Simply, to a lizard folk, humans must be ugly. Second, the use of lizard folk as the important NPCs in this quest also played into Alazander's request that I utilize Undergate as much as possible.
In the end, I can't help feeling the quest is incomplete, but I think that's a general aversion to fed ex sized quests in general. Therefore, I can't give this quest more than a 7 out of 10 in satisfaction.
Fun fact: In the original draft, if the PC revealed to Gracie that her love, Sarl, has already moved on, her body would later be found in a sewer with evidence that she had killed herself. However, in an official product, suicide is a no-no, so in the final version, she ends up wasting her days away drinking and gambling at the Track. Apparently, killing thousands of bad guys is ok, but killing yourself is not.
Major Sidequest: The Knot of Shou Lung
This idea sprang from the legend of the Gordian Knot, the great Turkish puzzle that promised conquest of Asia to any who solved it. I knew that I did not want the same answer that Alexander the Great used to solve that puzzle, but otherwise I started only with this historical kernel, ideas from a book I was reading at the time on the organization of medieval European guilds, and the idea that I again wanted to take the quest into Undergate if at all possible. Additionally, the only shortcomings I noticed in the list of sidequests already confirmed for the game was that there was a shortage of puzzles, so I tried to add some in here.
And that was key. At heart, I wanted the quest to be what the actual Knot was: a big puzzle. This led to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the trophy's dissappearance, the riddle in the case, and the puzzle door lock in the lair of the riddler. The prominence of the riddle led to the idea that a sphinx would be the quest giver, but there were no sphinx models in the toolset, and creature models are simply too expensive to do for just a single sidequest. Therefore, the sphinx became polymorphed into bipedal form. The poem itself went through a few iterations, and the final form was heavily influenced by Hugie, who turned out to have a bit of a poetic streak in him.
Undergate necessitated an enemy or faction who would be at home there. As I thought - and still think - the drow are overplayed, and I'd already used monstrous creatures for Tortured Hearts, I settled on the duergar. Once I had the final enemy, the backstory of the Knot began to formulate as an artifact of the wars between dwarven factions, and once the artifact became dwarven in origin, the truth that the Knot is simply a marvel of ancient dwarven construction popped out.
The duergar also brought to mind another game in which they were prominent: Icewind Dale 2. I remember in that game that as the party exits the cellar of the Black Raven Monastery, they are ambushed by several duergar who had aided the party earlier. The first time I played the game, I was just clicking my party towards the door, and some unfortunate pathing issues left my party scattered when the ambush was sprung. The resulting battle was brutal and required all my wits to survive... and almost ten years later, I still remember the immense satisfaction I got when I beat those bastards with only two characters left standing. With the duergars slated for The Knot of Shou Lung, I decided I wanted to replicate that battle if at all possible. To do that necessitated a situation where the duergar could appear to be helpful only to then ambush the party.
Originally, however, the party had to penetrate the duergar compound, and I specifically requested some interesting battles up front. In my quest document, I didn't specify what they were, and so I was dismayed when I didn't see any battles at all in my initial play-through. It was Alan Miranda of all people came up with the solution when I pointed this out. The crossbowmen on both of the raised platforms as the party tries to fight their way to the ladders are all his idea.
That also illustrates one of my design philosophies. I hate making upper-level enemies by simply making superhero versions of lower-level enemies (like the Thayan Gnolls in MotB who must be 15th level). I would rather increase difficulty level of battles by giving lower-level enemies superior position, numbers, or some other advantage. In this way, the player gets to keep the "specialness" of his advanced levels while still being challenged. All of the duergar in that battle except the bosses are 5th level, though some of them are rogues which gives extra oomph to their blind-side attacks.
Incidentally, that same philosophy applied to the fight in the main room of the Thayan Compound of the Tyrran Enclave, in which the player must bash through crates, navigate a grease-covered walkway, and dodge explosive barrels, all while getting pounded from all sides by elemental-arrow-wielding 3rd level rogue archers.
With all the twists and turns, the quest ended up being a very long one. Nevertheless, I do not feel it offers enough variety in how one can solve it. I don't have any ideas for other options, but I normally favor quests with a great deal of openness to them, so I can't really say I'm more than 7 out of 10 in terms of satisfaction at how this turned out.
Fun fact: Originally, Porthyria's polymorphed form was a human woman, but WotC's insisted she be changed to an elven woman, as they sought to increase the racial diversity in the game. As far as I'm concerned, she's actually a sphinx, so who cares what she looks like.
So these are the four quests I wrote. Of the 17 total sidequests, I believe the breakdown is as follows: Alan Miranda - 1, Hugie - 2, Me - 4, Nemorem - 5, Alazander - 5. Sorry to anyone I might have short-changed.
Next time, I intend to discuss a hodge-podge of other topics regarding Westgate.
When I first came onboard in early 2007, my second initial task done in parallel with the development of my companion concept was the creation of several sidequests. These sidequests were broken down into four categories: companion, "fed ex", minor, and major. These categories are pretty self-explanatory, but a couple comments are in order for the last three.
"Fed ex" did not mean literally what we think of: i.e. bring me a book or deliver this wood to the shop at the corner. Rather, it meant a quest that could be done in 10-15 minutes using only one or two encounters with "encounter" meaning either a battle, a trap, or some kind of character interaction. Contrary to the traditional fed ex quest, there was supposed to be some kind of twist to it that made it interesting. Minor quests were to be around 30 minutes and major quests around 45.
I was fortunate to come on the project late in that I could peruse the sidequests already developed by the others and so try to do some different things from what had already been done. For example, if I had found a lack of hack-and-slash quests, I would have written a couple. Had there been a lack of skill-heavy quests, I would have focused in that direction. As it turns out, with one small exception (outlined below), I didn't really find any inbalances, so I could proceed with the type of quests I like with an easy conscience. Beyond that consideration, the only instruction I was given was that Alazander thought Undergate was a bit bare and so wanted me to direct some of my quests to that quarter.
Minor Sidequest: Trouble at the Track
I finished Saleron's Gambit, Part V in the summer of 2006. One of my sidequest ideas for that module was to place a halfling village in the Hullack Forest that the PC would pass en route to the penultimate showdown with The Priestess. In the village, the PC would meet a halfling who had made a drunken boast - followed by a sizeable bet - that he could outrun a deer, a bet he would have to pay off if he couldn't somehow rig the race. Que the PC... I had visions of a cutscene with the halfling hasted in some way allowing him to speed across the finish line ahead of the deer.
Ultimately, I decided the quest was out of place. At that point in the module, the player was rapidly moving towards the end, and it didn't make sense for someone to stop to help someone rig a race. But the core idea was one I still liked.
Eight months later, Ossian gave me the opportunity to resurrect the idea, but the different setting of Westgate demanded that the specifics be changed. The seediness of the city allowed gambling readily enough, not to mention the idea that people would try to rig the races, but the deer had to go. Fortunately, dog racing was common enough in civilization. The idea of a gambling house in a city filled with criminal elements led me to change the one rigging the race from the quest giver (in the original SGV quest) to the entity the quest giver is racing (in the final version). One nod to the original idea was that I kept the quest giver as a halfling.
I immediately envisioned the house owner being a thug of the fighter class. The new idea that the house was magically rigging races naturally led to the inclusion of an arcane caster that could brew the potions. The need to maintain the animals led to the inclusion of a druid. With this, I only needed a rogue to complete a balanced enemy party for the player to battle. In my design document, I therefore gave the tavern owner a brother named Haman, a rogue who formed his connection to the Night Masks and explained how his profitable business could be allowed to operate without molestation. These four, then, would form a suitable final boss fight.
However, I generally love to include ways to utilize character skills in the completion of quests. This led to some of the design choices for the other encounters. First, the player has numerous skill-based ways to get past the half-orc door guard: bluff, lock pick, and so forth. Second, players can brew the antidote to the speed potion if they have the Brew Potion feat. Third, there is a guard that the player can talk into giving up the antidote with any of the talking skills.
In my envisioning of the inner workings of the gambling house, I pictured a slave-goblin doing all the menial cleaning. This led to the encounter the player has with the goblin when it witnesses the player tampering with the dog bowls. The goblin runs away no matter what the player does, but I thought it was a cool flavor encounter that might ramp up the tension that maybe the party will be discovered.
One pain that the sidequest presented was the obvious thought that the player could just slide a potion of speed into the dish, so why go through all the rest of the work to come up with a specially-made potion? This necessitated the confiscation of all potions of speed by the door guards. While at first I thought that made things unnecessarily complicated for relatively little added roleplay value, I came to appreciate it because it did remove the ability for the player to use one particular buff (potion-wise) during the final battle.
As an aside, I was incredibly pleased by the work the map designers did on the Track. It looked better than ever thought it would and far better than I could have done. I do know that there were several rounds of cursing on the scripters' part as they tried to get the racing cutscene right. I guess the pathing proved problematic at points, so all I can say is thank God it wasn't me!
Overall, my satisfaction with the way this quest turned out was a 10 out of 10. It was pretty much exactly as I envisioned. As I'm not going over the Tyrran Enclave again here, I'll say that my satisfaction for that quest was a 9 out of 10. In case you think I'm being too much of a homer, my grades for the next two I designed will be decidedly lower.
Fun fact: Originally, I wanted to call this quest "The Amazing Race," but the title was vetoed due to copyright concerns regarding the popular reality TV show of the same name.
Fed Ex Quest: Tortured Hearts
It may seem odd, but making a fifteen-minute quest unique and fun is actually incredibly hard. There are, after all, only so many unique one-off encounters you can do without blatantly ripping off old ideas. I'd actually rather just do a full sidequest than a so-called fed ex quest. Anyways...
Back when I was young - I'd say in the range of 10 to 12 - I remember watching an episode of the old Twilight Zone in which a woman has been in a tragic accident that required extensive reconstruction surgery. Her face is entirely covered in bandages with only slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth visible. The whole episode is essentially a series of home-life vignettes and trips to the doctor's office in which the doctor tries to prepare her for how she'll look disfigured and deformed when the bandages come off. The episode is unique in that the view is always shot so that only the woman's bandaged face is visible. Everyone else is seen from behind, standing in a shadow, at an odd angle that only shows their lower body, and so forth.
Finally, at the end of the episode, the bandages come off to reveal a total hottie, but when they give her a mirror, she screams in disbelief at how ugly she looks. Then the camera pans back to show the doctors and nurses staring at her, and the viewer sees that they all have the same series of disfigurations, meaning that in this world, the disfigured is normal, and what we see as normal is disfigured.
Place that idea in the Forgotten Realms and add a magical rationale for the "disfigurement," and you have Tortured Hearts. Two factors went into the exact form the quest took. First, the fact that I could use almost any race for the protagonist was what ultimately allowed me to use the idea without the need for bandages, etc. Simply, to a lizard folk, humans must be ugly. Second, the use of lizard folk as the important NPCs in this quest also played into Alazander's request that I utilize Undergate as much as possible.
In the end, I can't help feeling the quest is incomplete, but I think that's a general aversion to fed ex sized quests in general. Therefore, I can't give this quest more than a 7 out of 10 in satisfaction.
Fun fact: In the original draft, if the PC revealed to Gracie that her love, Sarl, has already moved on, her body would later be found in a sewer with evidence that she had killed herself. However, in an official product, suicide is a no-no, so in the final version, she ends up wasting her days away drinking and gambling at the Track. Apparently, killing thousands of bad guys is ok, but killing yourself is not.
Major Sidequest: The Knot of Shou Lung
This idea sprang from the legend of the Gordian Knot, the great Turkish puzzle that promised conquest of Asia to any who solved it. I knew that I did not want the same answer that Alexander the Great used to solve that puzzle, but otherwise I started only with this historical kernel, ideas from a book I was reading at the time on the organization of medieval European guilds, and the idea that I again wanted to take the quest into Undergate if at all possible. Additionally, the only shortcomings I noticed in the list of sidequests already confirmed for the game was that there was a shortage of puzzles, so I tried to add some in here.
And that was key. At heart, I wanted the quest to be what the actual Knot was: a big puzzle. This led to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the trophy's dissappearance, the riddle in the case, and the puzzle door lock in the lair of the riddler. The prominence of the riddle led to the idea that a sphinx would be the quest giver, but there were no sphinx models in the toolset, and creature models are simply too expensive to do for just a single sidequest. Therefore, the sphinx became polymorphed into bipedal form. The poem itself went through a few iterations, and the final form was heavily influenced by Hugie, who turned out to have a bit of a poetic streak in him.
Undergate necessitated an enemy or faction who would be at home there. As I thought - and still think - the drow are overplayed, and I'd already used monstrous creatures for Tortured Hearts, I settled on the duergar. Once I had the final enemy, the backstory of the Knot began to formulate as an artifact of the wars between dwarven factions, and once the artifact became dwarven in origin, the truth that the Knot is simply a marvel of ancient dwarven construction popped out.
The duergar also brought to mind another game in which they were prominent: Icewind Dale 2. I remember in that game that as the party exits the cellar of the Black Raven Monastery, they are ambushed by several duergar who had aided the party earlier. The first time I played the game, I was just clicking my party towards the door, and some unfortunate pathing issues left my party scattered when the ambush was sprung. The resulting battle was brutal and required all my wits to survive... and almost ten years later, I still remember the immense satisfaction I got when I beat those bastards with only two characters left standing. With the duergars slated for The Knot of Shou Lung, I decided I wanted to replicate that battle if at all possible. To do that necessitated a situation where the duergar could appear to be helpful only to then ambush the party.
Originally, however, the party had to penetrate the duergar compound, and I specifically requested some interesting battles up front. In my quest document, I didn't specify what they were, and so I was dismayed when I didn't see any battles at all in my initial play-through. It was Alan Miranda of all people came up with the solution when I pointed this out. The crossbowmen on both of the raised platforms as the party tries to fight their way to the ladders are all his idea.
That also illustrates one of my design philosophies. I hate making upper-level enemies by simply making superhero versions of lower-level enemies (like the Thayan Gnolls in MotB who must be 15th level). I would rather increase difficulty level of battles by giving lower-level enemies superior position, numbers, or some other advantage. In this way, the player gets to keep the "specialness" of his advanced levels while still being challenged. All of the duergar in that battle except the bosses are 5th level, though some of them are rogues which gives extra oomph to their blind-side attacks.
Incidentally, that same philosophy applied to the fight in the main room of the Thayan Compound of the Tyrran Enclave, in which the player must bash through crates, navigate a grease-covered walkway, and dodge explosive barrels, all while getting pounded from all sides by elemental-arrow-wielding 3rd level rogue archers.
With all the twists and turns, the quest ended up being a very long one. Nevertheless, I do not feel it offers enough variety in how one can solve it. I don't have any ideas for other options, but I normally favor quests with a great deal of openness to them, so I can't really say I'm more than 7 out of 10 in terms of satisfaction at how this turned out.
Fun fact: Originally, Porthyria's polymorphed form was a human woman, but WotC's insisted she be changed to an elven woman, as they sought to increase the racial diversity in the game. As far as I'm concerned, she's actually a sphinx, so who cares what she looks like.
So these are the four quests I wrote. Of the 17 total sidequests, I believe the breakdown is as follows: Alan Miranda - 1, Hugie - 2, Me - 4, Nemorem - 5, Alazander - 5. Sorry to anyone I might have short-changed.
Next time, I intend to discuss a hodge-podge of other topics regarding Westgate.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Westgate: Behind the Scenes, Part 2
Well, I can now reveal that my wife and I went to Las Vegas for her birthday this past weekend. It was a first time for both of us, and we had a blast. We're not big gamblers, so the only cash we lost was on the entertainment and meals. I bought us tickets to see Cirque du Soleil: KA at the MGM Grand on her actual birthday, and it was an amazing show. Other than that, it was just experiencing the city, which is rather unique in my experiences.
And then I got to update my US graph below to now include Nevada. Moving on...
Mysteries of Westgate
So last time I told the story of how Charissa came into existence. Now I'll give my take on the character and describe what I was trying to accomplish with her. Note that there are MoW spoilers below.
One of the things I try to do with most of the major characters I write is to make them three dimensional and lifelike to the extent that can be done in a game. Note, I said major characters, which describes only a very few, but Charissa definitely fell within this group.
Many people who play MoW and spend little time talking to Charissa will probably view her as opinionated, caustic, judgemental, and rigid in her thinking, and she would no doubt be proud to know she projects that image, but the crux of her character is that she is profoundly unsure of herself. In fact, she is in the throes of a deep internal philosophical crisis. It's what I now call a "Charissa moment." I recently had one, and I bet most people have one at some point in their life.
Essentially, this occurs when two "truths," often formulated during the simplistic idealism of youth, become no longer compatible in a single world. For Charissa, these two truths are that (1) her parents are innocent of the crime they are accused of (aiding in the kidnapping of Falucca Ardabrent) and (2) justice is an absolute principle. When her parents were arrested, she inately believed that they were innocent. When they were then found guilty, she began to search for answers, eventually arriving at the Tyrran church that promised justice would triumph. She has tried to merge these into a single universe, but over time, these two competing principles have proven unable to coexist, and no matter how long she searches, she cannot find a way to force them to. Fundamentally, if justice is universally true, then how do her innocent parents sit behind bars?
This, then, is the core of her restlessness. She believes that if she can find the pirate captain, Pharros Sneed, he will have the explanation as to how everything can be made right. He is the one who can prove her parents' innocence and allow justice to prevail. That is her sole mission, and anything else she engages in either is a means towards that end or serves as a proxy for it. (In other words, by destroying other evil-doers, she vicariously destroys her own.)
Charissa has, of course, reacted to this profound self-doubt by giving off an air of supreme confidence. She is determined to allow no one else to see her weakness. That is why, contrary to what one might expect, she lambasts Mantides and goes easy on Rinara. In Mantides, she sees a reflection of herself, and she handles that reflection the same as she does everything else she doesn't like: by bludgeoning it to a pulp. Though Rinara's world view is one she can never agree with, the certainty with which Rinara holds it is calming to her. As she says during one of the companion exchanges, "she'd rather be around with someone who knows what they believe - even if it is wrong - than one who is wavering in their belief."
This also explains one of the most controversial aspects of the character: namely during the Tyrran Enclave quest, why does a lawful good character abandon the slaves to their fate simply for vengeance? That's not lawful good! It's more like evil!
First, one must understand the Tyrran mindset is one that stresses justice first, so I never believed the choice here is all that clear-cut for a Tyrran. That being said, I would still think saving the slaves first is the more preferable choice. However, and this is key, Charissa is not a perfect example of her religion. Regardless of whatever principles the religion espouses, in this instance, the shock of at last finding Falucca overrides any thought of right and wrong. Here is a woman who can prove her parents' innocence, and she will apprehend her regardless of the consequences. I guess I could agree with giving her an alignment shift in the evil and chaotic directions, but I wouldn't agree that temporarily allowing one's passions to overcome one's mind is a reason to change alignments entirely. This is perhaps Charissa's most human moment in my opinion. The world is full of imperfect people who imperfectly live according to the values of their religion, even when they legitimately hold those values dear.
I have over time become wary of what is often termed "navel-gazing" characters, so there is no point that Charissa ever actually spells any of this out. Rather, one would need to talk with her often, look for subtle clues, and use their own human intuition to glean any of it. For those who simply want to get to the adventure and forget talking to the companions, they'll never get more than a surface-layer view of any of them, and that means the image Charissa projects will be the only one they see (just like real human relationships). But those who spend time with her should pick up several clues, such as the one mentioned above with Mantides and Rinara, that should reveal there is more to the character than just the bombastic, self-righteous priestess.
As an aside, Charissa's quest, the Tyrran Enclave, explores many themes. The obvious one is the fate of Charissa's parents and the beginning of her final resolution of her "Charissa moment." But there's something else for Charissa there. As her two key principles begin to come together, a third one gets added: compassion (or mercy). No matter which way she deals with Sneed, she has begun a process, which she articulates immediately after leaving the Tyrran shrine, in which she begins to think about the roles mercy and compassion have in her religion. The player isn't meant to be able to guide her along to think exactly as they do; Charissa's already too experienced and independent an adventurer to be led around by the nose. But she has begun a process of introspection that will lead to greater wisdom (important for a priestess).
There are other themes as well: love, fate, redemption, justice, and questions of the greater good. The first two are explored in the story of Falucca and Sneed, the third and fourth in Sneed's subsequent life, and the final one in how the player chooses to deal with the slaves and Falucca. Sneed's ultimate fate is not meant to be an easy choice for the player. (Obviously, Charissa is the one who makes that choice, but the player gets to advocate one way or the other.) As a pirate captain, it can be assumed that Sneed engaged in all kinds of theft, rape, pillaging, and murder, even if he is innocent of Falucca's abduction. However, he changed his ways several years ago and has since acted for the benefit of mankind. Does any future good he might do outweigh his past crimes? Is there any good to be done in punishing a man who has a clear track record of having mended his ways? Does that even matter since his past crimes have thus far gone unpunished?
As for the question of the greater good, many people probably view that as saving the slaves. It's certainly the more immediate good, but if Falucca escapes to set up shop elsewhere, there may be hundreds or even thousands of people who are sold into a lifetime of slavery as a result. So which is worse: killing ten people or enslaving thousands? Of course, there are other considerations such as the definite knowledge that the ten will die versus the hypothetical scenario that thousands will be sold into slavery, but that only adds a further dimension to the dilemma. One of the things I really wanted for this quest was to present choices that weren't easy or obvious. Hopefully, I succeeded.
Next time, I'll give some incite on the origins and intents regarding the other three sidequests I designed.
And then I got to update my US graph below to now include Nevada. Moving on...
Mysteries of Westgate
So last time I told the story of how Charissa came into existence. Now I'll give my take on the character and describe what I was trying to accomplish with her. Note that there are MoW spoilers below.
One of the things I try to do with most of the major characters I write is to make them three dimensional and lifelike to the extent that can be done in a game. Note, I said major characters, which describes only a very few, but Charissa definitely fell within this group.
Many people who play MoW and spend little time talking to Charissa will probably view her as opinionated, caustic, judgemental, and rigid in her thinking, and she would no doubt be proud to know she projects that image, but the crux of her character is that she is profoundly unsure of herself. In fact, she is in the throes of a deep internal philosophical crisis. It's what I now call a "Charissa moment." I recently had one, and I bet most people have one at some point in their life.
Essentially, this occurs when two "truths," often formulated during the simplistic idealism of youth, become no longer compatible in a single world. For Charissa, these two truths are that (1) her parents are innocent of the crime they are accused of (aiding in the kidnapping of Falucca Ardabrent) and (2) justice is an absolute principle. When her parents were arrested, she inately believed that they were innocent. When they were then found guilty, she began to search for answers, eventually arriving at the Tyrran church that promised justice would triumph. She has tried to merge these into a single universe, but over time, these two competing principles have proven unable to coexist, and no matter how long she searches, she cannot find a way to force them to. Fundamentally, if justice is universally true, then how do her innocent parents sit behind bars?
This, then, is the core of her restlessness. She believes that if she can find the pirate captain, Pharros Sneed, he will have the explanation as to how everything can be made right. He is the one who can prove her parents' innocence and allow justice to prevail. That is her sole mission, and anything else she engages in either is a means towards that end or serves as a proxy for it. (In other words, by destroying other evil-doers, she vicariously destroys her own.)
Charissa has, of course, reacted to this profound self-doubt by giving off an air of supreme confidence. She is determined to allow no one else to see her weakness. That is why, contrary to what one might expect, she lambasts Mantides and goes easy on Rinara. In Mantides, she sees a reflection of herself, and she handles that reflection the same as she does everything else she doesn't like: by bludgeoning it to a pulp. Though Rinara's world view is one she can never agree with, the certainty with which Rinara holds it is calming to her. As she says during one of the companion exchanges, "she'd rather be around with someone who knows what they believe - even if it is wrong - than one who is wavering in their belief."
This also explains one of the most controversial aspects of the character: namely during the Tyrran Enclave quest, why does a lawful good character abandon the slaves to their fate simply for vengeance? That's not lawful good! It's more like evil!
First, one must understand the Tyrran mindset is one that stresses justice first, so I never believed the choice here is all that clear-cut for a Tyrran. That being said, I would still think saving the slaves first is the more preferable choice. However, and this is key, Charissa is not a perfect example of her religion. Regardless of whatever principles the religion espouses, in this instance, the shock of at last finding Falucca overrides any thought of right and wrong. Here is a woman who can prove her parents' innocence, and she will apprehend her regardless of the consequences. I guess I could agree with giving her an alignment shift in the evil and chaotic directions, but I wouldn't agree that temporarily allowing one's passions to overcome one's mind is a reason to change alignments entirely. This is perhaps Charissa's most human moment in my opinion. The world is full of imperfect people who imperfectly live according to the values of their religion, even when they legitimately hold those values dear.
I have over time become wary of what is often termed "navel-gazing" characters, so there is no point that Charissa ever actually spells any of this out. Rather, one would need to talk with her often, look for subtle clues, and use their own human intuition to glean any of it. For those who simply want to get to the adventure and forget talking to the companions, they'll never get more than a surface-layer view of any of them, and that means the image Charissa projects will be the only one they see (just like real human relationships). But those who spend time with her should pick up several clues, such as the one mentioned above with Mantides and Rinara, that should reveal there is more to the character than just the bombastic, self-righteous priestess.
As an aside, Charissa's quest, the Tyrran Enclave, explores many themes. The obvious one is the fate of Charissa's parents and the beginning of her final resolution of her "Charissa moment." But there's something else for Charissa there. As her two key principles begin to come together, a third one gets added: compassion (or mercy). No matter which way she deals with Sneed, she has begun a process, which she articulates immediately after leaving the Tyrran shrine, in which she begins to think about the roles mercy and compassion have in her religion. The player isn't meant to be able to guide her along to think exactly as they do; Charissa's already too experienced and independent an adventurer to be led around by the nose. But she has begun a process of introspection that will lead to greater wisdom (important for a priestess).
There are other themes as well: love, fate, redemption, justice, and questions of the greater good. The first two are explored in the story of Falucca and Sneed, the third and fourth in Sneed's subsequent life, and the final one in how the player chooses to deal with the slaves and Falucca. Sneed's ultimate fate is not meant to be an easy choice for the player. (Obviously, Charissa is the one who makes that choice, but the player gets to advocate one way or the other.) As a pirate captain, it can be assumed that Sneed engaged in all kinds of theft, rape, pillaging, and murder, even if he is innocent of Falucca's abduction. However, he changed his ways several years ago and has since acted for the benefit of mankind. Does any future good he might do outweigh his past crimes? Is there any good to be done in punishing a man who has a clear track record of having mended his ways? Does that even matter since his past crimes have thus far gone unpunished?
As for the question of the greater good, many people probably view that as saving the slaves. It's certainly the more immediate good, but if Falucca escapes to set up shop elsewhere, there may be hundreds or even thousands of people who are sold into a lifetime of slavery as a result. So which is worse: killing ten people or enslaving thousands? Of course, there are other considerations such as the definite knowledge that the ten will die versus the hypothetical scenario that thousands will be sold into slavery, but that only adds a further dimension to the dilemma. One of the things I really wanted for this quest was to present choices that weren't easy or obvious. Hopefully, I succeeded.
Next time, I'll give some incite on the origins and intents regarding the other three sidequests I designed.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Westgate: Behind the Scenes, Part 1
Maimed God Update
Progress has been slow. I was sent on another business trip to Alaska last week, which meant zero progress was made. At the end of this week, I'll be taking my wife somewhere for her birthday. It's a surprise, and she sometimes reads this blog, so I'll have to reveal exactly where later on. Then it looks like I might have another business trip after that.
But yesterday I did manage to thoroughly test one of the areas I hadn't tested all that much yet, so I think it's pretty good for now. In addition, I finished writing a new dialog for a new "flavor NPC." Essentially, after working to add content to Act II, I thought some of the areas in Act III were bare in comparison. So more content got added.
Anyway, I have some more targeted testing this week, and then I think I'm going to do one more complete pass-through of Act III and then it's on to campaign-level testing.
Mysteries of Westgate
Since progress on TMGS is slow and I can't post screenies of Act III anyway without spoiling the hell out of the adventure, I'm going to turn to a subject I've been patiently waiting to write about: some behind-the-scenes of the Westgate development. Note that this is not going to delve into the whole "why was it delayed" saga. I almost definitely don't know everything, and what I do know is secret. However, I will reveal how I became involved and what my thoughts were as the project came together: essentially a Developer's Diary but after-the-fact. Right now, I envision this being a four-part series, but this could change if I think up more interesting content.
The Beginning, or How I Became Involved
It was January, 2007, and I had just handed in my resignation for my previous real-world job. During the time I was cleaning out my desk and ticking down my final days, I had little to do, and so on a whim, I logged into my hotmail account and - a very rare event - I checked my trash bin to see if any legitimate messages had been caught by the spam filter. Yes, I was very bored.
Well, in between all the advertisements for penis enlargements and new methods to make my girl happy, I saw a note from Alazander. Thinking back, it was odd that it got flagged as spam, as we had exchanged a couple e-mails previously in regards to some comments he made about "Saleron's Gambit," but there it was. Fortunately, it was only a couple days old at that point, so I could still answer in a reasonably-timely manner. Opening the messgae, I was surprised to learn that he was now involved in Ossian (like everyone, I had played DoD), and there were some openings coming up. They needed a scripter, but they also might need a new developer, and would I be interested? After a few e-mails, I had a phone interview with Alan Miranda, who mentioned that, though he hadn't played the SG series, he had noticed that SG V was rated right under DoD on the new modules charts (#1 and #2 - yes, I remember). By the end of the conversation, I was in. It was only left to decide in what capacity.
Of course, I would have done either the scripter or the designer jobs, but I mentioned I'd rather be a designer. As it turns out, one of their designers ended up leaving the team later that week, and I was slotted into his place. Honestly, I don't remember who that was, but I do remember he was someone pretty well known in the NWN community at the time, and he had developed some mods on his own that I had heard of. Thanks to him whoever he was...
The Birth of Charissa Maernos
So within days, I was in heavy planning. The storyline for Westgate had been finished for a while, and most of the sidequests were planned as well, but very little content had actually been done in the toolset. I was probably only one to two weeks behind in actual toolset time. Anyway, I needed to quickly come up with a companion and several sidequests, get them approved, and start writing.
I already knew that two of the companions were a fighter named Mantides and a rogue named Rinara, so I thought up a character concept for a wizard, but when I spoke with Luke, there was silence on the other end of the phone, at which point he said that because of the heavy undead content in the story, they'd rather have a divine healer.
As an aside, prior to my involvement, the third companion was going to be a female bard named, I believe, Eudice. Because bards have access to healing spells, this was agreed to even though bards are not technically divine casters. I got the impression, however, that bard was not the preferred class for the third companion (strictly my impression here), and they didn't need to worry with me. At the time, I didn't much care for bards, although my feelings on the class have modified recently for the better. What it did do was pin down the gender of the companion. As Eudice was female, a female voice actress had already been hired, so that placed an additional restraint on my companion.
So it was now back to the drawing board. Keep in mind that this was all pre-MotB, so there was no Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman, so the list of divine casters (minus bards) was Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Ranger. Rangers aren't much in terms of spell-casting. Neither are paladins, and this would have trampled on Mantides' back-story anyway, so that left Cleric and Druid, and I just decided that Cleric worked better in a city-based adventure. Honestly, this didn't thrill me, as I was then writing a novel centered around a female cleric, but I set to work doing what I could.
It was around this time that I decided I didn't have the patience to write a novel and so changed TMGS to be a NWN2 module instead. However, I liked the protagonist I had envisioned, Sheridan Steele, and so I took most of her mannerisms and ported them over to the new companion. In TMGS, the novel, Sheridan was a tall, blonde, Amazonian, tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners enforcer who had trained with an elite cadre of paladins in her home town of Neverwinter. There, she had learned to use both a tower shield and a warhammer. In the only battle scene I had written to that point, I had envisioned one of her favorite battle tactics as essentially bull-rushing opponents with her tower shield, pinning them up against walls, and using her weight to bash them into submission. She was also left-handed (unfortunately unable to be duplicated in NWN), and this made her tough to handle, as her blows came from the opposite direction that most adversaries expected. In demeanor, Sheridan was unyielding and merciless... at least to begin with. This created the basis for tension with her companion, Tancred, who was deeply distrustful of the Tyrran church.
So those who have played Westgate can see how Sheridan became Charissa, but only externally. I was determined that I would not give Ossian that character in case I wanted to come back to her in the future, and so I resolved that the new character would have a different name and a different backstory. When I release my character creation guide for TMGS, one of my hints will be to not make the character from Waterdeep because the story doesn't work if the character already has contacts in that city. I already knew this, of course, and so I deliberately chose Waterdeep as the home of my new character, as this would force me to think beyond the character I had already created.
So I downloaded the Waterdeep source book from the Ossian server and began to just read. I'm not sure I can really outline how all the ideas began to come together from there, but the pirate theme from Westgate's lore combined with the Waterdhavian nobility to coalesce into a new backstory that featured both aspects as well as slave-trading. Looking through the businesses of all the noble houses of Waterdeep, I saw that the Maernos family had once specialized in slave-trading, though it is now illegal in Waterdeep I believe. From there the name and backstory just worked itself out.
Because I was already working on TMGS in a couple forms, I didn't want Charissa to be a Tyrran. Originally, she was a Lathanderite, but this was vetoed by Alazander because of the heavy inclusion of the Lathanderite church in MoW. On my own, I tried to work Charissa into the churches of Ilmater and several others before reluctantly coming to the conclusion that, because her backstory dealt with the theme of justice or lack thereof, Tyr made the most sense. Thus, in a sense, when Charissa mentions to the player that she tried several different churches before settling on Tyr, it's the truth.
So by mid-February of 2007, Charissa had been born in her final form. Next time, I'll give my interpretation of the character. Despite her apparent one dimensional nature, she is actually the most complex character I've written to date, though some in TMGS will best her. But all that's for another post.
Progress has been slow. I was sent on another business trip to Alaska last week, which meant zero progress was made. At the end of this week, I'll be taking my wife somewhere for her birthday. It's a surprise, and she sometimes reads this blog, so I'll have to reveal exactly where later on. Then it looks like I might have another business trip after that.
But yesterday I did manage to thoroughly test one of the areas I hadn't tested all that much yet, so I think it's pretty good for now. In addition, I finished writing a new dialog for a new "flavor NPC." Essentially, after working to add content to Act II, I thought some of the areas in Act III were bare in comparison. So more content got added.
Anyway, I have some more targeted testing this week, and then I think I'm going to do one more complete pass-through of Act III and then it's on to campaign-level testing.
Mysteries of Westgate
Since progress on TMGS is slow and I can't post screenies of Act III anyway without spoiling the hell out of the adventure, I'm going to turn to a subject I've been patiently waiting to write about: some behind-the-scenes of the Westgate development. Note that this is not going to delve into the whole "why was it delayed" saga. I almost definitely don't know everything, and what I do know is secret. However, I will reveal how I became involved and what my thoughts were as the project came together: essentially a Developer's Diary but after-the-fact. Right now, I envision this being a four-part series, but this could change if I think up more interesting content.
The Beginning, or How I Became Involved
It was January, 2007, and I had just handed in my resignation for my previous real-world job. During the time I was cleaning out my desk and ticking down my final days, I had little to do, and so on a whim, I logged into my hotmail account and - a very rare event - I checked my trash bin to see if any legitimate messages had been caught by the spam filter. Yes, I was very bored.
Well, in between all the advertisements for penis enlargements and new methods to make my girl happy, I saw a note from Alazander. Thinking back, it was odd that it got flagged as spam, as we had exchanged a couple e-mails previously in regards to some comments he made about "Saleron's Gambit," but there it was. Fortunately, it was only a couple days old at that point, so I could still answer in a reasonably-timely manner. Opening the messgae, I was surprised to learn that he was now involved in Ossian (like everyone, I had played DoD), and there were some openings coming up. They needed a scripter, but they also might need a new developer, and would I be interested? After a few e-mails, I had a phone interview with Alan Miranda, who mentioned that, though he hadn't played the SG series, he had noticed that SG V was rated right under DoD on the new modules charts (#1 and #2 - yes, I remember). By the end of the conversation, I was in. It was only left to decide in what capacity.
Of course, I would have done either the scripter or the designer jobs, but I mentioned I'd rather be a designer. As it turns out, one of their designers ended up leaving the team later that week, and I was slotted into his place. Honestly, I don't remember who that was, but I do remember he was someone pretty well known in the NWN community at the time, and he had developed some mods on his own that I had heard of. Thanks to him whoever he was...
The Birth of Charissa Maernos
So within days, I was in heavy planning. The storyline for Westgate had been finished for a while, and most of the sidequests were planned as well, but very little content had actually been done in the toolset. I was probably only one to two weeks behind in actual toolset time. Anyway, I needed to quickly come up with a companion and several sidequests, get them approved, and start writing.
I already knew that two of the companions were a fighter named Mantides and a rogue named Rinara, so I thought up a character concept for a wizard, but when I spoke with Luke, there was silence on the other end of the phone, at which point he said that because of the heavy undead content in the story, they'd rather have a divine healer.
As an aside, prior to my involvement, the third companion was going to be a female bard named, I believe, Eudice. Because bards have access to healing spells, this was agreed to even though bards are not technically divine casters. I got the impression, however, that bard was not the preferred class for the third companion (strictly my impression here), and they didn't need to worry with me. At the time, I didn't much care for bards, although my feelings on the class have modified recently for the better. What it did do was pin down the gender of the companion. As Eudice was female, a female voice actress had already been hired, so that placed an additional restraint on my companion.
So it was now back to the drawing board. Keep in mind that this was all pre-MotB, so there was no Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman, so the list of divine casters (minus bards) was Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Ranger. Rangers aren't much in terms of spell-casting. Neither are paladins, and this would have trampled on Mantides' back-story anyway, so that left Cleric and Druid, and I just decided that Cleric worked better in a city-based adventure. Honestly, this didn't thrill me, as I was then writing a novel centered around a female cleric, but I set to work doing what I could.It was around this time that I decided I didn't have the patience to write a novel and so changed TMGS to be a NWN2 module instead. However, I liked the protagonist I had envisioned, Sheridan Steele, and so I took most of her mannerisms and ported them over to the new companion. In TMGS, the novel, Sheridan was a tall, blonde, Amazonian, tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners enforcer who had trained with an elite cadre of paladins in her home town of Neverwinter. There, she had learned to use both a tower shield and a warhammer. In the only battle scene I had written to that point, I had envisioned one of her favorite battle tactics as essentially bull-rushing opponents with her tower shield, pinning them up against walls, and using her weight to bash them into submission. She was also left-handed (unfortunately unable to be duplicated in NWN), and this made her tough to handle, as her blows came from the opposite direction that most adversaries expected. In demeanor, Sheridan was unyielding and merciless... at least to begin with. This created the basis for tension with her companion, Tancred, who was deeply distrustful of the Tyrran church.
So those who have played Westgate can see how Sheridan became Charissa, but only externally. I was determined that I would not give Ossian that character in case I wanted to come back to her in the future, and so I resolved that the new character would have a different name and a different backstory. When I release my character creation guide for TMGS, one of my hints will be to not make the character from Waterdeep because the story doesn't work if the character already has contacts in that city. I already knew this, of course, and so I deliberately chose Waterdeep as the home of my new character, as this would force me to think beyond the character I had already created.
So I downloaded the Waterdeep source book from the Ossian server and began to just read. I'm not sure I can really outline how all the ideas began to come together from there, but the pirate theme from Westgate's lore combined with the Waterdhavian nobility to coalesce into a new backstory that featured both aspects as well as slave-trading. Looking through the businesses of all the noble houses of Waterdeep, I saw that the Maernos family had once specialized in slave-trading, though it is now illegal in Waterdeep I believe. From there the name and backstory just worked itself out.
Because I was already working on TMGS in a couple forms, I didn't want Charissa to be a Tyrran. Originally, she was a Lathanderite, but this was vetoed by Alazander because of the heavy inclusion of the Lathanderite church in MoW. On my own, I tried to work Charissa into the churches of Ilmater and several others before reluctantly coming to the conclusion that, because her backstory dealt with the theme of justice or lack thereof, Tyr made the most sense. Thus, in a sense, when Charissa mentions to the player that she tried several different churches before settling on Tyr, it's the truth.
So by mid-February of 2007, Charissa had been born in her final form. Next time, I'll give my interpretation of the character. Despite her apparent one dimensional nature, she is actually the most complex character I've written to date, though some in TMGS will best her. But all that's for another post.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
MoW Activation Limit Removed
The title says it all. As recently announced on both the Ossian website and the BioBoards, the much-maligned activation limit on MoW has been officially removed. Contrary to what many believe, it seems Atari does actually listen sometimes.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Mysteries of Westgate Released!
At long last, the sordid saga of Mysteries of Westgate's release has ended, and the sordid saga of the actual campaign can begin for thousands of fans. Over the next few weeks and months, I will comment much more on various aspects of MoW, but for now I implore everyone to go download and play it already! If you like crpgs, you won't be disappointed.And I also want to draw attention to Ossian's brand new relaunched website. Check it out when you get a chance. It's quite spiffy.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Act II Scripting Done!
OK, so I've been silent for a while, but rest assured I have not been still. I've been sick for ten days or so, and I had a quick jaunt to Illinois for a funeral. But in between I've been making steady progress. But first a couple quick hits.
The Third Sign
Sorry, Hugie, I had it in my notes to plug this next time I updated, and then I got sidetracked by life, but better late than never.
As many are no doubt aware, Ossian-mate Hugie has been working on a NWN2 adaptation of the opening of a soon-to-be-published novel by Gregory Wilson entitled The Third Sign. It's already been on the Vault for about a month, but it looks to need a few more votes. Two votes for 411 downloads (as of this writing) is a bit of a travesty.
Just a few of the things The Third Sign offers:
And, of course, you can get a jump on the upcoming novel.
Mysteries of Westgate
Yeah, it's supposed to be out on April 29th. Realistically, that's probably true, or very near to it, but... well, we'll see. I'll leave it at that.
The Maimed God's Saga
OK, the big news here is that the scripting for Act II is finally done, and I officially started play-testing yesterday. Keep in mind that this scripting included expanding Act II by two more sidequests and adding a few extra goodies including another couple companion interactions. A major step has been cleared.
As always, I got a major thrill the first time I walked through the streets of a world I created. The world was alive at last, even if there was quite a bit of funkiness to it. But the most thrilling thing of all is that I now know I got the feel of Navatranaasu pretty much dead on. I meant to make a town under a heavy pall with decay and despair evident at every turn... and I can giddily say I got it. Dark hues, dim lighting, cobwebs and debris everywhere, and a cast of depressing and depressed people! Sweet!
It won't be long until the screenshots start coming, but I don't think anything I post will quite be the same as playing. Hopefully, people will turn the lights off when they play and feel the hairs on their neck start to stand up... BOO!
Sorry... I just always get psyched at this point in development. In the words of Hannibal from the A-Team, "I love it when a good plan comes together!" More later.
The Third Sign
Sorry, Hugie, I had it in my notes to plug this next time I updated, and then I got sidetracked by life, but better late than never.
As many are no doubt aware, Ossian-mate Hugie has been working on a NWN2 adaptation of the opening of a soon-to-be-published novel by Gregory Wilson entitled The Third Sign. It's already been on the Vault for about a month, but it looks to need a few more votes. Two votes for 411 downloads (as of this writing) is a bit of a travesty.
Just a few of the things The Third Sign offers:
- New Music Tracks
- Voice Acting for Major Characters
- Pregenerated Protagonist
And, of course, you can get a jump on the upcoming novel.
Mysteries of Westgate
Yeah, it's supposed to be out on April 29th. Realistically, that's probably true, or very near to it, but... well, we'll see. I'll leave it at that.
The Maimed God's Saga
OK, the big news here is that the scripting for Act II is finally done, and I officially started play-testing yesterday. Keep in mind that this scripting included expanding Act II by two more sidequests and adding a few extra goodies including another couple companion interactions. A major step has been cleared.
As always, I got a major thrill the first time I walked through the streets of a world I created. The world was alive at last, even if there was quite a bit of funkiness to it. But the most thrilling thing of all is that I now know I got the feel of Navatranaasu pretty much dead on. I meant to make a town under a heavy pall with decay and despair evident at every turn... and I can giddily say I got it. Dark hues, dim lighting, cobwebs and debris everywhere, and a cast of depressing and depressed people! Sweet!
It won't be long until the screenshots start coming, but I don't think anything I post will quite be the same as playing. Hopefully, people will turn the lights off when they play and feel the hairs on their neck start to stand up... BOO!
Sorry... I just always get psyched at this point in development. In the words of Hannibal from the A-Team, "I love it when a good plan comes together!" More later.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Mysteries of Westgate At Last!
Yes, the wait now seems to be very nearly over! We've been hearing internal rumblings within Ossian for a couple weeks, but I didn't want to say anything for fear of yet again being disappointed. However, I have just received an official e-mail from the Powers That Be that we are now sure enough about an impending release that we can officially announce it.
We do have a projected release date, but not one that is sure enough yet to announce. Depending on certain developments, it may slip by a few days. Given the bad feelings about the previous seemingly-interminable delays, they don't want us to mention the date until it is 100% rock-solid. But, it seems the day it is announced will also be the day you will be able to buy. So there won't be any further anticipation once we hear.
In addition to the official Bioware and Atari boards, keep an eye out on the Ossian web site in the coming days and weeks. I understand that there will be some significant updates that will include a message board specifically about Mysteries of Westgate which will almost certainly contain useful information, especially once it is actually released!
And suffice it to say, I think that will be much sooner than most will at this point believe!
We do have a projected release date, but not one that is sure enough yet to announce. Depending on certain developments, it may slip by a few days. Given the bad feelings about the previous seemingly-interminable delays, they don't want us to mention the date until it is 100% rock-solid. But, it seems the day it is announced will also be the day you will be able to buy. So there won't be any further anticipation once we hear.
In addition to the official Bioware and Atari boards, keep an eye out on the Ossian web site in the coming days and weeks. I understand that there will be some significant updates that will include a message board specifically about Mysteries of Westgate which will almost certainly contain useful information, especially once it is actually released!
And suffice it to say, I think that will be much sooner than most will at this point believe!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Mysteries of Westgate Press Event
This past Wednesday and Thursday (May 7th and 8th), I attended the Mysteries of Westgate press event in Beverly Hills, and I must say it was a blast. California... well, it's California; it's got a culture all its own. All I could think of was, "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto..." but it was a good time, great food, interesting hotel...
Of course, it was my first time meeting Alan face-to-face, and he turned out to be as cool as I thought he would be, and all the reviewers, some of whom I'd exchanged e-mails with, were all fabulous as well. Finally, it was great meeting the representatives from Atari (publisher) and fortyseven (public relations), and it was fascinating getting a brief glimpse of how at least this small part of the background to publishing games works.
Lastly, I've heard universally positive feedback about the event and, more importantly, the game. But rather than have me blabber on further about it, go and see what others who attended had to say:
Thieves' Guild
Warcry
NWN Podcast
Just RPG
Neverwinter Vault
IGN
I'm still waiting on another article to be published and will update this post when I see it.
A quick note. This Friday, Ossian will release our final Spotlight covering not the lore of Westgate, but the Ossian perspective of the event. Until then...
Of course, it was my first time meeting Alan face-to-face, and he turned out to be as cool as I thought he would be, and all the reviewers, some of whom I'd exchanged e-mails with, were all fabulous as well. Finally, it was great meeting the representatives from Atari (publisher) and fortyseven (public relations), and it was fascinating getting a brief glimpse of how at least this small part of the background to publishing games works.
Lastly, I've heard universally positive feedback about the event and, more importantly, the game. But rather than have me blabber on further about it, go and see what others who attended had to say:
Thieves' Guild
Warcry
NWN Podcast
Just RPG
Neverwinter Vault
IGN
I'm still waiting on another article to be published and will update this post when I see it.
A quick note. This Friday, Ossian will release our final Spotlight covering not the lore of Westgate, but the Ossian perspective of the event. Until then...
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Quick Hits
I don't have a lot to report, but there are several little things of relevance to the NWN community and (in some cases) D&D as a whole.
Gary Gygax (1939-2008)
I'm posting way later than everyone else on this, and there's little that I'm going to add that's new. Suffice it to say that if you're reading this, it's about 99.9% likely that you're one of the millions whose lives were influenced by him. Needless to say, I have enjoyed hundreds if not thousands of hours of fun in my life because of a game he conceived thirty-odd years ago. The gaming community has indeed lost a titan - if not THE titan - of the industry. Farewell, Gary.
New Mysteries of Westgate Video
The introductory video for MoW was released today, and it's pretty awesome. It was the first time I had seen it, believe it or not. Stuff like that tends to be added long after most of the rest of the campaign is completed. For most of my play-throughs it was just load and go look for bugs, verify functionality, etc. When the release finally gets here, it might actually be interesting to play the campaign from start to finish again just to experience it like our customers will... Then again, nah. I've played the campaign - no joke - 15 to 20 times already. As I've said before, there are no longer any "mysteries" in Westgate for me...
Ossian Interview at NWN Podcast
Yes, I'm a couple weeks late in drawing attention to this, but Alan Miranda and Luke Scull were recently interviewed by the NWN Podcast team. In the interview, they discuss all matter of Westgate goodness. Check it out if you haven't already.
It was the first podcast I'd ever listened to. I was, of course, aware that the podcast group existed; at 46 episodes as of this writing, they've been doing their thing for a year now, but I had never had reason to go and check it all out before Ossian was spotlighted. It's just another example of the myriad efforts being pursued that, in total, form a vibrant and friendly community. I'll have to keep a closer eye on them in the future. By the way, guys... it's "OSS-see-an," not "o-SIGH-in..."
Oh, and I did notice in the podcast immediately before Ossian's interview (episode #44), they gave a shout-out to "Saleron's Gambit," so thanks for that. (And yes, liso, that's meant for you. But did you really need to forget the name of my NWN2 project? I'm crushed!)
MoW Spotlights
Yes, the Ossian crew has begun to release episodic spotlights covering many of the cool aspects of Westgate. It is a fantastic setting different in many important ways from the more traditional Sword Coast settings. It is our hope that players will start the adventure with an appreciation of the city's legends, lore, geography, history, population, etc., and that this will make for a more satisfying and engrossing experience.
The first spotlight, released last Friday, was on the "Legend of the Quelzarn," one of the fantastic new monsters players will get to battle. Coming up very soon will be "Cosmopolitan Westgate." Stay tuned for further updates.
Gary Gygax (1939-2008)
I'm posting way later than everyone else on this, and there's little that I'm going to add that's new. Suffice it to say that if you're reading this, it's about 99.9% likely that you're one of the millions whose lives were influenced by him. Needless to say, I have enjoyed hundreds if not thousands of hours of fun in my life because of a game he conceived thirty-odd years ago. The gaming community has indeed lost a titan - if not THE titan - of the industry. Farewell, Gary.
New Mysteries of Westgate Video
The introductory video for MoW was released today, and it's pretty awesome. It was the first time I had seen it, believe it or not. Stuff like that tends to be added long after most of the rest of the campaign is completed. For most of my play-throughs it was just load and go look for bugs, verify functionality, etc. When the release finally gets here, it might actually be interesting to play the campaign from start to finish again just to experience it like our customers will... Then again, nah. I've played the campaign - no joke - 15 to 20 times already. As I've said before, there are no longer any "mysteries" in Westgate for me...
Ossian Interview at NWN Podcast
Yes, I'm a couple weeks late in drawing attention to this, but Alan Miranda and Luke Scull were recently interviewed by the NWN Podcast team. In the interview, they discuss all matter of Westgate goodness. Check it out if you haven't already.
It was the first podcast I'd ever listened to. I was, of course, aware that the podcast group existed; at 46 episodes as of this writing, they've been doing their thing for a year now, but I had never had reason to go and check it all out before Ossian was spotlighted. It's just another example of the myriad efforts being pursued that, in total, form a vibrant and friendly community. I'll have to keep a closer eye on them in the future. By the way, guys... it's "OSS-see-an," not "o-SIGH-in..."
Oh, and I did notice in the podcast immediately before Ossian's interview (episode #44), they gave a shout-out to "Saleron's Gambit," so thanks for that. (And yes, liso, that's meant for you. But did you really need to forget the name of my NWN2 project? I'm crushed!)
MoW Spotlights
Yes, the Ossian crew has begun to release episodic spotlights covering many of the cool aspects of Westgate. It is a fantastic setting different in many important ways from the more traditional Sword Coast settings. It is our hope that players will start the adventure with an appreciation of the city's legends, lore, geography, history, population, etc., and that this will make for a more satisfying and engrossing experience.
The first spotlight, released last Friday, was on the "Legend of the Quelzarn," one of the fantastic new monsters players will get to battle. Coming up very soon will be "Cosmopolitan Westgate." Stay tuned for further updates.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks
So here I was plugging away on my maps for Act III just like I had for Acts I and II and then I check out Maerduin's blog page and see these magnificent shots of his upcoming mod. Instantly, I realize I have something to learn. I had the same feeling walking around Westgate, but I didn't really know what was hakpak material for that mod and what was part of the toolset. One quick e-mail to Zach later, and it turns out the toolset is so much better than I had ever thought for customizing interiors. In short, walls can be colored and re-textured and floors and ceilings have multiple textures as well. Suddenly, I have some reworks on all interior maps in my previous two acts.
I guess it goes to show that after working with the toolset for more than a year, I still have things to learn. It's just another example of how the NWN2 toolset is a serious upgrade from the NWN1 variety.
Mysteries of Westgate
It's been a while since there was any excitement regarding the upcoming Adventure Pack, but there was a new promo release recently outlining one of the major NPCs and the three companions. After months of only getting to praise the area designers - which is all you can really talk about with screen shots - we finally turn to something I as a designer put a lot of work into. I'm rather proud of the three companions, and I think that they will be interesting company for those who choose to adventure in Westgate. I don't think I can say much more at this point.
There is, apparently, some hubbub on the BioBoards concerning the fact that two of the companions are blonde. To tell the truth, I don't think a single one of the designers even thought about that during the development; it certainly wasn't mentioned. I must profess to being mystified as to why this is an issue. I count twelve companions for the NWN 2 OC: Ammon, Bishop, Casavir, the Construct, Elanee, Grobnar, Khelgar, Neeshka, Qara, Sand, Shandra, and Zhjaeve. MotB had five companions: Safia, Kaelyn, Gann, Okku, and One of Many. Of these seventeen companions, zero are blondes. That means only two of the twenty companions in the thus-far official material are blonde. Hardly a problem as I see it, but if that's the biggest problem some people have with the companions, then I'd say we've been wildly successful.
As an aside, as anyone who has played the "Saleron's Gambit" series can attest, my own personal preference is to have "normal" companions. Of the nine henchmen I wrote for that series, seven were human, one was an elf, and one was a tiefling, and that one was only introduced in the trip to Sigil in Part V. It's not that I'm against having a half-celestial dragon disciple in the party, but I think they should be as rare in modules as they are in Faerun - which is to say very rare. Modules that have a freak show running around tend to get my eyes rolling, as I think that is often a cheap method of making companions memorable as opposed to the writing or their personality. Anyway, I was quite content to write up some normal-looking companions for MoW.
Btw for completeness, my tolerance for freak shows goes up in epic adventures, as planar travel and such are more common in such adventures. Thus, I really didn't mind carting around a magic bear in MotB...
Maimed God Update
I've made some minor progress on the Act III dialogs, but most of my work has been mapmaking. I now have 8 of the 14 maps I need for Act III finished and two more started. In keeping with my pronouncement last time regarding the need for secrecy of Act III's content, I'll simply leave you with a screenshot of my newest map entitled "Glade of the Miracle." Oooh, that sounds religious, doesn't it?
I guess it goes to show that after working with the toolset for more than a year, I still have things to learn. It's just another example of how the NWN2 toolset is a serious upgrade from the NWN1 variety.
Mysteries of Westgate
It's been a while since there was any excitement regarding the upcoming Adventure Pack, but there was a new promo release recently outlining one of the major NPCs and the three companions. After months of only getting to praise the area designers - which is all you can really talk about with screen shots - we finally turn to something I as a designer put a lot of work into. I'm rather proud of the three companions, and I think that they will be interesting company for those who choose to adventure in Westgate. I don't think I can say much more at this point.
There is, apparently, some hubbub on the BioBoards concerning the fact that two of the companions are blonde. To tell the truth, I don't think a single one of the designers even thought about that during the development; it certainly wasn't mentioned. I must profess to being mystified as to why this is an issue. I count twelve companions for the NWN 2 OC: Ammon, Bishop, Casavir, the Construct, Elanee, Grobnar, Khelgar, Neeshka, Qara, Sand, Shandra, and Zhjaeve. MotB had five companions: Safia, Kaelyn, Gann, Okku, and One of Many. Of these seventeen companions, zero are blondes. That means only two of the twenty companions in the thus-far official material are blonde. Hardly a problem as I see it, but if that's the biggest problem some people have with the companions, then I'd say we've been wildly successful.
As an aside, as anyone who has played the "Saleron's Gambit" series can attest, my own personal preference is to have "normal" companions. Of the nine henchmen I wrote for that series, seven were human, one was an elf, and one was a tiefling, and that one was only introduced in the trip to Sigil in Part V. It's not that I'm against having a half-celestial dragon disciple in the party, but I think they should be as rare in modules as they are in Faerun - which is to say very rare. Modules that have a freak show running around tend to get my eyes rolling, as I think that is often a cheap method of making companions memorable as opposed to the writing or their personality. Anyway, I was quite content to write up some normal-looking companions for MoW.
Btw for completeness, my tolerance for freak shows goes up in epic adventures, as planar travel and such are more common in such adventures. Thus, I really didn't mind carting around a magic bear in MotB...
Maimed God Update
I've made some minor progress on the Act III dialogs, but most of my work has been mapmaking. I now have 8 of the 14 maps I need for Act III finished and two more started. In keeping with my pronouncement last time regarding the need for secrecy of Act III's content, I'll simply leave you with a screenshot of my newest map entitled "Glade of the Miracle." Oooh, that sounds religious, doesn't it?
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Happy 2008!
Yes, I am 1 day early... Oh, well.
Here's a new screenshot of The Maimed God's Saga to whet your appetites... maybe. It's the first shot of the VanGhaunt mansion interior, and it's a section I'm very happy with. I call it "The Gallery of the VanGhaunts." Most of the major figures from the dynasty of Navatranaasu have either statues or portraits in this room. There are some interesting clues here for those willing to take the time to think them out and piece them together (along with strands from other places).
The more I write of TMGS, the more I realize it will be a thinking-person's campaign. There's a rather involved mystery here going back generations, and it's not all going to be handed to the player on a plate. I guess some people will hate it, but the people who like this kind of module are going to love it.
Progress Report
Keep on writing, keep on writing... I now stand at over 56,000 words on Act II alone. I estimate I have another 12,000 to 13,000 to go, not including journals. The biggest piece I put into place since the last update was Jellica VanGhaunt herself, though I'm sure I've missed a few lines I need to add to her. I feel confident that Jellica is a more complete and intriguing character than any I have written in a released module to date, and she's only #3 in this campaign. There are several layers to her, again, for players willing to take the time.
I'm also back to a toss-up on my remaining sidequest. Yes, I was going to do the xvart village idea from BG1. Then I started the map and realized there were no suitable thatched-roof hut placeables and ditched the idea. An xvart village looking similar to dock-row houses from Neverwinter would be silly... although I could 50% scale them and do what in essence would be a midget Neverwinter with blue gnomes running about... That might be cool... Naw, back to square one there.
Non-Player Characters
One of the things I think Harp and Chrysanthemum did very well that I am also doing is to give the town fully individual characters. Navatranaasu isn't that big of a town; the population is said to be in the area of 140, and only a dozen or so will be present in the town constantly with maybe a half dozen others coming and going at various plot points. But all of them in the game will be important to some degree and have their own personalities, agendas, and dialogs... and schedules. Some will ask you weighty theological questions, some will view you with suspicion, some will see you as the town's last hope.
Can I Have a Scripter Please?
First, let me say this. I can script just fine. I'm an electrical engineer. I help get satellites into space for a living, so I can sure as hell handle a little C++. That said, it is not my favorite part of mod building.
You wanna know what is most kick-ass about working for Ossian? Getting paid? No. Collaborating with other cool members of the community? Close, but no again. It's being able to write my characters, make up the blueprints in the toolset so they look the way I like, and then telling a scripter, "OK, you finish it up for me!" THAT rules!
Alas, I'm not getting paid for TMGS, so I ain't paying anyone else, so a-scriptin' here I come!
I will say that my work with Ossian has changed the way I do mod building. In the SG series, I did a little of this, then a little of that... Now, I do all my areas at once, do all my blueprints at once, all my dialogs, and so forth... I think it's probably faster, as there's less trying to remember what I was doing a couple weeks ago at this point or that point...
Mysteries of Westgate
What was that again? Did I work on that?
I hear it's a January release for sure. Hey, it's out of our hands, so if it ain't January...
Here's a new screenshot of The Maimed God's Saga to whet your appetites... maybe. It's the first shot of the VanGhaunt mansion interior, and it's a section I'm very happy with. I call it "The Gallery of the VanGhaunts." Most of the major figures from the dynasty of Navatranaasu have either statues or portraits in this room. There are some interesting clues here for those willing to take the time to think them out and piece them together (along with strands from other places).The more I write of TMGS, the more I realize it will be a thinking-person's campaign. There's a rather involved mystery here going back generations, and it's not all going to be handed to the player on a plate. I guess some people will hate it, but the people who like this kind of module are going to love it.
Progress Report
Keep on writing, keep on writing... I now stand at over 56,000 words on Act II alone. I estimate I have another 12,000 to 13,000 to go, not including journals. The biggest piece I put into place since the last update was Jellica VanGhaunt herself, though I'm sure I've missed a few lines I need to add to her. I feel confident that Jellica is a more complete and intriguing character than any I have written in a released module to date, and she's only #3 in this campaign. There are several layers to her, again, for players willing to take the time.
I'm also back to a toss-up on my remaining sidequest. Yes, I was going to do the xvart village idea from BG1. Then I started the map and realized there were no suitable thatched-roof hut placeables and ditched the idea. An xvart village looking similar to dock-row houses from Neverwinter would be silly... although I could 50% scale them and do what in essence would be a midget Neverwinter with blue gnomes running about... That might be cool... Naw, back to square one there.
Non-Player Characters
One of the things I think Harp and Chrysanthemum did very well that I am also doing is to give the town fully individual characters. Navatranaasu isn't that big of a town; the population is said to be in the area of 140, and only a dozen or so will be present in the town constantly with maybe a half dozen others coming and going at various plot points. But all of them in the game will be important to some degree and have their own personalities, agendas, and dialogs... and schedules. Some will ask you weighty theological questions, some will view you with suspicion, some will see you as the town's last hope.
Can I Have a Scripter Please?
First, let me say this. I can script just fine. I'm an electrical engineer. I help get satellites into space for a living, so I can sure as hell handle a little C++. That said, it is not my favorite part of mod building.
You wanna know what is most kick-ass about working for Ossian? Getting paid? No. Collaborating with other cool members of the community? Close, but no again. It's being able to write my characters, make up the blueprints in the toolset so they look the way I like, and then telling a scripter, "OK, you finish it up for me!" THAT rules!
Alas, I'm not getting paid for TMGS, so I ain't paying anyone else, so a-scriptin' here I come!
I will say that my work with Ossian has changed the way I do mod building. In the SG series, I did a little of this, then a little of that... Now, I do all my areas at once, do all my blueprints at once, all my dialogs, and so forth... I think it's probably faster, as there's less trying to remember what I was doing a couple weeks ago at this point or that point...
Mysteries of Westgate
What was that again? Did I work on that?
I hear it's a January release for sure. Hey, it's out of our hands, so if it ain't January...
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Well, That Was Not Fun
Yes, the Seminoles got smashed by the archrival Flori-duh Gators. They're still a bunch of clowns at a second-rate university... And at least our boys broke Tim Teabag's hand. I hope it hurts... Oh, sorry, was that mean?
Moving on to happier things...
Mysteries of Westgate
Has anyone noticed how quiet things are about this? I've heard next to nothing... One poster somewhere claimed a release of November 27th? That's a poster on the Bioboards, so I wouldn't trust it too much. Anyway, hopefully it's by the end of November as promised. Let's play the game already!
Well, you guys play the game. I've played it a dozen times already. Suffice it to say, for me there are no more "Mysteries" in Westgate...
The Maimed God's Saga
Since my last post relevant to TMGS, I've written 17,132 words in the conversation editor covering 28 dialogs. I had originally estimated those same 28 dialogs would take 3620 words, so I'm just a little tiny-bit off.
The reason for the discrepancy is two-fold. First, new ideas have come forward as I've been writing. In many cases, the town NPCs will ask you questions as they get to know you. My goal has been to make a town full of interesting individuals with no one named "Commoner." As such, they each have to have at least some semblance of an individual agenda.
Secondly, I've moved some conversation around, so some of the dialogs I've yet to write will actually shrink. One example of this is in The Hall of the VanGhaunts, which I will post a picture of eventually. Anyway, there is a room in the mansion that contains several statues and pictures of the members of the line of the VanGhaunts. Originally, I was going to allow Jellica to take the PC around and give the player an overview of each if they desired. This would have made Jellica's dialog substantial. Now, however, I have moved her individual comments to the actual statues themselves. So each statue was supposed to be about 50 words, but they are now in the 500-600 word range. Meanwhile the 500 words per statue will now be removed from Jellica's dialog. All the painting and statue conversations have been written whereas Jellica's has not, hence the large overshoot at this point.
Moving on to happier things...
Mysteries of Westgate
Has anyone noticed how quiet things are about this? I've heard next to nothing... One poster somewhere claimed a release of November 27th? That's a poster on the Bioboards, so I wouldn't trust it too much. Anyway, hopefully it's by the end of November as promised. Let's play the game already!
Well, you guys play the game. I've played it a dozen times already. Suffice it to say, for me there are no more "Mysteries" in Westgate...
The Maimed God's Saga
Since my last post relevant to TMGS, I've written 17,132 words in the conversation editor covering 28 dialogs. I had originally estimated those same 28 dialogs would take 3620 words, so I'm just a little tiny-bit off.
The reason for the discrepancy is two-fold. First, new ideas have come forward as I've been writing. In many cases, the town NPCs will ask you questions as they get to know you. My goal has been to make a town full of interesting individuals with no one named "Commoner." As such, they each have to have at least some semblance of an individual agenda.
Secondly, I've moved some conversation around, so some of the dialogs I've yet to write will actually shrink. One example of this is in The Hall of the VanGhaunts, which I will post a picture of eventually. Anyway, there is a room in the mansion that contains several statues and pictures of the members of the line of the VanGhaunts. Originally, I was going to allow Jellica to take the PC around and give the player an overview of each if they desired. This would have made Jellica's dialog substantial. Now, however, I have moved her individual comments to the actual statues themselves. So each statue was supposed to be about 50 words, but they are now in the 500-600 word range. Meanwhile the 500 words per statue will now be removed from Jellica's dialog. All the painting and statue conversations have been written whereas Jellica's has not, hence the large overshoot at this point.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
All Good Things...
Well, I knew it was too good to be true. I normally wouldn't post after a loss, but I made such a big deal after the win... Anyway, never let it be said that I only post good stuff. A week after upsetting the #2 team in the nation, the 'Noles hit the road again to try to down the #11 team. Unfortunately, they couldn't get it done this time. Despite losing their starting quarterback in the first half, the 'Noles held the lead early in the 4th quarter before the inexperienced backup began making critical errors. In the last few minutes, the whole cart came unglued, and the Virginia Tech Jokies (actually Hokies) defeated the forces of light and goodness to the tune of 40-21.
*Sigh* Actually, I'm not too upset with the result. I still saw some fire and fight from our team, despite a ton of injuries and a crowd that was so classless that they apparently cheered when our players were injured. Anyway, despite the loss, I'm still optimistic the team is heading in the right direction... at least offensively. The defense suddenly has some serious question marks, but that's a whole 'nother topic.
On to...
Mysteries of Westgate
I just noticed that there's a neat pre-release screenshot posted on the Vault. I've bragged about our area designers, and this will give you an idea of one of the seedier districts at night. Click here for the goodness. Notice that there's clearly an ogre walking down the street and an orc standing off to the right a bit. As has been said on the forums, Westgate is a cosmopolitan city that accepts riff-raff of any type... Should be interesting, right?
The Maimed God's Saga Update
Over the past week, I finished up the two interior maps of the VanGhaunt mansion. By interior map standards, they are incredibly complex. The player will spend much time here, and there are two major sidequests rooted here and several more that will lead here along the way. In addition, the house chapel and guest suite will form the players' "home base" where they will rest and recover spells. Beyond that, there are just a great number of details (relevant and irrelevant to the main quest) that can be uncovered about the family's and town's pasts. My goal was to make several interactive objects that should keep the player interested as they explored some rather large interiors. As a reminder, here are the original plans for the mansion floors. That's 16 ground-floor rooms and 18 upper-floor rooms that all have to be filled with meticulous detail. The library on the second floor took forever, as I wanted to make it a place crammed from floor to ceiling with books in a stereotypical Victorian mansion feel.
But that was the work of the last couple weeks. This weekend, I completed two rather intricate exterior maps and made up all my item blueprints. Pictures of everything will leak out slowly at this point... I've got only so many maps and several weeks/months to fill!
It's been a while since I've posted some real metrics on my progress. I still need to finish up Act I to incorporate the comments I received from my testers. I was waiting until MotB came out, but obviously I can do that whenever... As for Act II,
Maps
I have determined I will need either 19 or 20 maps. The 20th would be for a specific sidequest that I am still debating. The truth is that I'm not 100% happy with the current plan, but I need to have something. There are two branching paths through Act I. In each path, as the PC approaches Navatranaasu, they will be able to thwart one of the many schemes the enemy has put in action. Based on which operation is put out of action, the enemy will have to adjust their regional operations to make up for it. Of course, in Act II, the player can deal with the adjustment as well, but it is one of these two adjustments that I'm not happy with. So I've decided to put this section on the back burner while I work on things that I am 100% happy with. Hopefully, in the interim, inspiration will arrive.
In short then, I have completed the 19 maps I'm sure of, which incorporates 9 exterior and 10 interior maps (counting the upper lighthouse as exterior). I am sure that I will make minor tweaks to all of the maps as I continue working, but the vast bulk of the work on each is done and there's certainly enough to allow me to start pulling in all of the other pieces. Therefore, if the final map count is 19, I am 100% done. If it ups to 20, I'm only 95% done. I'll split the difference and say 97.5%.
Blueprints
Several dozen of creature blueprints have been completed as well as about two dozen item blueprints and a couple placeables. That brings me to 99% finished. The 1% remaining is a creature blueprint that still doesn't exist. Therefore, I will either need to change a minor detail of my story or hope that the community eventually makes up for the needed creature model. For now, I'm just going to use a dummy creature and look again at the available haks as I get closer to completion.
Dialogs
I have completed nothing in the toolset, though I have several thousands of words written in a Word document. I have no reasonable way of determining a percentage, but it's pretty low. Without anything better to go on, I'll say 5%. This is really my next major thrust.
Progress Matrix
I've already explained it, so here it is.
*Sigh* Actually, I'm not too upset with the result. I still saw some fire and fight from our team, despite a ton of injuries and a crowd that was so classless that they apparently cheered when our players were injured. Anyway, despite the loss, I'm still optimistic the team is heading in the right direction... at least offensively. The defense suddenly has some serious question marks, but that's a whole 'nother topic.
On to...
Mysteries of Westgate
I just noticed that there's a neat pre-release screenshot posted on the Vault. I've bragged about our area designers, and this will give you an idea of one of the seedier districts at night. Click here for the goodness. Notice that there's clearly an ogre walking down the street and an orc standing off to the right a bit. As has been said on the forums, Westgate is a cosmopolitan city that accepts riff-raff of any type... Should be interesting, right?
The Maimed God's Saga Update
Over the past week, I finished up the two interior maps of the VanGhaunt mansion. By interior map standards, they are incredibly complex. The player will spend much time here, and there are two major sidequests rooted here and several more that will lead here along the way. In addition, the house chapel and guest suite will form the players' "home base" where they will rest and recover spells. Beyond that, there are just a great number of details (relevant and irrelevant to the main quest) that can be uncovered about the family's and town's pasts. My goal was to make several interactive objects that should keep the player interested as they explored some rather large interiors. As a reminder, here are the original plans for the mansion floors. That's 16 ground-floor rooms and 18 upper-floor rooms that all have to be filled with meticulous detail. The library on the second floor took forever, as I wanted to make it a place crammed from floor to ceiling with books in a stereotypical Victorian mansion feel.
But that was the work of the last couple weeks. This weekend, I completed two rather intricate exterior maps and made up all my item blueprints. Pictures of everything will leak out slowly at this point... I've got only so many maps and several weeks/months to fill!
It's been a while since I've posted some real metrics on my progress. I still need to finish up Act I to incorporate the comments I received from my testers. I was waiting until MotB came out, but obviously I can do that whenever... As for Act II,
Maps
I have determined I will need either 19 or 20 maps. The 20th would be for a specific sidequest that I am still debating. The truth is that I'm not 100% happy with the current plan, but I need to have something. There are two branching paths through Act I. In each path, as the PC approaches Navatranaasu, they will be able to thwart one of the many schemes the enemy has put in action. Based on which operation is put out of action, the enemy will have to adjust their regional operations to make up for it. Of course, in Act II, the player can deal with the adjustment as well, but it is one of these two adjustments that I'm not happy with. So I've decided to put this section on the back burner while I work on things that I am 100% happy with. Hopefully, in the interim, inspiration will arrive.
In short then, I have completed the 19 maps I'm sure of, which incorporates 9 exterior and 10 interior maps (counting the upper lighthouse as exterior). I am sure that I will make minor tweaks to all of the maps as I continue working, but the vast bulk of the work on each is done and there's certainly enough to allow me to start pulling in all of the other pieces. Therefore, if the final map count is 19, I am 100% done. If it ups to 20, I'm only 95% done. I'll split the difference and say 97.5%.
Blueprints
Several dozen of creature blueprints have been completed as well as about two dozen item blueprints and a couple placeables. That brings me to 99% finished. The 1% remaining is a creature blueprint that still doesn't exist. Therefore, I will either need to change a minor detail of my story or hope that the community eventually makes up for the needed creature model. For now, I'm just going to use a dummy creature and look again at the available haks as I get closer to completion.
Dialogs
I have completed nothing in the toolset, though I have several thousands of words written in a Word document. I have no reasonable way of determining a percentage, but it's pretty low. Without anything better to go on, I'll say 5%. This is really my next major thrust.
Progress Matrix
I've already explained it, so here it is.
| TMGS Progress Report (in %) | |||
| Act I | Act II | Act III | |
| Area Design | 98 | 97.5 | 0 |
| Dialog | 100 | 5 | 0 |
| Blueprints | 100 | 99 | 0 |
| Scripting | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Journals | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| World Map | 100 | ||
| Intro Movie | 5 | ||
| Music | 10 | ||
Friday, October 26, 2007
Finally the Lighthouse!
But first, the second part of the Ossian interview with Alan and Luke is officially up on Warcry and will almost certainly soon be on the Vault. Make sure you read that goodness.
Now for the Lighthouse
I've been promising this for days. I'm really proud of this map, the upper level of the lighthouse interior. The lighthouse, as I mentioned several posts ago, is in ruins, so I needed to have the roof somewhat open to the sky. In the NWN1 toolset, this would have been trivial, but after messing around with the interior tilesets for a while, I was utterly frustrated as to how I would do this. In desperation, I tried an exterior map instead, and I'm pleased the way it came out.
The only things I may still play with are (1) introducing some appropriate MotB placeables and (2) finding a way to get a roof that is both visible from below and will fade from above. The one there now only handles the visible from below part. It makes it awfully difficult to explore the one interior room.
Now for the Lighthouse
I've been promising this for days. I'm really proud of this map, the upper level of the lighthouse interior. The lighthouse, as I mentioned several posts ago, is in ruins, so I needed to have the roof somewhat open to the sky. In the NWN1 toolset, this would have been trivial, but after messing around with the interior tilesets for a while, I was utterly frustrated as to how I would do this. In desperation, I tried an exterior map instead, and I'm pleased the way it came out.
The only things I may still play with are (1) introducing some appropriate MotB placeables and (2) finding a way to get a roof that is both visible from below and will fade from above. The one there now only handles the visible from below part. It makes it awfully difficult to explore the one interior room.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Mysteries of Westgate Presses are Rolling
Not only did the first part of the Ossian interview with Alan Miranda and Luke Scull get posted to the Vault today, but it looks like we got our very own forum on the Bioware website to discuss the Adventure Pack. According to the Vault posting, part two of the interview goes up as soon as tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it as well. I was asked for a very minor amount of input, but by-and-large I'm in the dark here as well.
Bad on Me
I realized a day late that I made the point to name all the designers and writers for Ossian and yet did not name our area designers despite praising them highly. So let me rectify the blunder. Ossian's area design gurus are Alex Wagner (called Shadovar and EvilShade in various places) and Raphael Faccioli. Both are supremely talented, as a whole bunch of people are about to find out (if they don't already know).
Mask of the Betrayer
At long last, I got my copy of MotB, and I am right now in The Death God's Vault, so I just started. Already, I'm favorably impressed in comparison with the NWN2 original campaign. My first impression of the companions is that they are far better done than the original group outside of Khelgar and Neeshka. They seem to interject more and have more to say in conversations... a great improvement. I also think the new lighting evident in the Shadow Mulsantir bit is quite nice. I'll post more impressions as I progress.
But this in conjunction with general MoW excitement and discussion will explain why "The Maimed God's Saga" is a bit on the back-burner for the next week or two. However, tomorrow I will work on it a wee bit, and I promise to (finally) post the long-talked-about lighthouse interior shots.
Bad on Me
I realized a day late that I made the point to name all the designers and writers for Ossian and yet did not name our area designers despite praising them highly. So let me rectify the blunder. Ossian's area design gurus are Alex Wagner (called Shadovar and EvilShade in various places) and Raphael Faccioli. Both are supremely talented, as a whole bunch of people are about to find out (if they don't already know).
Mask of the Betrayer
At long last, I got my copy of MotB, and I am right now in The Death God's Vault, so I just started. Already, I'm favorably impressed in comparison with the NWN2 original campaign. My first impression of the companions is that they are far better done than the original group outside of Khelgar and Neeshka. They seem to interject more and have more to say in conversations... a great improvement. I also think the new lighting evident in the Shadow Mulsantir bit is quite nice. I'll post more impressions as I progress.
But this in conjunction with general MoW excitement and discussion will explain why "The Maimed God's Saga" is a bit on the back-burner for the next week or two. However, tomorrow I will work on it a wee bit, and I promise to (finally) post the long-talked-about lighthouse interior shots.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate! (MoW)
Before being brought on board for this effort, I knew nothing about the city of Westgate, having spent most of my Forgotten Realms life on the Sword Coast. However, the Dragon Coast has made a nice little switch, and I thought I'd provide a bit of background on the setting for the soon-to-be most talked about event in the NWN2 multiverse.
I've included a close up of Westgate's part of Faerun and a map of the city itself. It's interesting for me to gaze at that map and see where we placed a bunch of... uh, secret stuff.
I want to say that I was blown away the first time I played through the campaign. The talent in the team is amazing.
I even wrote to Alazander shortly after my first play-through absolutely commending the area designers. In fact, I then wrote each of them a congratulatory e-mail as well. Personally, I've always thought I lacked a bit with area design, but I have definitely been putting some of their ideas to use in some of my Maimed God maps.
On one of the Bioboard forums, Alazander said:
And that's not to say that other areas of the campaign aren't top-notch either. The writing and quest design is outstanding if I do say so myself... *ahem* In all seriousness, given my preference for mod building myself, I've been woefully lacking in actually playing any, so it was a treat to see first-hand what some of the best known modders in the community can do. Um, for completeness, that would be Alazander, Hugie, and Mat Jobe (of Dastard's Morrow fame) who shared design and writing duties with me.
I struggled to find some background information on the net about Westgate. I found a brief synopsis here that gives a basic background and won't take too long to read.
The rough-and-tumble city will soon be brought to life NWN2 style. I would say people would be more than justified in getting excited about now.
The Maimed God's Saga
Yes, I still owe pictures of the interior of the lighthouse. It is very cool, but I've always said it needs it's own post, so it gets pushed again.
I've included a close up of Westgate's part of Faerun and a map of the city itself. It's interesting for me to gaze at that map and see where we placed a bunch of... uh, secret stuff.I want to say that I was blown away the first time I played through the campaign. The talent in the team is amazing.
I even wrote to Alazander shortly after my first play-through absolutely commending the area designers. In fact, I then wrote each of them a congratulatory e-mail as well. Personally, I've always thought I lacked a bit with area design, but I have definitely been putting some of their ideas to use in some of my Maimed God maps.On one of the Bioboard forums, Alazander said:
We have several new monsters, some of which have never been seen in a D & D CRPG before.And the initial announcement mentioned a new sewer tileset, so I'm not revealing any secrets when I say that there is some nice new custom content. That added to the talent of our area designers means that you will be blown away visually. I had seen all the stuff in the toolset before playing, and I still had my breath - almost literally - taken away the first time I walked through the streets of Westgate.
And that's not to say that other areas of the campaign aren't top-notch either. The writing and quest design is outstanding if I do say so myself... *ahem* In all seriousness, given my preference for mod building myself, I've been woefully lacking in actually playing any, so it was a treat to see first-hand what some of the best known modders in the community can do. Um, for completeness, that would be Alazander, Hugie, and Mat Jobe (of Dastard's Morrow fame) who shared design and writing duties with me.
I struggled to find some background information on the net about Westgate. I found a brief synopsis here that gives a basic background and won't take too long to read.
The rough-and-tumble city will soon be brought to life NWN2 style. I would say people would be more than justified in getting excited about now.
The Maimed God's Saga
Yes, I still owe pictures of the interior of the lighthouse. It is very cool, but I've always said it needs it's own post, so it gets pushed again.
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