More Entertainment

Ossian News
I know many of you have already heard the news about Ossian's impending release of the Shadow Sun for iDevices. However, the first screenshots of the game were released yesterday, so head on over to the Ossian website for a look. I know that if the Shadow Sun is successful, the plan is to port the entire intellectual property over to the PC. I'm not aware of too many really big CRPGs in the works, so there is certainly the need for another.

TV List
While I continue to mull my NWN2 future, I've been catching up on lots of entertainment I've put off... or in this case, I've rewatched a series I first saw a few years ago. However, my latest guilty pleasure does have at least something to do with TMGS in addition to being a fascinating six hours of viewing.

First, I have an admission. I am a reality TV junkie. Not the truly horrid stuff like Flavor of Love or Megan Wants a Millionaire that literally melt your mind as you watch, but I do like shows like The Amazing Race and Survivor. On occasion, though, reality TV actually reaches a higher level and becomes educational as well as entertaining.

Enter Manor House - although I understand it's called The Edwardian Country House in the UK - in which a modern family and fourteen strangers now playing the role of servants move into an Edwardian-era mansion and return it to the life it had one hundred years ago.

So what's the connection to TMGS? Well, I first viewed this series when my parents gave it to me around 2004. I am forced to admit that the images stuck with me as I turned to my imaginings of the VanGhaunt Mansion and how it must have once worked. Of course, I knew that the mansion had to be largely decayed and empty today, but I wanted there to be the ghosts of something grander, something much more along the lines of what is depicted in Manor House. The layout of the VanGhaunt Mansion, most notably the inclusion of a dance floor, was inspired by the series. Casting Thess LeHugh in the role of a Lady's Maid, Jellica's memories of the grand balls of her youth, and the book outlining the kitchen operation all had their genesis in this series. Most directly, the Rules for Servants book found in one of the lower bedrooms was a direct rip-off of some of the information found on the series' website. Whereas Navatranaasu itself is more reflective of my interest in medieval history, the mansion itself is much more modern in feel, and that is most directly attributable to my memories of this series.

First, I see on Amazon that the DVDs sell for roughly 40-45 dollars. I wouldn't pay that, but if you have a local library or even NetFlix or a more reasonably priced digital download (legal, of course), it's definitely worth the time, although it isn't perfect. So having said all that, I'll review the series.

Manor House sees a modern family, the Olliff-Coopers move into Manderston House as a newly-lorded Edwardian couple. "Sir" John and the Lady Anna Olliff-Cooper are a businessman and ER doctor in the 21st century, but they are dramatically elevated in class for this series. In addition, their two sons, Jonty and Guy, and Lady Anna's sister, the unmarried Avril, also join in on the experiment. (Incidentally, during my Google Searches for this write-up, I learned that Jonty is now a "senior researcher" with some kind of Progressive Conservative think-tank in England, so he's obviously entered into politics in the nine years since this show. And no, I don't know what a "Progressive Conservative" is either.)

Meanwhile, fourteen others move in to fill the "downstairs" side of the upstairs/downstairs equation and assume every position from the butler at the top of the downstairs ladder to the scullery maid at the bottom. What follows is a intriguing look not only at lifestyles a hundred years ago, but also human psychology. It is both fascinating and horrifying to see how quickly people who are given so much come to both think of it as theirs and justify how they deserve it.

The Olliff-Coopers seem like they are a perfectly nice family and "normal" in almost every way... in the 21st century. Once back in the early 20th, however, they adapt a little too easily to the role of aristocrats. Sir John, of course, is at the very top, and it takes almost no time for him to pompously complain that the staff discipline isn't high enough. When he institutes punishments, the kitchen maid complains, only to then be told that it isn't proper for someone like her to talk to someone like him. In fact it isn't by the conventions of the day, but most of us in the 21st century would (I hope) have a problem actually saying that. Not Sir John, however. A month after becoming a lord for the first time, he is already entrenched in the mindset. In his private diaries, he confesses somewhat high-handedly that he isn't blind to his staff's plight, but what can he do? As he says another time, "if they're not serving him, they don't have jobs." To the end, he remains entirely blind, believing that his staff loves him as he loves them, and is literally in tears as he walks out the final day. Of course, those tears are for the loss of his staff not as people but as his servants. He opines that he alone of all the people in the house will be diminished in status when he leaves whereas all the rest will presumably raise in status when they return to the 21st century. He doesn't make clear as to whether he thinks his own wife will be diminished or raised.

Speaking of the Lady Anna, she is the most fascinating psychological study in the entire show. In the 21st century, she is an ER doctor with a high degree of literally life-and-death responsibility. Upon entering the house, she is reduced to augmenting the prestige of her husband. She spends upwards of five hours per day getting dressed several times, as she must wear different clothing at each meal. She has a Lady's Maid to prep the clothes and help her get in and out of the overbearing outfits (think corsets and endless skirts). Then there's the constant hair pampering, make-up and so on. All this so she can entertain her husband's guests by chatting them up in the parlor and... well, I'm not quite sure what else because the downstairs staff does all the cooking, cleaning, and serving. Her early comments on the absurdity of it all show that she is quite bored. And then...

It isn't long until this ER doctor finds herself entirely entranced by the fairytale. The endless dress-up sessions with a myriad of jewels and new hairstyles, once so tedious, soon become a joy. Whereas early on, she laments the loss of quality time with her youngest son due to the rigid separation of spheres of influence, this seems to stop bothering her later on. She admits as she lays in her bath - drawn for her by an overworked maid - that she has lost track of her youngest son and that she is sure he is with the servants downstairs. But her sole concern is that he will need to put distance between himself and the servants because when he inherits Manderston, he will need to give them orders... Oh, wait. It's all make-believe, and he will never inherit Manderston. Even she temporarily seems bemused at how quickly the fiction has become her reality! At another point, she remarks casually that it really isn't a chore to entertain at Manderston; even a grand ball is no problem... as the downstairs staff of fourteen have their normal workdays of 16 hours increased to 18+ just to get the extra work in. By the end, much like her husband, Lady Olliff-Cooper laments that she will need to return to the 21st century. "I am more at home in this time," she practically sobs. "All these other people will return to the homes when they leave here. I alone will be the one leaving my home." Oy, vey! This 21st-century highly-educated doctor who takes to her new role as a mere bauble on the arm of her husband like a duck to water will almost certainly make modern feminists cringe.

The downstairs staff are too many to go into detail for each, but the star of the entire show is undoubtedly the butler, Hugh Edgar, an international architect in real life whose grandfather was a butler. As the master of the downstairs servants and one of the few who actively engages the upstairs family, his observations are almost invariably the most interesting and the most prescient. One has the sense that he is at least the social equal of the family in the 21st century, but he takes to his new 20th century role with as much gusto as anyone. He seems determined to try to understand his own grandfather's life, and it is the insights he gains that are the most poignant. At one point, he mentions that his grandfather was intensely strict with the motto that children should be "seen and not heard" and "speak only when spoken to." A short while later after handling a disciplinary issue brought about by a 21st-century-inspired slight loosening of the rules, he turns to the camera and laments that he has made a most terrible discovery this day, for he finally understands why his grandfather had to be the way he was. Two sentences in a review don't do justice to the moment's pathos, but it was quite moving.

The other great personality among the staff is the temperamental French chef, Monsieur Dubiard, who creates his own fiefdom in his kitchen by terrorizing the kitchen and scullery maids. Slightly hunched-shouldered and wearing spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, he's almost stereotypical in his ranting and raving as he demands his stove be constantly kept hot or the footmen get the food up to the table before it gets cold. At one point, the egomaniacal chef learns that Sir John is complaining about the unendingly rich food and lack of any roughage - a diet typical of the day but one that is wreaking havoc upon his digestive track - and so Dubiard responds by literally cooking a whole pig in untold sticks of butter and serving it face towards the family at the next dinner. He merrily waves at the face and chimes that he'll "see you soon" as he closes the oven door on it. Sir John, for once unsure the 20th century is for him, complains that it's hard to eat when the beast you're eating is looking at you and promptly sends it back. As the show wraps up, the temperamental chef feels the need to confront Sir John just so he can call him a fraud.

The rest of the staff aren't nearly so interesting. There is a point where the hallboy, Kenny, and the scullery maid, Ellen, begin a romance but have to sneak around to keep it secret. Frankly, the whole thing gets tiring as does the general complaining by most of the servants. Yes, the conditions are horrible and yes, no one in the 21st century would work under them, but this is a one-off experience lasting only three months that I presume they auditioned for. In that case, they need to buck it up and do what's required.

And that, ultimately, is where the weakness of any of these kinds of experiments lies: namely it is very difficult to get modern people - at least those among the downstairs staff - to forget the 21st century. Their arguments about their "rights" and "fair labor practices" are all arguments we would universally accept today, but they'd be utter rot a hundred years ago. No manor of the day would have accepted such complaining and one suspects that virtually all of the junior staff would have been canned and living on the street at the time. The senior staff, including Mr. Edgar and Monsieur Dubiard, generally "get" the uniqueness of the opportunity whereas the junior staff generally does not. To be fair, however, the senior staff all have slightly more interesting jobs than, for example, the maids, who literally work 16-hour days vacuuming (by brush), polishing, mopping, and waxing. Personally, I think it would be interesting being a butler and trying to make a house of that size run smoothly. Being a kitchen maid... not so much.

The six-part series has a set-up and conclusion episode with the middle four episodes each focused on a grand event held at the mansion. A few minutes of each episode is used to explore the events of the day. Theoretically, time "progresses" from 1905 to 1914 during the three months, so the family and staff see papers detailing the death of Edward VII, the sinking of the Titanic, and Emily Davison's tragic demise at the Epsom Derby, among other things. Another few minutes are devoted to various participants' musings on what their lives are like or insights they've had. Most are interesting; a few are whiners that grate on me by the end. Finally, there's the inevitable drama that comes from nineteen people living in close proximity to each other.

The series is narrated by Derek Jacobi, who provides excellent insights into what may or may not have been appropriate or true for the day. Everyone doesn't play by the rules 100% of the time, so this is necessary clarification. I'll also note the main musical theme played mostly as each episode ends is both grandiose and haunting, evincing both the majesty of the house in its prime and also the faded grandeur of the house now one hundred years on. Otherwise, I didn't notice the music very much, and I suspect that large parts of the series had none at all.

One of my main bones of contention with the series, however, is the overwhelmingly negative view it takes of the past. Mr. Edgar at one point summed up the overall theme when he said, "[this society] was sick... and it was swept away!" Certainly, things today are better on balance, but it is a tremendous vanity for the modern person to assume there is nothing we can learn from the past. I won't go into my exact thoughts on the merits of 1910 vs. 2010 any further, but suffice it to say I thought it was unbalanced with only the scantest of off-handed comments during the participants' diary sessions in defense of the past.

The series ended with a couple nice touches. First, it posited a likely fate post-1914 for each of the participants given the immediacy of World War I and the enormous social change on the horizon. Although the viewer understands that all of these people are modern, they do help personalize a theoretical 1914-era mansion that would see many of its inhabitants dead on the fields of the Somme in short order. Secondly, as each of the participants leaves, they are transformed back into their modern clothing. It is nice to see these people we've come to know as they actually are in the 21st century, and the effect simultaneously serves as a sort of time machine to further illustrate the now faded history. Given his prominence in the series, it is fitting indeed that it all ends with the modern-day Mr. Edgar pulling the massive gates shut behind him with a forlorn smile, leaving Manderston a relic of the past once more.

Even a Blind Squirrel...

Many of us bloggers have been promising an announcement, guessing on the timing, and generally frustrating the entire world for months. Well, after promising and being wrong, promising and being wrong, my last blog entry said that this would be the time... As the saying goes, "even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again."

As I've mentioned before, it's been extremely frustrating from our end as well. We at Ossian have worked quite a while on the "secret project" and have had to keep all our excitement bottled up within the group. Simply put, that really sucked, because the project is first-rate, I know a lot of people are going to be really amazed by it, and we were utterly unable to let anyone know anything beyond some nebulous... uh, secret stuff.

Well, now the cat's out of the bag, though I'm still not allowed to say more than the official press release for now. That said, I'll post parts of it here. I have edited it down to the parts that I think will be most interesting. To see the full article, click above.

LYON, FRANCE – 22 October 2007 – Atari today announced the forthcoming launch of the first Neverwinter Nights™ 2 Adventure Pack to be available exclusively via digital download... Created by Atari and some of the most prominent members of the Neverwinter Nights 2 communities, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate provides hours of additional entertainment with all new engrossing storylines, professional voice acting, enchanting musical scores, new in-game content, and much more. Neverwinter Nights 2 is set in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS^® Forgotten Realms^® universe...

Developed by Ossian Studios, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate is the first full featured Adventure Pack available from Atari. Set in the infamous Forgotten Realms city of Westgate, players find themselves in possession of a powerful but cursed treasure that threatens to destroy them. Linked to the underworld organization known as the Night Masks, the treasure will draw players into a city-spanning clash between warring factions. Players must choose their allegiance in order to break the curse and ultimately uncover a plot that threatens Westgate itself.“

From the creators of the critically-acclaimed Neverwinter Nights module, Darkness over Daggerford, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate will feature a non-linear, open-ended single-player campaign with numerous side quests covering more than 15 hours of game play. Atari’s new Adventure Pack will also feature 3 new companions; an entirely new underground sewers tile set themed after the seedy underbelly of Westgate; a host of new monsters to do battle with, including some truly epic foes; an exciting new and original musical score; as well as thousands of new lines of professionally recorded dialogue.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate is scheduled for release in autumn 2007.

I'm Alive!

I suppose it's not good form to write a post with the big bolded title "I'm Sick!" and then disappear for several weeks. Could have been a bad sign, I guess, but the truth had more to do with extreme business mixed with a healthy dose of procrastination. However, today I'll be different. I'll do my blog post before I sit down to work instead of waiting 'til the end when it's easier to push it 'til tomorrow.

Maimed God Update
My lack of blogging does not indicate a lack of progress on TMGS. As a matter of fact, I've made quite a bit of progress on the Act II blueprints, and I'm done with 14 out of the 20 maps I need for Act II. In addition, I've written several thousand words of dialog in Word, though none of them have been transferred to the toolset. Finally and most importantly, I've ironed out all the final details surrounding how Act II will work. I had the plotline for months at this point, and I'd ironed out many of the back-details a while ago as detailed on this blog. The final step was figuring out all the variables I'd need to pass, the exact conditions that would need to be set in order to progress... in short, all the algorithmic-type stuff.

It has occurred to me, however, that my ability to post pictures is going to dry up soon. Until now, I've basically revealed nothing that won't be known within five minutes of the campaign's beginning. While the player will not reach Navatranaasu for a good hour and a half, the name will appear quickly, so there's no harm in showing pictures of it.

However, some of the things I'm detailing now will not be known for quite a while. As a result, I would consider them extreme spoilers that may ruin the essential experience of the module. On the one hand, anyone who checks this blog may be making a choice to learn more about the module. On the other hand, I mean this to be more NWN2 musings than just my humble effort, even if that dominates my posts... This second argument wins out with me, so I think I'll tend to curtail more specifics about the campaign as time goes on and discuss more of the features I'm implementing instead.

However, I still owe pictures of the lighthouse interior, which I'm going to push until next time, and the VanGhaunt manor interior when it's ready. .. Oh, and the occasional screenshot without commentary.

Ossian
Yeah, it's frustrating. What can I say? Well, the answer is nothing, of course, including any speculation as to what the hold-up is. And it would be mostly speculation on my part. You see, I'm on a "need-to-know" basis, and I don't need to know. So we're all in this same boat.

However, I've a twinkling suspicion that the suspense is about to pop, so keep a sharp look-out. And if I'm wrong about this time, I pledge 100% not to even mention the name Ossian until it finally does.

Lots Going On
I'd be wrong if I said my lack of posting could be laid entirely at the feet of procrastination. No, there's a lot going on too. Yes, work is part of that, but that's boring. Moving on...

It's Time for some Football!
And by football, I mean the real stuff, not soccer. Oh, relax, you 12 non-Americans who read this. I like soccer, especially with the new fad in head-butting that's coming in, but let's face it. Soccer ain't football...

However, my football team... well, I weep when I think of it all. A decade ago, they were the greatest dynasty that has ever been produced in the sport at the college level. Year after year of utter domination. National titles, regular drubbings of the mere peasants... Yes, they were practically football gods. Now...? Not so much. They are but a pale shadow of their former glory.

Last week... another loss. I wish I could say it pains me now; that would mean it was a rare occurence. Losses used to feel like kicks in the groin, which is to say "less than pleasurable," but alas, it is all too common anymore. Of course, this doesn't mean I can find no solace in a bottle. In fact, hold that thought. I'll be right back...

Elizabeth: The Golden Age
OK, I saw this movie. Regular readers of this blog I'm sure will be amazed that it would attract me. Nevertheless, I forced myself to go see what the film was all about.

According to the wikipedia article, Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune said "... as a pseudo-historical fable, a romantic triangle and a blood-and-thunder melodrama, the film can't be faulted... This isn't historical fabrication, it's mutilation." Wow. I'd love to know who this Colin Covert is, but he sounds like yet another pretentious film critic who thinks trashing films makes him sound cool. Well, move over Colin. On this blog, only I get to sound pretentious!

First things first. Let's get my background out in the open. I like medieval history. I specifically like medieval English history, but the Tudors aren't considered medieval. This period (1585) is about 100-250 years after my true specialty, so I wouldn't say I'm a bonified expert, but I know enough to be dangerous. And while I'm certainly aware of some minor and one major historical inaccuracy, I'd hardly call it a "pseudo-historical fable." That's a dude trying to sound cool, and he actually sounds like a snob.

I'm no film critic, but I thought the acting, costumes, and sets were pretty good, and the dialog was suitable. The music had a few nice soaring themes, but for the most part I didn't notice it, and that's a good thing. I can see how people with less familiarity with the history could be a bit confused by the rapid development and lack of exposition on a few topics. On more than one occasion, my wife had to lean over to ask who various characters were and how they fit in. So if you're not all that up on the who's who of Elizabethan politics, a short perusal of a couple Wikipedia articles might be beneficial before going.

I do wish they spent more time with the actual battle with the Spanish Armada, not for the cool battle sequences, but to expand on just what an amazing and frankly freakish victory it was. I think it would be easy to come away with the impression that the English navy just whipped that Spanish ass. Unfortunately, the era of English naval superiority was at least 150 years away and probably closer to 200.

In fact, the English navy did well to hold the Spaniards off the English coast, and the crucial role of fireships to break the Spanish formation was admirably depicted, but the role of the weather in forcing the Armada around the north of Scotland and then into the Irish coastline was not made clear in my opinion. OK, there were a few shots of ominous waves crashing against the shore, but I don't think that quite depicts the magnitude of it all. I've heard a hypothesis that it was an incredibly rare (for that area) full-blown hurricane that wiped the armada out as they rounded the north of Scotland and headed south. While I doubt it was a true hurricane, it is clear that incredibly bad weather defeated the Armada far more fully than did the English navy.

And of course, the fact that Cate Blanchett portrayed the then 55-year old queen is rather amusing, but I guess we have to keep those flirtation scenes with Clive Owen's Walter Raleigh all titillating somehow...

Overall, the movie did a great job of depicting the religious tensions of the era, the scandalous affair and eventual marriage between Raleigh and Bess Throckmorton, Raleigh's relationship with Elizabeth, an abridged version of the Queen's Speech at Tilbury (amended to make it more suited to 21st-century sensibilities), the adversarial relationship between Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, and the general political intrigue of the period. Yes, there were some minor historical inaccuracies, but a "pseudo-historical fable?" I think not.

I'm Sick!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sick. These past two days I've been forced to stay home from work, and while that sucks (really does - lots going on at the office), the good news is that I've had time to work on "The Maimed God's Saga" quite a bit during those days. Therefore, in spite of a fair bit of Ossian work this past weekend, I've managed to complete six more maps for Act II and make edits on the ones that had been finished. There are now some noticeable differences to Navatranaasu, though none quite big enough to warrant new screenshots. I'll run down the developments since my last post in short order.

Beta Tryouts Finished!
Fellow Ossian-mates, Alazander, Hugie, and Maerduin all got a chance to beta Act I, and, despite some head-scratching bugs, the comments I received generally mirrored my own thoughts. I have a bit of work to incorporate some of the comments, but I'm going to wait on the new content coming in "Mask of the Betrayer" to finalize Act I.

The VanGhaunt Mansion Planned
During my lunch hour on Monday, I went ahead and laid out the VanGhaunt Mansion (see pictures). I modeled the mansion off my understanding of Victorian and Edwardian manor houses... with some allowance for conserving file size. In real-world manor houses, the bedrooms for the "downstairs" servants would have been, well, downstairs in a cellar, but I'm not making up a third floor for this reason alone.

As you can see, the red outlines the only parts of the mansion that will still be in use. Most of the mansion will be unused, though not empty, and many of those rooms will be necessary to explore in order to learn the true nature of the family's curse.

The purple oulines the player's suite, which will be the de-facto home base for the investigation. It will be important for the player to return here on occasion, so I'm going to make some kind of shortcut to return to these specific rooms, either by the map or maybe a conversation at the mansion front door.

However, when I went to start putting these into the toolset, I wasn't entirely happy with the tileset options. I looked on the Vault, but there are very few community content sets. After looking at some of the screenshots for MotB, I think there might be something there to work with, so these two maps will wait for now.

Resting and Spell Recovery
I've never outlined this before on this blog, but one of the gameplay decisions I've already made is that resting in Act II will be handled a bit differently. It will only be allowed in your suite via clicking on the bed, but this will only recover hit points. Right after that, the player will need to progress to the chapel - one of the reasons it is put so close to the player's bedroom - to pray. At this point, all spells and abilities will be renewed (but only once per day). This serves four purposes.

1. It reiterates the relationship, lost in most RPGs, that the cleric's abilities come from the deity (in this case Tyr).
2. It is a truer representation of the D&D guidelines.
3. It forces the player to think about which spells they memorize and how quickly they use them, as they will get fewer chances to switch and replenish them.
4. On occasion, Tyr will communicate important information through these daily prayer sessions.

Resting outside in nature will not be allowed with few exceptions, but each of the subquests outside of town will be designed to be able for the player and companion to handle with one full batch of daily abilities, provided these are used intelligently. After each of these outside subquests, the player will need to return to town to recoup, rest, and plot their next move. Travel around the map will take time, so each travel out and back added to a full night's rest should take about a day, so that the timing will be right to pray again to recover spells.

Six Maps Complete
As I have to wait on MotB for the VanGhaunt Manor, I went ahead and began work on many of the other maps. I made up the cathedral, though I'm not entirely thrilled with the map. Again, there are no tilesets that allow for gothic vaulted interiors. One tileset on the Vault looks good for dwarven mines, but it didn't do it for me in terms of cathedrals. Nevertheless, my time on the Vault did reveal some nice stain glass placeables, and those mollified me somewhat. See the screenshot for the examples. Finally, here's hoping MotB comes with a spiderweb placeable. How on earth are we supposed to make something look unused without spiderwebs?

Along with the cathedral, I spent many, many hours on the town hall, which includes the archives. This will be a crucial point of investigation for the module, and the player will spend a fair amount of time here. The trick is to make this part fun and interesting, and I'll probably be taking a lot of inspiration in this regard from Fester Pot's masterful "Almraiven." I thought he handled the researcher portion of that story very well. A toolset-level shot of the archives section of the town hall is included.

I also knocked out the joint tavern/ blacksmith map - another toolset-level shot is attached. These are combined to cut down on module size, but I think it works. The tavern will be an important source of gossip and a point to meet various people important to the plot - all the things we've come to expect from a tavern!

The "blacksmith" is actually a jack-of-all-trades due to the town's being so small and backwards and will be a source to buy and sell weapons, though I'm thinking the gold he has will be exceptionally limited and the weapons may all have attack penalties to indicate they're low-grade. I'm currently toying with the idea of making this area more relevant by making the player have to commission some odd item to aid the investigation. In addition, one of the "sidequests" of this portion that I've already decided upon will be the restoration of the cathedral. The PC will need to hire some labor to clean out the fallen stones and debris and then perhaps commission a new statue, some silver relics for the service, some new banners... in short, become integrated into the local economy. Of course, this "sidequest" need not be completed...

I've also completed the interior of the abandoned lighthouse, but I'll post some pictures next time. Those maps are somewhat interesting and deserve a post of their own and this one is long enough for now.

Let's Talk About Act II

With Ossian not requiring a lot of my time and Act I wrapping up testing, I've begun to turn my creative efforts to Act II. I've written a few of the conversations in Word, and I've begun to fine-tune a lot of the details that weren't in the "Big Picture" design document.

There are no spoilers here other than what you will learn within five minutes of starting the campaign, so have no fears!

The Curse of the VanGhaunts

12 Flamerule, 1374

To the High Prefect of the Temple of Tyr in Longsaddle,

Greetings in the name of The Maimed God! With much trepidation, I write to beseech you for aid. I am the last of my family, the ruling dynasty of Navatranaasu, located in the Vale of the Miracle in the Greypeaks near the source of the Delimbiyr. We have placed our faith in Tyr since the town's founding by our illustrious ancestor, Alred VanGhaunt, who earned great honor and fame against the demonic host at the Battle of Phlanon's Moor. Sadly, we have been enthralled by a curse for generations, and my town is now in ruins and my family threatened with extinction. Times are beyond desperate, and we can brook no further delay.

I have written several times to the major Tyrran enclaves requesting assistance but have thus far heard nothing. We are good Tyrrans and are brothers and sisters in the church. We are one with you in the favor of The Maimed God! In the entire church, is there not even one hero you can send to our aid? Is there no one who hears the anguish of their comrades? Has Tyr abandoned us to our misery?

In the name of Tyr I beg you to help us, for if you do not, darkness will prevail and the Light of The Just One will be extinguished from these parts forever.

Yours in Tyr,
Jellica VanGhaunt

Some of the screenshots I've posted and comments I've made in various forums have hinted at the plot of the module, but this letter, which the PC receives at the campaign's outset, is it in a nutshell.

The noble family, good Tyrrans all, from the isolated town of Navatraanasu has been cursed for seven generations with the latest incident happening only two months prior to the campaign's opening. The PC must journey to the town and discover what dark secrets it holds.

While I have obviously had the important details determined for a year or more, today I finally nailed down the family tree (see picture). Only the relevent names are included, by which I mean those that ruled and those that were taken by the curse (denoted by "C" for "Curse" and a date). This level of detail will not be necessary to solve the mystery, but I wanted to be able to include such details in dialogs, archives, and old journals without fear of contradicting myself.

And, of course, some of the people in that tree, though certainly not all, are crucial to the plot. Today I simply filled in all those who aren't... and I'm not telling which is which!

Inspirations
Act I is the journey to Navatranaasu. Act II takes place in Navatranaasu, and Act III I'll leave a secret for now. While all acts are heavy in Realmslore, Acts I and III should also "feel" Realmsian. Act II, however, should feel more like Ravenloft.

There's a part of Ravenloft that has always appealed to me. A world of foreboding evil with only occasional pinpoints of light... What better setting for a cleric-centric campaign! Though I'm not promising vampires, the town of Navatranaasu should feel run-down, dirty, and gritty; it's a bit lost in time and lost to the gods, though that won't be totally true. In fact, one deity very much has its eye on the town...

But Navatranaasu? What kind of name is that?
It's not the most Realmsian-sounding name, but if you're aiming for gothic horror, where better to go than Transylvannia? To get the name of my town, I actually pulled out a map of Romania and began searching for names that evoked the right feel. It's been over a year since I settled on the name, but I remember I elided two names in some way. Maybe there's a Navatra and a Naasa? I really don't remember, and I don't care enough to look now. I have my gothic-sounding name, and I'm sticking with it.

What about the name VanGhaunt?
Warning: medieval history ahead!

To see the origins of this name, look no further than John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. His mother's home, Hainault, is a Belgian province, of course, and John was born in the Belgian town of Ghent. ("Gaunt" is simply the Anglicized bastardization of the name of the town.) From his father's death in 1377 until about 1387, he was the central political figure in England and the power behind his minor nephew's throne. Some would even expand his years of influence from about 1370, claiming that he ruled in place of his aging father those last seven years, to his death in 1399.

Gaunt is such an interesting character to me not just for what he did, but for how he is seen today. One view is that he was one of the last of his generation and, as such, was determined to use his wealth and power to defend his family's name, his nephew's throne, and England's fortunes in its war against France. The other is that he was a greedy schemer constantly plotting to win a kingdom for himself.

To be honest, I tend to fall into the former camp, though I allow that he had tremendous personal ambition. Clearly, he propped his nephew's regime up, for when he left to go to Iberia in 1386, Richard II faced an almost immediate uprising from the Lords Appellant, one that was only quelled when Gaunt returned in 1389. Shortly after Ghaunt's death in 1399, his son, Henry Bolingbroke, would use the vast resources of the Duchy of Lancaster to overthrow Richard II and become Henry IV, the first of the so-called "Lancastrian Dynasty," the family that would form one-half of the War of the Roses.

Returning to The Maimed God's Saga, Gaunt is a perfect name for another obvious reasons; it elicits an image of emaciation and ill-health. Add an "h" to disguise the origins and a "Van" to make it sound more gothic, and boom, the family name is revealed.

Tancred Done; Verona Close

Act I Very Close To "In the Can!" No, not that can...
I spent more or less the entirety of Saturday - in between football games (and don't get me started about that) - fixing the cutscene I mentioned last time. That was the last piece of Tancred's path I had to finish, and I think the polishing there is pretty good, though I'd undoubtedly find something else that needed to improve if I played it over again...

So today I turned to Verona's path, and I'm happy to say that I played completely through the first time with fairly minimal problems. Indeed, I made only 36 notes, all of them minor, and most of them issues I forgot to port over from corrections during Tancred's polishing, so I know exactly what to do.

I leave you with a picture of a nice set-piece battle along the River Delimbiyr. The PC and a few sailors attack some lizardmen who have boarded the ship while Verona to the right has a duel with others on the shore. As I stated some time ago, I'm looking for every battle to be interesting and unique, and this is one of those battles that may require some thought on the part of the player.

As for the PC's armor... yeah, that's one of the 36 notes I made. Let me explain. I made a part at the beginning where the player can get a set of Tyrran chainmail, but during the Tancred playthrough, I also added a set or leather which can be taken if it is more suitable for the character's build. The leather armor looked great on female characters... and then I just took it for the hell of it during the Verona playthrough... and the nice blue leggings on the female suit of armor turned out yellow for guys! So there will soon be a suit of female leather and a separate suit of male leather... because I'm not having the manly protagonists running around in yellow leggings!

As for Ossian, yeah I don't know either. I understand there'll be a big announcement this week, but that's sounding awfully familiar now. So we'll all wait and see...

So Much Polishing...

The Maimed God's Saga
Sorry for the lack of updates. The truth is that there's been nothing interesting to report. More polishing is all, and there's not a lot of excitement there.

I will say that I've been dismayed at how slow the process has been. Using the NWN2-style dialog boxes has presented some unique problems that weren't there in NWN1. It took me a while to figure out why all the animations I had put in weren't firing correctly (the 'owner' was actually the dialog owner, not the line owner... obvious, now that I know!) I also had a bit of trouble figuring out why some of my scripted companion movements weren't working (and, in fact, breaking the module at times!), but I managed to figure that out as well. If I had used all NWN1-style dialogs, I'd be done by now... food for thought for the future.

During play-throughs, I also realized I needed to add a couple journal entries to clarify things, and I added an additional dialog and three interjections to each of the companions that came to roughly 1400 words each (2800 total). That, troubleshooting, and real life have kept me busy.

The long and the short of it is that I think I'm done with Tancred's polishing now with the exception of a single elaborate cutscene that is moderately close. Then I need to change PC gender and work on Verona's path. Luckily, I've been updating her dialog quite a bit as I learn on Tancred's. Nevertheless, I expect there to be several surprises that will slow me down.

I'm actually chomping at the bit to start on Act II, but I'm managing to maintain discipline to finish this one first before proceeding. When I do start Act II, I'll no doubt fly through the initial stages.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post an official "done" for Act I soon, but for now I'll leave you with an action shot of Tancred and the PC taking on some guards in The Mountain King's throne room. Note that all the guards look different, are slightly different heights, and all wield different weapons. This is yet another example of how I'm looking for every fight to be a unique encounter - not just a fight against three of the exact same blueprint all just named "Guard."

Ossian... uh, Secret Stuff
I haven't worked on Ossian much for a couple weeks, which is good as I've had other stuff going on. Luke says there'll be an announcement soon. If he says so...

I admit it could be any day now, but I've been wondering why no announcement was made weeks or months ago. Oh well, those decisions are why other people are making the big bucks. Suffice it to say that this entire process has been quite an eye-opener into the world of game studios. I'm not even that much "in the loop" with Ossian, but even what I've seen has been very enlightening.

Sorry I can't say more, but I really don't think the wait will be long now.

Act I Wrapping Up

A big thanks to the three comments I received from the last post. I assure you that my lack of response was not for lack of interest, but rather for lack of time. In total, they've convinced me to purchase just the libraries for now and play with different sequencers when I get them in. It will be a little bit of a trial-and-error and a big learning curve, but I think the long-term benefit for my modding will be immense.

And needless to say, I'll post snippets here as I write them...

Act I Enters Alpha
I've actually been "done" with Act I for about a week. And by "done," I mean only that all the parts were in place. However, I didn't post anything as Ossian took a lot of time this week. It also looks like Ossian will take a lot of time next week as well, so progress will almost certainly be slow.

As I've mentioned before, I do a lot of work before testing, and that held true here as well. Other than a few tests on the initial map and some walkthroughs of different areas to make sure the maps looked right, I hadn't tested at all... until today.

That's right. Today, I did a couple pass-throughs and am generally pleased with what's there. There were a couple big bugs resulting from some differences between NWN1 and NWN2, but I knocked them out and was able to complete the whole act. I managed to do a little polishing and minor bug-squishing today as well.

Moving forward, the biggest single task will be all the new NWN2-style dialogs. I need to go back and add tons of animations, set some delays, and set camera angles, camera following, and so forth. The automatic dialog cutscene tool is OK so long as two characters are standing still, but I need a bit more for most of my dialogs.

TMGS Progress Matrix

TMGS Progress Report (in %)
	Act I	Act II	Act III
Area Design	100	0	0
Dialog	100	0	0
Blueprints	100	0	0
Scripting	100	0	0
Journals	100	0	0
World Map		100
Intro Movie		5
Music		10

Busy, Busy...

Ossian Update
In recent weeks, the pace of my Ossian work has slowed, allowing me to make good progress on The Maimed God's Saga. However, the last couple weeks or so, Ossian has picked up again, slowing TMGS back down.

I learned my lesson about making predictions, so I'll just say I hope that something is announced soon. I imagine that there will be a minimum of three blogs that will become a fountain of good behind-the-scenes information once the go-ahead is given (and I confirm what can be said and when). Until then...

The Maimed God's Saga
I've really only made progress on TMGS in two areas since last post.

Dialogs
I've finished all dialogs, including Verona's 9000-word behemoth. I also had to slightly revise many of the other dialogs to account for her more fully-developed personality. And that's the main artistic development with the new dialogs - I finally feel that Verona is as interesting a character as Tancred. Before this, I only had the broadest strokes of her character in my head. Suffice it to say that a lot more became ironed out this past couple weeks. I can honestly say that male players will now have a kick-booty romance as well.

Oh, and the total word count for Act I comes to a final total of 34,265. That will undoubtedly fluctuate a bit as I edit during play-throughs, but it'll be pretty close.

Music
I know most people reading this blog may be thinking something like, "C'mon, Tiberius, are you really sure about this music crap! What makes you think you can write music?"

The answers are "Yes" and "Because I've written hours of music for friends, quartets (in college), my wedding, and so forth." Yes, I'm an engineer (reluctantly), but I've actually had quite a bit of formal musical training at the college level - far more than formal literary training... and Ossian's actually paying me to do that!

Thus far, all my music has been composed in my head with the help of a keyboard, and I have a program that allows me to print sheet music that looks good. If I have the right tools, I have no doubt that I can compose a kick-ass score for TMGS. The problem is that the musical sound libraries that actually sound correct are expensive, and the sequencers aren't exactly cheap either. Nevertheless, after some e-mail exchanges with community composer David John, I'm convinced I know what I need, and I'm going to pull the plug on the purchases. As I've said, music composition is a hobby of mine beyond modding, so the expenditure is for more than just this. That's how I justify it anyway; at the very least, this will allow me to merge my two favorite hobbies.

Progress Matrix
I should say that I've done a minor amount of scripting. Basically, I've put the world map scripts together. However, I've remembered there's a little more scripting required than I at first believed. Therefore, the actual percentage for scripting in the chart has not changed.

I think I'm about one to two solid sessions from wrapping up Act I and beginning alpha testing. When I'll be able to get that time depends, in part, on Ossian and other commitments.

TMGS Progress Report (in %)
	Act I	Act II	Act III
Area Design	100	0	0
Dialog	100	0	0
Blueprints	100	0	0
Scripting	35	0	0
Journals	100	0	0
World Map		100
Intro Movie		0
Music		10

Big Progress (Sort of)

A Little Scare
Sorry for the lack of updates. I had some exciting news to release to the world, but then we had a bit of a scare regarding said news that threw last weekend into complete turmoil. I was an emotional wreck last Sunday and Monday. Luckily, we seem to have come through the scare OK, but I'm going to have to defer writing about the entire affair until a later time, as we are still mulling over legal recourse and I'd hate to put things in writing quite yet.

Ossian Update
Suffice it to say that there were a slew of deadlines last weekend for Ossian that I just blew off as a result. I've managed to catch up on that front luckily.

The Maimed God's Saga
Side Quest
So progress on TMGS hasn't been as quick as I'd like either, but there are several things to report. First, after further examination of my storyboard, I've cut the potential sidequest I discussed last time. Everything seems to have enough "meat" as is.

Dialogs
I've managed to write an additional seven conversations, though the scripting has not been finished for any of them. I've also added over 4000 words to Tancred's dialog, bringing his total thus far to 7868. I'm getting close enough to finishing that monstrosity that I can project with fair confidence that his dialog for Act I alone will hit right on 11,000 words.

I also cut out one very short dialog, bringing the total needed for Act I down to 20. All-in-all, I've now completed 16.7 of the 20 dialogs I'll need for Act I, accounting for a cool 54.7% of the writing. The big reason the percentage is so low is because I'm also estimating 11,000 words for Verona's dialog, and I haven't even started that yet. So I could finish everyone's dialog but hers and still only have about 67% of the writing done.

World Map
I started looking into the World Map for the entire campaign, and I've made up the following two options. The first was made in the Civilization III map editor, and the second with the NWN2 toolset. I may also load Heroes of Might and Magic III back onto my machine and see what a map made with that editor looks like. I've provided an example of a HoMM III map for reference. They tend to have much richer colors with a highly-fantastical feel to the icons.

Please feel free to comment on any of them. I know which I'm leaning to, but I can certainly still be persuaded.




Total Progress
Updating my progress matrix from last time, I now stand at the following:

TMGS Progress Report (in %)
	Act I	Act II	Act III
Area Design	100	0	0
Dialog	55	0	0
Scripting	35	0	0
Journals	0	0	0
World Map		10
Intro Movie		0
Music		0

We've Been Promised Cats!

Maimed God's Saga Update
According to Lariam in the comments section from my previous post, we've been promised vicious cats in the Mask of the Betrayer. Hallelujah! "The Maimed God's Saga" can now continue carefree. Thanks to Lariam for the head's-up.

I finished off that map that was 90% done today, and a screenshot is provided. It's for the lower foothills as we leave the mountains. A few days ago, I only had 5 of 11 maps done for part 1 of the module. Now that's 8 of 11. Sounds much better. For some reason, I've been enjoying the heck out of map-making recently. I haven't made nearly as much progress on the writing or the scripting. Oh well, as indicated the maps are drying up, so it's going to be about the writing soon...

SPOILERS

The first chapter essentially has a couple paths one can take, by land and by water. All the land maps are now done and only three water ones are left. So if I hit the dialogs and scripting pretty hard, I could now finish one path through the first third of the module...

END SPOILERS

Ossian Work Ahead
By way of future plans, Ossian has come calling again. It looks like I have another "To Do"list for the next few days, so progress on "The Maimed God" will slow for a bit. Hopefully, this weekend I'll be able to start again.

I don't want to keep teasing people with Ossian news when I can say so little, but let me just reiterate again that you people are in for some really good times. Just trust me on this!

The End (For a While)

Things are more busy then I can say, all of it on non-NWN2 real-life stuff, so this will be a series of quick-hits.

Off to Portugal!
Tuesday I leave for Portugal and will not return until the 11th of June. Therefore, this is almost certainly the last update until a couple days after that. Tomorrow promises to be jam-packed, as I've not even started packing for the trip.

It seems I was wong...
No announcement from Ossian. I said I had no precise knowledge, but after so much promising, I was sure that a certain event would trigger one. Guess not. Anyway, work progresses on... uh, secret stuff. I guess I'll see what the progress is in two weeks.

Interview Due Tomorrow
I sent in the answers to my interview questions a couple days ago, and I was told it would be up on the Vault tomorrow morning. That's what I was told anyway...

As you would expect, the questions dealt mostly with Saleron reflections, but there is a big section at the end where I reveal a few more nuggets about "The Maimed God's Saga" that haven't yet been released. Oh, and I gave the interviewer a couple new screenshots that only they have. If they don't use them, I'll post them here. Otherwise, the shots are theirs. There's nothing truly spoilerish, and what little is kinda spoilerish should be clearly demarcated, so you can read without too many fears.

So people who can't get enough of my inane ramblings will have another dose. Bah!

Fester Pot Interview Canceled!
After I sent some questions in for Fester Pot to answer, it seems that he declined the interview from me and my partner. Wish I knew sooner. The story I got was that he declined Steve Savicki's initial request after "Almraiven" hit the HoF because he wanted his interview closer to when "Almraiven's" sequel was coming out. Well, that time is fast approaching, and he is apparently ammenable now to giving one, but he wants to give Steve first dibs. Sounds fair to me...

So look for that to happen... sometime? Maybe?

The Maimed God's Saga
I edited a few conversations, but otherwise there's nothing to report. However, as I'll be gone for the next couple weeks, I want to assure anyone new who happens by because of the interview (or even you old people) that I intend to hit my module hard upon returning. Ossian, of course, will still be around, but that"real life stuff" I mentioned above will be cleared. After my trip, summer actually looks fairly open, so I'm looking forward to making real progress.

Projects Update

Ossian
I spent a bit of time today cranking out some deadlines for Ossian. As usual, I can't discuss that, so onwards to things I can discuss.


The Maimed God's Saga
I've promised this now for a couple posts, so I think I'll drop a screenshot right off the bat of an example of the individualized items that the companions will be carrying with them. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

However, I have been doing some looking around on the net for information about who controls Calimport. I've been able to find a name for the 1372 DR range (shown in the picture), but I haven't had any luck finding a comprehensive list that will tell me about the 1361 DR time frame. If anyone reading this blog happens to know for 100% certainty, please post a comment, and I'll give you 1) sincere thanks and 2) a credit in the module readme file.

Areas
Finished off one area I've been working on and then ripped off another area from my old 'Diviner's Fire' module that hasn't yet (but will eventually) see the light of day. Hey, I liked the area. That means I have four of the eleven areas I need for Act I finished.

Above, the protagonist and Tancred take a stroll at dusk along the River Delimbiyre.

Conversations
I'm making progress on this front trying to set up a really heavily-scripted encounter that will allow the player a huge amount of leeway in choosing how to handle it - like a half dozen or so unique solutions. Let's just leave it there for now.

General
I'm finding that there are certain advantages to knowing the protagonist will be a fifth-level cleric and the one companion will be a fifth-level ranger. All of my battles can be exactly defined versus letting some generic AI spawn in a few enemies. I'm looking at between 15-18 major encounters that will feature potential combat, and I want each of them to be 100% unique. In some case, this will simply mean specialized scripting to have the enemies try to trick, surround, or trap the PC - in other words, show cunning. In other case, this means allowing the PC and the companion to formulate a plan ahead of time that will alter the way the battle develops. In some cases, there will be alternate ways around the combat, and I don't just mean the three tried-and-true dialog skills. We'll see how successful I am, but that's the plan right now.

I also have the intention of making every skill a cleric can take be potentially useful. I imagine many of the people who play this mod will take the usual cleric skills - i.e. Concentration, Heal, and Spellcraft, but I intend to make smooth talkers, item-crafters, lock-pickers, and so forth all able to bypass some problems others will face. In short, I'd like to be able to handle any cleric concept the players can imagine within the Tyrran dogma and still allow them to utilize their character to the fullest. Again, that's the plan, but I do have a bit of work to do to determine how I'm going to work things like Appraise and Slight of Hand in.

Gone this Weekend
I'm heading about an hour and a half north this weekend to St. Augustine, FL. My wife and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary by returning to the same B&B we went to for our honeymoon. I say 'celebrating' because our actual anniversary was way back in March, but the period of intense business interfered, and so we postponed until this weekend. Therefore, no 'Maimed God's Saga' this weekend, but truth to tell... I won't miss it.

Chugging Along

Ossian Update
Busy day today, but not much that I can really report on. The first half was spent meeting some deadlines for Ossian doing some... uh, secret stuff. And now I get to move on to more deadlines. One wonders when Ossian will make an announcement that might interest people, but until it happens, my lips - or keyboard and mouse as the case may be - are sealed.

Medieval Europe Update
The second half of the day was spent finalizing my historiographical paper. I took most of the week off while it was peer-reviewed, but today was when I took the comments and incorporated them into the final draft. As of about ten minutes ago, that draft officially left my desk. I also spent a couple hours reviewing another student's paper on royal mistresses, but my review of that paper has now also been completed and my comments e-mailed away. So I am now officially 100% done.

The Maimed God's Saga Update
Unfortunately, the above two projects left little time for my NWN2 module, but that doesn't mean there's no news to report. A little while ago, Nicolas Hugon, the brother of fellow-Ossian member Alex 'Hugie' Hugon, e-mailed me two proposed logos for 'The Maimed God's Saga.' As it will be a cleric-class module heavily dependant on Forgotten Realms religious themes, I had originally asked him to come up with something reminiscent of medieval-style calligraphy - i.e. something similar to what old monks used to scribe into manuscripts where the first letter of every page was a complex piece of art.

I am including his design above, but he also sent a more modern design of his own as well. The first is pretty close to what I was looking for, though I would probably ask him to tweak it a bit. However, the second design looks pretty snazzy IMO. I'm probably going to mull them over for a night or two, but feel free to comment.

The Evolution of the Daleks
Well, it was probably inevitable after I raved about the opening episode of the Manahattan-based dalek two-parter last week, but the conclusion did dissappoint a bit. Once again, we got a hammy David Tennant ranting and raving about the daleks, daring them to shoot him, and generally over-acting the roll. Damn, I wish someone would tell him he does so much better when he restrains himself just a wee bit.

Then of course we got another gross example of a distressing tendency of the new series: the Doctor's reliance on his superhuman anatomy to save the day, but there's no need to delve into that whole topic.

*Sigh* What could have been...