Back From St. Augustine

I returned from our anniversary weekend refreshed and ready to go. As a quick aside, for anyone who's looking for a not-so-well-known and interesting vacation spot, I'd recommend St. Augustine. The oldest sight of European habitation on the North American continent (first settled in 1513) is unique in this country at any rate. Though it certainly has its cheesy "touristy" parts, it nevertheless has enough legitimate stuff to do to make it worth a look. Museums, beaches, water sports, historical monuments, quaint B&Bs, and an easy-to-walk small-town atmosphere all in one.

And now that I've done my duty for the St. Augustine Chamber of Commerce, I'll move on to my current projects.

Ossian
Yeah, I finished one round of deadlines for a secret project today, and that took most of my afternoon. Then I moved on to...

The Maimed God's Saga
My only work on this project today was completing what I thought would be a simple map. However, since it's actually a boat in the midst of the River Delimbiyre, it turned out to be a bit more problematic to get the walk meshes quite right. I'm still not 100% pleased with the result, but it might be the best that can be done. I might look into some custom content to see if I can make it look a bit better.

To those who wrote about my previous question about the leadership of Calimshan in 1361 DR, thanks a bunch. I've been busy, so I still need to look over some of the material, but hopefully the information is contained therein.

Vault Interviews
A week or so ago, there was a bit of discussion on the Bioboards that turned towards the subject of NWN Hall of Fame interviews. The turn hinged on someone wondering why Valine had not had her HoF interview (or even the more recent Module of the Year interview), and the poster's implication (I thought) was that the lack of an interview showed a blatant disrespect or even a systematic attempt by the PTB (Powers That Be) of the Vault to rob Valine of her just due.

To be fair, the poster claimed this was not his intent, and I guess I'll take him at his word. Additionally, this post is no attempt to start something with either Valine or her fans. My point - which I made on the Bioboards - was that the lack of an HoF interview hardly made Valine unique. I, in fact, have also never been interviewed, and I was certain that was not the full extent of the list either. After the exchange, I took a brief look at just the list of nominees for the 2006 MotY, and I found that the following modules authors also never received an interview for their 2006 inductees (though they may have interviews for prior works):

• Fester Pot - "Almraiven"
• Roy Boscowan - "Red Moon Rising"
• Challseus - "Rose of Eternity II"
• Poecile - "Aribeth's Revival II"
• Aristan - "Avertine: A Nation Dreamed"
• Havlen - "Endless Nights VI"
• Fabien Cerutti - "Exile of the West"
• John Bye - "Good vs. Evil II"
• Trev - "Lloth's Revenge"
• Hugie - "Perchance to Dream" and "The Island"
  
• John McA - "Sands of Fate 3"
• Savant and Black Diamond - "The Fall of Aielund Pt. 2

And there are two non-English modules I'm not including. This is just last year's MotY nominees, so that could reasonably be said to be the best of the best... and just about half of them did not get interviews! Valine is certainly not alone in this.

Well, a few days later, I got an e-mail from a group (I don't know if they want to be identified yet, so I'll refrain from naming them) asking if I'd be up for an interview. The relevant part of my response follows:

Now, about me personally, my view is simple. I neither want nor need an interview for my sake. I have a blog that I rant on and spout my nonsense, and many of my fans check it regularly. So I don't need a 'reward' for hitting the HoF, and I mean that sincerely.

However, if there is someone in your group who enjoyed the series and wants to ask questions that they think will be of interest to the community, then I'll be happy to take the time to answer them. I firmly believe these interviews should be for the community, not for the author, and I am perfectly OK if it turns out that no one is interested in a series for an obsolete game that hasn't had a new chapter released in 8 months. I'll only be a little bit hurt if the answer comes back 'In that case, no thanks'.

So the response came back that someone still has some questions they want to ask, so we'll see how that goes...

HOWEVER, part of this exchange also was that I suggested that Fester Pot be contacted about an interview for Almraiven, which is one of the very few modules I've played in the last year, and I volunteered to do it if no one else wanted to. As it turns out, I'll be doing a joint interview with him (assuming he agrees), so be sure to watch for that. I actually have quite a bit I'd like to ask him.

And for those who haven't tried Almraiven, what are you waiting for? It was a first-rate module to be sure!

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.