Act I Polishing Continues

I was engaged in Ossian work earlier in the week, but that slowed considerably this weekend. It looks like a huge chunk is coming in the next week or two, and my hope is to finish Act I and stick it on the shelf so that, when I can finally return to The Maimed God's Saga, I can just start on Act II.

I've done tons of polishing. I ran every conversation through a spell-checker, standardized a lot of my writing conventions and spellings, adjusted encounter CRs, and so forth. For the most part, the things I've been doing don't translate well into pictures.

However, I did spruce up some of my maps. For example, I was never entirely happy with Riverford. I had an image of the town in my head already because I had written it into the opening chapter of my now-aborted novel. Unfortunately, I didn't like the way it came out in the NWN2 toolset, so I took a step back, thought a bit outside my original concept, and remade large portions of the map.

A before and after is included along with a closeup of the temple. I added another street with some more houses in the background, tree-lined the main boulevard, narrowed all the streets and did away with the wagon ruts, added a gazebo used for public pronouncements in the main square, paved the pathway up to the Temple of Tyr and gave it a bit of a gradient upwards, and added a bit of landscaping to the temple grounds. I'm much happier with the result now.

Today I worked on one of the sidequests and spent a lot of time with the non-conventional paths through the quest. By that I mean when the player does something screwy like refuse the quest, do some of it anyway, then go to the next map, then come back and accept, then refuse again... the types of thing that 99.9% of players will never do, but one will, only so he can happily run to my Vault page to report that he's found a bug! I think such people are now officially screwed on this one quest I worked on today.

One thing I have not done is start on the camera corrections for the conversations I mentioned last time. Luckily, I think the number of instances that I'll need to handle is now very low - maybe about nine in total - and a couple will allow me to reuse some work between Verona's and Tancred's dialogs.

Companion Influence
It occurs to me that I've never outlined how I'm going to do companion influence. Suffice it to say, I will not be using the OC method, which is to have about ten points where you get a massive boost to your influence announced with blaring trumpets and so forth. Instead, there will be literally hundreds of chances to gain or lose influence, the scale will be between -100 and 100, and you won't be told when a situation has passed - though one will occur in almost every conversation, even with 3rd parties. Most of the shifts will be one point, but big events can lead to three or - very rarely - up to five points.

Act I is all about building the relationship (positively or negatively). Starting in Act II, the way the companion interacts with you will be based upon the sum total of your interaction up to that point. There really isn't a huge risk that they'll leave; the story has a very strong rationale for them to see things through even if they hate you with every fiber of their being, but their responses in that case will tend to be one word answers in clipped tones. "I don't like you, let's talk as little as possible, and just get on with it."

The other extreme is, of course, the romance, but there are going to be at least two and maybe three levels in between. I'm thinking the levels will be (1) Like a lot, (2) Like, (3) Neutral, (4) Dislike/Distrust, and (5) Hatred. If I need to, I'll dump level 5 and then 3 depending on how things go.

The more trust you build up with your companions, the more you'll move towards "Like a lot", and the further towards that extreme you go, the more forthcoming the companions will be in their answers. This will, in turn, reveal more information about them, which will then open up more dialog options. Again, some of this information may come out in 3rd party dialogs as well.

I tried to think about how real human relationships develop. Yes, there are big events that can build trust quickly, but these are (hopefully) rare in most people's lives. More common is the paradigm whereby a small non-threatening piece of information is given. If that is handled well, then a slightly bigger piece is given. If it's not handled well, then less is given in the future until the initial mistrust is overcome by future actions.

That's what I'm aiming for here. This will lead to huge dialogs even by Act I's standards, but I think it necessary to build truly dynamic characters.

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

It Seems Builders Aren't Players

I noticed this little exchange on Berliad's blog the other day and it got me thinking again about an old topic I've considered in the past (read the comments section). In the days after I completed the NWN1 campaign, I played tons of modules. Then, once I started building and actually got to the point where I began to complete modules, I virtually stopped playing. Honestly, playing games doesn't really do a lot for me anymore. Even the NWN2 OC, though well-done in many respects, failed to captivate me. And the funny thing is, I'm not the only one. Very few authors that I know of spend any amount of serious time playing other modules.

I think there are two main reasons for this. First, I guess I play through modules now, and I see exactly how things were done. I now find myself less interested in the story and more interested in the artistic decisions that have been made, the way the modules were put together, the quality of the writing (or lack thereof), and - art being as it is (i.e. subjective) - I inevitably start thinking, "I would have done it this way" or "why'd they make that decision?" It really kills the immersion. This isn't to say that other authors don't do good jobs, and I'm not trying to sound snobby; I guess I'm just saying that, unlike when I was "just" a player, I know too much about the nuts and bolts behind the scenes to be wowed anymore.

Second, it only takes a few short hours of living through another person's story before I inevitably start wanting to tell my story. I literally have more stories in my head than I have time to tell / make them, and going through other adventures feels like I'm wasting what little time I have.

All I know is that, generally speaking, I find less satisfaction in playing than I do in building. I will say that I tend to build, build, build before testing at all, and so the first time I walk through a module I built, it's fairly complete. I inevitably think, "Wow! Here's the world and characters I envisioned brought to life!" And, well, let's just say that's a pretty big high. It's a much bigger high than I've ever felt actually playing a game.

Maimed God's Saga Update
A lot got done this week. I began work on the male PC love interest, Verona, in earnest this week. I ended up fleshing out her past and her characterization, and as a result, certain changes had to be made. A quick rundown topic by topic:

Dialogs
I wrapped up two more major conversations including one that will be a major encounter. Also, because of Verona, I needed to add in another conversation to Act I. That conversation I knocked out quickly. Finally, I polished off Tancred; all his dialog is now written. That means that 20 of the 21 conversations I need are done, leaving only Verona's. That's a big one, though, so I'm still only 71% done with all the writing I need to do for Act I. None of the scripting has been finished for any of the newly-written dialogs though.

Journals
All done. Not a huge amount of journals are necessary for Act I, but what I do need has been completed. Again, the scripting has not been finished.

Blueprints
I finished off every creature and item blueprint I need for Act I except for the mountain lions I spoke of a few posts ago. For that, I will need to wait for Mask of the Betrayer.

World Map
As indicated in my previous post, this is 100% done as of this week. An in-game screenshot is now included. Obviously, I still need to implement the scripting that turns off the travel point icons until they should be available, but I'm counting that as scripting. The actual map is done.

Music
I began to look into software packages that will allow me to make realistic-sounding tracks. Hopefully, I'll have more to report next time.

Matrix
I added a line for the blueprints, as that is really a separate function from any of the other classifications I had previously. The new matrix now looks like the following. Things are starting to shape up nicely.

TMGS Progress Report (in %)
	Act I	Act II	Act III
Area Design	100	0	0
Dialog	71	0	0
Blueprints	100	0	0
Scripting	35	0	0
Journals	100	0	0
World Map		100
Intro Movie		0
Music		5

Progress, Progress, Progress...

It recently occurred to me that my last three posts had the word "progress" in the title, so why not just devote an entire title to those eight letters...

Anyway, after a particularly fruitful exchange on the BioBoards and combined with the comments posted last time, it is obvious that the Civ III map won hands down, so that decision is made. Not only that, but the map is pretty much done and so without further ado...

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

Great Progress... Until you look at the Chart!

More Maimed God's Saga Screenshots!
I spent a good deal of time on Ossian-related tasks this weekend, but I did get a chance to wrap up two more major maps. You want screenshots, I'm sure, so I'll start there. First, we visit a Lizard Man village in the deep swamps. Below that is a trip to "The Tainted Glenn," though you'll have to wait for the release to see what nefarious activities occur there.

The completion of these two now means that all the maps for Act I are done. However, while I was drawing them up, I began to think that I would perhaps require another small interior map.

SPOILERS!
This is because as I give more thought to the events drawn up for the two paths - either by land or by river - that will form Act I, I am beginning to feel that there is slightly less "meat" to the river path. I'm therefore heavily contemplating adding a small sidequest to the river path. In this case, I'll require one more thus-far unplanned area.
END SPOILERS!

Act I Progress
Again, the inclusion of the other map is by no means set, so for now - regarding Act I maps - "I'm going to claim that milestone. " Sorry, but I'm an engineer in the space industry, and we inevitably talk about what constitutes enough work to claim various milestones... but I digress.

Regarding dialogs, I now have 21 dialogs planned for Act I. All dialogs are classified as Tiny, Small, Medium, etc., and these classifications were used to help me at the planning stage to estimate a total of 27,860 words needed in Act I.

I have currently written 8.4 of those dialogs. The 0.4 is Tancred's, which is big enough for me to justify including fractions of it in my calculations. My original estimate for the words needed for these 8.4 was 9820. My actuals come in at 9323, so I'm not that far off. So the 9820 divided by the 27,860 means I am about 35% done with my dialogs.

I've been scripting conversations and encounters as I go, so I'm going to estimate 35% of my scripting is also done, though there's a lot less hard math to this case.

All This Sounds Good... Until We Look at the Spreadsheet
So I went ahead and drew up a simple spreadsheet to chart my progress so I had something to show people... doesn't look too good. There are, of course, a few things not included in the chart like item and creature blueprints, but these are pretty minor things.

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

Yup... a long way to go, but I still think I could make a Christmas release. That's what I'm aiming for, and there are still far too many unknowns for me to be able to change that conclusively.