NWN Modding Statistical Analysis: Part 1

A while back, I was perusing the NWN2 section of the Bioware Social Forums when a discussion of the download and voting rates of the current top new mods caught my eye for a reason that will soon become clear. The OP of that thread was disappointed over how few votes he was getting compared to his downloads and was wondering if he’d hit 10 votes by the time his module was off the "Newly Released" list on the right side of the Vault main page.

I've long thought it was just a generally accepted fact that only about one to two percent of downloaders will vote. However, I’ve been thinking over that conversation for a few weeks and I decided to do a little digging. So I took the current list of top 15 new mods from the Vault sidebar (as of February 24, 2011). Note that these are only the ones that haven’t yet achieved the Vault Hall of Fame section. The raw data for these 15 mods is given below.


Now to be clear, some of these download numbers appear to be such that the module should graduate to the HoF (5000 downloads). In these cases, I’ve included downloads of all different forms of the same module. For example, some modules have a self-extracting download and then a manual install download. Neither of these are individually above 5000, but they are above 5000 when combined. I've added the two download numbers up because I think it's reasonable to conclude that these two groups constitute different players. On the other hand, several of these have multiple modules attached to the entry (such as TMGS), all of which are required to play. Therefore, these do not represent different players and so I only took the largest number. For TMGS, for example, the download count is that for Module 1, which is the individual module with the most downloads.

Now it should be clear why this conversation particularly caught my eye. Whereas most of the modules have vote percentages in the one to two percent range, one module stands out as a significant outlier: mine. In an effort to explain what was going on, I looked at the downloads per month for each of the 15 modules. While TMGS is at the upper end of the group, it certainly isn't the highest. "Path of Evil" is more than doubling TMGS' pace, although it has only been released two months and one would expect the biggest surge immediately after release. On the other hand, "Planescape: the Shaper of Dreams" has been out seven months longer than TMGS and has almost 150 more downloads per month... and yet the vote percentage is still under one percent.

I was interested to see how these numbers compared with some of the "classic" modules from NWN2's past, so I looked at the top 50 modules overall and pulled out some of the notable ones. The only criteria used to select this group over the others was that I remembered them being big news when released. The expanded table is given below.


So again, even the older modules have the same roughly one to two percent voting rate, so I'm at a loss to explain why TMGS seems to be almost tripling the voting percentage of most of the other mods out there.

However, I was also interested to see how download rates have changed over time. It is obvious that the player base is smaller, so download rates must have diminished, but by how much? So I put the data into a handy little chart shown below.


A few points. First, the x-axis is the months since release, meaning further out along the x-axis represents longer ago. For reference, I've put vertical lines where the change in years occurred. Two months ago was the change to 2011, 12 months before that was 2010, and so forth. I also added in the release points for both NWN2 expansion packs and a couple other fantasy-themed RPGs to see if that might shed some light. Dragon Age released in November 2009 and SoZ was in November 2008. MotB and The Witcher both released in October 2007.

The first thing that stands out to me is the tremendous scattering of the data, although the obvious trend is still clear. The downloads per month is generally going down. The linear "best fit" trendline as calculated by Excel and its equation are also shown on the graph. According to this, a module released today (x = 0) should expect a download rate of about 232 per month.

However, I looked at the list of 15 top-rated new modules and noticed that several aren't traditional adventure mods. I don't wish to debate the merits of including such modules in a list of modules here, but I did wonder if removing these from the data would tighten up the scatter a bit. So I removed "The Heist at the Neverwinter Lights Casino", "NWN2 OC Makeover", "SOZ Holiday Expansion Project", and "Tanithiel." I also had to remove "Halloween" from the legacy group. The culled-data graph is given below.


What is interesting is that all of the five removed modules were below the line in the first graph, which means they were all being downloaded at a rate below what would be expected (perhaps an indication of their niche nature). As expected, this moved the line up generally, but especially on the right, meaning the slope increased. I refrained from doing the rigorous math because even by eye it is obvious the scattering decreased a bit. However, the prognosis for a module released right now was basically confirmed. One could expect about 228 downloads per month.

From examining the release points for the expansion packs and other games, it looks like Dragon Age did a decent job of damaging NWN2. "Trinity", "Misery Stone", and "Planescape: Shaper of Dreams" were all released within a month or two of Dragon Age, when several players were presumably giving NWN2 a last hurrah while DA bugs were found and fixed, and these maintained a fairly healthy download rate of above 400 per month. And yes, other modules were getting considerably less than this, but after that point, no module except "Path of Evil" is coming remotely close to that rate, and that module is still too new for me to be believe that rate will continue. For the most part, the top downloaded modules now are pulling in what the bottom downloaded (but still highly-rated) modules were doing even fourteen months ago.

Another observation. Using the non-culled data of the first chart, the trend line will cross the x-axis at -36.93 months, which is March of 2014. Using the culled data with a steeper slope, it will be -25.59 months, or April of 2013. What does this mean? Well, that’s the point when, theoretically, a newly-released mod will have a download rate of zero per month. In other words, it is the functional end of NWN2's life unless something happens to arrest this curve.

Also, based off the first line, TMGS projects to end with 5993 downloads in March of 2014. Based off the second line, it will end with 4633 downloads in April of 2013. What this means is that there's the very real possibility - even the probability - that TMGS will never make the HoF.

Now I know there are problems with this over-simplistic analysis. First, the data set is comparatively small. There are 154 NWN2 modules on the Vault, although using the bottom half to project the success of future highly-rated mods would be useless. Still, using all of the top 50 instead of only 25 of them would be better. Second, the download rate will never truly go to zero, so some type of true curve with an asymptote at the x-axis would be more accurate. Finally, all modules get downloaded more in their first couple months than at other times. However, I have no download by month data, so I don't have any way of knowing how many of "Harp and Chrysanthemum’s" 27 thousand downloads were in year one, year two, and so forth. It is almost certainly not getting 700 downloads per month now while it must have gotten fifteen hundred per month or more at its height. Finally, any true analysis should factor in promotional efforts by the author. For all I know, it might be possible to greatly exceed these numbers with an unrelenting ad campaign.

For the record, I've graphed the data for votes per download for all the above modules (full and culled). These graphs are below, and they show what we already knew from the raw data. The vote percentage has remained pretty flat over time, indicating the time of release is pretty irrelevant in this case. In the first graph, the slope is -0.0002, and it is roughly -0.0003 in the graph. The negative slopes actually show that it is slightly better for newer modules over all, but not very significantly. A second point for these graphs? There's TMGS in the top left of both as a major outlier. And so we've come full circle with no more answers than when I started. For some reason, TMGS seems to compel a greater percentage of people who play it to come back and vote.




I have two more analysis I want to do with this series. My next post will look at voting over time. I say this because the current top 15 new mods are all in the top 33 mods of all-time. Half of the top 10 all-time is within the current new top 15. That seems statistically unlikely unless vote inflation is occurring. My final piece will take a look at the same kinds of stats for NWN1. Perhaps that will shed further light on the expected lifespan of NWN2.

The Holy Grail

Long time readers of this blog may suppose – given my interest in medieval history – that I’m about to write about the Knights Templars or some DaVinci Code crap, but that isn’t the case. Rather, I’m talking about the Holy Grail of CRPGs...

First a bit of history. Back in the 80s, I became enthralled in D&D P&P sessions, and I had a small group that would occasionally play games when we could. By about 1990 or so, that phase had ended for me. My college days focused more on games that could be easily played over the dorm LAN such as Warcraft II, Starcraft, or Fortress Quake, but after I graduated in 1999, I started looking at CRPGs. By 2000 my eye fell on Baldur’s Gate II, and I was instantly captivated by how amazing RPGs had become.

Over the next couple years, I bought BG1, the Icewind Dale series, Planescape: Torment, the NWN series, and even Temple of Elemental Evil, all of which I loved to one extent or another, but Baldur’s Gate has always been the gold standard to me.

I also have always been a D&D homer. This probably stems from my childhood memories, but I can honestly say that my interest in playing Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and World of Warcraft is zero, and my interest in Dragon Age is just barely north of zero. On the other hand, if a D&D-themed game came out tomorrow, I’d be there to buy it unless the reviews were terrible. And I mean REALLY terrible. I bought ToEE after all.

Needless to say, this makes the current situation between WotC and Atari quite annoying.

So a couple weeks ago, I reloaded BG1 onto my computer, and I must say that while some of it still holds up, it is certainly showing its age. I don’t necessarily think the graphics are all that horrible, although the Infinity Engine is certainly archaic. Rather, the simplicity of the dialogs and quests along with the horrible pathing and blatantly bad AI all make the game frustrating to those accustomed to more recent improvements.

That got me thinking about BG III. I remember a couple years ago – give or take several months – that I was talking to an Ossian-mate about potential new projects when I called BG III the "Holy Grail." For the record, he disagreed and thought something else was... but that’s a story for another time.

But my point was that the BG series is unique in the history of CRPGs, and not just for me. I would imagine that the great majority of CRPG fans / modders would have BG III very high on the list if they were told to make a wish about any project they would want to be green-lighted for. However, with the pending litigation over D&D rights, not only is BG III not a realistic idea for the near future, I don’t even think any serious D&D-themed RPG is. And, no, I don’t count Cryptic’s MMORPG as a serious RPG. Actually, by the time the dust is settled, I doubt a BG III ever comes out. It’s already 11 years since BG II, and I can’t think of many games that had 15 or more years between sequels... although Starcraft comes close.

So then that got me thinking. What if a group of modders just decided to make BG III in, say, the NWN2 toolset? I’m thinking about a major effort along the lines of Misery Stone or Purgatorio. It would certainly be possible, although it would take a lot of dedication from many people with little or no recognition for years. That's tough. After all, Misery Stone, though a great game as is, was admittedly hurried out the door towards the end. I assume the group realized continued interest by the development team was flagging and needed to just get it out. And Purgatorio is, well, in purgatory.

But if it could be done - so long as the game was offered for free - it would be perfectly legal. And if enough word of mouth could be generated, might it even become a somewhat "official" version in the absence of anything else?

But what would BG III look like? What would be the "must haves" without which one couldn’t lay claim to the title? My (probably incomplete) list would look something like:

* Single player campaign
* 80 – 100 hours of gameplay
* A minimum of 10 – 12 NPCs that can be substituted in and out from a party of 6.
* NPC-based quests
* Romances
* A story-line somehow tied in to the Bhaal-spawn legend
* Most of the game taking place in a city environment, although large portions can be outside the city

My gut is that, as the Bhaal-spawn is now either a god or has turned down the Throne of Bhaal and is merely an incredibly powerful mortal, I would think the third chapter would start over with a new protagonist starting at level 1 and perhaps going up to level 10 or so. However, I wouldn’t put this as a "must have" to be a legitimate successor.

I think all of this is more than possible with a two-year development time, so long as the team didn’t have to develop an engine (which it wouldn’t in this scenario). MoW took roughly six months to build once all the design documents were done and another couple months of testing. MoW clocked in at around 20-25 hours and had 3 NPCs. Expanding the six months to two years would lead to 80-100 hours and 12 NPCs. As each of those companions already had an associated quest, this work is already included in the 3 NPCs in 6 months metric. The only additional effort would be to include romances... a topic for a different post. Anyway, yes, the analysis is simple, but it gives a rough order of magnitude. I do think it could be done...

But it won't. All of this is obviously just a bit of day-dreaming on my part. Truthfully, I’ve finally accepted that the BG series is dead and now relegated to the warm, fuzzy, halcyon days of yesteryear... right alongside my memories of the red box set.

But what a pleasant dream it is.

TMGS II: What Might Have Been, The Conclusion

Proceeding with the breakdown of the aborted TMGS-II, when Act II ended, the party had just returned from another dimension where they had been pursuing a priestess of Moander. They hadn't caught her, but they had determined the location of the Heart of Moander - the buried ruins of the city of Tsornyl in the Forest of Cormanthor.

Act III: The Heart of Decay
The party could have used one of two portals back home, either the one opened in the lair of the False Prophet or one from the ring they had picked up from the Moanderite leader in Act I. Either way, the party ends up back in the Priory of First Union, the final location of Act I. The trick is to then arrive at the Forest of Cormanthor, and to do that in a timely fashion, they need to use the portal described in my post on Act I. This portal requires rearranging the elven runes such that the portal takes them to the proper locale. Functionally within the game, this serves as a "puzzle" before they could proceed.

Traveling through Cormanthor, the party would battle blighted treants, Bits of Moander, and various undead of a suitable level. Along the way, I was planning on having an elven village that the players would need to ally with in order to find the actual location of the buried city. Securing the cooperation of this village would have proven a challenge and may have led to the addition of an another companion; I was thinking maybe an eldritch knight character.

Eventually, the party would have found the lost city, and this would have been the final dungeon complete with suitable tricks, traps, and encounters. The party eventually would have passed the corpses of the 12 baelnorn who had been guarding the heart along with numerous Moanderites. At this point, a cutscene would have shown the priestess fusing the Moanderite essence with his heart, allowing for the rising of Moander's avatar - essentially a big shambling mound. The avatar would have killed the priestess and the final battle would have been on. Again, the party would have comprised 5-6 characters of about 16th level at this point, so the challenge would have had to be suitable.

After the battle, I would have had a few wrap-up scenes, the last of which would have set up TMGS III. My gut is that the above would have expanded quite a bit to allow for at least a little bit of freedom at certain points, kind of how Waterdeep and the Bastion exterior allowed for a small bit of exploration in the otherwise linear final act of TMGS I. I didn't have any firm plans yet, although the elven village seems an obvious point to do this.

As for TMGS III, the basic premise was that the refugees from Veronsport would have arrived at the Bastion and, realizing St. Cuthbert held no power in Faerun, would have converted to Tyr. The Grand Prelate would have set aside some land for them to build a small village and then appointed the PC the village's lord and spiritual guide. Deacon LaRue would have served as the players' deputy in the religious order and Lord Roberts would have served as the mayor and secular leader under the PC's aegis.

The land would have had a small abandoned temple of one of the evil gods and so I would have made a small interlude where the PC and either Tancred/Verona alone would have cleared the place out. Then TMGS III would have been a stronghold-based campaign that I really hadn't planned too much yet. The stronghold would have been the cleared out temple in case that wasn't clear, and the refugees would have built a small town around it. Some evil deity would have featured, but there were a ton of candidates as yet. Talona kind of holds some interest for me, but I really had no firm ideas.

And that's it! Summarizing the plot only took about two years less than making the module. Next time will be something different... maybe an announcement. We'll see.

Mid-Winter Cleaning

Did some quick clean-outs of my blog roll and got rid of those that hadn't updated in at least six months and then added the new blog from Ossian-mate Nemorem (aka Mat Jobe). There are some interesting posts there already, including one about the modding scene for DA, so check it out.

In other news, the composer of the music for TMGS, Strange Cat Productions, has released the TMGS soundtrack on Amazon with all the tracks remastered and a couple bonus tracks too. A quick perusal shows that it's something like 90 - 100 minutes of music. If you enjoyed the music and want to support a guy who's just breaking into the business, this would be a great (and reasonably inexpensive) way to do it.

TMGS II: What Might Have Been, Part II

Proceeding with the breakdown of the aborted TMGS-II, when Act I ended, the party had just entered a portal into another dimension in pursuit of a priestess of Moander.

Act II: The False Prophet
The party arrives in Veronsport, a moderately-sized town with cobbled streets, an assortment of wooden houses, and a large, but empty, port jutting out into an endless sea. Yet a pall of darkness hangs over the town, and the sky is tinged with a sickly green. Although there are people on the streets, the majority keep their heads down as they go about their business. The grass, trees, and shrubs around town, while technically alive, all look sickly and discolored.

The basic idea of the alternate dimension was to create a world in which the players would be very uncomfortable. Everything they “knew” about Faerun would not apply. The power structures and conventions would be different, the pantheon would be new, and monsters would have powers they would not expect. Maybe a few goblins would come at them and the player would assume it was going to be an easy fight only to have several fireballs hurled at them because "goblins" in this dimension are more powerful than on Faerun. My supreme hope was that I could get either Jonny Ree or someone like him to make me one or two odd monster models that would be a complete mystery to the player.

The alternate dimension also served as a warning as to what might happen to Faerun if the player did not succeed. In other words, I could eventually destroy it with absolutely no repercussions to the player’s world, but seeing that destruction adds urgency to the primary mission. There are now real consequences for Faerun if the party doesn't keep Moander dead.

Finally, the PC will pray here through a dialog with his/her holy symbol, since there will be no Tyrran altar. Although spells will be restored as normal, any attempt to ask Tyr a question during prayer will be met with silence. Eventually, the player will realize (or be told) that Tyr’s presence on this dimension is too weak (due to lack of worshippers) to be able to physically manifest and take an active role in this adventure as he did during TMGS I.

After some investigation in Veronsport, the player eventually learns the following:

1) The power centers in town are the mayor, Lord Roberts, and the Church of St. Cuthbert, headed by Deacon Holden LaRue.

2) Moander has slowly overtaken the entire realm. Everything beyond the gates of Veronsport has been absorbed by The Wasting, a creeping manifestation of Moander’s power that rots everything in its wake. Villages overtaken by The Wasting are now ghost towns filled only with rotted vegetation, decayed buildings, and bleached bones.

3) The townspeople have managed to keep the Moanderites at bay due to a well-trained militia, the determined resistance of the Church of St. Cuthbert, and a location on an easily-defendable peninsula, but there is little hope the town can resist The Wasting much longer. Already the initial signs are manifesting that the town is coming within its thrall (see the plants for examples).

4) The richest citizens who had boats or could afford to book passage have already fled the city. Although there is no other refuge on the continent, there are several islands far out to sea that no doubt have several years left before being overrun.

5) Several years back, there was an old man who spoke of the coming of Tyr’s Champion. Because Tyr was largely unknown in this dimension, and those who knew of him knew him to be a deity that had “died” here many years before, the man was derided as a False Prophet, mocked, and spat upon at every opportunity. He vanished some time back, although no one can really say when or even remember much about the circumstances of his disappearance. The player will be referred to Deacon LaRue for further information, as the Deacon was about the only friend he had.

At the Temple of St. Cuthbert, the player discovers that Deacon LaRue is away for the moment. If the PC asks about a Moanderite High Priestess that recently came through, the Cuthbertians will only say they know nothing. If the PC asks about The False Prophet, the Cuthbertian priests will note that they remember such a character but he spoke exclusively with the deacon. However, the church library does contain the False Prophet’s diary; Deacon LaRue had insisted that they save the document. If the PC reads the diary, they will learn – among other things – that The False Prophet had discovered the whereabouts of Moander’s decayed heart.

If the player approaches Lord Roberts, the mayor will note with interest the presence in town of some powerful adventurers and will only comment that he might have need of them shortly. This might allow for a sidequest from the mayor. Otherwise, it is obvious he is too busy planning the town’s final defenses.

This leaves the player to explore the town and engage in other sidequests. If they try to leave through the front gates, they will only be told that the gates are closed by order of the mayor in order to prevent any encroachment of The Wasting.

At some point, the St. Cuthbertians will send for the party. When the group returns to the temple, they will learn that Deacon LaRue isn’t simply away; he actually led a small elite band on a mission to strike at a nearby fortress that serves as the Moanderites’ forward base for their assault on Veronsport, but no one has returned. At this point, the St. Cutherbertians are convinced that something is wrong and would like to task the party with investigating the Deacon’s fate. They will also note that the fortress is likely to be where the High Priestess the PC is pursuing went (assuming the PC has revealed their mission here). Either way, the Cuthbertians point out the fortress’ locations and give the party a pass to leave the city.

The player quickly finds that his/her characters’ strength and constitution slowly decrease as long as they are within the Wasting, although the PC can restore these attributes with restoration spells. (However, the attributes will immediately begin to decrease again after the spell restores them.) Also, the Moanderite fortress – and anywhere else inhabited by the Moanderites – is free from this effect and the losses will cease so long as the players are within these buildings.

After battling through several odd monsters within The Wasting, the party finally assaults the Moanderite outpost and destroys the garrison there. Deacon LaRue can be found in some cells, where he will reveal that the High Priestess did, in fact, stop by for a sliver of Moander’s divine essence, but she has already procured this and returned to her own plane of existence. In addition, in case the player didn’t read the diary, he will reveal that the False Prophet had found the location of Moander’s heart. Finally, the deacon will volunteer that The False Prophet “disappeared” from Veronsport when he sailed across the sea some years before. He had been an old and sick man and, having won no new converts to Tyr in Veronsport, he had given up hope and retired to the Isle of the Dead to die.

As the Priestess now has a divine sliver of Moander, the only thing left is to stop her from fusing it with Moander’s heart, and the only person who knows that location is The False Prophet. However, obtaining a boat to the Isle of the Dead in a port devoid of ships will be difficult.

Back at Veronsport, Deacon LaRue will consult with the party and Mayor Roberts about using the Mayor’s personal yacht. The mayor will note that the destruction of the Moanderite outpost has bought the town a few more days, and in thanks, he will agree to loan the PC his yacht... on two conditions: that the PC allow the entire remaining population of the town to use the portal back to Faerun once their mission is complete and that Deacon LaRue join them on the journey to The Isle of the Dead. It is assumed the player will agree to this, and they will be able to depart for the Isle of the Dead with Deacon LaRue in tow.

The Isle of the Dead was to have been very much like the old P&P module “Isle of Dread” complete with dinosaurs, dragons, oversized animals, and a lost temple. The party would consist of six or so 13th-14th level characters at this point, so the challenges would have to have been pretty tough, and this area would have been organized something like Saleron’s Gambit Part IV.

After several adventures, the party penetrates to the depths of the temple to find a single skeletal figure praying at an altar to Tyr. The figure will rise, address the PC as Tyr’s Champion, and then tell a strange story.

In life, he was a devotee of Tyr living as a hermit on Faerun and spending most of his days on a mountain in prayerful meditation and solitude. One day, Tyr came to him in a vision, saying there was a mission uniquely suited to him. He was to proceed through a portal into a new dimension in which the last Tyrran had died decades before. Because there were no Tyrrans in this alternate dimension, Tyr held no power whatsoever there, but if he were to go to that dimension, his existence would allow Tyr to grasp the slimmest of toe-holds.

(Note that in TMGS I, when Tyr talks to the PC on the snowy mountain during the Trial by Tyr's Justice - when the ranger companion is looking for them - Tyr will mention that Malar was able to enact his plans in secret partially because Tyr's attention had been drawn to Tethyr and a distressing situation developing on another plane entirely. This was yet another presaging of TMGS II.)

The False Prophet briefly attempted to win converts to Tyr as a means of increasing Tyr's power in this dimension, but his primary mission was to keep an eye on the Moanderites, uncover the location of Moander's heart, and determine when and under what circumstances the Moanderites would attempt to raise him again.

Eventually, it became obvious that The Prophet would fall asleep before Moander's plans came to fruition, but instead of allowing him to die, Tyr converted him to unlife. The Prophet needed to live long enough to maintain Tyr's miniscule hold here. In addition, because Tyr's power here is not enough to manifest at will and state the information directly, the Prophet would be able to pass to the coming Champion the information he had gleaned about Moander's plans and the location of his heart.

Next, he will present an arcane text to the PC that details how Moander’s heart is being guarded by twelve Cormanthyrian baelnorn (good liches) in the ruins of the ancient city of Tsornyl in the depths of the Forest of Cormanthor. Finally, the False Prophet will note that his life’s purpose is now complete and that he has earned his rest, and his bones will simply collapse to the floor as a portal opens behind him.

The party can use this portal, but Deacon LaRue will note that the PC made a promise to Mayor Roberts about saving the people of the town. The player will be able to return to the town and use the Moanderite ring to reopen a portal to Faerun in town or else they can give the ring to the Deacon, have him return, and use the existing portal. Ideally, returning to the town will lead to a tougher Act III – as the Moanderites will have more time to prepare – but add a few resources in TMGS III, as the party will be able to save a few more people from the Moanderite siege there. Whatever path they take, the party is on its way back to Faerun and Deacon LaRue leaves the party for good.

Note that Deacon LaRue, Mayor Roberts, and the refugees from Veronsport would have all played a role in TMGS III, but that’s for another time.

Next Post: Act III: The Heart of Decay

TMGS II: What Might Have Been

OK, I've taken a couple months off and I'm more convinced than ever that I'm done with large projects. It's not that I'm out of ideas; I've got enough of those, but as I stated previously, I can't justify the time expenditure given other more important commitments. My problem is that TMGS I took well over two years of pretty intense work. Backing off to a level I'm comfortable with would mean TMGS II wouldn't see the light of day until 2017, and that's simply ridiculous.

I am, however, inclined to put out small projects of only one to two hours of play time more akin to good sidequests than anything else. I'm building a belief in my mind that that's probably the way to go to be able to indulge a bit in a hobby without sacrificing other things that are important. Nothing that I've said until now is new for this blog except that my mind is still resolved on that after a couple months, but everything I type from here on out will be first time.

I've already started a bit on a small project. It's a small continuation of TMGS with the same cast of characters, but I'll delay further announcement on the specifics for another time.

For now I've been thinking about releasing my thoughts on where I would have taken TMGS in future full-length campaigns. All of this would have been secret, of course, had I committed myself to releasing them, but now that I've committed to the opposite, there's nothing to lose and I figure some people might be curious.

If you don't want to know, stop now. I'll wait...




OK, if you're still here, you must be interested, so here goes.

First, while TMGS I concentrated on establishing the relationship between the PC and his/her principle companion - either Tancred or Verona - TMGS II would have returned to a full party with the ranger love interest forming just one of the group, albeit one that would have required further exposition and greater attention.

TMGS I also focused on establishing a second crucial relationship that would have flourished in part II: Gron. In part II, the orcish prince would have played the part of bad-ass tank and bruiser. He would have been something like a barbarian 7/divine champion 4, had very high strength and constitution, and sliced and diced with his massive battle axe. The core relationship would have been one of new convert & mentor with him asking a variety of tough theological questions that the PC could have answered a number of ways.

This was why so much time in TMGS I was spent on a seemingly innocuous side story at the orc village and the Tomb of the Just Ones. I always "knew" that Gron was coming back, and he needed to have an established reason to implicitly trust the PC and also accept him/her as an authority figure, at least in a religious sense.

So that gives us the cleric PC, the ranger love interest, and Gron. The fourth member of the group was going to be a female moon-elf bard with an as-yet unsettled name, although for current purposes we'll call her Sylvaria (a likely candidate). This character, an ambassador from the Church of Oghma, would have been met at the adventure's outset and would have, in fact, been the initial quest giver. More on that later.

The final member of the party was as yet still murky. I had a few thoughts but the two most likely were a male human rogue or a male half-drow wizard. The background of each and where they would have been met were different from each other and still not 100% set, but the most likely scenario is given in my summary of Act I below.

The level range would have been set to start around 12 and end around 15-16.

Now for the plot.

Act I: Darkness Rising

The player is recalled to the Bastion of the Maimed God by the newly-elected Grand Prelate. After some scene-setting, they are led into the council chamber – the same one in which Dezlentyr gave his speech in TMGS I – in which a meeting of the church elders is being conducted. Central to this meeting is an Oghmite ambassador, Sylvaria, who has come bearing news of an ancient prophesy that foretells the return of the Darkbringer when certain signs are manifest. These signs, including a comet in the southern sky and a great earthquake in the east, have now come to pass, and the Oghmites seek aid from a religious order with more military might to stop the impending return. Note that “The Darkbringer” is a well-known nickname for Moander, so the identity of the new threat will be immediately known in contrast to the plot structure of TMGS I. For those who may not know, Moander, the one-time lord of rot and decay, was killed during the Time of Troubles.

Next the new Grand Prelate introduces the PC, a rising star in the church who now has a reputation for resourcefulness and solving special problems, and the trio of Sylvaria, the PC, and the PC’s love interest, either Tancred or Verona, depart for the Starmounts, a range of mountains deep within the High Forest that are the only locale specifically mentioned in the prophecy.

The group has a few adventures along the way, one of which leads to the addition of Gron. Gron claims to have had dreams in which he was ordered to aid the High Witch/Great Shaman against the enemies of Tyr and so he left his village to come west to find the PC. Another possible addition in one of these adventures is a human rogue.

Once in the High Forest, the party infiltrates a ruined mountain outpost of the ancient elven empire of Earlann, an empire of special fascination for both Verona and Tancred. As the party works its way up levels towards the mountain’s peak, they encounter several tricks, traps, and unique battles. Not all of these tricks are “mad wizard” puzzles; some are nothing more than finding a way across a fallen bridge or around a collapsed tunnel. Within this dungeon, the party encounters an old forge still manned by a ghostly blacksmith who presents Verona/Tancred with a magical short sword, long ago forged for the warrior of nature that would defeat the Darkbringer. (Note that this scene was presaged in TMGS I if the PC managed to convince the companion to discuss their dreams during one of the fireside chats.)
Atop the Star Mounts, the party finds the Priory of First Union, a temple jointly devoted to Corellon Larethian and Sehanine Moonbow and their initial union of blood and tears that first formed the elven race. On the snowy peak, the group confronts and does battle with another high-level party of Moanderites with as-yet unknown motives. This is the boss fight for Act I. After defeating these adversaries, the group finds a strange ring on the corpse of the party’s leader, but without any other clues, they have no choice but to enter the temple.

Within are histories on the wall that tell of the defeat of Moander by the elves of Cormanthyr (to be clear, these defeats are not the final one that caused his death - way different eras) and still more prophecies of his eventual death and return. The group will learn through ancient texts that the heart of Moander lies dormant in the forest of Cormanthor and only awaits a sliver of Moander’s divine energy to rise again. As they explore the temple, the party finds a room with a portal. An investigation may reveal – depending on the PC’s skills – that the portal once allowed instant travel to any part of the elven empires and even into other elven strongholds. The destination was set by assembling a series of magical runes into the sides of the portals with each combination of runes accounting for a specific destination portal. Further on, the party comes to a final altar room that has been ransacked and now contains the freshly-killed corpse of a half-drow wizard.

The party members will strongly suggest the PC “raise” the drow, a power now well-within the abilities granted by Tyr to the PC, so that they can interrogate him. Once done, he reveals that the Moanderites hired him to guide them to this temple so that they could learn exactly where the heart of Moander was located within Cormanthor. The Moanderite High Priestess apparently discovered the location in one of the texts and took it with her. But before she left, she killed him to prevent him from revealing just the information he now gives to the PC. In addition, he learned through communicating with the Moanderite party en route to this temple that they intended to gain the requisite divine spark in another dimension where the cult of Moander still holds supreme power. Each of the two Moanderite leaders had a ring that would allow a portal to that dimension to open. The PC should now recognize that the High Priestess had one but the second must be the ring they found on the corpse outside the temple. Finally, the half-drow mentions he is a wizard of some power and asks to join the group so that he can enact revenge on the Moanderites for the betrayal. There will be some hesitation on the part of Sylvaria (a moon elf) and Gron (an orc), but they will eventually agree if the PC presses the need for more strength before journeying into the Moanderite dimension.

With everything now settled, the group uses the ring to open a portal to the new dimension and chase after the High Priestess, not only to stop her acquiring the divine spark of Moander, but also – as a last resort – to learn the specific location of Moander’s slumbering heart.

Next Post: Act II: The False Prophet

For the record, all my acts have names, although they are never seen on-screen. For TMGS I, the three act names were “Descent into Darkness” for Act I, “The Curse of the VanGhaunts” for Act II, and “Excommunicate” for Act III.

The NWN2 Toolset

A couple posts back when I ruminated on my NWN2 future generated an interesting exchange that I thought I'd just make a whole post on.

nicethugbert started with:

Why did TMGS take so long? What tasks consumed the most time?

I responded:

Sorry, thugbert, didn't see your comment until now.

There are literally over 200,000 words of dialog in TMGS. That's the equivalent of a 400 page book, assuming 500 words per page. Thattakes a long time to write, edit, proofread, and so forth.

There were around 55 maps for the entire campaign, and the majority were exterior maps. Each exterior map can take a good two days of solid work to put together. That's two weekend days, not days where I just work a couple hours after my day job.

Testing and troubleshooting took a good six months. Each complete playthrough takes 20 hours including note-taking, replays to confirm, etc. And then you have to implement changes, do scenario testing, and so forth. Player choices early on really do filter through the rest of the campaign, and I'm not sure a player can really appreciate the extent of this on just one play-through.

nicethugbert responded:

Does NWN2 make any of this difficult? What I'm driving at is the quality of NWN2 as a tool.

Obviously, a 400 page book is a problem in itself and a modern word processor would be more help than obstacle.

I responded:

All I've worked with are the NWN1 and NWN2 toolsets. As far as exteriors go, NWN1 was far easier, but it also allowed far less customization of the area. I actually think the dialog editor is much better in NWN2 and allows for reduced numbers of overall scripts.

I do use a word processor for the first draft of almost everything I write. It's still a laborious process.

To clarify, I like the NWN2 toolset, but I haven't used anything else other than the NWN1 toolset. My general thought is that the NWN2 toolset is much more powerful and of an overall better quality than the one for NWN1. Yes, there were some odd behavioral bugs up front, but those seem to be gone now.

That said, I have no experience with any of the other toolsets, such as the one for DA. What I've read hasn't really inspired me, but I'm still mulling expanding into other directions. For now, I'm interested in any insights or experiences others have in this arena.

I do have a small announcement upcoming, but that comes later.