NWN Community Update: Sorrows, Heroes, and Adventurers!

It's probably pretty obvious that I'm getting back into Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 again.  My copy of NWN2 is finally working (no idea what happened, but windows xp suddenly allowed steam to load!) again, so I am finishing my trek through the very impressive Tales from the Lake of Sorrows by PJ156.  I've entered into the last act of that module, and the difficulty has spiked considerably!  The story is excellent, however, and I'm enjoying the heck out of this campaign.

Several updates this week.

The Adventurer's Club

First, Sir Adril had a terrific idea on the Neverwinter Vault forums to start an Adventurer's Club.  The concept is to run a "book club" style group, but instead of reading books we will be playing Neverwinter Nights modules!  How fun, right?  Well, the group has formed, and we are currently taking nominations for our first cycle.  There will be concurrent discussion of both NWN1 and NWN2 modules.  Finally, Sir Adril also produced a fantastic newsletter / advertisement to kick us off.

Hero's Path Module List

Second, I decided to reestablish the Hero's Path Module List.  This was probably my first big project for NWN1, and it was an attempt to catalog the modules that were best-suited to players who wanted to play with the same character across multiple modules by different authors.  It was last updated in 2007, and so in addition to being woefully out of date it was also was full of broken links in the post-ign vault world.

Therefore, I updated it with working links for all modules that have been posted to the New Vault.  And because I was in the mood, I also created a similar list for NWN2 modules!  The latter is something that I always wanted to do, but there just weren't that many NWN2 modules that had been published yet when I stepped away from the community.  I am going to keep these lists at Neverwinter Vault as articles for visiblity, but I have added links to them in my sidebar menu on this forum.

Forgotten Realms Weave Character Creator

Third, after some hesitation, I've taken the FRW Character Creator project back on.  At this point, it's been transferred only, and I have not updated it yet.  But my plan, in the near future, is to make a small update to include:

• The usability updates that ladydesire included (e.g. leveling to lv. 30).
• A new +4 item store, currently accessible through Chatter.
• Ability to access lower-tier stores for characters level 5 and over.  This is handy if you just want a pair of cheap boots.

Most of that is already done.  Just a bit more conversation work, plus some testing, and we'd be set for an update.

Ladydesire added persistent companions while she was running the module.  While I love the idea of persistent companions, I hear that this hak is pretty badly broken by the SoZ expansion.  Therefore, I'm leaning toward removing those hak's moving forward.  I would keep her last version accessible for those who might like to take advantage of them.

NWVault is finally down

I'm a bit late in reporting this, but as of June 26th, it looks like IGN's Neverwinter Vault is finally down for good.  The link now redirects to a wiki page.  Despite the claims there, there's little reason to think that the Vault will return.  And if it does, it will probably be in the same condition it was just before it went down: completely unworkable.

We've had false alarms before.  And fortunately, the guys at the new vault, Neverwinter Vault, have been working to restore access to all of the files that we had previously.  If you go there now, you'll see new files being uploaded around the clock.  They don't contain all of the header information that we had on the old vault.  But at least if you search for a module that you want, you're likely to find it there, along with downloads of all of the other relevant files you need (HAK's, etc).

The main challenge with the new vault is that there is currently not a good system to sort through the thousands of module files.  The file rating system is currently a 1-10 number system, but it sounds like Rolo Kipp (the Hero of vault preservation) is planning to institute something more akin to Nexus's "Endorse" button.  I think that's the right choice.  Despite the fact that I worked hard to revise and improve the 1-10 rating system on the vault back in the day, I think a simple endorse button is likely to be the best way to evaluate files in a community like this.

Why I am noticing this?

Well, after about a year and a half of on-and-off play (pushing 130 hours), I have finally finished Fallout 3.  A review is coming soon!

So, with only about a month and a half left before I am traveling abroad, I decided to give NWN a whirl again.  Steam is not working anymore on my old gaming PC, which means I only can install and play the original NWN2 (without expansions).  This cuts down on which modules I can play.  So, instead, I've decided to go play NWN mods again.  I loaded up Almraiven last night, which I played before but have only the vaguest memories of.  After that, I'll be playing through the Aielund Saga, Saleron's Gambit, and The Prophet soon.  All of those are series that I only played about half-way through, and I'm looking forward to getting back into each of them.  Things might pick up a little bit as I work through each module in turn.

At the end of August I am traveling to France for a little over three months.  My plan, to satisfy my gaming itch, is to play Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition.  I have my character from BGEE all ready to go!  And it should run just fine on my work laptop while overseas.

I'm installing NWN1 right now.

Don't know if anything will come of it. Probably not. But talking about some fantasy lego board game with my nephew got me thinking about the good 'ole days. I'm going with nwn1, as I'm running on my dinky work laptop, and I don't think it can handle nwn2.

Besides, there's a lot of great stuff on nwn1 that I never got to see....

What I've been up to...

Been a while...

Looks like the last time I posted was January. A lot's happened since then. Finished my Ph.D. this summer and got a great job at a small college in Central Pennsylvania. I'm currently in my first semester here, and I'm really enjoying it. It's been a LOT of work, but teaching has long been my main professional interest and I'm very happy to have the opportunity to focus so heavily on it.

In order to get all of that accomplished--the Ph.D. finale was particularly demanding (exhausting?), especially while also teaching adjunct in the evenings--I largely had to drop all of my hobbies and put all my focus on RealLife(tm). And so I haven't really been doing much gaming this year, at least compared to prior years.

What little time I have had for gaming has mostly been devoted to playing Wii titles. But recently, I decided to give myself a belated graduation present and bought an Xbox 360. With that decision, I've pretty much decided to convert entirely over to console gaming. Several reasons for this:

1. Most of the games that I've been wanting to play--Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Final Fantasy, etc--are designed with a console in mind. I think only Dragon Age is clearly a PC game that is on my "looks interesting" list, and even then there's the possibility of a console version (how that will work, I have no idea) being released sometime in the future.

2. I get to play on our "big" 37" LCD in the living room. And I get to sit on my couch.

3. Consoles are cheap! And they're so much more powerful than they used to be, with a lot more crossover between PC and console titles. Today, I could buy all three of the console systems ($250 Wii, $400 PS3, $300 Xbox360 = $950) and still pay less than I would to buy a new PC rig. And they have a comparable lifespan. And I probably won't buy all three systems, at least not at the PS3's current price tag.

4. Along those lines, my job provides a laptop for my use. Ditto for my wife's job. Which means that the home PC is now strictly a gaming machine. $1200 (my typical machine cost) is just too much to pay for a gaming rig,

5. I don't have to worry about hardware compatibility any more. And I don't have to worry as much about updating drivers and maintaining my rig's condition. Games are designed specifically for the hardware I'm running. Now that I'm in console-land, I think this is a bigger deal than I realized when I was primarily into computers. Crashes are RARE.

6. It turns out that I really like racing games. And racing games on consoles are better, I think.

7. You can sell used versions of your game much more easily. I recently sold a bunch of gamecube games on ebay, and got $15-25 for each. In some cases, I got more than I paid for them, which is insane.

Anyway, that's enough for now. As I think about it, I have a lot of other things to talk about... reflections on (the few) games I've played this year, the reason I bought an xbox instead of a ps3, thoughts about the recent spat of releases, etc. But that'll have to wait for another day. :)

P.S. How is it possible that Mysteries of Westgate still has not been released?!?

FRWCC lives on! ... Just not with me.

I posted this on the vault page for the FRW Character Creator, but I thought I'd post it here as well:

I wanted to thank everyone for their continued enthusiasm and kind words about this module! I've had a great time interacting with everyone and putting this utility mod together, and I'm very proud of how it has turned out to this point.

As you could probably guess from the lack of updates, however, my interests have strayed away from NWN2 for a while now. This module was always intended to be an actively updated "support" module for modules in the Forgotten Realms Weave group, as well as a Berliad-proof way to level up your characters and not have them overpowered for most modules on the Vault. So letting this module just fade away was not something I wanted to see happen.

Therefore, I have decided to turn over full control of this module to another member of the Forgotten Realms Weave, ladydesire. I know she has some great ideas about further additions to this module, especially on the scripting side (which is an area in which I have zero expertise!!), so I'm sure it's in good hands.

Best of luck to ladydesire, and thanks again to everyone for your support and continued interest in this module!
-Berliad

I also wanted to thank everyone for continuing to pop by this blog every once in a while, and for leaving all those wonderful comments in my previous post. I really do appreciate it. Honestly, I do feel like I've abandoned a lot of friends in leaving the community, and I feel bad about it. My life has just become very busy (writing dissertation, applying for jobs, teaching as an adjunct faculty member, spending time with the kiddo, etc), and my interests have strayed away from NWN2. I may, someday, return to this community in some fashion or another, though my guess is that it won't be at quite the same level of involvement.

In the meantime, I will say that I've been continuing to actively follow and blog about baseball (if you look at the blogs for the Cinci Reds, you could probably figure out which one is mine). I've also been playing several games on the Wii when time permits. Personal faves include Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (gamecube version, haven't played Wii version yet), Guitar Hero III, Trauma Center: New Blood, and Raymond Raving Rabbids. Super Paper Mario was also fun.

I may post some reviews of these and other games on this site from time to time if the muse strikes me. I can see this blog eventually transforming into a more general interest gaming blog in the future. But for the time being, I just don't have the time to maintain two blogs at this point...and baseball has always been my deepest love. :)
-B

Mysteries of Westgate

I wanted to send out congrats to Alazander, Hugie, Challseus, Tiberius209, Maerduin, and everyone else from Ossian about the recent announcement of their upcoming module, Mysteries of Westgate! It sounds like it's going to be nothing short of spectacular, and I'm looking forward to seeing materials from it. It must be incredibly gratifying for individuals in that company to finally have been able to produce something that will actually result in a cash return...especially in light of the premium module debacle of '06.

Also have to say that I much prefer the "adventure pack" descriptor to the term "premium module." :)

....

As for me.. Well, what can I say? I just haven't had much time or interest to devote to anything NWN2 related for a while now, except for a fairly brief return last month. This includes a complete lack of progress, very unfortunately, on my Vault review of Ryam Baco's module, which is pretty poor form on my part--first time I've ever really sat on a review, and I'm feeling like a pretty bad person for it.

I don't have the NWN2 expansion pack yet, and I'm honestly not really feeling the urge to get it. I'm excited to hear about some of the modules that have come out lately, and are coming out soon, but at the same time I'm not feeling much motivation to get out there and play them. Hopefully things will improve in a few weeks when the World Series ends (I'm rootin' for the Rockies, in case you're interested...After '04, Boston is now just another rich team from the northeast). But at the same time, I don't have a ton of free time, and I want to spend it doing things that I'm excited about. Lately, that's mostly been baseball, as well as a few Wii/Gamecube games (recently picked up Tales of Symponia used...not sure if I like it yet...story seems intriguing and the art is nice, but it might require too much twichiness to be enjoyable).

Anyway, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find myself back in the den playing NWN2 modules sometime in the next few weeks. But at the same time, it also wouldn't surprise me for it to be a while before I pick it up again. We'll see.

Thanks for visiting. I will try to continue to keep this space active, whether I'm posting about NWN2 or otherwise.

Back in the Saddle...

Tonight I finally got back in game! I needed a bit of a break, and my gaming time has been filled with Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Super Paper Mario, and a healthy dose of Out of the Park Baseball '07. They all offer something different...but like I always do, I'm finally back to playing Neverwinter mods! :)

Anyway, I spent a good couple of hours with Nestlehaven tonight. I think I'm finally approaching the end of this module. It's strange--jackyo's module is among the best I've played for NWN2, and is ranked the highest of any NWN2 module by public voting. And yet it was while playing it that I decided I needed my break! :) I don't think that reflects on the module, actually, but more was a chance bit of timing--I'm prone to the impulsive and compulsive whims, and when the Wii bug hit, there was no resisting it until I got my fill. It also didn't help that we had relatives visiting for a week, and they stay in the computer room...

The good news is that there are a ton of new modules out to play! Here's my rough gaming schedule as of right now:

1. Finish Night Howls in Nestlehaven ~2 hrs left(?)
2. A Corpse, A Vote by Christian Mayr (I may take the Vault review of this one if it's still unclaimed) ~ 3 hrs
3. The Zelbross Affair by seryn ~4 hrs
4. Pool of Radiance Remastered 2 by Markus "Wayne" Schlegel ~6 hrs
5. Dark Avenger by Wyrin ~3 hrs
6. Tomoachan by Enoa4 ~4 hrs
7. Moonshadows, Ch. 1 by Hugie ~10 hrs
8. Conan Chronicles by John McA ~4 hrs
9. Tears of Ilmarid 1 by Hohiro Kurita ~4 hrs
10. Corruption of Kiahoro by human_male ~12 hrs

And then we'll see. :) That alone is ~40 hours of gameplay. Who knows when I'll work in Mask of the Betrayer! And there's still the matter of updating the character creator at some point as well.

As I've been saying for years, so many mods, so little time! But this fortunately means that I'll have lots to write about here in the future. Thanks for hanging in there folks--I've finally got my urge to play back, so I should start being able to produce some of the content I used to be able to do on a more regular basis.

Update: I forgot about Pool of Radiance 2! That's actually a pretty high priority one for me, so I stuck it just ahead of some of the most recent releases.

What's up?

Sorry it's been so quiet over the past week. This post won't help matters much, but just an update on what I've been up to:

• Ordered Wii, did a lot of research on Wii games.
• Rediscovered Final Fantasy Tactics while getting reading to put PS1 into deep storage. PS1 now hooked up to TV again, and I'm playing through that game again. I'll write a review once I'm done--it might, at least, be relevant to those looking forward to playing the version for the PSP. ... I'm almost considering buying the PSP just so I could play Tactics on the bus. I just love that game.
• Received Wii on Friday, threw out my arm playing Wii Sports, and am now having nightly battles across minigames in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz with the wife. Great fun.

I swear I'll get back to Nestlehaven and all the rest of my Neverwinter "duties" shortly. But I might need to take another week or so off before I get the urge to return to D&D land again. This happens probably twice a year, and I always come back refreshed and rearing to go. Hope ya'll will bear with me in the meantime while I get my console kicks in. :)

A little linkage...

I did a bit of work on the blogroll links tonight. If someone hadn't posted in six months, I removed their blog. There was also one case in which a blog was declared closed, so that was removed as well. If folks want to be re-added, I'm happy to do so, just let me know.

I also have added a few new entries to the list over the past few months, and I thought I'd highlight them briefly:

• Amraphael, who is working on a conversion of ZORK to NWN2. His thread on the official boards even has Rob McGinnis excited. :)
• Andurga, who is working on an FR module called Thayvian Nights. It deals with Thay (surprise!), and promises a "large and intricate plot full of twists and turns."
  
• Inder, who is working on another FR module called Shadows of the Past. It is set in the Silver Marches, and has your character running as a fugitive from the law.
• Lorft, who authored the Obsidian contest module Cry Wolf, is working on a module called Planescape: Legacy. Anything set in planescape is immediately at the top of my radar, of course, so I follow this one with great interest.
• Storyteller2007, who is working on a module called Through the Looking Glass - An Unjust War. The module seems to be in its very early stages, but might be interesting.
  
• Wyrin D'njargo, already author of three modules for NWN2, and has just released an alpha of the first chapter of his next module series, Dark Avenger.

Do give all of these blogs a look when you get a chance. :)

Are NWN1/2 blogs good things for the community?

I had the great opportunity to be interviewed at NWVault this past week, and the result was just published. One of the questions got me thinking. Here it is, along with my response:

10) You’ve recently started a NWN blog, where you post your own observations of modules you’ve played, links to other builders, and important news items. How important do you feel this type of communication is to the community?

You know, I'm not sure. I started the blog to give myself a home base for my activities in the community. I'm really happy with what it's become, both in terms of the content I've been able to release and the reception it has gotten from the community. ...snip...I think, for example, that it serves as a good source for concise nwn2 module reviews and comments. The blog also gives me the chance to draw attention to other people's work, be they creators of modules, UI mods, scripts, art, or other custom content, and comment about current community news. From time to time, there have even been good discussions among myself and my readers in the blog comments. And I have a terrific time writing for it--it's a great outlet.

But whether that means a net positive for the community is another question. Some (though not all) of the posts I make on the blog would otherwise probably have been made in the NWN2 Modules forums, which gets more traffic than I could ever hope or deserve to have. And I've been far less active in the forums in general since I started the blog, be it answering questions, musing about what makes a great module, or getting involved in some larger project to promote modules. So one could make a legitimate argument that the community would be better off if I ditched the blog and focused my energy on interacting with people in the forums (that's assuming that the community benefits when I'm around--might not be a good assumption!).

Personally, I really enjoy reading the various developer and player blogs that have popped up around the community in the past year or so. They allow me to keep in better touch with some of my online friends than I was able to before, and learn about cool upcoming projects. Furthermore, I think the posts on these blogs tend to be more thoughtful, insightful, and provocative than what you typically see in the forums. So again, for me personally, I think they're great. But I do wonder if they're perhaps partially to blame for the somewhat fragmented state of the current NWN2 community, at least compared to the NWN1 community that I knew back in 2004-2005.

I guess what I'm wondering is what you folks think about this question? Are blogs a good thing for the community? Or do they result in less interaction, more community fragmentation, etc?

To be clear, I'm not considering shutting down, even if we decide that they are net negatives for the community. I enjoy doing this too much to give it up for some noble cause like supporting the community. But I am curious. -B

I'm up and running!

NWN2 is finally up and running. I had some trouble getting it to re-install. Kept running into read errors or something as the dvd drive was trying to switch between different files during during the installation. I don't know if the problem was the dvd (it looks clean and undamaged) or my dvd drive. But I managed to rip a dvd image, mount it onto a virtual drive, and install from there. I have to have the actual DVD in the real drive to run the game (thanks SecuRom), but at least it finally worked. I'll deal with any additional hardware issues later, 'cause I wanna play a game for once.

Which means I was able to spend some time playing Dark Waters. It's a really interesting module. About as light in the combat department as you can get, and the puzzles have (mostly) been a lot of fun. I still am really enjoying the voice acting, and I got reasonably far into the module tonight. The two main companions are extremely well done, and tonight I finished a sequence involving conversations with an odd chap--the voice acting really brought it to life. Overall, I'm very impressed. I think what I've learned from this is a) voice acting can actually be done well by the community, and be a great strength of a module, and b) that one should focus on the good talent and just leave the other lines silent.

So far, so good.

The replacement hard drive arrived today, and this evening I've managed to install windows xp, update to service pack 2, flash my bios (which I had never done), install various motherboard drivers, install ati's drivers, and finally install mcafee, and firefox. And in just a few minutes, I should have completed copying all files from my temporary 40gb drive to my "new" (well, refurbished, but whatever) drive.

Feels good. I love using computers with fresh installs of windows on them. A month from now, it'll start getting gummed up with crap again, but right now everything feels fresh. Looking forward to installing NWN2 tomorrow night, at which point I'm going to download Dark Waters and play through it. And after that, I'm going to play Keep at the Borderlands. And after that, the contest entries. ;)

I'm excited to get back to playing games again...been well over a week since I've had any gaming fun. :(

Hard drive update

Tonight I was able to install windows on an old 40 gb hard drive that I had laying around (it used to be in my tivo box before I hacked it and put in a 60 gb instead), start the computer, and copy off all important files. So that's a relief.

I then downloaded Western Digital's diagnostic program and had it run the quick scan on my drive...and the drive promptly failed. Fortunately, Western Digital seems to have an outstanding RMA system. I didn't even have to call them or jump through any hoops. I just filled out the RMA request form with a brief justification and (if I'm understand this right) they're going to send a new drive out to me--holding my credit card for collateral of course. My only obligation will be to send back my defective drive within 30 days...I might have to pay for shipping, but maybe not, I'm unclear on that.

I'm hopeful that the new drive will be here by next week, which would mean that I'd have time to get back up and running before the contest modules start pouring in at the end of the month.
It's still kind of a shame though. I had just started playing Dark Waters and was really enjoying it. I can see why there have been complaints about the lengthy cutscenes at the start, but I actually enjoyed them--and most surprisingly of all, with one painful exception (which I think is Adam Miller's mom), I found the voice acting to be pretty darn good--especially that of the two major companions, Heather and Daniel. I agree with Maerduin that bad voice acting can kill a module, but so far, so good. The story also is really interesting and potentially really deep.

But, I have saved my saved games (and, in fact, everything /mydocuments/neverwinternights2), so everything should be there when I return. In the meantime, I'll probably occupy myself with my other hobbies, as I don't want to clutter up my new windows install with graphics drivers and such--I want it to be crisp and clean so that it'll be ready to go the next time I have a problem like this.

Update: The replacement has already shipped. Truly impressive service. It's UPS ground, so it should arrive mid-late next week (the tracking number isn't visible yet).

Hard drive...

As I type this on my laptop, I'm running chkdsk on my desktop's hard drive. This evening I couldn't get it to boot, and it's been acting strangely the past few days, and giving errors that now (in hindsight) seem like they could be the result of my hard drive dying.

So far, the drive seems to be scanning ok (got here by booting with my windows cd and getting to the command line), and if nothing is picked up I think there's a slight chance that removing my sound card might help matters. But if not, I'll probably need a new hard drive.

I hate it when my computer goes down. Hopefully the drive isn't actually damaged, or at least not so much that I won't be able to get any information off of it. If everything is unrecoverable, I don't think there's too much critical info on here, though I'd probably lose my work on the frwcc since the last release. I think i could recreate that in a few days of effort, but it'd still be a shame as it's looking pretty snazzy right now. The biggest loss, though, would be some baseball research I've put together over the past few months, mostly in the form of excel files. It's all reconstructable, but I'd spent a lot of time on it to get it where it is.

::sigh:: We'll see. I hate this feeling.

Advertising

Based on the advice and encouragement of my wif...er...marketing team, I've decided to give this advertising thing a go.

Please let me know if they get annoying, slow down the blog's load times (a major concern of mine), or otherwise become irritating. If it impairs your experience in reading this blog in any way, I want to know about it--I'm not in this to make any kind of profit. But if I can help pay for the occasional premium module, expansion pack, or whatever Obsidian releases in the coming months, it might be worth doing.

I'll do my best to avoid cluttering up the blog too much, and will try to only include ads for things that you folks might be interested in (or, at least, not annoyed by). For example, I'm trying to block ads for things like "Thermoelectric Modules," which I doubt are of much interest to you folks. :)

Eulogy: a gamer and his keyboard

My keyboard died last night.

One minute I was sitting down to write the last bit of dialog for my character creator... The next minute, spaces were being added at random, characters were mapping onto the wrong keys, and my computer tower was screaming at me with a torrent of beeps. I blew it out with an air can, turned off everything, tried again. No avail. I let it sit unplugged until the morning and tried again, but there was no hope. My keyboard was dead.

This keyboard and I, we had a good time together. We came to be together shortly after my arrival here in Arizona, my previous keyboard having been the terrible victim of some poor packing decisions (truth be told, she was already on her way out before we took that cross-country drive...). Thinking back on it, I remember how excited I was to have a keyboard with securely-connected backspace key once again.

And what fun we had. Together, we fulfilled our promise as the spawn of Bhaal. We defeated Diablo and his brothers. We explored an alien world in Anarchy. We set out to conquer the galaxy and wrest it from the clutches of the evil empire. We were an evil genius, bent on global domination. We rescued Neverwinter from an elven maiden driven mad by love, learned the secrets of Undrentide, explored the Underdark, and ultimately even conqured death. And, of course, we saved the universe countless times over again thanks to the Neverwinter Nights community.

I'll miss that keyboard.

But today, I have a new partner. We're still in that "getting to know you" phase, so things are still a bit awkward. But, with time, I think we'll be able to do great things. Wish us luck. :)

Tour of Melvaunt

Maerduin has posted a "Tour of Melvaunt" at the project blog for his upcoming module, Mysteries of the Moonsea. Maerduin is clearly an excellent artist, and it shows in these screenshots. I'm particularly excited about his use of scaling to produce the Temple of Lovitar in that first shot--very imposing. Furthermore, the design of his city also sounds excellent from the description, with a number of interesting-sounding locations. This module continues to be high on my list of modules to watch.

---

I finally revised my NWN2 OC review last night, and it looks to be just about ready to publish. We're just waiting on one last person to get his up in our guild preview forums, and then we'll be able to push our team set of reviews live on the Vault. ... Certainly it'll be a bit late in the game, but I think they'll be worth reading.

I'm also going to try to tear through the initial release of my little character creation module before I invest time in Tragedy in Tragidor. I think I can have a working version done by the end of this weekend, if not sooner. I'll then make it available as a beta through my google space and see if the FRWeave folks want to endorse it before pushing further. I'll post a link to it here as well.

But while it's out for evaluation, I'll use it to create my character for Tragidor and get going in that module. :) If the character creation module will be a FRWeave product, then I'll be able to incoporate something from Tragidor in the release on the Vault. :)

Leaving Town for 10 Days

I'll be out of town starting tomorrow and won't return until January 1st. While I'm looking forward to visiting with family and re-introducing our daughter to her grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I'm going to be a little bummed to be out of touch from the NWN community during this time. With so many people having the coming week off, we may see some interesting releases during that time -- though I'd expect most will be after January 1st.

Leading the way of impending releases is Tragedy in Tragidor by Phoenixus. I'm very interested in this release -- its NWN1 version was (so I hear) the very first module to be elected to the NWN1 hall of fame, and still is remembered by many of the older players (lebowski/furnaski in particular) as among the all-time greats in terms of the depth of its atmosphere and setting. Nevertheless, partially because I didn't enter the community until mid-2004, I never got a chance to play it. It also, reportedly, is now fairly badly broken due to patches. Therefore, I'm looking forward to playing this module in its NWN2 glory when I return from vacation--based on what I'm reading while lurking in his beta test thread at the Citadel, it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

As a preview for the upcoming release, here's an interview (dated 24 August 2002) of Phoenixus on the original module, his building philosophies, etc. Here was his synopsis of the plot and setting of the module:

Actually Tragidor takes place in the Forgotten Realms in the Silver Marches. The town itself is made up, and no it doesn't have a relation to Terrible Trouble in Tragidore the module. It's northeast of Silverymoon on a backroad that slowly winds itself into an S shape and turns back upon itself before taking you to Sundabar.

The module is about the final days of this town and the forgotten heroism of its own people on the Savage Frontier. You too are a hero, but you are only one of many. You eventually will see that not all heroes are adventurers. Sometimes they are just common people.

It was intended to portray that these people have hard lives, that are sometimes brutal and harsh, and don't always end happy. But they have courage and they have heart. More importantly, they are people, just like you and me.

Sounds wonderful. Can't wait to play! :)

First Google Hit

I got my first hit from a Google today, a sure sign that I'm hitting it big. :) The keywords?

rogue dao studios nwn2 planescape

This can hardly be a surprise, because Rogue Dao Studios' Planescape series has to be considered among the two most eagerly anticipated upcoming community releases, along with Adam Miller's Dark Waters.

I have to admit, I was a skeptic when I first saw their announcement last September. Rogue Dao seemed, at first, to be a pale emulation of Ossian Studios, who were making a huge splash at the time with their recent release of Darkness over Daggerford. They seemed perhaps overly confident, and were throwing out very aggressive timelines along with bold claims about their upcoming product. Furthermore, as a group that originated, in part, as a NWN1 Persistent World team, I had doubts about whether they'd recognize what it really takes to make a quality single player module -- narrative, writing, etc. It's not just about custom content and the combat balanced, after all.

Since their annoucement, however, Rogue Dao has done nothing but build their reputation as a productive and quality community group. From the looks of their recently released trailer, they seem to be making great progress -- in precisely the right areas -- on their first module. Their forums are very active, and include a series of "developer journals " by everyone involved in their project, tutorials, and general discussion of modding and design--and that's just their public forums! Clearly, a lot of good work is going on.

I can't judge the module before its release, of course, but Rogue Dao seem very organized and rich with talent. And, of course,they have the advantage of working on a module in Sigil, which was an underutilized setting among NWN1 modules -- even given the custom content challenges that would be necessary to bring it to life..

Welcome

Hi folks,

I decided to start this blog to have a central place for my NWN-related activities on the web. I plan for this blog to focus primarily on two topics: comments on NWN2 community-made modules, as well as my opinions on news in the community. Also, at this time, I'm in the very, very, very early stages of developing my own short module. If I ever get to the point that I'm prepared to commit myself to that project, I'll break news of it here. :)

This blog might be updated frequently, or it might be something where we'll go months between posts. We'll see how it goes!