New Module of the Year voting totals

Maximus has created a page where you can view the new 2006 Neverwinter Nights Module of the Year voting results. This new round is more secure because in order to participate you had to have a Vault account prior to the start of voting, and you can only vote once. There still are some oddities in terms of how votes for particular modules are clustered, but my guess is that most of that is due to chance (i.e. lots of clustered voting for Dance with Rogues and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, but when you receive lots of votes, they will probably cluster together now and then).

The results--and I have to say that this is a relief to me--are very consistent with those from the first round. Here are the front runners as of right now:

1. A Dance with Rogues (139 votes) -- it seems to be the legitimate winner. Bravo to Valine.
2. Darkness over Daggerford (67 votes) -- I voted for this one because of its unparalleled impact on the community. Hype aside, it's a very deserving module in its own right.
3. Exile of the West (46 votes) -- Fabien Cerutti's module, which seemed to be among the modules supported by voter fraud, is genuinely popular. According to QSW, it is fantastic.
4. Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (45 votes) -- The last and best premium module, and the most significant product released by the high profile DLA modding group.
5. The Fall of Aielund, Pt. 2 (32 votes) -- While I wasn't as impressed with this particular chapter, Savant's Aielund series is one of the great accomplishments in NWN1.
6. The Rose of Eternity II - Cry of the Beloved (31 votes) -- Vote inflation or not, Challseus's hugely successful module trails only SubBassman's Tortured Hearts II in the top module rankings.
   
7. Almraiven (25 votes) -- A highly original and innovative module. While Hugie's Tale of a Mage series features the best action for a spellcaster, this module features the best spellcaster roleplaying I've seen since Bone Kenning.
8. Prophet - Chapter I - By the Will of Kings and Mortals (22 votes) -- By all accounts a brilliant roleplaying module.

It will be interesting to see how things shake down in the time that remains for voting. Congrats and kudos to all authors who have modules involved in the competition. We all really appreciate your efforts!!

State of NWN2

Alazander has a great post over on his blog about the current state of productivity of the Neverwinter Nights 2 modding scene. He notes that productivity is down--substantially--compared to where it was for NWN1 at this point in time. The list of high-quality modules that were out 5 months post-release of nwn1 is a bit staggering compared to what we have now.

I can think of three explanations for why this might be:

• The toolset is harder to use. Honestly, I think these claims are far overstated, as my experiences with the toolset have been largely positive. It does take longer to do some things--especially rough out basic areas--but other things, like writing conversations and scripting (especially when swapping between windows like I like to do) goes much faster in my experience. But there's no question that a module involving a lot of area construction will probably take longer to make in NWN2 than NWN1.
• Several prominent and productive builders from nwn1 have been gobbled up by groups like Ossian Studios, Rogue Dao Studios, and DLA. Some of these individuals might have released modules for NWN2 by now had they not had other distractions.
  
• Finally, and by my estimation, probably the most important factor, is that builders have a choice of platforms now whereas they had little or no choice when nwn1 was released. NWN1 is still a great game to design modules for, even as the player base is shrinking. There are a bunch of builders for nwn1 who have yet to switch over, either because they are in the middle of projects, or because nwn2 won't do some things that nwn1 can do already. Or, because they're comfortable with nwn1 and don't feel like changing.

I still have every bit of confidence that nwn2 will continue to grow and flourish as a community. But I am a bit, well, disappointed is too strong of a word, but I will say surprised, at the sparse number of modules that have been released thus far. At two months, it was understandable not to see much out there. But at 5 months, we certainly could have seen some progress by now. Still, when you look at Hugie's thread on all that is currently in the works, it's very hard to be pessimistic for long. There's a lot of great stuff to look forward to. :)

---

In the meantime, I'm sort of on a break from NWN2. I didn't mean for it to happen, and I doubt that it will last long. But baseball season has begun, and as usual, I'm feeling a great draw towards my Cincinnati Reds (following and writing about them is my other hobby). I've also been playing a bit of Galactic Civilizations II, as well as the recently released Out of the Park Baseball 2007. But I'll still be around and keeping tabs on things--and I intend to keep updating this blog whenever I have something to say. :)

Update: Maerduin, who is one of the new breed of nwn2 builders, posted his take on this issue on his blog. An excerpt:

What are we builders supposed to do? Keep building, and, at those times when building has gotten the better of us, talking to each other and making our conversations visible. Keeping discussion about the game alive is vital, which is part of the reason I think blogging about mods is a good thing (the other reason is that it is psychologically motivating for builders).

New art from Rogue Dao

I just wanted to highlight this amazing digital painting by Vaei of Rogue Dao Studios that appeared on the Vault yesterday. It depicts The Hive, which consistutes the slums of Sigil, the City of Doors. Absolutely spectacular work.
The news feature for this item also mentions a new release date for Purgatorio, June 2007. This is not surprising given the apparent size and scope of their module, though I admit I had hoped it might come sooner--simply because it looks like it will be so much fun to play. :) All in good time though.

The MoY voting controversy

First, let me gasp for air for a second here. I finally got a draft of a major manuscript done and sent around to my coauthors today at work, which means I'm hopefully going to be able to least regain part of my evenings for hobbies. I do hope to get back to playing modules, though I also need to get my FRWCC update out sometime as well. I'm at one of those points where I'm behind in EVERYTHING I want to be doing or should be doing in my life. You'd think I'd be current on one thing, eh?

Anyway, the big news of the past week, of course, is that vote rigging was affecting the original voting for module of the year. It seems likely that this was mostly associated with Fabien Cerutti's Exile of the West--which is by all accounts a very fine module, but somehow was posting the second highest vote totals of the year. I'm also a bit suspicious of A Dance With Rogues (I posted about this a few weeks back on the forums)--again, not because it's not deserving, but because I didn't think the fanbase of that module would be so large to outpace more well-known modules like Daggerford or Wyvern's Crown.

Maximus has restarted the voting, and it sounds like it's being done properly this time--each person has one vote. As I mentioned earlier, I'm voting for Daggerford. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how things turn out in this new, more honest round of voting. Maybe A Dance With Rogues will carry the day once again! :)

Another day, another bug

Well, I didn't get much done tonight.

I spent about two hours working on the character creator tonight. It wasn't terribly productive, though at least I learned something.

I spent a little bit of time polishing off the scripts for the altar (thanks Hugie!), did a couple other touch-up things, and then decided to put together the library. It came together fairly quickly thanks to Cleitanious's Prefabs. After setting up a nice little reading area and placing some of Maerduin's books, I then went in game to test it out.

It's a simple thing to add an inventory to an item, right? First, you make the item non-static and useable. You make sure the "Has Inventory" flag is on, and then open up the inventory and drop in your items. But for some reason, no matter what I did, while the objects would "light up" in-game, my character wouldn't move to them and I could not access their inventory.

After fiddling for a while in the toolset (with many tests in-game) to no avail, I did some searching on the forums. Thankfully, in my second search, I found this thread, which contained a very helpful post by ddaedelus. Apparently, as I was assembling the library, I converted everything to an environmental object (which I find to be a good practice), and then converted back items I wanted to have inventories. It turns out that when you do this, the HP of the item is set to zero, which messes up any onopen scripts (and inventories) associated with the object. Adding 1 HP to the item fixed the problem, and now I have a fully-functional library.

One other oddity... file size for my module dropped from ~11 mb to ~5 mb when I upgraded to 1.04. I have no idea why that might be, but I've tested the whole thing and can't find any errors or signs of corruption. Go figure.

Still to do for the next release: add an NPC from Pool of Radiance to the bar, set up the area transition between the bar and the basement, do a final bit of decorating in the basement (maybe add blacksmith and alchemy stations?), and *maybe* add some sitable chairs in the bar and basement (assuming I can figure out these scripts). My guess is two-three nights of work before it's ready.

Subtlety of Thay, part 1, enters beta

Dirtywick, the builder behind the upcoming Forgotten Realms Weave module, the Subtlety of Thay, has begun a private beta for the first half of his module. He will be releasing both halves at the same time, so the Vault release is still a long way off, but I wanted to send a little bit of buzz his way. Here's an excerpt from his page on the FRW Wiki:

The Subtlety of Thay is a campaign set in Aglarond, eventually leading into Thay and the lands of the Red Wizards. It is planned to come in three parts. The first part is in progress, and is planned to take a player from 3rd level to 7th - 9th level. It's going to be dialogue heavy, featuring dialogue only quests for charisma/skill classes, and light hack and slash combat that falls more on the tactical side than anything else. Nearly every encounter is scripted and tailored to the enemy/surroundings.

I had the opportunity to check out his beta for a few hours last night, and I was very impressed. Dirtywick has a good knack for narrative, and what I've seen of the story thus far is engaging and interesting. I took a few screenies, but I'm not going to post those without his permission. The Red Wizards of Thay are one of the more infamous groups in the Forgotten Realms, yet they seemed overlooked as a nemesis in NWN1 modules. I'm excited to see a module coming out that involves them.

You can get the latest information on Dirtywick's activities at any time by visiting his development blog.

Neverwinter Nights Patch 1.05 beta released

Obsidian has released their beta patch of version 1.05. Assuming that means they get out the actual release on April 1 (two weeks), this is their patch schedule thus far:

• Nov 1 - NWN2 in stores, patch 1.01 released.
• Nov 9 - 1.02 patch (more of a hotfix than a real patch)
  
• Dec 4 - 1.03 patch (very significant performance improvements)
  
• Jan 30 - 1.04 patch (mostly user interface issues)
  
• Feb 8 - 1.04 hotfix
  
• April 1 - 1.05 patch (see below)

It looks like Obsidian is on an every-other-month patch schedule at this point, and has been since the monumental 1.03. I'm extremely pleased with their support thus far. There continue to be outstanding issues, particularly in terms of toolset stability, but I'm nonetheless extremely happy with their commitment to keep working and improving the game. As long as they keep up support, NWN2 should continue to be an outstanding platform for our modding community.

I'm probably going to continue to judge all patches on 1.03, because that patch brought both significant performance increases (I got better framerates with full shadows after the patch than I did without shadows before the patch) as well as key user interface improvements (e.g. dual-wielding hotkeys). This one looks to be a bit more modest in terms of changes that will impact me, but there are a few things that catch my eye in the patch notes:

• Many substantial improvements to the AI scripts provided by community member evenflw have been integrated into the game. Additionally, revisions were made to AI to make both friendly and enemy characters be much more intelligent with feat use in combat.

I'll be interested to see how this manifests itself. One of my remaining issues that I encounter regularly has been how NPC's use their abilities in combat. For example, if I leave a low-level bard character alone for a second during combat without queued actions, s/he will immediately start casting countersong whenever you enter combat--even if you're not facing enemy spellcasters. This uses up a precious bard song, and, if you're not using clubok's Bard Songs That Don't Stop Inspirations, it can negate a potentially more important inspiration. I'd like to at least have the ability to make the bard AI stop using songs altogether (turning off "use abilities" and setting spellcasting to "do not cast spells" doesn't help), but even better, I'd like them to more intelligently use their songs. Other problems like this still exist with the companion AI, and I'm hopeful that this patch will help fix those issues.

• There is now an “Advanced Options” button on the Server Options panel. Server Administrators can specify two URLs in this menu: One, intended to point to their server’s homepage, if it has one, and one intended to directly point to the server’s latest PWC file. Players will be able to see these links from the Server Details on the Internet Game browser and clicking them will launch the user’s Browser and direct them to the URL specified.

PWC files are the walkmesh data files that players are required to download in order to play on persistent worlds in nwn2 (this is necessitated by the huge size of the outdoor heightmaps, which make nwn2 so beautiful). This is the first (and long overdue) effort to help improve the process by which players are informed of the need for a PWC file and are aided in downloading it. Ideally this will someday be a bit more of an automated process, but this is a big step in the right direction. ... of course, all this doesn't matter much to me as someone who only plays single player, but the online PW community is an important part of NWN2's long term viability, and this is a key feature that they needed.

• The Grass, Creature Appearance Type, and Creature Soundset lists are now sorted alphabetically.

This is a small thing, but looking through the soundset lists in the toolset has thus far been an extremely arduous process. I'm hopeful that browsing through sounds will continue to get some attention--particularly because a fair number of the available sounds seem to be missing or something (i.e. they don't play when I try to preview them in the toolset).

• Walkmesh Helpers have been added to Placeables/Misc Props. These objects are invisible square objects that can be resized and placed on a map to bake a walkmesh. You can use them to make flat objects walkable that normally are not or would be difficult to bake. Some examples of situations where these would be useful are a long length of repeating bridge pieces or building roofs. To view the Walkmesh Helpers in the Toolset, turn on the display of C2 Collision volumes. There are two versions; each will play a different footstep sound. Special thanks to Zarathustra217 for the original concept and objects.

This one's interesting, because it basically is just incorporating a (hall of fame) hakpack by a community member into the official release of the toolset. :) Go community! It should also prove very useful for builders not already using that hak.

All in all, I don't see many huge changes coming (the AI adjustments being a possible exception, depending on how big the changes turn out to be), but it should be a useful patch. As with 1.04, though, I'll probably hold of on patching until I have to in order to pay a module (for 1.04, it was Stormchaser).

I will just close by pointing out that there remain two major issues that really need to be fixed in 1.06:

• Improve toolset stability. There are still a fair number of users that are encountering corruption to their modules...sometimes in a way that ultimately dooms their work (here's an example). At the very least, some sort of automated backup system would be useful as a temporary workaround as stability problems are repaired (e.g. maintain 5 backups in a subdirectory, creating a new one each time the toolset is opened).
  
• Fix the seams issue in outdoor walkmeshes. This really became a major problem in 1.04, and has yet to be repaired AFAIK (though I haven't seen many complaints about this lately, while folks like Hugie are building tons of exterior areas).
  

Ossian Studios activities...

I've been reading a lot about Ossian Studios' activities lately. Well, that's not really true. I've been reading that a lot of people are involved in Ossian Studios activities lately. I have absolutely no idea what they're up to.

Here's what I do know:

• Alazander, a Hall of Fame author in NWN1 and author of the cancelled premium module AL3: Tyrants of the Moonsea, is a "Lead Designer" for Ossian.
• Hugie, a Hall of Fame author, is a "Writer" for Ossian.
• Challseus, another Hall of Fame author, is a "Technical/Cinematic Designer" for Ossian.
• Tiberius_209, yet another Hall of Fame author, is also apparently involved with them.
  

And presumably, given their somewhat conspicuous absence, these folks are working with others from the original Ossian team that produced Daggerford, which included folks like Luspr, codepoetz, MadWombat, Lady Oonagh, and Lord Alex (all Hall of Fame authors).

There are a variety of things that they could be working on. On the surface, a premium module of some sort for nwn2 seems the most likely. I suppose it's also possible that they are somehow involved in the expansion...though to be honest, I'm hoping it's the former, as that would mean more content for us in the near future--but obviously I'll be happy with whatever we end up getting. :)

Edit: On a related note, I decided to vote for Darkness over Daggerford as Module of the Year. While it wasn't perfect, it was revolutionary in terms of the exploratory gameplay it offered. Furthermore, its release was such an enormous event for the community. Download totals were staggering, as were the number of comments spilling over into the NWN Modules forums. It even seemed to increase the number of downloads on OTHER modules. No other module created that sort of buzz or excitement in our community last year. So for all those reasons, I think Daggerford should be recognized as the most important module of 2006.

Finally back to work on FRWCC

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I finally squeezed in a few hours of work on the character creator tonight. My primary focus was to write and script the alignment-shifting altar. I have to say, I'm amazed at how easily it came together. I have almost no clue what I'm doing in that scripting editor, but I somehow managed to get it working tonight. My jaw literally dropped when everything seemed to be working as planned...on the first try, no less!

Right now, the sequence is:
1. Activate conversation on the altar by clicking on it.
2. If you don't have 10% of your total worth (gold + item value) in gold, you're forced to walk away.
3. If you do have 10% of your net worth in gold, you can pray to gods of any of the four alignment directions (good, evil, law, chaos) and give the 10% of your total worth in exchange for a 10-point alignment shift in that direction.

Everything seems to be basically complete except that I'd like to add some sort of visual effect when the alignment shift happens, and I haven't figured out how to do that yet. I think it'll just be a small addition to the script, but I'll have to do some snooping to figure out how to attach a single-fire visual effect (I'm thinking "fx_bard_ins_song_cast") to a character. I did that sort of thing once before when I was working on a nwn1 module, but I think I was using Gestalt's cutscene scripts at the time and therefore had prepackaged visual effect invocation scripts. Shouldn't be too difficult a thing to do though.

Big news may be coming.

As pointed out by Lariam on the NWN2 Modules forums, two intriguing and possibly-connected pieces of news were released by Obsidian over the last few days.

First was an interview of Obsidian guru Chris Avellone by Neverwinter Nights Chronicles. Here's the question by the NNC community, along with Chris's response:

NNC: You'll be asked this much times before but will the next expansion be set
in the Neverwinter lands and the North? Or maybe we'll travel again trhough
the planes? You'll be in charge for the future expansions, isn't it? (I
hope it so and I'd truly love a gothic story as Planescape)

C.Avellone: Can't comment on this at this time, unfortunately, but you should be hearing an announcement soon. ;)

We've definitely heard news that they're working on content before, but this would seem to be the fairly clear statement that news of an expansion is forthcoming.

Further stoking the fire is this post by Rob McGinnis on the Obsidian General Forums:

So, we have been receiving some e-mails about wanting a contest. We have talked about it a bit here and think it could be a lot of fun.

Basically, it will be a module building contest.

More information will be coming soon, as we get closer to April. Basically, you will have a limited amount of time to build something... that something will have a theme... and Obsidian (probably) will decide the winner.

Prizes will, of course, be given.

Stay tuned for more details.

The reason that this latter news is so interesting is that there was a contest leading up to the release of the second expansion for NWN1, Hordes of the Underdark. In that contest, community members were challenged to build modules that "bridged the gap" between SoU, which ended around character level 12, and HotU, which began at level 15. Lariam's idea is that, perhaps, this upcoming contest will be associated with the upcoming expansion for nwn2. :)

Of course, these two pieces of info could be completely unrelated. It is hard to see how a community module project could play a "bridge"-like role with the upcoming expansion, as the official campaign ends at level 20, while the expansion's campaign seems likely to start right at level 20 and allow epic-level adventures. Perhaps the best that could be done would be to flesh out an NPC's backstory or the story of some event related to the completion of the official campaign.

Nevertheless, even if it has nothing to do with the expansion, this contest is good news. It might serve to help builders focus for a short time on getting some good quality, short modules out into the community. A lot of builders are working on projects right now, but many involve very large projects that will take upwards of a year to complete. There have absolutely been some notable releases, but a surge of short, high quality modules that might be produced under an Obsidian-sponsored contest could be a great thing for our hungry little community. And it would serve as fantastic feedback for builders who are working on larger nwn2 projects. We'll be watching this one. :)

Stormchaser

Here are my comments on FalloutBoy's Stormchaser, which was a delightful module to play over a couple of evenings.

My Vote: 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone
Character: Female human bard/fighter, started lv. 1 and ended lv. 3.

I think this is one of of the top three modules available on the vault right now. I found it to have a very polished feel (in spite of a few bugs), with good scripting, a focused story, amazing visuals, and challenging combat. It is basically a linear module, though there are a few minor (but fun!) sidequests to help keep things interesting. This, along with good story execution, helped avoid any feeling of being railroaded. Cutscenes were very well done, and the visuals -- particularly the coastal and island villages--were spectacular. There is also a surprise "dungeon"-like area later in the module that showed off novel use of height maps, and, of course, the first implementation of controllable ships that I've seen in nwn2. Roleplaying is reasonably well-implemented, particularly in the latter two thirds of the module, with good use of skill checks (with consequences!) and a few cosmetic choices that offer good roleplay opportunities.

My critiques are minor. I think that a few more dialog options would have been nice --especially new threads allowing you to talk to NPC's as you learn things from other NPC's. I'll provide a few of those suggestions in comments to the author. Also, given that this is the first chapter in a series, I was surprised to see that the player character is not exported automatically, nor is the player given a chance to do this near the module end. This could create problems when players go to play the next module in the series. There is also a place where monster respawning occurs at a fairly high rate. I wasn't crazy about this, but I understand the author's reasoning behind this design decision.

Overall, a really excellent module and one that is well worth playing. It's great to see high-quality content like this coming out after the initial surge of Tragidor & Pool of Radiance in January. Congrats on a great module, and good luck in your future efforts! -B

Hugie is on vacation--hold on tight

Apologies for the lack of updates lately, but things have been a bit busy in real life.

Tonight I noticed this post by Hugie on his blo...er...blarg:

First of all, I'm excited because I'm ON VACATION!!1!11!!!1! (for two weeks).

Hugie was among the most prolific builders over the last few years for NWN1, so the fact that he has two weeks to dedicate to NWN2 is wonderful news--especially if he can put it toward a module to be released to the public, as opposed to some sketchy "secret project" of some sort. :P

What makes this particularly interesting is that news came a few days ago that his first NWN2 module, The Star Mounts, has been expanded in design to be more epic and dramatic in scope. It now sports a new name, Moonshadows, and looks like it will be a heck of an adventure. An excerpt from his module description:

So, to sum things up, Moonshadows is an epic-length story-driven adventure set in the Forgotten Realms for low-mid level characters, with emphasis placed on story and great attention devoted to atmosphere, varied sidequests, and well-balanced, realistic combat. The player will visit a tremendously wide array of locales, from gloomy forests and towering mountains to ancient crypts and forgotten ruins. The player will engage in time travel and planar travel as they are caught up in a plot involving the Gods and artifacts of great power, all in a storyline rooted deeply in Forgotten Realms canon--I did my research. ;) Is it ambitious? Uh, is the sky blue? Jokes aside, I think I've come up with a story worth telling, and I intend on making this a reality. I had six modules for NWN1, but I anticipate only having one for NWN2...and Moonshadows will be that one.

It will be interesting to see how this progresses. The claim that Hugie will only build one module for NWN2 is something that I'm a bit skeptical about, but even if it is true, I expect this will be a good thing. His work in NWN1 gave him a lot of experience in both module design as well as fantasy writing, and this should prepare him well to create an epic adventure for NWN2. I'm somewhat hopeful that he'll be able to release it in episodes, which would allow us to play along as he builds to some degree (and give Hugie encouragement to keep going), but obviously some stories aren't suited for that. Definitely one to watch.

2006 NWN1 Mod of the Year Voting - Day 1

As of right now, here are the voting leaders for 2006 Neverwinter Nights Mod of the Year:

1. A Dance with Rogues, Part One and Two by Valine - 46 votes
2. Darkness Over Daggerford by Ossian Studios - 29 votes
3. Rose of Eternity, Chapter 2 by Challseus - 20 votes
4. Wyvern Crown of Cormyr by Bioware/DLA - 16 votes
T-5. Almraiven by Fester Pot - 11 votes
T-5. The Fall of Aielund, Pt. 2 by Savant and BlackDiamond - 11 votes

I'm somewhat surprised to see A Dance with Rogues at the top of the list, but I'm not shocked; those modules have had a near-fanatic following in the forums. ...It does happen to be the first on the list of votable modules, which could potentially translate into more thoughtless votes than other modules. Past contests, however, have been pretty reliable in choosing outstanding modules (2005=Hex Coda, 2004=Demon, 2003=Dreamcatcher, 2002=Lone Wolf) so it's probably not that important of a factor.

I've played four of the above modules. I commented on #2, 4, and 5 in a prior post. But while I'd overlooked it earlier, it turns out that I also played Fall of Aielund, Pt. 2 last June. Here's an excerpt from my comments (I voted 8.5 on the nwn1 voting scale, such that it is...I probably would have voted a 6 or 7 on the nwn2 scale):

As is evidenced by my vote, I felt it was something of a mixed bag. There were some great moments, most notably some thrilling large-scale (for nwn) battles that are nicely scattered throughout the module. ... The story overall is also quite good and was very interesting, and this looks to remain the case going into the third part of act 4. ... But I also felt that in some ways this module fell short of the prior mods in the series. It was completely linear...Some areas just felt like filler to prolong the module and keep you from getting right to the end. ... Even most of the dialogs are linear, with dialog options being rare...

I'm still uncertain how I'll vote. I think that a module of the year should be a module that truly breaks new ground and sets a new standard for module making. So, based on those criteria, I think it's going to be between the two giants of the past year: Daggerford & Wyvern Crown. Daggerford contained some of the best exploration and feel I've seen since Baldur's Gate 1, whereas Wyvern Crown had a better story, overall, and a number of novel features that players have been after for years--most notably the horses and the jousting.

I will say one other thing...and this is not to denigrate the offerings in the current contest...but none of these modules were quite as good, at least in my opinion, as Hex Coda 01 or Tales of Arterra: The Awakening--the two top finishers of the 2005 MoY contest. 2005 really was an amazing year for NWN1 modding.

I have a few weeks before the voting closes, so I'm going to continue to think on it. :)

Baldur's Gate Demo Released

Last night, drechner and his team released a demo of their remake of the original Baldur's Gate. I haven't given their group much attention thus far because, to be honest, the track record of groups trying to remake Baldur's Gate in NWN is abysmal.

But having followed these folks for several months now, and checking out their demo, I'm starting to feel more optimistic. The demo is probably only going to be fun for folks who played the original game, but being one of those, I really enjoyed it. They did a great job recreating Candlekeep almost exactly as it was in BG1. The characters are all there, along with all the basic delivery quests you're asked to do in the prologue. With a few more features--especially including voice acting from the original game resources--this would probably be more fun to play than the original. :)

Of course, they have a loooong way to go to remake the entire original game. But it looks like they're off to a great start. My only advice for them would be to not rely on recreating every element of the original game--departures are fine, and a reimagining of the original game might result in a better end product in the nwn2 medium--and a game that takes less time to build. For example, while I'd love to have a huge wilderness to explore, I also wouldn't mind it if they cut a few of the less-important areas in favor of a tighter emphasis on the story. But it's their project, of course. :)

The team working on this doesn't have a true website, per se, but they have been posting announcements on their progress in this thread on the NWN2 Modules forum. There is a link in that thread to some additional screenshots.

NWN2 Podcast

I thought I'd give a shout out about the NWN2 Podcast. I've been listening to it now and then as I work on the character creator and other projects the last few weeks, and I've found it to be really enjoyable little show. The two guys who run the show are extremely enthusiastic about the game and are trying to find out as much about it as they can. It's fun to hear from people who like the game as much as I do. ;)

The best feature about their podcasts are their full-length interviews. Here are the interviews I've heard on their show the last few weeks:

• Episode 13 -Michele aka Liso, a fan who organized an IRC chat with Obsidian.
• Episode 14 - Bruce Nielson of OnlineRoleplayer, and also Hall of Fame author for his The Light Reborn series for NWN1 (of which I began the first episode, but never finished).
  
• Episode 15 - Annie Carlson of Obsidian Entertainment, who seems to have designed a lot of the in-game items for the OC, and is now working as an assistant writer on some undisclosed work.
  

While I really enjoyed hearing from Nielson after following his writing the past couple of years, the Carlson interview in the most recent podcast is probably the most interesting for nwn2 fans, because she talked about her role at Obsidian and what they're up to. While the NDA prevented her from releasing much substantive information, she did confirm that they are working on additional content for NWN2 and that it's "super sweet."

I expect that this most likely means that they're working on an expansion pack, which would not be a surprise but is nonetheless great to hear. It will be interesting to see if they allow for epic levels in this expansion pack, or if they'll follow the pattern from nwn1 and hold off on epic levels until a second expansion pack. Give how popular epic levels were in nwn1, my guess is that they'll be here sooner rather than later...

NWVault Hall of Fame induction rate

I should have posted this a few days ago, but didn't have a chance this week. Been very busy, and I haven't gotten much gaming in.

Maximus posted a poll asking folks how many modules should be inducted into the NWVault Hall of Fame each month. My recommendation was that only one be inducted, at least for the time being, whereas we inducted 3 per month in NWN1.

Here's why I'm concerned that 3 might be too many. This is a list of the number of modules released, by month, for nwn2, with scores above 8 and at least 10 votes:

• November (eligible in March) - Vordan's Hero Creator, JEG's Training module.
  
• December (eligible in April) - Pirate Cards, Pool of Radiance Remastered (as alpha).
  
• January (eligible in May) - Tragedy in Tragidor, FRW Character Creator, Asylum: A Bet, A Corpse, Prophecy of Aracas
• February (eligible in April) - None so far (none score above 7 right now, even without the 10-vote cutoff).

Now I still do think (hope?) that the community's productivity will increase over time, but right now, I think it's likely that we'll have months with fewer than 3 modules get inducted simply because there aren't enough that qualify. If the cutoff requirement was dropped down to 7, this would be less of an issue, but per a conversation I had with him, Maximus thinks that for this Hall of Fame, requiring that all modules be "Excellent, Recommended to Anyone" is more likely to result in only the best of the best being inducted--I think this is a good idea.

It's not a huge deal for there to be months with fewer modules inducted per month than is possible. But here are a few potential benefits of reducing the number inducted to one per month:

• More of a chance to showcase an individual module as "April 2006's inductee," for example. It would make the interview that typically accompanies an induction a bit more of a fanfare event, for example. I think this is the most significant benefit.
  
• Making the Hall of Fame would become more of a genuinely terrific accomplishment, as a module will literally have to be the best available candidate in a particular month. The NWN1 Hall of Fame was a good accomplishment, but after several years, a HoF tag wasn't necessarily a mark of outstanding quality any more.
• No anticlimax when we don't get three modules that qualify for the Hall. Hopefully we'll always have at least one or two that do, but we may essentially be using up the entire pool of available modules each month with if we induct three per month--it's potentially "risky."
  

Nevertheless, currently the voting is pretty heavily weighted toward 3/month induction, so I doubt we'll see this change. That's ok, it was worth polling the community. Whatever happens, it's fun to look forward to the first group of inductees....even if they'll likely be training modules. :)

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. :)

2006 NWN1 Module of the Year Award

Maximus has posted an initial list of modules that will be eligible for voting in the 2006 Module of the Year Award. Kudos to Maximus for getting this process going in a timely manner.

I have to say that I'm surprised at how few of these modules I actually managed to play! I usually think of myself as being a fairly prolific module player. But between operating my other blog (massive time investment during baseball season), helping to organize the reform of NWVault's voting system (HUGE time suck scattered across several months), taking a leadership role in the Overlooked Module Project (from which I've now stepped down), and, of course, switching exclusively over to NWN2's OC/modules from November onward, I didn't play many modules (oh yeah, I guess I also had a baby, which affected my play time). In fact, it looks like most of the ones I did play were those that I reviewed for the Vault!

Here are the ones I did play:

• AL3: Tyrants of the Moonsea - Great, well-developed characters and nice visuals, along with a good story--though unfortunately (due to its cancellation as a premium module) a fairly truncated ending that prevented it from being what it could have been. My review.
  
• Darkness Over Daggerford - Stunningly beautiful, with genuinely revolutionary gameplay that enabled exploration to an extent unmatched by any module or D&D game since BG1. The story was good, though unfortunately there were some execution problems that hampered the plot in places. My review.
• The Island - A short, visually stunning, and entertaining little module for epic-level characters. I played a version prior to the major reworking of the ending, which should have addressed most of the issues I encountered with it.
  
• Wyvern Crown of Cormyr - A good story with very well-balanced, challenging combat to go along with great visuals and many new systems, especially the horses and jousting. My review.
  

And that's it. I'm sure I played a few other modules, but they didn't make the list.

I also wanted to comment on some of the other contestants, as I'd still like to play them (or at least finish them):

• Almraiven - I actually put about 8 hours into this module and found that it bordered on brilliant. Very open-ended gameplay in an interesting, albeit confusing, city filled with fascinating NPC's. Includes a custom city tileset by the module's author as well as a bunch of novel mage-specific features. I stopped playing to get one of my reviews done (see above) and somehow never continued it. I still have my saved game though.
  
• Art of Death: Back in Black - By some accounts this is my pal Hugie's finest module, and even, if I recall, might include an easter egg area with me as an NPC. :) Has been on my playlist since it came out, and yet somehow never got played. Bah.
• Rose of Eternity, Chapter 2: Cry of the Beloved - While the initial release of chapter 1 in this series by Challseus had some problems in terms of its dialog, it nevertheless was a groundbreaking module due to its unique design--it's basically a console rpg (giant swords and all), realized in NWN1. The second has been the highest rated module on the vault since it's release, and is almost certainly better due to the team of people that Challseus has working for him now.
  
• Saleron's Gambit, Chapter 5 - One of my favorite module series thanks to its interesting design and extreme low-magic, low-gold, low-xp design, I somehow never got around to playing the fifth part in the series.
  

Crikey. Maybe I'll try to finish Almraiven in the coming weekish so that I can include it among those for which I'll vote. So many modules, so little time...

Achaeron's Edge

QSW posted an announcement about this at NWVault, but it looks significant enough to mention here as well. A Half-life modding group has begun work on a NWN2 module called Achaeron's Edge. From their news article, here's the story concept:

You and a few fellow adventurers explore a sealed crypt on the outskirts of town. Unbeknownst to you, the crypt is also the home of a major demon named Carinth.

Rather than destroy you, Carinth throws you through a strange portal you find yourself on a strange, foreign world. In this new world, while trying to find a way back home, you and your groups become the most unlikely of heroes.

I'm always a fan of interplanar-travel modules, so it has promise. It will be interesting to see what a modding group from an action game like Half-life can bring to nwn2 in terms of story and roleplaying, but if nothing else it seems likely that the action should be fun.

It's always great to see new groups getting involved in NWN2 modding!

Pool of Radiance Remastered - Chapter 1

I got a good three evenings of play out of Pool of Radiance ch.1, and it was excellent--I'd rate it just behind Tragidor as the #2 module available right now, and the only reason it's behind is that it's an incomplete tale (which is no surprise, given that it's chapter 1). Here are my comments and vote:

My Vote: 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone

I had a wonderful time playing the first chapter of this module series. It's an exciting low-level adventure that has wonderful atmosphere. The town feels cramped and overcrowded, the people have real personalities and are desperately just trying to scrape by in this new outpost, and the strained, self-serving interactions between the adventurers and the town officials do a great job of conveying the unique circumstances of the setting. Furthermore, while the story is still only just getting started and is straightforward, it is told very well and includes a cool twist or two. This first chapter has just enough to it to make for a satisfying experience, while leaving a lot to look forward to in subsequent installments.

I played an elven bard/fighter (advanced to level 4 by module's end), and while my character was relatively underpowered through most of the module, it proved to be a great choice for the module due to the large parties that I often got to lead. I absolutely loved the mob-like combat that is in this module. It made for fairly chaotic battles, with people running this way and that, and enemies breaking through the front lines at inopportune times--just what you'd expect when you send an untrained group of adventurers into a horde of fairly powerful foes. It got pretty harrowing at times, especially when some of the weaker allies started to get cut down. Overall, I thought combat was very well balanced for my character and offered a great challenge without becoming frustrating or overly repetitive.

All my suggestions for improvement are small little things that I'll state in a separate post. Overall, this is a wonderful contribution to the nwn2 module scene. I'm really looking forward to playing the second chapter! -B

New NWN2 Sites

As he hinted before, Strauss has opened up a new website, this time called nwn2worlds.net. His focus will be on supporting the online and multiplayer communities. What exactly he'll be doing on that front is unclear to me, but I certainly wish him luck. I'm pretty much exclusively interested in single player modules, so I'm not sure how often I'll frequent that site. But I know there are many who are more interested in online activities, and I hope this site serves that part of the community well.

I will say it is a little strange to see him going by "Straus Maximus." I realize that his Bioware handle is (currently...it's changed a lot) Maximillian Strauss. But given Maximus's (meaning Maximus of the Vault) longtime standing in the community, it seems weird to go the route that Strauss has. But whatever.

I also noticed that slowdive_fan has started a blog that frequently covers his nwn2-related activities. For example, in addition to his ongoing progress reports related to his work as a NWN2 builder, he also has talked about other folks' modules, including this recent post which involved developing his own personal rating system. I spent a lot of time writing and thinking about rating systems last year and managed to involve myself with developing the new rating systems for both the public vault voting and the new nwn2 review guild scoring guidelines. It's amazing how many possible systems there are to evaluate modules...though in the end, I think most of them will come to the same end point. :)

It was interesting to see Prophecy of Aracas scoring so highly in his system--I'll have to play that module next. For now, though, it's time I go finish up Pool of Radiance. It offers a heck of a lot more gameplay than the 1 hour that was advertised. :)

Success!

Last night, I reverted back to version 1.0.2 and re-designed the top floor of the Artist's Refuge last night. Converting all placeables to environmental objects resolved the walkmesh issues I was having. As for the shadows, I opted to leave the main light as it was but to disable shadows on some of the objects lining the walls--they wouldn't create much shadow anyway, and this resolved the issue of them casting a shadow behind the wall.

I also added some windows to the upper floor (there was more wall space, and I liked the idea of it being a nice day outside), along with window beam visual effects. It did make the overall lighting in the bar a bit whiter, so it's less of a smoky bar atmosphere...but I think it still works, perhaps better than it did originally. Finally, of course, there is now a staircase that leads down to the basement...and a 'barrelled off" area leading to what will be the top floor of the inn, once I add persistent storage to the module.

I also started work on the basement. I'm going with the mine tileset for now, because I want it to be fairly obvious that it's underground...and something of an auxiliary area. Right now, the stairs open into the training area, through which you can cross to a small library and a small non-denominational chapel. I had an idea about how I might script the combat area today, however, so that it would only require one combat dummy instead of the 5-6 I had planned. The idea would be to initially spawn a low AC dummy, but allow users to select an alternative AC in a conversation and then destroy the old dummy and spawn in a new one via scripting & blueprints. I'll fiddle with it. Anyway, this might mean that the combat area may shrink a bit in favor of the chapel, library, or some other lounging space for players (I want to have sitable chairs at some point as well, at least in a few places around the module).

For tonight, however, I'm going to do some "research" for the character creator and start playing Pool of Radiance, which recently became affiliated with FRW. Wayne released his version 1.1 update today, and I'm itching to play it. I think I'll use a chaotic good elven bard/fighter (need a few extra feats to get two-handed weapon fighting going at low level), as it sounds like that character would fit in well...and I haven't played with bards much aside from that silly Grobnar fellow in the OC.

More bugs -- or are they features?

My evening was consumed with what I thought would be a very simple task -- expanding the top floor of FRWCC's Artists' Refuge Tavern a bit to allow for more NPC's and a down-staircase to enter the basement. ::sigh::

I ran into all kinds of problems. The worst of these had to do with interior walkmeshes. I added a few tiles to lead over to a down staircase, added a few tables and chairs, (thanks to prefabs from the vault for some nice placesettings), and then baked and ran the module...only to discover that I couldn't access any of the new or modified tiles.

It turns out, from reading the forums last night, that interior walkmeshes are very sensitive to having placeables on them. Basically, if there are more than a couple, the tile is essentially just removed from the walkmesh. The solution is convert all placeables to environmental objects and add walkmesh cutter triggers as necessary to keep characters from running through them. Unfortunately, it took me about an hour of getting made at the toolset before I went to look for this help, and by then I was ready for bed.

The other problem I ran into was lighting. I'd read about this before, so it wasn't a surprise, but it turns out that shadows do not get stopped by walls. They'll show up on the walls, but then are cast through them. This is a problem because my chandelier light--the main light in the level--has a huge radius, and thus when I created a back hallway that cuts behind the bar, all the objects just behind the bar will cast shadows into that space, which looks really weird.

To compensate, I tried to reduce the radius of the chandelier and make up for the overall loss of lighting by adding a directional light source to the level. I fiddled with this a lot last night and ultimately completely messed up lighting in the bar to the point that I couldn't stand it.

So, tonight I'm going to start back at version 1.0.2. I'm going to first convert everything that can be converted to an environmental object, after which point I'll re-expand the bar. I think I'll solve the shadows problem by just setting some of the objects to not cast shadows. Might hurt immersion slightly if people are really paying attention, but it should let me get down to working on the basement--and that's going to be the fun part anyway.

Weird bug with item tags/references

I ran into a weird bug tonight that apparently has to do with item tag length and store inventories.

Here's what I did:

• Made a copy of a robe of acid resistance.
• Edited the robe, lowered its resistance to 5/-, and changed all tags (resref, tag, blueprintid, etc) to it_lesserrobeacid.
• Added it to a store. It looked fine in the toolset.
• Entered module and checked the store, only to find that the item was listed as a normal robe of acid resistance, not my lesser acid resistance variant.
• Returned to the toolset. Still looked fine.

Apparently, the issue had to do with the length of the tag strings. When I changed them to it_lrobeacid, it worked fine. Go figure.

Anyway, FRWCC version 1.0.2 is now online at the Vault. I was hoping to get to work on some of the more exciting new features I have planned for that project tonight, but it's high time I get myself to bed. -B

Getting back to the FRWCC

I finished up a project tonight for my other hobby (baseball) tonight, which is something of a relief. It's a small preview article that will be published in an upcoming book, which is pretty cool to be a part of--even if I don't get compensated for it.

I also started working on the FRWCC again (feels like it's been a while), and I should have a minor update (version 1.0.2) ready to go to the vault tomorrow night or so.

I'm then going to start working on v.1.1.0, which will include some substantial improvements:

• Add at least one, and possibly two new NPC's reflecting new additions to the FRW module library.

• Add an equipment checker to crystal. Sum up all gear value and gold and see if it's more than 25% over recommended gold levels. If so, report this to the player. Should help players keep themselves balanced. Obviously this will work best if players sell off their loot before beginning this process.

• Add a basement.

• Add a combat area in basement with dummies that vary in ac: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35. Maybe, if I get really ambitious, I might try to script it to have one dummy with user-settable (via conversation) AC. No idea how to do that right now though.

• Add an altar (& non-denominational mini-chapel) in basement that allows alignment shifts.

• Maybe include a fighter/priest (Tempus?) NPC down there to add some interaction, though I'm not sure if that's needed or will be worthwhile.

• Add library in basement w/ custom "color" or "setting" books from FRW modules (Maerduin sent me a bunch...don't think there were any in Tragidor, but I'm sure other authors might make some in the future and I'd like to feature them).

Regarding the first point, Markus "Wayne" Schlegel has affiliated his module, Pool of Radiance Remastered, with the Weave. Furthermore, it appears that Ian Liew is considering adding his Temple of Torm series as well. Actually, thinking about it, one of the NPC's from the Temple of Torm would be a great pick to hang out down near the altar, and could double as an information provider for that module... :)

Once the 1.0.2 update is done, I'm going to get an advertisement banner together for the vault's front page that incorporates the FRW logo...cause it's so nice, I want to get in on that action. :) Won't hurt to route some more traffic to the Character Creator either.

One Billion Bulbs

Ok, I swear I'm not going to make this blog a soap box for my politics. But I really want to do a brief post about this site: One billion bulbs.com.

Their goal is to encourage individuals to change one billion of their old incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. You can register and document any bulbs you change to aid them in their goal.

Changing an incandescent bulb to a compact fluorescent bulb can result in notable savings to your electric bill, reduce the hassle of routine bulb changes (they last 5-10 times as long as normal incandescent bulbs), and can help lower greenhouse gas emissions. And you don't have to do anything other than unscrew your old bulb and screw in the new one. My wife and I started changing over our bulbs about a year ago, and we've been extremely pleased with the results. I've added a advertisement to the bottom of my sidebar in case you'd like to check it out later.

Thanks,
-B

Temple of Torm

I finished Temple of Torm two nights ago, mostly, but then ran into a game-breaking bug having to do with the final boss. Re-did that final battle last night, but it was too late to post comments then. So here they are:

My Vote: 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look*

* Vote assumes that the game-breaking bug I encountered will be fixed shortly--it should be a fairly easy fix. EDIT: In fact, this bug has apparently now been resolved!

I thought Temple of Torm was a delightful little module, and is one of the better early nwn2 modules to be released. It's story is fairly small in scope, and in some ways feels like a side-quest in a larger module, as your character simply stops by this temple, meets some NPC's, has an adventure, and then eventually goes on his or her way. But it's a good little story, and is told well. Its pacing is good, with little downtime between the time you start the module and when you complete the adventure. I particularly enjoyed walking around and meeting all the young clerics and paladins as I explored the temple. Even though they didn't have any real significance, I thought the effort spent on their conversations made the location come alive in a way that it never would otherwise.

I used a level 12 paladin that I leveled up using my trainer module. He had a full set of +2 gear, including a ring and cloak, and this seemed well-balanced for this module. The Helm of Loyalty that the NPC's so-encouraged me to buy was well past my budget, though Protection from Alignment takes care of mind spells, so this wasn't an issue. Combat was challenging, and occasionally required tactics to win (especially the final battle), but ultimately was fun and very do-able. I didn't have any deaths, though it was a close thing once or twice even though I played it smart (I think).

There are a few polish problems in the version I played (v.1.0), and I'm relaying them to the author. Most did not interfere in a significant way with my experience, except for a game-breaking bug I already reported to the author. It has to do with controlling a companion while they kill a major enemy at the end of the module, causing a local variable to be assigned to a companion rather than my own character and preventing me from completing the module. I think the fix for this should be fairly simple. Instead of assigning the variable signifying this individuals' death as a local variable on the player character, you could assign it as a global variable instead. That way there'd be no need to sort out how to identify the actual player character. In the meantime, affected players will just have to re-load from a save before they kill that NPC and re-do the battle.

All in all, though, it's a very good module and is worth checking out in these early days of NWN2. The author has shown himself to be a very capable builder and I'm looking forward to future modules! :) -B

Hysterical D&D advertisement

ENoa4 posted a link to a hysterical advertisement for D&D that dates back to the early 80's. Head over to his blog to check it out. It's worth watching, no matter how painful it is to see. :)

More on Purgatorio by Rogue Dao

The folks at Rogue Dao Studios have released a new batch of screenshots for their upcoming module, Purgatorio. Maximus has a spotlight about this over at the vault, but a more detailed post with many more screenshots is in the NWN2 Modules forum. ... To say that they are provoking high expectations is a collosal understatement. :)

What's really exciting to me is how well it looks like they're capturing the feel of Sigil, at least as I know it from playing Planescape: Torment. For example, if you can look past the half-naked tiefling (looks like an Annah tribute) in the foreground of the shot to the left, this scene captures the feel of the inside of the Dustmen's Mortuary wonderfully (not sure if that indeed is what this is, but it would fit).

The screenshots also showcase a host of custom content, including creature reskins...
...custom models...
...new placeables...
...and custom UI modifications.
All in all, it continues to look very promising. I'm also excited to see some of the gameplay features, including an intriguing faction system (choose a faction within Sigil during the first chapter of their series). And, of course, there appears to be a canine companion in the game named Hide. Seems like a nice tribute to good 'ole Dogmeat from the first Fallout game. I miss that dog.

Less Obstrusive Spell Buffs

One of the little things that has annoyed me to no end in NWN2 are the "Buff Balls" that are animated around one's character when using certain spells. The worst of these is Protection from Alignment, which creates a shimmering, distorting sphere around your character that is topped off by a spinning pinwheel of sorts. It looks very impressive, but unfortunately gets in the way of actually playing the game--it's nearly impossible to zoom in on your character and still see anything that is going on around him or her when these buffs are in effect.

Fortunately, I stumbled upon this little tweak by clubok last night: Less Obstrusive Spell Buffs. By simply placing his modified spell buff files in one's override directory (and, quite frankly, this is the first time I've been enthusiastic about putting something in my override directory in NWN1 or NWN2), the buff balls are converted from ridiculous to subtle. Here's a before and after:
Note that not only is the default sphere very busy, bit it also distorts the light that passes through the sphere. If you imagine that pinwheel spinning and shimmering, you can understand how miserable it is to have this cast one one's character when trying to explore. The override files convert the annoying sphere to something that is subtle and yet still enough to let me know that the spell is active. This will signify a major improvement in my enjoyment of the game. Thank you clubok!

Hugie working too

Worked on some other projects last night, so nothing new to report on NWN2. I might be taking a few days to get caught up on my other blog, as I need to do that in order to write an article that I promised to someone. Besides, there is apparently a coming update for Pool of Radiance, and I'm going to wait until it is released before downloading and playing that module.

In my ongoing effort to hype up NWN1 builders working on NWN2 projects, Hugie has posted some screenshots of the first area that he's made with the new toolset. It's good to see him working on his new project. Sounds like he's encountering a bit of a learning curve with the new engine, but I'm sure he'll defeat that soon enough.

Challseus enjoying the nwn2 toolset

Given his tremendous success with NWN1 in his Rose of Eternity series of modules, I was pleased to see this posting on Challseus's daily journal:

So, I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, so I'll say it again... I am really, really beginning to like the new toolset. For me, the learning curve was not that bad, and all the features are great (minus NWN1 style cut-scenes).

There are still various issues, like some scripts that don't work and such, but nothing that will keep me away from it. My next purchase is going to be a 22" Widescreen Monitor, mainly so that I can have more windows open in the toolset at one time. I may get more memory for my machine, so it runs a bit faster, but for what it's worth, I am happy.

***Hopes Obsidian will fix SetCutsceneMode so that the entire GUI is actually hidden!***

Till tomorrow...

Needless to say, it's good to see individuals like Challseus and Adam Miller enjoying the new toolset. Hopefully we'll start seeing more news from the former individual in the coming months about what he's going to do with it. :)

Speaking of Miller, Dark Waters is being tested by his "internal" QA folks. It's tough to know how close it is, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that we (the public) might see it sometime in March.

Asylum: A Bet, A Corpse

I planned to start up Pool of Radiance tonight, but ended up playing this shorter module instead. This is probably the first time a module has genuinely surprised me with how good it turned out to be in NWN2. If nothing else, it is a tribute to how creative one can be with this new toolset, but it's also a pretty clever bit of writing and design. I'd absolutely recommend everyone try it (it only will take you 1-1.5 hours to complete). Here is my vote and comments:

My Vote: 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone.

I personally have played well over 100 modules for NWN1, several of which fell into the "bizarre psychological abstraction" genre. But this one probably takes the cake for absurdity. Wonderfully creative ideas throughout. On the surface it's completely random, and yet there is a coherent story here, with pieces that actually do fit together as an intriguing metaphor for the player character's shattered mind. There's good humor here as well, but it's set against the backdrop of something terrible that has happened, which gave the module a very uneasy feeling even as a grinned my way through it. The puzzles are interesting and novel, and fit the setting well. I was particularly keen on everything you did with the chess set, from the weird combat sequences to the actual small puzzle.

Visually, this module is spectacular, and is a testament to what one can do with this new toolset. There aren't many instances in which it'll be appropriate to push the lighting and tinting to the extremes that it is pushed here, but it works in this case. I was particularly struck by the use of dramatic lighting in the "real world" sequences, and how that was used to convey a sense of absolute horror when needed. Adding to that were the rapid camera changes during cutscenes, as well as the rapid flashes to a black screen and back, which made for some really stirring sequences. I also wanted to commend you on your custom music selections, as they really took the atmosphere to the next level.

Two minor suggestions. First, while you acknowledge it in your early DM meeting, you might consider recruiting some help from a native English speaker in the community to give your dialogue a pass, as the grammar is sometimes a bit off. In some cases, that actually works really well for the bizarre cast you've created. But other conversations, particularly the real life sequences, it would be nice to have that as well-polished as the rest of your module (edit: the author has just released a new version that does apparently have a number of edits to the dialogue by a native english speaker). Second, there were some times, at least as rendered on my video card (Radeon x1900xt) that the shadow intensity seemed too high. I'm finding that setting shadow intensity somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7 works best. Granted, at times, the completely black shadows make for interesting effects in your bizarre areas, but in others--especially the opening, real life area--I think some adjustment might be appropriate.

Thanks for this module! I honestly had no idea what to expect when I started it, and I found it to be far better than I'd dared hope it might be. I hadn't expected to give votes of 8 or higher to a module this short, but this earned it. Looking forward to the next one!

NWN2 News closing

Strauss today posted that his news site, NWN2 News, is closing due to ongoing problems with his site's software. Strauss has been an interesting character to watch the past few years. He's a dramatic, highly opinionated, and sometimes hyper-reactionary person, which led to a number of problems on the official NWN2 discussion boards. He also was perhaps overly-ambitious at times with his website, and seemed interested, at times, in trying to userp the roles of established sites like nwvault and nwn/nwn2wiki rather than working with those sites to better the community.

But at the same time, Strauss was one of the biggest promoters of NWN2 during its development, and aggressively pursued and distributed any nwn2-related news that he could find to help us gamers satisfy our endless need for information. As such, I've regularly read his site's articles via bloglines (I'm one of two, apparently, who do this) as a means to keeping up with current nwn2 news for over a year.

Strauss stated in his farewell post that he is considering starting a multiplayer/persistent world-oriented website now that nwn2news is closing. I think this is a fine idea. While NWConnections fills that role to some extent, I think there's a lot of room for additional fan sites in that niche. It also reflects the changing needs of the community. At this point in the life cycle of the game, news is less of an important commodity than it was prior to release. NWVault's daily developer postings are sufficient.

What we need now are sites that support community content. NWVault will always remain the most important on this front because its huge storage capacity, bandwidth, and excellent comment & voting software are such invaluable, and undoubtedly expensive, resources (having a person like Maximus running the thing doesn't hurt matters either). But other sites can support the community in important ways, be it via connecting players to one another (NWConnections), providing a repository of knowledge about the toolset (NWN Lexicon), or even, like my little site, providing commentary and discussion of community modules. A site designed to be a central place for support, commentary, and discussion of persistent worlds sounds like a great resource for that segment of the community. I wish him luck.