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It appears as if Neverwinter Vault is having ...
December 31, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
It appears as if Neverwinter Vault is having a Mod of the Year contest and the Shadowlords series is up for a vote. Feel free to throw your thoughts into the hat if you'd like. Personally, I'd be happy with the Hall of Fame one of these days.
The first Dreamcatcher module is still being tested. I got a couple more bug fixes taken care of, though most were minor. I have a big custom content project for the third Dreamcatcher module that I'm looking into. The second in the series is making steady progress, with most of the areas mapped, though there is still quite a bit of scripting and dialog to put in place. No rest for the weary.
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I made the mistake of getting a 20 oz
December 30, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I made the mistake of getting a 20 oz. Chai tea for lunch yesterday, guaranteeing lack of sleep last night. I dreamt about polygons and placeable items, a sure sign of impending madness. On the up side, I came up with a semi-clever idea that didn't require custom content. Initial tests look good and it'll probably make its way into the module.
I'm spending today working on details, adding dialog for items. There's a scene where the players search a room and clicking on various pieces lets the player enter into dialog with them. It's vaguely adventure-game like, but will hopefully be interesting and not too tricky. I also have some scripted moments where henchmen have to remove/add clothes that I need to make work well (don't get your hopes up - it's quite tame). Back to the grind.
Oh - one more thing. I finally got news back from one of my testers. A few minor bugs, but so far so good. I still want to test the multiplayer aspects, then get the first Dreamcatcher module out the door.
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I've been coming up with some really cool thi...
December 30, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
 I've been coming up with some really cool things today. If you don't want to be spoiled, STOP READING NOW. Ignore the attached image and surf elsewhere.
I figured out how to combine a walkable ocean tileset with a placeable boat. I used one of the many boats created by the community, then modified the walkmesh so that you could walk around on deck without going overboard. Basically, the entire area is walkable, but the boat's PWK file prevents you from getting elsewhere. There are some funny things that can happen, such as arrows sticking into an invisible plane floating above the ocean. You can also summon creatures that end up floating above the water. I should be able to minimize the latter through careful placement of non-walk areas. I also ended up enlarging it to be around three tiles long and one tile wide. That way, several players and crewmen can be on deck at any one time.
So, the naval engagements that I have planned for the module look doable. I don't think I'm going to take the polymorph player approach that others are doing. Instead, it'll be cutscenes and respawinging in new areas. Hopefully that'll have a more realistic feel. We'll see how it goes.
I also polished up one of the previously mentioned "surreal" areas, as well as creating a new one. I'm hoping these creations of mine don't seem to be explorations of what's possible with the toolset, but are rather interesting extensions of the story. Here's crossing my fingers.
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I made some good progress today
December 29, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I made some good progress today. I had one of those creative moments and came up with what I hope is a really clever idea. In the module, there's a section with four very "surreal" areas. I worked on one of the today and it was so much fun that I played it through over and over, which is somewhat rare for me. There's more details to put in that particular section, but I'm happy so far.
I added some combat sections as well, hoping to appeal to the hack and slash type. It's hard coming up with rewards for every possible player, as some people may have specialized in rapiers and found themselves upset that I have no good magic rapiers in the game. I suppose that's what stores are for.
I also had another idea for a store substitute. There's an area that makes no sense for a vendor to simply be waiting for you, but I can see the need for players to resupply healing potions and the like. It's complex to script, but should be interesting.
On a personal note, we found out yesterday that our baby-to-be does not have any genetic problems. We've been waiting two weeks for the results of an amniocentesis, which has been nerve-wracking. According to the hormone levels from her quadruple-screen, combined with the ultrasound results, there was a one in twenty chance of problems. It's pretty ironic - a 20 sided die roll later, we're still expecting a healthy baby in May.
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I'm back at my computer, working away when I ...
December 26, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I'm back at my computer, working away when I have the chance. It turns out that the crashing problem was related to some custom sounds. I've removed them and that did the trick. I've been working away adding even more custom content this morning. Somewhere along the way I did something terribly wrong and now several tilesets are almost completely black. Sadly, my four-year-old has taken over my computer so I get to use the spare and wait a bit.
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Well, it turns out the computer that was at m...
December 25, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
Well, it turns out the computer that was at my in-law's house wasn't able to run NWN. So, I spent the last few days writing dialog and working on the story. It was probably for the better, as there were a few large gaps in the story that I had to fill in. I'm also coming up with quite a lenghty list of custom content I'd like to create for the module. Some are easy, while others require creating new tilesets. We'll see how it really goes.
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I ran into an annoying problem
December 23, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I ran into an annoying problem. The new tileset area looks and works fine, until you try to leave it and then the game crashes. So, I'll need to backtrack a bit in order to get things stable again. Hak packs are great and wonderful things, but they also drive me insane from time to time.
I've also been writing more dialog, filling in some of the details that I initially left blank. I'm actually in another city at the moment, but I took over a handy computer and I'm working away a bit.
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I'm continuing to work on custom content for ...
December 22, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
 I'm continuing to work on custom content for the most part. I think of it as broad strokes of the brush while working on a painting. I spent an hour or so this morning putting together a new in-game effect. There's a reason for it, but I won't spoil the surprise. It was fairly tricky, as the animation only showed up in-game, resulting in lengthy trial and errors.
I also put in some sounds for my secret pseudo-tileset. It's looking pretty good and I'm starting to be quite happy with it. I'd love to get one or two creatures that would be appropriate for the area, but there simply isn't anything out there.
There's lots of dialog and details to put in. I'm including some puzzle solving right off the bat, which hopefully won't be too challenging. I included an extremly in-depth hint guide with the first Dreamcatcher module, and I'll probably do the same here.
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I watched the Two Towers the other night, lov...
December 20, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I watched the Two Towers the other night, loved it, but had so little sleep yesterday that it was hard to engage the creative parts of my brain. I gave up on working on Dreamcatcher 2 and instead slogged through a few levels of Icewind Dale.
Today, I'm much improved, fleshing out the first set of areas of the module. I'm loving the dream aspects of the series, allowing for much flexibility and creativity. Expect portents and strange situations. I'm trying to narrow down the choices to the custom content. I suspect I'll spend my 10 MB hak pack budget more on placeables and creatures, and less on custom tiles. There's been some great creatures released lately that are just screaming for a place to put them.
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I finally got some sleep last night, so I'm a...
December 18, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I finally got some sleep last night, so I'm a bit more rested. I'm still working on the custom content for the next campaign, which is coming along nicely. I'm being very attentive to size issues. So far, I have several placeables and two mini-tilesets and it all comes in at 580 KB zipped. Not bad. I have still to add NPC portraits and the oriental weapons, but it's generally going better than I thought it would.
The story itself is getting more fleshed out. I have the first half pretty solid, and I know where I want to get to at the end. I'm just trying to decide how much content I can really fit between those two points.
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I was up at 3:30 this morning and wasn't able...
December 17, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I was up at 3:30 this morning and wasn't able to get back to sleep. Too much stress in real life, I suppose. The fix to the tileset worked great and I had a couple more bug fixes I put in last night. My 4-year-old Sam wanted to play with the bear and he did a few unexpected things that should now be resolved.
It's looking like my testers won't get to it until after the holidays, though I may not wait for all of them to get around to it. Oh, and the intro movie is complete - looks and sounds good. Finally, this module now has a huge readme file, complete with hints through every major section. Part of that is for selfish reasons - I'm getting quite a few e-mails these days from people with questions.
I've also been working hard on water placeables. They're pretty cool to work with. I made up some 4x4 placeable water tiles, which cuts down the issues with having to line them up. I tried an 8x8 placeable, but the graphics engine seemed to freak out on me a bit. It should be uploaded to Neverwinter Vault today. Expect to see it from time to time in the next module.
Dreamcatcher 2 has begun. It's mostly a collection of technical demos so that I can make sure things really work. I have a tentative story lined up and some fairly dramatic events. Should be fun.
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Good news
December 16, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
Good news. Danmar of Lands of Kray let me know how to fix the swamp tileset. Evidently if a tile is classified as "Character" rather than "Tile", you'll get exactly the symptoms I described. So, I'm going to do a quick search and replace through the dozens of tiles and hope that fixes the problem.
I also came up with an incredibly cool idea while laying in bed this morning. It's so simple, I don't know why anyone hasn't done it before: placeable water. I copied the water tile and turned it into a placeable and it looks great. The only obvious drawback is that it's square, but when used with hills or against walls, it looks wonderful. Plus you can use the placeable tricks to vary the level dynamically. Very sweet.
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I hit a milestone today
December 16, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I hit a milestone today. I went all the way through the module from beginning to end. It's getting fairly bug free as well, as most of the significant bugs are ironed out by the time I can complete it. There's only one problem that seems beyond my control. On rare occasions, strange polygons appear in the custom tileset, blocking your view. It's not often, but it is annoying. I may do some work on it before I release the module, or possibly put it in a "known issues" list.
I spent today doing a lot of polishing, putting in flavor text and adding a few more henchmen dialogs. Expect some sharp words if you're having a romance with Anera or Teira and you decide to flirt a bit.
I also put it my favorite magic item ever a few days ago. It's complex and fun to use. I won't spoil the surprise for anyone.
Finally, I've begun work on the second module, though I'm still struggling with how much geography the story will encompass. I know the general path, but there's a couple really nice looking tilesets that I'm waiting on. I may just do a two-parter and flesh out the first portion to make it a full module. Hmm . . .
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I woke up this morning with a terrible headac...
December 14, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I woke up this morning with a terrible headache, so I came down at 3 in the morning, took some Advil, and worked on the module. It's technically feature complete at this point, though I haven't had the time to play all the way through. I finished the epilogue cinematic yesterday, which turned out reasonably well. Things should be set up nicely for the next module. Today I put in more henchmen comments and now handle player death appropriately. Things seem to be coming to a close fairly quickly. I'd like to put in more flavor text, as I only have a handful now.
I started work on the next module, and have a few tricks up my sleave. I'm getting the hang of making my own placeables, so expect quite a few. They're much smaller in size than tilesets, so it's easier to include. I haven't fully decided what, if any, new tileset I'll include in the second module. Right now I'm working on the dream areas, which are loads of fun.
So, I'll hopefully get a chance to finish up the first Dreamcatcher module, doing some testing this week, and turn it loose to my testers. If all goes well, everyone should get an early Christmas present.
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I just keep plugging away
December 11, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I just keep plugging away. The general conversations for the henchmen are in. I added a dialog node for each of them so that they'll reflect on the current state of the module. So don't forget to chat with them throughout the game.
There was also a hak pack released that inspired me. It's far too huge to use in its entirety, but I may pull out some of the pieces for a future module. I'm still working within the 10 MB hak pack budget per module, as I don't want to punish modem users too badly. I'm just getting increasingly excited by all the custom content out there.
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I've made some changes to the website in orde...
December 11, 2002 by Adam in NWN1
I've made some changes to the website in order to support the new Dreamcatcher campaign. The navigation to the left is shuffled around a bit. If you're looking for links that aren't there anymore, try looking at the Shadowlords introduction page. I've also switched to a database-based news update, which should make updates a bit easier for me. For old news, just click the "old news" link towards the bottom of the page.
The campaign itself is coming along nicely. The last area is finished (though I'd like to flesh it out a bit more). I have an "epilogue" cinematic to put together, then some polishing passes. I put in dialog for the henchmen yesterday, which makes them less cardboard-like. I'm still working out their individual story arcs throughout the campaign. I'd like to put in more tension between the player and henchmen and I'm trying to find clever ways to do so.
On another note, Shadowlords 3 was reviewed. The reviewer seemed to like it quite a bit, which is nice. There have also been over 10,000 downloads of the first Shadowlords module, and I secretly am hoping it leads to a Hall of Fame listing. Not that it matters too much, as I'll keep building away regardless.
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About Me
I've won multiple awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules, which I've been working on since the year 2000.
In the real world, I'm a web developer for a healthcare organization. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
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