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I spent big chunks of last night and this mor...
February 29, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I spent big chunks of last night and this morning trying to get multiplayer working, especially the spirit gem which has been causing me problems. It turns out that my biggest problem was that I had some debug code that automatically set the owner of all the spirit gems to the first player. Once I figured that out, it was some tedious but straightforward work to get things set right again.
I've been doing more polishing and fixing. You could still choose to rebuild a room in your spirit gem after you've already built it. That's been fixed. I still have a couple more gem-related bugs to track down. There's also some neutral Struggle additions I'd like to make to the second Struggle area. Slowly making progress.
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From the screenshot, you can probably tell th...
February 29, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 From the screenshot, you can probably tell that I've been doing multiplayer testing. I have a troubleshooting mode for some of the triggers. If a henchman hasn't been selected, it defaults to Anera. Though I shouldn't have been surprised, I had to giggle when two Aneras appeared during the testing for the first part of the game. Ah, the possibilities.
Multiplayer is coming along reasonably well. The show-stopping bug from last time was fixed. Now I just need to figure out why my spirit gem code is sticking people into the same spirit gem. Each player should get their own.
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Quiet day on the NWN front yesterday, though ...
February 27, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Quiet day on the NWN front yesterday, though life and work was crazy. Jazael has been going nuts adding new features to the Demon Card game and I should get a new and improved version out to testers today. He's planning an overhaul to the AI as well, though he's not quite ready.
I'm not sure what I'll get a chance to work on today. More dialog is still nice, though we'll see if I really have that much time.
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Development slowly moves ahead
February 26, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Development slowly moves ahead. I continued more multiplayer testing, hopefully fixing some of the major sticking points. I still need to find the time to cycle through again from beginning. There's some spirit gem issues that are unresolved, I think, though hopefully it won't be too hard to fix.
There's lots of action on the Demon Card front. Jazael is putting in even more improvements to card management and buying/selling cards. There have been some problems discovered with the new cards. I've dutifully sent off the reports to him to take a look at the issues.
We'll see how today goes. It would be nice to get more dialog in the game. I may also upgrade to the 1.62 patch after I make sure everyone else has as well.
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I've been working on multiplayer aspects late...
February 25, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I've been working on multiplayer aspects lately, seeing if I can get two players all the way through the complex first part of the module. So far, I haven't been able to, but it's mostly dumb little issues that have been stopping me. Teira, in particular, had some bugs in her conversation and tags on a cutscene version that made me go through again from the beginning. Still, I have hope that I should be able to do it shortly. I'm juggling some ideas that would allow multiple players to have different demon incarnations. It's a bit of work, so I'm not sure I'll get to it.
Testing for the new version of the Demon Cards module goes well. No errors reported yet. Jazael has been having problems getting on the Internet so I've been trying to use his time wisely.
For those of you who can't get enough of me on the net, I have a little blurb on the FiringSquad site. The editor wanted a few sentences on why I thought Neverwinter Nights was great. There's also a review of Dreamcatcher 1 up on the Vault.
I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do today. I've taken the day off work to help out at our co-op preschool, so I'll be wrangling 5-year-olds. I've also got to jump on e-mail for awhile and make sure all the assorted testing is on track.
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I came to the realization yesterday that ever...
February 24, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I came to the realization yesterday that every module I've made is undergoing some sort of testing. A bunch of people are testing Shadowlord fixes. Someone else is testing the .2da changes to allow Shifters to go through Dreamcatcher. Demon Cards seems to be in constant testing, with the 2.0 version going to testers today. For me, it means a lot of coordination through e-mail. Keeps me on my toes.
I tested the multiplayer aspect of Demon and got further along than I thought I would. The "house switching" code worked perfectly, moving each player to the appropriate abode. I've got to add some debug code next as the place it failed was an odd one. Still, all the multiplayer aspects after that one should be relatively simple.
I also manged to get some more dialog in the game yesterday. One of my favorite things about the player's companion is that they speak up at appropriate times. They get to pull out emotions from the player and drop subtle hints of what to do next.
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Off and on, throughout the day, I got all of ...
February 23, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Off and on, throughout the day, I got all of the 22 new cards into the game. It took quite a bit of time, creating the new placeable models, getting the cards in the game, then creating the creatures for the new creature cards. As it kept getting later and later, I finally managed to test some things out and fix a few bugs. There are so many new cards that I've only played with a few of them.
The picture of the day is of some of the new Mythic cards. When summoned, only one of these creatures can be in play at any time. There's also lots more enchantments and spells, such as the annoying Counterspell and the temporarily boosting Potion of Heroism.
I'm hoping I can get this to testers today. It may be awhile before I get the big bugs worked out, however, as there's lots of new changes. Jazael did a great job cleaning things up and getting the new cards in place.
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I worked more on the Struggle yesterday, veri...
February 22, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I worked more on the Struggle yesterday, verifying that the good, evil, and neutral paths are all doable. I've been continuing to do some polishing, adding some dialog and scripting as appropriate. It feels good to finally wrap up this part of the game.
As my "to do" list is gradually shrinking for Demon, the Demon Cards game is keeping me quite busy. It turns out that his Internet connection died and he's been offline for awhile. The good news is that he did a huge amount of work and layed the groundwork for 22 new cards. It's still rough, however, so I'm hoping to release the 1.9 version tomorrow (the one with the dragon). It'll hopefully give people something to play with until the big 2.0 release. After that's stable, I need to reintegrate it back into the Demon game.
I'm still waiting for the Sigil exterior tileset, which I'm hoping will be alpha soon. Once that's together, I need to finish integrating all the hak packs into a single piece. Slowly getting there . . .
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I had every intention of working on Demon yes...
February 21, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I had every intention of working on Demon yesterday, but it just didn't happen. I ended up fixing some more Shadowlords bugs, then sending off another version to testers. I'm hoping to hear from Jazael about the Demon Cards game by Monday. If not, I did some minor bug fixing of what I've got and I'll release what I've got then.
I also did some post-Demon writing and planning, though things are still quite fluid. For some reason, a plot never sounds as good when I write it down compared to having it floating around in my brain.
The editor from FiringSquad asked me for a quick blurb about NeverwinterNights. I think it's for a top-5 RPG poll, but I wasn't able to find it on their site.
This morning I got Magnus' latest volume-adjusted pieces in the game. He bought an expensive little piece of software for his studio and wanted to process all the music with it. It sounds fine to me.
I also tested out the second Struggle quest (the good version) from the beginning to the end. Though there were a few glitches along the way, it works pretty well now. I'd still like to add a few more things but I think it's slowly getting finished.
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Yesterday was mostly Shadowlords day, as I co...
February 20, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Yesterday was mostly Shadowlords day, as I continued to work on fixes and tweaks. Months of e-mails about typos or weird issues were sorted through and dealt with. It was a nice feeling to finally get through it all.
I also did some work on the Demon hak pack, something I'd been wanting to do in awhile. I turned all the TGA textures I could into DDS textures, getting a huge reduction in space in the process. The hak pack for Demon will still be very large, but at least it's about half as overwhelmingly large as it used to be. The only catch is that about 1% of video cards don't support DSS textures, so I'll probably end up having to post the big version for those few people who have problems.
To give you a feel for the size of the hak pack, the main Demon hak pack and the Stem interior were reduced down to 20 MB compressed from around 40 MB or so. I still have to add in the Sigil exteriors, but hopefully that's not going to be too crazy. Optionally add in 20 MB of music, an 11 MB intro movie, and the 2 MB module itself. I'd guess somewhere between a 35 MB minimum to a 70 MB maximum depending on if you install the optional goodies.
As for today, I'm hoping Jazael gets in touch about the card game, as he currently has the latest version of the module. I gave him directions to make even more cards, so he may be going a bit crazy with it. I'd also like to work more on dialog for Demon. Hopefully a cafe mocha will inspire me as it usually does.
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I was a very good boy yesterday, finishing up...
February 19, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I was a very good boy yesterday, finishing up the coding and dialog for the second Struggle area. I also put the multiplayer code necessary for the first part of the module. Neither is tested, but it was nice to get it in there.
I treated myself last night not by working more on Demon or the Demon Cards game, but rather by going back and fixing a host of annoying bugs that have plagued the Shadowlords modules as of late. I still get a steady stream of e-mails from first time players. The problem that's been bothering me the most is that Anera's AI went completely wonky after the 1.61 patch. I ended up recreating her character in all the modules that had the issue. I also cleaned up some henchman/following issues with Jered and the orc in Shadowlords 3. That being said, if there are any brave testers out there, please drop me an e-mail if you'd like to test out the improvements before I post it to the Vault.
It was interesting going back to look at the Shadowlords modules. They each seemed tiny in comparison to Demon, yet each of the henchmen had a ton of dialog. I'm at a point where I'm in a bit of a holding pattern with Demon - the Sigil exterior tileset isn't ready yet and the Demon Card game isn't quite stable enough to integrate with the game. There's still some hak pack cleanup I'd like to do, as well as more interiors in town. Still, with the time I have left, I'd like to put in some more effort into henchmen dialogs, which I've always felt were a mainstay of the campaign. We'll see how my time goes today.
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I sunk several hours working on the Demon Car...
February 18, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I sunk several hours working on the Demon Cards game yesterday, fixing bugs and adding a bunch of new cards. The Dragon is sure to be a favorite, though it dominates the playing field. It may end up being a bit too big, but I've hedged my bets by having it eat a bunch of the player's creatures when its summoned. Should keep the playing field tidy.
The good news is that Jazael offered to take up maintenance of the application, so I'm trying to step back from development and switch over to Demon. Gotta finish up that Struggle area.
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It seemed like yesterday was incredibly busy,...
February 17, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It seemed like yesterday was incredibly busy, but I think most of it was spent responding to e-mail and posts. I think I have a fix for the Shifter issue for Dreamcatcher, for real this time. I uploaded a new version of Demon Cards game. I worked more on the second Struggle area, to the point where the good side seems to be finished. I spent a huge amount of time tracking down odd bugs, such as all my troops panicking after I've killed the enemy's leaders. It was funny once, but not the fifth time.
I'd like to spend a little time today working on some more cards for the Demon Card game. An extra ten shouldn't be too hard for me to make and it's vaguely soothing compared to finishing up the Struggle area code. I still need to put the neutral path in, though I've made it much simpler this time around.
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The demon card bug fixing and tweaking contin...
February 16, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 The demon card bug fixing and tweaking continues, as that's what I mostly did last night. The list of changes for the upcoming 1.8 patch is really long, including everything from battle music to targeting changes, as well as your lengthy list of spelling fixes.
This morning I managed to do some more scripting and testing for the second Struggle area, though I mostly found how many things were broken. It's going to need some more fiddling and testing for sure.
Also, rumor has it that I'll get my hands on the Sigil exterior tileset later this week. I saw some more new screenshots yesterday and it's looking fabulous.
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I couldn't help myself
February 15, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I couldn't help myself. I started checking e-mail and reading posts and pretty soon I was working on the card game again. Since my son wandered down already, it looks like Demon will get to wait until later today, though I have a bunch of issues in the card game fixed. It seems that people are loving it and clamoring for new cards, though I want to get it stable and polished first.
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The card game tweaks and fixes continue, thou...
February 14, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 The card game tweaks and fixes continue, though I'm making myself take a break this morning and focusing in on the second Struggle area in Demon. I've made some good progress, getting in journal entries and lots of battle scripting. I did have a slight issue with getting the wrong type of troops spawning in, giving myself a huge number of troops to slaughter the poor enemy leaders. With luck I can finish up this Struggle area this weekend, depending on my time and energy levels.
Once I get this finished, I'll be working on multiplayer, getting the card game integrated back into the main module, and finally getting the Sigil tileset integrated back into the module once it hits an alpha stage. I've still got a lot of cleanup work, such as trying to compress the textures in the hak packs, but it's nice to be able to count my main "to do" items on one hand.
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I've been knee deep in the card game for the ...
February 13, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I've been knee deep in the card game for the last few days. Most of the major bug fixes are taken care of at this point, so it's down to polishing for the most part. I've got a new patch to release today that does all sorts of nice things, such as adding descriptions to the creatures, changing the colors, and lots of small fixes and changes. I'm getting some great volunteer help from the community, which really helps.
I've tried to not completely ignore Demon throughout this process. I worked a bit more on dialog yesterday and a couple NPCs with unique weapons this morning. I'm trying hard to make the second Struggle area interesting, more than just leading troops into a huge melee. I've got some ideas, but we'll see how they pan out.
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Very busy, as usual
February 12, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Very busy, as usual. There's a new interview with me on the Neverwinter Vault. I updated the Demon Cards game with a patch and have another one on the way. Amazingly, I also found some time last night to add some more dialog to Demon.
The Demon Cards game is generating a fair amount of feedback, which is a good thing. People are finding all sorts of odd bugs, but I think most of them are solvable. I figure things will settle down in a few more days and then I can focus on getting Demon finished up.
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I'm still debugging the Demon Cards game
February 11, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I'm still debugging the Demon Cards game. There's a particularly nasty one that involves the deck bag getting a random tag and causing all craziness. I think I'm close to figuring it out, though.
I also have an interview up on the Vault, so feel free to take a gander.
Still not much work on Demon, though I expected a bit of that after releasing the card game.
Update: I've got some testers working on a patch. Should be ready soon.
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Okay, the Demon Card game is finally posted t...
February 10, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Okay, the Demon Card game is finally posted to the Vault. There's also a player's guide and a new screenshot of the Sigil tileset. Whew.
I'm probably going to spend today collecting bug reports and fixing problems. It seems like that's how I spent most of yesterday as well. The Shifter issue with Dreamcatcher was a little more complicated, as without updates to the portraits.2da file the player showed up as a penguin or some odd thing. I finally updated my old flower hak to be HotU compliant. I helped coulisfu troubleshoot his Oriental tileset.
In terms of Demon, I barely wrote out a couple lines of dialog.
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It looks like Maximus put up some teaser imag...
February 09, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It looks like Maximus put up some teaser images of the card game and the Sigil exterior tileset over on the Vault last night. The full-sized version of the Sigil exterior is simply amazing, giving you a feel for why I can't wait to get my hands on it. Today is the day when the Demon Card game is released, which I look forward to with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
I worked a bit more on the troop scripts for the second Struggle area. They'll actually follow me, advance around, and generally obey my command. There's still lots of work to do, but it's nice to get the basics ready.
I also had someone report issues with Shifters in the Dreamcatcher campaign. Sure enough, I had forgotten the extra columns in the polymorph.2da file so I'll be busy getting the hak packs updated today.
It's going to be an exciting week. I can tell already.
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It seems like I'm spending a lot of time on s...
February 08, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
It seems like I'm spending a lot of time on support issues and less on the module itself. An observant person noticed a problem with the Shifter class in Dreamcatcher. I've tracked down the problem to the polymorph.2da files and a fix should be forthcoming soon.
Maximus wasn't able to recreate the problem he had yesterday, so it looks like we're back on track for releasing all the goodies. It could be tomorrow or as soon as today. I'm expecting a tidal wave of comments, complaints, and suggestions soon afterwards, which will probably keep me busy.
I hope people's expectations aren't too high of this little game. There's no actual story surrounding the place, just the ability to jump in and start the game. I suspect most people will fiddle about for awhile, then set it aside. A few might play with friends for awhile, as playing against human opponents is a bit more fun. I'm secretly hoping that a persistent world picks it up and integrates it into their server, possibly creating special quests and such to get the most powerful cards. We'll see how it goes.
I did only the barest of work on Demon itself yesterday, working a bit more on the second Struggle area. Hopefully I can do a bit more dialog and scripting before the kids wake up.
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It was really busy yesterday, scampering abou...
February 07, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It was really busy yesterday, scampering about trying to get the Demon Cards game ready. Papermonk did a great job with the promotional graphics (like the small image here), I put together some more rules and text, then I had some coordination with Maximus on the Vault to try to get everything ready.
As luck would have it, Maximus ran into some problems with playing and I've been doing some intense testing and tweaking at the last minute. A few things were easy, such as adding a helper sign with dialog in the manage deck area, but there's a bug he reported that I can't seem to reproduce.
Once we get these issues nailed down, expect a release of the Demon Cards module, a file spotlight with rules and some descriptions of the cards, and finally the interview with some new screenshots from the Sigil tileset exterior. My stuff aside, the Sigil tileset looks fantastic and bat's furiously trying to get things to an alpha stage.
Magnus, always the perfectionist, has been tweaking the movie soundtrack a little more. I don't usually see a lot of direct benefit from having popular modules, but being able to attract extremely talented people is one of them. I think people will be quite pleased with all the custom music in the game.
As for Demon, I worked more on dialog yesterday, almost finishing the final henchman dialogs. Time permitting, I'd like to put even more in there. There are quite a few opportunities for tension with your companion and I'd love to be able to explore that a bit. Then again, I do need to ship this game one of these years.
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Composing music is sort of like magic to me
February 06, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Composing music is sort of like magic to me. Other than a summer as a teenager taking piano lessons and singing silly songs to my kids, I've basically steered away from anything that vaguely resembles making music. That's probably why I'm so impressed that Magnus turned out a great little piece of music that goes along with the introductory movie. It makes all the difference and I'm quite happy with it.
I put in some time yesterday doing some more henchmen dialog. It's one of those things that most people will feel I can't get enough of and I suspect they're right. This one is at the very end of the game, optionally switching to a final end camera sequence if the player chooses to. I also give them the choice of puttering around in town if they missed anything, though by then the main quest is over. As for the dialogs themselves, I have two down and two to go, though they're actually pretty fun to write.
I also worked more on the second struggle area, having my martial arts students do a little practicing. It's fun to see them show off their new animations on the practice mats as well as providing a bit of ambiance to the place. Once I finish the henchmen conversation, I'll want to switch to the conversations in this area.
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Emma's sick, so I spent my pre-work developme...
February 05, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Emma's sick, so I spent my pre-work development time rocking her to sleep. Still, I managed to get some work done last night, adding in the Oriental doors and fixing a missing texture on one of the castles. I started in on a sparring scene, but the students evidently didn't like to quit and instead kept wacking at each other until one died. Oops.
Yesterday was lots of coordinatin, writing an interview and gearing up for the Demon Cards release. Magnus and I went back and forth on some tweaks to the movie. It's slowly coming together.
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Well, the video for the movie is complete
February 04, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Well, the video for the movie is complete. I did all the post-rendering work yesterday, tweaking frames in Photoshop then assembling it all together. It's a bit odd without any sound, though I think it will turn out quite nice once Magnus works his magic.
Papermonk got in touch with me about the Demon Card game. I'm embarrassed to say that I deleted his first e-mail when cleaning up my usual 100+ e-mails for penis enlargement, cheap drugs, viruses, and get rich quick schemes. He did some spiffy graphic work putting an intro together and I passed him some text on the rules. Hopefully it won't be much longer (though you're probably getting tired of me saying that).
I think the Module of the Year award is starting to have an impact. I'm getting a surprising amount of e-mail from people with questions, problems, and comments about the game. Some days I feel like I'm tech support to the world.
I worked a bit more on the module yesterday, adding in the dialog I wrote yesterday and starting the groundwork for the new Struggle area. Mostly I got the NPCs into the game, though there's a few to do yet. Hopefully I can pull off an epic battle of sorts, though large scale engagements are always a bit tricky.
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It was a crazy busy day yesterday, so I didn'...
February 03, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It was a crazy busy day yesterday, so I didn't get as much done as I'd like. I managed to scribble some dialog in the margin of my notebook during the boring parts of a meeting. Hopefully I can get it into the module today.
I finally finished my grand movie rendering project. The last of the frames finished up this morning. Watching the sunset piece was a bit anticlimactic. I think I was expecting something a hundred times better simply because it took that much longer to make. It's great, a lovely setting sun casting long shadows across the landscape, but it didn't move me to tears or anything. With luck, I can get the video assembled today and shipped off to Magnus.
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Well, it's official
February 02, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Well, it's official. It looks like Dreamcatcher won Module of the Year. I suppose I have to admit to being flattered, especially when there were so many great modules up there. One of these days I need to hunker down and finish playing them.
I spent much of yesterday testing and fixing the Chen Village area yet some more. I won't certify it Bug-Free, but it's definately Bug-Lite. No more naked villagers except when you end up ruining their armor after a clumsy repair attempt. There may be a tiny bit of tweaking I'd like to do, but it's feeling pretty close to done.
The movie renders are finishing up faster than I thought. I think I'm down to about 10-15% of the movie remaining, though they're the most computationally expensive frames. I think the issue is the shadows, which get very quick to draw once the sun drops down a certain point. Hopefully it'll finish up in a day or two.
The one remaining area is the second Struggle, which I'd like to get started today. After that, it's adding the card game, multiplayer support, a bit more flavor dialog, and eventually integrating the Sigil tileset once it's released. Slowly getting there.
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To borrow a quote from Twain, "There's lies, ...
February 01, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 To borrow a quote from Twain, "There's lies, damn lies, and release dates." I remember long ago when I had a hope that I could get this monstrosity finished by the holidays. It just seemed to get out of hand and I'm only now trying to wrap things up. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that my finish date is a month or two out, though it depends on how testing goes.
Speaking of testing, it seems I spent most of this morning hanging out with naked villagers. Yesterday I discovered that there were some very significant problems with the good and evil paths of the Chen Village area. They wouldn't level up during training, their weapons and armor didn't improve and if they did, they wouldn't equip it. I think I have all those things straightened out at this point. Now I've just got to fine tune some of their responses to spoken text, then it's on to fixing the bandits.
The movie rendering is coming along nicely. I'm over halfway done at this point so hopefully I can finish up with the video part of the movie this week. I overclocked my main computer up to around 2.2 Ghz (it's an AMD chipset), and it seems to be handling it nicely. Render times are still bouncing around, but I managed to finish one frame in two and a half hours last night.
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Links
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Interviews, etc.
Why We Fight
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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