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I'm crazy busy again, falling behind on my va...
April 30, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I'm crazy busy again, falling behind on my various corrispondences.
I've entered some of the dialog I wrote over my trip, though I have a fair bit to go. Some of these NPCs of mine can get rather chatty. Hopefully I can finish up today.
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I'm having a lot of fun with the new SetName ...
April 28, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm having a lot of fun with the new SetName function. I spent yesterday morning fiddling in my hotel, using the function in all the logical places. When new ships are created, it now gives them a random name from a massive list. You can also go up to the dockmaster and set your ship name to something new.
On the plane back home, I wrote several pages in tiny letters, finishing up the last of the main dialogs. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There's alignment shift opportunities, a short path for players who don't like to read much, and so on.
I'm starting to realize that I'm going to need a vast amount of testing for this module. All the systems are very new and prone to breaking. The High Seas system has all sorts of quirky problems, for example.
I'm probably going to be swamped with catching up today. I'd really like to start doing things with the Heather sound clips, as well as all the team communication stuff. Busy, busy.
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Well, I'm posting from my hotel room, making ...
April 27, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Well, I'm posting from my hotel room, making due with an old laptop and a fairly good Internet connection. I've actually been making some progress on the module, adding in the things necessary for the card quest.
I've been scribbling other dialog as I can, and beginning to lay plans for the third module. I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself, as I'm certain to be doing some extensive QA work after I "finish" this current module.
The 1.67 patch was finally released, which I've been waiting for. There's a reasonable chance I'll end up using some of the new tilesets, as well as the new functions. SetName is a biggie for me, as all the ships are currently called "Ship", which isn't particularly exciting. I spent some time this morning putting together a list of over four thousand ship names. I hope to put together a random name generator. Ideally I'd have one for each faction, but I may just keep things simpler and use a single list. Since they're all names that come from real ships or ships in fiction, there's a good chance people recognize some of them.
I'm traveling back home late today, but hopefully I'll get some time to scribble some more before the day is done. It's nice that one of the most time consuming tasks, writing, just requires pencil and paper.
It also looks like I've convinced Danmar to work on a quest for the campaign. He's another jack-of-all-trades sort of chap, and will likely do all the modeling, scripting, and writing for the area he's working on. I'm a longtime fan of his work, and used a bunch of his custom content throughout the Dreamcatcher series. He's also worked on a couple models already, such as the lighthouse and Black Spot. Exciting stuff.
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I'm heading out on my trip today, so hopefull...
April 25, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm heading out on my trip today, so hopefully I'll get time to scribble while I'm waiting in airports, meetings, and hotel rooms.
I got word that Heather's voice was recorded for the first module, a fairly huge undertaking for which I am most thankful. It's a treat when these things magically appear in my in box.
This morning I whipped up a fun little item that ties into the Pirate Cards game. You can put cards into a special deck, activate it, and those creatures magically appear to fight along side of you for a short period of time. The card gets destroyed, which prevents it from being too powerful. The item also limits how powerful creatures can get. It needs a bit more tweaking, but I'm so far happy with it. Now I just need to work it into the game.
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Sadly yesterday was extremely busy, so not mu...
April 24, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Sadly yesterday was extremely busy, so not much was done. I fixed a minor bug from the duel, properly removing an effect at the right time. I also scribbled down some dialog and came up with a card game quest idea that I think I'm pretty happy about. It's very short, mostly involving a rather unique custom item. We'll see if I can code it today, and perhaps work on more ending and henchmen dialog.
I'm off on a business trip for the next few days. I can never tell if that means more or less development time than usual. If I'm waiting around, I'll usually break out a notebook and scribble away, so sometimes I get quite a bit done.
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I was a very good boy yesterday and spent sev...
April 23, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I was a very good boy yesterday and spent several hours yesterday, last night, and this morning on cleaning up the Woodhaven quest. At this point, I feel pretty good that it generally works, though there's likely some bugs I forgot along the way. I feel better about the "fun" factor as well. The main part of the Woodhaven quest is relatively short. I made the area smaller as well, minimizing the "wandering around in a big area" problem. Now it feels tight and full of things to do.
At this point, I want to turn my focus on wrapping up the final parts of the main quest, polishing existing quests, and perhaps adding in a few other side areas. I'd like to get another treasure map you can purchase, for example, or add in a card duel outside of the main card shop.
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As expected, I worked on journals yesterday, ...
April 22, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 As expected, I worked on journals yesterday, in addition to cleaning up some dialog.
This morning I've been mostly in debug mode, finding all sorts of problems with the Woodhaven quest. It's amazing just how many things can break. Things would start attacking me for apparently no reason, characters didn't respond as expected, people didn't show up when they were supposed to, and so on. Fortunately I'm slowly wading through the mess.
It's also hard to tell if the quest is as fun any more. I simply get too close to things and it's hard to say one way or another. It's different, that's for sure, and interesting in some ways. I suppose the true test will come later this year when it's finally released.
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No huge updates
April 21, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
No huge updates. I finished up and tested a dialog this morning. Some bugs in the ship trading system were fixed. I have some journal writing to do today, mostly around the main quests.
I had a note from one of the voice actors yesterday. His wife is voicing Heather, one of the main characters, and has 45 minutes worth of dialog recorded. We're almost certainly going to have to have a low and high bandwidth version of these modules. I'm guessing we'll need hundreds of megabytes for the voice and music.
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I worked on a variety of things yesterday
April 20, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked on a variety of things yesterday. It seems I hadn't fully tested out the High Seas integration. Little things like buying cargo and storing your stuff in the cargo hold wasn't working properly. After a bit of fiddling, I tracked down the issue and fixed things. I still need to make sure the ship combat is working as well.
I got my voice acting assignments out yesterday, so my current obligations are discharged. I've also been working on dialog, including a rather amusing one I haven't quite finished yet. There's still endless polishing to do and dialogs to finish up. I'm sure the QA folks will be plenty busy once they start into it in earnest.
As for today, I need to get some ship weapons in place, as well as yet more dialog.
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Well, I did one of the two things I promised,...
April 19, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I did one of the two things I promised, passing Raz's submersible off to wisdomknight. I still haven't gone through and written down comments for each of the roles in the second module, then passed them off to the voice actors. Hopefully today I can get to that.
I did manage a bit of writing time yesterday, working on Heather's non-player romance. It was fun and witty, if brief, and I'll hopefully wrap that up soon. I have a hard time shaking the feeling that the player is "pimping out" their crew, as the Heather and Daniel non-player romances bring small rewards that the player can exploit. I'm resisting giving the player the line "who's yo daddy?"
I worked on my final island for the module, one of the Sweet Isles where the player can optionally purchase illicit goods or do a sugar-rum-iron triangle trade. Of course, I haven't made any of those trade items yet, but it's on my to do list for today.
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Yesterday was way too busy, as Mondays often are
April 18, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday was way too busy, as Mondays often are. The best I managed was a few dialogs scribbled down during boring parts of meetings, of which there were far too many to sit through. Many apologies to my team members, whom I promised many glorious e-mails of voice assignments and models to be textured. I'm a loser.
I'm still polishing and fleshing out empty spots. I ended up creating a new port of call, Iron Mountain, home of the dwarves. Currently there's no quest or adventure to have within, merely a dock with a gruff dwarf selling cargo. I keep realizing that I want to add more of this or more of that. I'd like some extra card players for the Pirate Cards game, perhaps scattered about the islands as part of a quest of sorts. The henchmen need more dialog. Ah, will the fun ever end?
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I finished up the Catspaw quest
April 17, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I finished up the Catspaw quest. The one dialog turned out to be a little bigger than I thought. There's the "romancing Daniel" path, the "female PC not romancing Daniel" path, and the "male PC not romancing Daniel" path. It seemed more appropriate than a simple one-liner, plus I was inspired for the non-romance paths and they turned out pretty darn funny.
I have a lot of coordination to do today. I promised I'd get ship models to SJ and role assignments to the voice actors. Hopefully I can get out all the necessary e-mails. Busy, busy.
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Well, I'd like to say the Catspaw side quest ...
April 16, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I'd like to say the Catspaw side quest is finished, but it's not quite. I'm really close, just needing to finish up a short Daniel dialog and that's about it.
I did manage to finish up the three parrot treasure quest. I had more fun with it than I thought I would, especially the "catch the parrot" AI tweak. Currently it's a little on the easy side, but with NWN2's outdoor areas, I suspect it might be a little more challenging.
As a reward for the player, I also decided to start a new voodoo-themed set of items. Set items work together, giving extra boosts with each additional set item you wear. They take a fair bit of effort, so currently I only have two and a half sets, but they're fun to play with and appeal to the "gotta get them all" collector in me.
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I have only a few minutes before today's team...
April 15, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I have only a few minutes before today's team meeting, so I'm going to type fast.
I worked long and hard on my custom AI this morning. It actually works surprisingly well and I could see using it as a model for future scenarios. Having unique behavior for a creature is far more interesting than simply having it run up and start swinging.
The catspaw quest is slowly wrapping up. I need to add a portion of a three-part subquest to the Catspaw subquest. It's pretty trivial, except for some writing. I also need to write some of Daniel's dialog before I can officially declare the area completed.
I still have another month or so of polishing and testing to go. Hopefully it won't be too bad.
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My interview is up on the Vault now, along wi...
April 14, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 My interview is up on the Vault now, along with the deluxe version of Firestarter. Hopefully people will enjoy it.
I jumped into the Warcry chat last night and got an immediate shout-out by the Obsidian developers. That was pretty flattering, and I wish I could have stuck around, though I only had a short window between soccer practice, dinner, and getting the kids to sleep.
I worked more on the Catspaw side quest yesterday. Today I need to write up some item descriptions, a final dialog, and do some AI coding. Should be fun.
Finally, tomorrow morning is our team meeting. I was a good boy yesterday and documented all the current roles for voice actors. Hopefully we can talk about assignments and put some of those talented actors to work.
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Yesterday was insanely busy with interviews a...
April 13, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday was insanely busy with interviews and uploading files and assorted correspondence, so I didn't really work on the module at all. This morning I worked in a house cat into the hak pack, which is needed for the little side quest I'm doing, but that's about it.
Hopefully today or tomorrow the deluxe version of Firestarter will finally be available, as well as the interview I did yesterday for the Vault.
I also get to decide today between organizing all the dialog for the voice actors or working more on the module itself. Maybe I'll get lucky and find the time to do both.
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It looks as if NWN2 has a fairly firm release...
April 12, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 It looks as if NWN2 has a fairly firm release date of September 2006. That gives us about five months to get as much work done on the prototype as possible. I still have another month of wrapping things up with the second module, but I'm hoping the third one goes much faster. I shouldn't be introducing any new gaming systems, so it'll mostly be new quests to implement. I might even be able to start in on the fourth one before NWN2 is released, depending on how things go.
I started more seriously working on the last of the side quests yesterday. It should be short, contain some custom creature AI, and is tied into Daniel's romance path. I also wrote more on Heather's non-player romance. It's fun fleshing out your companions and turning them into real people with lives of their own.
Finally, the contest winners were announced and it looks like I'm officially ranked #1 as voted by the community. I'll try not to let the fame get to me, though I always wanted to have one of those downward spirals, fueled by booze and women. Expect an interview on the Vault and a download of the deluxe version of Firestarter shortly.
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If you look very closely at this character's ...
April 11, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 If you look very closely at this character's head, you'll see . . . absolutely nothing! The infamous "flag on the head" bug finally got squashed this morning. It turns out I needed to tell my "flag creator" object to apply the flag effect. I had it all ready to go, but forgot that critical step. Later when I went to remove it, it couldn't find any flags applied by the "flag creator". It took me close to an hour to track that one down.
I worked more on my Daniel-specific sidequest yesterday, writing a few paragraphs and defining some AI behavior for a special monster. I'll probably continue to split my time between making new content and debugging what I currently have. Woodhaven still has problems, but it's slowly shaping up.
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I had the kids the whole weekend, so I didn't...
April 10, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I had the kids the whole weekend, so I didn't work on the module a ton. Still, I managed some solid progress. I started writing the beginning of the fourth module, which is slowly solidifying in my mind. I'm not sure if it'll make it through unchanged, but so far I'm pretty happy with the opening.
Focusing on the task at hand, I hunkered down and went through the Woodhaven quest. Things were pretty badly broken, but I'm fixing them as quickly as I can. In one case, I deleted a key house and forgot to add it back. In another case, you couldn't actually learn new skills for use in the arena, which basically made it impossible to win. I've also reduced the number of fights you have to engage in. Mostly I want it to be a fun little area and not a series of tedious battles.
It still needs things like journal entries and more polish, but it feels good to start taking care of the last of the main quests.
I also had another side quest come to me. I've been wanting to give your companions and the romance with each of them a bit more attention. So far Heather gets lots of action, while poor Daniel doesn't currently do much more than admire the player. This new potential quest fixes that, though you can certainly engage in it out of friendship instead of l'amour.
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I don't have a ton to report
April 08, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I don't have a ton to report. Mostly I worked on a lot of miscellaneous things, from finishing the side quest to beginning the final "end module" script. I worked on some simple scripts to make a couple NPCs do more than just stand there, waiting for someone to approach. The smith will whack on his anvil and check his forge. The archaeologist examines ruins and takes soil samples. It's the small things that count.
I hope to continue the "end of the module" dialogs and scripts today, assuming I can find the time. Transferring everything to the next module is going to be tricky. Players can have multiple ships, each with a cargo hold. I want to capture the state of various quests. I've made things a bit hard on myself by splitting a big module into two smaller ones. Still, I think it's the right decision.
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I usually give the good aligned characters lo...
April 07, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I usually give the good aligned characters lots to do in my modules, cheerfully going on quests, saving princesses and the like. Evil characters typically get a token maniacal/murderous option. What I felt was missing was the devious evil approach. I ended up creating a special item you can purchase that gives the player new options, letting the player bargain for NPC's souls. It's Doctor Evil funny, which is my favorite sort of evil. Plus if the player vows to complete the quest, they can get boosts to both Lawful and Evil alignments.
I'm nearly done with the little side quest. I need to script the quest giver a bit and test the thing.
Hopefully today I can start in on my final "to do" list. It's still pretty long, though I started in on some of the writing last night. Busy, busy.
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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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