Though I have no flashy pictures for today, I...

June 29, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Though I have no flashy pictures for today, I actually accomplished quite a bit. There's an annoying store inventory bug that popped up which I implemented a workaround for. You can't go through a store's inventory the normal way, so I had to use a "guess and check" method. Basically I ask the game engine "Do you have this kind of item?" and loop through the possibilities. It's not as efficient, but it works.

I started in on some of the cutscenes. With the new multi-module setup, it's a pretty complicated process. You can talk to your companion via a campaign-level dialog, jump to another module (remembering which module you came from), do the cutscene, and return back to your starting point. Theoretically it should all work, but it could be rather exciting. Hopefully I can get that coded today.

Well, I think the world map GUI is close to f...

June 28, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, I think the world map GUI is close to finished. I ended up making it wider, which I'm a little nervous about for folks running at 800x600. I suppose they can close the GUI window or just click H to hide all the GUI elements. My only remaining task is to show the cargo on the Status page. That should give a pretty good overview of what you've got.

Fairly soon, I'd like to finish up with High Seas and write the code for the parts I know are remaining. That's mostly some cutscenes and transition to the next module, though I'm sure there's a ton I'm missing. I'm trying hard to hand something to the QA folks that's actually playable.

After that, it's all about fixing bugs, adding polish, and getting the voice and music ready. Busy, busy.

Well, I started in with my little GUI redesig...

June 26, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, I started in with my little GUI redesign, adding in a status panel when sailing around on the world map. It's still in rough shape, but looking better. The main thing is that I'll probably have to either redo the tabs up top or make the box wider. Currently I don't have room for four tabs.

Things seem a little calmer today, so I might be able to continue in on the remaining High Seas issues. I also have a new annoying issue that cropped up. When going to the ship combat screen, it takes a few minutes for the area to load. I'm guessing there's some weird loop it's getting stuck in as before it was fairly snappy.

It does seem that I'm paying for my time off ...

June 25, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

It does seem that I'm paying for my time off over the last week. Today was an insane return to work, with barely a moment to breathe.

I did manage a little testing time yesterday and this morning. The visual effects now show up on the ships. It's not perfect, but people should get a feel as to whether the damage was hull, sail, or crew (the big red spray and screams gives it away). I also put in some more code to avoid cheating, such as overloading your ship with crew, weapons, or ammunition. If you buy a cheap fishing boat, don't expect to do much with it other than get around.

Of course, I thought of more things I wanted added to the worldmap GUI. Eventually I'll need to stop adding features, though I think it makes sense to have a screen that shows your lead ship, total cargo, damage, weapons, crew, and so on. Busy, busy.

This is a very quick post, as my four year-ol...

June 23, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I'm back! It was a very long but productiv...

June 22, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I'm back!

It was a very long but productive vacation. My quiet time was typically spent fiddling with my computer, in between swimming with the kids, exploring caves, and generally enjoying sunny central Oregon.

In particular the High Seas game got a ton of attention. The worldmap GUI lets you see nearby ships, whether they hate you or not, special ships with unique captains and treasure, and trading tips. Ship to ship combat now mostly works, minus some visual effects that I implemented this morning while we were packing. Boarding actions work nicely and are pretty epic in scope if you haven't taken out the crew with weapons first. I love the named captains and the special treasures you can find.

I also spent some time working on the Chronomancer quest. It was horribly broken and I carefully went through piece by piece until it mostly worked. There's still some polish to do, but I think you can complete all of the major quests at this point.

There are side quests that are unfinished and some cutscenes and a card game quest that I know are broken. Still, having a week away from distractions was exactly what I needed to get things ready to get to testers. I fixed some really weird bugs in the last week. One of my favorites was the new system where you see your ship waiting for you at the docks. Initially it was a massive werewolf statue, which was creepy yet somehow appropriate. The second bug involved ships suddenly moving about on the world map partially submerged. It turns out that polymorphed creatures lose their scaling after a module reload. Weird. I ended up rescaling the ship models outside of the game and it turned out okay.

I'm going to try and put together a movie of the high seas area once I fix the last of the visual effects. It's nice to be back.

Well, I'm off for over a week

June 15, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, I'm off for over a week. With luck I can find an Internet connection and post a bit. Hopefully my poor little server will stay up and running without babysitting. The new modem is on the way.

I did a ton of fixes yesterday, the biggest being switching away from DelayCommand and using heartbeat scripts instead. The problem with DelayCommand is that a save and reload breaks it horribly, basically making it useless for anything more than short delays. I'm hopeful I've fixed some of the firing issues too, and I have a plan to properly implement some of the visual effects. Hopefully I can get some time to work on it during my trip.

The High Seas mini-game is an open system of ...

June 14, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

The High Seas mini-game is an open system of sorts. There's general goals, such as getting booty, trading cargo, or simply getting from island to island in order to do the next quest. For the most part, there's formal no stories that occur on the high seas. You can fight, trade, or simply explore. To some degree, that's a problem, as the lack of a well-crafted structure can lead to repetition and boredom. On the other hand, it gives a sandbox to players to make their own stories.

This morning I made my own High Seas story, mostly by accident. I was testing the combat system and decided to attack the nearest cargo ship I could find. Little did I know, I had crossed paths with the infamous bald merchant queen! My crew put up a good fight, but soon Daniel and Heather were laying on the deck, dead, and I soon joined them. Fortunately, Death owed me a favor and I returned to finish off that pesky bald merchant.

Soon I was sailing away with my ill-gotten booty. The merchant ship, in addition to carrying valuable cargo, had along a special treasure called Mask's Vestments. A good percentage of these ships carry unique cargos, which makes for good motivation. Since pirates and merchants carry different ones, I suspect the unsavory players may end up making enemies all around.

In any case, it was a fun little event and it reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the High Seas system.

I continue to debug, and there's still lots of things to take care of. I figured out why my ninja's weren't appearing. I know why sometimes I lost boarding actions, even though I really won. I think I've figured out why I can't fire all the various weapons. The visual effects for combat still need polish, but I think I'm getting closer. Finally, I need to find a wig for my Merchant Queens.

Fun, fun!

I keep hoping that somewhere under the curren...

June 13, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I keep hoping that somewhere under the current state of High Seas is a fun game. Some parts are working great. I love the world map, sailing from island to island. It's very pretty, especially things like the Brighton lighthouse that shines away in the darkness.

Unfortunately, my debugging continues in earnest. I made some progress yesterday, getting the ammo display sort of working. Speed now changes depending on your angle to the wind. My own crew doesn't try to attack me during boarding actions.

On the other hand, winning a boarding action seems to cause me to lose my ship. My crew decided to attack and sink a ship on their own, clearly a keel-hauling offense. Even worse, I swear the enemy ship looked like a giant werewolf for a time. It brought memories of the Cow Vortex bug from the prototype back to me.

In any case, I continue to be insanely busy, wishing for a few moments of quiet to putter away and get things to a manageable state. I keep hoping that next week's vacation will bring that tranquility, a Zen-like state of fixing bugs and getting things ready for testing.

I did do one fun thing yesterday, getting ninja and samurai into the module. When you board a ship from the Silk Isles, you should theoretically get some cool pirate versus ninja action. Finally the question as to who has Total Ultimate Power will be settled.

Well, I had a catastrophic network failure la...

June 12, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, I had a catastrophic network failure last night. I think the internal DSL modem in my closet server at home gets overly hot sometimes. Shutting down the PC and letting it sit overnight fixed the problem for awhile. I'm in the process of ordering a new modem, which should hopefully keep the downtime to a minimum.

Life, as always, is insanely busy. I did manage to focus on the High Seas mini-game last night, without any pesky Internet distractions. My favorite new addition is the ability to get a list of the ships on the world map, along with their distance and direction. For privateers and pirates, knowing where your prey is can be crucial. It's no fun wandering about the world map, looking for something to do.

I'm also slowly working on the ship-to-ship combat portion. The GUI is fairly good at this point, though it's pointing out all manner of problems now that I can see some of the numbers. Ship's velocities aren't changing depending on the wind facing. Weapons aren't firing (though the buttons become disabled when you're out of range quite nicely). I can't start a boarding action, though the enemy sure can. Finally, when I do a boarding action, my crew hates me, but I'm friends with the enemy's ship. Crazy.

At the end of the week, I'm heading off for a week-long vacation. Though my wife rolls her eyes, I usually bring along my computer. Hopefully I can get in some long development hours while the grandparents watch the kids. We'll see how it goes.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so insanely busy al...

June 11, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so insanely busy all the time. It makes hobby game development a hassle when it's hard to find 30 consecutive minutes to test things.

In any case, progress does continue. I got to the boarding section of the High Seas mini-game. It was on accident and the enemy crew ignored me, but for the most part things actually worked. Since I couldn't be attacked nor could I attack the enemy, things sort of paused at the end. I think I have the faction issues fixed now, though I still need to test it.

I'm also working on the new GUI. While it may look pretty, it currently doesn't do anything. Today I'm hooking up the various buttons to functions that should let me get rid of the current dialog method. We'll see how it goes.

I spent a bunch of time this morning working ...

June 10, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I spent a bunch of time this morning working on the High Seas GUI. Since ship-to-ship combat is sort of working, I felt it was time for a bit of polish. I still need to get the weapon-specific buttons finished, but I generally like the layout and it fits in a fairly compact space.

Of course, it doesn't do anything at the moment. I'll need to hook it up to the existing functions. I display everything currently, but it's all dialog based and somewhat clunky. This new interface should make it a much more enjoyable experience.

I also spent some time getting the effects for High Seas in place. There's a mini-game called Attack of the Killer Swarm which is strangely mesmerizing, in part due to the quirky visuals and sound effects. Hopefully I can make demolishing ships equally satisfying.

Progress continues nicely

June 09, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Progress continues nicely. Cargo holds are now working in the game, looking like a chest. They appear and join as companions when you enter port. You can then shuffle inventory around between them quite easily.

I tested out the new fishing boat, deciding to engage a merchant in combat. It actually worked, getting me to the right area, letting me sail about, and so on. Of course, not all was perfect. Later I had pirates attack, there was a very short boarding action, I think, and then my invisible PC stood there waiting forever.

Still, that was more progress than I thought I'd be making so far. Slowly getting there.

It's not horribly impressive, but the fishing...

June 08, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

It's not horribly impressive, but the fishing boat is now in the game. I'm trying to give a range of vessels to the player to play with. At this point, there's four ships to choose from, though my ideal is to get a few more in as I'm able.

In terms of everything else, I'm insanely busy. I managed a bit of time working on High Seas this morning. The clones are gone. I can buy a ship, sail around, and dock again. Some things still feel a bit rough, but they're getting there.

The amusing bugs continue, even though progre...

June 07, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

The amusing bugs continue, even though progress is made as well.

I dragged my sister to the microphone and made her record a number of the female extra roles. I still have to chop up the dialog, do some cleaning, convert it to the right format, and generate lipsynch files. Still, it felt good to have even more voices recorded.

I sunk some time this morning into the High Seas system. One of the more amusing bugs was having Daniel and Heather cloned every time I entered the area. I sort of have the new cargo system working. It's added as a companion. Unfortunately it has a weird icon and the game crashes when I look at its inventory. Obviously there still some things to work out.

I keep thinking I'm approaching the magic QA phase, but I want to at least let testers be able to go from place to place. Currently it's pretty badly broken.

Firestarter is feeling pretty well polished a...

June 06, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Firestarter is feeling pretty well polished at this point. The most amusing bug is when one of the NPCs had their voice sound like a chipmunk. It turns out that the original WAV file was recorded at 22kHz instead of 44kHz, which was fairly painlessly fixed.

I had a good idea about the High Seas mini-game this morning. Right now the system is broken due to a scripting bug in NWN2 that's specific to stores. I temporarily changed cargo holds from a store to a placeable, but decided that having them as creatures would work best. Right now managing cargo is complicated, but if I add them as a temporary party member, it should be a simple drag and drop.

Of course, none of that is working now. I started diving into High Seas and found all manner of bugs I need to fix. We'll see if I can get things sorted out today.

Finally, my sister is in town for the day and I'm hoping to steal her away to do some voice recording. She has a lovely voice and my plan is to see how much work I can get out of her while she's here.

Chronomancer continues to scare me, so I poli...

June 05, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Chronomancer continues to scare me, so I polished up the Woodhaven and Firestarter quests. Commoners weren't spawning properly in Woodhaven, which is actually an important part of the quest. For Firestarter, some of the key placeables weren't spawning in properly. For example, in today's grave digging screenshot, you can spy a corpse I uncovered.

I'd like to polish up Firestarter soonish and brave the horrible Chronomancer bugs. Who knows, I might even be able to spend some time with High Seas and the long list of side quests.

I spent some time on the Chronomancer quest, ...

June 04, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I spent some time on the Chronomancer quest, ending up somewhat frustrated at the degree to which certain things were broken. It's heavily dialog-based, with lots of scripts to tie things together. The madness extended to clones a'plenty, weird camera angles, and scripts that plain wouldn't fire.

Fortunately I switched over to Firestarter and found it much more pleasant. The main quest could be pretty much finished, though there were lots of broken things. My favorite part is breaking out the shovel and digging up whatever I can find. It has a nice animation and VFX, so it looks pretty good. Plus there's something entertaining about digging up graves and whatnot.

It was fun getting this particular screenshot, violating graves under a blood red moon. Good times.

I finished my first quest today

June 03, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I finished my first quest today. After a lot of pain and suffering, the arena combat now works. The two creatures battle it out and you can control them in a variety of ways. There's still some tweaking to do, but I made it all the way to the end of the quest, which was very satisfying.

I have a list of things to tweak, which I'll probably work on until the kids wake up this morning. Maybe I'll find some time during the day to work on Firestarter or Chronomancer. It actually feels like I'm making progress today, which is nice.

I got crazy busy yesterday and didn't do much

June 02, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I got crazy busy yesterday and didn't do much. This weekend it might be tough finding time as well, as I'm watching both kids while my wife is out of town. Still, I managed to spend some time working on Woodhaven.

I remember from the prototype that the arena quickly became incredibly grueling. The scripts were complex and the dialog-based control mechanism is somewhat clunky. At this point I have the creatures spawning in and visible, but they don't attack each other and the only thing I can do is lose the match.

I'd like to get the main quests basically working so that I can turn my attention to the lesser quests and High Seas system. At the moment it feels that some of them mostly work, but nothing is completely tested. Busy, busy.