Progress continues, slowly but surely

July 30, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Progress continues, slowly but surely. Most of the work so far has been doing tedious but necessary things. For example, characters would forget that they talked to the player. Doors wouldn't go back to where they came from. Other doors could be opened when they weren't supposed to go anywhere.

The testers are passing good stuff my way. Now I just need to find the time to actually fix things.

I made some really good progress this morning

July 29, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I made some really good progress this morning. The kids have been playing well together (some elaborate pretend game involving superheroes and Magneto's sidekick). In the meantime, I've read through and fixed a number of the reported bugs. I even had a chance to add in a new dialog and some good/neutral/evil options (being evil will be tempting for many).

There's still plenty for me to do and I need to report my fixes back to the team (in addition to making a new build). Still, it felt good to make a lot of progress for a change. Quite a switch from the insane business of the last week.

After nearly a week of not touching the tools...

July 28, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

After nearly a week of not touching the toolset, I woke up at five this morning, rolled up my sleeves, and started in on things. I need to remind myself that there's no way I can actually fix all bugs at once. At this point, I've fixed precisely two bugs. The first was a tricky custom content issue involving people having a hard time opening the door to the Black Spot. The second was having companions leave you for a certain quest (they didn't before, now they do).

I also need to put together some actual instructions instead of popping up an empty text file during the install. I think some of the testers problems may be due to the second module being installed first and the first module being installed second. Odds are, files will get overwritten with older version and all sorts of problems could happen.

I have the kids all myself this weekend, so I'm not sure about my free time situation. Perhaps I can sneak in a little debugging during their afternoon quiet time.

Come Hell or high water, I'm making myself ge...

July 27, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Come Hell or high water, I'm making myself get back to the task at hand. The PJJ and Juliano have been dutifully testing things, uncovering huge volumes of problems. I've yet to hunker down and go through them all, but I'm going to try hard to start on that today.

Work continues to be insane and I have the kids to myself this weekend. Sometimes it's a challenge to balance work, family, and my little gaming hobby.

To quote the movie Airplane, "I picked the wr...

July 25, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

To quote the movie Airplane, "I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue." Work has been hammering me hard lately, with a 12 hour work day on Monday, getting paged at midnight that night, and two solid days of workplace insanity. Needless to say, I haven't had a free moment to touch the game.

I am getting good reports from the voice actors. Chris is sweltering in hot Midwest temperatures and chopping up voice clips for Daniel. I'm hoping Heather's voice follows soon as well.

The first thing I want to do when I get a free moment is to see how PJJ's testing is coming along (assuming our file fiddling worked). I'm sure the list of bugs is long, but I'm eager to start fixing things as soon as I'm able.

I came across the most bizarre bug ever late ...

July 23, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I came across the most bizarre bug ever late yesterday. Nearly everything appeared compressed down, the text seemed huge, and the mini-map looked bizarre. It never repeated itself and was likely due to me switching around between programs in the background. Still, it was hysterical to see for the few minutes I had it running.

I made a new build and I'm trying a new method to share files with the QA folks. Megaupload works pretty well as long as you're in the US, but there's weird limits if you're elsewhere. I'm trying another one, which I hope does the trick.

I think I have most of the companion dialog and remembrance scenes working. I'm sure I'll be deluged by issues with other areas soon enough.

For some reason, debugging code hits all the ...

July 21, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

For some reason, debugging code hits all the various reward and punishment circuits in my brain. If the bug fixes come quickly, I get cheerful and happy. When the problems are mysterious and keep happening, the gloom sets in like a dark fog. Fortunately it is, after all, just a game. It's not too hard to move on to other things.

As for today, I fixed a whole bunch of bugs relating to Turtle Rock and the cutscenes. I'll see if I can find more time today, though the reality is that I have a couple kids clamoring to have me pay attention to them.

There's always a funny "What should I do now?...

July 20, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

There's always a funny "What should I do now?" feeling after I upload the first version for QA to poke at. I decided to roll up my sleeves and start digging into the testing myself. Sure enough, a lot of things weren't working properly, especially with the henchmen-specific "remembrance" options.

One of the things I enjoyed about Planescape and BG is the way you could guide your companions through their personal difficulties. Dark Waters 2 has quite a bit of that, letting your companions remember things from their past, develop romances, and so on. Much of the things that were breaking involved these transfers between modules, campaign-level scripts, and so on.

I've been fiddling with them today and I think I have much of it fixed. I still have a bunch of testing to do yet.

Also, I've heard from the main voice actors behind Heather and Daniel. I should get their voices in fairly soon, which is very exciting. There's still some assorted voice work that could be done, though the list is shrinking.

Ah, progress.

Well, it's my birthday today

July 19, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, it's my birthday today. I decided to celebrate by posting an alpha version of the second act (for the team members, they can check the QA section of the boards for the link or I can e-mail it to you if you'd like).

There are bugs, including some significant ones I'm sure. For example, I chose to skip the prologue and found Conley hanging out with me. I guess he was a time traveler among other talents.

Still, it's time for me to start the sometimes grueling QA process, despite the extreme busyness of my life these days. As for how long it'll take before doing a public beta, I'm never certain. Perhaps it'll be a month, perhaps two. This act is more complex than the first in many ways. It's actually nine modules instead of one, which required a lot of changes to the "glue" that holds everything together. In particular, handling transitions of NPCs and variables between modules was quite challenging.

So, another milestone in the epic campaign. I suppose I won't have that "I'm done" feeling for a long while, but it's nice to take these little steps along the way.

I'm back from vacation, returning to a new cu...

July 17, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

I'm back from vacation, returning to a new cubicle in a new office on the other side of town. It's taking me some time to adjust and the longer drive isn't my favorite thing (I used to ride my bike to work).

I managed a bit of writing while I was on my trip, mostly for the third act in the campaign. The prototype for the first two acts is very well fleshed out, but the third is only partially finished and the last is still at the concept phase. Writing is a tricky business, with inspiration usually tied to large amounts of coffee.

I also received the sad news that a longtime member of the Neverwinter Nights community passed away. Mea Culpa died of a heart attack last Tuesday. He was a regular reader and would often send amusing e-mails and correct my occasionally horrific spelling. He will be missed.

It turns out we had an extra day before we le...

July 14, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Yesterday I wrote all the Death dialog, as pl...

July 12, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Yesterday I wrote all the Death dialog, as planned. This morning I did all the recording, though my voice was pretty raw at the end of it all. I'm going to have to cut out my coughing when I chop up the dialog.

I also spent some time yesterday getting an installer together. The size of the second act is currently 128 MB for the full version, though I'm sure that will grow as I add more voice acting.

I'm also heading out of town for the next four days, going on my 12th anniversary. I have no idea what we're doing, as it's my wife's turn to surprise me. Odds are, I'll do a bit of writing in a hotel lobby as she sleeps in, but otherwise I won't do much module development for a change.

No fancy picture today

July 11, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

No fancy picture today. I sunk a few hours yesterday, working on the sound clips. I chopped up and cleaned over 50 clips from Woodhaven, along with adding lip synch files and attaching quite a few others. At this point, I'm feeling fairly up-to-date with the sound clips. I need to work on my Death dialog. I continue to be horribly behind on older e-mail, which I'll hopefully remedy today.

If all goes well, maybe I can even make an installer before I head out for my long weekend.

Progress continues

July 10, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Progress continues. Yesterday I added even more voice clips to the game. I'm up to 442 sound files at this point, with a ton more ready to go. Chris dropped me a note saying he was ready to go with Daniel, which will be a fair amount of clips right there.

I did a bit of testing as well this morning, despite a nasty headache (currently controlled with a fun mixture of Café Mocha and Advil). Monroe, the treasure map and equipment vendor, is fun to talk to. He waves his arms about as he sells his wares and is wonderfully voiced by Derek.

I did run into a few bugs, but they'll hopefully be easy to fix. It's slowly starting to feel like I'm working on an actual game instead of a collection of odd components duct-taped together.

Progress continues

July 09, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Progress continues. I figured out the issue with the lip synch files. It turns out that a handful of them had the wrong file length (it's very picky about file lengths). I also came to the conclusion that a couple bugs related to store inventories are going to remain unfixable at this point. I'm hopeful the 1.07 NWN2 patch lets me fix them. Hopefully it won't be too long from now.

Things are getting really close to the QA phase. I did some more testing this morning, finding the Pirate Card game continues to work just fine. Unfortunately a couple triggered dialogs don't work yet, so my henchmen kept appearing next to me, wanting to talk but not finding the right words. Poingnant, I suppose.

I'm doing my best to get through all of my e-mail. I'm embarrassed to find ones that are almost a month old in there. A couple were really kind and enthusiastic. It's odd, but it really is motivating to hear such positive things. I think I let the endless bug reports get me down on occasion.

I have a couple more dialogs to attach voice to, lots of team coordination stuff to get organized, and maybe I can find the time to put together an installer for the current monstrosity. I copied the campaign folder today and it's approaching 200 MB in size (including DW1 sound clips and such). I wouldn't be surprised if the installer was well over 100 MB in size. Whew.

Well, it's been two steps forward and one ste...

July 08, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, it's been two steps forward and one step back as of late. I got a ton of voices into the game, which sound really good. Unfortunately there's something horribly wrong with the lip synch animation files, causing them to crash whenever they're played.

I also started to look closely at the end of the module, making sure the proper conversations fired and the right information got to the next act in the campaign. It turns out there was a lot of work to be done. The hardest part is the ship cargo contents. I went through a bunch of different approaches, one of which resulted in endless cargo containers spawning around me.

I think I have a solution in place, essentially making the cargo containers part of the roster of characters that get moved from place to place. It's a little tricky, but seems to work reasonably well. I did a quick test by putting stuff in my cargo hold, leaving the module, returning, and having it magically appear, complete with the right inventory.

Now I just need to sort out the lip synch issue and polish up the end module code. Slowly getting there, as always.

Well, I didn't get as much done yesterday as ...

July 06, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Well, I didn't get as much done yesterday as I hoped. Today I'm vowing to change that, working hard to get as much voice clips as possible into the game. I'm doing a particularly hilarious graveyard scene, trying hard not to laugh too loud. Tonight or tomorrow morning I'd like to try an actual walkthrough and see how far I get.

I'm also trying to rework the way I do e-mail. People sending me e-mail are getting two week delays as checking GMail isn't part of my normal routine. I'm now forwarding those e-mails to my work address, which will keep me more up-to-date.

It feels good to slowly approach completion. This second Act is the biggest of them all, introducing several big gaming systems, lots of custom content, and a range of islands to explore. I'm hoping people enjoy it.

It's the 4th of July and I took the day off, ...

July 05, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

It's the 4th of July and I took the day off, managing to sneak in some development time somewhere in there. Yesterday was all about getting the load screens in place. Every area should have a real one, many of them custom. No longer should there be random load screens when going into areas.

Today I slaved away at getting my sister's voice work chopped up and attached to dialog. It's tedious work, but I'm enjoying the results so far. I also have a bunch of work from the other voice actors waiting for me. With luck, I'll find some time tomorrow to rename and attach those.

It's also looking like my family will be out of town for a couple days. If I can tear myself away from house projects, maybe I can actually spend some time testing this monstrosity.

Work on the High Seas system never seems to end

July 03, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Work on the High Seas system never seems to end. Yesterday I made sure the fleet aspects worked right (you can own and sail multiple ships). I tried to get the deed items to show the ship statistics, but the SetDescription command seems a bit touchy. I may end up making an item for each ship type or something.

I made a bunch of load screens so far today. I also have a ton of voice work that needs to be put into the game. I need to add a way to get to the next act when you finish this one (currently it tries to load a non-existant module). I realize that the game is likely very buggy at this stage, but progress continues to be made.

Success! The super annoying "lock up for a c...

July 02, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

Success! The super annoying "lock up for a couple minutes" bug got fixed. I switched from a delayed script to a heartbeat script so that you could save and reload while on the high seas. I want it to run more frequently than every 6 seconds, so I have multiple delayed commands to run another heatbeat script. Unfortunately if you leave the area, it would still run those heartbeat scripts and fail horribly. I added a quick check and now it doesn't try to do anything bad.

I still feel somewhat frazzled with all the things left to do. A bit of testing would be really good, just making sure the QA folks can get around. I also have sound to attach, load screens to take, and so on. I'm trying to decide how much cleanup I want to do before throwing together an installer and passing it along to the testers. We'll see how brave I feel today.

It's good news and bad news, as usual

July 01, 2007 by Adam in NWN2

It's good news and bad news, as usual. The good news is that I got a lot of little coding tidbits done yesterday. Theoretically ships should move on the world map according to their maximum speed, the card game quest can be finished, and various High Seas bugs should be fixed.

Unfortunately there's also a bunch of bugs left, to the point where I can't test my fixes. The worst is an apparent infinite loop bug. Performance crawls to a stop when leaving the world map. I'm thinking there's a delay command that's causing infinite looping and I need to track it down. Hopefully that can get fixed and I can actually test to see if my other changes work.