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I did a test last night, mostly just to make ...
August 31, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I did a test last night, mostly just to make sure the new build sort of worked. I was able to start the game just fine, hear the new voice work, and see the new lipsynch animation. At this point, my two big things to fix are the Woodhaven arena fight and the Heather's non-PC romance. The arena fight doesn't seem fun enough yet and for some reason the ship that carries Heather's beau about isn't spawning in properly.
I've passed along the latest build to the QA folks. We'll see what they have to say about this version that I've been fiddling with for the last two weeks. All the new voice acting has brought the size up to about 150 MB in size. Whew.
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I finally got the last of the new sound files...
August 30, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got the last of the new sound files attached. It's time consuming work, but hopefully worth the effort. I have a new build compressing away as I type. I'll see if I can do a quick test tonight and make sure it works before sending it off the brave QA folks.
I think I'm going to redo the control scheme for the Woodhaven arena fights. Currently it's done via a dialog, which is somewhat clunky and contributes to the combat being not fun. I'm going to see if I can put together a custom GUI, which hopefully helps bring all the information you need to play into a well-organized place, along with being able to pick your combat options much more easily.
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After some coordination with moving really bi...
August 29, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
After some coordination with moving really big files around, I now have all of Heather's dialog in my hot little hands. I've only just started to go through all the sound clips, but they sent along this wonderful outtake.
Eshinee is an amazing voice actor and conveys a range of emotions that really bring the character to life. Her husband Robert does a wonderful job on the technical side, despite the tedium of chopping up sound files. It's been a treat to work with such nice and professional folks (as are Derek and Chris). I don't have a lot to offer in the form of cold, hard cash, but perhaps I can offer a small measure of public recognition.
In any case, I'm back to attaching sound files, probably through tomorrow. I really want to make a new build by the weekend for the testers. Even though there are remaining, known issues (Woodhaven comes to mind), I've added enough goodies and fixed enough problems to make another run-through useful and hopefully fun.
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I set aside Bioshock for a little bit this mo...
August 28, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I set aside Bioshock for a little bit this morning to record some new dialog for Spider, one of the main quest givers in the module. It's the first voice on the clip I have today. I think I was channeling Peter Lorre from the Maltese Falcon when I did it.
Instead of a picture, I thought I'd upload a clip of the various voices I'm doing. It's done with some fiddling to the pitch for most of them, along with a complete absence of shame. I'm sure my accents sound pretty horrid compared to their real-world counterparts. Fortunately I can claim that that's the way a Cockney accent sounds in the world of Dark Waters.
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Friday was amazingly productive, working thro...
August 27, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Friday was amazingly productive, working through the long list of QA issues, slowly getting down to the nitty-gritty ones that I needed to do some careful testing of myself. Lots of typos, scripting issues, and the like got resolved. It was a good feeling.
Then Bioshock arrived. I spent big chunks of the weekend exploring Rapture and immersing myself in the art deco undersea world. It'll end up being game of the year for sure.
What's fascinating to me is that there are a lot of elements to the game that I tried to fit into the first Dark Waters module - the horrible disaster, notes of the time before, the water pouring in, mental powers, and even some art deco touches. Of course, Bioshock is an order of magnitude better, from the amazing art direction to the polish of the various game systems. Still, there's something neat about seeing some of my dreams come to life, albeit in someone else's game.
Despite my procrastination, others on my team have been working hard. Robert just sent along Heather's dialog, so I'll be working to get that into the game today. With luck, I'll put a new build together this week. The Woodhaven area still needs some attention from me, but other areas seem increasingly polished. With luck, there's actually a fun game in there somewhere.
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It was all about sound clips yesterday, chopp...
August 24, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
It was all about sound clips yesterday, chopping them up and attaching them to dialog. My only hope is that since my silly accents make my kids giggle, some of the NPCs will at least have some amusement value. If you're four or eight years-old, at least.
I recorded some more this morning, including some general crew voices for the High Seas area. If I'm feeling brave, I might put in some clips in to make the combat a little more lively. I also snuck in some more minor NPCs, just for fun.
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Yet again, I had another very productive day
August 23, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Yet again, I had another very productive day. I finished up the big batch of QA work (minus the two extra days that came in while I was working on things). This morning I fixed a nagging issue where the player wasn't being properly pummeled after a dialog. The script had my pugilistic NPC with the wrong tag, an easy fix once I figured it out.
This morning I also recorded a bunch of miscellaneous NPC voices - shopkeeps and such. At this point, I think I've passed beyond the typical embarrassment that comes with hearing my own voice. Sure, half the random people in town sound like me doing silly voices, but hopefully that'll all be part of the charm of Dark Waters.
Today I may spend chopping up and attaching those files, or perhaps I'll dig into the latest set of QA reports. Ah, choices.
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I made huge progress yesterday
August 22, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I made huge progress yesterday. I'm almost through the current batch of QA reports (minus the ones that came in while I was fixing things). It's amazing how many typos, weird bugs, and other issues show up in the game.
I've also made some additions along the way. Brighton Church is one of the places where you can find a monothiestic God being worshipped, but there was no way to convert. That got added yesterday, along with everything else.
There were a few glaring omissions, such as most set items not working properly. I still have a lot of QA things remaining before I can breathe again. I've also got walkthroughs and the like which will keep me busy for a couple days. I think I can easily say that this is the most complex module I've made ever.
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Well, I think I have my earring code working ...
August 21, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I think I have my earring code working properly again. The various exploits should be closed and things are hopefully working as expected.
There was also the issue with the tattoos. You could actually get more than three, despite the dire warnings given by the tattoo artist. Well, you can now get more than three, if you really want, though bad things should properly happen now. It should have some amusement value, if nothing else.
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The debugging continues
August 20, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 The debugging continues. I found a couple hours of time yesterday to work on things, but haven't had much today. My current project is getting the earrings and tattoos working properly. Evidently my "Tattoo of the Boar" wasn't summoning the right creature. Now it does, but it's a wolf. I think I'll just change the name and icon of the tattoo.
There's also a way to cheat with earrings, letting someone use it, hand it to a companion, and have them use it to get the same effect. I think I know how to put a stop to the scoundrels, but it takes a bit of code. Fortunately the visual effect seems to be working okay, at least for my wise-cracking elven companion.
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Well, I didn't get eaten by a bear on our cam...
August 19, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I didn't get eaten by a bear on our camping trip, so it looks like everyone will still get to play Dark Waters.
I started in earnest debugging on Friday, mostly a lot of little things - typos and such. Today I've been working on bigger issues that typically require playtesting. For example, you couldn't get to Serpent Isle. It turns out the dock had an incorrectly named tag, so it couldn't figure out where to put the player. They just appeared as themselves, standing in the middle of the ocean. Funny once, sure, but probably something that would get some complaints.
Now I need to make sure the dock master at the Sweet Isles actually sells sugar. Otherwise, people might be confused about the name.
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After my hours of working with sound clips, I...
August 17, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
After my hours of working with sound clips, I've returned to my QA work. There's lots of bugs to fix, so it'll keep me busy for awhile.
I'm going camping with my son tonight, as my wife and daughter are going to Portland. I'll probably be able to find some time to debug over the next couple days, in between the action movies, Sam and Max marathons, and other guy activities.
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Well, no image today, but I have a sound clip
August 16, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Well, no image today, but I have a sound clip. It's just a handful of outtakes from various recording sessions. The first is Derek, playing the lovable scoundrel Jack. The second is my sister Sadie, voicing the sultry Silver. Finally, there's me, trying to say "incorporeal" with a vaguely Brooklyn accent.
Yesterday was all about sound clips. Everything I've got is now in the game. It's tedious work, hours of chopping up sound files, modifying formats, generating lip-synch animation files, and so on. I do feel that having voice acting in the game is worth the difficulties, bringing added humor and emotion into otherwise plain text.
As for today, I should start in on the latest QA work. It's seemingly endless, but necessary for getting a product that people will actually be able to play.
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Life is keeping me busy again, though I'm sne...
August 15, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Life is keeping me busy again, though I'm sneaking in a little development time when I can. This morning I whipped out the microphone and recorded some lines. I should probably apologize in advance if every minor character in the game sounds like me. I'd probably do the barmaid if I could pull off a good girly voice. Unless she's in drag, though, I don't think it's an option.
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It was all about the High Seas system over th...
August 13, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 It was all about the High Seas system over the last couple days. There's lots of little details to go over and bugs to fix. Some were show-stoppers, such as being sunk and having your character remain invisible and alone on the ocean. Others were minor, such as not having your ship appear next to the docks on a certain island.
I'm eager to get the latest sound clips in the game. It's tedious work at times, but well worth doing.
I also whipped up a new build for the testers. They're still finding bugs faster than I can fix them. That's pretty typical for early in the QA process. Hopefully we'll eventually get to the "polish" phase where we can work more on balance and such. Slowly but surely . . .
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I continue to work on the High Seas system, a...
August 11, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to work on the High Seas system, along with a variety of other miscellaneous bugs. Yesterday I finished sorting through several days of bug reports, from typos to weird scripting issues. You can now go from the High Seas module to the Woodhaven module and back again. Before, well, you didn't quite end up where you were supposed to.
There's still work to be done. I did a quick test and discovered that if I get sunk while on the High Seas map, I get stuck forever. There's also some additional bugs waiting for the 1.07 NWN2 patch, such as all the inventory management functions.
Derek also got a bunch of Jack dialog to me. He's the (occasionally) lovable scoundrel, and a possible love interest for Heather. I still have some dialog to record and more to chop up and add. Still, it seems like it's all coming together, slowly but surely.
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I was a bad boy yesterday and didn't accompli...
August 10, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I was a bad boy yesterday and didn't accomplish as much as I'd like. I'm getting some reported issues of slowdown on the High Seas worldmap. For awhile I thought it might be due to the lighthouse model, as it's fairly high poly. I made a lower poly version that looks okay in miniature. After a little testing, though, I don't think that's the issue.
Instead, it seems to happen when there's lots of ships nearby. I think they all work really hard trying to decide if the player is friend or foe and setting strategies as appropriate. The easy fix is to distribute the ships around the worldmap more evenly, as they're only bunched together at the beginning.
Then there's the broken pirate dialog, assorted scripting errors, and all the other fun things to fix. Sometimes being different and daring is a bit of a hassle.
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I keep plodding along, squishing bugs slowly ...
August 08, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I keep plodding along, squishing bugs slowly but surely. I just hit the lengthy list of High Seas bugs. Of all the new systems in the module, it's the roughest. Lots to do yet.
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I continue to squash bugs left and right
August 07, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to squash bugs left and right. It's satisfying in an odd way, especially as I haven't had to face anything too mysterious and nerve-wracking. It turned out all the card icons in the Pirate Card game were off by one in the 2da file. My psionic feats didn't have proper descriptions. Then there's all the typos, odd grammar, and funky scripting issues.
I'm strangely eager to find more time and do some more debugging. Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning. Fun, fun.
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I continued my grand QA efforts yesterday
August 06, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I continued my grand QA efforts yesterday. It was deeply satisfying to start taking care of some of the more weird and obscure issues that came up.
One of the bugs I ran into made me giggle a bit. There's a couple houses in Port Brighton that you can break into. Unfortunately it wasn't working right and there were a variety of issues (e.g. delayed scripts that didn't survive a save/reload, windows that didn't go anywhere).
In any case, I fiddled with things and had a fairly successful B&E session. Along the way, I did run into a funny little bug. Due to some patch and 2da changes, the children in the house got really tiny. After dispatching the boy, he sort of got stuck under my foot. It looked like I stepped in something.
Morbid humor aside, I sent off a new build to the testers (Build #2). I still have endless bug reports to wade through, which should keep me busy today.
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I was sick as a dog Friday night, rolling abo...
August 05, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I was sick as a dog Friday night, rolling about in agony on the floor. Fortunately I somewhat recovered by Saturday and have felt almost normal today.
I've been continuing to dig through the QA reports. It's simply amazing how many fun little problems there are to find. There's typos, cards that damage companions, ships reporting weird statistics, and doors that don't work properly. I've probably put a couple hours into fixing things today and will hopefully get another one or two in. It's tricky work, but satisfying to cross one more thing off my list.
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I took a short break from my QA stuff today a...
August 03, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I took a short break from my QA stuff today and put some effort into the infamous readme file. My first modules, way back in the Shadowlords days didn't have any walkthroughs. I found myself deluged with e-mails asking all sorts of questions. Since then, I've learned to put every little scrap of knowledge I can recall when designing the game.
Since writing walkthroughs can be a little boring, I try hard to add in a little quirky humor whenever possible. Here's some sample questions you'll find in the readme:
How do I get me some hot companion lovin'?
Can my companions can get love too?
I'm not too keen on having my player worship this God fellow. Can I change it?
You'll find the answers to these and many other questions, thoughtfully considered in the dw2.txt file.
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Debugging continues
August 02, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Debugging continues. This morning I went through and polished up the duel scene. It's pretty fun, even though I keep losing. There were a couple very serious bugs, the first being that it didn't start at all. The second was more comical. After being shot, my faithful companions decided to take out their aggression on the magistrate overseeing the event. I changed the scripts so that the module itself was applying damage to the player instead of the magistrate and it worked just fine.
I still have a good chunk of issues to sort through, but I'm feeling relatively good about the progress of things. I'm also cleaning up issues I find along the way, such as scripts that aren't compiling properly and the like.
Slowly getting there.
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I'm an idiot
August 01, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm an idiot.
It turns out that your companions from the first module aren't transferred over to the second module. Why? It seems I remove them from the party right before the module ends. Once I comment out the lines in the script that does it, they come across just fine.
I have no idea why I set things up that way. Perhaps I was thinking I would store them in a database or something (like I had to do with the NWN1 prototype). In any case, it means I'll need to release an updated version of the first module at some point. For players that still have a saved game from the first module, Heather and Daniel will reappear, just without the equipment you gave them (I give them stock gear). Sigh.
QA progress continues in general. I'm still getting bugs reported faster than I can fix them, though that's pretty typical early in the process. I recorded a couple voice lines for a creature this morning. I get strange satisfaction mangling my voice and making it sound horrific.
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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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