Dragon Age

NWN 2

NWN 1

Back to the Real World

July 02, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

This week has been insanely busy at work and home, leaving me only a few brief moments to collapse asleep and start again the next day. I think things are improving, fortunately.

This morning I was up at 4:30 and managed to process and attach a bunch of new lines Derek sent my way. As usual, his work is amazingly cool and I couldn't resist posting a few short clips. Hopefully they're not too spoilery.

I did get a note about show-stopping bugs, but I think it may be one that's out of my control. For some reason, some people get stuck at the "loading area" screen, which is very frustring.

In any case, I need to putter around some more and send an e-mail to the Vault folks. Hopefully I can get the last of Drake's lines recorded and send it in.

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Release Candidate 1

June 29, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I'm back from vacation and unless I hear anything horrible about the last build, I think I'm good to go. I haven't gone through all my e-mails, but the plan is to do that today. In the meantime, here's a list of the different versions I put together over the weekend:

Full Install (563 MB)

Lite Install (227 MB)

Manual install package (600 MB)

The full install is exactly the same as the last build. The Lite Install has the sound, music, and load screens removed. The manual install package is for Macs and anyone else who wants to copy files to the right place themselves. The latter option isn't very well supported, as I don't have a Mac, but I think it generally works.

I'll try to get things released on the Vault relatively soon. I have a preview video floating around somewhere.

As for Dragon Age, I did a bit of writing and art tests over this last week. I'm still fiddling around with the creative side, so we'll see what happens.

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One Last Build Before I Go

June 19, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I'm off on a short vacation for the next week, but here's the latest build:

Dark Waters (full)

And as before, here are the bug notes

I think this build may be relatively good for release. I think all of the very serious bugs are taken care of (minus the weird High Seas ones). People are generally able to finish the module. I'll probably let people fiddle with this release for the next week. If I don't hear anything critical, I'll start the release process.

On an unrelated note, I'm eager to finish up Dark Waters so I can get started on my Dragon Age module. If I get inspired, I might try some more writing and planning during my long car ride.

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My Trusty Crate Posse

June 18, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I did some more testing this morning, validating that most of my fixes actually worked. My biggest fear at this point is that I'll make a small fix and end up breaking something badly.

I was using debug mode like a maniac, bouncing between modules and acts. I ended up at the beginning of the game with a large group of crates in my party. It wasn't really a bug, as normally it would never happen, but it was an amusing little side effect of my testing.

I'm going to work on packaging and getting out a new build before I head off for vacation for a week.

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Brains

June 17, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

Good progress yesterday and this morning. I think I have all the bugs either fixed or listed as requiring some more testing.

I spent a fair amount of time with the Sanity Defense mini-game. Something must have changed in one of the patches, as when a creature is killed, their ondamaged event doesn't fire any more. While you could still beat the mini-game with this issue, it did make it more challenging. I think I have most of the issues worked out, but want to do some more testing.

Hopefully over the next couple days I can put together a good build that I can declare a "release candidate" or something similarly lofty. I'm off with limited Internet access next week, so I'll probably wait until afterwards before I think about releasing anything.

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Another Day, Another Bug Fix

June 16, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I can tell I'm suffering from QA fatigue, a rarely discussed medical condition that mod developers sometimes suffer. I think I'm in the second or third month of bug fixing and occasionally my enthusiasm wanes.

Still, I've decided to dig into the latest round of issues that were reported over the weekend. Some were weird, such as a treasure digging script that used to work, but stopped working for some reason. I added a delay to the script and it started working. Maybe something changed in the latest NWN2 patch?

There are a few other quirky things like that. My hope is that I can get a new Friday build together. When I go on my vacation next week, I can haul along my computer and work on any issues that pop up. Maybe when I return, I can finally make it live?

Hope springs eternal.

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Another Friday Build

June 12, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

Here's the latest build:
Dark Waters (full)

There really aren't any significant differences in this one and Wednesday's build, except the epilogue has some fixes.

I did get some new bugs reported today, so I need to review them to see what I've already fixed and what I should look into. The list keeps getting smaller.

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Tweaking the Epilogue

June 11, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I fiddled some more last night and I think I got the epilogue working properly. There were cases when certain lines in the dialog would be skipped due to quirky links between the lines. I think it's all ironed out now.

I haven't heard of any more issues, so I'll probably make a new build for tomorrow morning and see how it goes. Who knows? Maybe after this weekend, it'll be good enough to release.

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From the Bowels of the Earth, a New Build

June 10, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I'm rushing out a new build that should hopefully fix the more serious problems. The worst was a door that didn't unlock properly in some circumstances. I think that's working now, but I haven't had a chance to test it thoroughly.

Dark Waters (full)

As always, here are the bug notes.

I think I'm getting pretty close to done, but there are still a few issues I want to iron out before release. In some cases, not all the epilogue options show up and I want to figure out why. If I was really brave, I'd try to tackle some of the issues with the High Seas system, but that particular one may just end up being an albatross around my neck.

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Good Progress Yesterday

June 09, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I made some good progress yesterday, hopefully getting in fixes for the more serious set of bugs.

As more people play through that game, they've been pointing out not just bugs, but missing things. There was a rather large dialog branch that had voiceover, but never could display. In another case, it wasn't possible to say something important in order to break/fulfill a vow, so I quickly wrote the dialog to make that possible.

I'm feeling increasingly good about the state of things, adding more "just in case" scripts to handle odd possibilities. The one thing that never quite worked right remains the High Seas combat and trading. Occasionally it will behave strangely for no particular reason. Still, most everything else is fun and well behaved. More and more people are successfully finishing the game, which gives me hope.

I'm going to see if I can polish things up and get a new build out tomorrow.

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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.