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More good progress on the last day of the year
December 31, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
More good progress on the last day of the year.
Yesterday I put all the voice work I have in the game. I also managed to get the SoZ 2da files integrated with the Dark Water ones. Theoretically that means that new SoZ characters can cast their spells and use their feats as expected.
As for today, I'm working through the most recent bug list. Fortunately it's not too bad and I'm nearly done.
Happy New Year to all.
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I'm slowly getting back into the routine afte...
December 30, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I'm slowly getting back into the routine after the holiday madness. I've been chopping up my sister's dialog (you can take a listen here), adding in some missing scripts and visual effects where I forget them.
I'm still very much behind, with some more dialog from Vicki and bug reports from PJJ sitting in my In Box. My goal for the day is to keep at it, hopefully getting all my voice actor's work in the game and starting in on the bug lists.
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It's Christmas day, but that hasn't stopped m...
December 25, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
It's Christmas day, but that hasn't stopped me from working away on the campaign. Yesterday I dragged my sister in front of the microphone to reprise her roles from the last module, though I still need to chop up the dialog and attach it. I also worked through the bugs and wrote a couple new ending dialogs. Heather and Daniel were awfully silent and needed to have some closure before the grand finale.
Now I'm slowly uploading the latest build for PJJ. Tomorrow I'm off to Portland, where I might be able to work on things, or perhaps I'll actually take a short break for awhile.
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Though Christmas is soon approaching and the ...
December 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Though Christmas is soon approaching and the weather has disrupted our travel plans, I still managed to work away on the list of bugs.
I think I'm nearly done, minus a mysterious one involving the hook system. I do have one more dialog to write, and then I'll work on a new build for testing. It's nice having just one person test the first couple times, as otherwise I get overwhelmed by bug reports. It's also nice to limit the shame of all my typos to just one person. Working on my modules has improved my spelling considerably, but only with words like "dessicated" and "vengeance".
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More good progress
December 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
More good progress. I'm about 75% of the way through the bug list, adding more content here and there as I go.
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Every once in awhile I run into funny bugs
December 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Every once in awhile I run into funny bugs. In this case, I think it's self-created, as I was running the game and then fired up the toolset to edit the area. All the geometry vanished, leaving the NPCs standing in an empty void. I'm sure there's some deep symbolism somewhere.
I continue to work through PJJ's bugs, as well as trying to deal with some long-standing rare bugs. The bug that affects some people where the module is forever stuck on the area loading screen is particularly annoying. I took some wild guesses as to the possible problem and added some debug code that might shed some light on the issue.
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Good progress today
December 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Good progress today. I went through many of PJJ's bugs, though there are a few I need to investigate. I had a few scripting issues, a couple typos, some missing journal entries, and the occasional weird inexplicable problem. The latest patch caused a trigger issue right off the bat, causing a key conversation not to fire.
PJJ pointed out that a lot of the Port Brighton conversations in DW3 are the same as DW2, so I have some writing ahead of me.
QA work isn't particularly glamorous, but it simply must be done.
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PJJ has dutifully sent along a long list of b...
December 17, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
PJJ has dutifully sent along a long list of bugs and suggested improvements. I've taken a peek at the list, but haven't quite screwed up my courage to start in on them.
My Christmas wishes were answered. I heard from Rob and it sounds like Heather will be completely voiced, despite their current location being somewhere in Botswana. I'm ever grateful for all the work they and the other voice actors have done, and I'm so happy to see all the main NPCs voiced throughout the campaign.
My sister is rolling into town, so I'm going to strap her to my computer chair and make her reprise the role of Silver and a couple other NPCs. All the voice acting is coming together nicely. Now to do a big debug push and finish things up.
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Late Friday afternoon I packaged up the lates...
December 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Late Friday afternoon I packaged up the latest build, clocking in at over 500 MB, and sent it off to PJJ. It has the clone fix and all the extra treasure maps. This weekend I've been taking it easy, though perhaps I'll try my hand at testing one of these days.
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I've been working away at fixing bugs and add...
December 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been working away at fixing bugs and adding the last few features. The twins issue has been corrected via the use of a self-destruct script. Today I'm creating some new treasure maps for purchase at Port Brighton. Currently there's only the one, which seems pretty sparse.
I had a really weird crashing bug which resulted in the entire toolset crashing whenever I compiled a certain script that used to work just fine. I ended up doing a weird workaround, though I still have no explaination. Ever since the patch, I've seen quite a few more crashes.
I'm gleeful to hear that Derek is reprising Drake, who's the main villain in the campaign. I'm not quite sure what I'd do without him. Now the only remaining key voice actor is Eshinee. Last I heard, she and her husband were in Africa, so there might be some insurmountable technical issues.
I want to get the treasure maps in the game, do a full build, post the file, and hand everything over to PJJ to do a rough first pass. If all goes well, I'll start thinking about a bigger test, though I'd like to get as much voiced dialog in the game before I get too carried away.
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I'm running into a problem where Daniel's rom...
December 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm running into a problem where Daniel's romance script is generating twins. While he may think that's a swell idea, I decided to try and prevent any inadvertent cloning. I have most of the horrible bugs fixed, but still want to fix a last few things before I make a new build.
There are always lots of last minute features I'd like to get into the game, but we'll see how much time I really find. More treasure maps are high on my list, but we'll see how that turns out.
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I've been very busy lately, but still managin...
December 09, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been very busy lately, but still managing a bit of Dark Waters work. I managed to write and voice a bunch of Spider dialog that was needed. Today I'm getting a bunch of Daniel romance dialog in the game and hopefully scripted.
I'm getting close to the end of the "really want" side quests. I'm sure some of the initial QA will come up with more initial suggestions, but hopefully the bulk of the development work is coming to a close. Of course, my experience with QA is that it can easily take months to get everything working and polished. That magical release date is still a ways off.
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I returned to the High Seas this morning, wor...
December 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I returned to the High Seas this morning, working on getting the ghost ship side quest sorted out. I've run into all sorts of amusing bugs, from ships that look like big stone blocks, to having the ship sail about partially submerged.
I think I have most everything working pretty well at this point, including some quick voiced dialog for the particular villain in this quest. He ended up reminding me of some diabolical middle management type.
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I've been working away at loose ends today
December 05, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been working away at loose ends today. There was a side quest involving a ghost ship that had a big section that had only been finished in my imagination. Unfortunately wishful thinking doesn't make for a real quest, so I was busy working on scripting, walkthroughs, and so on. Tonight I can hopefully test it out.
This morning I tried to record a serpentine monster voice. I was ready to chop it up and I realized it was completely unintelligible. Because I have no shame, you can have a listen. I can't decide if it's an evil inflatable doll, slowly deflating, or a crazed super-intelligent squirrel.
I also sent out a wide variety of pleas to voice actors. With luck, they'll be able to reprise their roles from past modules. I'm getting very close putting everything together. Of course, sigificant QA hasn't really happened yet, so that'll probably be a long couple months where I quietly sob into my computer keyboard. I love that part of game development.
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I tested and finished up Heather's romance quest
December 04, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I tested and finished up Heather's romance quest. I think it mostly works and it was very fun seeing the Yuan-Ti in the game.
Today I worked on another necessary dialog, this time for Spider. I'm trying hard not to make the player walk around a lot to get quests, but there will still be some that want to stop by for a visit and chat about how things are going.
I really need to finish up Daniel's romance. There should just be a handful of dialog lines I need to write, along with some scripting and item creation. I just need to hunker down and get it done.
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Still working away at Heather's romance quest
December 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Still working away at Heather's romance quest. I'm nearly finished, though of course it'll all need to be tested. There are some fun and unique combats, which should keep things exciting. Maybe tonight I can see them in action.
Even more exciting was the news that Chris Serani is gearing up to record Daniel's voice. I've been so impressed by the enthusiasm and professionalism of all the voice actors. It's really made a huge difference in the success of Dark Waters.
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I worked more on ninja-related activities las...
December 02, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked more on ninja-related activities last night. There are still a few bugs, but I figure it's an easter egg after all.
I did some voice recording yesterday and it was horrible enough that I re-recorded it this morning. Today I chopped it up and hooked it into the dialog, so that's one less thing on my list.
I also got inspired by Jonny Ree's Yuan-Ti's, that I had to work them into a side quest. This is for Heather's romance, which means some people might miss it, but I figure it was a nice little reward for people who like to play matchmaker.
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I didn't find too much time over the long Tha...
December 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I didn't find too much time over the long Thanksgiving weekend to work on the game, but snuck in a little here and there. Last night I worked on a very minor easter egg for patient people. I think it needs a tiny more polish, but since it's already just for fun, it doesn't need much more. I also worked on some voice recording this morning. I'm getting close to the point where I've done everything I can personally do, and need to start getting everyone else organized.
I still have some writing I'd like to work on. The critical path should be complete, but there are always some side quests that need some work. I also want to review all my current bug reports and make sure I've taken care of the main ones. It feels nice to be in the final stretch.
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Another day, another horribly broken module p...
November 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Another day, another horribly broken module patched up and made working again. In this case, it was the Fairy Tale module, which is a text adventure that's entirely optional. The most critical was a script problem. GetNearestObject doesn't seem to work very well with placeables any more (I discovered this awhile back when working on PirateCards). In any case, I can use another method and it seemed to work okay.
There were also a variety of smaller things, from lousy camera angles during a cutscene to a few missing lines. I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome, so it's time to move on to something else tomorrow.
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I'm in the process of uploading a new version...
November 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm in the process of uploading a new version of Dark Waters 1 to the Vault. We had a very quick test where I fixed the intro scene, uploaded it to a test area, and someone successfully played through DW1 and DW2. There are likely some odd issues, but people will at least be able to play until Obsidian releases a patch.
That's been consuming most of my time, though I managed to record some dialog this morning and send out some voice actor requests. I might find a little time today to chop up dialog and attach it to the conversation.
The next few days will be filled with family and time off work. I may periodically sneak down to the basement and work on the game in order to escape the madness. I'll also try not to bring my flintlock pistol to the dinner table.
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It seems that the latest patch has broken mos...
November 25, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It seems that the latest patch has broken most OnEnter scripts. I suspect we'll see a hot fix fairly soon, as most modules will have problems until it's fixed. On the plus side, the patch supposedly fixes a few longstanding bugs, including one that makes the tattoo parlor store look a little weird.
Hopefully today I can get back to fixing my own bugs instead of the game's.
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NWN2 has another patch out
November 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
NWN2 has another patch out. As usual, it seems to be causing problems, with Dark Waters not working at all. Unfortunately the auto-updater isn't working either (I think I accidentally edited a core zip file). Sadly it means I'll have to do a reinstall and re-patch of everything.
So that's what I'm doing today . . .
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I headed back to the Isle of Insanity
November 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I headed back to the Isle of Insanity. PJJ reported some problems with it and sure enough, it was completely broken. Fortunately it was simple to get it mostly working again (I must have disabled something for testing). The extra polish took awhile and I went through multiple times to get it working properly again. In general, it doesn't seem too hard to win as long as you're putting some effort into it. On occasion, things go badly and it can get pretty frantic towards the end.
I hope to do more bug fixing and polish in the weeks ahead and get things to the point where I can do a wider beta test. I also need to rally the voice actors. I haven't contacted many of them, asking them to reprise their roles from the previous acts. Hopefully most of them can.
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The first time I watched the credits scroll b...
November 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
The first time I watched the credits scroll by, it was pretty neat. Pictures from the game, development, and weird bugs appeared on the left on right. It was pretty nifty.
After the fifth time, though, it was starting to get a little much. I dutifully noted the bugs and fixed one after the other until it was well polished.
I finished up the walkthrough, though it's still just a first draft. As I add extra goodies, I'll need to add those in as well.
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I worked really hard the other day
November 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked really hard the other day. I wrote and recorded the last dialog for the final conversation. Everyone I could find that contributed to Dark Waters should get listed in the credits that scroll up at the end of the game. I even worked on the walkthrough, getting over half of it done.
I tested out the final section and found some bugs, so I'll be working on that today. I may also have a tiny surprise at the end, just for fun.
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I worked away at getting Robert's scripting i...
November 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked away at getting Robert's scripting in place. I rather like his ambient actions, walking around and saying certain things. I try to avoid NPCs simply standing there, waiting to be greeted by the player.
I think I have the last of dialog written for the epilogue. I agonized over the last line, but I think I settled for something that goes with the tone I want to set.
There's still much to do, but I'm feeling increasingly good about the state of the critical path. Maybe tomorrow I can work on some of the lengthy bug reports I've been carefully ignoring.
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I fixed a funny bug from PJJ's last set of bu...
November 18, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I fixed a funny bug from PJJ's last set of bug notes. He reported that there were Missing Texture's everywhere, though of course it looked fine to me. The toolset requires my terrain textures to be in the override folder, though normal players wouldn't have that.
Sure enough, all the hair on the Isle of Flesh became quite colorful. It was easy enough to fix, just dropping a few textures into the hak pack.
I also worked on the scripting for Robert's grand final scene. Hopefully I can get a little testing done tonight. It has a surprising number of branches, far more than I normally do. It'll make the voice over a bit more of a challenge.
Finally, I chopped up and go the voice clips in the epilogue. I still have some extra lines I need to write and record for that one, but it's getting increasingly close to finished.
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I spent a little time to clean up this site
November 17, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I spent a little time to clean up this site. People were having questions as to whether or not I was releasing acts four and five. The reality is that I decided awhile back to combine it all into a single, 14-module Act. It's very hard to do these big non-linear releases, but it felt necessary to give the player that sense of openness and exploration.
In any case, I cleaned up this site and now there are only three acts to the left. I also embedded the preview videos for 1, 2, and Lute Hero (which shows up in 3).
Finally, I decided my missing dialog I mentioned yesterday was completely in my head. I found my notes and started typing them up, realizing that I had never actually done that part before. In any case, it's typed up and in the game. Now I just need to add some scripting and that part should be ready to go.
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I worked away at the confrontation cutscene, ...
November 16, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked away at the confrontation cutscene, finally getting things to the point where I was happy with it. As it is, I think you can get from the beginning of the last module to the credits screen without any critical bugs.
I ran into a funny bug during testing. One of the NPCs was killed while playing a custom animation. This resulted in him literally being dead on his feet. Pretty amusing.
I was disheartened to find one of the rather lengthy side dialogs had vanished. I dug through the places where I would have put it and didn't find anything. I may have a paper copy in my notebook. If so, it should be relatively easy to type up.
I still have an issue with custom textures and if they can work in a hak pack (I thought they used to work). If not, I'll have to modify the installer to drop them in the override directory, which is annoying.
Hopefully I can get a new build to testers shortly.
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I finally got the Fallout 3 monkey off my bac...
November 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got the Fallout 3 monkey off my back this morning. It really sucked the life out of me for awhile. It was hard not to make some comparisons with Dark Waters as I wrapped things up. One good news is that there should be a lot more ending variations, more like Fallout 1 and 2 that talks about the various places and people you impacted along your quest.
I'm back to testing one of the final confrontations. Unfortunately the scripting isn't working quite right, but the elaborate shootout part at least works. Hopefully I can clean it up tonight. I really want to start in on the QA work next week, hopefully getting things ready for PJJ to test. I still have a ton of content to add, but maybe I can get the critical path ready to go.
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Slowly making progress
November 13, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Slowly making progress. I did some tinkering with the problematic scripts that were giving me grief. Hopefully I can test it out tonight and see if that fixes anything.
I also worked on some Isle of Flesh bugs. I'll see if I can get more writing in tonight. We'll see.
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Last night I tested out some of the scripting...
November 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Last night I tested out some of the scripting I put together. It failed pretty horribly, but I'm making progress. I did take this funny screenshot where it looks like Spider is being hit by lightning. I guess he offended someone.
This morning I spent 15 minutes recording Death's voice and ended up with a sore throat. Maybe today I'll find the time to chop it up and get it in the game.
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I'm back in full force today, which feels qui...
November 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm back in full force today, which feels quite good. I continue to work away at the ending, trying to get the final scripting done for the critical path. I added more to the epilogue, in this case the four different things that can happen to Lucy depending on your actions in the game. I can tell already that the epilogue dialog has the potential to grow even more. Lots of different things happen to the various NPCs and places the player has touched.
PJJ continues to pass along QA reports, which I'm somewhat letting pile up. Once I finish with the critical path work, I want to turn my sights to that, along with working on some of the "nice to have" details.
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A combination of Fallout 3 and having the kid...
November 10, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
A combination of Fallout 3 and having the kids to myself this weekend led to me not touching Dark Waters for two whole days. It was an odd thing, and at the end, the guilt was gnawing away. Late last week I did manage to write some non-critical path dialog and Friday I worked on a secret project. Still, it's time to get back to the campaign and roll up my sleeves.
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Another quick report
November 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Another quick report. I finished getting the last of Guy Incognito's voice work into the game. There are 542 sound clips in the third act so far. It's amazing how much work that represents.
I also worked more on the epilogue, working in the various endings to Daniel's romance (with Lilly/Raven). More of that tomorrow, I suspect.
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My wife was really sick yesterday, so I spent...
November 05, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
My wife was really sick yesterday, so I spent the day watching the kids and not working on Dark Waters much. Fallout 3 did arrive, so I spent a comical election day roaming the radioactive wasteland of Washington D.C. fighting mutant ants. I'm sure it's symbolic somehow.
I'm currently under the watchful eyes of my bobble-head PIPBoy3000, making sure I'm not as neglectful today. Based on PJJ's QA work, I've toned down the combat difficulty of the Alphabet Assault quest (which was evidently impossible with a level 20 character). I'm also working on getting more of Guy Incognito's voice work into the game. As is clearly the way of his people, he left another funny clip for me. I think I'll work that one in at the end of the credits.
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I was wandering around in the caverns this mo...
November 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I was wandering around in the caverns this morning, taking advantage of the time change. My daughter wanted to test again last night, so all these bugs were made extremely obvious as I led her around Port Brighton. Sure enough, I've some more dialog to write, though not as much as I'd feared.
My beloved PIPBoy3000 bobble-head should arrive today, along with that Fallout 3 game thingie. I'm going to try hard not to let it interfere with Dark Waters, but it may be tough going.
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Guy Incognito continues to leave funny little...
November 02, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Guy Incognito continues to leave funny little adlibs at the end of his voice recordings. After spending a half an hour chopping up long mp3 files, it makes for a little treat at the end.
That's what I've been doing today, getting yet more dialog in the game. Yesterday I spent a little time continuing work on the end sequence. In a weird way I'm happy I picked the slow and cheap shipping option for Fallout 3, as it's giving me the time I need for a final push to get things ready for QA.
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I decided to break out the ghost ship for Hal...
October 31, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I decided to break out the ghost ship for Halloween. It seemed appropriate to the season, and that particular module needed a bunch of work. I've mostly been focused on finishing the module before getting back to serious QA work, but this one was bugging me so I took some time last night and this morning to get everything working properly.
Yesterday I worked on writing for the ending some more. My plan is to basically tally up all your actions and show the various effects of what you did. Mostly your impact is positive, but there are a few cases where you could have caused quite a bit of havoc, and I'm trying to reflect that as well.
I still have to get the new voice recording into the game, hopefully something I can do today. There's also supposedly a Halloween-themed module being released today which has a tiny area I created in there. I'll post a link when I know what it is.
Update: It looks like the Halloween module was posted. It requires the MotB expansion. For those of you who just want to play my tiny module, or don't have MotB, here's a link to just my module. It's extremely small, so don't expect more than 5 minutes of entertainment.
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I've been doing all sorts of odd things today
October 29, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been doing all sorts of odd things today. I did a first pass on the critical endgame dialog, and am reasonably happy with the results. Guy Incognito also sent along some more voice recording, which hopefully I can work on tomorrow.
My daughter announced this evening that she wanted to play "the drippy eye game". After awhile, I figured out she meant Neverwinter Nights. She did some testing of the Isle of Flesh for me, discovering a bug along the way. If only I could recruit my wife, I could get my whole family working on my next project.
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I've been slowly working away today, coordina...
October 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been slowly working away today, coordinating voice actors and writing new dialog. Along the way I created a new full build, clocking in at slightly over 500 MB. I'm amazed at how much stuff is in the campaign, from music to voice files, to all the areas. Whew.
I'm still trying hard to get the end feature complete so that I can get to testing in earnest. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.
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Yesterday was one of the more productive days...
October 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday was one of the more productive days that I've had in a good long while.
It started with debugging the ending some more. It's still not finished, but I managed to get things moving somewhat more smoothly.
I started in on the load screens, which involved going into every module and fiddling with the area parameters to get a nice looking graphic. Those all got turned into tga files, I updated a 2da, and then I proceeded to edit every area in the game in order to get the right load screen set.
Not feeling quite done yet, I fixed a bug that made it impossible to leave the Isle of Insanity, cleaned up the walkmesh, and added a couple hidden treasures. Back in Port Brighton, Monroe got a new treasure map to sell, something that I'd like to add a lot more of.
As for today, I might even manage to start in on bug lists, or perhaps add in a few more treasure maps for sale. They're relatively easy to add and there's a bunch of islands with out-of-the-way areas. I might also start in on the walkthrough for the game, which is another of those things that's handy to finish before seriously getting into the QA phase.
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Work continues
October 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Work continues. This morning I got up before 5 am and started in on the final scripting. I still need to tweak one of the more significant battles in the game, but at least it's too easy rather than too hard. Before, I couldn't progress to test out further areas. Now I breeze through, though I'll need to increase the challenge later on.
I have to keep reminding myself that the hard part of debugging is about to continue, but it does increasingly feel like the end of this epic campaign is near.
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I've been working on getting the Guy's sound ...
October 25, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been working on getting the Guy's sound clips chopped up and put into the game. He's done a great job, including keeping a straight face while voicing one of the most hysterical lines in the entire game. He had a bit of fun improvising the Hanged Man's lines, as you can listen to here.
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I think yesterday's posting about Guy's work ...
October 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think yesterday's posting about Guy's work got folks a little excited. I've had another voice actor offering his services, and Chris letting me know he's going to be gearing up to get ready. The woman who voices Heather is still in Africa, but she and her husband will hopefully be around starting in November. I'm not quite ready to get all geared up for voice acting, but I don't think it'll take too long.
I spent some time debugging yesterday, but mostly I spent a bunch of time working on a super secret project. It was frustrating and satisfying and very different from the usual sort of thing I do.
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I got a tremendous amount of work done yesterday
October 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I got a tremendous amount of work done yesterday. For starters, I had a new voice actor volunteer his time, so I went through some of the unvoiced NPCs and he very quickly got the recordings to me. I chopped them up and got them in the game by the end of the day. Here's a quick sample of Guy Incognito's voice, which seemed appropriate to the season.
I also worked on scripting for the final area. I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out why my two NPCs weren't fighting. I eventually came to the conclusion that the tileset was at fault. I'm guessing that you can't properly target creatures when they're below the 0 z-axis. In any case, I had them run up a flight of stairs and they immediately began fighting.
This morning I worked on connecting the various pieces of the ending together. There's still lots to do, but it feels like things are coming together nicely. Soon the plan is to move into bug fixing and polish mode, as well as working to get as many NPCs voiced as possible.
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I've been making dark sacrifices to the marke...
October 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been making dark sacrifices to the marketing and PR gods, but to no avail. Soon I can speak of that forbidden time, in a land beyond sanity and hope.
In the meantime, I've been a diligent modder, writing lots and lots of dialog. Endings are often a wordy affair, with farewells and threats and exclaimations of dispair. It's been fun getting the characters and plots wrapped up, a culmination of the years of events that came before them.
As for today, hopefully I can manage more of the same. Slowly getting there.
Update: I can finally talk about it! The world builder newsletter went out with news of the event.
About a month ago, Jay from Bioware dropped me an e-mail, inviting me to see the new Dragon Age toolset and hang out with the Bioware folks and other community members. I rushed to get my passport together and traveled to Edmonton for a couple days.
While I still can't talk about the toolset, I can say that I had a great time hanging out with everyone. It was wonderful meeting some of the folks on the forums I've talked with over the years, along with the Bioware crew.
The tour of the Bioware offices were great fun, though sadly there was no western themed lobby with stuffed prarie dogs (so much for my prophetic dreams). One high point was our group being pinned down by automatic Nerf gun fire.
I'm still pondering Dragon Age plans, but rest assured that I will finish Dark Waters regardless of what I do. Things are getting close to done and it'll be very satisfying to see things come to a conclusion after so many years.
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I'm back
October 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I'm back. Theoretically I'll be able to actually talk about what I did on Monday sometime.
On the plane ride back I managed a bit more writing, and more again today. With luck I can start getting the new dialog in the game shortly.
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I made it safe and sound to Edmonton yesterday
October 16, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I made it safe and sound to Edmonton yesterday. The Canadian immigration folks grilled me for awhile. Due to a freak happenstance I was born in Canada, so they were really pushing that I apply for Canadian citizenship. It might be fun to have a country to flee to after the American economy collapses.
I managed a fair bit of writing yesterday. I still have a lot to write, but the pieces are slowly coming together.
As for my events today, I'm sworn to secrecy. I had a dream last night that we were being shown the Bioware offices. The lobby was Western themed, with stuffed gophers perched on log fences. They took us behind an elaborate metal door and gave a presentation involving toys, maps, and greeting cards. We'll see if my vision was prophetic.
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I'm off to the airport shortly, hauling along...
October 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm off to the airport shortly, hauling along a laptop and notepad in hopes of getting in some writing. Yesterday I managed even more testing, pulling my hair out over getting two NPCs to fight each other. For some odd reason, they just want to be nice to each other, despite all my scripting tricks. I may just switch one NPC to the Hostile faction and be done with it.
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Today is my last day before heading up to Canada
October 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Today is my last day before heading up to Canada. I'm very much looking forward to hanging out with fellow module builders and the Bioware folks. As usual, I'm going to try to work on writing during the long trek. I still have quite a bit to go.
I typed up some of my scribbled dialog and worked it into the game yesterday. Next I added the necessary scripting and tested it out. So far I'm generally happy with the pace of the final module, with appropriately witty dialog, and a mix of puzzles and combat. More polish is always needed, but I feel like I'm slowly getting there.
Once I get the bulk of the final act in place, the plan is to package up the entire campaign and work on polishing everything until my testers declare it good. The testing phase is always the most grueling, but I've learned over the years that it's far better to test for the necessary months rather than release early and frustrate a lot of people.
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If you look closely at the picture, you'll se...
October 13, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that the entire party is floating above the water by a few feet. One part of the Vault involves the floor collapsing, but I neglected to make the area unwalkable afterwards.
Yesterday I fixed quite a few bugs, from the silly to the serious. While my sister was visiting, I had her sit down in front of the microphone for a few quick lines. I still have a ton of writing to do. Maybe when I head off to Canada in a couple days, the long flights will be condusive to scribbling prose.
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I made some good progress yesterday, fixing b...
October 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I made some good progress yesterday, fixing bugs, writing dialog, and adding scripting. You can't quite make it all the way through, but you can get further than before. It felt good to finally have a chance to hunker down and get things done.
My sister is in town for the day, so I may see if I can get her to voice some dialog. Fun, fun.
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Nothing too exciting
October 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Nothing too exciting. I keep working away at the Vault. I got a secret door working the way I wanted. The entire place is getting a lot more density of stuff, making it look less stark and more a place where the riches of the world are stored.
I did a little writing, but there's still a bunch of dialog I need to work on. Busy, busy.
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Unfortunately I didn't manage a single word o...
October 10, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Unfortunately I didn't manage a single word of writing when off on my business trip. It was admittedly frustrating, the result of way too much team building and not much time to myself. Hopefully I can remedy that shortly.
I'm back to the Vault, trying hard to finalize things. Yesterday I got my daughter to record some more Lucy dialog. Today I want to get some of the Drake dialog and scripting together. At this point, I basically know what needs to be done to finish the game. Now I just need to hunker down and do it.
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At least the bugs I'm experiencing these days...
October 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 At least the bugs I'm experiencing these days are rather flashy. In this case, I find myself trapped in an area with lightning flashing all about. In another case, I had flaming villagers running about. Good times.
I'm off on a trip later today, though I think I'll have Internet access. My plan is to write as much as possible, finishing up the various endings. If I'm able, I'd like to start in on the companion dialog. At the moment, the romance aspect of this final act is a little light.
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I actually got a chance to do some debugging ...
October 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I actually got a chance to do some debugging yesterday. PJJ had gone through an extremely rough version of the final Act, finding all sorts of bugs. I think most of them were rooted in an accidental time travel problem. There are two versions of the Port Brighton module. The new one from the third act accidentally led to the high seas module from the second act. This caused all sorts of new content to vanish and things to look weird. Fortunately it was easy to fix.
I continue to work away at the final module. Players can now trigger the currently unfinished denouement. I have some of the post climax story written, but I need to add yet more to cover everything the player impacted over the course of the campaign.
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I added a small easter egg to the game yesterday
October 02, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I added a small easter egg to the game yesterday. At the very end, the player can choose to end the game, or instead look around for awhile. I added a number of amusing magical objects that had been stored in the Vault. People can go around and examine things if they'd like.
I also added yet more scripting, the "glue" that ties everything together. At this point the final module feels like a puzzle that's slowly coming together. I'll add a piece here, then jump to another section and add it somewhere else. Hopefully when it's completed I'll have something that makes sense and is fun to play. Wish me luck.
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I have the gargoyle properly spawning now
October 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I have the gargoyle properly spawning now. I even added some fun little visual effects during the transformation. Yesterday I created two new item sets, small but fun. I should have all the creatures in place, along with the new set items being dropped.
I still have some more things to put in place for this area, but it's getting closer by the minute.
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I sat down and typed up all my dialog I'd scr...
September 30, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I sat down and typed up all my dialog I'd scribbled down the other day, working it into the final module. The conversations are short, but poingnant, so I'm fairly satisfied with the quick pace.
I have run into a few issues with turning people into monsters. The most amusing ended up wrapping the gargoyle model around my PC in weird ways, which looked very amusing. It should be pretty easy to fix if I switch to another approach.
PJJ is already getting some initial QA feedback to me. Hopefully I can get to it soon.
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I have all these scraps of paper from yesterd...
September 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I have all these scraps of paper from yesterday, covered in dialog and item descriptions. I think they take care of most of the framework for the final battle. I'm so much happier with the way it's turning out, seeming much more epic while still touching on the campaign's main themes.
As for today, I have lots of little details to take care of, from scripting to item creation, to typing up all my scribbles. Slowly getting there.
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I had fun coming up with assorted pictures to...
September 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I had fun coming up with assorted pictures to display during the credits. Some are pretty, some are amusing bugs, and some show off aspects of the game for the player to wistfully think about at the end of the game.
I also came to a realization last night that I've been avoiding the final battle. What I'd been thinking about was too routine, a very typical boss battle where you wear down your foe until he dies. I was so uninspired that I kept fiddling around with other things, my subconscious working away at the problem.
I finally figured out what I need to do. There are still details to work out, but I'm much more excited and hope the end will be far more memorable.
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After a fair bit of fiddling and swearing, I ...
September 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 After a fair bit of fiddling and swearing, I finally got the credits to scroll smoothly across the page. It still needs some tweaking, but I think I'm on the right track.
My next plan is to create areas on either side of the screen where I can show pictures and words. The plan is to tell the aftermath of the adventure, documenting the player's decisions throughout the adventure and the consequences they had. Ever since the ending of the first Fallout game, I've been partial to that approach.
In any case, I spent some time last night writing down various endings. Most involve telling what happened at the different islands and the people there. Hopefully it gives the player a sense of how they changed the world.
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I typed up some of my written dialog, though ...
September 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I typed up some of my written dialog, though I still need to flesh it out more.
More exciting is that I recently finished coding the main part of a "credits" screen. Of course, that likely means that it's horribly bug-ridden, but hopefully I can put it together soon.
In all of the interviews I give, I try to emphasize that Dark Waters is a team effort. Putting together a nice credits section is the least I can do.
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I've been making pretty good progress over th...
September 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been making pretty good progress over the last few days. The biggest was getting the installer all put together properly. It should now install and uninstall all the proper files. I also fixed my silly mistake that made it impossible to start a new campaign and jump to the final act.
I continue to line things up for the final module. I managed some more writing, giving Drake some more great lines. For some reason, scoundrels get all the fun. I'm also getting some of the big confrontations ready, putting folks like Lord Brighton and Spider side by side.
Hopefully today I can continue those trends, and perhaps work on a "movie credit" scripting thing that's been bouncing around my brain for awhile. Fun, fun.
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I stayed up relatively late last night, insta...
September 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I stayed up relatively late last night, installing and uninstalling the full campaign. The installer is close to 500 MB and it requires 1.5 GB of drive space to install. I still have to add lots of voice actor files, so it'll probably grow even more. I'm certainly going to have a "Lite" version without the music, voice acting, and load screens, which will probably be around half the size. It's amazing how big modules are these days.
I also got my passport today, which was the last of the obstacles for my Canada trip. I'm getting excited.
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Of all the weird things to get excited about,...
September 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Of all the weird things to get excited about, I got excited about the new installer for Dark Waters. I'm trying to get a new, full installer to PJJ for testing. Of course, it's not working properly. To top it off, he brought up some of the failings of the current installer, which typically gets the job done, but nothing else.
I spent some time today reading the documentation for NSIS, whipping up a splash screen, and generally getting things polished up. Hopefully this weekend I can test out the installer and figure out the other problems PJJ is running into.
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I'm sick at home today, but I managed a bit o...
September 18, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm sick at home today, but I managed a bit of time on the final module. I wanted to give players a chance to see and purchase any of the special set items they might have missed along the way. Basically I check the player for a long list of items and create them in the store if they don't have them. It makes for a good way to have a final spending spree before the end.
I've typed up what dialog I have, discovering a dozen lines for Drake that I wrote months ago along the way. They were pretty amusing, so I'm definitely keeping them. The first of the big confrontation dialogs still need to be finished, and I'm bound to require some scripting as well. Still, it feels like I'm in the final push before the end.
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Writing, writing, writing
September 17, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Writing, writing, writing. I've put some of this off for quite some time, so it feels good to finally get around to it. This morning I finished up the dialog that players get if they jump into DW3 from a new campaign. Basically it lets players report what they did, who they killed, and other things that make a difference in the final module.
Now I'm working on dialog for Vault Island. I have an initial merchant-type character finished, offering equipment and setting the stage for further events. Next up is the first of the exciting end battles, which I'm trying to turn into a duel roughly similar to the one in DW2. Should be fun.
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I've been working very hard, though I don't h...
September 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been working very hard, though I don't have any flashy pictures or amusing sound files today. I think I tracked down the last of the issues with the Mac version of Dark Waters. There was a music file not quite in the right format (it became somewhat obvious in a hex editor). I passed along a new version for my brave Mac testers to look at.
I cleaned up some of Death's dialog, giving an added bonus if you end up doing a certain subquest for him. I attached all my dialog sound files, though it looks like I'll need to record a few more.
Finally, I took a peek at PJJ's QA report. It was, as expected, pretty horrible. The good news is that I think I know the root cause and it shouldn't be too hard to fix. Mostly I need to create a "full install" for the entire campaign. I suspect it'll be around the 600 MB mark. I think my Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, and Demon installer was about 100 MB. Whew.
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I just wanted to give a quick shout out to th...
September 13, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the good folks at the Australian gaming magazine Hyper. I've had my name pop up in five or six magazines, but this is the first time anyone has actually sent me the magazine. I went out and bought a couple of the ones in the US, but Australia is a bit far for me to go just for a magazine.
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I just finished chopping up sound files, resu...
September 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I just finished chopping up sound files, resulting in 60 little clips that I've converted and are ready to go. It's Death, who is always amusing, and I saved some choice ones for your listening pleasure.
Otherwise I've been getting my passport ready to go and doing some writing when I get the chance. My life is slowing down a little, so hopefully it won't be quite as crazy as it's been as of late.
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I've been pretty busy these last few days
September 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been pretty busy these last few days. I managed to write a bit of dialog and get things ready for the final module, along with a bit of scripting to display the appropriate flag at the base camp. I have a QA report on the text adventure module waiting for my attention. The voice actor who did Daniel contacted me, and I sent along a bunch of work for him.
The most exciting thing I can't really talk about. While I technically haven't signed an NDA yet, I can say I spent today rushing around to update my passport as a well-known game developer offered to fly me to their secret lair and show off their upcoming game. We'll see how that turns out.
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Yet another busy day, with little time to do ...
September 09, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Yet another busy day, with little time to do much with the campaign. I sent along the latest build to PJJ, my stalwart tester. It was fun looking at all the files I'm including: 10 modules for the main quest and three for side quests. Compressed it's 160 MB in size, and I haven't added all the sound and music yet. It's a pretty massive undertaking and hopefully the effort won't kill me. I think the key is to focus on one thing at a time. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and all that. I'm not sure the original speaker had module development in mind.
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I made some good progress over the weekend
September 08, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I made some good progress over the weekend. My son wanted to see how the mine track module was coming along. I confidently declared it finished, so he wanted to try it out. Sure enough, he quickly proved me wrong and after five or six tries we finally got everything working properly. The biggest issue was that your party wouldn't emerge from the mine cart with you, making fights considerably more difficult.
I also finished the psionic combat battle in the Vault, along with a fun little surprise for players who take the non-violent route.
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I'm working on the Vault this morning
September 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm working on the Vault this morning. There are a variety of tests of skill for your psionic powers, one of which is an optional psionic combat battle similar to that of Woodhaven.
Of course, my first attempt didn't quite work out. My PC started attacking the psionic projections and I had no actual forms I could turn it into (I especially liked the "Hint: You must obtain more forms or you'll lose" comment at the bottom of the screen). Hopefully I can get those things cleaned up and move one step further to an actual ending to the game.
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This screenshot is a little dark, but it has ...
September 05, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 This screenshot is a little dark, but it has the back of a vent, a gong, and a giant werewolf in the background. That's pretty much how it goes when I'm testing things out. In this case, I was trying to understand why I couldn't dock on the Vault island. I never did figure it out, but I copied an existing placeable blueprint and modified that until it worked.
At this point, a player can theoretically go from the start of the game all the way to the final island. Now it's mostly a matter of finalizing the grant finale. I'm really happy with the ambiance of Vault island, but still waffling on the final confrontations. Fairly soon I'm just going to have to roll up my sleeves and get it done.
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Progress continues slowly
September 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Progress continues slowly. I now have things set up so that the Vault island appears, though the sea is black and you can't land on it. Furthermore, when I was testing this morning, that scoundrel Drake boarded me and did something rather rude. In any case, hopefully I can fix those problems soon.
I have a bunch of sound files I recorded for Death yesterday morning. I'd love to get some time today to chop them up, though I'm not sure when.
I'm also tracking down an annoying issue with the Mac version of the module. There are some sound files that are causing crashes and it's difficult for me to troubleshoot. Fortunately I have some very helpful folks who are offering their time.
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I've been off on a short beach vacation for t...
September 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been off on a short beach vacation for the last few days. In between playing on the beach and watching kids, I managed to write a tremendous amount of dialog for Death. If you happen to die in most dangerous areas in the module, you should get some amusing commentary to reward the occasional failure. I need to put a little more work into it, looking up the tags of various areas and adding them to the dialog scripts, but it shouldn't be too hard.
Today I spent some time working on the world map representation of the Vault. When you get all the map pieces and venture out in your ship, it should magically appear and let you wrap up the campaign. That's the theory, anyway. I still have some work to do before it actually happens.
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I went back to the mines, adding in an extra ...
August 29, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I went back to the mines, adding in an extra goodie for evil characters. It's always fun to hold out temptation to good characters and see if people give in, if only to see what happens.
I also put some effort into Death, which had a few issues, such as sticking around after raising you from the dead. I also worked on my goal to give him something interesting and relevant to say when raising people on different maps. So far I only have two, but my goal is to go through and give him funny things to say in most places in the game.
Finally, I fixed a couple minor issues with the mines. My dwarven fighters weren't spawning in to provide fun background combat. The beasties should now look like they're doing something other than standing around waiting for some action.
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I think I'm finally done with the mines
August 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I'm finally done with the mines. I spent yesterday and this morning debugging, tracking down all sorts of weird issues. The mine cart path is defined by a series of sequential waypoints (over a hundred). It turns out I skipped a couple, which caused it to get confused and come to a stop. I chuckled a bit when I accidentally killed off the mine cart. I also had creatures attacking the camera, which I solved with the good ol' EffectSanctuary trick.
Yesterday I managed to spend some time with the Valsharoon side quest. He's one of those minor villians that pops up over the course of the adventure and you can go after him on the high seas if you'd like. So far I've made his undead crew, but now I need a ship and some fun treasures to go along with it.
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It feels like I've been working in the mines ...
August 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It feels like I've been working in the mines for years now. The good news is that things continue to work better every day. The lighting is greatly improved. I added foes and treasures, conversations and journal entries. The sound effects are coming along nicely, from mine car noises to the whoosh of splashing into water.
I spent a bunch of time testing this morning and did run across assorted issues. The hardest to fix was getting my camera object smoothly following the mine cart. A simple ActionMoveToObject failed miserably, presumably because the narrow walkable area made it impossible for the camera to get there. I ended up picking a location behind the cart and telling it to go there, which generally worked okay.
I also tested a couple of the fights, which ended up being extremely challenging. I toned it down, but have yet to test the big, massive fight. I also worry about a couple track-jumps, which I haven't tested lately.
Busy, busy.
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I fixed the multiple slope cart issue, but ha...
August 25, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I fixed the multiple slope cart issue, but have since discovered others. The current frustrating item is that the cart won't jump over the lava properly. It gives up and decides not to risk life and limb. I think the issue is walkmesh related, but we'll see.
The track is laid and the landscaping is done. Of course, I still need to add in some actual adventure beyond the amusement park ride appeal.
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Well, I've been making progress with the mine...
August 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I've been making progress with the mine area, though the usual amusing bugs are popping up. In this case, the multiple "tilted" versions of the cart are getting all stuck together. While it looks pretty odd, I'm working to clean that up now. There are also issues with the camera and getting in and out of the cart, but I'm slowly getting there.
I still need to do a ton of landscaping, but the track is all laid at this point. Hopefully it won't be much longer.
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I finished up my Halloween module and sent it...
August 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished up my Halloween module and sent it off to the Bouncy Rock folks. It's short, funny, and puzzle-oriented. Last night I finished debugging and added voices to the two main characters (myself as an NPC and Grunto, my faithful lab assistant). I'm especially fond of Grunto, who lives to clean up after his master's messes. There are a few in-jokes scattered around, and an odd little treat at the end.
The plan for today is to sink a bunch of time into the Iron Mountain area. Hopefully I can finish up laying tracks today, which is fairly time consuming.
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The folks at Bouncy Rock are putting together...
August 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 The folks at Bouncy Rock are putting together a Halloween themed mod, and asked that I make something for them. If you look closely at the picture, you can get a sense for the theme of my entry.
I'm going to try to keep it short so that I can get back to Dark Waters. I did manage more work on the mines yesterday. I'd like to keep that short too, so that I can get things to the point where I can wrap up the majority of the work and start moving into the testing phase. Testing usually takes months, so I'm trying to plan accordingly.
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I continue to slave away in the mines, making...
August 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to slave away in the mines, making a huge amount of progress yesterday. At this point the cart nicely moves about on the tracks. I want to speed it up a bit and make the turns more smoothly. It also looks weird going up and down slopes, but I think I have a fix for that too, using visual effects of different models applied to an invisible human. Sneaky.
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I did a bunch of debugging and tweaking yeste...
August 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I did a bunch of debugging and tweaking yesterday with the Serpent Isle area, though I still need to hunker down and do another testing pass.
Last night I worked more on the mine carts, doing a quick demo to prove to myself that it generally works. I didn't quite plan on sticking the PC visibly out of the mine car, along with the rest of my party in tow. It makes for an amusing sight, but I don't think it's quite what I'm shooting for.
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It's been a few days, interrupted by a mosqui...
August 18, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
It's been a few days, interrupted by a mosquito-filled camping trip, but I'm back into the saddle again. I have a list of bugs and tweaks to work on for the Serpent Isle quest. Hopefully it won't be too hard to finalize.
I've been helping my son work on his "pirates versus ninjas" area. On the long drive to go camping, we worked up a backstory and some motivation. Mostly he's been doing area creation, and only occasionally getting frustrated. I may assist with some of the final terrain texturing, but generally it looks pretty good.
I'd love to work on my mine cart roller-coaster concept, but I'm not sure how much time I'll get today.
Finally, it looks like Bioware has confirmed a toolset for Dragon Age. I don't have any Dragon Age plans at the moment, but it's nice to know there might be options down the road.
Update: I had forgotten, but AME posted a new interview with me from awhile back.
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I spent a lot of time testing and coding last...
August 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I spent a lot of time testing and coding last night, and again this morning, though I mostly just made a new list of issues. It's coming together really well now. My favorite part is telling Heather and Daniel to go off and do assorted useful things while you fight the undead. Heather sets up traps (which the villagers annoyingly set off at the moment) and Daniel helps round up the villagers and get them to the safety of the animal pen.
I still have a few more bug passes to go before things look good. There's also certain sections that are untested that I need to get to. Still, it's coming together nicely.
While I finalize that area, I switched over to Iron Mountain. I'm going with a roller-coaster theme, with mine carts rolling around the map. So far I just have a few sloped mine track placeables I've created and some proof-of-concept areas. We'll see how it turns out.
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I finally got some time to test this morning
August 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got some time to test this morning. Sure enough, things failed horribly, but I think I'm getting closer. The first issue was that I simply forgot to attach my scripts to the right places in the dialog. That was easy to fix, and I was off testing again.
The second problem is that the zombies can walk through tiny gaps in the wall. I think I get to make big sections unwalkable to prevent it, which shouldn't be too hard.
The final issue is that some of my key NPCs run off and fight zombies instead of doing their assigned tasks. I added a bunch of debug code and hopefully can figure out what's going on during my next testing run.
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I sunk a tremendous amount of time into codin...
August 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I sunk a tremendous amount of time into coding yesterday, getting most of the work theoretically done. Unfortunately when I went to test this morning, it comically failed spectacularly and I wasn't able to test much.
A trigger started the first conversation just fine, and I was clicking through dialog options. Soon enough, I noticed something moving in the tall grass and sure enough, a zombie emerged. After that, it was like something out of a bad horror movie and I started laughing and yelling out "Look behind you!".
My companions lept into action, fighting off the zombies I had forgotten to delete from previous testing. The conversation kept going on, everyone oblivious to the battle around us. When the dialog branch appeared when Daniel was supposed to speak, he couldn't and the rest of the dialog became broken. Fortunately this one was easy to fix with a quickie zombie deletion.
I still have more code to write, though it's getting pretty close to finished. I'd like to create another weapon with a custom OnHit ability, as those are fun to do and I need a suitable treasure.
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Well, we moved the hospital yesterday, and ev...
August 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, we moved the hospital yesterday, and everything went amazingly well. I'm mostly caught up with sleep and the concept of free time is starting to appear as well.
I decided to refocus on my current side quest, in hopes of finishing that up. I did a quick test and was able to talk and battle my way to the goodies at the end. There's still a bunch of cleanup I need to do, and the exterior area needs a ton of scripting. Still, things are coming along nicely. I was even able to get an achievement, which was a good sign.
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I've been making small, but steady progress w...
August 08, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been making small, but steady progress with the latest quest. There's lots of little details that need to be added, such as having the Blade of Ending give a special attack when fighting these huge creatures, or updating the achievements when you actually manage to kill them.
I'm working way too much this weekend and next week, so we'll see how much time I can really manage.
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My work is getting crazy busy lately
August 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 My work is getting crazy busy lately. We're in the process of moving to a new hospital, and I'm smack-dab in the middle of the move insanity. I'm still able to sneak a little development time here and there, but it's getting increasingly more difficult.
I worked on my undead legions and put together the initial parts of the scripting. There's still a ton to do before it's ready for testing, but it's nice to start making progress.
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I'm back from my trip and indeed managed a bi...
August 04, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm back from my trip and indeed managed a bit of writing along the way. I realized I needed another area, but it should be pretty small. I'm nearly done with the deep caverns area, other than a little decoration perhaps.
Mostly I have tons of scripting ahead of me. Some of it is fairly complicated, but it should help make the fights somewhat unique and interesting. Eventually I'll need to make sure the big battles aren't impossibly difficult as well.
Fun, fun.
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I finished most of my dialogs for this rather...
August 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished most of my dialogs for this rather lengthy side-quest. I've decided I'm basically incapable of creating a simple "kill the monsters and get the reward" quest. That's probably good from a player pespective, but it means that making even a minor side quest can get rather complicated.
The last dialog involves Daniel's romance storyline, which hopefully won't be too wordy. After that, I have a ton of scripting to do to make the actual quest come together. That's usually the fun part for me, especially watching it all come together for the first time.
I'll be out of town for a couple days, but the good news (for you) is that I'll be stuck in a car for much of it, with little to do but write dialog.
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Mostly I've been writing dialog for the last ...
July 30, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Mostly I've been writing dialog for the last couple days, so sadly no pretty pictures.
I've decided that the true masters of dialog are able to convey what they need in as few words as possible, much like the Japanese sumi-e style of painting a landscape with a few brush strokes. I find myself compelled to ramble and fill in the details. Perhaps some day I can boil it down into a series of two-word sentences and a few grunts.
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The zombie fun continues
July 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 The zombie fun continues. The village is essentially finished, and I made ten or so villagers for ambiance. I have a fair bit of dialog writing and scripting to do, but hopefully that should go quickly.
Of course the big excitement is with what's below the village. That'll take a fair bit more planning, though I have a pretty firm idea as to how it'll work. In theory, it'll be one of the bigger fights in the game.
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Once I have the proper inspiration, I find my...
July 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Once I have the proper inspiration, I find myself compelled to turn it into reality. I wasn't happy with the rural buildings as part of my primitive island paradise, so I took apart the lighthouse roof and the fort walls to create some huts. They're fairly large, but look reasonably good. In the background you can see one of the guard towers you can climb, along with the Veil that marks the end of the normal world.
When I get a little time today, I'll probably finish up the village and work a little on scripting. I'm not fond of the way this place looks during the day, so I'll likely change it to night for the proper creepy zombie ambiance.
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I woke up this morning and knew exactly what ...
July 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I woke up this morning and knew exactly what I wanted to do with Daniel's romance, his remembrances, and a fun zombie-themed side quest for Serpent Isle. Right now I'm working on the island itself, putting up an extremely long wall around most of the island. I also did a guard tower test to make sure the player could get up to it and back down again. The pesky zombies have an annoying habit of walking through solid walls, though I think I know how to fix that particular issue.
The current plan is to put quite a few zombies in the area at once, though I'm going to simplify their AI as much as possible. Most of the combats in Dark Water are against small groups of monsters. It's fun to set up fights that have a dozen or more creatures coming after you at once.
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I finished up the Fairy Tale side quest, thou...
July 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished up the Fairy Tale side quest, though I've yet to test it all. My favorite part was giving out the rewards, which are somewhat non-traditional. My favorite is the Blade of Ending, which is destined to bring about the ending of the world. Until then, it's a reasonably powerful magic weapon that can be used in most situations.
The best part is that it goes around complaining when attacking "lesser" opponents. It has a fair number of snooty remarks it makes about foes being beneath him, and why can't the player get on with bringing about the apocalypse? Of course, when it does face a truly challenging opponent, it gets special powers and is a great weapon for these occasional boss battles.
I'm falling behind with my correspondence, and hopefully can get to that today. It's looking like there might be issues with the version of DW1 posted on the Vault, and the Mac version may need a bit more cleanup. Busy, busy.
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I opted for a Tarot-themed ending for the fai...
July 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I opted for a Tarot-themed ending for the fairy tale module. Instead of going with the witches and fairies sort of reward, breaking out the cryptic and mysterious seemed a more apt finale. I didn't have a proper Hanged Man placeable, so I rotated one of the corpses around a bit and stuck him to a tree.
Of course, now I've got three unique magic items I need to work on, but hopefully it won't take too much time. Next I need to script the transition between the book to the story and back again. Then I can declare this side quest finished and move on to something else.
Oh, and I fixed the lamp issue. No longer is the flame sticking out in a weird place.
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I got a little bored yesterday and whipped up...
July 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I got a little bored yesterday and whipped up a lamp for the player to get while in this little fairy tale side quest. There's an odd problem, namely a candle flame that mysterious appears above it. I haven't quite figured out how it got there, except perhaps it came over when I copied the candle item.
I made the last area in the side quest, which I think will mostly be place to get loot with maybe a minor puzzle or two. Last night I tested out the game from the start to where I finished yesterday. After a few significant bug fixes, it seems to be playable. Mostly I think that people who have never played a text adventure game may have some difficulty adjusting. These days, the thought of typing every command into a box seems foreign and strange.
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I've been working away at the Fairy Tale side...
July 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been working away at the Fairy Tale side quest. It's coming together relatively well, and hopefully has the appropriate number of text adventure references for us old folks. As with all these side areas, I'm trying hard to keep it optional and fun for everyone.
Hopefully I can wrap it up fairly soon, as I have tons of other areas I need to work on.
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I've been doing more stuff with voice, gettin...
July 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been doing more stuff with voice, getting the Fae Queen's dialog in the game and working properly. I think it all turned out okay. I opted for an echo effect that compliments things nicely.
As for today, it's my birthday. I may do a little work, but I suspect I'll be reveling in chocolate cake and doing fun things.
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I managed to get all the tattoos in the game ...
July 17, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I managed to get all the tattoos in the game yesterday, complete with icons, tattoo patterns, and special effects. The tattoos are much more powerful this time around, hopefully not overly so. They have a constant effect, in addition to a very powerful, short-duration effect that uses up the tattoo. I suspect some people might just leave the tattoos alone and never use them, but they have the potential for helping immensely in a fight.
I keep waffling back and forth about the ending. Players want to defeat the villain, save the world, and get the girl. Sometimes, though, it's better to give them what they need. Watching the Vault Dweller walk off into the desert was a more powerful and poignant ending than simply returning to his cheering friends. I'll probably cheat and provide multiple endings, some following the traditional path and others more nuanced.
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I'm being fickle, switching back to the Mered...
July 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I'm being fickle, switching back to the Meredith quest in Port Brighton. I got some great voice clips from my sister the other day and I had lots of fun making them sound vaguely ghostly in Audacity. Since before it was a simple "creature attacks the party" encounter, I had to make a lot of changes in order to support the new dialog. The quest is much stronger, though, and I even managed to slip in a line as suggested by PJJ.
I also need to go back and add a bunch more tattoo patterns, again making sure I have adequate piratey items in the game. In DW2, some of the tattoos seemed a little weak and I'm hoping to spruce it up with some more impressive ones. The plan is to give some with constant effects, in addition to a big effect which results in the destruction of the tattoo. If the player wants protection from fire, they can get a Burning Man tatto and it will always be active. If they use tattoo, they'll get a flaming damage shield that's hopefully entertaining to play with.
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I drifted over to another side quest, one tha...
July 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I drifted over to another side quest, one that I'm doing out of love. Unfortunately I keep managing to destroy the module and lose progress periodically, so I find myself redoing things. I suppose the good news is that I've gotten fairly good at it at this point, so this third version is more polished than the older ones.
The Fairy Tale module is essentially a text adventure. It'll likely be very short, entirely optional, and more of an homage to the genre. I have fond memories of a kid typing "go north" and "get lamp". I've written a few simple text parses over the years. I'm trying to keep this one extremely simple and not take weeks to get working right.
Yesterday I fiddled with the GUI so it looks more book-like. I also had all sorts of problems parsing out text strings, though hopefully that's fixed now.
It's been fun working on this system, which reminds me of the good ol' days when graphics meant ASCII characters on the screen and sound effects were various beeps coming from your computer speaker.
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Progress continues
July 13, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Progress continues.
Yesterday I had my son and sister record some more lines. My sister was the sultry Silver from DW2, and I wanted to give her some more adventure hooks for DW3. I also added some dialog to a side quest NPC. Before they just attacked, but as PJJ pointed out, some additional dialog would be poignant and amusing.
I've also been working on other miscellaneous things. The Vault is getting lit and polished. Lighting always looks so much better when you add a bunch of placeable lights. I realized I once again lost the XML file that was part of my text adventure side quest. This will be the third time I've created it, so hopefully it'll go fast.
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One of the things that's required in a pirate...
July 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 One of the things that's required in a pirate-themed game like Dark Waters is making sure I have the appropriate number of pirate elements. I sometimes imagine a little Pirate-O-Meter attached to the campaign, with me tossing in piratey fuel to raise the gage into the red. I've got eye patches, hook hands, flintlock pistols, sailing ships, and now the traditional ghost pirate. Sure, he's a gnome, but I think that counts.
In any case, I finished Isle Diablo for good, testing out the final area to make sure everything worked smoothly. It's very much a side quest island, a result of getting a treasure map while on your adventures.
As for today, I've got to get back to the rest of the adventure. I have voice clips to process, dialog to write, and some bugs with the Mac version of the campaign that I need to sort out.
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It was back to the hot and ashen Isle Diablo ...
July 10, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It was back to the hot and ashen Isle Diablo yesterday. I verified that I could dig for the treasure and it would drop me into the cavern as planned. I also have the automata working, along with implementing their special weakness. The chest puzzle works as well.
I just finished writing and scripting the dialog for the final "boss battle". Of course, a little diplomacy or lying will get you out of the fight. Fun, fun.
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I think I've got the fountain/lever puzzle wo...
July 09, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I've got the fountain/lever puzzle working the way I wanted. I'm always amazed at how long it takes to debug scripts, as it seems so simple when I think of it. My little side quest island is turning into a bit of a distraction, but hopefully the remaining puzzles will be easy to crank out.
As is usual when returning from vacation, my life is intensely busy. My apologies if I don't respond to an e-mail as quickly as I'd like.
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I'm back
July 08, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm back. I didn't get quite as much writing time as I would have liked, but I did manage to crank out a number of pages in a key dialog. I'm pretty happy how it turned out, with various past choices and player skills influencing the outcome. Branching always takes more work than I think, but it really supports player choice and replayability.
This morning I focused on bug fixing in my new volcanic island. Players should burst into flames as appropriate when hanging out near volcanic vents. I also tested the main fight of the island, which is quite difficult. I try to sprinkle in a few optional, challenging combats and this looks like one of them.
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My volcanic island continues to shape up nicely
July 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 My volcanic island continues to shape up nicely. Volcanic vents spew hot gas and fire on a periodic basis, providing hazards to the unwary traveler. I also added some interesting foes, which I may fiddle with a bit more before I'm done.
Paul passed along some voice clip files for me to work on. He recorded the sketch artist voice, and I encouraged him to go with a thick French accent. I'm fond of the variety of accents in the game, as it gives it an international flair.
I'd like to finish off my island today and get to the voice clips. I'm also going to be going on vacation for a few days for my anniversary. Often they turn into great writing opportunities when I'm stuck in a car or waiting for people to wake up.
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I finished up all the achivement scripts, GUI...
July 02, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished up all the achivement scripts, GUI elements, and graphics yesterday. I'll probably do a bit more work as I get more things to track, but it felt good to mostly get that out of the way.
When my son was at fencing and my daughter was playing with another girl, I was stuck in an empty room with only a pen and paper. Fortunately I turned it into an opportunity, scribbling down the basics of a gnomish treasure side-quest. The puzzles ended up embodying the virtues of gnomish values, strangely enough. It amused me that the player had to think like a gnome in order to get through.
Once I finished scribbling out my quest, I realized I needed a place to put it. I've long felt that I wanted a variety of islands that were interesting, but not directly connected to the main quest. The tricky part is to spend enough time on these islands so that they're worth visiting, but not enough that it bogs down the development process.
In any case, I ended up making a volcanic island yesterday. My favorite part is the ash that falls around it. I'll likely have some combat and maybe a small puzzle, plus the treasure, if you know where to dig.
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I was really sick last night, but fortunately...
July 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I was really sick last night, but fortunately recovered completely and have gotten back into the swing of development. Today I've gotten the last of the psionic polish in place and I ended up working on achivements. Normally it's one of the last things I do, but since I was already working on the GUI that shows them, I figured I might as well put together the graphics, tracking the statistics, and so on.
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I've been working away at the psionics, now m...
June 30, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been working away at the psionics, now moving on to the GUI that's used to view and increase the skills. The problems with tlk files and 2da files have all been resolved, so I think it's mostly just making things look pretty.
Assuming I can find some time today, I also want to sink some time into writing more dialog. That's constantly in need of work.
On a complete lark, I was playing around with getting my Guitar Hero Wii guitar so that I could play Lute Hero. I plugged in a Bluetooth adapter, downloaded GlovePIE, installed BlueSoleil, and followed the rough instructions here. My first wiimote didn't work, but the second did. I ended up modifying the Frets on Fire PIE script so that it pressed the 1-4 keys. It's not perfect, but it was good enough for a demonstration.
I was originally going to post a dry "how to" video, but after some prompting from my son, I ended up making an extremely silly one instead. Just to prove that I'm not above making a complete fool of myself for the enjoyment of others, you can watch it here.
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I ran into a very frustrating problem the oth...
June 29, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I ran into a very frustrating problem the other day. Evidently the main tlk file got corrupted somewhere along the way. Instead of causing immediate problems, suddenly the descriptions of certain things stopped showing up properly. I ended up having to revert to a slightly older version that I'm hoping isn't missing anything. I'm also hoping I didn't accidentally roll it out into the latest patch, as I'm not sure when the problem started.
I also ran into some interesting design problems with Teleportation. It turns out I can get to places I'm not supposed to be able to get to, so I'm going to have to carefully block things off. On the other hand, I still want to give players the ability to sneak into "forbidden" areas and make them feel they're getting away with something.
Finally, I managed to get the Teleportation power into the game like the other psionic skills. Before, players used a book, which didn't quite seem right.
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As a game developer, I think I'm required to ...
June 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 As a game developer, I think I'm required to make crate puzzles. Fortunately this one is fairly painless and the plan is to have lots of hints pointing the player into the right direction. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to save the world and being stopped by a bunch of crates in the wrong place.
I have lots of bugs and issues that are popping up in this extremely rough and early version of the finale. Still, it's fun seeing it finally take shape.
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I think I've got the tileset work essentially...
June 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I've got the tileset work essentially finished, though it was surprisingly hard to wrangle into shape. I still need to make a "beautification" pass and make it all pretty, but the main structure is there. I've even started in on the scripting, which will probably be fairly tricky. I just barely started in on the dialog, which will take another big chunk of time.
Endings to big efforts are always challenging. I'd like to offer up multiple versions so that the player feels like their actions made a difference in the outcome of the game. Some people are looking for the traditional "save the world" ending, while others look for other rewards, be it romance, promise of continued adventure, treasure, revenge, or some bittersweet self-knowlege like the endings of Fallout and Planescape: Torment. While I'm not egotistical enough to think I can satisfy everyone, my goal is to let the player make big choices that impact the ending significantly.
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I really hope this tileset effort is worth it...
June 27, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I really hope this tileset effort is worth it, as it's quite slow going. I'm having fun making secret doors and such, but it's taking a bit longer than expected.
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I don't have a lot to report today
June 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I don't have a lot to report today. I continue work on the Vault area, wrestling with that difficult yet rewarding tileset. It's slow going, but hopefully the result will be well worth it.
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I was deathly ill this morning, only really b...
June 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I was deathly ill this morning, only really becoming a functional human being sometime after noon. Fortunately that means that I took the day off work, and got some time puttering around with the final area in the game.
I have a love/hate relationship with the Shadow Fortress tileset. It's the only one that has different levels, which lends itself to interesting perspectives and gameplay. Still, I think I'm going to have to create some specific placeables to fill in holes in walls and such, as the tiles don't go together very well. I'm shooting for a "forced coop" experience, where you and a key NPC have to complete tasks together. I suppose it's the classic Prisoner's Dilemma game with a D&D twist.
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I've been doing non-stop childcare for the la...
June 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been doing non-stop childcare for the last few days, so sadly I haven't been able to touch the Campaign. Today will likely be a busy catch up day, but I'll see if I can beg, borrow, or steal a few moments.
It looks like Dark Waters won an award for Best Adventure Module and I picked one up for Veteran Author. Many thanks to the folks at the Academy of Modding Excellence, who made a movie for the occasion. I'd like to also thank everyone who helped make Dark Waters what it is, and all you folks who enjoyed playing it.
It looks like the Mac version of Dark Waters is nearly ready to go. I've gotten some great feedback from the testers and can hopefully get something ready soon.
Vicki also sent along some more sound files, which I need to work into the module. I'm getting horribly excited about the final act in the campaign and am itching to write the conclusion. There's a key scene with Robert that popped into my head after I made an area. My favorite dialogs are the ones that must be done, that it's a logical conclusion as to who the character is and they can finally fulfill their purpose in the story.
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I've been doing run-throughs of the exterior,...
June 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been doing run-throughs of the exterior, testing things out. I had an amusing little adventure where Death appeared, caught on fire, and things were generally unfortunate from there. It did give me a bit of a chuckle.
I think we have a fix to the Mac crash problem, passing along fixed sound files to the Mac testers. Hopefully I can get a solid version fairly soon and post it to the Vault after that.
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Progress has been coming along nicely
June 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Progress has been coming along nicely. This morning I tested the various scripts for the more dramatic parts of the area. They worked nicely, even the part where I caught on fire and ran around, flailing about.
A brave tester has found the issue with the DW1 module not working on the Mac. It turns out that some of the sound files aren't quite in the right format, which is causing crashes. DW2 shouldn't have the same problem (I used a different technique by then). With luck I can do some investigating today and get a new version of the package that hopefully works better.
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I delved more into scripting today, working o...
June 18, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I delved more into scripting today, working on cannons and avalanches of all things. I've also moved into creating interiors, trying to continue my icy ambiance. Fortunately I made some snow and ice placeables that work wonders. I find having the area created, the story elements fall more easily into place.
With the Mac version of NWN2 out for awhile now, more people are trying to play Dark Waters. Unfortunately I'm still having problems getting it all to work properly. There are issues with getting files in the right places and I think we may have issues with the format of certain sound files. Hopefully we can sort out the issues soon.
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I continue to crank up the look of the snowy ...
June 17, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to crank up the look of the snowy island, hopefully up to that special "awesome" setting. I added swirling snow flurries and lightning to give the place an appropriately ominous feel. I'll continue to work on it today, as area creation is one of those things that it's easy to spend countless hours on.
As a side project, I'm trying to get Dark Waters working on the Mac. I keep thinking we're getting close, and I have a brave volunteer helping me out due to my lack of Macintoshes about the house. You can play part of the game now, but it's crashing in weird places. My theory is that it's related to sound file formats, and we'll see how the next round of testing goes.
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I needed a particularly ominous set of stairs...
June 16, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I needed a particularly ominous set of stairs, so I dug out Danmar's dungeon set from NWN1 and tediously converted them over to a NWN2 placeable. I like the look, and hope to have an appropriately tense confrontation at the top. Already visions of dialog branches are dancing in my head.
Lute Hero is evidently gaining notoriety. Josh Sawyer from Obsidian is going to GDC in Paris to speak about user generated content. He asked for a high resolution version of the Lute Hero video for the presentation. I tried to make sure all the folks who were involved got credit, from the Oriental construction kit folks to James who's voice shows up at the end.
As for me, I'll be hunkering down with Dark Waters some more, trying to get the critical path somewhat functional. I still have endless dialog to write too, so we'll see what I get to today.
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I'm having way too much fun with the snowy an...
June 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm having way too much fun with the snowy and icy island. Today I created a neat ice pond, complete with slipping for players who want to rush across. Yesterday I scribbled down plans for other areas, trying to come up with winter hazards that I can pull off in the game.
I think I also have a plan for Serpent Isle. It's primarily focused on Daniel/Sheridan, though it'll be a completely optional side quest. I suspect it'll have one of the toughest fights in the game too. Fun, fun.
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I made about ten different placeables this mo...
June 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I made about ten different placeables this morning, mostly retextures to make it look appropriately snowy. It looks pretty good, though there's endless work to do yet. I also adjusted the lightning and added the first parts of a storm-like effect. I think I want to add in lightning, as it looked quite nice in the other area. I have fun adding extra touches and I'm hoping I can work in footsteps for the various characters.
My kids are climbing all over me, so I have to run off. Perhaps I can sneak in more time later today.
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I decided to try the "If you build it, they w...
June 13, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I decided to try the "If you build it, they will come" approach to getting the final module in place. Sometimes the ideas seem to flow more freely when I have a place to put them. Since I generally know the shape and feel of the place, I decided to start working on that this morning.
I ended up using RWS' snow textures, along with my own snowflake particle effects. I just barely started working on the area creation. So far it's mostly just a test of ideas to see if my ideas actually look good in the game. I can tell already I'm going to need to adjust the lighting quite a bit, otherwise there will be a huge amount of whiteout and glare.
My two goals for the day are to get Lord Brighton's new dialog in the game and work on the new area. Fun, fun.
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Nothing too exciting to report
June 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Nothing too exciting to report. Mostly I worked on Lord Brighton dialog today.
I see that Lute Hero is the top module at the moment. Perhaps it's all those votes that go to eleven (apologies for the obscure Spinal Tap joke).
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I made a ton of progress yesterday, writing a...
June 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I made a ton of progress yesterday, writing and scripting and creating areas. The simple side quest is leading to some interesting conclusions, and it seems as if I'll be writing some more dialog for Lord Brighton. It's amazing what a simple question like "Say, what happened to your parrot?" can bring you. Essentially the point of the quest is to shed some light on Lord Brighton's background. He remains a mysterious figure throughout much of the second act. In this final one, hopefully players will get to know him a little better, good and bad.
I'd like to do the same with Spider and Robert. Just having them as quest givers is rather dull.
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Long ago, Razvan made a double-barreled flint...
June 10, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Long ago, Razvan made a double-barreled flintlock and I've been itching to get it into the game. I spent a bit too much time this morning fiddling about with textures and models. Somewhere along the way, I deleted a tiny triangle face off the model, so I had to put it back. I've yet to put it in the hands of my PC, but I think it'll work smoothly. I should whip up an icon as well, just to get the last detail in place.
I've decided to work on one of the Port Brighton side-quests next. I have all the dialog written and some of the areas built. It just needs some scripts and other assorted fiddling and it should be done. I want to make sure there's value in the player revisiting areas. Shops should have new gear, NPCs should talk about past events, and so on.
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I think I finally have Drake's ship at the ap...
June 09, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I finally have Drake's ship at the appropriately ominous size. The big skull and crossbones on the sail always helps, too. Though I haven't tested the most recent set of bug fixes, I think it's roughly ready to go. I could probably fiddle with camera angles some more, but for now it's probably ready for someone else to test.
I have so many things on my "to do next" list, it's hard to know where to start. I'd like to rally the voice actors and try to fill in some of the missing dialog that's in the game. I have a Port Brighton side quest to finish. There are endless tasks, but hopefully it'll be fun getting to them.
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Progress continues, though never as smoothly ...
June 08, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Progress continues, though never as smoothly as I'd like. Drake's ship seems to have sails and floats above the water now, but it's extremely tiny and not particularly fearsome. There are other bugs in the dialog that ensues. It seems simple at first, with really only a couple significant scripts, but I'm busy adding camera angles, effects, and other things that make it complicated. It would be nice if I could get finished with it today.
I have a bunch of e-mails from last week that I've been ignoring. I best apologize publicly and get to them tomorrow.
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I always thought of Drake as a fairly fearsom...
June 07, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I always thought of Drake as a fairly fearsome pirate. Somehow having your ship mostly submerged shatters the illusion. It's on my list of things to fix.
Yesterday and this morning I've been working on getting the initial meeting with Drake set up for the module. One of the key challenges for a game designer is to find ways to hurt the player. This sounds odd at first, but they've done studies and it turns out games with easy rewards aren't fun. It's only the challenging games, filled with setbacks and slow rewards, that are somehow memorable. In any case, I'm hoping I dish out the appropriate amount of suffering.
I uploaded a patch to DW1 and DW2 to the Vault's servers. Hopefully they'll be posted by now. I've been sitting on assorted fixes for awhile now, but not quite brave enough to call them done. Fortunately I drank enough coffee yesterday to throw caution to the wind and hopefully it fixes assorted issues that people have been running into.
I still have a ton of work for DW3, but it's starting to feel more like a system and less a collection of stand-alone modules. My next writing project is some of the romance stories and quests. I'm still holding off on writing the final showdown, though the details are slowly falling into place.
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Lute hero is out
June 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
Lute hero is out. There's also a short interview you can look at. I'm joyous to finally get it out the door, and hope it's something very different and fun.
I also finally kicked my Mass Effect habit last night, so I'm planning on jumping back into the DW3 fray. My little notebook of penciled dialog is next to my keyboard, so I'll be doing a fair bit of typing today. It feels good to get back to things.
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I continue to be insanely busy (hence the lac...
June 05, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I continue to be insanely busy (hence the lack of pretty screenshots). Part of it is due to my recent Mass Effect habit, which I'm hoping to kick relatively soon. I rarely get the chance to play computer games myself, so it's a special treat to indulge so deeply for the last few days.
I finished writing up my Lute Hero interview questions and passing them back to the Neverwinter Vault folks. I'm guessing it'll show up tonight if all goes well.
I'd love to find some time to type up all my dialog and get a key life-changing event written into the game. We'll see if can weasel some free time in between the regular insanity.
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I've been insanely busy lately
June 04, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I've been insanely busy lately. I did get some time to work with some Mac folks in getting a Mac version ready. I just threw up this test. It turns out that an earlier version didn't have critical campaign files, so I'm going to give this one a try. For any brave souls who download the file, ignore the readme. I've been instructed that the files should really go in the "My Documents" section. Hopefully my stalwart Mac tester can get it working and then I'll post it officially.
I'm expecting some interview questions for Lute Hero soon, and hopefully we can get this thing finally posted.
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I'm back from my trip, my notebook full of di...
June 03, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
I'm back from my trip, my notebook full of dialog and ideas for the grand final battle. I had one "duh" moment when I realized a particular event simply had to happen (or at least I had to present the possibility of the event). Without it, I was ignoring significant themes that I've been building on throughout the campaign. Silly me.
I've contacted the Vault administrators and hopefully Lute Hero will be available very soon. As always, I'm excited and nervous. Hopefully it will be well-received.
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I whipped up this rather dramatically lit scr...
May 29, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I whipped up this rather dramatically lit screenshot outside of the lighthouse. The rain was pouring and lightning flashed across the sky. It seemed an appropriate mood for debugging the Sketch Artist module.
I fixed a bunch of issues, though I've got quite a few to work on yet. Teleportation is a fun new skill to play with, though the range seems a little short. You can get to the other side of a locked door you can see through, but can't jump halfway across the map. I'll need to see how well that works if you increase the skill level, though. Coupled with the power, I want to make a bunch of places where players can use their skills to "break the rules" and get into places they otherwise couldn't get into. I love making players feel sneeky.
PJJ reported a couple minor typos with Lute Hero, otherwise it feels pretty much ready to go. I have my eye on a funky multiplayer issue involving servers that don't force a single party. Unfortunately I can't recreate it.
I'm also headed out of town for a family reunion for the next four days. I'd love to do some writing, as there's a ton of things that aren't on the critical path that I'd love to flesh out.
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I sent off Lute Hero to the testers, hopefull...
May 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I sent off Lute Hero to the testers, hopefully the last one before release. I also ended up putting together a release movie, which was time consuming but fun. I'll see if I can get in touch with the Vault folks and get things rolling.
I also got an e-mail out of the blue from someone working on the Saving Sigil project. There was a ton of work done on the NWN1 Sigil tilesets and placeables, most of which was lost when CODI disbanded. It's inspiring to see all she's done.
I spent a little time testing the Sketch Artist module. It's working pretty well, except for the part where I can't enter the lighthouse. I also discovered that one of my dialogs was only partially finished, so I finished that up this morning. Busy, busy.
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I'm still working away in between the long-we...
May 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm still working away in between the long-weekend activities and birthday parties. I managed to write and record some dialog for this little gnome, the dockmaster for Underhill clanhome.
The two main "key" quests are slowly coming together. Much of my time today was spent reviewing the Sketch Artist quest which had a large number of issues, bugs, and missing things. This included creating a ship cabin for a conversation to take place, some journal entries, and a bit of scripting. Now I've got to give it a whirl and see if it actually works.
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Well, I'm a very bad boy, or good boy, depend...
May 24, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I'm a very bad boy, or good boy, depending on how you see things. I didn't get a new build to the testers this Friday. Though I was crazy busy yesterday, I managed to write some new dialog for Death, record his lines, and fix a remaining GUI bug. Hopefully soon I can get some time to send it off, or perhaps I'll try to sneak in even more dialog. We'll see what the weekend brings.
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It was back to Lute Hero for me this morning
May 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It was back to Lute Hero for me this morning. I tried to figure out a reported issue where sound didn't work right if the players weren't part of the same party. Strangely, everything worked great for me. One player was able to jam out and the other heard it just fine.
I'm hoping the game works well in multiplayer or a persistant world. Theoretically someone could easily transform Death's Domain into their own bar, complete with a stage for performing their own songs. The hardest part would be getting custom music into the module. I'd be happy to hand over my conversion scripts to those brave enough to give it a try, though it's a fairly tricky process.
I'm going to pass along the most recent build to the testers today. Hopefully things will be polished enough for a release very soon.
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This proud robotic gardener has his cylon-lik...
May 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 This proud robotic gardener has his cylon-like eye move back and forth in the proper place, instead of around his chin like before. Even though the toolset showed it right, it seems that certain offsets to visual effects don't work in the game. I've since fixed it and it looks great.
Other bugs have been squished and the quest is shaping up to be a fun one. I like that each of the automata puzzles can be solved in a lot of different ways, some peaceful, some distructive.
Today is a lousy day for me to get anything done. I still want to investigate one last Lute Hero issue before I send things out to testers again. Sadly I haven't found the time. Maybe tonight.
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I made some good progress with the Clockwork ...
May 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I made some good progress with the Clockwork Man quest yesterday. An annoying crash bug has been fixed and my misplaced companions have been found. Even better, the underwater area looks great and I managed to whip up a nice effect for the light ripples that move around on the sea floor. I tried to grab a screenshot that captured some of the more impressive props, such as a shark, sub, and torpedo.
I still have much to polish and fix. Some of the automata puzzles are a little off, but I was able to generally make them work last night. There's some visual weirdnesses that I need to fiddle with as well. Still, I think it's almost ready for wider testing.
I also managed to get back to Lute Hero, cleaning up most of the pesky bugs. There's evidently a multiplayer bug that I need to research some more. Apparently when two people are not grouped, the second one's song sounds horrible. Weird.
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I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out w...
May 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out why one of the main areas crashed every time I went into it. After carefully checking everything, I figured out I just hadn't baked the walkmesh in the area yet. That'll teach me to ignore that warning message every time I test the module.
I got the chance to play with some of the puzzles in the Underhill Clanhome. I made the prototype over two years ago, so they seem fresh and funny and clever. The automaton that declared "Fashion emergency detected!" and stripped off all my clothes was hysterically funny.
I have another crash bug to track down, this one involving the submarine polymorph. I still need to get to Lute Hero too. Busy, busy.
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Mondays are always crazy busy, and today is n...
May 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Mondays are always crazy busy, and today is no exception. I have a bunch of feedback from Lute Hero that I need to get back to. Yesterday and today, though, I've been entirely focused with getting the Clockwork Man quest working.
The good news is that the final area has had a couple bug passes and is generally finishable. More work is needed, as always. The exterior needs a ton of work, even though it has the potential for looking extremely cool. At the moment, you don't turn into a sub properly instead end up running around the badly-lit underwater area. The funniest part is when the subs chase after me, causing very dramatic but harmless explosions.
Slowly getting there . . .
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I woke up early today and started in on the C...
May 16, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I woke up early today and started in on the Clockwork Man quest. The final area still needs more placeables and decoration, but it's getting close. This morning I decided to test it out and ran into all sorts issues. The most amusing was my bald companions, probably left over from the conversion from the NWN1 version. Daniel in particular seemed unhappy about the situation.
Some parts worked great right off the bat. I was able to program a robot to move around and do my bidding. Unfortunately the lever that was supposed to open the door didn't actually work, so my adventure was short-lived.
Yesterday I whipped up a couple pipe placeables using geometry and textures from the Sigil tileset from NWN1. I miss that look and feel and would love to pull it into NWN2, but the difference between tiles and placeables are pretty vast. I've already cut off more than I can chew, so I should probably just focus on what I've got.
I also sent off a new test build for the Lute Hero module. We'll see what fresh bugs this weekend brings.
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