I've been knee-deep in bug fixing as of late

March 31, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I've been knee-deep in bug fixing as of late. I think I have Anera's AI problem figured out, a consequence of my earlier "improving" the scripts. I'm not positive it's resolved, but I can say that she did a great job at cleaning the clocks of all the end battle bad guys while I twiddled my thumbs and admired the view.

I also fixed an issue with associates not moving where I told them to go. Another silly problem with me incrementing a variable by two each time instead of just one. Oops.

My bug list is still reasonably sized, including a couple odd ones. I'll continue to work on it today and then hopefully start in on the beta testing later this week. There's a bunch of things that I'd like to do still, but there comes a time when it's best to just get something out the door.

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Well, I finally did it

March 30, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Well, I finally did it. I walked through the entire module, scribbling down problems as I went. Unfortunately there were quite a few of them, some of them very annoying. I hardly had a chance to breathe yesterday, but hopefully today it'll be less crazy and I can actually get some things done. My lengthy bug list is the first thing I need to tackle. After that, I'll probably spend the next few weeks fixing bugs that the testers report as well as helping finish up the Sigil exterior tileset.

I've been getting a few questions these days that I thought I'd answer for everyone.

Is this the last module in the Shadowlords/Dreamcatcher/Demon epic?
At the moment, I'm leaning towards yes. The module wraps up fairly nicely, though I've left a few plot threads dangling so that I might pick them up later. At the moment I'm thinking of doing something quite different in the world of NWN, though things are still a bit early for me to comment.

Can I help test Demon?
Not right now. While it does look like I'll be starting a formal beta process, it'll be a closed beta. The main reason for this is that I'm using quite a few unreleased tilesets from the CODI team. They're not quite finished, so CODI's preference is to keep them in-house at the moment. If luck is with me, the tileset will finish up at the same time testing does too.

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More testing

March 29, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

More testing. It's a good thing I'm doing it too, as I found my first plot-stopping bug. It was a silly problem too - a doorway that didn't lead where it was supposed to. Just so I didn't lose all my work, I cheated and jumped to the destination. I think I'm getting to the halfway point on for the plot. Hopefully I can finish it up tonight.

I'll spend today fixing the issues I just found, of course. Most are pretty easy, though I've got to be careful about a couple of them. Slowly getting there.

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Testing, testing, and more testing

March 28, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Testing, testing, and more testing. That's pretty much all I've been working on this morning. Sure enough, there are some bugs, though no plot breaking ones so far. Anera's AI seems wacky for some reason. There's spirit gem issues. Lots of details seem odd or broken. I admit to cheating a bit, loading up on equipment, experience, and supplies, as I mostly wanted to test the plot areas first.

With luck, I'll get things working enough to give to testers this week, though we'll see how it goes.

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It was an incredibly productive day yesterday

March 27, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

It was an incredibly productive day yesterday. I whipped up several new interior doors for use in the full-sized door tilesets. That way the interior doors match the exteriors a bit better. I also finished getting in all the city areas in place, matching up all the doors with all the interior areas. Omelas is a big place.

I also had a little energy and made a small questing area with a tiny puzzle, a couple interesting encounters, and some loot. I'm a big fan of exploring novel areas and I'm trying to thrown in lots of rewards for the people who like to poke around in every nook and cranny.

I've also been working with the CODI folks a bit more, trying to get testing details ironed out. I'm thinking that after I do a full-game run-through, I'll be able to actually start some testing. Some of the tileset issues need to be resolved, but it's otherwise looking pretty good.

Oh, and I upgraded the web server last night. Hopefully it'll help keep up with future load.

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I rolled up my sleeves yesterday and started ...

March 26, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I rolled up my sleeves yesterday and started making some significant changes to the hak pack for Demon. The interiors are now completely redone, with the addition of corridors, minimap icons, and new loadscreens. It took awhile to integrate my custom tiles as well as remapping the interiors when the SET entries became out of order. Still, I'm happy with the results. I'll have to sneak in an interior or two with the new cooridors just to try them out.

I also continue to slave away on mapping out the main city. I have three of the four main areas mapped out and hope to finish the rest today. I have a bunch of "just for fun" interior areas that I'd like to plug in today as well. I'll probably make a few more before I formally end development as well.

Speaking of ending development, that day may be coming soon. I really need to find the time to do a full run-through of the entire game myself before I send it to testers. I also need to coordinate with RedR on the CODI team to get things organized for the testing process.

Somewhere in the madhouse that is my life I managed to configure the new web server. I'll probably have some downtime tonight where I swap around hardware and plug in the new server.

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For not feeling like I got much done, it was ...

March 25, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

For not feeling like I got much done, it was a busy day yesterday. I finally got the latest version of the Demon Card game published. I spent a lot of time working on the main Demon hak pack, trying to integrate the update to the Stem Interior. I'm leaning towards an approach that will end up forcing me to recreate all the interiors, so I'm hoping it's worth it. Hopefully I can make some progress with that today.

I also got set up with the CODI folks in hopes that I'll be able to more easily help with the Sigil tileset. They're using a CVS package that I set up overnight. Zillions of CODI files are now sitting on my hard drive to fiddle with. Ah, the power.

Finally, a new computer arrived yesterday that will replace this current web server. There's some occasional slowness with the site when traffic gets heavy so it's about time to upgrade. No ETA on the downtime yet - I've still got to configure the thing.

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I'm up to twelve doors

March 24, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I'm up to twelve doors. I may just call it enough and let it be at this point. I think all but a couple special-sized doors are finished, which is enough to start linking in areas. Last night I migrated all my interiors from the test Omelas interior to the new one. It goes pretty quickly, so I may end up doing the other ones today. Also on my agenda is trying to decide if I want to switch the old Stem interiors with the latest one that came out. I'd have to redo about five areas, but it may not be too painful.

As for today, I'd like to migrate more of the exteriors over to the new style. There's some .2da file issues I want to try to fix to allow Shifters in Dreamcatcher. Finally, the 2.0 release of Demon Cards might not be too far away. I haven't heard anything from testers in a long while, so either the bugs are minor or obscure enough not to be found easily.

Update: I decided to throw caution to the wind and upload the latest build of the Demon Cards game. You can grab it here if you're interested.

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Well, Sigil isn't called the City of Doors fo...

March 23, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Well, Sigil isn't called the City of Doors for nothing. I've been slaving away trying to create suitable doors for all the variations in height, width, and style. So far I have nine, with more to follow. I discovered a couple extra-wide doorways that weren't quite wide enough for the standard doors, but left huge gaps with the style I'd been working with. So, now I have three styles of doors. Once I get the basic framework down, making new ones isn't too hard. I'll probably be able to add a few more variations, then get some final doors in there. With luck, I'll have a functional city by the end of the week.

There's still a fair bit of tilework to go, though perhaps that can be done concurrently with testing for Demon. Hopefully I can get testing organized today as well.

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I think I'm going to have to have a little ta...

March 22, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I think I'm going to have to have a little talking to with the carpenters' union of Sigil. So far I've discovered doorways with three different heights, though admittedly one type seems the most common. In a crazy way, I really like it. Sigil has an eclectic style of architecture and variable height doors add a nice flair. It does make the job of creating doors a bit more challenging.

I mostly spent yesterday creating doors, sneaking in moments in my busy day. I think I like this one the best so far.

I also spent a good chunk of time researching Celtic mythology for my next project. For my previous campaigns, it was nice having the Forgotten Realms to draw on. I'm hoping to be able to tie into some of the rich myths of Ireland, England, Wales, and Scottland. Great fun.

I haven't heard any new bugs from the Demon Cards testers, so it may be time for a big release. I've also got a Shifter hak pack update in the works for Dreamcatcher. Lots of things going on.

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Though it's not much to look at, I've added m...

March 21, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Though it's not much to look at, I've added my first Sigil door. Batinthehat gave me the okay to create some generic ones that should fit the majority of the Sigil doorways. The trick was to make sure the first one worked properly, then I can go crazy with variations. A half dozen or so should suit my needs well enough and then I can get really serious with replacing my test areas with the real ones.

I put in my "auto populate" scripts that fills the area with guards and commoners and decided it needs some more tweaking. They tend to clump around certain areas so I'll probabably fiddle with more RandomWalk code.

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I unfortunately didn't get as much time to fi...

March 20, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I unfortunately didn't get as much time to fiddle around as I'd like, but I did manage a few new things. There's a neat fountain in the tileset, so I made it a bit more interactive. If you're hard on cash, you can try digging around in the mucky waters to see what comes up. Lots of fun.

This morning I also got the latest build of the Demon Card game into the main module. Testing has gone fairly well so far, so I was feeling lucky. I also wanted to test the scoring and trophy award system. It all seems to work nicely, though I admittedly didn't play all the games required to actually win (somewhere around 20 at the highest difficulty).

If I have some time today, I'd like to try livening up the main town a bit more, adding in the commoner/guard system the current test area has.

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I'm a lucky, lucky boy

March 19, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I'm a lucky, lucky boy.

I feel for all the other folks out there who are wanting to play with the tileset while I'm secretly leaping about making giggly noises. I spent most of yesterday poking about, enjoying the little touches like the very large woman's bloomers hanging on a clothesline. There's lots of things like that. Batinthehat did an amazing job.

Papermonk let me know that I could start posting screenshots, so you have today's for your viewing pleasure. I got it into the game this morning, doing a quick test area just to make sure things are working properly. I'll do some more in the days to come.

As Bat and Papermonk have said, the tileset is at an alpha stage. It's not finished yet and there's plenty of work to be done. A few tiles are missing, there's some textures that aren't done yet, and none of the doors are yet in place. Still, what's there is quite solid. I've yet to run into walkmesh issues and there are only a small number of texture misalignments or gaps in the geometry. The variation in the number of building tiles is simply phenominal, with a huge range in styles of architecture. Yet again I commend Bat, Jupp, and the other CODI folks who worked on the tileset. It's lots of fun to finally play with.

My biggest sticking point at the moment is that the doors aren't in place. I don't really mind untextured geometry or minor visual tweaks. That's easy to work around. What's hard is not being able to put in the endless doors needed to connect all the areas in the city. I ended up fiddling with doors a bit yesterday, coming up with a thin door that works in the Sigil doorways (which tend to be more narrow than the usual sort). I've volunteered to help finish the doors, though I think Bat and Jupp already have plans in that direction.

In the meantime, I'll be mapping out the city in general, putting down some in-area placeables, events, and characters, and possibly adding some more interiors to flesh out the city as much as possible. It's simply too cool looking to ignore.

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I spent a good chunk of yesterday running a s...

March 18, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I spent a good chunk of yesterday running a spellchecker against the module. It was pretty embarrassing how many different words I managed to spell wrong consistently.

Rumor has it that the Sigil exterior tileset has indeed been uploaded to the CODI FTP servers by now. Should that turn out to be true, I'll have quite the busy day integrating it.

It's also getting to the point where I should probably install the 1.62 patch. I usually give myself a couple weeks to make sure things are stable. There's a couple new goodies I'd like to get in Demon too, so that may be on the plan for today.

Update: The Sigil exterior tileset is mine . . . all mine!
After the giddiness passed, I began to poke around more seriously. There are some issues - missing textures, some GPF-producing tiles, and other problems. Still, it's amazingly cool. After years of wandering around in the same damn town, being able to travel through a completely new style of architecture is such a breath of fresh air. Bat let me know that screenshots were okay (within limits), so expect some pictures in the days to come. As another bonus, the hak pack so far is well under 10 MB with dss textures.

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Debugging AI is a slow process

March 17, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Debugging AI is a slow process. It took me a good half hour just to figure out where to put my debug code. Jazael has done a pretty amazing job thinking of all sorts of contingencies, so the AI acts relatively smart, though the code is complex. I finally got it so it wasn't casting Dispel Magic and Elixir of Life quite so freely. Warp Reality was a tricky one as well, which I'm hoping it will no longer play when there's a single rat on the field. Boomerang shouldn't destroy everyone's cards any more, one of the more amusing bugs.

I've got one or two other pending issues from testers, but I think I got the big ones so far. I'll give them a few more days to play with it. If it all looks good, I'll post it to the Vault and integrate it back into Demon as the "final" version of the game.

I also managed to get more of that written dialog into the game. If I find the time today, I'd like to do a serious spellcheck run on Demon, hopefully picking up the worst of it before I turn the dialog over to an editor.

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I've managed to scrounge up a hard drive for ...

March 16, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I've managed to scrounge up a hard drive for Jazael, now I'm just waiting for him to get back online to send me his address. In the meantime, I'm spending my evenings trying to troubleshoot the Demon Card game. I've fixed one problem, narrowed another down, and I'm mystified about another. Progress, I suppose.

I did indeed manage to get some of the dialog into the game that I wrote over the weekend. Not sure how much time I'll have today to continue, though.

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Jazael got in touch with me today and let me ...

March 15, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Jazael got in touch with me today and let me know that his hard drive has indeed failed. It looks like I'm on my own with the Demon Cards module, at least in the short term. I'm about ready to send a note to the testers so that they can give the version I worked on yesterday a try. There's a few big issues that I need to clear up before integrating it into Demon.

The CODI folks have been quiet as well. They're doing a major website revamp shortly. I'm still hoping to get my grubby hands on the Sigil exterior soon, though it's hard to tell how progress is coming along as their discussion boards are down.

More coordination for me today, as well as trying to get some of the dialog I wrote over the weekend into the game.

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I'm spent

March 14, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I'm spent.

I used the morning yesterday debugging Demon, covering all sorts of things from the main plot to some of the subsystems. I even got the "crime" system working reasonably well - if you commit a crime the guards will come after you and demand payment. It's still not perfect, but it's probably good enough. It's a slight deterrent to slaughtering townsfolk wholesale.

In the afternoon, I worked on dialog for my next project. Over the last couple days I've probably spent five hours on it. I'm still amazed at the amount of writing required for a game. That and scripting are where I spend the vast majority of my time.

Last night and this morning was spend debugging the latest build of the Demon Cards game. There's still some weird AI issues and a few broken cards. Boomerang, for example, destroys your entire deck instead of just returning a creature or generator to your hand. I've gotten some of the other major bugs fixed.

Time for me to hang my hat up for the moment and spend some time with my baby daughter who woke up far too early and is crawling around at my feet.

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More testing

March 13, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

More testing. Endless testing. I've been testing in chunks, cheating my way past the beginning of the game which I've tested dozens of times. The part I tested this morning went well enough, with only a couple visual bugs. I'm still hoping to get through the entire game from the beginning, though it's a massive undertaking.

Still no word from Jazael about the demon card game. I fear the worst as he was reporting hard drive problems last week. I may have to roll up my sleeves and do the bug fixing myself.

Lots of dialog writing for my next project yesterday. I'm trying to alternate several very different styles of writing, which is sometimes rewarding and sometimes frustrating.

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More testing and bug fixing

March 12, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

More testing and bug fixing. I'm trying hard to get ready to run through the entire game soon, though I'm still waiting for the card game and Sigil exterior tileset.

I also finished up the readme file, all 6,800 words. It ended up being quite huge and I still didn't detail everything out precisely. Still, it should walkthrough the main plot as well as the side quests and game systems.

I also found out why the demon card testers were quiet. Evidently I had forgotten to send it to them. After that, I discovered that I had forgotten to do a full build on the module so the scripts were acting wacky. Hopefully I'll get responses back soon.

Today is probably a writing day as I'm stuck in boring meetings at work. We'll see how it goes.

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I hunkered down and did some testing last nig...

March 11, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I hunkered down and did some testing last night, coming to a couple conclusions. I need to do a lot more testing before I release it to the testers in general. I was able to stumble my way through the first part of the game, but the plot became unworkable when I found that I'd spawned a secret door backwards. Sadly there was no way to open it, so I stopped for the night.

I also realized that this game is big. Really big. I went through only a small fraction of the game, zipping through dialog, and it still took an hour. I suspect that the length will be at least five hours and possibly more. I'm not sure exactly as I've yet to play through the entire game at once.

I also worked more on my secret project yesterday, doing some animation work and poetry, of all things. I felt a little better about it compared to yesterday, though I do feel quite rusty with my poetic prose writing. Today I'll probably look at fixing the bugs I discovered yesterday, though many of them were easy enough to fix while playing.

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I did some testing of the Demon Cards game th...

March 10, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I did some testing of the Demon Cards game this morning. The most noticeable change is the addition of a dialog that gives a status update of the game and allows for sacrificing creatures from here. I didn't like it at first, but found myself glancing over to check on things. There's a fair number of bugs I'm digging up as well. Hopefully we can get those issues fixed and then roll it into the main Demon module.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to work on NWN the last couple days. I did scratch out some poetic dialog for my next project. It's been a long time since I've written poetry, so hopefully it's not too juvenile. We'll see if I like it enough to show up in the game.

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Well, the testers for the latest Demon Card u...

March 09, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Well, the testers for the latest Demon Card update have been strangely quiet. I was hoping to get some feedback to Jazael fairly soon, though he deserves a break away from scripting for a bit.

Admittedly, I didn't touch Demon at all yesterday. Instead, I spent most of the time working on a tech demo for my next project. It's coming along nicely, though I'm still not to the point where I can show anything off.

Still looking forward to the Sigil exterior release later this week. My life will get quite exciting again, I suspect. Lots of door work, linking things together and making sure it works. After that, I'll be testing like a maniac.

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Now the lastest is that the alpha version of ...

March 08, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Now the lastest is that the alpha version of the tileset will be ready in a few more days. I spent more time on interiors. They tend to be fairly "no frills", but at least there will be a fair number of places to skulk about for the rogues.

Jazael also got the latest version of the card game to me yesterday, so it's off to the testers shortly.

As for today, I'd like to take another look at some of the camera movement scripts and possibly do some more dialog and interiors. We'll see how far I get.

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I fixed yesterday's head issue and added another

March 07, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I fixed yesterday's head issue and added another. I like the variety it adds as previously I only had two Tainted heads. The variation in color helps, but it only hides the fact of two base models a little.

I added several new city interior areas as I'd prefer to let players open doors in the city should they wish to. I probably can't flesh out every possible building and make it interesting, but hopefully there'll be some variety.

I chatted with the CODI folks yesterday and the latest rumor is that the Sigil exterior tileset should be coming out this weekend. I'll be frantically scrambling to replace my current city exterior once that gets in place. There may also be some testing complexities and coordination issues, so I'll be working to resolve those in the upcoming week. If Jazael's finished up his AI update, I'll be sending that to testers next week.

All-in-all, it looks like things are wrapping up nicely and gearing up for the testing phase.

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One of the nice things about getting the crit...

March 06, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

One of the nice things about getting the critical things done with Demon and waiting for something outside my control is that I'm able to work on more "polishing" aspects. I've been wanting to add a new head for the Tainted models, so I got one almost done. Unfortunately, it seems I have a little problem with the scaling. Something to work on in a bit.

I also started in on the lengthy readme/hint file. It's turning into a bit of a tome.

I'd like to continue to polish, adding extra dialog and areas to flesh out the main city. Some townsfolk with personality is something I've been wanting to do as well. We'll see just how much time I really get.

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I'm starting to get everything ready for test...

March 05, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

I'm starting to get everything ready for testing to begin. I build a little issue tracking application for the site. I'm hoping it keeps the testing insanity to a minimum and encourages testers to help each other out. I'm still not quite to the testing phase, though, so nobody get excited.

I also spent a fair amount of time working on the module itself, polishing up things and adding some new content. Long ago, I put in place a system where you can earn a little money by delivering packages for commoners who wander around the city center. I had planned for an option of simply opening the package, but it wasn't until yesterday that I actually finished it up. Let's just say that there's some odd things delivered around town.

I also got the scripting for the Demon Cards tournament ready. Jazael put in all the hooks in his latest update and it was a simple matter of just calling them to see if the player is winning or losing. Speaking of the Demon Cards game, the last AI update had some problems so Jazael is switching gears and taking another approach. Hopefully it'll be ready soon as it's a huge update with lots of nice features. People should appreciate it.

I've also been working on getting some other building interiors in the game, mostly for rogues or unsavory players to loot. I have fond memories of wandering around Baldur's Gate and poking around in other people's houses, and I'm hoping to get a similar feel to the place.

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It was a fairly quiet day yesterday

March 04, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

It was a fairly quiet day yesterday. Not a lot of new work on Demon. I did put some time in whipping up some new placeables for an expansion to the Demon Cards game. It a bit premature as Jazael's still doing a big AI update at the moment. The plan is to get that and the new tournament code wrapped up, then start thinking about some big changes down the line.

I also cleaned up the intro movie with some help from Magnus. Today I might do a little more dialog work. I'm also thinking of whipping up a quick and dirty tracking application for the testing phase. We'll see how far I get.

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Another productive day yesterday

March 03, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Another productive day yesterday. I have the Demon Card game integrated back into the module with the latest work from Jazael. It's looking very good and I'm excited to see all the hard work on this mini-game finally circle back into the module itself. Jazael's working on an AI update and then he's promised a scoring system that will be used for the tournament quest in Demon.

I also put some more work into the second Struggle area, making sure the leader wanders about appropriately. I had some fun with the disguise kit this morning, leading my enemies against each other. Hopefully that whole area turns out to be fun.

Other than that, I did some more polishing. I added another placeable to brighten up people's spirit gems. I added a few more commoners for the main town. It's nice to finally have the module starting to feel finished. The two big things I'm waiting on is the Sigil exterior tileset and the Demon Card update. My general feel for the timing is a couple weeks, though it's hard to tell for sure. After that, I'll start up testing seriously.

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It was an incredibly productive day yesterday

March 02, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

It was an incredibly productive day yesterday. Lots of hak pack work, fixing issues and adding new content. I wanted more special placeables to power up your spirit gem, so I whipped up a couple. My goal is to get enough so that players can build all the rooms, plus a few extra so that there's not a frustrating hunt for any that people might have missed. I'm still having some issues getting the proper crystal and glass look. I spent a good hour last night fiddling with things and might want to spend some more time. We'll see.

I also layed down the groundwork for getting the updated Demon Cards game in Demon. It took awhile, but I've updated the hak pack and added the scripts. I'm currently coordinating all the scripting issues with Jazael, trying to get a tournament of sorts in the game.

All that coupled with the Shadowlords update yesterday made me feel like I'm actually moving forward again, after a few slow days.

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Yet more Spirit Gem fixes

March 01, 2004 by Adam in NWN1

Yet more Spirit Gem fixes. It's coming along quite nicely now. I've got to tweak the number of "special items" you can collect for your spirit gem and weigh that against how many you need to create new rooms. I'll probably spend some time today adding new placeables for that purpose.

I also did some hak pack updating. It turns out I got overzealous with the conversion of .tga to .dss files and converted a few that I shouldn't have.

I have yet another update to the Demon Card game that needs a bit of packaging before sending off to testers. Yesterday was a bit nutty and I couldn't even manage that.

Update: I finally finished updating the Shadowlords modules. Many thanks to all the testers who lent a hand. If you're running into problems with Anera's AI or Jered following you, download the latest and restart the module you're currently on. Now I've just got to finish testing the Shifter issues with Dreamcatcher as well as the latest Demon Card game . . .

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I've won multiple awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules, which I've been working on since the year 2000. In the real world, I'm a web developer for a healthcare organization. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.