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There's been a bunch of videos coming out lately
July 31, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 There's been a bunch of videos coming out lately. The ComicCon demonstration of the toolset was my personal favorite, though they all have their own particular qualities. The one with the pigs is fun too.
I managed to get all my written dialog into the game, as well as some QA time. It's always odd when I don't find the reported problem, but managed to fix something unreported along the way. I also started on a final dialog for the game, something to wrap things up and set the tone for the next module.
Just for fun, I scribbled a very piratey side-quest that started as a way to express my feelings about timed quests (hint: I pretty much hate them). I'm not sure when I'll have the time to work on it any time soon, but it was fun to think about.
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I did a tiny bit of work on the module after ...
July 30, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I did a tiny bit of work on the module after being distracted by Prey. Fortunately it was pretty short and I just finished. While the kids had a water balloon fight in the backyard, I managed to write three pages of dialog. There was a particular moment in the module that deserved a little attention, and I got a little carried away with various options.
Another thing requested by PJJ was more writings, optional things that gave background to the module. They take a bit of time, but are enjoyable. I ended up writing a child's diary and hiding it in the rocks. I have a few more that I'd like to add, some that might be used for fun and profit.
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I'm a little late with today's posting, thoug...
July 28, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm a little late with today's posting, though I've been fairly productive as of late. Mostly I've been spending my time on more QA stuff, adding dialogs, fixing script problems, and the like. I really enjoy PJJ's focus not just on things that are broken, but the overall feel of the game. For example, after the Firestarter quest, what happens to Sophia? Shouldn't Daniel be remarking on the growing connection between the player and Heather? I've put in a fair amount of dialog in response to his musings.
I thought I'd also treat everyone to another of Raz's models. The current cannon model is somewhat simplistic, so he thought he'd whip this one up for fun.
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I felt like I got a little traction yesterday...
July 27, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I felt like I got a little traction yesterday and started moving forward again. I did some minor grammar and spelling cleanup with the first module, along with some bug fixes for the second. This morning I put in some QA work, making sure some of my fixes actually made a difference.
I also added, but haven't tested, a feature that lets you pillage and sink ships that you've captured. You get a little money out of the deal, as well as not having a long train of ships follow you around the sea. PJJ suggested that one, along with a bunch of other non-bug additions to the game. I'm really liking the polish time the prototype gives us. It's hard to tell when things like that are missing without actually being able to play the game.
As for today, I have some team organizational stuff to do. I'd also like to keep slaving away at the list of bugs in hopes of getting the second module relatively done.
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The insanity still hasn't eased up, but I've ...
July 26, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
The insanity still hasn't eased up, but I've managed to slog away at the project in any case. This morning's big bug fix was getting the inventories of the stores to persist between modules. Since much of the game takes place in the same set of areas, this is a huge boon. It took me a long time to figure out that store items with the infinite flag didn't come across properly. After a ton of fiddling, I think I've worked around the issue.
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The insane busyness continues, though I manag...
July 25, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
The insane busyness continues, though I managed to fix the problem with transferring cargo holds and stores from one module to the next. I learned all sorts of odd things about the database functions, which are very useful, if simplistic by database standards.
Hopefully today I can sink some time into development, not to mention getting back to all my correspondences. Busy, busy.
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I'm incredibly busy, as usual when returning ...
July 24, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I'm incredibly busy, as usual when returning from a trip, so I'll keep this short for the moment. The beach was great, inspiring in a sea-farin' sort of way. I scribbled down lots of good ideas for my current and future modules, as well as a possible next campaign.
I continue to troubleshoot issues with the second module, and polish the Clockwork Man quest. The latter is feeling fairly finished, with flavor text, custom treasure, and the like. Right now I'm struggling to carry over all the important variables from one module to the next. Your ships come across, but without any cargo, which isn't a good thing. Obviously I have much more debugging to do.
Hopefully today I can catch up with my correspondences, which have fallen behind. Being disconnected from the Internet for a few days seems to do that to me.
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Well, it's my birthday today
July 19, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, it's my birthday today. 37 years. It's strange to think that I started my first NWN project nearly 5 years ago, and I played my first CRPG (Temple of Apshai) almost 30 years ago.
Periodically I try to show off the work of the team. Razvan's tower is nearly textured, though some on the team are ribbing him for making a fairly "cute" tower. Perhaps I'll surround it with butterflies and pink unicorns just to spite him.
EvilMulder continues to make some amazing nautical tunes, reminiscent of Monkey Island games. Though I'm sure my bandwidth-impaired server will hate me, I thought I'd link to a clip of his latest work.
PJJ is QAing the second module, giving suggestions on the High Seas system and pointing out all manner of bugs. He hit a big one recently, where one of the henchmen vanished after a major quest. Still, it looks like he'll be able to actually finish the module during his first QA session, which is a rare and wonderful thing.
As for me, I'm heading to the coast for a few days as a birthday present. I'll be without Internet connectivity, which hopefully means I'll have fewer distractions and can spend a lot of time on Dark Waters. Yesterday I finished the critical path for the Clockwork Man quest, though I still need to add in various extras. That leaves one more main quest for the third module, along with a ton of additional things I need to add in - sidequests, intro/conclusion scenes, and so on.
With NWN2 shipping in October, that should give me enough time to finish up the third module and possibly even start in on the fourth. Once I get the toolset, though, all my time will be spent doing conversions so that I can release as soon as possible.
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I continue to be way too busy
July 18, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I continue to be way too busy. In a way, I'm relived that NWN2 was pushed back to October. That'll give me yet more time to get the third campaign together, coordinate voice actors, and all the endless work that goes on for these sort of projects.
Yesterday I mostly did writing, trying to finish up the Clockwork Man quest. I think I'm almost there. I have scribbles to turn into typed dialog. I also really need to catch up with my various correspondence. Life's too busy.
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I think I'm finally done with the sub area
July 17, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I'm finally done with the sub area. It's funny how these little side things can end up taking up a ton of time. I keep justifying the cost in time to myself, hoping that hundreds of thousands of people play through that tiny section.
You can now get your ship repaired if it's badly damaged, stock up on new torpedoes, and generally make it through this outdoor area without too much difficulty. I'd like to add a little something for treasure hunters, but otherwise I'd like to move on.
The current quest I'm working on should be fairly close to finished. Mostly I need to do some dialog work, along with the scripting that goes with it. I'm still amazed at how much writing seems to be required for these little modules of mine.
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I worked some more on my little underwater se...
July 16, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I worked some more on my little underwater section. I made a quick torpedo model, though it's on the screen for so short a time that it seems a little silly to make them too fancy. Currently torpedoes will track an opponent, though they're typically fired at a pretty short range. Some tweaking may be required. At the moment, I'm having fun shark hunting. Sure, there's enemy subs too, but for some reason I like going after the sharks. I was probably scarred by Jaws as a child.
Other folks on the team are doing their thing. Raz is polishing up a fancy tower. My mom, of all people, has broken out the red pen and started to provide grammar and spelling corrections. It's turning into the family business.
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I put a submariner character into the game, t...
July 15, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I put a submariner character into the game, to explain how the submersible works. The new sub pen area also makes a nice set piece, with the sub hanging from the ceiling and making the player want to play with it. I barely started the torpedo script. Right now you can fire it, but it doesn't do anything. Next step will have it fly about and explode, as you'd expect.
I also did some more housekeeping, modifying the second module so that more things would properly pass to the third module. If you dig up a treasure in the second module, you shouldn't be able to dig it up in the second. Keeping track of everything is going to be rather exciting, though.
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Well, I think I've taken care of the weird is...
July 14, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I think I've taken care of the weird issue where the henchmen's AI gets completely screwed up. I repackaged the first two modules with the fixed scripts, which hopefully takes care of a variety of issues. For the curious, instead of EffectCutsceneDominated, I ended up using the AI system, letting it know that the henchmen are busy and shouldn't do anything.
The underwater area continues to do well. I added the ability to turn the sub's lights on and off. It looks surprisingly cool, considering it's just a simple effect. I also couldn't resist adding in some ambient life. Though I'm not sure how easy it'll be to get fish into NWN2, I'm hopeful we can sort something out.
In a twist of fate, it looks like I'm going in for jury duty today. I just sat around, working on dialog, when I was called a year ago. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to do much of the same today.
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I'm having fun with the submersible code and ...
July 13, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm having fun with the submersible code and area at the moment. It'll likely be short and sweet, at least in this part of the game. I think I'd like to do at least one other underwater treasure hunt if I can pull it off. I'd love to have some underwater creatures to act as dangers for the player, though I may have to wait until we learn more about custom content.
With luck I can make some more progress on this particular quest today. I got a little side-tracked with QA work, but I think I can sneak in some time before the next batch of problems passed my way.
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I finished cleaning up the card quest
July 12, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished cleaning up the card quest. One of the things I'm doing in order to make it challenging is to give the opponent's avatar extra life. It was a trick used in the original Magic computer game from years back, and worked relatively well. It also makes the battles very tough. I managed to win several times, if barely. Plus I got to see a dragon battling a pit fiend, which was a treat to watch.
I also got the sub working in-game, meaning the player can polymorph into a sub and go through an underwater area. There's nothing especially dangerous or interesting about it at the moment, but the plan is to add that in next.
Finally, I think I figured out the source of a really annoying bug. For awhile now, henchmen have stopped following the player on occasion. It turns out that EffectCutsceneDominate is causing the issue. Even if I remove it later, they become idiotic and just stand there. Now I need to see if there's a workaround.
I really need to catch up on the QA reports today. I've been ignoring them for awhile as other pressing things call for my attention. Still, I'd like to finish polishing the second module so I can focus on the third one. I have a funny feeling that the toolset might be available sooner rather than later, at which point I'll likely drop everything and begin the conversion process.
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I spent some time yesterday working on the Mo...
July 11, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I spent some time yesterday working on the Mortuary. You can find the results at the Saving Sigil thread. I still wouldn't call it finished, but it's slowly improving. I'm not sure how much work I'd end up sinking into it before I needed it, but it's still fun to tinker with.
I also spent some time QAing my Pirate Card quest. I ran out of time, but I think I got it working after switching my greater than and less than signs around. Originally the only way to win was to lose. Oops.
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It seems my nagging paid off, with Demon winn...
July 10, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 It seems my nagging paid off, with Demon winning Module of the Year for 2004 by a single vote. Congratulations to all the other excellent module builders out there, especially Markus 'Wayne' Schlegel for coming in a close second with A Hunt Through The Dark.
I stayed up until ten o'clock last night and was up again before four in the morning. My obsessive nature kicked in and I decided that the Mortuary from Sigil had to be brought back from the dead. I fiddled with max, textures, and finally got things to a very hopeful point. I was extremely lucky in that batinthehat had already UWV mapped every model, which basically made it a task of finding or making textures and dropping them in the override folder.
It's not finished by any stretch of the imagination, but the hardest parts are done. I may just turn it over to the community to see what they can come up with in terms of appropriate textures. I have the perfect place for it in the Dark Waters campaign as well.
As for today, I'm hoping I can turn my attention to the module. I did a tiny bit of work on a minor subquest I'm sneaking in to the second module. Then I should refocus on the third one like a good little boy.
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Well, it doesn't get any more exciting than this
July 10, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Well, it doesn't get any more exciting than this. The vote is tied for first place. Tomorrow morning, I'll have to check and see how it all turns out.
I got a little time this morning to work on the module, drinking coffee from the lobby of a fancy hotel. I worked on the next big quest for the third module, as well as preplanning for the fourth module. My goal was to set up traditional RPG scenarios and then add a devious twist to the end. One of them should be extremely fun, assuming I can pull it off, and the other nicely ties together some long-running character arcs.
I'm hoping tonight I can sneak in a small quest back into the second module, since we're still doing QA work. The nice thing about prototypes is that I can rework previous modules based on ideas I throw into later ones. Handy, that.
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The voting continues to be exciting
July 08, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
The voting continues to be exciting. Checking this morning, I'm a single vote ahead. Wow. It closes tomorrow, so we'll see if I can hold the lead.
It's my anniversary today, but fortunately for you I woke up way too early and downed too much coffee. I ended up working on the Woodhaven section, adding things in based on QA feedback. You can now use some of your psionic powers in the arena, throwing your opponent off guard or discovering their weaknesses. I also added in a lengthy post-victory dialog with Heather, complete with some romance dialog if you've chosen that path.
It's interesting how on occasion if you're initially gruff with her, but then open up, you can do just as well or better than taking the "nice guy" approach. It wasn't intentional or planned, but I find that the dialog is evolving that way. Or maybe I'm just reflecting some of the conversations I have with my wife from time to time.
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The voting for Mod of the Year 2004 continues...
July 07, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 The voting for Mod of the Year 2004 continues to be neck-and-neck. Dreamcatcher won 2003, so it would be neat to get 2004 as well for Demon. Ah, fame. How it taunts me so.
Yesterday I turned my attention to the QA reports I've been getting about the Woodhaven area. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping PJJ can make it all the way through. So far most of the bugs have been relatively minor, though it looks like I'm going to add in some extra dialog and more psionic combat options.
I'm heading out of town for a few days, though I'll mostly be connected. It's my wife's and my eleventh anniversary. Fortunately she tolerates my little "hobby", though the limit of her gamer skills extends to a computer version of Yahtzee. As a plus, I usually put in some quality writing time on these long drives, assuming I'm well caffeinated.
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I took Raz's untextured sub and threw it into...
July 06, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I took Raz's untextured sub and threw it into the game, only to have my son make fun of it for being all white and shiny. I decided to do a quick and dirty texture job. It may be a prototype, but I try not to embarrass myself too much.
Needless to say, the sub is in the game, as is my first underwater area. The plan is to give the players control of the submersible, though I haven't ironed out the details yet. I also want to make the outdoor area something more than a place to sightsee, though I don't want to give too much away.
In general, the current quest is coming along quite nicely and with luck I can finish it in a week or two. After that, there's one more main quest and lots of "glue" to stick it all together, along with some fun little side quests. Rumor has it the toolset may be available before the game is released, so I'm rushing to get as much done as I can before I start the big conversion.
Thanks to everyone who voted. It looks like Demon is within a few votes of first place now.
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Somehow my wife was extra kind to me and mana...
July 05, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Somehow my wife was extra kind to me and managed to give me quite a bit of time to work on the module. Most of it was spent finishing up an area in the Clockwork Man quest, working on gnome dialog.
It's amazing how much work is required to do a significant conversation. There's the usual quest giving actions, tracking the state of the quest and changing dialog accordingly. There's also variation and allowing characters to use their skills, such as persuade, intimidate, and so on. It's pretty easy to create dozens of scripts in NWN just to support a single dialog.
With luck I'll be able to continue working on the Mechanist area. I made a fun little item yesterday called "Trap-in-a-Box" that lets anyone set a trap. There's only a few of them in the game, but since not everyone plays rogues, it's a neat gameplay element to let other folks try out.
Update: As an aside, it looks like Demon is running a close third on NWVault's Mod of 2004 poll. Feel free to vote, if that's your sort of thing. :)
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It's always a treat when new images come out
July 04, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 It's always a treat when new images come out. A few popped up on Obsidian's site which I really liked. Having realistic looking faces really helps with conveying emotion. I can't wait to fiddle with the lip synching stuff.
I continue to work away at the module. Recently I've been revisiting and polishing the Sketch Artist and Mechanist areas. I created some new items and a three-piece set for fighters. It's not fully implemented yet, but it's getting there. I also worked on some gnomish dialog, which tends to wander and get into assorted family details. It's quirky, but hopefully interesting and different.
Since it's the fourth of July, I'll be doing lots of family stuff. Not a lot of time for the module, but I'll do as much as I can.
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Work continues
July 03, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Work continues. I created a little utility for the testers so that they can pull henchmen out of the database, fiddle with their inventory, and stuff them back in. I haven't decided if I'll release it with the actual module, as it's mostly a testing tool.
I started polishing up one of the quests in the third module, the Sketch Artist one. I didn't have suitable loot yet, so I started correcting that. I'd like to make more set items, as it really appeals to the collector in me. I was playing Dungeon Siege II the other day and realized the only reason to play was to collect cool sets of items.
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I continue to cheerfully debug away, trying t...
July 02, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to cheerfully debug away, trying to squirrel out the odd bugs that keep popping up. PJJ is doing a great job finding the usual problems, in addition to those things that aren't really bugs. For example, there was an emotional moment where you rejoin your crew and they merely say "Where were you?" Needless to say, PJJ called me on it and I dutifully wrote a real dialog.
I've been doing a lot with High Seas as well, adding in things he requested. For example, there was no good way to find out what was in all your ships, so I expanded what you can view with your captain's log. I still have more to add and polish, but we're slowly getting there.
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About Me
I've won multiple awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules, which I've been working on since the year 2000.
In the real world, I'm a web developer for a healthcare organization. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
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