I spent yesterday getting some of Chris Seran...

January 28, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I spent yesterday getting some of Chris Serani's dialog in the game. Just for fun, I put together a short clip of his ramblings between takes.

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I worked hard yesterday, trying to get the sh...

January 27, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I worked hard yesterday, trying to get the ships and cargo to transfer between DW2 and DW3. I went to bed unsuccessful and then woke up again at 4:30. It seems a fresh look and a cup of tea did the trick, as I just had a typo. Now the ship and cargo come across nicely.

I had a little extra time, so I went through and fixed a few different things. I fiddled with the camera in a particular dialog. There's a weird glitch where the Port Brighton module occasionally gets stuck on the loading screen, and I made some changes that might fix that.

Hopefully today I can get back to the voice side of things. I've fallen behind on correspondence again and think I may have some extra dialog to download and process.

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I spent some time this weekend trying to figu...

January 26, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I spent some time this weekend trying to figure out some weird problems with cargo, as well as coming up with a good way to move it from DW2 to DW3.

The first weird problem was that only one cargo hold would vanish when leaving the docks. I think it might be a patch-related issue involving getting faction members. I opted for a different approach that I'm hoping will work better.

I tried hard to get the roster system to do my bidding, but ended up using the database instead. Theoretically it should keep track of ships, deeds, and standard inventory without too much difficulty.

The campaign system that NWN2 uses is very useful, but it makes certain types of information sharing occasionally difficult.

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I started in on one of the more tricky aspect...

January 25, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I started in on one of the more tricky aspects of integrating DW2 and DW3. If all goes well, no one will notice anything, but I suspect I'll hear a lot of complaints if I do nothing.

Right now, the cargo holds in DW2 are creatures with inventory. If you jump from DW2 to DW3, they'll vanish and all your ship deeds will stop working. I have part of a mechanism in place that saves off your cargo holds, but I need to write the second part that reads them from the database and recreates them when you first enter DW3.

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I was back on Serpent Isle yesterday, blowing...

January 23, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I was back on Serpent Isle yesterday, blowing up zombies and testing things out. I think I've gotten most of PJJ's newly found bug notes resolved. At the moment I'm uploading a new build, which is hopefully more stable than the last.

I ran into some nasty module corruption issues, but I think I've managed to recover without losing anything. It always sends me into a panic, checking backups. Fortunately I'm holding on to all my builds, so I can always recover from those.

When I get a moment, I think I need to work on voice over again. PJJ is saying very positive things about having all the voices in the game. I'm convinced it's one of the things that makes the campaign special.

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More good progress yesterday and this morning

January 22, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

More good progress yesterday and this morning. I worked through all of PJJ's bug list, including the really nasty feat bugs that screwed up stealth and other things. Even harder was fixing a weird bug with skill gems. I'm not sure if I had screwed up a core function with a recent change, or the patch introduced some changes in how scripting works. Either way, I sorted it out.

I was also going through my e-mail junk folders and came across various things people had sent me, including another PJJ bug report that I completely missed. I'll be working on that today, along with some more voice work that was sent my way. If folks don't hear from me in a week or so after e-mailing me, feel free to bug me again. Sometimes spam filters can be worse than spam.

I'm working on uploading a new build for testing, along with digging into the old bug notes I just discovered.

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Last night I recruited the kids to do some im...

January 21, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

Last night I recruited the kids to do some impromptu testing and voice over. Emma dutifully drove the character around Port Brighton to test out various areas. Sam did the voice for a somewhat unusual child. Armed with PJJ's bug notes, we ended up fixing a fair number of problems, along with a few others we ran across along the way.

I'm still tracking down a somewhat serious issue involving certain feats getting messed up. I'm fairly certain it involves some of my 2DA changes I made for SoZ. I want to support people making the new character types, but I think I managed to mess them up along the way. Hopefully it's as easy as comparing a few files and making some updates.

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After a few days off, I'm back working on thi...

January 20, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

After a few days off, I'm back working on things again. There were some missing voice over lines that I snuck into the game today. I'm also working through PJJ's bug list.

The most troublesome are related to icons showing up strangely with SoZ. Hopefully I can figure out what's going on.

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Yet more progress

January 16, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

Yet more progress. I've managed to integrate all of Heather's dialog into the campaign. It's truly great stuff and hearing her read the lines was very inspiring.

I also managed to fix a few bugs along the way. Theoretically the crew would give you something nice if you'd been generous with them when dividing up the treasure at the end of DW2. Unfortunately that never actually happened due to a minor bug in converting from NWN1 to NWN2.

I'm still waiting on a few more VOs to trickle in, and I'd like to give PJJ a bit more time. Still, I can see that the time for a more open beta test will be coming soon.

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My dark offerings went unheard last night, so...

January 15, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

My dark offerings went unheard last night, so I'm going to spend some time chatting with my ISP today and hopefully sorting out the relevant network issues. There will likely be some downtime, but hopefully not too much.

I continue to work away on getting Heather's dialog in the game. Eshinee has done an amazing job and I'm excited to finish everything up so everyone can hear it. She has a great emotional range, going from tears to laughter in a single conversation.

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So far I've only got one of Heather's dialogs...

January 14, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

So far I've only got one of Heather's dialogs in the game, but I'm slowly chugging along.

Tonight I'm doing a bit of site maintenance and may be down for a little while. My static IP address is changing, so I get to do a little network voodoo in order to appease the routing gods in the sky.

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I chopped up what Chris sent me and got it in...

January 13, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I chopped up what Chris sent me and got it in the game. I just checked my In Box and see that Eshinee sent along all her voice files, which is what I'll be working on today.

I sent along a new build to PJJ yesterday, hopefully with some new bug fixes and features. Busy, busy.

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I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't do much ...

January 12, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't do much with Dark Waters over the weekend. I played hooky and helped my son program his Lego Mindstorm robots, as well as doing house work. In the meantime, I'm posting a video that Chris Serani took of himself recording voices for Daniel. There are some spoilers in there, so you might want to steer clear if you want to stay pristine. Still, it's an interesting view and the dark and torrid world of voice over actors:

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I had yet another busy day yesterday, full of...

January 09, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I had yet another busy day yesterday, full of all-day meetings and family responsibilities. I'm going to try hard to get to all the e-mails languishing in my In Box.

I put some work into the automata dialog this morning. You can take a quick peek at the video version of both the automata and the gnome mayor. Probably the best part is seeing the cylon-like eye in action. It's one of those in-jokes that ended up being incredibly complicated to pull off. In order to block out the eyes, there are these tiny black globes placed over them. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have tried so hard.

I'm hoping to get to the other great voice actor work today and hopefully put together a new build soon. There's much to be tested over the next couple months.

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Upon our return home last night, I sat down m...

January 07, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

Upon our return home last night, I sat down my son and made him record some missing NPC dialog. The end result was something that sounded like a squirrel who smokes a pack a day, which worked fairly well for this little gnome voice. There were some challenges with sore throats and interrupting sisters, but such is the price of true Art.

I have a few other voice actors sending me files, most excitingly Chris and Eshinee. I'm swamped as is usual upon my return, but I'm hoping to start getting those integrated into the game fairly soon. It's amazing how much work all the voice acting requires, but I think the end result is well worth it.

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I managed more writing while in the car

January 04, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I managed more writing while in the car. It's fun to do something new.

I actually put in some debugging time last night. It's always amazing all the bugs I run across when playing through an area I previously thought was good. Even though I have some great testers, it's hard for them to catch the absence of things that I meant to have in there. In this case, there was this great treasure map that led to my favorite treasure side quest. Unfortunately it was almost impossible to get, which wasn't my intention.

There were also a few unvoiced NPCs I ran across. I'm trying hard to get as many in place as possible, so I'll probably deal with that the next time I'm around a microphone.

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I went over the Mayor's dialog for the Clockw...

January 03, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I went over the Mayor's dialog for the Clockwork Man quest. While it technically worked, it was nearly impossible to get his map and he had no dialog. Just to get it over with, I put on my high squeaky Gnome voice and quickly recorded the dialog. Hopefully on my trip I can chop it up and attach things.

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I did a bunch of bug fixing yesterday, though...

January 02, 2009 by Adam in NWN2

I did a bunch of bug fixing yesterday, though there are still a few things that need some additional attention. I have some automata with cylon-like eyes, as a funny cultural reference. The problem is that the head has real eyes, which end up looking very weird behind the moving red eyes. My fixes for blocking the eyes haven't worked too well, though I think I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

I made a new build this morning, but I may hold off for more tweaks, fixes, and voice recording. I also ran across an unvoiced NPC gnome, so I may break out my high squeaky voice and whip out some quick dialog tonight.

I'm off to Bend for a few days, which often means extra writing time. Since Dark Waters is wrapping up, I've started tinkering and planning for future projects. All my plans are still extremely early, but I don't plan on retiring any time soon.

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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.