Snippet: Broken Adventurers

The number of adventurers lost in battle is almost equal to those lost in mysterious circumstances. Many have disappeared off the face of planes searching for treasure, an ancient relic, a deadly adversary, or simply fame and fortune. Some are found years later, blubbering shells of the adventurers they once were, tortured by some unspeakable horror or ordeal. Most consider this just another danger of an already treacherous occupation. Yet death would be kinder than the punishment delivered to these unfortunate souls, for their minds and bodies are shattered beyond redemption. Those that are still able to make coherent speech talk of an unending prison, though the only prison they seem to be held in is one created of their own mind and twisted dreams.

- Excerpt from "Dangers of the Planes" by Elminster Aumar

----------
In other news, vote in my current poll on the left to put in your suggestion for your favorite name for this forthcoming project...

News: Two things

Two quick announcements for today after the recent screenshots.

The first is that I received an email from an editor from German gaming magazines PC Games/PC Action a little while ago, about them wanting to write a short article on Fate of a City as part of their monthly articles about game mods! Needless to say, I was happy for them to do so. I believe it should be in this month's edition - if you're in Germany, and you've seen a copy, I'd love to hear about it.

The second is that I've just submitted a new prefab to the vault for approval. It's the area that I used to take the screenshots from the other day, though I've stripped the area down a little to remove anything that's specific to the campaign itself. So if you want to recreate an explosive scene like the one below... you'll need to add in your own action!

News: Screenshots!

This post provides the first visual preview of my forthcoming project, as I managed to put together an area with a few hours of work today.


The project is currently untitled, though I do have a few potential names. I'll hold off on formally announcing its name until a decision has been made. Which brings me to the news that I've been fortunate enough to secure the talents of dunniteowl and Eguintir Eligard to help me with this project. I'm looking forward to working with them and getting an exciting adventure out to all the players!

News: It's award season

I'm a bit late, but a few days back, the 2008 Module of the Year awards on nwvault.ign.com were announced! In a close fought race for NWN2, two modules tied for first and two tied for second. I was privileged enough to share second place with dirtywick's Subtlety of Thay - Chapter 2. Dark Waters 2 from veteran modder Adam Miller came first, with A Hunt Through the Dark Remastered by Markus "Wayne" Schlegel also sharing the honours.

Congratulations to all the builders who participated, for a few votes either way would have seen very different results. So I'd also like to deliver a very special thank you to all the people who gave Fate of a City their vote.

It would also be remiss of me to neglect the deserving NWN1 modules that also gained recognition. Not to mention the release of the Academy for Modding Excellence has just released a video (produced by the fabulous Qkrch) for the finalists for its Golden Dragon awards for NWN1. It's an exciting time for all NWN1 and NWN2 authors, and I'm sure players will look forward to seeing more content from all module makers!

News: MotY, MoW and HoF!

Yes, it's a triple acronym title for today's post.

The module of the year contest at the NWVault has opened recently and Fate of a City is one of the 2008 modules up for consideration along with a number of other excellent submissions. I'd urge all players to voice their support of module authors by casting their vote in the poll. Players are what keeps module builders going, and as long as you're still keen to play of new material, builders will still keep working to produce it. So if you haven't already done so, head over to the vault and make the very difficult choice of voting for the best module of 2008!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to urge people to go out and get Mysteries of Westgate if they haven't already done so. I've read some opposition to it due to the DRM that Atari has chosen to use for this adventure pack, but not supporting MoW only hurts the NWN2 community, not to mention all the fabulous people at Ossian Studios. The price of the expansion is more than warranted by the quality of the product that Ossian has created, and if you add in the fact that you're supporting a deserving studio and a great gaming community, I'd say that any decision not to buy MoW would be a great tragedy.

In a final note, I've been fortunate enough for Fate of a City to be inducted into the NWN2 Hall of Fame this month! I'm happy to see that many players have enjoyed it as a gaming experience!

Status: On hold

I'd just thought I'd post a quick update letting people know that Fate of an Empire is on hold for the time being. I'm currently without a computer that can run the toolset, and will likely be that way for some time, as I'm on my way back to Australia.

However, it's likely that development will remain on hold indefinitely. The most significant problem is the scope of the project. In order to follow on from Fate of a City and retain the strong narrative and focus on choice and consequences, the amount of work required to fit into the fairly epic storyline would require a large cohesive development team - or my undivided attention for quite a number of months. Since neither of those options are feasible, I don't see any way it would be finished in any reasonble time period. There are a couple of builders that have offered their support, and I'm keen to work with them, which is why I have an alternative plan in the works.

While this project is currently unnamed, it is planned as an epic level party adventure, perhaps something that a party having finished Storm of Zehir would tackle. It will be far more heavily focused on combat and other gameplay aspects rather than dramatic roleplay, moral choices and consequences. Your party will need to coordinate its attacks and fight strategically in order to succeed against a variety of dangerous and powerful menagerie of enemies. You can also expect the story to be suitably epic, and that your choices may have very far reaching consequences across the planes...

Apologies to those who were awaiting news of FoaE, as I don't like having to shelve it, but I simply don't see it getting finished in a reasonable timeframe, and would rather focus my efforts on projects that I know can be completed.

Status: Fate of a City 1.11

In what I foresee as the final release for Fate of a City, I've uploaded version 1.11 of the mod onto the vault. Featuring a few more tweaks to combat difficulty, area and sound design, and a few miscellaneous script fixes and typo corrections, it should make the module about as unbreakable and polished as is possible barring some weird and unforeseen circumstances. That said, if future patches break things, I will come back to it and find the solutions.

So, if you haven't done so already, or you want to kill some time before Mysteries of Westgate is released, play through Fate of a City - it will get your character to the perfect level to start playing the new adventure pack.

News: Release - Christmas Toy Workshop

Well, despite the toolset crash I mentioned previously, (thanks for that backup batch file, Amraphael!) and falling ill over the past couple of days, one of the things I've been working on is done and available from the vault right now.

Christmas Toy Workshop is a fun little game I developed over a few days, offering players with the ability to help produce toys for the festive season.

While working on the toy production floor, players must deliver colored toy components to the appropriate corner of the workshop and activate the production mechanism at the correct times. Of course, nothing is ever simple, and there are complications in the production: malfunctioning machines, dangerous heat ventilation and vermin invading the production floor!

I hope you'll take a look at this module and embrace the Christmas spirit!

News: New and Coming Work

Just a quick update to let people know that I've posted a short pdf with some area proofing tips which gives a quick list of things to check before finalising an area. While it's not a fully-fledged guide to area creation, it's intended to be a useful tool for area builders and prefab makers to use before declaring an area finished.

I thought I'd also mention I have two other small projects in the works that should be released within the next week or so... Keep an eye out for them both here and on the vault!

Beta Release: PacSquire

I made a post on the NWN2 forums earlier today about a small project I started working on yesterday. It's called PacSquire, and is a little bit "different".

PacSquire is a mini-game designed to be played either single or multiplayer. The basic premise is that you must go around the playing field collecting the "Coldstones" scattered around. However, doing so is not straightforward, as the field is scattered with monsters who will try and kill you as you attempt to do so.

Each player has three lives, and being killed by the monster foes will deplete one of those lives. However, players are in competition, and if a player kills another, that does not deplete their number of lives, but it does put them out of the game for a short period of time.

I've uploaded the module to the vault, and it can be found here.. Any feedback, suggestions or bug reports would be greatly appreciated.

News: Halloween Module

Yes, I know, I'm way behind everyone else in advertising this on their blogs, but I thought I'd give a shout out to the NWN2 Community Halloween Module that was posted to the vault a few days back. This is a great effort by 25 builders to produce an eclectic mix of Halloween themed houses. While I've not visited all the houses yet, it has been fun so far.

I hope that people who play mine can get a bit of enjoyment out of it. It may be a little short compared to some of the contributions, but seeing as it was done from scratch in about 8 hours including bugtesting, I don't consider it too bad an effort. I had more ideas to implement if I'd had more time, but sometimes life gets in the way of modding.

In other news, I've also trying to do a bit of gaming as I wait for more reviews of Fate of a City. I may post a review or two here in the future.