Just a quick little tip on building exteriors.

I was doing some exterior designing and thought I might share a few tips. This might be old news since NWN 2 is starting to be ancient, but I know designing exteriors is not easy. Something looks good, but when you switch your camera angle you will go "oh what the, oh, jees, that's not good, oh, what, no" or you are happy with the layout, but when you test it everything is HUGE or tiny.

1. Turn your camera a lot when you work with the terrain tools. Player will see the landscape from all directions, and so should you when you're working on it.

2. To get a proper sense of the scale add some NPCs standing around the area (at least the part where player will be moving in). This will prevent a lot of too steep hills and such.

3. Don't follow an ordered pattern when creating natural areas. Generally the more random your first draft is, the easier it will be to make it look like real terrain. Just... try to avoid flat surfaces as much as possible, unless there is a clear purpose for that in your area.

Reaaaally general, I know. Still, I thought I would throw these out there.

Polishing my sloppy areas & random stuff about setting the mood.

Being the obsessive compulsive artist that I am, I felt I couldn't start designing the beach random encounter before I had finished polishing the ship wreck area. Immediately when I opened the area I was appalled by the beach and the transition between the beach and grass. Tsk tsk, I thought and got busy.

Now the area has more small hills, more palms, shrubs and plants. The rocks were given some green tint so they wouldn't blind everyone with a bright white light. Transition to the grass is still not perfect...but it's better (it used to be a rather violent change with a straight border). Now I'd only need to populate the area...ahem, maybe next time, or some day. Creating NPCs is one of my least favorite things to do. Right after editing long 2DA files.

Also I tested the new mountain road encounter area. It's pretty as hell, dare I say so myself. It's actually a shame it turned out so well and it will just be a fleeting moment during the whole campaign compared to everything else. Maybe that's okay. The main reason I'm doing this after all is the joy of creation, to better myself and to create various set pieces that convey a certain mood I'm looking for. Atmosphere is maybe the single most important thing to me when doing game designing or when I'm examining a game. That's not to mean I don't care about the mechanics and the story, I do, very much, but I'm just being honest here. Also you CAN create a terrific mood through mechanics, story and dialogue; I'm just relying heavily on area design, sounds and music.

I'm actually starting my IT studies next fall just so I can actually learn all the basics. My school luckily has a game lab and a chance to focus on game studies. Thus I'm hoping to actually make a full fledged game in some years. A game that is pretty much focused on creating mood and emotions, all while telling a story. Very ambitious etc. and I need to look out for the scope. I'm a prime example of poor judgement when it comes to scope. Just look at Crystals of the Lost. Playing the "prologue" part of the game takes most likely two to three hours, depending if the player decides to snoop around and do some side quests. And I immediately follow up with a choice between three quests, of which two were rather tiresome to make with all the scripting, planning and conversations, the third one was almost purely combat focused.

That being said, there is a LOT to be done, so I better go start my design on the beach encounter area.

Brace yourselves, more vertical areas are coming.

If you are anything like me, you might have noticed how most areas in NWN 2 OC and the mods are relatively flat. There is an easy explanation: the more vertical differences your area has, the more harder it is to edit in the toolset. I think such areas are a welcome change in the game though. I'm not going to overdo them, but I'll have a few areas with some verticality. Like this mountain road encounter area I'm currently working on.

It's satisfying to notice how one can still remember the important hotkeys and where all the settings, properties and blueprints are. I was worried for a while that there might be another learning curve ahead of me when returning to the toolset.

Which I'm sure there is. I just haven't noticed it yet. I will most likely revisit the areas I'm designing now and give them a bit more gloss and polish once I've recovered my touch. 

 Mountains are rather boring, so I don't expect this area to blow anyone away. It is also a very small part of the overland map, so players will most likely do only a little combat there. However avoiding spawning enemies on the narrow road should be rather hard, so I'm fairly sure players will get to see it often enough to make it worthwhile to create a separate road encounter for the mountains (flat road on a mountain path just doesn't feel right!).

 Now if I could only make the Bellbay area look a bit more like a real town... It's hard to clutter up the streets. I see no reason why a town would have an abundance of barrels and crates on the streets after all. Anyhoo, that's it for now.

Back. With a frustration.

Rumors of my passing have been greatly exaggerated.

A lot has happened. For instance I've graduated and I'm a normal working adult now. Which means after working from 7am to 3pm I'm free to do as I please and I actually have the money to do as I please - well, at least some of it. Thesis was a major headache until I gave in and changed its subject into one that focuses on video games. It was worth it as I got nearly full scores on it - thus I recommend anyone to bravely write their thesis on video games even though you or someone might think it's not serious enough of a subject. If you feel passionate over it, the reader will feel it and you can only benefit from that.

I'm a librarian...buut I've managed to study some really basic programming of several languages during my free time and I'm pleased to inform you Neverwinter Nights 2 scripting is not all that mumbo jumboish as it used to be. Sure, it's complicated, but it's relatively easy to see what any given part of the script does. I'm still not good at writing them from a scratch, but I can see what ready scripts aim to do.

Reading scripts, having patience and studying the SoZ modules was rather vital to my CotL campaign. Back in 2010 (wow, it's been four years) I used similar methods, I'd copy and paste from SoZ and poking the things with a stick to see what's going to happen. Some of the overland map functions worked, but some didn't. It drove me pretty crazy when I had no idea why some random battle transitions worked and why some didn't. Turns out I should have just imported a few scripts and really read through them. I used to know I had to name my road encounter's waypoints as wp_road01_player_default etc. without any idea why I was doing that. Turns out ginc_overland_constants defines these tags for each terrain.

I'm still not sure if you can create more random encounters than the basic nine SoZ introduced without writing bunch of lines into om_terraintypes.2da, ginc_overland_constants and ginc_overland. While I think I have a more keen eye, more patience and perhaps some wisdom, I'm not very patient. Especially since the toolset's editor for 2DAs is horrible and Excel keeps messing them up. I've found that Notepad++ works okay, but still I'm getting some issued with adding some rows for some reason, could be just that I'm sloppy.

Anyhow, I'm back. I've fixed a ton of bugs and weird things my mod used to have - a lot of them were misspelling and just forgetting to set some variables or arranging them correctly. Finally worked around the player not being able to use spells in the first module as well. It's not perfect since it only adds a arcane spell failure to all spells, but it's something. I was hoping to add a custom animation and a spoken line whenever player tries to cast a spell, but alas, there is no OnPlayerCastSpell to call on the area/module properties. Shame really. It might be possible to use the OnPlayerDefinedEvent or something, but I haven't studied that yet.

The important thing is that I'm back and I think I know what I'm doing now. Bugs have been fixed, dialogue has been tweaked, areas have been given a facelift. Now I'm ready to create more areas! I need only, oh, about 6 random battle areas and a bare minimum of 15 areas plus another town to create. It's a good thing the toolset is like a close drunk friend you have. Sometimes it acts all funny, but with years of experience you knew to keep those back ups in case your module got corrupted etc.

What I'm really bummed out about is the lack of information on the toolset functions and the tips given to players on how to create actually good looking areas and interesting interaction. I've been speculating on should I make some tutorial texts or just some general tips on some of the more abstract or advanced stuff of NWN2 modding. There were none of the kind I was thinking when I looked, but then again the game is old...so I'm not sure if I'd just be writing them for nothing. There are some tutorials on how to build exteriors, interiors and some ready packages to use for overland maps, but there are no guides that tell you how you can create that overland map yourself. There are no guides or tips on how to make interesting exteriors that look natural with only a bit of extra time involved.

I guess I'll still think about it. There's so much I could ramble about those things. But for now, I'm signing off! Be at peace knowing that CotL might yet see the light of day.

Whoa, take a look at those areas!

Yep, I've been busy during the past few weeks working on some exteriors and interiors. I still have so many great ideas to design, so much to script, so much to write. But the module is starting to take shape - finishing that overland map really helped getting a good grasp of the way that the module should be built.

Also, run into a weird bug, which is probably due to my graphics card driver. I was unable to see characters in the Appearance Wizard or the Grinning Fool's creature builder. Also some exteriors were invisible. I could see characters again once I clicked off the Sky-option, and exteriors became visible once I assigned some Sky Rings on them. Pretty weird, huh? Oh well, take a look at the few new areas. Two of them are a bit incomplete, though!

Uhh, I'm a lazy writer.

My last update was about the shipwreck shore? Really? Gee, I'm sorry for neglegting the blog! I will fix this injustice, I promise. More frequent updates ahoy!

I wish I could say I've been busy working with the mod during my absence, but... I've spent my holidays studying new languages and trying to finish Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins and The Longest Journey. All three are great games by the way, I suggest you all play them! Working and studying has really been draining my inspiration, but luckily two new nice & positive comments on Hearts of Endia gave me new courage.

I've created new areas for a new set of quests and it feels like a lot of work since a player will choose only one of the three quests. Of course all three can be experienced with multiple playthroughs. Still, the quests are pretty simple, one is a straightforward hack 'n' slash quest, second one is one where you need to talk a lot and think your way through, and in the last quest you need to search every nook and cranny to find clues to solve a mystery.

For every quest the PC will be accompanied by a different henchman that will be keeping an eye on the PC and their performance. However, as long as you complete the quest, you will pass the test and join a faction. However, performing well will give you some influence over the henchman and maybe the faction leader. I won't be releasing any screenshots about these quests so they will remain a surprise until the launch of the mod. :)

I will add some screenshots on my next post though. I'll add the few first monster hunts into the mod - an optional way to gain more experience and nice rewards. Oh, and I haven't showed you any overland encounter areas, expect those as well.

I hope I have resurrected your interests again!

Just a progress check

Yep, just reporting on how the beach area is turning out! Also tested a few of the earlier areas and had fun&giggles - even though I know it's lame to laugh at one's own jokes :( Well, I'm tired, not paying attention to my lecture at the moment and can't find anything clever to say. So, look, pretty pictures!

Hoorray! Time to advance!

Yes, I'm finally finished the overland map design! I will get back to scripting & populating it later, I have more urgent areas to focus on - such as this one nice shipwreck beach. Feels nice to design an area that's not in a miniature size. Of course, I'm having a wee bit hard time since I haven't designed a beach before. What makes a good, beautiful and natural beach? They're usually mostly sand...

But plain sand is boring! I looked at Storm of Zehir's shipwreck area, but that didn't help too much since the idea was too different and the actual beach was...well, pretty much empty. I need to think of something, the area is supposed to be nice and relaxed and fun to explore and talk to NPCs. Oh and the ship will be a part of a "quest" that will NOT appear in the player's journal. It's sort of a mystery that the player will have to solve without relying to journal entries telling them every little thing they need to do. I won't make it too hard though, I promise!

Still working on the overland map

The overland map is taking more time than I thought it would...on the other hand I haven't had much time to work on it. At least I'm starting to develop some kind of routines now that I'm getting used to school again. Which means I should start having more time for modding - I'm also thinking of quitting my stressful part-time job to have more time for this and rest of my life! (:

Anyways, here's what's happened since the last picture upload. I've pretty much finished the texturing on the map, but I still need to make finishing touches once all the placeables are in place. Also, 90% of the map is grassed and shaded. As you can see, there are plenty of forests, jungle and mountains to explore! I'm getting restless while working on the overland map when I have so many good areas waiting to be created on the map (such as Witch's hut and Aboriginals' camp). Both will be "optional" areas that won't be directly integrated into the main quest actually.

Look forward to the finished overland map at the end of this week or in the beginning of the next one! But hey, here's a new picture - you didn't read any of that anyways, so just marvel at it.

Back in business!

Sorry for the long absence. I had a lot going on in personal life and virtual life also. I found my lost love for EverQuest private server called Shards of Dalaya. Pretty awesome MMORPG considering it's completely free - actually it beats most of the commercial MMOs out there. But now that I started college and moved to another city, I won't have enough time to concentrate on my characters. So, yesterday I grabbed my mouse and opened the Toolset...

And whoa, it was a bit confusing - I confess I had been modding Left 4 Dead a bit and going back to the Toolset controls was preeeeetty hard. But I'm all used to it again. I played through what I had created of CotL so far and I was pleasantly surprised, it all worked pretty well and looked nice. Of course I found some odd dialogue that I'm determined to change the next time I have the time to focus on it.

I should have an internet connection on 10th of September, so look for an update after that date. Right now I'm at school so I can't post any screenshots, and I really don't remember much of what progress I did yesterday. But...

It's good to be back!

Future work > Epic

Just to show that I'm not just sitting around idly, I'm going to finally post some new shots! This time they're from the overland map that I'm creating. Only been doing it for a few hours now and it's rather different from designing the regular areas. I have to plan things a lot more carefully to avoid any stress later on. At the same time I can relax a bit with the visuals, since the player can't rotate the camera, bwahaha. Still, getting used to scaling everything takes some time.

I've also created a very important interior area in Bellbay! The player will be going there a lot, it will be the base of operations so to speak. Every possible companion will be staying there as well...okay, not every companion, but most of them. Also I have 9 possible companions (actually 2 companions and 7 henchmen/cohorts) for the player at the moment. Wow, the figure sounds so big when I see it as a number. Maybe I'm overdoing it...but then again, only 5 of them will have any real major parts in the story.

I'm curious, what do you people think is a good amount of sidequests in a user-made campaign? I already have several ready in the first part, but will ignore those, they're just 'fillers' to add some background and fun :) Anyway, here are the screens of the early overland map.

Long time no see.

I'm back!

Yes, sorry for the one month long absence. I've been working and studying and bunch of other stuff. Also had a minor loss of inspiration and motivation - the amount of work needed compared to the gains. I should probably join a mod-making team as a story and level designer. That way I could get the most out of modding, those are the things I enjoy the most. Writing the conversations and figuring out the scripts...not so much.

But I'm pretty sure I'm going to finish at least this module before I consider joining a group. Also foil- from bioware forums has offered help in writing. Now I have someone to write for me and someone to proof-read my dialogue. Sweet. I'll just have to think of something for foil- to write. Easier said than done.

But on to the progress of the module. The whole month has been quiet. I've finished hree interiors and created a new one - with a nice 'secret' room. I started working on another side quest too. I'm getting the feeling it won't turn out as fun as I thought it would be, but I guess it won't hurt to add it either, it's not that bad.

I'm holding the creation of Bellbay and the rest of the world of Tarein for now. I decided I should finish the first part of the mod first. There isn't much left anyway. Only a couple more side quests and tweaking and fixing the existing quests. I must say the opening is a whole lot better than in Hearts of Endia. HoE's opening was a bit too vague. This time you will find out a great deal of yourself and the place you've grown up in. Or at least this time the background for the mod is more solid and plausible.

More screenshots coming when I return to the world of Tarein. Next up, Bellbay interiors and the overland world map!

Beautiful town of Bellbay

This area has been a real test for me in both design and technical ways... The walkmesh really hasn't been behaving nicely. It took me propably 12 hours to make all intended places walkable and I had to redesign some  parts of the town. But it was worth it. I think the town is pretty much complete, it's still missing all NPCs - apart from a little girl I used to test wether I could make her sit on the side of a sidewalk (see the pictures below). It turned out great and I've really wanted something like that in my areas - children sitting on crates, barrels, everywhere they can get.

It needed a bit of tweaking with walkmeshes also, but I think the next times will be a lot easier. But now it's time to write some story advancement. Time for another important turning point in the story, the player will meet several new possible henchmen (I only have 2 companion characters, the rest are henchmen) and will be introduced the main aspects of the module.

Good times.

Oh yeah, if you (yeah, you! the one reading this right now!) are a good/decent writer in your opinion and would like to write some fresh, fun and catchy dialogue and descriptions etc, please contact me at mazena86@gmail.com or PM me at NWN 2 forums, my nick is Mazena86. I know I will be struggling with the insane amount of conversations if I were to write it all by myself. I promise you will get to share the fame and glory! :D

Now, enjoy some shots.

Whole day wasted - almost.

So, I've pretty much spent the whole day trying toget some custom city placeables to work with SoZ. To be precise, this hak: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id=299 - Tupoun's City Hak. Basically TES III: Oblivion models ported to NWN2. They're awesome!

So, I finally got them working, but it's almost 3am here so I really, really have to stop. Even though I'm very eager to see what I can make with the new placeables. The default NWN2 houses don't really look like a city to me. These do and oh boy, oh boy... Well,  look at these screens and marvel at the new stuff!

Edit: Ehum, the screens don't work.. So.. click on the slideshow and you'll get to the gallery if you want to see the screenshots.

Progress Update on CotL #1

As I promised, I've finished the first part of the story. The first module isn't nearly complete however, I still need to add filler NPCs and a few interior areas and side quests. Still, I've created the next module and started my work on the first area in the second part of the story. Thanks to some friendly help I now know how to make two-leveled areas with Sunken Ruins and Shadow Fortress -tilesets.

It's been a bit rough learning how to use them and to understand the limitations (especially with the walkmeshes). And these areas require significantly more hardware power. While playtesting the new area, the frame rate dropped a few times when I was on the other end of the map and looked at the direction of the other. It will make the area a lot more interesting and it looks more the way I wanted it to look than it would have without two-leveled tiles. The lack of placeables are a bit of consern though, it will be hard decorating the area, but on the other hand it wouldn't make much sense if it were full of stuff. Not that the chests (some of them require some searching!) containing goodies make any sense either, I just felt like doing them. Also, the music track I've had in mind fits it perfectly!

Take a look!

Questing for variety!

What I think Hearts of Endia was lacking is variety of side quests, roleplay choices and skill checks. I've been working hard not to repeat the same mistake here. I've only worked on the mod for a small time, but I have six complete quests implemented. Though four of them are compulsory, they include various choices you can make and some have different outcomes or will affect the story later. After one of the quests  you could say 'the cat's out of the bag' and not speak with metaphors.

I've created the two first companions in the game. Meet Henrik and Mina, both are your childhood friends. Oh, and depending on your sex, you can romance either one of them in the final version! That was another thing HoE was missing.

Here's a screenie of my char(the one that looks tallest) and Henrik and Mina!

I have way too little time to work on the mod! I have so many ideas and I constantly have the urge to do something with the toolset. But alas, I need to work and study too. Thursday night is reserved for building though - it's been a long time I've had that much time to work on a mod. I'm hoping on finishing the first part of the mod and story during the next week. I will be adding more side quests and filler NPCs later on though.

I've also finally decided on the name for the campaign! The name can give you a clue what you're going to do and experience in the campaign, heh.

Behold, the name is!:

Crystals of The Lost

A small break.

I'll be gone 'till Saturday evening and I already miss the toolset. Hrm, this will be hard, I've gotten too excited about the campaign I'm working on. Today I already created three interiors and made a side quest with three possible solutions - one of them is pretty hilarious. Oh, also made a nice winter gear for the PC!

I should be in bed right now, but I felt I had to finish the rough design of the next exterior area! Also waiting for a reply from Beyond The Pale

about the Hearts of Endia. The download link worked on 3/8/09, but

has been broken since. Grr, it's starting to piss me off :D The download

link has been not working for about a week soon. I wish today was the

last time I had to upload the 1.1 version of HoE.

Anyways, here's some screens of the new area!

Exteriors taking shape.

I've been mostly designing the exteriors for the future projects. So far I have two ready for the short module and only for the longer campaign. I really like how the snowy area is turning out - was well worth the hours spent on it. Take a look!

Module exterior nr 1:

Campaign exterior nr 1:

Now I should start worrying about the conversations and quests for the first areas. When I made Hearts of Endia, I made all areas first and then started working on the conversations and scripts - this turned out to be a mistake, I got extremely sick of writing thousands of words and felt like ditching the whole project at times. This time I'll try to create an area, create some basic NPCs there and maybe a quest or two. Should make things more interesting.

Updated Hearts of Endia!

So, just so you all know, I'm uploading the updated version of HoE (actually for the second time, the last file has been there for 48 hours soon so I thought it was safe to upload another one and delete the old file). It will contain a few important fixes that will help in not breaking the game.

- The crypts' door should now open properly after the combat.

- The quest with the wolves is funcioning properly now, I hope.

- I've tried to adjust the bosses' difficulty to harder.

- The investigator conversation should work properly now, it shouldn't interrupt anymore when the NPCs exit the area.

- Added a ClearAllActions to the pilgrim so that the conversation should fire properly.

- The conversation in the ruins won't interrut anymore, thus the monsters will always be hostile now.

- The final conversation fires only once.

- Remade the broken potion of Ultimatum.

- Fixed some reported typos here and there.

Also, I've begun my work on the new modules. So far I've only been designing the opening exterior areas - which is what I enjoy the most. I must say they're coming up nicely and will look good!

Here's a glimpse of the first exterior area of my next campaign (the other project is only one module). Remember, WIP.