Screenshot Contest!

Merry Christmas one and all! Hope you're enjoying the day!

Beta testing over this holiday season is going great!, thanks to Trinity's playtesters: Starwars, Lance Botelle, Jet Truebow, Amraphael, Dennis Graf and Sirchet. A few adjustments here and there, one game breaking bug found and solved, a few typos and misplaced commas: things are going well and I could not be more pleased. Release in a quite near future seems very likely.

To prepare for that, I'm holding a screenshot contest! Ok, so they're screenshots of Trinity only, and that I only have taken... The contest is to determine which screenshots I should post with the Vault release of the mod.

So take a look at the shots below and vote in the poll to your right for your THREE favorite screenshots, or shots you feel would best accompany the Vault submission (i.e. would be most likely to attract players). (Note: you can select more than one option in the poll.)

Shot #1

Shot #2

Shot #3

Shot #4

Shot #5

Shot #6

Shot #7

Shot #8

Shot #9

Shot #10

You can find more shots here. So if there are shots in there you prefer, don't hesitate to post and point them out.

Thanks!

You are my only hope

So maybe I’m not really a panicked Leia Organa wannabe. But if you love me – or at least don’t think me an absolute wanker – and if you’ve had any sort of passing interest in the development of Trinity, then please help me, if you can.

Trinity will go beta in the coming days and I need testers. This won’t be an alpha or other partial version, but a proper release candidate, as far as community-made mods go: i.e. it will be in a state that could be released on the Vault.

With Chet's help, I’ve spent a lot of time during the past weeks on fixes and polish. But after spending a good part of my leisure time over the past 24+ months on Trinity, I’ll be damned if I’ll risk getting bit in the ass upon release by some unforeseen gameplay or story-related issue that could have been avoided by proper playtesting.

I’m not just looking for bug hunters (though I don’t doubt a few gnats lurk here and there still…) but also for playtesters who will want to tell me what some of the shortcomings of the mod are in their view and how the playing experience can be improved.

What’s in it for you, besides my sincere gratitude and a hand in getting another NWN2 single-player mod out there? Check out the partial ending/credits movie below:

If you’d like to volunteer for playtesting, rest assured that you shouldn’t be “ruining” your experience with this mod by doing so. This will be a release candidate, so think of it as if you were one of the first to download and play it as it hits the Vault. Know also that it is not possible to experience all the options in one playthrough, so you’ll even be able to replay the mod when it is officially released if you want to.

As an added enticement, here is the opening movie for the game:

If you’d like to help, please write to me at ecpatterson at sympatico dot ca.

Thank you!

Drider vs. Gel Cube

Thought these shots I took while testing were cool, though not necessarily pretty. I liked the idea too that they showcased two community-made critters... This scenario will be entirely possible in game by the way... :)

Back on Trinity in full swing now. Flu's over and done with. Finally.

Bugs, Virus and other Abominations

Bugs
Chet and I must have hunted down over 100 bugs and other issues since alpha began. I fixed most of them now, classified several as low priority (will get to them if and when I feel like), and have been really stumped by just two or three bugs thus far but they aren’t critical ones and, if need be, I know there are workarounds for them.

It’s amazing how bugs just keeping creeping up though. All you need is to forget a journal advance at some point or put in the wrong conditional on a convo node. I cross my fingers we will have caught all of these subtle errors before release.

So bug hunting and polishing has been going at a swift pace… until about two and a half weeks ago.

Virus
It started with my 5 year old daughter contracting a flu, with fever lasting a full week (most likely H1N1). Wife and I split the time at home. Paid-work productivity went down of course, and so did time spent on Trinity.

And then it was my turn. Woke up the day after my wife left for a 12-day business trip to South America with flu symptoms: test results two days later confirmed H1N1. So have been struggling to get over this since. Still not fully recovered. Wife is back now, so that is a measure of relief.

At one point even, my 3-year old had flu-like symptoms, but she was out of commission for just 3 days. Good to see how the young ones spring back so swiftly.

Although at home every day since, I haven’t had much energy to put into Trinity. Did feel good 2-3 days late last week and started work on a brand new area (felt good to sculpt and texture again) for the “drider and destruction” quest. Got a new alpha out to Chet too for a fresh runthrough, and looking forward to seeing the results of his hunt. But I haven’t had the spirit to do much more.

Abominations
Instead, I’ve have been putting time into Dragon Age, and killed a ton (certainly feels like it) of abominations and other darkspawns. Playing as a mage, which is hugely different than playing a wizard or even a sorcerer in NWN2. The quick spell refresh and low spell variety means the same strategy again and again in combat. Though combat is fast and furious, and the animations and especially sounds are extremely satisfying, it’s gotten a little old already, and I’ve put aside the game for now, still, after no less than 40 hours of playing.

Picked up Fallout 3 again, installed a couple of mods from Fallout Nexus, and I’m enjoying the exploration and the quests once again, though I expect killing Super Mutants, Super Mutant Brutes, Super Mutant Masters, and more Super Mutants to get old soon again. But for the time being that’s where much of my time before the LCD screen is spent.

Should be back on Trinity soon.

Thanks for reading.

TRINITY enters alpha phase!

This is a huge deal for us. TRINITY has gone alpha, meaning we’ve reached a point where the game is playable from beginning to end, and has all the required content to test out gameplay and story flow.
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The adventure in TRINITY begins as you stand before the Lord of Shadowdale. Lord Falconhand, acting on behalf of the Dalelands Council, selected you to lead a party of adventurers on a mission to stop one would-be tyrant from succeeding where another one failed twenty years before. Setting off from the Twisted Tower of Shadowdale by the Ashaba river, you will be taken to a section of the old elven forest of Cormanthor near the ruins of fabled Myth Drannor. From there, you will plunge deep underground into one of the area’s abandoned schools of wizardry on a hunt for magic, and a chase for one man.

With gameplay inspired by PnP adventuring, TRINITY is a module for level 6 to 8 characters in which your decisions really do matter. Play length is estimated at 6 hours for now.
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The alpha version is in the hands of our QA department (i.e. SirChet ;) ) for continued testing and we’re moving steadily towards private beta.

The beta version will :

- No doubt fix many bugs discovered during the alpha
- Tie up some story and gameplay loose ends
- Add more creature and object descriptions
- Further balance combat
- Add a couple of cinematic cutscenes
- Integrate opening and closing movies
- Have edited dialogues and descriptions
- Add a sidequest involving driders and blowing up stuff

To celebrate here are four of the custom loadscreens, beautifully mounted by Daronas.

Twit-style

Working towards official alpha version of Trinity. Should be there in next few days.

Got invited to join the Dragon Age Toolset and Community Site Beta. Can’t say more (I believe).

Hellfire got a new screen.

Soundset selection fix made HoF.

I’m kind of busy these days.

Thanks for reading friends! :)

Hell's screen

Dunniteowl brought to light that Hellfire, one half of the RWS guys, saw his monitor go up in flames recently. For now, he's unable to continue with the work we all admire.

Think now what the NWN2 CC scene would be like without Hellfire's work. Think about what it will be if he, together with Baron Rosencheck, don't put out material for a while, if ever again.

Hellfire's given us plenty of great new toys to play with. Maybe we could think about getting him one now in return.

You can donate a few bucks for a new monitor via RWS's paypal account on their homepage.