Bummer

Rob McGinnis is leaving OEI and leaves behind no real replacement as NWN2 community rep for the devs.

His continuous presence was comforting: on one level, it was a demonstration of OEI's dedication to the community, and the game. Now what? What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all?

You got to see this!

This work by Qk on anims has me practically as excited as when JR's Beholder came out or Tupoun's City Hak.

Check it out here.

Dragon Age: Origins

This post will just be some thoughts that I have about the game from what I know at this time. It's not much. I haven't followed the game for years. With E3 drawing nearer and finally upon us, I decided to check out what's going on.

There's been a recent uproar on the direction the marketing has taken. Bioware has released trailers containing lots of blood and action with a Marilyn Manson song as the main track. I'm not bothered by it. I have no idea if I'll love the game until I play it. I'm pretty sure I'll at least like it. It's a party-based fantasy CRPG. That already puts it above just about any other recent game out there for me. I've watched trailers for other games many times over. I have no interest in buying the games as they aren't the kinds of games I like to play. I know that ahead of time. But by watching trailers/cinematics alone, I would have no idea what the actual gameplay is like.

As mentioned, I don't know all there is to know about the game as it stands now. I do know I look forward to playing it. There are some cons IMHO. Being a huge fan of the Infinity games, I wish the party size was larger. There seems to be a lack of a dedicated healer class. There doesn't seem to be a cleric type at all. I would think it an obvious class type with the demons, undead, and abominations prevelant in the game. Looks like the mage will be a blaster and a healer. From previous game experience, I don't much like this type of character. We'll see. Combining spells looks very cool though. Rogues are said to be interesting. There just doesn't seem to be much info on them at this point. Even with the lack of info, a rogue may be my first character.

Will GPS mod DA:O? Right now it's undecided. The toolset looks like it has lots of promise. I think some truly excellent adventures can be made with it. Being a custom content creator, DA:O does interest me. I will at least try to get a few models into the game.

Anyway, for now these are my random wait and see thoughts on Dragon Age: Origins.

No time to mod

This ain’t no time to mod. This I tell myself sometimes when the sky is a cloudless blue on late spring days. Like those we had over the weekend.

But if the weather hadn’t been so inviting, would I have modded anyway? Would I have had the time? The energy? Not so sure…

My paid work is keeping me extremely busy lately, and not unsatisfactorily drained at the end of the day. There’s been no time to mod through it all, or very little. But there’s an end around the bend to this intense activity, as the focus of my labors comes to pass next week (big event I’ve been organizing).

I sense this will open up my spirit to Trinity, and my schedule to more modding. It feels within hand's reach, though it seems to flutter away every time I take another step. I’ll catch it. Soon enough. I know.

In the meantime, here are a couple of trinkets from my picture hoard. They'll serve well on a day like this.

GF's got blog

Did you know Grinning Fool and team had a blog? I just found out myself. Let's scoot on over then and check it out.

Finally available for NWN2

[Note: No. I don't mean Mysteries of Westgate. ;)]

Before starting on this project two weeks ago, Daronas, Sirchet, and I couldn’t believe no one had done a packhorse for NWN2 yet.

There'll be one now: GPS Packhorse. It’s been submitted and should be up on the Vault soon.

Here’s part of the ReadMe:

GPS PACKHORSE for NWN2

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Your very own packhorse. Anywhere. Anytime.

GPS Packhorse can be used by players in any existing module (official or community), including in an ongoing game. It can also be easily implemented by builders directly into their own mods and PWs.

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FEATURES

-Randomly spawns a horse in one of four different looks. One in ten chance to get a white stallion.

-Option to “pay” for the horse: for those who would like to RP their acquisition.

-Conversation-driven options and orders: stay, follow, personal and party inventory management, rename and despawn.

-When in party, packhorse will follow and respond to orders as any companion would. But packhorse is not a warhorse. It will flee all combat.

-Equipped with saddle bags for greater carrying capacity.

-“Slot Blockers” prevent players from equipping horse with their own equipment.

-Close to official D&D stats.

-Multiplayer theft prevention (BETA): only the horse's owner or a party member can “talk” to the horse and issue orders. Ownership can however be transfered to another nearby player.

-Requests for other features are welcome.

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CREDITS

Gaming Parents Studios

Original idea and beta testing: Sirchet

Packhorse's load : Daronas (rope, crate, keg, and bedroll modeled and textured by Obsidian)

Blueprints, dialogues and scripts: E.C.Patterson

So these three guys go on a podcast…

…and hope they don’t make fools of themselves!

Daronas, SirChet and I were interviewed by Trey and Michelle of our one and only NWN Podcast this past weekend. You’ll be able to hear the result on the next episode (episode #99!), which might come out as early as this Friday.

On the show, you might learn a few things, including what happened to LadyElvenstar, and whether SirChet is wearing pants this time.

Thanks Trey, Michelle for having us on! It was lots of fun.