Gaming Parents Studios

Trinity retired, enters Hall of Fame

2011-05-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

Trinity has just been retired. It's an honor to make it into that hallowed Hall, but it's a little sad at the same time. It marks a culmination of sorts, and therefore an end. It had a good run on that first Vault page and I'm glad place has been made for other mods.

Hall of Fame status is a great addition to all the positive feedback Trinity has garnered on and off the Vault. To this day, I'm proud of what we achieved and how the game we built resonated with players.

Thank you again to everyone who played Trinity and supported us along the way.

P.S. New edition is still forthcoming. I'm so swamped with work these days that time, energy and motivation has become hard to find. Instead of an Anniversary edition I might just make it an Hall of Fame edition. :)

P.P.S. Congratulations also to Amraphael whose Zork module also just made it in!

Trinity One Year Anniversary – New Edition Coming Soon

2011-02-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

As posted on the NWN2 forums:

One year ago today, the current version of Trinity was released. The mod occupied such a big part of my life over the two preceding years that I wanted somehow to mark that anniversary.

I’m proud that Trinity remains the highest rated complete NWN2 adventure set in the Forgotten Realms that is open to any class and race (Hey, it fits the niche! I’ll take it! ;) ).

Thank you to everyone that downloaded the mod and those that came back to leave feedback. And once again, because I could never say it enough, I’d like to thank all other modders and players that gave their support during production. And lastly, thank you to all the content makers whose creativity and talent helped make Trinity what it is, to the playtesters and, especially, to my two fellows in arms at the time, Daronas and Sirchet. All of you made building Trinity something memorable.

I’m currently testing the new edition and it should be ready soon. It will feature a new batch of fixes and tweaks in a consolidated download and, most importantly, fog of war!, thanks to the work of Lance Botelle.

The joys of playing on my belly

2010-09-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

I know many of you have had and iPhone or Ipod Touch for a while, and even perhaps an iPad.

I got mine, an iPod Touch 64 GB, just about 6 weeks ago, after accepting that my iPod classic had kicked the bucket.

And this opened up the wonderful world of the App store, and, especially, the world of iOS games. Too bad there’s not a NWN2 for iOS yet… ;) But I’ve got other games on there, my favourites being Tower Madness (I never get tired of hearing these aliens explode!) and Civilization Revolution (a dummed-down Civ-game, but just as addictive), Carcassonne and, of course, Grokion (great music and graphics! ;) Though I haven't been much of a platformer kind of guy since the heady Shareware days). The Diablo-like Dungeon Hunter is pretty good too, though I’ve only played the Lite version so far. I was quickly turned off on the other hand by GTA Chinatown Wars’ controls and the 3D CRPG Ravensword with its wafer-thin story and poor writing, not to mention the game breaking bug I hit. More than ever now, I'm looking forward to Ossian's "real" RPG on iOS.

How pleasurable I’m finding now to disconnect from my computer to play quick, fun sessions crashed on the living room couch or lying on my bed. These days I’m spending more time playing in that position than sitting at my desk.

I’ve had a GBA for years now however and it never caused me to part with my computer in this way. It was more of a poor substitute when off travelling somewhere, in some hotel room. Perhaps its the games (and the fact they cost much less on iOS and therefore you can try out more till you find one you really like : gotta love App store pricing and demos!), but likely the actual machine and its interface has more to do with it.

The position of the hands on the iPod Touch and the tactile relationship with the game is something that feels natural and pleasurable. In fact, I’m noticing I’m enjoying more iOS games that you actually interact with through the screen rather than those that use a virtual joystick and buttons.

That’s not to say that PC gaming is dead for me, far from it. I’m still playing : NWN2 of course, Wyrin’s fantastic White Plume Mountain in particular, Mass Effect 2 and Wheelman (I’m a big fan of Vin Diesel, and I’ll enjoy anything that has to do with him, I’m not even sure why!). And I just bought Borderlands, just because it was $10 on D2D. On my PS2, I'm still strumming along to Guitar Hero and Rock Band games from time to time.

And you, if you’ve got an iPod, iPhone or iPad, what games are you playing? I’d like to know what other NWN2 fans are enjoying.

Thanks for reading!

Ossian's big revelation

2010-08-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's not NWN2, not DA either, but it sounds interesting nonetheless and a probable buy on my part.

Ossian's next game

Grobnar as Gandalf

2010-06-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

Just found this video of LOTR meets NWN2. Absolute nonsense, but hilarious. Casting is perfect, for the most part. Reminds me that the OC was finely written and acted. I should play it again someday soon, but busy right now playtesting Wyrin's latest, and playing through every Guitar Hero and Rock Band game I can find on ebay for less than 10 $, shipping included. Playing on my new, second-hand PS2 slim. First console I've owned since my Colecovision.

U is for…

2010-05-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

…Upset

That I was not fast enough with my blog entry, and that Wyrin took the “T”. ‘Cause we all know, what T really is for … ;)

…Update

Patch 1.06, Final of Trinity is in testing. Am testing it as I’m playing the mod with my wife for the first time. That might take a little while… I might push it through QA if it lingers...

…Urges

Still split between getting back into modding and playing games. Playing is winning right now. Of all things, I’ve gotten into Frets on Fire lately. Am also playtesting PJ156’s The Caravan Club , which is well polished and a lot of fun.

…Umbrella

It’s raining today. But we had a lovely weekend.

…Uri... Got to go! :P

More Trinity

2010-03-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

I’m still not done with that one yet! :)

Just released Daronas’ placeables he made for the mod and on the side : 34 new all tintable things to plop down in your areas. My personal favorites are the dragon egg and those fancy plates, but it’s all good, and useful, stuff.

I’ll check if the VFX I made for Trinity warrant a pack of their own. After that, I’ll release Daronas’ new, gruesome “glove” model. Those who saw that ending know what I mean. ;)

I’m also gearing up to start work on update 1.06 which will fix a couple of newly uncovered issues and, what?, more typos! (just one or two!).

Then I’ll have to plan some time to walk the wife through the mod. That should be nice. I have very fond memories of us playing Grim Fandago together. I wonder if she'll want us to play through the fights.

And lastly, Alazander and Tiberius both recently reviewed Trinity at length. A joy to read.

-----

Was playing: SoZ (but got stuck at final encounter – I hate the really tough boss fights), a couple of NWN2 mods I started (but probably won’t finish)

Now playing: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (intense, short-lived shooting action, 30 minutes at a time), DA:O (early Orzammar was long and boring, but now should get more interesting)

Will be playing: more NWN2 mods (next up : Planescape: The Shaper of Dreams (Chapter 1) and The Last of the Danaan)

Wanting to play ASAP: Misery Stone, as soon as update is out (how’s that going J?)

-----

Thanks for stopping by!

Trinity Goes to Asia

2010-03-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

This is fun! Master Kaelic, administrator of the Korean NWN2 Community site, seems to have enjoyed Trinity quite a bit, and decided to feature the mod. I wish I could read the pretty lengthy write-up!

He's also got some great screens up, including this one, one of my all-time favorites.

NWN2 has brought me into contact with people around the world, and I love that about the game, that it can draw together people from all over the place.

In other news, I've uploaded to the Vault the model for the student cloak that can be found in Soloria. The files are in override format and can be used by players and builders alike.

Trinity Releases

2010-02-26T15:31:00.000-08:00

Trinity OST

The official soundtrack of the mod was recently released on the GPS label. The OST in mp3 format comes complete with album art and playlist!

It’s great fantasy/game music. If you like that kind of stuff, give it a listen. I LOVE it. :)

Udpate v1.05

Text taken word-for-word from the Forum post:

"A new version of Trinity is now up on the Vault. Update 1.05 is a pretty big one : it fixes well over 25 miscellaneous issues.

By order of the President (Mr nice-"NEAT"-thugbert himself), Trinity now has in-game levelling and basic equipment purchasing. So if your character is below level 7, you will be given the option early in game to level him up and get a few gold pieces to buy starting equipment. (I've also tweaked the walkmesh a bit in a certain spot for you, Mr President. Hope you approve.)

Thank you to the 1500 people who downloaded Trinity thus far and to those who came back to leave feedback and issue reports. Since version 1.01 some 50-70 tweaks and fixes have been introduced thanks to you.

If you haven't played the game yet and plan to, then I certainly hope you have fun and that you'll let me know of your experience."

Next releases

I think I have the time now to assemble a Trinity custom assets pack. It will contain new placeables, VFX and cloak. Look for it soon.

And then what?

I’m liking my current modding vacation. Like I said I’m enjoying playing again: gearing up for the final encounter in Storm of Zehir (after going through all the new SoZ locations from the community add-on – some very good stuff in there! Got bored, again, with Fallout 3 (finished the “main” quest and am now slowly getting into some of the DLC stuff) and Assassin’s Creed 1; am nearing the end of BioShock 1 and have just received a cheap eBay copy of Resident Evil 4 for PC (never played these games but I hear this one’s pretty good), so might slowly get into that. DA:O is starting to beckon, but Mass Effect 2 will have to wait a while still (played ME1 pretty late actually).

And THEN what?

NWN2 or DA:O. We’ll see.

Pleasant downtime

2010-01-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

Trinity has been out for 3 weeks now. The first week was busy with updates and responses to players, but now it’s calmed down somewhat. The download count reflects that too: from 500 the first week, to about 250 the second and 150 the third. Still Trinity is nearing 1000 downloads as we speak and the speed at which it will reach that point exceeds my expectations by far. And players are clearly enjoying the mod. So I’m (very much still) happy! :)

(Maybe not as happy as JClef and crew! : MS Madness has clearly swept the community! The love for Misery Stone that players are expressing looks to me unprecedented. Job well done Jason et al.!)

Right now, I’m getting ready to release a new update to Trinity (v1.05), and looking to release our custom placeables and items separately, perhaps as well as creature blueprints, voicesets and soundtrack (in mp3 format). Also planning additional content for the mod that will go in a future update (Platinum Edition? ;) ). Stuff I did not get around to before initial release.

I’ve also been spending a couple of evenings with dunniteowl in IRC, who's interviewing me for one of his upcoming Community Updates. My hat goes off to DNO for working so hard on reinforcing the fabric of the NWN2 community. Very valuable work!

All the while, I’m now PLAYING more that I’ve had the chance in the past: NWN2, Fallout 3 and Assassin’s Creed (the first one). Fallout 3 and Assassin’s Creed are great pick-up-and-play games thick with atmosphere and immersion, though quite thin on gameplay. They do fine for the time being, while I work myself up to continue DA… Probably will get to it soon, when I have more than an hour’s time before me to really get into it.

As for What’s Next…

Don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it. One thing’s for sure: my modding days are not over. Just don't tell my wife. ;)

500

2010-01-13T18:33:00.000-08:00

I'm happy: Trinity has been downloaded more than 500 times in its first week. Pretty good I think for a platform that's 3+ years old. I told myself I'd be pleased if Trinity got 1000 downloads altogether. Looks like it should surpass that. At this rate, Trinity will make Hall of Fame by April.

Ya right. I'll be stunned if it ever makes it: nowadays, the 5000 downloads requirement imposed on NWN2 modules seems unsurmountable.

Be that as it may, right now, my heart warms at the feedback and that's what matters at this stage. I do wish the feedback ratio could top the 2% mark, but that's ever been the norm, so that's just the way it'll have to be.

Trinity Update v1.02

2010-01-11T19:59:00.000-08:00

I've just released a first update (1.02) to Trinity, which (among other things) adds Kaedrin PRC pack compatibility.

Also released this weekend was a Trinity Hints pdf. So if you absolutely want to find all magic items and secrets in Soloria, or don't know what to tell that magic mouth, then you might want to have a look.

Reaction thus far to Trinity is fantastic. I could not be more pleased.

It's up

2010-01-06T17:25:00.001-08:00

Vault Download

Thanks again to all you faithful blog readers and commenters for your support. I'd also like to thank my team members who put their own stamp on the mod: Daronas and SirChet, the playtesters (Amraphael, dgraf, Jet Truebow, Lance Botelle, and Starwars) as well as all the content providers who allowed me to give Trinity, I think, a unique feel. And all the players to come: without at least a few of you, there's not much point.

I look forward to reading your feedback.

Thanks.

Any last minute bug reports?

2010-01-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

Trinity is being uploaded to the Vault today. If you are among the 50+ people who have downloaded it already, then now would be the time to let me know of any bug/issue you encountered, if any.

If everything went fine, then I look forward to reading your feedback on the Vault!

Thanks!

P.S. I'm taking the download link offline as a new version of the mod will be up on the Vault in the next couple of days. Thanks to everyone who played Trinity thus far!

Trinity Patch #1

2010-01-04T15:21:00.001-08:00

Here is a patch to apply after installation, whether you're in mid-game or not, and even if you have not encountered this specific problem.

-Attempts to fix issues with "A Father's Revenge" quest (by far the most complex quest script-wise in the mod :) )

Download

Play Trinity NOW!

2010-01-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

Trinity is ready!

While I await FTP access from the Vault, I've uploaded release 1.00 of Trinity to FileFront so you can get to play it first if you want! (and get back to me with some early bug reports if any! :) )

Leave comments here or at ecpatterson at sympatico dot ca.

Download (self-installer only for now) (Mod taken offline as new version will be up on the Vault in the next couple of days.)

ReadMe here: be sure to read it before you play it. :)

I'd like to thank all you faithful blog readers for your support over the past months. Not sure I would have completed the mod without it.

Hope you enjoy!

Screenshot Contest!

2009-12-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-10-22T21:03:00.001-07:00

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.
-----------
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.
----------
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

2009-10-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Space Marine Head WIP

2009-08-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for awhile(as usual). ;)

Well, I've been working sporadically on a WH40k Space Marine. For those interested he will be of the Black Templar chapter. Most recently I've been working on the head. It has been a real challenge for me to find the character in the head. I think finally it is starting to look like a Space Marine. The texture is totally hand painted.

This will be for a still image. I'm going for a game cinematic level character, not totally realistic. I know it's not perfect. I hope to getter better over time.

Breakin’ the 80’s

2009-08-10T18:06:00.001-07:00

Just got back from a 2-week vacation with the family in beautiful Bic National Park and in kid-friendly Pohenegamook, which was just a short walk away from the U.S.A. (Maine).

Got a chance to work on the mod a couple of afternoons and a bit most evenings, and wrote about 3700 conversation-words, which is not bad for me. Some stuff in there is pretty ok I think. Suitably tragic and dramatic. I'll be able to send Chet a few completed convos shortly so he can turn them into proper english. Knocked off a few scripts too.

And this has decisively taken the mod above the 80% completion rate.

In March (!!) I mentioned reaching 75%. Since then, I actually broke the 80 mark a few times, but no sooner had I done so that I’d think of new assets I forgot to factor in or realized I needed a few blueprints, a couple of scripts and the like to achieve what I had in mind.

That actually happens a lot. I’ve known for a while now, in a general sense, what I want to do throughout the mod. But it’s often only when I sit down to work on a particular encounter or situation that I figure out it requires all these scripts, blueprints and dialogues. It’s not really scope-creep, more like scope-misestimating. I would have had to plan much more thoroughly to avoid that, but that would have risked killing much of my enthusiasm for modding. So I make do, and take the time to realize what I’ve had in mind.

No screenshots this time, but a few of my favorite pics taken during the trip (when the weather was not so nice...). As always, thanks for reading.

Picking up

2009-07-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

Building on Trinity has picked up recently. After feeling under the weather for a while, I’ve regained in the last couple of weeks the physical and mental energy I require to crack open the TS with any serious intent. I’ve since easily logged in 15-20 hours of TS time, which is a good pace for me.

Mostly, I worked on the “final” big encounter where resolution of the story happens. I took some nice cutscene screenshots, but it would be hugely spoilerific if I were to post them. So I won’t. Too bad, cause they really look good. ;) Players might get to see during this scene, depending on their ealrier actions, a new creature "glove" model done by Daronas. I won't say what, but it's suitably gruesome.

I’ve also revisited the large-scale drow battle I alluded to in the past, testing and troubleshooting some of the variations that might come into play depending on the player’s choices (essentially consisting in deciding at what stage in the mod to attack and in which circumstances). This fight, inspired by some of the larger battles in Challseus’ Rose of Eternity (NWN1), is shaping up to be a cool one (at least it is to me).

//Start section of interest mostly to modders ;)

I’ve recently run into two stubborn problems (and in the case of one of them retrospectively stupid) while scripting that scene. One: this pre-placed NPC refused to make a scripted jump no matter how many times I checked if its tag was correct. Eventually, it dawned on me that the object might simply be corrupt. So I deleted it and placed it again, and, voila, problem solved.

The other issue, which I’m still trying to solve, has to do with a convo that is meant to start in mid-combat with one of your opponents. The convo starts, but breaks, as the enemies go hostile again (or maybe they never stopped being hostile…). I’ll pass on the details, but that’s one bug I hope to quash soon. [EDIT: Problem solved! Custom creature event scripts were interfering in that scene because they weren't checking that a convo was in progress before triggering.]

I’ve also found out that while you can apply a VFX_DUR_GLOW effect to a placeable to make it translucid (neat feature), you can’t for some reason remove it. The remove script finds the effect on the placeable, identifies its creator, but the placeable will simply not return to its former state. That’s too bad, but not dramatic for my purposes.

And yet another problem with which I’ve been trying to come to grips elsewhere is with spawning or applying (to a creature) a custom light-event based VFX. While it shows up fine in the TS, it doesn’t show in game, whether placed as a Placed Effect or applied via script or via the creature VFX setting. If anyone has had success with that sort of stuff please let me know. I know it’s feasible because many other VFX have light-events attached to them and these do show up fine. (Unfortunately, simply spawning an actual light in this case is not an option.)

//End section

Alright, well since screenies are always an appreciated feature of dev blog posts, here are a couple that are not quite spoilers. Thanks for reading. :) (If you like screenshots, check out the gallery on the right-hand side for a compilation of previously released pictures, and some never before seen ;) )

Bummer

2009-06-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-06-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-03T03:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-18T20:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

[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…

2009-04-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

…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.

Hall of Fame!

2009-04-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

Great news! My 2007 mod Daark Twins has FINALLY made it into the Hall of Fame! WoOt!

Ok, so that's a belated April Fool's. That's really never going to happen.

But my SoZ OM encounter reducer has made it, and that's kind of nice.

A little embarassing too, since it has to be one of the Hall of Fame honorees that has required the least effort in the history of the Vault: there's about one and a half line of code involved in that submission... I guess I did have to figure out which script to edit, but that took all of 15 minutes, tops. Of course there was the testing too, and writing the Vault entry description... ;)

But I guess it's not just a recognition of effort put into the submission, but also of the need that it met for many players, including me. This little edit turned an annoying game into a fun and playable one. I am happy to find out it wasn't just me who felt that way.

Dragon Age: Friend or Foe?

2009-03-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but I am preoccupied with the impact of DA on NWN2 building and its community. The quality of its toolset will be determinant in that regard (of course, assuming DA itself has sound game mechanics – which I do expect it to have.)

Bioware has just started taking applications for Beta testers. So, in the hope of getting a chance to understand the TS’s potential better, I have applied.

Will you?

Three quarter done

2009-03-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

It feels like it's taken forever to get there, but I've finally reached the 75% completion mark for Trinity. Over 90% of all assets are now either done or underway.

What's left to do mostly is to finish up conversations, including those of the companions, journal entries, cutscenes and some encounters. Of course, after that is done, there's still going to be the inevitable debugging, polishing and balancing part.

In there, I don't count at all however an optional side-quest, which does fit into the story, but is mostly meant as a showcase for Ree's driders. I'll get started on that once the models are out. Hopefully that'll be before the rest of the mod is done. But that's still some ways off, which does give Ree some time to work his magic... ;)

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One thing that has been notched as completed recently is this, which I think is the coolest cloak in town. It was done by Daronas, who's been contributing a lot of custom content for Trinity. I just love glow maps.

What kind of madman’s hobby is this anyway?

2009-02-27T15:55:00.000-08:00

I’ve been spending the better part of my modding time in the past week (10 hours or so), finishing up the dialogue for one of the major encounters in Trinity.

Finishing up. This was already a 1900 word convo. But, builders, you know how it is: I needed to devise the different resolution paths (this particular encounter can be resolved in one of four different ways, including combat), script what each of these paths demanded, adjust and complete the convo to reflect them, plan and write branches for different states of that particular encounter etc. And through it all, I added barely 600 words… And I haven’t even tested it thoroughly yet.

Over a dozen hours total, counting the first 1900 words written way back, but not the area design for that encounter, the creature blueprints, the NPCs’ custom equipment etc. All this for an encounter that may last 3 minutes in total (not counting the optional quest or combat).

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Am I nuts to spend so much of my free time on this?

I remember Josh/Anduraga once said on the NWN2 Forums that one had to be a masochist to build a mod, or something like that. I don’t know about masochist, but it certainly takes a certain type of person. At the root, obviously, it takes someone who is willing to dedicate huge amounts of time to a (mostly) solo creative endeavor, at the expense usually of other activities. That’s one reason I sometimes equate mod building to other solitary artistic pursuits (as a way to explain it to friends, family, wife… and myself): writing, painting, sculpting, photography etc.

For a variety of reasons, I always thought one had to be a little crazy to be an artist.

But artists also love their art. And that’s part of why they keep at it.

Same here.

(Yes, mod building is art. :) )

Have a good weekend everyone!

First-time partial run-through

2009-02-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

I made a first-time run-through of 2 of the 3 “zones” of Trinity this weekend, which, at the pace I’m able to mod, is a milestone in itself.

There are 3 “zones” in this adventure:

1) The staging areas of Shadowdale Keep, where one gets the main quest briefing, can purchase some equipment and gets a few sidequests;

2) The Cormanthor forest areas near Myth Drannor, where a group of surface drows are stationed;

3) And Soloria, the dungeon-esque underground school of wizardry, which is the heart of this adventure, and the part drawn from Ed Greenwood's 1986 Dragon Magazine adventure called Into the Forgotten Realms.

So I played through the Keep and the Soloria parts and it took me a little over 2 and a half hours, clicking quickly through the convos for the most part. This was reassuring, since it tells me I'm probably going to reach my goal of making a 4-6 hour mod.

Now however, I've 9 pages of bugs, oddities and other required adjustments recorded for those parts. But they are small, handwritten pages, and I write sloppily. So it isn’t as bad as it sounds. Going through most of those will be my work for the next week or so, I should think.

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Here are new screens showing a new VFX I’ve also been working on (in actuality it moves). It was inspired by the water reflections in underground submerged caves we visited in Mexico (that was cool!). If someone knows how I can project a texture horizontally against a wall though, please let me know.

Why mod? A quote.

2009-02-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

I’m back. We had a great time in warm Mexico, caught somewhere between a dream and paradise.

With no computer and toolset over there, I read quite a bit and took a pretty good bite off of Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. I needed a break from the usual medieval fantasy I read these days… ;)

I found this quote that expresses well one reason why I keep plugging away at Trinity. On and off over the last months, I’ve been building a mental list of reasons why I build. Someday it might get consigned to this place. Till then, here’s the quote. If you haven’t read Pillars, it might help to know that one of the stories in there is about a man whose lifelong dream is to build a cathedral:

“Then he thought what a thrill it would be to create something from nothing; to see, one day in the future, a new church here where now there was nothing but rubble, and to say: I made this.”

Biting the bullet

2009-01-20T18:11:00.000-08:00

This interior area in Trinity has been giving me headaches and very low FPS since the beginning (between 9 and 26 fps in a benchmark test) and I finally decided to do something about it.

I looked at whether it was due to poor custom tileset optimization, or abundance of point lights and VFX. Adjusting Fog clip didn’t have any impact, nor was the clipping even noticeable in game! Lowering draw distance in the game settings though helped a lot.

Finally I accepted that the poor performance had to do with size really (no doubt the fact that the place was packed with objects of all sorts helped…). The area was 24x30 or so. Didn’t think it would have been much of a problem given it was an interior area.

So I finally came around to the idea of cutting the area up in 3 parts, and now am getting fps in the 23 to 81 range. A better experience for everyone.

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Besides that, I’ve been working lately on setting up pretty cool fights with fire ants, ghosts and a death tyrant beholder (different fights, not at the same time). I attached some popping VFX’s on the ghosts’ death that give a lot of spirit to the fight.

Also been working on some gameplay mechanics and custom items. After suggestions from players in this thread, I decided to make a statuette that summons 2-8 pseudodragons (when I used to play PnP, pseudodragons were THE coolest thing) and a gem that you can imbed in any of your weapons to turn it into an elemental weapon that will deal random elemental damage, complete with appropriate VFX.

I’ve got a bunch of other custom scripted items done and in mind, in addition to many custom items that use conventional properties. Besides at the outfitting store in the staging area of the mod, most items to be bought or found in Trinity will actually be custom made. I always find it nice when playing when I find an item I’ve never seen before.

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In other news, I’m leaving on vacation for a week in Mexico, this Thursday. After the harsh winter we had last year, my wife and I made a promise to ourselves that we’d try to escape it this year, even if just momentarily. The whole family is going to an all-inclusive resort (the first time in my life!) on the Riviera Maya. I am not bringing my laptop or any notepad of any kind. ;) See you all back soon!

No one likes to play alone

2009-01-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

This will be old news to those who visit our site, but I thought I’d finally officially post the results of the poll we conducted some time ago on preferred party size.

Sixty-eight people responded to the question (a great turn-out!): “In a solo mod, what is your ideal NWN2 party size?”. And the results were:

Two results of special note: no one likes to play solo, and a larger proportion of players like to have 3 companions to adventure with.

Sure seems like the folks at OEI got it right in SoZ with their party of 4 player-created characters, doesn’t it.

Trinity is built around a party of 5 and you start off with the full roster of 4 companions. While players will be able to dismiss any of them at any point in the game without breaking conversations or quests, the mod will be balanced for the complete party and a good part of the banter and interjections will rely on all party members being present. My recommendation then will be to play with all companions, on a first run-through at least.

If I were to do it again, I’d probably go with 3 companions. But now, I’ve grown too attached to each of them and can’t see myself cutting anyone from the roster.

Storm of Zehir Walk-through

2009-01-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let everyone in on what we've done over at The Thieves Guild.

We finally finished our Walk-through for SoZ. I've also listed a few very helpful links to other great resources for OEI's second expansion to NWN2.

Storm of Zehir Walk-Through

Storm of Zehir Trading Guide

Storm of Zehir Item Data Base

Sorm of Zehir Crafting Guide

Storm of Zehir Cohort Guide

I hope y'all find these guides useful.

I know this post has absolutely nothing to do with the awesome stuff GPS is working on, but now that we've finally got these done. I wanted GPS and friends to be the first to get their hands on it. ;D

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

We wish you and yours health, happiness, and success for the new year, and some good NWN2 fun too, of course.

With the expected release of a bunch of mods from NWN2 bloggers and a slew of others for sure, it’s shaping up to be a pretty good year for NWN2 fans everywhere.

Have fun!

Two-thirds of the way there

2008-12-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

In spite of what the lack of recent updates might seem to indicate, I’ve been steadily plugging away at Trinity these past few weeks (and enjoying it :) ), in between sessions of Storm of Zehir (and Mass Effect… and enjoying that too), and have managed to reach the 67% completion mark for the mod.

Mostly it’s been work on gameplay mechanics (means of blowing things up, for example), creature blueprints and combat encounters (making use of several community-made creatures and items in the process), scripting a complex convo and the like. All in all, not much I really can show or talk about in detail without getting into spoiler territory. But here are a couple of new screenshots nonetheless, to liven this blog post up if nothing else. By the way, the hood in these shots is courtesy of Arsan and was exactly what I needed for this NPC. The community does put out a lot of great stuff.

All told, about 84% of the assets of the mod are in varying stages of production right now. I hope to get SirChet a partial but playable version of the mod in the near future, for a first reality-check on story-flow, gameplay and duration (and to see how many serious bugs he can find! :) ).

Now, if you've been pining to walk in one of Ayrin's areas, you'll be happy to know this just came out. I'll certainly check this out ASAP.

SoZ – Less CAN be better

2008-12-05T09:47:00.000-08:00

I started Storm of Zehir last week and have been having lots of fun. The level of detail put into the areas is particularly impressive, so is the ingenuity and creativity deployed to build in such an enormous number of skill checks. I also got much more of a kick than expected out of building my own 4-member party and am finding the party conversation system more fun and much less burdensome than I was afraid it might be.

As for the overland map, that’s been interesting too. It sure is a great way to tie together disparate quests and adventure locations and give a feel of open-endedness to the game.

But, boy, those hostile encounters do zap in like madness. That started to become annoying very quickly once into the game, more than anything else ever in NWN2. So I found the script that controls the probability of hostile spawns and applied a modifier to it to reduce the rate at which they are teleported onto the OM. That worked and I can breathe now and not feel like I’m playing Space Invaders or something like that.

If you feel that way about the OM, you too might be interested in downloading the tweak I uploaded to the Vault recently.

We also uploaded the GPS No-Ring UI mod some time ago and have apparently made a few people happy. What more could you ask for.

GPS gets into UI modding

2008-11-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. It’s not quite what Lance is doing, or what these guys are up to with their Call of Cthulhu PW.

But it’s a little UI tweak I’ve wanted ever since I was making the Trinity trailer, and with Daronas’ help, we got it done.

GPS’s no-ring UI mod removes those unsightly selection rings you get around your currently controlled character and your selected enemy, that are especially intrusive in strategy mode. It also removes that star that appears when you click the ground to move. Look at the before and after shots to see what I mean.

With this, you can get a perfectly clean screen when the GUI is hidden: great for filming gameplay footage with FRAPS, for taking screenshots or for total immersion while playing.

It can make for a better playing experience when the GUI is up too. One reason I seldom played in strategy mode outside of combat was because of that permanent ring around my character.

It was a simple tweak to do really (override 3 images with null ones), once we figured out what we needed to modify and how.

The no-ring UI mod will go up on the Vault some time soon.

I’m also working on a few tweaks and add-ons (including TonyK compatibility) for my favourite custom UI, Lite UI. Anyone else uses this UI? The add-on may also find its way to the Vault some time in the near future.

Halloween Mod Podcast

2008-11-05T19:58:00.001-08:00

I just recently synced my iPod, downloading all the latest Neverwinter Nights Podcast episodes. For some reason, episode 76 and 77 didn't make it on.

So as I was washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen tonight I pressed the click-wheel to listen to episode 78, after listening to our very own Sirchet on episode 75! It's always when I'm cleaning the kitchen at the end of the day that I listen to the Podcast. It actually makes that job fun.

Lo and behold, it's an episode about the Halloween 2008 Community Mod, featuring an interview with Jclef and Ree! What a surprise! I hadn't even caught on they'd done a show about it. Anyway a great listen. It was fascinating to hear about the project from Jclef's perspective.

So if you haven't already, make sure you download the show or stream it from the Podcast's own website.

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The following shot was taken within our modest house in the Halloween super mod. It shows a silly character of mine, Crazy Friggin, a female gnome barbarian, wielding some really hard candy she got there as a treat.

Halloween Instant Classic

2008-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

As beta testing wraps up and the NWN2 Community Halloween mod is about to go up on the Vault, I believe I can safely say this thing is an instant classic.

The creativity, artistry, imagination, ingenuity, skill and talent that is on display in this mod is awe-inspiring.

The Community Halloween mod is by no means your typical NWN2 adventure, but it is nonetheless an absolute must-play for all those who love this game.

Thank you to JClef and the Bouncy Rock crew for initiating and pulling this project together, and thank you to the 20+ solo and team builders who rose to the challenge and made of this mod a fabulously fun gaming experience. Happy Halloween!

EDIT: It's heee-eere. Get it.

'Tis the season

2008-10-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

Summer and its lingering warmth are behind us. The trees are bare, their leaves cover the ground. The wind and rain batter the few pale flowers that remain. It is cold. The sky is gray.

Yay!

This means it's modding season in Canada! Let the games be built!

Mod building might be a bit like professional hockey. There's much more happening between October and May. There's less reason to spend much time outdoors (at least for those that hate the cold, like me), and less reason to feel guilty about it.

So I now expect building on Trinity to pick-up.

Still I'm pretty pleased with progress lately. The mod's now about 60% done. Conversations represent one of the big chunks that account for the remainder. Progress on that front is sss-loooowww. I really am rarely able to write fast. And have my fill of it after 90 minutes or so. Add to that the fact that I don't often have 90 minutes-worth of quiet time where my mind is rested and cooperative, and you get the picture.

Wife is taking the kids away for a full 36 hours this weekend. This means one Vin Diesel movie pumped out of the surround sound, and some good quality time with the TS. If I can get in 3-4 90 minutes writing sessions I'll be pleased.

Besides writing, I've been working lately on scripting and gameplay mechanics for a corpse cremation puzzl-ish sequence, some light/ambiance scripts, area design (one has been chalked up in the Completed column), and some custom item blueprints, including a very rare 300-year old bottle of Elverquisst, amongst other odds and ends.

(EDIT: I just realized that Trinity has been in development for exactly one year... Is that cause for celebration, or is it depressing? Not sure... :) My first backup is dated Oct 20 2007 - yes, I have one year worth of backups...)

And this would be the ideal time too for the community Halloween beta mod to go up. I really can't wait for this.

And now for some very interesting NWN2 building community news.

New Male Tiefling Head

2008-10-08T15:15:00.001-07:00

The new head will be included in our Halloween mod. I created it for my avatar. It's a mix of the old, new, and my own vision.

It's my first head modeled from scratch. As a matter of fact, I'm obviously not much of an organic modeler to begin with. It was also my first foray into texturing a "human" head.

I wanted to do a base mesh that I could use for other projects. Well, this one came out OK, but needs lots of improvements. In particular the nose and the mouth. So, I will be remodeling my base mesh. I don't have time before the release of the mod. Maybe somebody will like it as another Tiefling head option, even if it's not very good.

The head and facial horns are a beard option. I chose to do it this way so the head horns aren't tied to a single hair style. They cover the existing horns. Be advised that the head is normal mapped specifically for the head and facial horns to be used. They are tintable via the "hair accessory" option. I didn't want to infringe on one of the other tint options. The skin and eyebrows are tintable per the usual options.

It's NOT fully rigged. I only rigged the head, neck, eyelids, and eyes(OEI eyes). So, he'll look around and blink. I was happy to get that far. :) Rigging is another of my weak spots. But, I'm slowly leraning. There is no inside to the mouth. Lip flappers and such are out for now. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get better at it someday.

The screenshot was taken in LadyE's awesome Unicorn Run prefab. It reminded me, since I don't play the game much anymore, how good this game can look.

A couple Halloween shots

2008-10-08T04:49:00.000-07:00

Our modest contribution to the Community Halloween mod is almost done. Just needs to have a final convo with our avatard plugged in and a final coat of polish. Here are a couple of not-too-spoiling shots (yes, the second one is an actual in-game screenshot. ;) ). Wish I could show the couple of custom items Daronas has made for the GPS goody bag, but we decided to keep that as a surprise...

The mod originally made use of the newish SetLightActive function to turn lights on and off. But since that function is broken for now, I had to come up with an alternate custom function to spawn/destroy the "same" lights at will, and in the same spot. Nothing complicated, except that BPs need to be created for each distinct light...

I personally am really looking forward to playing this shared Halloween campaign. And that's just what I plan to be doing when I come back home from trick-or-treating with the kids on the 31st.

Great balls of acid

2008-09-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

by E.C.Patterson

No I’m not talking about any hallucinogenic excesses, but about the VFX for the Melf’s Acid Arrow spell. Cool VFX. Doesn’t look anything like an arrow though.

These are pix of a drow wizard unloading his wand of acid arrows on a couple of companions, poor Autamma and Thelvar (PC was long down and out). I thought they were pretty neat (even though the sky color and lighting does not look like any of my settings. Don’t know what’s up with that yet.)

They were taken while I was working this weekend on the largest battle encounter in Trinity (previously called Into the Forgotten Realms, and likely to know at least one other name change before it’s released – latest poll is sort of telling me as much…;) ). It’s a battle to take down a surface drow encampment, which could take place at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the mod, or not at all really, depending on how the player feels about it. There’s no way, I think, the party would be able to succeed on their own. So they’ll have two different options for allies. One of them will involve driders. Enough said. ;)

I started off with at least 60 enemies in the scene, but even with AI tweaks it was too much of a mess to play: there was just too much happening. So I’ve been taking down the number of belligerents to more manageable numbers, while making them a bit tougher. Also using some custom DCR scripts to control when certain groups jump into the fray. Fun stuff do to this battle setup, but hard to get right. Not quite there yet.

One final word about all that: Tony_K. After waffling on the question, I pretty much decided to include his AI into the mod. It really makes creatures behave more intelligently. I just have to get more comfortable with how to tweak it, but for the most part it’s just like the default AI (except there are no X2_L_BEH_* variables).
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No surprise here, Trinity building time has been at a high premium these past couple of months. There’s been the 3-week family vacation during which, even though I had my laptop, I wasn’t able to do much. Then there were the last days of summer, just calling me outdoors, do the last bit of gardening, go to the park with the kids etc. And also there’s the Halloween mod project that tricked me into handing it over almost a week-worth of building time. ;)

It’s not just a question of time of course, but of energy too. When 10 p.m. comes around, and the kids have been put to bed, we’ve had our dinner, and the kitchen has been cleaned-up, I don’t always feel like sitting down to write or do some other mod stuff. Sometimes I’d really rather just play (or do something else), which I do. In the past 2 months, I managed to finish MotB (many great, great aspects, but a story that’s a bit too supernatural really for my tastes), Pool of Radiance Remastered and dgraf’s beta of Price of Honor. And I’m now, finally, well into Raith’s Sand of Solvheil I.

All fun stuff. One thing that’s for sure: I’m nowhere near trading in NWN2 for another game.

A word about NHiN2

2008-09-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

We’ve been seeing quite a few people recently asking about the status of the sequel to Night Howls in Nestlehaven, or simply expressing their eagerness for its release. It’s wonderful to realize there are so many enthusiastic fans of Jackyo123’s Hall of Fame mod.

It is to be fair to these fans that we are officially announcing that NHiN2’s development is now unfortunately on indefinite hold. This likely comes as no surprise to many, since there has been no news here or elsewhere about the mod for many months now.

We know this might be disappointing to many players. It is disappointing to us as well. After having spent much time and energy on area design, scripting, cutscenes, writing and testing for the mod, few may have been more eager to see the mod come out than us at Gaming Parents.

But of course, none was more devoted to this project than Jackyo himself. His boundless enthusiasm and imagination was impressive and a joy to witness. Before going on hold, NHiN2 was clocking in at somewhere around 14 hours of gameplay and was fast approaching the first stages of beta testing.

Sadly, Jackyo has other obligations these days that prevent him from pursuing the project further. We the remaining active members of GPS hold on to the hope that he will eventually return to the NWN2 scene and that we will all someday be able to complete the mod together as intended. In the meantime, we wish Jackyo and his family the best.

Our other mod projects (A Time to Die and Trinity) are still very much in the pipeline. So stay tuned for more news on those. Thanks.

Due To Popular Demand "Daronas's Dwarven Statue"

2008-08-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a better picture of the Statue we could see in the background of the Dwarven Belt picture. Daron's put this statue together for us to use over at The Dawn of Time, a persistent World I've been involved in lately.

I think with the proper support and encouragement, Daronas may release this to our gaming community.

Oh, and here's a link to Dawn of Time.

http://sharepoint.alignment-networks.com/DoT/default.aspx

Belt W.I.P.

2008-08-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a belt I've been working on. I just thought I'd post a pic to gain some interest and ask for some input. The main thing I'm struggling with is the skin modifier. It's my first armor piece. I wouldn't mind doing more if there is interest.

Is the quality up to snuff?
Is some clipping acceptable?
How important is perfect deformation of the mesh? Right now the movement is a little rigid. My skill in this area is next to nothing. I can make it a little better I think. But I'm having a hard time.

I'm calling it a clan belt for now. I plan on doing a couple of more with different looks. I don't know what the different dwarf clan symbols are, this one features crossed axes.

Artistic Self-Improvement

2008-08-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is General Noob. He was the leader of a resistance against human/alien hybrid experiments. The reptilian aliens are a lesser race compared to future humans. The intelligence the aliens would gain when crossed with humans could not be foreseen. Still, it was not enough. The humans were far too superior. Not long after this portrait was created, General Noob disappeared. He was never seen again. The humans insidious experiments continue.

This dude was just a small project to learn ZBrush and Photoshop a little better. I had absolutely no plan. I just loaded up a box in ZBrush, subdivided and and started shaping. General Noob is what came about. I had never created any kind of bust in 3d before. Organic modeling and texturing is not my forte. Most of what I've been doing involve assets already done for NWN2.

I never thought I would ever do any character modeling/sculpting. It is very intimidating. It's amazing how one could become attached to a character. Even one that's not very good. But, now I know why people do it. It's kind of addictive. I hope to push the next character a little more. A little more radical and better rendering. It's a learning process. ;)

Giant Bat on the Vault soon!

2008-07-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

I did this giant bat for a fellow GPS member. There have been a couple of requests for a giant bat on the forums. So, it will be released ahead of time.

The bat is just a scaled up version of the OEI bat. The height as been lowered to an appropriate level for combat. Oh yeah, I added the glowing yellow eyes as well. :)

Look for it soon, if interested.

ItFR – Teaser World Premiere!

2008-07-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

by E.C.Patterson

Here now is the teaser trailer for Into the Forgotten Realms I mentioned I was working on (the teaser actually reveals a bit of a title tweak…).

You can get instant satisfaction with the YouTube version, but I recommend you get the 16MB download which has much better images and sound.

Download (16MB)

YouTube

The release of this teaser marks the halfway point in the production of ItFR. I'd like to take this occasion to thank you all for your ongoing support, which has without a doubt helped us get to this point.

ItFR: Moving pictures

2008-07-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

By E.C.Patterson

To celebrate our anniversary this year, my wife and I got to spend 36 kid-free hours the other weekend at a hotel overlooking Sacacomie lake. This nearly unspoiled lake (spoiled pretty much only by the hotel) is about 2 hours north-east of Montreal.

What do you think I was telling myself while taking in this view from the restaurant terrace or while canoeing on the lake?

“Damn, another weekend wasted. I could be home in my basement right now working on the mod.”

Just joking! Of course I wasn’t thinking that.

But looking at the islands dotting the lake, the gentle hills crowning it, covered by evergreens, I really was contemplating for a moment just how best I could render this landscape in the NWN2 toolset. This is not by any means the first time I have had thoughts along those lines, and I’m convinced most builders have had them too.

I used to view the world in a similar way at the time, many years ago, when I fancied myself a photographer. Everywhere I looked I wasn’t simply seeing the reality before me, but was constantly evaluating the possibility for a photograph, determining angle, analysing the light.

It got really annoying after a while to constantly see the world as a potential picture. And that was part (albeit a minor one) of my decision to let go of that intensive pursuit, and forget about being a photographer.

I hope to be able to guard myself against this happening with modding. So far so good I think.
--------

Into the Forgotten Realms continues to progress. The mod is pretty much at the halfway point now.

As I mentioned before, I’m producing a teaser trailer to mark this event. So some of my modding time lately has gone into filming and editing game footage for it.

Here’s a bit of assembled combat footage put together for the trailer. It’s still a bit crude, and I’m not at all sure it will be part as is of the teaser, but I thought I’d show it to you nonetheless.

ItFR will have heavy combat potential, while being low in hack and slash, if that makes sense. All combat will be logically tied into the plot. The plans are for somewhere around 15 encounters that could result in combat within the 4-5 hours of the mod. The combat minded will be able to handle all these encounters by force, while those inclined to deal with them differently can cut combat by half probably.

Download version (2 mb)

ITFR : Not much building lately. I’ve been having fun.

2008-07-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

by E.C.Patterson

I don’t mean to say of course that building for NWN2 isn’t fun. As an act of creation, I enjoy it tremendously and don’t see myself quitting any time soon. At this point, I believe I’ll go on as long as there is sufficient interest in NWN2 mods and the community is vibrant.

No, but sometimes, there are things I’d rather do with my 60 minutes-a-day free computer time than building. And well, since my heart and soul is firmly with NWN2, that often means just playing the game. (I thought sometime ago that Bioshock might steal me away for a bit, but it hasn’t. After a couple of nights playing, it was put back on the shelf.)

So last week I had a couple of good runs on MotB taking me all the way to the City of Judgment. As with any good thing, I wasn’t eager to end the game right away, so I’ve put MotB on hold for now, and decided to finally play the last chapter of Pool of Radiance Remastered. While RP’ing does feel quite limited in PORR, the mod has fun gameplay and well-crafted areas. Because of its general look and feel and its length, I consider it the most professional-grade NWN2 community mod out there right now (for better and for worse ;) )

Nonetheless, Into the Forgotten Realms has progressed somewhat in the past days. Xandurpein (author of Shadow of the Underdark and Tanithiel’s maker) and I have been having some great discussions on plot for the Cormanthor section of the mod. You’ll have to deal with the drow presence in the area, and while wiping them out will be an option (expect tough, monumental fights if you decide to go this way), it will not be the only course of action. Xandurpein, a drow expert of sorts, will be writing much of the drow convos for that part of the story. I’m glad of that because if there’s anything bogging down ItFR somewhat right now, it’s all the writing that has to be done.

Besides that, there’s been a bit of area building happening, including this catacomb, which makes me feel somewhat productive.

So, Joyeuse belated Saint-Jean-Baptiste to Quebecers reading this (if any!) and Happy Canada Day too. This is the heart of summer here with two national holidays within 7 days of each other. This, and the nice weather, isn't helping building on ItFR much either... :)

Improved Baphitaur/Minotaur Head.

2008-06-18T21:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in awhile. It's about time. I just wanted to show a shot of the head I've been working on.

Honestly, I was never completely satisfied with the original Baphitaur/Minotaur head I originally did for LadyE. I knew I could do better. I added a couple of new programs to my arsenal, and have a few more months of experience. So, I decided to take another crack at the head.

List of improvements:

1) The head and horns are one mesh, and separately tintable. Less faces than a typical half-orc head. The eyes are not tintable.

2) The mohawk/mane is a hair option, tintable via hair tints. Original OEI, and modified to fit.

3)The beard is a facial hair option, tintable via hair tints. Original OEI, modified.

4) The nose/earring jewelry, and the horn tips are separate helmet options, and are tintable. I made a new custom armor category for this and all future custom armor I make.

Well, I hope some will find this a suitable improvement. I hope to have it packaged up very soon once it goes through the final bit of testing.

ItFR : 45%, and video screenshot

2008-06-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

By E.C.Patterson

Has it been two weeks already since last post? Time sure flies by quickly. If it wasn’t for my fancy spreadsheet I could think that not much has been accomplished since then on Into the Forgotten Realms. But it proves me wrong: ItFR is now 45% complete. I’m excited about that since it means I was able to meet the target I recently set of 10% progress per month. The mod is nearing the top of the hill, and hopefully it’ll be a smooth and speedy run down to the finish line.

To celebrate this forthcoming 50^th(percentile) anniversary, I’m planning to release a short teaser tailer. I’m gradually thinking up the storyboard and filming in-game footage. I like making videos, so this should be fun. Another fun part of mod making, which for me is not only about building a mod and uploading it to the Vault.

I’ve edited some early footage just for practice into the following 15 seconds clip, which I’ll call a video screenshot. It shows a part of the Cormanthor forest area and some ruins, which players will have to go through to reach Soloria, one of the abandoned schools of wizardry around Myth Drannor. Some of the shots in there will probably end up in the teaser.

Download larger size version (1mb)

Thanks for reading. I hope to be back sooner next time.

ItFR: Blabla Bla Blabla

2008-05-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

by E.C.Patterson

As I hinted at before, dialogues – and, in general, writing – is the aspect of mod building I find the least fun. I think part of it is because it’s much too much like work for me (I write most of the day already to make a living… albeit in a different language).

These days though, I’ve been pushing myself to get on with the writing for Into the Forgotten Realms. It’s not going to be an especially long mod (about 4-5 hours), so I’m not writing an epic novel. But still, there’ll probably be somewhere around 40 to 50 conversation files of varying length in the mod. I’m figuring at this point they should total about 35 000 words or so (as the PowerBar plugin counts them). That’s about 100 typed pages, which is really not nothing when you think about it.

This type of stat really brings home what a colossal endeavor even a little mod like this is. I’m all the more amazed at those like Wyrin (who's now got 2 parts down of his 5-part DA campaign) and Dirtywick (whose word count for SoT2 boggles my mind) are able to pull off such huge projects.

ItFR is at about 12,000 words right now, so there is some way to go still on that front. Thankfully, SirChet’s there to help with editing, ensuring the writing sounds like genuine English.

That said, writing, in spite of being somewhat of a chore, is oddly as well the most satisfying part of mod making – when it’s over and done with. I enjoy better re-reading what has been written (when it’s not so bad) than viewing a detailed area over again, say, or going over a complex script.

Here then is a bit of a sample of writing so far for ItFR.

Screenshots really don’t do convos justice. So, taking a cue from LadyE’s fun trailer for ATtD1, I put together a little video.

It shows the speech delivered at the beginning of the mod by the current Lord of Shadowdale, Azalar Falconhand, as you and other selected adventurers appear before him in the great hall of his keep, the Twisted Tower of Ashaba. It basically sets up the premise for the mod.

View streaming video
(Duration: about 4 1/2 minutes. If the text is not clear enough, try the download version)

Download video
(Size: 18MB. It’s the smallest I was able to make it while keeping the text mostly legible. Let me know if it’s still too hard to read though. )

BTW, if anyone notices things that don’t make sense in respect to established FR lore, please, by all means, point it out. That would be a huge help.

Have a good weekend!

A Small Vacation for GPS Members

2008-05-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last Monday night 5/19/08 I was able to pry a couple of the hardworking GPS producers away from their passions and lure them into an adventure over at The Dawn of Time, (a persistent world for NWN2) http://sharepoint.alignment-networks.com/DoT/default.aspx .

I was very happy to see our own LadyElvenstar pick up her mace and stand side by side with EC's ranger and my dwarf fighter. Together they met royalty, bargained for information with thieves, fought their way through dark and dangerous dungeons, and even found a talking Ogre, (who wasn't very friendly) but in the end...all survived, just slightly less for the ware.

I think a short reprieve from the hard work these folks put into their creations was and will always be needed. It's all too often that we forget this is supposed to be fun, a hobby if you will, and we all end up getting too caught up in deadlines. I certainly recommend an excursion like this to any and all of the members of the NWN2 community.

I hope to see all the members of GPS taking a break and coming over, I will make sure a good time is to be had.

ItFR : just hit 35!

2008-05-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

By E.C.Patterson

A bit less than one month ago I introduced you to my flashy progress report card for Into the Forgotten Realms. I reported then that ItFR was about 25 % complete. I’m happy to say it’s closer to 35 % complete now, even after adding a few elements along the way. I’m happy with the progress made, even though I wish it could proceed faster. But the only way that could happen is by cutting a few corners, and that’s something I’m loath to do at this time.

Most of the progress made was in conversations (with the help of SirChet, who has begun editing some of them), custom content (thanks to the great contributions from Daronas) and scripts. Areas have also progressed well, but since they are still in the works, they haven’t yet been chalked up.

The goal now is to complete 10-15% of the mod every month. With the past month’s experience, that seems like a reasonable workload, unless, of course, priority GPS projects like A Time to Die 1 or NHIN2 require more of my attention… :)

To close this off, here are a few simple toolset shots from ItFR that I like: one is of the school of wizardry’s library; another, of one of the treasures to be found, from a perspective impossible in game (that’s in the room with the beholder – which I’m now planning to turn into a Death Tyrant); and the last one, of a “simple” hideaway…

Night Howls in Nestlehaven Review Posted

2008-05-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

As some may know, our little family of modders started as Team NHiN, (Night Howls in Nestlehaven). Well, being that the lead for that project has been struck by real life issues, and won't be contributing as much as he used to for a while. I thought it would be proper to let everyone know how NHiN faired with the Neverwinter Reviewers Guild.

NHiN was well received and scored rather high in my opinion. Why not take a look for yourself the link is http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Reviews.Detail&id=8 .

I believe JackyO123 to be one of the most talented modders I've been fortunate enough to work with since I've been involved in the NWN2 community.

ItFR : Secret, secret, I’ve got a secret

2008-05-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

By E.C.Patterson

I’ve been able to get some good, quality time with the toolset during the past few days, especially on Saturday. Grandma took the girls with her for most of the day, which gave my wife and I some free time alone… which we each spent on our respective hobbies ;)

I spent much of my time that day working on some of the secrets that will be part of Into the Forgotten Realms: secret door, secret compartment in nearby object and secret compartment in the floor.

The latter two are working great, but I’ve had one important issue with my concept for the secret door. See this thread for the details. It seems like I’ll have to implement the tried and true “VFX spawn” method or the alternative “Placeable door spawn” method. Too bad. I really had high hopes for this secret door concept of mine.

I’ve also been able to flesh out, in my mind at least, the backstories of three of the four companions, as well as the one of your “nemesis” (known as Gaion), including their respective “secrets”. I still haven’t come up with an interesting backstory and motivation for Thelvar, the fearless Turmian cleric of Tymora (otherwise known as Mr. 3T ;) ), but that will come when I turn my mind to it.

And lastly, I moved the design of this area forward quite a bit. This is an interior area made with Kivinen’s roofless version of the cave tileset, retextured with the texture RWS used for the chasm tiles in the Deep Halls tileset. I’m not sure if the glow spider will make it into the final version, but I really like how its glow map looks. :)

Oh, and I also made some useable latrines ;) (with the help of Heeds' ActionSit). No these are not essential to the mod, but they should trigger a funny bit of companion interaction, if you don't sufficiently value your privacy... ;)

I now plan to be off the toolset for the next couple of nights (if I can resist the urge...) to beta test Dennis Graf's Price of Honor. I'm looking forward to that.

Happy Birthday Jakob and Whilma!

2008-04-30T20:39:00.001-07:00

Today marks the first anniversary of Daark Twins, the mod I released for the OEI Grimm Fairy Tales mod contest. April 30, 2007, was the deadline for the contest, in which also participated builders like Wyrin, Maerduin and JClef, of course, who won the highly coveted first place prize ;).

We were given 26 days to make a 1-2 hour mod. It was a very intense and exciting experience. It was also I think a very formative event for the community at a time when it needed somewhat of a nudge.

Congratulations again to all contest participants. And thank you to everyone who downloaded and played Daark Twins during the past year.

ItFR: Bring out the WIP

2008-04-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

What with the children party at my place last weekend for my daughters who just turned 2 and 4, the Montreal Canadiens’ 7^th game wipeout of Boston on Tuesday, and the first gardening weekend of the growing season coming up, building time for Into the Forgotten Realms is at a pretty premium these days.

Thank the forces above for Daronas, who’s been sending me some nifty custom placeables, and getting me excited and motivated to scrape together some TS time in the last couple of days.

Here then is a work-in-progress shot of somewhere inside the School of Wizardry, showcasing some of his stuff.

I wish you all a great weekend!

[Edit: Here are a few more in-game shots of the same spot, before I call it a night.]

[Edit 2 - April 26 : Alright, I'm done with this room for now. Looks like the Beholder had some lunch recently...]

ItFR: Progress report card #1

2008-04-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, as much to report on progress made in building Into the Forgotten Realms as to give me a sense of progression (or a kick in the butt, if I get no such sense… ;) )

So looking at the report card below, I’d say today that 65% of ItFR is currently underway, and that about 25% of the mod is pretty much complete. (The label “Needs polish” can be understood as my insecure way of saying “Completed”…)

The table gives the percentage of all assets for the mod that are completed or in various other stages of production, by the relative priority of each asset. Assets include areas, scripts, convos, creature and item blueprints, custom models, stores etc., basically all the components that make a mod. And they range in priority from companion blueprints and main quest areas (priority #1 – essential) to custom music (#4) to scoring system (#5 – nice to have, but good chance I won’t get there).

This report card is actually an Excel pivot table (I love pivot tables!*). It’s based on a worksheet I use to keep track of what’s to be done. I’m one who likes lists and categorizing things, as it helps me stay focussed and in control.

Most assets have been included in this list, but some have probably slipped by. Others have been combined (sets of scripts, custom items), since it’d be too burdensome to track them individually. Assets also vary greatly in scale, from the quick script and barkstring cycle, to the detailed area and companion convo. Assets are also being added regularly as the mod evolves.

Still, I find this system gives me a good sense of the work involved and a fair idea of where the mod is at.

* I love my wife too. And before anyone asks, yes, I love her more than pivot tables.

(Edit 28-04-08: As requested by Delak, here is the template of my tracking sheet)

ItFR: Theme Music!

2008-04-11T15:56:00.001-07:00

After listening to the full Community Music Pack on my Ipod and rating the 235 songs it contains during the past several months, I have finally compiled a short list of 19 of the songs which I'll use to build the soundtrack for Into the Forgotten Realms.

The following song I have picked as Into the Forgotten Realms' official theme. It's called Arena and it was composed by Justin Durban/Edgen.

Stream:

Download

I don't know yet where or even if it will be featured in game, but this piece is the one that best reflects the vision I have of the mod, made of equal parts heroism, tension, and tragedy.

I'm thinking I'll probably use it, at the very least, in the trailer for ItFR which I intend to do down the line. It could also go into the mod as the closing credits theme. We'll see.

----------------------

While we're talking music, here's another track that's at the top of my chart. It's from the upcoming Misery Stone mod. The song is by bardic superstar Lexi AKA SpeakingBeast AKA Jason Roy. It's called Calimport Kiss. Man I love this song. Brilliant stuff.

ItFR, and something to behold

2008-04-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

I closed off work on the two areas this weekend that will represent the Twisted Tower of Ashaba in Shadowdale (thanks Hugie and Dirtywick for the info about it). I’ll be polishing the ambient life of the keep in the near future, namely the keep staff and servants who will be busying themselves about it.

The Twisted Tower of Ashaba will be the starting area in Into the Forgotten Realms.

Here are a few of the minor NPCs the player will encounter in the Tower:

Father Hargreaves, the aging former adventurer who now takes care of the spiritual needs of the keep’s inhabitants, and ministers to the less fortunate in the town of Shadowdale. He will give his blessing and gratitude to you if you bring him back some artefact from Cormanthor that could help him in his work.

Azalar Falconhand, the recently named successor of Mourngrym Amcathra as Lord of Shadowdale, who holds deep in his heart his responsibility to maintain the peace in Shadowdale and the Dalelands. The people, he earnestly feels, have suffered enough. But the burden of his office are already showing in the lines of his youthful face. He will give you your main mission.

Basil and Hardy, the clerks in the keep’s stores, from whom you will be able to get some supplies before setting off for Cormanthor. The former clerks were killed in the recent Zhentarim/Drow invasion of Shadowdale, and the keep’s seneschal was unfortunately not able to find more competent replacements. (More on Basil and Hardy in another post probably.)

And lastly, the young maids Hortense and Astrid, watched over by the keep’s matron, Garny. Hortense and Astrid have never left Shadowdale and wish they could come with you on your grand adventure.

Now, most of you are aware I’m sure of the new Beholder that just came out. I just want to tip my hat off to Jonny Ree and the Bouncy Rock gang as well as Dirtywick, not only for bringing to us something wonderful and much needed, but also for creating something that really got the NWN2 community excited (me included!). It was a great 7 days watching this happen! Congratulations on the remarkable achievement guys.

Unicorn Blueprint

2008-04-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Unicorn Run Screenshot Slideshow:

I just wanted to thank Daronas for designing the unicorn and E.C. for creating the unicorn blueprint in time for me to enter the Unicorn Run prefab in the NWN2 area design contest. I think Daronas did a great job at such short notice!

Here's a pic of the unicorn in use and I'll get Daronas to post his own pics when he has time. I will be using this area for the end of Act II of ATtD, which ends in a cliffhanger! :)

~ LadyE

ItFR: The Return

2008-03-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, my (foolish) wish of getting a 8800GT video card back from Asus to replace the 8600GT I'd sent in for repairs didn't come true after all, but the next best thing did: a brand new 8600GT came in via Fedex yesterday, all in less than three weeks including shipping forth and back. Thank you Asus. I'm very happy.

Which means I can get back to playing NWN2 and doing visual work for Into the Forgotten Realms. I'm especially eager to test out Daronas' custom content.

Incidentally, did you all see the Unicorn he uploaded lately? Great stuff and I understand it's only going to get better as he polishes it. We'll upload a creature blueprint too to go along with it shortly.

Now here's a little screenshot to celebrate my return to the graphical world of NWN2.

"You dare disturb the one who rules Myth Drannor?" Hey, no dungeon would be complete without a good ol' fashion magic mouth! :)

ItFR: What is magical?

2008-03-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

As I reported in my last post, I'm working mostly on dialogues these days. I'm having a fairly good time with that, especially when I get deep into character and I know where I'm going. I enjoy making my NPCs speak, so much so I'm starting to think some of the dialogues may end up being too long. I'll see during play testing what they feel like.

I've also squeezed in time yesterday to script another of the companion's special custom items (scripting is my way to relax... ;) ).

In Into the Forgotten Realms, each of the four companions will have a special item as part of their starting equipment: Rindal the Rogue will have a climbing rope; Thelvar the Cleric, an Amulet of Speak with Dead, and Elmaer the Wizard, a Wand of Detect Magic (I haven't figured out yet what Autamma the mace-wielding Fighter will get).

So last night I was scripting Elmaer's Wand of Detect Magic, and in the script I had to define what objects and items in the game are magical. Since there is no "IsMagical" switch on objects, I had to create some rules. The following is what I came up with:

An object will be flagged in game (with a VFX) as magical if:

(Creature) It has a spell effect applied to it, OR
(Item) It is cursed, OR
(Item) It is NOT identified (which implies the item is magical), OR
(Item) It has special item properties assigned to it, AND
(Item) It is NOT an item equipped in a creature slot (meaning that it would be a creature item)

In addition, objects with a "IsMagical" local int on them would also be included. This I added to catch objects that cannot be covered by any rules (e.g. some placed effects that would be used as magical "objects").

Objects (creatures, containers) with "magical" items in their inventories or in any of their equipment slots would have the VFX applied directly to them.

I recognize these rules are probably not 100% failsafe, but they seem like they could do the trick.

I wonder though if anything else should register as magical. For example, are there creatures that would emit a magical aura detectable with a Detect Magic spell (Constructs?).

If you have any ideas to make these rules better (other rules, adjustment to current rules etc.) , think of something that could potentially make this concept fail, have suggestions on a better way to go about this altogether, or any other thoughts of any kind, I'd much appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks! :)

ITFR : Forced into dialogue…

2008-03-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems my video card fried a couple of weeks ago. There were no actual smoke and flames, just a display that refused to light up and some morse-type error codes emanating from that big beige box under my desk on each boot-up.

So off the card went, making the trip from Montreal to somewhere in Indiana, to spend a couple of weeks in Asus’ world-class spa, for a little R’or’R (Repair or Replacement). I must admit I was pretty pleased to learn of Asus' 3-year, no-questions asked return policy when I called them up about my problems. Hopefully, they won’t wait for that warranty to expire before they return the card to me…

I am actually secretly hoping they won’t be able to do anything about the card and will be left with no other choice than to send me back a brand new 8800 GT for my troubles…

That’s a wish I hold ever since my wife nixed my intentions to buy one of those video cards when my 8600GT left me in the ditch. Somehow she didn’t find it reasonable for me to plop down $350 for a new card, when my old one would come back to me in a month’s time, refreshed and ready to roll once more. Hmmm, she’s right though, as much as I hate to admit it…

Matters would not be so bad if I had a replacement card lying around, ready to slip into my machine. No such luck though. All my old cards are AGP and this motherboard only accepts PCI-E.

So I have had no choice but to go back to my 2-year old rig, which has absolutely no hardware compatibilities with my current, amputated machine. This includes the SATA hard drives on which now sleep ALL my Into the Forgotten Realms files… So I can’t even access my mod files and transfer them to my new-old rig. This is especially irksome with Daronas sending in great custom content for ITFR of late, since I have no way to check it out in-game…

However, impossible to contemplate putting work on Into the Forgotten Realms on hold for 4-5 weeks of course… It’s already bad enough I have to play NWN1, because NWN2 now runs at 5 fps and under… ;)

I’m one to think there are never problems, only opportunities (well, most of the time at least…). So, I thought, what better time to work on dialogues for ITFR: there’s really nothing else I can do right now…

So that’s what I’ve been up to these past couple of weeks, when I’m left with enough energy at the end of the day to start writing.

More than anything, writing for the mod takes a lot out of me. It can be one of the most satisfying part of mod-making when I come up with something good, but getting started on a writing session really can feel like having my teeth pulled sometimes.

Part of it certainly has to do with the fact that I make a good part of my living by writing. Not high fantasy fiction mind you but strategic corporate communications.

So coming home to write some more or trying to write on the weekend (while the little ones watch Cars or Nemo next to me for the 27th time) takes a real effort of will because it can feel so much like work…

Part of it also may be that I’m not wired for a very imaginative and creative writing-style and have had no real precursory aptitude, skill or training for it. So it can require me to make an effort to short-circuit the neurons and jump-start the machine…

All that said, I’m still sometimes pretty pleased with some of my lines, but I’ve long come to the conclusion I will never write like Guy Gavriel Kay, or Zach Holbrook :) . Whether it be in my first language (French), or my second.

Bottom line: no Into the Forgotten Realms screenshots for a little while. Maybe I’ll substitute with a few dialogue lines I’ve written. I could put them in a larger typeface and in color. That could liven things up. :)

Fellow Builders: Are you using the TS Sound Set Selection Menu Fix?

2008-03-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

If not, why not give it a try? It may make giving a voice to your NPCs much easier.

If you do use it, I’d love to know if you find it useful and if you have any suggestions for improvements. If you don’t find it useful, I’d be interested in knowing why so I can look into making adjustments.

And if you use it and like it fine, I’d love it too if you could leave some feedback and vote on the Vault download page (if you haven't already) and help take the file out of the "sub-10 votes" lower plane it’s still lingering in. Thanks! :)

TS Sound Set Selection Menu Fix

I see that 1.12 will make some changes to soundset.2da so I’ll check that out when the patch comes out to see if any changes need to be made to the fix at this stage.

Frontpage for Gary Gygax

2008-03-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

The countless tributes from past and present D&D players and the many obituaries from specialized and mainstream media that have appeared since Gary Gygax's death testify to the impact he has had on people’s lives and to the influence he exercised directly and indirectly on many facets of the wider entertainment industry (PNP and video gaming, literature, television and cinema etc.)

Gary Gygax’s status as one of our age’s great influential figures across the social spectrum was confirmed in my eyes today when an obituary for him appeared on the first page of our most relevant national newspaper here in Quebec, Le Devoir. As today’s cover page suggests on its own, this is a broadsheet that ranks alongside The Globe and Mail, Le Monde and the NY Times for its seriousness and journalistic integrity.

The headline about his death translates as: "End of the game for Gary Gygax. The creator of Dungeons and Dragons passes away at 69."

The full article can be read here.

A Time to Die Trailer

2008-03-03T21:54:00.001-08:00

Here is the latest trailer for the campaign, "A Time to Die" (ATtD) for Neverwinter Nights 2. Ladyelvenstar is the head designer in this set of three modules created by Gaming Parents Studios. This video trailer is from Chapter One of ACT I... more to follow from Chapter Two when it is further along.

ItFR : Shadowdale Keep

2008-02-28T09:43:00.000-08:00

Into the Forgotten Realms will begin as you and your fellow adventurers are received in audience by Lord Mourngrym himself in the great hall of Shadowdale Keep. Lord Mourngrym, the long-time, elected leader of Shadowdale, will set before you the task that you will take on for the peace and security of all Dalelands.

Here’s a question to FR buffs: do you find anything wrong or odd about the fact that there would be such a keep in Shadowdale? I have not found any reference to the Lord of Shadowdale’s residence and thought a relatively modest keep would make a plausible one.

These interiors are quite dark by design, since that is how I picture the inside of a mostly windowless keep (plus, I like moody lighting). The lighting was calibrated for my LCD screen. While these shots look fine on my end, they may appear excessively dark on some other screens. It’s probably nothing a bit of gamma sliding won’t fix in game if some players need it.

Poll results : Most NWN2 players don’t own hot rods!

2008-02-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

At least that it the safest interpretation I can make of the answers to the question we’ve been asking these past few weeks: What resolution do you play NWN2 at?

According to the poll results, about 3 out of 4 NWN2 players do not play the game at max resolution. About half play at the average res of 1280*960/1024.

Since I think it’s safe to presume that players would play at max resolution if they had the machine to do so, I conclude that most people who play NWN2 don’t do so on killer machines. On the upside, I think we can say that somewhere around 75% of players play on pretty decent ones.

If this tells us anything as builders, IMO, it is that we have to be mindful of the performance of our mods (expressed in fps), and most particularly of their areas, if we want them to be playable by the majority of the playing community. Making huge areas with loads of VFXs, shadow casting lights, grass and tons of tree varieties and seeds, even if one’s own machine can handle it, may make one’s mod inaccessible to most players, or at least make it a less than enjoyable playing experience.

This probably goes without saying, but it doesn’t hurt me at least to have it confirmed in this way.

On the other hand, the toolset allows so much creative freedom, that a builder might still chose to make the mod and areas he/she envisions, even if it means cutting oneself off of much of the player base.

If you make another interpretation of these results, please don’t hesitate to write it up here.

Also, if you know of other aspects of (offline, not PW) mods that can have a perceivable effect on performance, please do share them. For instance, is the surface mesh complexity of exterior areas much of a factor: everything being equal, do areas with less mesh variation (flatter, smoother terrain) perform noticeably better that those with lots of it (peaks and valleys, noise and bumpiness)?

New GPS Mod: Ed Greenwood’s Into the Forgotten Realms

2008-02-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

A new threat has come to Faerun’s heartland, one that recalls the tragic events of a not so distant past…

Back in 1356 DR, Lashan Aumersair, Lord of Scardale, launched a series of lightning attacks against his neighbours, guided by a foul dream of rulership over all Dalelands.

Fortunately, the tyrant was stopped just in time.

But one man has now surfaced, who apparently seeks to succeed where Lashan failed.

You, along with a few other adventurers, have been selected to hunt down the man behind this new threat and put a stop to his frightening plans.

This chase will take you under the dark canopy of Cormanthor forest, to the outskirts of the legendary elven city of Myth Drannor, to plunge far underground, in what remains of the fabled School of Wizardry.

An adventure that will take you deep… Into the Forgotten Realms.

Welcome to Ed Greenwood’s Into the Forgotten Realms, a new NWN2 mod that I am producing with the help of the rest of the Gaming Parents Studios team.

The mod is based on the classic AD&D adventure of the same name written by Ed Greenwood and published in Dragon Magazine #95 in March 1985 (back when I used to DM PnP a bit…). The original adventure is being complemented with additional content and the storyline has been updated to fit into present-day Forgotten Realms.

Some of the mod’s key features:

Around 4 hours of gameplay
Starting level in the 6-8 range, with about 2 levels gained in game
4 companions to make up a well-rounded adventuring party
Play with your favourite character: no class, race or alignment restrictions
Extensive use of community-made custom content, from armor to VFX, as well as tilesets and weapons (including work by GPS)
Single-player, with plans for multiplayer compatibility
Complete, standalone adventure

I hope to be able to release in late spring-early summer 2008.

This is currently project #3 for Gaming Parents Studios. Our priority remains getting NHIN2 ready for release and then completing A Time to Die – Act 1. Of course, since we are not all working exclusively on any one project, ItFR will continue to evolve alongside these two projects.

Like other GPS mods, this one will also be a team effort:

Daronas has already started making some great custom content for the mod,
Xandurpein will be writing a good part of the companion convos,
SirChet will edit all text and be the lead beta tester,
LadyElvenstar and Jackyo, once A Time to Die, Act 1 and NHIN2 – the projects they respectively lead – are out the door, will also lend their talent to the production,
And everyone is providing great ideas and advice to make the mod as authentic and fun an experience as possible.

If there’s anything else you’d like to know at this stage, please do leave a comment here, by all means. I’ll do my best to respond, without giving too, too much away of course! ; )

Thanks for your interest! I’ll try to report back once in a while on progress made and to post more screenshots.

E.C.Patterson

Modules in Development Live!

2008-01-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

February 10th at 8:30 pm or 20:30 Eastern Standard time -05.00 (US & Canada)

Featured Modules:
http://nalencer.blogspot.com/
http://enoa4rpg.blogspot.com/
http://nwn2-zork.blogspot.com/
http://solvheil.blogspot.com/
http://wyrind.blogspot.com/
http://stygius.com/blog/
http://delaksblog.blogspot.com/
http://gamingparentsstudios.blogspot.com/

Any participants must create a Skype account. To join the VoIP, you will need the latest version of Skype www.skype.com (It’s FREE) There will also be a text chat available.

This private link once logged in will take you to the discussion roomhttps://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/

Guest will be able to voice questions or text them. All guest using a mic will be voiced one at a time per queue. Text questions will be answered in the order they are received.

Roundtable at NWN Podcast To Be Announced

2008-01-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make a little announcement that LadyElvenStar will be part of a roundtable discussion arranged by the team at NWN Podcast. I am excited to share some of my experiences with the NWN2 toolset and learn from fellow builders such as Amraphael, Enoa, Raith Veldrin, Delak, and Nalencer. An official announcement from Michele at NWN Podcast should be coming soon!

Update: January 23, 2008

I just found out that Wyrin will be joining in the discussion. Welcome, Wyrin!

What is Gaming Parents Studios?

2008-01-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

Gaming Parents Studios is a group of people united by our passion for NWN2, as players, builders and community members, by the fun that we have collaborating on our various projects, by the mutual support we give one another, and by the fact that we all have children, are in our mid-30s+, and have careers in fields unrelated to the gaming business.

We are in this simply for fun and have no ambition to make it in the video gaming industry.

Welcome to our blog and please don't be shy to comment! We'd love to hear from you.

GPS team members

Working on a GPS Logo

2008-01-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

We are in the middle of designing the logo for the Gaming Parents Studios team - it is a work in progress for now. :)

There may be some site template and logo header changes until we find one we like.

Quick NHiN2 Update

2008-01-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update for fans of Night Howls in Nestlehaven...

Jacky has been held up by some illnesses in the family - we are parents, as everyone can tell from the name of our team. :)

We are definitely still moving forward with the sequel. All the areas and npcs are complete and many of the encounters are scripted and ready. Alpha testing should be happening within the next month or so.

There are a couple screenshots of a few areas from NHiN2 at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/elmeida/NHiN2Screenshots

We'll post more screenshots as soon as we can!

Minotaur Head on the Vault

2008-01-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided(was convinced)to submit the Minotaur Head to the vault. I'm very proud of the release and have received amazing feedback.

I want to thank all of my wonderful friends here at GPS. Without your awesome support, I doubt I would have had the guts to submit the minotaur head.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

We want to wish everyone a healthy and happy New Year! This past year was very exciting with the release of NHiN and many other great custom modules in addition to the official expansion, MotB, as well as news of the soon to be released premium module, Mysteries of Westgate (MoW).

This year looks like it will be even better with MoW, Purgatorio (the first in the Planescape series), as well as the sequel to NHiN and Act I of A Time to Die...not to mention plenty more custom content from builders all over the World including our own Gaming Parents Studios team. Can't wait!

ATtD: Creature Spotlight

2007-12-27T05:18:00.000-08:00

In this entry I'll feature a couple of baddies.

Half-Black Dragon

Pictured left is the Half-Black Dragon I created for Jacky's sequel to Jacky's excellent Nighthowls in Nestlehaven module. Stats from 3.5 Monster Manual.

It's a modified horned devil head with horns courtesy of Komuro's Orc Spoiled hak. The head is on a half-orc body so all armor, and various options are available. The wings are additional wings to Patrick "whatbrick" Wilson's wings galore hak.

Baphitaur

Pictured right is the Baphitaur I created for LadyE's very impressive looking A Time to Die module.

The head is a modified cow head. Again horns courtesy of Komuro's Orc Spoiled hak. The head is on a half-orc body so all armor, and various options are available.

These dudes are definitely a couple of nasties you do not want to meet in a dark place. :)

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T07:50:00.001-08:00

I wanted to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas from the team at Gaming Parents Studios!

We will be releasing the sequel to Night Howls in Nestlehaven next year as well as Act I of A Time to Die...and who knows what else. ;)

LadyElvenStar

2007-12-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've been an RPG game player ever since Legend of Zelda came out for Super Nintendo. Played all of the Final Fantasy series, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. My favourite books are all epic fantasies such as Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time (the earlier books), the Shannara series, and the Death Gate Cycle.

I am currently playing MotB (when I have the time between building Jackyo's module as well as my own). I enjoy games with an immersive storyline with deep characterization of companions as well as balanced battles.

I am married, with 1 boy (9 years old) and 1 girl (12). A pharmacist by career, I run one of the only pharmacies in the town where I live up in Northern British Columbia, Canada.

I am the head designer of A Time to Die Saga (ATtD) among helping with various other projects for NWN2.

Pet peeves? People who are impatient and the toolset when it crashes!

Blood Altar

2007-12-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone.

For my initial entry I thought I'd show you my latest project. The 'blood altar' placeable.

This came about when LadyE mentioned she was doing a vampire area for her ATtD module. I had modeled a concept of the altar a couple of years ago. I thought it would be cool to actually model it and texture it for NWN2.

The top is easily filled with red water to look like blood. The idea behind the braziers, is to keep the blood warm. Though the altar was modeled with this concept in mind, it can be used for any general purpose.

One day I'll have to get around to packing all this stuff up for distribution. :)

E.C.Patterson

2007-12-22T00:31:00.000-08:00

Father of two gorgeous and funny little girls (Céleste, 3 and Zoé, 1), husband, communications professional for a network of hospitals, resident of Montreal, Canada, native French-speaker, PC-game enthusiast (I haven't touched, however, any other game besides NWN2 practicallly in the past 14 months!), former (oh, some 20 years ago...) avid roleplayer, table-top and board gamer, and author of the NWN2 contest mod Daark Twins.

For our current main project, NHiN2, I've been programming some of the more "fun" scripts ;) and have made a couple of cutscenes too. It's been really fun, and often challenging in a very enjoyable way, to bring Jacky's imagination and vision to life.

I'm also leading a new mod project that's in the works here at GPS. I plan to announce some details soon, when it's a bit further along.

This team is fantastic and I believe we have really bonded since Jacky brought us together to work on the follow-up to NHiN. Our new name (it's just for fun, BTW, we have absolutely NO pretension at "making it") really reflects who we are, IMO: all working parents with careers in other fields, who enjoy both gaming and parenting! Really, one of the coolest things about this team for me is that, at 35, I'm the youngest of the gang! Who would have thought?! It shows that gaming (and building mods of course) ain't something just for kids! :)

Thanks for reading! Hope you come back from time to time to see what we have been up to.

Daronas

2007-12-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

I first played PnP D&D in 1984. I was hooked, and knew as a teen, it would be a part of my life for years to come. I have recently dabbled in a couple of message board games, so my 3.5 books got some use. Sadly, I haven't had time for them lately.

I started computer gaming in 1982. I enjoy single-player crpg's above all else. The Infinity engine games are among my favorites of all time. I could literally have played another hundred of them and been happy. I will always hold Baldur's gate 2 as the pinnacle, against which all other crpg's will be measured. Like Jacky, I thought ToEE was fantastic, despite it's problems. The engine was incredible. I may go as far as putting the turn-based encounters above the pause 'n' play of the Infinity games.

I am not married. I have 2 kids, daughter 16, and son 15.

I'm an electronics tech by trade. My experience runs the gamut from slot machines to satellite communications. I am a proud U.S. Army veteran.

I feel privileged to be a part of this team. When I first played NHiN, I knew it was a special module. I gave Jacky some feedback on the module. Through those conversations, and some regarding my own postponed module, Jacky asked me to join this very talented team. Thanks Jacky. As of now, my place on the team consists of doing a little bit of everything.

SirChet

2007-12-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

I'm a long time player of PnP D&D and AD&D, I love crpg's and a select few rts games.

I'm married and have one grown son, a 170 pound wimp of a dog, and a spoiled cat.

I'm a retired soldier, (Airborne). My profession is business automation, video surveillance, access control and physical security.

I've grown fond of the toolset and with a lot of help from fellow modders, especially GPS members, I've been able to contribute in a small part to this very talented team that brought Night Howls in Nestlehaven to the community when most were still making basic "this is me learning the tool-set modules".

I have my own blog at http://sirchetsblog.blogspot.com/ I review for the Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault and am part of The Academy for Modding Excellence.

Xandurpein

2007-12-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

I live in Sweden and have been playing pen D&D since early teens. At the same time I a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkiens work and got involved in Tolkien fandom in Sweden. This has left some lasting imprssions on me. A love of fantasy, a respect for people with odd interests and a discovered passion for writing. I used to write short stories as well D&D adventures, mostly for the cupboard.

Somewhat to my own surprise, I have spent virtually all of my professional life in my country's intelligence community. Which is not half as cool as it sounds as Sweden is a small country that hasn't been at war for 200 years.

I love computer games and split my time between roleplaying games and strategy games. Like Jackyo, I am a huge fan of the Total War series. I am also a an avid collector of Warhammer 40K minifigs. I am married and have two boys, age 7 and 9. They are now reaching the age when dad's hobbies are super cool and I sometimes have painting sessions with my younger son.

I have completed one NWN1 mod titled "Shadow of the Underdark". While I loved doing it, I realized that my true passion is still writing. I especially like developing characters and have found myself occupying the largely empty niche of writing companion romances. A fact that no doubt would surprise a lot of my office collegues. I have also completed a persistent companion romance for NWN2 called Tanithiel. Just import some scripts made by LordNiah and you can keep her as a companion between different mods. How cool is that?!

I am very grateful for the chance Jackyo has given me to be part of a really talented group and do what I like doing best, writing stuff.

Jackyo

2007-12-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

The creator of the Vault's Hall of Fame module, Night Howls in Nestlehaven: NHiN

I've been a game player for 30 years, since Wizardry came out on the old Apple2. Played Microsoft Adventure (a zork ripoff dating from about 1980 - was this MS' first product? maybe so!), early ultima's (1,2) and its predecessor (don't remember the name! something like Alkajar or something). Learned Pascal so I could modify wizardry. My first and only real programming, besides a monopoly ripoff I got published in 1984 as a minor contributor (I actually did all the monopoly rules coding, but none of the graphic stuff). Played Wiz and its descendents for years.

Currently playing NWN2 (when I have the time between building!). Really like some of the community mods - dirtywick's, wyrin's, ec's, raith's, sgt why's, phoenixus', and a few others. All worthy of play. Also enjoy turn based strategy games - love the Total War series, have created some massive mods for that. Favorite game engine was the TOEE D&D engine - total waste of resources that this engine wasn't bought by WOTC and used as a springboard for an entire series of D&D adventures. It *rocked*.

I am married, with 2 girls (2 and 6). Most of my time goes to them, so between work, keeping my wife sane, and raising my daughters, if I get a couple of hours a night at the computer I count myself lucky.

Pet peeves? The toolset's instability!, traffic jams (especially from rubberneckers!!!), george w. bush, and the general ruin we are making this planet endure.

Introducing our team members..

2007-12-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

I am going to introduce you to a member of Gaming Parents Studios each day this week starting with jackyo, our Founder. Jackyo brought us all together when we offered to help him with a sequel to his Hall of Fame module for NWN2, "Night Howls in Nestlehaven".

We worked so well as a team, that we collectively decided we should work on future projects together. Being known as Team NHiN seemed too limiting for the scope of our group now that we would be working on multiple projects. We brainstormed and came up with something that reflected all of us - Gaming Parents Studios.

Screenshots from A Time to Die Saga

2007-12-16T00:20:00.001-08:00

Here are some screenshots for A Time to Die Saga, or ATtD.