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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
