Time has flown past since my last report, and so I thought another quick update was due. Recently, I have found myself making use of the extremely powerful tool MDBConfig by rjshae. Basically, I have needed certain placeable objects slightly altered for my own needs, and this has been a really excellent tool to help me with the process. Read on to hear what I have done lately ...
Rotating Puzzles
As many of my regular readers will know, I enjoy interesting puzzles in my D&D games, and so I suppose it's obvious I wanted to include them in my own module. The first module comes with around half a dozen puzzles already and you may recall reading I have some new designs coming along in module two. However, I finally decided to also include some I had in mind that work by "moving objects". Think either the mirror puzzle in MotB or like those found in Skyrim.
In this case, I wanted to add puzzles where the player may discover a specific sequence, which can then be applied to a set of rotating objects to unlock a path to somewhere else. Thankfully, NWN2 already has some code related to this, but I adapted it (made clearer) to suit my own needs. I still need to add the code to check the sequence and return a result of some kind, but that should be the "easier" part for me. In my case, it was making the placeable objects I needed to be able to provide the clues and for the player to interact with in the first place that was the hardest. Check out this weeks screenshot from the toolset showing my latest puzzle object additions. I hope to make use of these in the second module moving forward.
Growing Conversations
This stage of module building is otherwise being taken up with writing the conversations ... again. One of the largest ones is growing close to 10,000 words! This conversation is not even finished! I would like to point out that this amount of words is not about a large text dump, but due to multiple paths through the conversation subject to player PC choices and situation ability rolls, or character trait. Furthermore, in this particular conversation, the text is also affected by the player's background, which continues from module one (if played), or of that chosen at the start of module two.
Multiple Paths
On the theme of multiple paths, I wanted to report that I have also been coding a new means the PCs can travel, which led to a potential logical flow issue where the player could approach the same quest from multiple angles. Don't get too excited, it's not full blown flying, nor animated swimming, (or anything like that), but is a new approach which will allow the player to choose a different travel path. The point is, however, is that this new means of potential travel involved quite a bit of planning on my part, and only now do I think I have covered all the angles.
For me, allowing the player to be able to approach a problem from more than one "literal" path (as well as a skill path) is what will tempt players to play the module more than once to see how it played via a different approach. i.e. Think pen and paper where players may discuss which way to approach the game before declaring their actions to the DM ... I hope to pull off a similar approach in this module too. It does require triple checking things, which all adds time, but I am pleased with the results to date.
That said, I don't want to put players off, by suggesting the module appeared too "open world". Far from it! Like module one, the second module follows a very clear cut main quest, but also leads the player to explore other areas they may also find interesting ... with some areas seemingly more involved with the main plot than others may first appear to offer.
Continued Testing
Finally, just a quick update to say module one is going through another final SP testing after I decided to make some more changes to the code. It was mostly to do with the container code again and improvements to the way items are collected. As soon as my wife has finished this play through, the latest version 1.50E of module 1 will be uploaded.
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| Elemental My Dear Friend! |
