Episode 109: The End Is In Sight!

First and foremost, while I have now posted my "The End Is In Sight" blog post, I do not want to give a wrong impression and need to put this into perspective. What this basically means is that the plans for the final areas that needed finishing has now been finalised and I now need to implement this. However, it is still possible for these outlines to change slightly and additional design to be added, but, importantly, no longer to any great degree. I have now "filled in the blanks" and have a coherent run of events from start to finish, allowing me to make this "end in sight" post. Read on for what else this means and other news...

The Final Areas Ecology

While basic exploring of areas, finding loot and combating evil hordes can be fun by itself, I personally prefer to play my games in an environment where its areas have an established ecology and a logical explanation for their existence. This includes areas that have a reason for me wanting to explore them, be it to locate a certain treasure or item of interest perhaps, or maybe defeat a known adversary or villain of the region, or even progress the story in some way. For the same reason, the more details I can include about areas and the environment they represent, the more satisfied I am with their final build. This aspect of design is important to me, and I hope that for each new area the player finds themselves in within Predestinated Days, that they also have an added enjoyment from this style of design and how it relates to them and the quests they may have to follow while within each region they explore. This is about a depth of design, which translates to how the player perceives their environment and how memorable the experience may be for the player.

Aiming for this style of design for each of my module's areas, however, is what costs me the greatest amount of time to implement. I spend much of my time going over notes, and processing thoughts and ideas, trying to ensure an area has a believable reason to exist in the first place, as well being an interesting place for interactions when carrying out any tasks there, or while just exploring in general. While considering each area, I look at various approaches, different puzzle types I may need, as well as the various quest lines and NPCs involved, and always with a view to create a new experience that I hope the player will enjoy and encourage them to explore the area more. As I say, however, this takes me a lot of time, and I would argue it to be the lion's share of the time I take in any module I have built to date! The story, for me, is as much about the local one for each area as it is the main quest. Therefore, every area has to be both coherent and interesting before I am satisfied with it.

So, the good news is, I believe I have reached the point where every area in the module has now been given this design goal treatment and now passes my own personal satisfaction requirement. For myself, this module has now (in my head at least) been completed! Only in the last week, I finally understood what I needed for the last few areas I have been working on to make them 'complete'. Hence, I can now report that the final release of this module is definitely in sight for me. Indeed, the latest idea that came to me actually manages to tie together a number of loose ends that I had previously put to one side as I worked on other areas. Now, I can focus on bringing together the final areas along with others with which they relate. When such ideas come to me like this, is when I gain the most satisfaction as a builder, knowing progress has been made. Next, however, comes the practical part, and I must now implement this new idea (and accompanying events) to complete the module. This should be relatively straightforward, but I have had enough experience now to say to readers to 'hang on in there' just a little while longer to allow me the time to reach the end of this final stage. (See screenshots below for latest areas work.)

I have already been in touch with a few people about moving on to beta-testing and have had two confirm they are in a position to help. Therefore, as soon as I can, they will be contacted and updated with the files, and after I have addressed any fixes required from their feedback, I will be announcing a release date.

NWN2 Enhanced Update 

For those of you following the campaign, you may have spotted that v1.45 was released early on 17th June due to a "bug" discovered that the EE introduced related to how DestroyObject works and the tag-based unacquire event. Others may argue this is not a "bug", but as it does not add anything new, but only serves to break certain aspects of the unacquire event, I count it as not required and inefficient, and so do consider it a bug. I wrote a fix for my own campaign to prevent its undesired results (duplicating destroyed plot items), which was the main reason for the v1.45 release. There were also a couple of minor XML fixes for the EE, including the ability to unpause a cutscene, but further testing has since shown other issues remain. 

In particular, a cutscene between two NPCs with sound files associated with each node can have problems in EE that otherwise remain working in the Original: the first sound file node played can distort (sound slowed down), and lip syncing no longer works on the second NPC in the cutscene. While I cannot with absolute certainty say these are a general problem (rather than only affecting my campaign), I have nevertheless, reported the issue to Aspyr to be looked at. The broken conversation can be seen in the first cutscene between Morcoss and General Korakus when the PC leaves the Shoreline area to head towards New Edgeton.

On another note, and because my wife has now finished testing the whole campaign in a true MP environment in the Original game (see next), we decided to buy another copy of EE for her to be able to start testing the campaign using this version of the game. This means there may be further updates for the campaign to accommodate the differences between the Original and EE, and any additional "problems" that the EE may bring up. We have already spotted a couple of XML alterations that were required to work within the EE again (E.g. The large journal and cypher display) , but they are minor and I am NOT going to update the campaign files today, as I would prefer more testing before doing another release. If, however, I find another EE difference as severe as the duplication of plot items bug (or another in general), I will provide an update sooner.

Latest MP Testing (Original Only)

Latest testing of the campaign in a MP environment in the Original is now completed. This was a "true" MP test, as the test was carried out on two computers connected via a LAN to ensure proper independent PC objects was observed. No further problems were found with the first module, The First Day (already released), including no more "gold" issues found or reported, and henchmen continued to work as expected between transitions. i.e. The latest release on 17th June (v1.45) should be stable and without issue for MP play on the Original game. My only personal disappointment, is that the area load times still remain higher than I would have liked on some areas in a MP game. However, as one of the tester's computers was a laptop, this may help explain some of the extra time involved when loading them.

Moving forward, as I now own a second copy of NWN2:EE, I am hoping to do some full MP testing of the campaign in EE at a later date and after the current SP tests have been completed in EE. As soon as I have further feedback on EE testing in either SP or MP, I will update you.

Campaign Latest

The latest release (v1.45), recently uploaded on the 17th June, remains the current release for the campaign. There are a few minor alterations made to the code that will be in v1.46, but I am putting that through further testing and looking out for any other bigger problems that may need to be covered before releasing it. If nothing comes up, I will look at releasing v1.46 in August. At the moment, v1.46 addresses a few minor XML glitches within EE, and improves efficiency of a load script for both game editions. If, however, I discover anything serious, or someone else reports a problem, I will treat it as a priority and release a fix as soon as possible.

A Light Shines Ahead!

A Disturbing View!

Preparing The Way!