Choose Your Language

Thursday 16 October 2014

Sorry For The Delay

There is no beating around the bush ... I am sorry that this is taking me so long to do, and I apologise for the delay. For while I knew it would take me some time to do, I still had no idea that I would not have finished by now, a good seven years later!

Such A Long Time!
Indeed, had I known the campaign was going to take me this long, my design goals would have been different from the start. And to think, this campaign was originally going to be released as three modules in one go!

There are also the normal excuses, like real life issues, especially health related, but even so, I had hoped to have had the first module released at least a year ago, with the two additional modules a year or two each after that.

On a positive note, I have almost finished all the areas for the first module now, including the new ones I had to design for the two additional side quests I had in mind to add recently. One of the side quests was more involved with the conversations than I first anticipated, which added a least a couple of months more work than I first planned. However, that is almost done now. The second side quest should be more straight forward, and now that I have the areas designed for it, it should be quicker to complete. However, considering I thought they would only take a couple of weeks to add, they ended up taking far more time, even months! Once they are done, I return to finishing off the main quest(s) and will then be ready for BETA testing. (Note, however, not all the time over the last six months has been work on these two side quests.)

If you have any comments or requests, please add them to the comments. As I have said many times before, having comments does help me to stay focussed at times.

4 comments:

Eguintir Eligard said...

"Indeed, had I known the campaign was going to take me this long, my design goals would have been different from the start..."


"...had to design for the two additional side quests I had in mind to add recently. "

I will let that sink in for it's own weight is greater than anything I can say.

By the way I notice this blog has gone dead of comments/replies. I urge you one last time to take this up in the modules forum because it has been clear for some time that this blogosphere for nwn2 is dead. If you want comments and you want to let the community continue to hold together that's the place to go. I won't be checking here again honestly as there is not a single active NWN2 blog anywhere else.

See you there!

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Hi E.E.

Yes, I know I am probably my own worst enemy when it comes to this project. :(

I was concerned to make too many comments in the modules forum as I did not want to raise expectations of an imminent release.

My health (and own expectations) really do hamper my progress at times.

That all said, I will do as you say, as feedback is a "fuel" to help move a project along in itself. I will , however, continue to leave comments here too, as it acts as a diary and log for myself.

No other blog left at all? That surprised me.

Thanks for commenting,
Lance.

Anonymous said...

Jeez. To still see you work on this project years later after most of the community has fallen apart.

Now that's some true dedication right there. I wish you the best of luck in finishing your goals. Even if the module is not as successful as you would have liked it to be when you first started, you can't not (double negative alert!) take a step back and look at everything you're accomplished.

With that being said, it looks like you acknowledged a very common problem, but haven't done much to remedy the issue. In the future if storytelling or game design is your thing, ask yourself what does this side quest add to the story? Does it flesh out a main character? Does it provide more insight into the setting? Is this something that players will enjoy?

MMOs are slightly different as many of their quests are designed to keep you busy. For a story driven module, I would not add side quests whenever the inspiration comes. Scope creep bro. Scope creep.

Best of luck to you!

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Hi anduraga,

Thanks for the support.

I like to think that there is some life left in the NWN community yet. ;) And even if most have left by the time I have this finished, as long as there are just a handful who have the chance to play it, then it will have been worthwhile.

As you say, I have certainly picked up on a few things, and I like to think some of my in-between release have been an encouragement to the community as a whole.

I will keep going all the while I can.

Cheers,
Lance.