It always seems to happen: Just when I think I have all the areas I need, or think I know what remains, another area requirement arises! It all started when I was looking at adding a couple of small scenarios to do with a city the PCs will find themselves travelling to. I had my core storyline ready, but the city was not quite spacious enough to cater for the two old PnP conversions I wanted to add. Read on below ...
Pen and Paper (PnP) Conversions
I have some PnP modules that I wrote over 20 years ago, which I have always wanted to preserve by including them in my NWN2 campaign. Strictly speaking, these modules have already been "played" in the timeline where the player can first encounter my campaign in NWN, but because these modules are so far in the past for the campaign (and especially my players' memories), I can add a little poetic licence and repurpose them in this latest module. The modules original location, (the city of Southstrong), and plots (one an undead mystery and another a murder case) will remain relatively unchanged, but will be modernized to be included within NWN2.
To this end, I recognised that I needed to add another outside area. To save time I managed to find an official NWN2 area that with some tweaking fitted my purposes well. (I will keep it secret and see if anyone recognises it at the time.) A couple of this weeks screenshots show some of the new parts. Of course, the issue now, however, is that now that I have made a new outdoor area, it's going to require some new interiors too. I reckon it will be worth the extra time though! It's been great reading over old notes and trying to see how I can integrate them into the module with improvements. Most of all, I hope they will be fun for a new and larger audience too.
Reworked Scripts
As I am currently working with city environments, it means I have been able to take another look at some of my very earliest scripts that are used when players interact with NPCs that duplicate some of the things I have already coded. Again, I find myself improving some of these old scripts to be able to better cater for the gaming environment. A simple example is when catering for a bard who may wish to perform at a tavern to earn a few gold coins. In my first module, the player had to manually switch between PCs to reach the bard to make the request to perform. Now, as long as the player has a bard in the party, the option will become available. This appears a minor detail, but has a knock-on effect, as it means I can now use a cutscene conversation style with the conversation in question, which in turn, means I can switch from a MP cutscene to a SP one seamlessly. This is a great improvement to the conversation style that helps accommodate both a SP and MP environment when a conversation needs to be seen by all players, but only for some aspects of that conversation.
New Objects
To go along with the new areas, I have also found myself designing new signs and notices, based upon great work already in the community, including that done by RDS and Topoun. The signs and notices are my first steps towards my PnP conversion. So, alongside new NPCs and areas, replete with their own new adventures, all I can really say without giving too much away at this stage, is that I have (at last) started to fill a large section that fell between two sections I had already made large headways into. Admittedly, I still have many areas that have been started with work remaining, but completely untouched areas are becoming fewer, and the plot lines are starting to bind together at last. It is a satisfying feeling and one that arguably suggests the beginning of the end is in sight. But, I don't want to get ahead of myself, as there is still much left to do. I just wanted to share my latest projection with you.
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| Bloodstone College |
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| Something Has Broken Out! |
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| Southstrong Market - Demonstrating NPC Detection Facility |
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