A senior one moment, a freshman the next

Well, that's it--since Wednesday afternoon, I've undergone a complex transformation from a god-like senior to a meek little freshman again. It feels strange to be done with high school...but at the same time, I think I'm ready for college. It's been rough saying goodbye to my friends, particularly those I became really close with via running all year 'round, but I'll be nearby next year, so I'll see them often when I visit. On to bigger and better things!

Anyhow, I did some good development on Moonshadows yesterday--it was some writing and some area design/decoration, along with a little bit of item creation. Slowly but surely I'm making progress... :)

Ok, I would write more but I'm kinda exhausted from a 9-inning game of MeatStik. If you don't know what MeatStik is...then that's just too bad for you, isn't it!

Productive Day

Today was a fairly productive day for me, considering that I'm now officially on vacation and could theoretically have just slept through the day. I woke up and took care of some outstanding things pertaining to college...then I jogged down to the track, where I practiced with some friends from my middle school track days and did a speed workout with them. While it was short, it was pretty effective and it was basically what I had wanted to do today, so that was fun.

After the speed workout, I ran home and did some development on Moonshadows as well as finished some Ossian stuff. As far as Moonshadows is concerned, this was main-quest stuff; it involved a bit of area building and some dialogue writing.

Busy weekend

My weekend was totally jam-packed. I had my last track meet EVER on Friday, which went ok...it was pretty dang hot out (97 F), which wasn't ideal, so I wasn't able to get any PR's. Still, I had a good time and it was fun hanging out with the team. I left directly from the meet and spent Saturday night and all day Sunday in Vermont--on Sunday, I spent some time doing Moonshadows development between finishing my final english paper, reading The Dante Club, and eating. ;) I also played videogames for the first time in months...it was at least for the first time in 2007. I played Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on the PS2, then did a bit of Dynasty Warriors 5 too, which brought back some great memories. I had forgotten how much fun it was to wipe out 1200 mindless peons by spamming awesome charge attacks, and the music in the game is outstanding.

Anyhow, I have some important Ossian work to get done in the next few days; I'll also try to do some Moonshadows.

Design work on Moonshadows

I spent some time yesterday and this morning decorating interiors and placing some creatures, as well as brainstorming and creating some items for a quest-like..."thing", for lack of a better word, which will be spread out across the entire Moonshadows campaign. I'm really happy with the quest, which is inspired by one of the more obscure ones in Summoner (my first RPG!!! ;) )--I feel it's long, somewhat cryptic tasks like this one that make a game interesting and compelling to play. The quest will be almost completely exploration-based with very few NPC's involved and very little combat, which should be interesting. Heck, the quest is almost as cryptic as this post has been. ;)

Anyhow, I hope to do some more creature placement and interior design today. Oh, and also, it's my last day of classes in high school EVER! :'(

DLA moving on from NWN1 and NWN2

I was just surfing various forums and community websites and I came across this thread over on the DLA forums. Apparently, they've moved on from NWN1 and NWN2--at least for the time being--in favor of a commercial product (one not related to NWN1 or NWN2, duh). This should be worth keeping an eye on...I couldn't tell whether they meant they were involved in a completely standalone new game based on a pre-existing engine (something like The Witcher), or whether they're involved in a new game completely, or whether they're taking part in some development for Dragon Age, perhaps. In any event, interesting stuff, and good luck to them in their endeavors!

More AME Intrigue

If you want a detailed post on my views on the AME, see the "comments" section of the previous blog entry. I was writing in response to dirtywick's comment there, so read his too. :)

Some Moonshadows

In the aftermath of finishing up my history paper, I've been able to do a little bit of work on Moonshadows today. It's mostly been creature creation and placement, as well as a little bit of "busy work" scripts to make the game function correctly. I have a feeling all the combat in the game is going to be exceedingly difficult in this first round of testing, so I may have to tone things down or allow for a higher starting level for the player (whichever one ultimately makes more sense). I have a feeling it may end up being the latter due to the nature of the story...but don't take my word on it, yet.

Also, it seems there's been a rather long thread over on the Modules Forum in response to my blog entry highlighting the AME. Personally, I thought the entire thread was ridiculous. The AME hasn't even done anything yet, and already it's being treated as some huge evil empire of an organization that going to...well...commit a vast array of unspeakably corrupt deeds which haven't yet been quite pinpointed. Consider this: it's made up of individuals who are highly respected (as individuals) in the community. There's absolutely no reason to think that, once a bunch of well-respected individuals gather for some purpose, their actions as an organization will suddenly become corrupt; on the contrary, the whole point (in my view) is that this is a group dedicated to rewarding content creators by having a panel of people whose opinions are respected and valued doling out the awards. And here's the best part: if you don't respect the opinions of the committee members, IGNORE THEM! Sheesh. It's pointless, ignorant arguments like these (which, I've noticed, frequently attract the attention and participation of several specific individuals) that have made me start avoiding the forums more and more.

Interschols, College, AME & such

Well, 'tis the day after Interschols and, miraculously, I don't ache...and I even went on a light recovery run today (at the behest of my coach, of course, but still). My other major accomplishment of the day is having written a 10 page history paper due Tuesday in its entirety...for the second this term. :) I'm pretty pleased with the end result, and doing the research was interesting (I did it on Hiroshima and whether or not dropping "Little Boy" was justified from military, political, and moral perspectives), as I was able to go snoop through Truman's personal correspondences in some of the books I took out from the school library. While I'm generally not a political person, I do find these kinds of things interesting.

Anyhow, apart from today's run and my paper-writing, I guess I can say a little about yesterday's championships themselves: they went really well. While we only came in 6th overall (not good, considering we were defending champs) and the girls came in 2nd (they were expecting 1st as defending champs, too), there were loads of outstanding individual performances and it was a lot of fun. I ran a personal best on the 800 meters by 7 seconds, which was pretty significant for me--I was totally psyched. I was seeded 2nd in my heat (the slowest of the three), which is equal to 18th overall, with a time of 2:09...and I totally smoked the competition in my race, displacing most of the people in the second heat and even one in the first heat with a time of 2:02.70. It was a great way to finish my high school running competition career (though we still have a last unofficial meet against our rivals, Exeter, this upcoming weekend, so I'm not actually done).

In other news...I guess today is just a day for shameless self-promotion: I was accepted off the waitlist at Harvard this past Wednesday, so I've been basically smiling non-stop for five days straight at this point. :) Overall, life is really, really good right now.

Oh, also, related to my last post, I was invited to act as one of the 21 members of the Academy of Modding Excellence. I've accepted the invitation, and I'm extremely honored to have been selected. :) I know there have been some skeptics over on the Modules Forum about how effective and/or respectable such a team can end up being (what with the inevitable politics et al), but I know I'll be bringing no prejudices or politics to the table. Hopefully my presence on the committee will be considered a good thing by the community...? We shall see. :)

Development-wise, I haven't had time to do much since I finished my latest batch of Ossian work what with Interschols and this bear of a history paper. This week will be tough as well with all sorts of graduation stuff creeping up (as well as documents to take care of for college), so I'm not anticipating having a lot of free time to devote to Moonshadows.

The Academy of Modding Excellence

I figured I would give a callout to an organization that appears to be forming up--it's called the Academy of Modding Excellence. The AME seems to be an Oscar's of sorts for NWN1 and NWN2 community content, where winners for various categories are selected by a committee of "respected" community members rather than by popular vote. What is the award, you ask? It's called the Golden Dragon (ooh, aah! ;) ). I personally think this is a great idea, and that it may breathe some much-needed life into both the NWN1 and NWN2 builder communities.

Check it out here: http://nwvault.ign.com/reviews/index.php?board=23.0

Moonshadows work

I did some Moonshadows work yesterday--more specifically, I built an interior area from scratch, and finished it completely, creatures, placeables, lighting and all. The only thing I need to do with that area now is to make a single item that will be found there...after that, I'll have to do some stuff based on the item which promises to be fun.

Overall, the campaign is beginning to shape up nicely; there's still plenty to be done before I would even consider turning it over to even alpha testers, but it's getting there, slowly but surely.

Time Becomes A Loop

A module was released today for NWN1 called Time Becomes A Loop which looks really, really interesting. With NWN2 being so clunky to play and the family PS2 being unaccessible, I've downloaded this and I think I might give it a whirl in the next few days. It's interesting concepts like these that catch my attention, particularly ones whose descriptions (*gasp!*) are grammatically correct and typo-free. This one's description is even well-written! How very exciting! Anyhow, I figured I'd give the module a callout; if/when I get around to playing it, I'll let you (and the author, of course) know what I thought/think.

Update

O.K., time for a short update on my (relatively-uninteresting) activities. I'm about to wrap up some Ossian work, which will be nice since I won't have it hanging over me anymore. I haven't done any Moonshadows stuff, though I did go back and play through The Lynncairen Saga for NWN1 until I reached the point where I stopped development. There's definitely some good stuff there, and I like the setting/story just as much as I like Moonshadows' (though the idea my little brother and I have brainstormed is even better than either of them)...who knows, maybe it'll be something I just tinker with once in awhile. 'Twould be a shame to see the work I've already done go to waste...

So, uh, that's it. I could go on about my "real life," but that would be boring and I don't feel like telling you anyways. ;)

Busy!

The last few days have been exceedingly busy & tiring, mostly due to AP exams. Luckily, I'm done with them now...and it's raining, so practice is cancelled, which means that I'll have a chance this afternoon to catch up on Ossian stuff and to do some work on one of my two personal projects ("The Beach" and Moonshadows at the moment). Sorry about the lack of juicy, substantial information in these posts of late; I've just been busy being a senior who's about to graduate from high school. :(

Regular development work

I was able to do a good amount of work on Moonshadows this evening; it was mostly scripting, with a little bit of item creation and area design thrown in. I really hope this campaign proves to be a success...but even if it doesn't, I know that I'll have enjoyed the process of making it. Plus, after this and my Ossian work, I know I'll be more than ready to tackle any other project using NWN2 that I might want to try my hand at. My little brother and I, for example, have a really good story that we might make into a NWN2 module together...then again, we may wait for a more suitable platform/medium to come along. Same deal with TLS...I know TLS won't be made with NWN2. That's why I'm taking my time with Moonshadows--it may end up being my only solo undertaking using NWN2, and I want to savor it and make it as good as I can. If Moonshadows ends up being good, I also still have ideas for Moonshadows II up my sleeve, which I think could be a big success...but that's still far off in the future.

All Work and No Play blahblahblah

Well, it's been a little while since my last post...as you can most likely guess, things've been busy. I've had a lot of "senior" stuff going on--class barbecues, that kind of thing. Plus, track practices (and the workouts I do afterwards) take up a good deal of time...and that doesn't take into account homework or preparing for AP's, which are this week.

Somehow, in between "real life", I've found time to get some videogame stuff done. :) I made an entire indoor/outdoor area (exterior disguised as indoor), complete with decorations and such, and I designed a few scripts, items, and creatures to go along with it for what should be a cool little sequence of the game. Can't say any more than that, unfortunately. That's for Moonshadows, by the way. For Ossian I did a little bit of, "uh...secret stuff" (to quote my co-worker Tiberius. ;) ).

Anyhow, I don't have any new screenshots to post up or anything, though I do have material that I could theoretically procure screenshots of. Just don't have time to get out of the toolset and into the game these days. :-P

Senior Spooning!

Yesterday was the first day of Senior Spooning, a tag-like game that the senior class organizes every year in May. The basic premise is that each member of the senior class receives a "target" via a spoon with another senior's name written on it in their mailboxes; their job is to tag their target with that spoon between 8am and 8pm. The rules are that a tag may only take place outdoors, that one can't be tagged during sports practices, and that you must trust NO ONE! Ok, I made that last one up...but I have good reason! I was outwitted by a postgraduate student (blast!), and was basically stealth-killed in a tag that basically nullified my speed. I was not a happy boy, let me tell you... >_<

Anyhow, now that that's already over with, I can get back to videogame stuff. Still have some Ossian work to do, and I'm feeling like doing some serious Moonshadows work (or at least some NWN2 project work) as well.