Back to PA

So I went back to my high school yesterday and today to practice and race (respectively) with my old XC team, and to hang out with all my friends that are still at PA. It was a good time, but very tiring. I've got a bazillion new comments on Moonshadows--better get on that! :)

Chapter 2 continues

Work on Chapter 2 continued yesterday; it turns out that I designed a full area for what I thought would be a cutscene, but it turns out I decided to switch things up after I finished it and set the cutscene somewhere else. :P So I designed a new area from scratch, and now I have to add static cameras and create the cutscen itself. Good progress!

1.10 released, Moonshadows updated accordingly.

The title says it all; Moonshadows has been updated and is now compatible with the recently-released official 1.10 patch. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAZANDER!!!

As you may have guessed from the title, it's Hall of Fame author & Ossian partner-in-crime Alazander's birthday! Hurray! :)



In other news, school is great, free time is abundant, and progress on Chapter 2 is decent. I have good vibes about the cutscene I began last night. In fact, I just have good vibes about Chapter 2 in general. Chapter 1 hasn't been received quite as strongly as I was hoping for score-wise (not that I really care at this point), but I think Chapter 2 will fare better in that department. In the end, as long as I deliver a fun gaming experience/story, I'll be satisfied...and I think that once this series is complete, it will definitely deliver a worthwhile story. :)


Also, it seems that official patch 1.10 is to be released today! I'm going to try to make Moonshadows compatible with the new patch as soon as I can!

Chapter 2

Sorry 'bout the missing post yesterday; I had a pretty busy schedule. Today, on the other hand, I have no classes, and this might just be the case for the entire semester... :) So, I went and did stadium-stair repeats in the morning, along with breakfast, ab workout & pushups, and now I've got some errands to run. I'm going to do homework after that, then tonight I'll do some work on Chapter 2. Speaking of which, last night I built a cutscene area in Chapter 2, and I think it looks pretty sweet! I'll try to make the cutscene itself tonight. The beginning of Chapter 2 is going to be extremely linear, which should make it fairly easy to design. Once plot development slows down a bit, things will take on the feel of a city adventure (of sorts)... ;)

Morning update, busy day

Well, after an update this morning and between fielding various emails/comments/feedback throughout the day, I managed to go on a 6 mile run, to read&highlight 40 pages for my freshman seminar on the decipherment of lost languages, and to attend a 1.5 hour intro class for Shotokan karate, which was totally awesome! :) I've been stretching a lot these past few days, and it's actually paying off--I'm much more limber and I had no issues with flexibility today, unlike in my intro taekwondo session. I think I'm going to stick with Shotokan karate though; it was much more fun.

Anyhow, classes start "for real" tomorrow, so things might be busy for awhile...but I'll try to update on a relatively-daily basis, and to get some work in on Chapter 2 after a brief "avoid-burnout" break! :)

Whew.

Well, I awoke this morning to find the Vault page for Moonshadows all aflame with reports of CrashToDesktop issues loading the module/campaign. So, after responding to about 15 reports on the Vault, I repackaged and recreated the entire Campaign, reassociated the modules with it, converted the mod directories to .mods, and basically made installation a lot easier and fixed the campaign. All is well now, but it was hectic for an hour or so there. :P

Also, yesterday was a rocking-good day d/l-wise! I went from ~950 to about 1300; w00t! Hopefully that pace will keep itself up (or something like that) for a long time to come! :) Also, I'm now listed on the Top Modules sidebar, which will hopefully grant me some added visibity (always a plus). I might run a screenshot contest or something once I'm sure the campaign is completely bug-free...but we'll see. Any feedback on that idea would be welcome!

HugieGames gets a facelift

Well, I decided that HugieGames.com was looking a bit dated, so I gave it a bit of a facelift today, as well as made some fixes this morning to Moonshadows to resolve what was a weird hanging issue when people would hit 'Start Campaign'. Not much to report aside from that!

Post #200 and an OOC Area

Well, it's my 200th post! WOOHOO! Heheh, exciting as that may be, I do have an actual reason for posting this. I just finished uploading an update to Moonshadows--except this is more of a content addition than a bugfix. Here's the scoop; by popular demand, the module now includes a new OOC area at the start for equipping a character suitably for the adventure. This OOC area handles experience/level as well as gear, so you can fully prepare your PC here before proceeding into the game. Just wanted to let you all know.

XC Tryouts, 10-vote barrier broken!

I had XC tryouts @Harvard today, as well as my first meeting of my freshman seminar in cryptology and decipherment of lost languages, like the Easter Island Romborombo & other such things. It was really interesting; I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about these ancient cultures & languages as the term progresses.

XC tryouts were rough for me. I ran 3 miles in 17 flat (~5:40 mile pace), but relative to the other runners, I didn't measure up all that strongly. Ah well.

Also, broke the 10 vote barrier today, so Moonshadows is headed to the top rated list tomorrow! W00T!!! :D

More bugfixing...approaching completely stable version(?)

Bugs don't seem to be coming all the often...I'm optimistic that I squashed all the issues with the game in the first few hectic days of release thanks to a few intrepid players who were willing to report bugs in a detailed manner. Thanks to everyone who has helped out and left feedback so far!

I spent this morning resolving the resurrection issue in one of the Star Mount sidequests--it was a bit tricky, but I got it working eventually. I also realized the holding area at the end of the module wasn't baked (duh), which was crashing the game(!).

Anyhow, Moonshadows just breached 700 downloads--still on track to hit 1000 by/before Sunday night, I hope! :) Now I'm eager for votes to start coming in...

More Updates

I have been periodically updating Moonshadows over the past 2 days as bug reports come in; I'm hoping to eliminate everything early so that by the time I get a spotlight on Friday, it's just about bug-free. I ran the whole adventure through a spellchecker and fixed all the typos in the module, which was good for quality-control...so yeah, just trying to be responsive to reports/feedback. So far, I'm definitely satisfied, and I'm optimistic that I'll be able to hit 1000 downloads by the end of a week (my initial goal).

Anyhow, cheers! I'm excited for more votes to start coming in as more people finish the mod...if you played it, please vote!

So far, so good!

Well, thus far, there's only been one bug report, and that was because I was missing a simple local variable adjustment to prevent milking of a certain enhancement available somewhere in the game. That has been fixed, and I've added a note to the module description and readme addressing the issue of starting characters; PC's should arrive already equipped for Moonshadows. After all, it would be pretty silly to set off into the High Forest with no equipment/gear, right? That's asking to be killed. So you're expected to already have what you need equipment-wise upon entering the module. Level/Experience can be tweaked, but there is nowhere to outfit your character (obviously--you're in the middle of the wilderness! Let's be realistic here... ;) ).

Anyhow, I'm excited! Release is such a fun time. :)

HOORAY

IT'S HERE!!!

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2ModulesEnglish.Detail&id=185

HOORAY!!!

I just hope there isn't a gamebreaking bug waiting for me tomorrow morning. :D

RELEASE

Well, ladies & gents, it is uploaded! Moonshadows - Chapter One is now pending approval on the NWVault. I'll update this post as soon as I see that the entry has been approved! Gosh, I hope I didn't do anything absurdly stupid... :)

Anyhow, it's been a long time coming, but let me tell ya, it felt GOOD to press that "Submit" button again...now I just hope people enjoy my little creation as much as I enjoyed making it!

To bed,

Alex

Tiberius209 beats me to the punch

Fellow Ossian mate Tiberius209 was kind enough to take the initiative and start a "hype" thread for Moonshadows in the Modules forum--I am very, very appreciative. Thanks Tiberius!

As far as Moonshadows news goes, it is just about ready to go. I have a few little short things left to test to make sure my fixes worked. The readme is written, and a walkthrough, while it would certainly be useful, won't be released at the same time as the module (I'll write a detailed one up in the coming weeks). Then I have to do a little bit of stuff with Chapter 2 to make sure the player is left in a satisfactory state at the end of this first adventure (with a little "endgame" dialogue), and I'll be all done, just in time for classes starting!!! :)

Here are a few never-before-seen screenshots as a post-release treat! :)

Last Stretch!

Over the course of the next 3 days, I want to get Moonshadows released. That means packaging it up, drafting up a readme, uploading the files and (first) finishing a last playthrough (I got through a lot yesterday, but not all of it). I'll keep you guys updated--in the meantime, I also need to start advertising and getting some hype going. :)

Some work

I did some tweaking last night on Moonshadows in an attempt to make part of the game clearer; as it was, it was really easy to miss one of the more in-depth (cool) sidequests in the game, one whose exclusion would make a few of the other quests make less sense and, in some cases, impossible to even access. So I added in another quick sidequest last night that basically ties things together; I think it should do the trick. :) Now I'm working on finishing it up, then I'll test it one last time, then I'll release!

Beta Testing Feedback

Well, I received some great feedback today from Luke "Alazander" Scull of AL & Ossian fame; he was kind enough to play through a beta version of Moonshadows for me this past week. I'm quite pleased with what he had to say, and I've already fixed all the bugs and unbalances he brought up, as well as made a variety of other tweaks and enhancements to the module. After testing it once through myself to get a final playtime prediction and verify that everything's working, I'll right up a readme, package it all together, and upload this baby to the Vault! That's right, I've decided (thanks to Luke's words of wisdom) that I'll be releasing it chapter by chapter after all. Particularly with college setting in, I feel it will be good to get this off my chest so I can work on chapter 2 at my own pace, without feeling the need to finish it really fast so chapter 1 can be unleashed on the unsuspective populace. So hopefully I'll be ready to release by the beginning of next week, monday/tuesday-ish. Get excited! ;)

BUSY

So I'm totally swamped in college orientation stuff...nothing to report, as expected. Just wanted to check in and say I'm alive. :)

ENoa4 releases "Tomoachan"

Another really busy day of adjusting to college life--won't bore you with the details. :) Anyhow, noticed today that ENoa4 released his second module, "Tomoachan", which is great news! You should all definitely download it--the screenshots look fantastic. The module can be found here.

Some screenshots:

http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=101902

http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=101903

http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=101904

http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=101905

Back in Business

Well, I got back yesterday from my week-long backpacking adventure in the Presidential mountains--we summitted Clay, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and then descended Tuckerman Ravine and climbed Bootspur before heading ~10+ miles through easier trails to the end of our trip. It was an absolute BLAST, and I made a bunch of really good friends. Anyhow, I'm now in my DORM ROOM! at Harvard, and my roommates are fantastic, and I know a bunch of people, so overall it's going really great. I woke up early for a nice run along the Charles River this morning--it was good to rediscover my old routes/haunts from summer session last summer (during which time you might recall that I was working on/releasing Art of Death for NWN1). I'm pretty darn busy over the course of the next 2 weeks with orientation/freshman week/get-togethers/college life, so the toolset probably won't see much use...but I can tell you that Moonshadows is in good shape. I finished a playable (I hope) beta version and it is being played by one lucky individual, so hopefully I will hear back from them soon...but regardless, I'm really in no huge hurry. As I settle into college life, I'll eventually accustom myself to the new time management situation, and I'll figure out how modding will fit in. Ossian work will take priority, but I will definitely keep doing Moonshadows on the side!

Anyhow, off to brunch with the roommates and some other buds. Cheers!

Another day dedicated to testing.

Well, I spent all of yesterday testing. I'm not exagerrating. All day. All of it. It was glorious. Best part is I made it to the end of the game (before a mixup with a two triggers--they each did what the other was supposed to :P ) screwed me over and didn't let me make it to the VERY end (climax) of the module. Bah. In any event, I took a few a bunch of screenshots for your enjoyment--here are two of them.

In any event, I will be leaving today for a one-week backpacking preorientation trip for Harvard with my new classmates. :) I'll be arriving back in Cambridge on the 8th, so until then, it goes without saying that I won't be able to update this. Let me just say that I could not have picked a worse week to not have access to a computer. It's going to be a very, very, very exciting week...but how can that possibly be without your blog posts to rely on, Alex? you might ask. Well, I'm not going to answer that. Use your imagination.

And on that wonderful cliffhanger of a note, adieu until the 8th. Oh, what a different world it shall be when I return... ;)

September!

It's September, and Moonshadows Chapter 1 is looking great. :) Yesterday I spent all day testing, and I'm now done testing High Forest quests. One of them went really smoothly--the other had some complicated scripts (a "listener", for example, for those scripters among you--though that part I actually had working on my first try! :) ) in place. You know, it's happened to me a few times, but I almost feel like I'm playing Morrowind when I play this game. There's something about the inventory screen/icons, the looks of the environments (though Morrowind's graphics were better and crisper)...they just remind me of that Elder Scrolls masterpiece, which is a good thing.

In any event, I spent yesterday testing and fixing a whole slew of bugs, from writing to scripting, to combat balance to loot balance. I still have to rename a few placeables and finish going through this last High Forest sidequest before I can truly move on into the Star Mounts...but it's definitely looking good.

Oh, another thing. I decided at around 11:30 last night that I didn't like the way The Sisters looked compared to the rest of my module. See, it looked nice...it was an area I made before I got good with textures and terrain and stuff, but it was good enough that I didn't scrap it when I re-did all my other areas...but at this point, I knew I could do SO much better. And so, I did. :) The Sisters now truly lives up to its reputation as one of the prettiest, lushest, most scenic/picturesque locations in the Realms, I think. :) It makes much better use of trees, grass, and placeables, as well as changes in elevation and even water! Overall I think it's a huge improvement, and I'm glad I took the time to redo it. I'll have to update The Sisters' screenshots (I believe there's one in the gallery right now from the old area)...

Anyhow, today I'm going to go on a run in the morning and then come back and finish testing this last quest. Then I'll either run through all the High Forest quests or jump into the Star Mounts. Regardless of what I choose to do, hopefully this (see picture above) won't happen all that often... ;)