---Something Clever Should Go Here---

No screen shots this time...Maybe next time. Progress has been slow over the past two months, though I keep the toolset open and chip away where I can. Mostly I have been working on wrapping up the conversations for the ogre tribe and polishing up the demonic merchant's conversations. I just added a new feat today, its part of scope creep. It doesn't do or offer the player anything other than maybe make them laugh. I still need to make an icon, if I'm feeling generous I'll post a screen shot of it completed on the next update. Conversations. I won't complain too much here. Anyone who has followed my blog knows that conversations are the most difficult part of modding for me. They are what make a game, adding depth and diversity to it. A short plot conversation for me is 2000+ words and only a 1/4, if even that, will be seen in any one play through. An example will be the most recent ogre conversation I have been working on. If is purely a optional branch that will add to the main plot line, but won't take anything away if it is not done. You can ask the ogres to help you after a lengthy intro. During the intro 1 out of 7 of the companions will randomly interject. The player will then have a chance to ask the ogres for help. There will be 4 skill based nodes that will only appear if the player has a high enough rank then 2 other opinions. One of the opinions is a slightly evil response that has no skill checks the last if an auto fail, but if the right companions are in the party, 1 out of 5 will interject with a success to move the conversation on. I have recently been playing Fallout 3, and the conversations have been bothering me. They are all very static with little to no change as the game progresses. The one that irritated me the most was the conversation for Gob, a ghoul in Megaton. I found his aunt later in the game and she told me say hi to him. So the next time I was in town I talked to him and nothing. I can't say "Hey I found your aunt" with either a compliment or insult added to it. This little thing, while it adds nothing to the plot takes away from the immersion and game play. I don't know if Bethesda improved their conversations with Fallout Las Vegas or Skyrim, I'll likely find out at some point. So to wrap it up, conversations are important. and I'm working like hell to make sure mine are interesting and have dynamic parts that add to game play. Screen shots next time.

Ogres of the Bone Eater Tribe

So I have taken a break from conversation writing and moved into a small area within the Sunset Mountains.

Just a point of warning, there will be some minor spoilers from chapter 1 here but nothing too important, so read on.


After returning to the monastery, the player will have the oportunity to return to the mountains after hearing reports of an encampment of creatures. For those who played chapter 1 and chose the talking path through Dor'Gallon's fort, the green ogre mage below should be familiar. He is the new leader of the ogre tribe, The Bone Eaters. The player killed the old leader, the Ogre Crone in Dor'Gallon's Hall, the final battle for chapter 1.

I have been working on some type of inner turmoil for the ogre tribe. I need a reason why they won't kill you in revenge for the crone's death. Right now I have been looking at religion. What better way to cause turmoil? The ogre tribe follows Vaprak, the ogre deity. Under the Crone's leadership, she forced them to follow some other evil, non-giant deity, maybe like Malar. Since you killed her and freed them from her leadership, the ogres will at least talk to you before trying to eat you.

The ogres will offer some assistance with a plot quest given to the player. However, their help will come at a moral cost of sort. A player will be presented with the problem and a choice must be made, and either side of the decision will have positive and negative aspects. This will be far from an evil path and may even be beneficial to a good aligned player. I hope this will be a point in the game where the line between good and evil will be blurred a bit.

Now some information about the area itself. The area is set in a small valley with a flooded, slow moving river. The valley is a flood plane and will eventually be completely underwater (this is implied and will not happen during game play). There are a lot of grasses and ferns but no bushed or small trees. Some flood resistance trees are around as well as numerous dead trees. The land is fairly flat as layers of silt are left behind after each flooding. Also there are no rocks as they are either burried in the silt or washed away.
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For the simple fortification I used a similar designs to Dor'Gallon's fort, since they came from there. The entrance is protected by large berms of dirt with sharpened spikes. Some ruined trebuchets are also in the camp, likely plundered from Dor'Gallon before the ogres left.

Below are the screen shots. Currently the area is nearly complete, I just need to add lighting and a few more effects. The useable objects still need descriptions and all that, and there are a few floating trees and objects that need to be anchored down.

The green ogre mage. The two guards use the A2 playable ogre model so they have unique faces and armor.

The back of the camp and the water fall that feeds the river with mountain water. I still need to finish populating the camp with ogres.

Looking into the camp from the entrance.

Another picture of the camp, this one probably should have been before the last....

 

The river from the edge of the camp. That is a small island in the middle of the river.

Isn't there suppose to be a second chapter?

Is there an expected release date? No.

I am hoping to start focusing a bit more time on modding soon, in all likelihood I expect building to increase again in the fall. There are just too many things happening in the summer with family, work and all those water related activities, its hard to commit the time to building.

Chapter 1 Update:

I have posted what should be the final update for chapter 1. The patch.hak may have a couple of files added if players encounter weird stuff, but I don't see any issues arising. Several changes to the fog of war was made, in particular it was changed to passive so the fog will always clear. I like the clear feat and the idea of mapping (as the system was designed by Lance Botelle ), but due to player feedback as well as my testing it didn't necessarily fit my campaign. The update also includes improved ooze scripts, they use some code that Lance Botell provided to to weaken weapons and armor before destroying them. So instead of having the +2 mace destroyed it will turn into a non enchanted mace then precede to drop in penalties, at -5 the weapon/armor will be destroyed.

The Community Project:

I have contributed 2 quest areas to the community project. Both have gone through beta testing and just need some minor updating that will happen later once the project gets closer to consolidating the individual modules. They were both a fun side project and helped the development of Risen Hero. Chapter 2 will include a larger ooze dungeon, which will be different from the community project, but this allowed to test the ooze design, scripts and challenge. The other community area was more an experiment with scripting and creating non-combat puzzles. While the same puzzle will not be present in chapter 2 some of the general ideas or scripting base codes may be reused.

So what is the status of chapter 2?

Plot:

• The 2 hub areas, or base of operations, have been completed
• The general plot line has been completed, a couple of holes still need to be completed.
• Side quest: Several side quest for the swamp area have been created and completed. A couple of side quest have been designed but need to be created in the toolset. Horgath is one of these sidequest, he was introduced in the Halloween Project and appears in both the SOZ expansion and the Community Project, the side quest in Risen Hero will conclude his story. Additional side quest are also added during area and conversation creation, somehow this just happen mysteriously when sitting at the toolset.
• Currently I am working on the plot NPC conversations in these hub areas. This is a large undertaking, especially since chapter 2 be a more open play style. In short order the player could engage the final boss, most likely with disastrous results.

Area Design:

• There will be 4 area groups: The hub areas, western areas, eastern areas and a swamp area.
• Currently hub areas are mostly completed, tweaking will continue throughout design
• The weastern areas are in the same geographic area as chapter 1. Players will be able to return to some areas like the waste to complete the side quest there. The ruined village is also accessible and the dead bodies have turned to skeletons or scattered bones. The buildings are a bit more ruined and collapsed. About 4 to 5 areas are in the plans that haven't been created yet.
• The swamp area is nearly completed. This will use an overland map to explore the swamp and add to it size while making it manageable to both design and explore. A vendor will be at the entrance to sell items to help survive the swamp and offer a quest about a giant alligator terrorizing the area. Just waiting for the alligator model, right now I have a eight legged alligator using the basilisk model. 
• The eastern area is only a concept at this point and nothing has been done in the toolset. This area will include the end battle area, which should provide a unique ending.

Design Delays?

I have recently download Fallout 3 from steam and I've been spending too many night fighting the horrors of a apocalyptic wasteland. To make matters worse I have found the Fallout 3 nexus and all sorts of mods for the game.

So that is what is happening. Chapter 2 is going forward, it is about a 1/4 completed (maybe, very rough estimate). Once the main hub conversations are done (or mostly done) I will be back to area design.

Back to Risen Hero, Update first then Chapter 2

I have just about wrapped up my 2 areas I am working on for the community project.
See here: NWN2 Community Project

I have opened the toolset and started working on the big update I mentioned a month ago. The most recent kaedrin, 1.41.3, has been downloaded and I need to start going through that. I have pulled in all the improvements I made to the oozes in the community project and applied them to RH.

Over the next 2 weeks I expect to have the update just about wrapped up and will run some testing.

Then.....back to Chapter 2 - The Powers of Chaos -

Fog of War and other Updates

Risen Hero has been updated to include the Fog of War, there were a few issues with its original implementation. Not all the correct files were uploaded to the vault. But, everything is up there now.

During  June I am hoping to do the last update on Chapter 1.  This final update will make Risen Hero compatible with the most recent Kaedrin, currently that is 1.41.3. Right now RH is at 1.40. I will also update the oozes and their scripts. I offered my ooze blueprint and scripts to Lance Botelle for his project and he made a number of suggestions that I plan on adding.  Also with this update I am looking to move some content around. Scripts that conflict with kaedrin's unalter content will be moved to a HAK, so they will override his content should a player choose to drop a different version of his content in the override opposed to the one included with the RH download. I will also move the conflicting 2das to the HAK to do the same. Right now that should be all that needs to be done, I have a few other things I want to look at to smooth out and improve play. I just need to be careful, as I have found improving something that already works often breaks two other things.

With this final update I am hoping to get some feedback on the Fog of War system created by Lance Botelle. Risen Hero uses his default active mapping, the area map has to be open to remove the fog and it can not be removed in combat. I have also included the expert mapping feat that will change it from the active to the passive mapping, the fog is removed with the map closed. The feat is available at level 3 and a companion will meet all the conditions for the feat. So, as a player if you do not like the active mapping, you will only need to complete 1 1/2 areas before the feat is available. If you like the mapping you can choose not to get the feat and all is good.

As a player what do you think of the fog? Currently there is very little available content with the fog. I have created a poll that I will use to help make some decisions on the FoW for this final update. Please complete it and provide any comments. Thanks, Shaughn.

Temporarily: Risen Hero on Hold

For the past month I have put Risen hero on hold and  it will likely be for the next moth or so. I am hoping this break will re-energize me once I get back to building, much like the break between chapters 1 and 2.

I have started work on the community campaign, which is shaping up to be one hell of a game! I will be contributing 2 quest to this game. One of the quest will involve Horgath, seen in previous community campaigns (Halloween and SOZ expansion). I am hoping to develop a bit more of his back story, the conclusion to his story will be in the Risen Hero campaign (part of chapter 2, the next release).

I don't want to give away any spoilers of the community game, but I look forward to it; there are a number of very talented community members working on it.

On a separate note.
I have broke out my old HeroQuest board game by MB, and I have been playing it with my two boys (6 & 8). It is a fun run down memory lane and a great experience with my kids. It is fun watching their reactions as I describe the room they enter or seeing the fun in their faces as they slaughter goblins and orcs.



 

Who are all these NPC and why do they think they get to talk?

So apparently Chapter 2 needs to have a bunch of dialog.

The swamp is mostly complete, with 75% of the sub areas completed. Still trying to decide if I want to add goodies, which will need to be completely reworked.

I have recently left the swamp and moved back into the plot areas. While making non-plot areas is fun, it does nothing to bring the story closer to it's end. They also tend to be a bit lighter in conversation and a chance to try new and different things with scripting.  The main two area that are currently being put together are the Monastery and a second base of operations that will be located within the swamp.

The monastery is nice since the area is complete and polished, and most of the NPCs are created. They will be getting all new conversations that go with the second chapter, and that is where I am now. I have about three complete at this time and several others in various states. Some for the minor NPCs will have conversations rather similar to their chapter 1 conversation, with only the major conflict information changed. I have also added several more NPCs to the monastery that were met throughout the first chapter. The new area will have less NPCs and more that fall into a minor role. Currently only 2 will have more in depth conversation that tend to take forever to write.

Once I get these conversations and associated journal entries completed, I will be leaving the plot areas and will start work on the Horgath's side quest. He was originally introduced in the Halloween Community Project, then his fall was part of the SOZ holiday expansion. With the completion of that side quest, the player will be able to end his story and maybe offer him redemption.