Half-Year Updates

Module changes

I looked over my module at around September this year and realized that my process had been pretty shabby. I am a student, as I have stated before, and for that reason, I can't help but work on my module in random spurts of time. My previous process had rendered me unable to work because I would put off the module for a month or a few weeks, and when I resumed work - I would have forgotten exactly what I was doing.

Other issues:

• Too many areas to effectively manage in the game
• A shabby opener that didn't really seem interesting at all
• My plot had holes in it and some details given in some conversations were inconsistent with others
• Dialogue had a bad form to it and the variables system was not scalable
• The AI system was too segmented - I had 13 different scripts for every AI type

So - in September, I threw out most of my items in the module and started over.
The only things I kept were my prized systems jewels:

• The magic crafting system (MagiCraft) - The execution for that took a lot of work and it's pretty clean.
• The magic school's incantation system

The things I am working on now

• A very dangerous tactical AI - As my junior year independent work, I am designing a map-analyzing, combat-maneuvering, survivalistic AI for the Neverwinter Nights game. Because I am presenting this to the Computer Science Department at my university at the end of December, I am pressured to make it really good. Therefore, in the case of success, you will be fighting this AI in game. The AI design itself will be complete by January and I will probably release pieces of it to the NWVault for public consumption (though I will have to check with my university's guidelines on intellectual property). Maybe other programmers can tweak it for compatibility in NWN2.
• A better, cleaner story-line guided module - I have the Prologue finished and am on Chapter 1 at the moment. The beginning of the module is much more interesting now and my conversation design system is much better this time around, so I can keep track of exactly what is said and what details are given at each conversation.
• The 300-year backstory - The ancient history and motivations are pretty much complete at this point, but I still have the last 100 years of "recent" history to finish.

Stick around! I guarantee you I have not forgotten this module and you should definitely look around for new developments. No matter what, I WILL finish this module, even if it takes me two more years. I pray that people are still playing NWN by that time.

Cheers,
linus