K, it looks like my precious files were saved, thanks to super-paladin-boyfriend with human legs. I hope his computer doesn't explode now. I have to wait until tomorrow to get my files and see if everything is there.

Damn, there goes my excuse for delaying the module!

Week 3 of November

It's been a busy week in real life, so progress has been slow. What I've been doing is a possible ending dungeon for Part 1 - I'm not doing things in order and I say "possible" because things still might change. It's unlikely that they will change, because it would be nice to deal with at least one villain* by the end of Part 1, no matter how much I love my villains and wish them all longevity. I needed to do something new instead of filling old holes...

*Villain - in this context, a person who wants the player character dead (an antagonist). I guess I like calling them villains. And then I sometimes call the companions villains, too. I'm stopping now.

I needed a glass bell and a floating heart under it, but I couldn't find any, so I reskinned some things. Here is my lame display case that will have to do unless someone makes something better. :) The first screenshot has been cropped and the player portrait moved so as to stay in the picture. I love this new portrait pack from NWVault.

"Now, my pretties, what will you do?"
Just kidding.

Week 2 of November

Important: For a spoiler-free playing experience, stop reading the comments. Sorry for the late warning. :S

I got sidetracked writing optional quests (Thayn's quest with different ways to do it and Blu as a short-term henchman and what happens with that). When I think about the module as a whole, it doesn't seem like there is that much work to do, but when I write a list of things to be completed and approximately how many hours each thing will take, I get a hundred hours. Add at least that much testing time and all the time I lose correcting little things. So don't believe me when I announce something.

I'm considering releasing a test version of Prelude + Chapter 1 (meaning no Chapter 2, which should also be in the first module). I'm still stuck on adding journal entries and testing everything in Chapter 1. The last choice, the last cutscene (if there's going to be one) and a few alternate quest paths aren't written/arranged. It would be nice to have someone other than me test the quests and everything, but I'm the one who can do it with the least annoyance, because I can immediately correct things. I don't feel like cutting the story into smaller pieces is good for "the business". It could cause wrong expectations, both too high and too low.

I don't want to turn this into an eternal, never finished project. I don't want to stray from what I call the main plot, but I can't have everything happen between just 5-10 characters, either.

Today, I spent around 5 hours doing something that I wrote was going to take half an hour in my fancy task list. The Journal grew as I wrote and there are now 11 different entries for a very simple quest, and who knows if everything is connected as it should be. The time was mostly spent on inserting the entries where needed and checking and completing the quest giving NPC's crazy tree of a talk, which still doesn't look very branched in game, because you only see the consequences of your choice and a few simple options (tell the truth or lie). I also crossed out a couple of tasks which were supposed to take an hour each in 30 minutes, but I didn't test anything... Disregard my numbers, I just like fancy lists and approximations.

I'm posting on the blog because I've been meaning to post on Sundays (more or less :)). I'm working on this almost every day, when I don't have some social plans (ugh!)