Eyes of Eilistraee & CEP 2.0

I'd originally planned to support a CEP and non-CEP version of Eyes of Eilistraee for Neverwinter nights. However with the advent of NWN2 and its, lets face it, far superior graphics I've decided that Eyes of Eilistraee will be CEP 2.0 only. It's my hope that this will actually pull in more players who want to play a better looking module even though the download requirements will have shot up.

Focusing on a CEP only version will allow me to get more out of the pack and make EoE a lot prettier. It won't look as good as NWN2, but at least it'll look better than vanilla NWN.

Regarding a progress update, there's still a lot of fleshing out to do and sections of the module are constantly getting revisited either for a makeover or quality check. Although I did toy with the idea of migrating the whole project to NWN2 I've rejected that for a number of reasons. The main one being that I'm happy with the NWN toolset, tilesets, my custom assets and using the CEP. I know how to do this stuff and hopefully I know how to do it well ;)


eR

Plot critical NPCs

A couple of weeks ago there was a fairly heated discussion on the death and respawn system in Neverwinter Nights 2 for Companions. In this thread a lot of concern was expressed over how easy NWN2 would be if after dropping dead your companions just come back to life. The reason for the inclusion of this feature in the NWN2 OC is that certain companions have a role to play in the plot - or at least cut scenes in the game. A role that they can't fulfil if dead.

This is not a new problem. The Bioware designers made the character Imoen essentially immortal for a certain section of BG2 (spellhold I think) for plot reasons along the lines of she has to be alive to contribute to the story. The issue with this is that A) you need characters to be alive for certain parts of the plot but B) making them invincible breaks the immersion of the game.

As it stands Eyes of Eilistraee is about to encounter this same problem with one henchman in particular. Because they have a large role in the plot - their death in combat and non resurrection would essentially break the storyline.

Good job I spotted this now, at least I can rethink the final act of the module before it's too late... I hope!


eR

Henchman Profile: Xanthea Demure

Princess Xanthea Demure (lawful good, halfling female, wizard) is a descendant of Lurien’s last ever ruling monarch. She has been educated in the arts, literature and magic and belongs to a social elite who are happy to live under Lurien’s gentle theocracy, providing they don’t tinker with the taxes too much.

Although a little vain due to her pampered upbringing, she has little in the way of self interest and sees the frivolity of the Hin’s ways as something she should seek to defend rather than actively participate in. Xanthea believes that her royal blood makes it her duty to protect the peace and prosperity of Lurien and the Hin.

To this end she has undertaken a mission to resolve the “Faithstone Crisis” brewing in Lurien. Her quest has taken her to the town of Barrow Vale where she was last seen searching for a map of a tomb buried under the town before promptly disappearing.

Eyes of Eilistraee: Character Profiles

To reward the patience of those guys who keep stopping by here to see if there's any new news on Eyes of Eilistraee, and by way of an apology for the lack of updates, I've decided to upload some NPC henchman profiles to give a flavour of the type of companion the player can expect to adventure with.

So look out for details on Princess Xanthea Demure coming very (and I mean it) soon.

eR

Eyes of Eilistraee: Update

After 2 months without any news you'd be forgiven for thinking that Eyes of Eilistraee, like oh so many other Neverwinter Nights projects, was dead in the water. It isn't. The module is progressing in the toolset and it's still my intent to release this as a Neverwinter Nights module rather than a Neverwinter Nights 2 module.

So if you're checking this site occasionally, and I know there are a few of you out there who are ;), please sit tight. Things are still happening, and more news is coming soon. I promise.


eR

Well no news is good news, right?

Yeah it's been a while. If you'd like to know why the updates have slowed down, please see the end of this post. Well, although I've not been posting here, I have been putting a good number of hours on Eyes of Eilistraee and things are really starting to come along.

In the last few days the focus of development has shifted from the opening stages into the mini-quest that opens up the main storyline. I just have to complete a few conversations and a lot of the hard work for act 1 of the module will be done. Even though I've spent my time implementing existing plans, I've still had time to come up with a few changes that'll probably make the whole experience a lot more fun.

One of the main changes is the introduction of a henchman called Garron. Garron joins the player at the start of the module (although he's been a companion of the player for some time prior to this) and helps lead him/her into the main storyline. I made Garron a halfling ranger since it's not an overly used character combination and because I wanted him to be both useful (his skills are handy for the forest areas early in the module) and endearing from the outset. He's an eager beaver type of character which is very useful kick starting a story.

I aim to have another post up by the end of the long weekend - with a report of what else I've been working on. That may not happen if I end up being busy with other things, but fear not - with any luck one of those 'things' will hopefully be building a certain module in Neverwinter Nights ;)


A side note: When I set this blog up my intention was to update it at least weekly. Alas that goal has fallen by the wayside since my day job has forced me to sub-contract at another company to do boring work with just about enough break time to eat something before returning to the grindstone. Should this situation change, and boy do I hope it does, I'll be back to regular postings but until then there may be a period of infrequent posting until I can sort things out.

A Time for Focus: Dialogue

With the development of custom content progressing (see the previous post), it's about time for me to hit some design milestones on Eyes of Eilistraee. Until recently I'd almost forgotten that building a NWN (Neverwinter Nights) module can turn into a huge task, especially if you're trying to do it right!

Right now I have to focus on some key dialogues that introduce the main quest to the player. The trick, as always, is to give just enough information away to dangle the carrot in front of their noses whilst not turning on the hint fountain and soaking the player in obvious clues. Wish me luck in making sure Holgar the Settler doesn't sound like a reader on the news at six.


eR

Zioni gets Custom Head Model and Portrait

One of the more mysterious characters in Eyes of Eilistraee is a Parai called Zioni. Without giving too much of her storyline away, I can say that she is something of an enigma for her race (Parai rarely leave their home plane of Mechanus for a start) and she has a very peculiar interest in the player and his/her progress through the module. Not many clues there eh? Sorry, but you'll have to wait until the release of EOE to see just what she's up to ;).

What I will reveal are some of the assets used to represent Zioni in the game. The inspiration for the character actually came from her portrait (not the first time that's happened) which was originally produced by James Adams as part of his work for the CODI team.

I've always been a huge fan of Jim's work (I've used a lot of his work for Henchman portraits) and this portrait really caught my eye. After many hours of research on the Parai (Visilight in 3E), I developed a backstory for Zioni, and gave her an interesting (if not key) role in the main plot.

However cool portrait and storyline weren't going to be enough to get Zioni into the module so I had to inlist the help of someone to build a specific model to match the rather unusual cranial structure of her head.

I was pretty lucky that one of the best modellers in the community stepped in to lend a hand. So Zioni now has a character, a portrait and a head model and thus a real and distinctive ingame presence - not bad going for a secondary antagonist with a glowing ball of light for a brain.



eR

Cool Custom Content Coming along for EOE...

I have a couple of guys producing custom artwork and models for Eyes of Eilistraee. They're both exceptionally talented people and it's a real joy to see my requests come to life in their hands. I got a real kick out of some new artwork (to be posted in the near future) emailed over from Ulises (my man in Mexico) this morning. The quality is superb and I really hope he has time to make the few edits I asked for.

The rest of the module is coming along - a little too slowly for my liking - and I'm still slotting new stuff into the toolset whenever I get chance. The main task at the moment is getting to the point where the module really kicks of in terms of narrative and story development. As ever dialogue is the big bottle neck - maybe I just need to learn to type faster!

Watch this space for more concrete info on EOE (Eyes of Eilistraee) soon!

eR

Back to the dialogue..

After something of a prolonged hiatus I'm back working on NPC / Player dialogue for Eyes of Eilistraee (EOE). I took a break from conversation writing when I realised that too many aspects of the story and its characters were still up in the air. After a lot of background work developing the main plot and reworking some of the main & side quests to give them more emotional "punch", I now have a much clearer picture of where things are going story wise. I even have an ending or two (depending on the players actions of course!).

As a result of this cogitation some of the current conversations will be subject to a re-write. Sadly this can't be helped and although it feels like extra work now, it should, fingers crossed, pay off in the long run.

eR

Plot developments...

Spent some time developing the main plot for Eyes of Eilistraee. It always seems hard to develop the beginning and the end of a storyline because my brain always seems to form ideas at random - never in a useful order! The ending has to be a result of the player's actions which is why the final act / section of the module acts as a hub where the player has a lot of freedom to determine how the end of story unfolds. This also allows me to keep the scope of the ending realistic and focused.

eR

A new module in the works!

The last time I checked the vault (www.nwvault.com) I noticed that I had a few comments on the Pawns download page stating that is was a shame that Pawns of the Shadovar was the only module I'd released thus far. Well for all those folks who are interested (and who bump into this blog ; ) ) fear not, I am working on a new module.

The module in development (my third if I include "The Last Blood of Malavhan" which sadly died along with my last hard disk) has an entirely new storyline and is set in the Forgotten Realms. It's called Eyes of Eilistraee and focuses a power struggle for two legendary gem stones created by a drow goddess called (yes you've guessed it..) Eilistraee. For this module I plan to really develop the player's henchmen with a view to creating a group of interesting characters who'll regularly interact with the player (A la Baldur's Gate 2) and hopefully make adventuring a lot more fun.

I'm planning to keep this blog updated with the module’s progress as often as I can. So far I have:

• Almost all of the areas built in skeleton form (few placeables and no NPCS) in the toolset.
• Created introductory characters and background info characters for the main quest in the toolset.
• Created a number of encounter templates and hostile creature blueprints.
• Developed my own scaleable encounter system.
• Planned out a ton of conversations, encounters and general quest and main plot progression on paper (word docs, txt files and spreadsheets).

There's a lot of work still to do but I think planning wise I'm pretty much done. I'm sure my plans will change along the way, but at least now I'm in a position to implement almost all of the main storyline (and its variable paths) into the module via the toolset.

I'll keep you posted.

eR

Hey! I have a blog!

Oooo! New toy!

This is the first post in Elven Rogue's blog (or newsletter). I intend to post updates on my Neverwinter Nights projects here, so keep checking for updates on Pawns of the Shadovar or Eyes of Eilistraee!

eR