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