Eyes of Eilistraee: Bug stomping

Bugs are the most annoying thing in the world. I've spent a chunk of time trying to figure out why a certain NPC wasn't spawning to deliver some plot critical dialogue. Turns out the variable I was checking was... er... the wrong one. Argh! That's a real basic error that I should have picked up on. Ah well, the good news is that now this bug is fixed key parts of the storyline can be reached and many more aspects of the module are falling into place.

Before I go, and because I'm sure everyone loves a good ogre screenie - here's another ;)


eR

Blog update: New layout!

Since the old layout was getting quite popular with other boggers - *cough* Alazander *cough* - I've gone for a new template to give my blog a fresher feel. It needs a fair bit of tweaking to re-add some of the old links and my traffic monitor but hopefully I'll get all of that sorted out over the next few days.

eR

Ogres! Waaargh!

Just a quick update following some progress I made over the weekend. My time was taken up by a lot of other stuff last week so I didn't make the progress that I wanted to. Having said that two of the player's henchmen got updates and re-writes to their dialogue to make it more in keeping with the character of the NPC.

The first NPC who received attention was Lina Ghostwhisper, the first henchman the player can hire. She has a strong dislike for the streets of Sundabar, it's smell and the lack of good soup. She's also an eager halfling ranger who wants to get out into the wilds on a new adventure as soon as possible.

The player's first quest is to solve the mystery of who is attacking the village of Barrow Vale and why. Vai the Nightseer, who joins the party early on in the story, has important information about this mission. She won't give her clues up easily though, as her poor relationship with the villagers gives her little inclination to help them. After the updates Vai's attitude is now much more transparent and the player dialogue options are much more focused.

Finally I managed to grab a screenshot of the Ogre caves area that the player needs to explore to complete an element of the main storyline. The ogre models are taken from the CEP and have been contributed by the DLA team. Don't they look mean!

eR

Eyes of Eilistraee: Area updates

I honestly don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't decided to focus on one build of Eyes of Eilistraee that used content from CEP 2.0. The sheer volume of quality placeables has allowed me to give distinct visual themes to a number of areas - something that would have been impossible otherwise. If I want to make an ancient elven city with some districts left untouched by time and others tainted by the presence of Tanar'ri demons, I can!

I'm pretty happy with the way the final act is shaping up. A lot of polishing is still required but the overall structure, branching game play paths and area themes are in place.

Hopefully by the end of next week I should be able to do a complete run through and highlight the areas that need attention. Following that I have some side quests that I'd like to add just to expand the player's options and to re-enforce some of the core story elements in the module.

Keep you posted.

eR

Eyes of Eilistraee: Progress at last!

Workload for my day job has effectively put a hold on EOE development for Neverwinter Nights over the last 3 - 4 weeks. It's frustrating to have to drop everything then pick up where I left off, but that's life. The good news is I've put in a good few hours this week fixing bugs (some odd things happening when henchmen rejoin after dying and escaping prisoners running away without stopping to thank the PC for freeing them - how rude), developing areas with groups of placeables that fit the theme for that area and generally tidying up content that was added a while ago but still felt a bit unrefined.

Garron the ranger is officially out as a starting henchman and will be replaced with Lina Ghostwhisper. She's a different sort of character - a bit more light-hearted and fun. Speaking of Openings the starting area of Sundabar's East Gate (see the city screenshot from the toolset) has undergone a few significant changes to make it feel a bit more closed and imposing. A few of the encounters that the player could have on the city streets have been moved to a tavern as they make sense as more private affairs.

The mid section of the module - where the player gets a significant choice over which path they take - still requires work to ensure that both paths diverge successfully and that the player can complete the goals has he/she wishes to and that the game world reacts accordingly.

Keep you posted.

ER

Eyes of Eilistraee: Let the setting do the talking

One of the design principals I try and follow in building neverwinter nights modules is the "show don't tell" approach to delivering the back story. In a lot of cases it's much more interesting for a player to learn something through some kind of interaction, even if the player is largely passive, than to force them to read an in-game book or character journal for the same information.

As a result of this approach, I'm constantly trying to find engaging ways of delivering plot related information whether it be ambient or critical, so that players feel that they are discovering my story rather than being spoon fed.

Last night, whilst updating one of the cavern areas close to the village of Barrow Vale, I was struggling to come up with a back story that covered the history of the cavern's current and previous inhabitants. After rejecting one particular back story, I started to think about the history of the people of Barrow Vale and their relationship with werewolves. After a bit of tinkering around, I came up with the premise that the caverns were the retreat of werewolves who'd been driven out of the tribe when the human members had decided to settle down and build Barrow Vale. Over time, the werewolves had waned in power (for various reasons) and other inhabitants had taken root in the caverns - making their own distinctive changes in an area once inhabited by lycanthropes. With a “layered” history I used lycanthrope habitation as a background theme for the design of the area then overlaid the influence of the cavern’s newer inhabitants with appropriate terrain features and placeables.

This link between the people of the village and the caverns gives me an opportunity to plant plot elements in the caverns that relate to the back story for the module. I think this will raise the areas above your standard "stone dungeon" variant and create a more interesting atmosphere (with appropriate placeables, secrets etc) and provide the opportunity for the player to explore the history of Barrow Vale should they wish to do so.

Last note: Apologies for a lack of screenshots. They are coming I promise.


eR

Content Loading

Over the last weekend and last week or so I've managed to spend a fair amount of time on the areas in acts 1 and 2. The village of Barrow Vale (where the story really kicks off) has had most of its connecting areas polished and improved with new encounters, CEP placeables and adjustments to layout. A few new 'minor' puzzles have found there way into some of the crypt areas that are accessible from the village, as well as a larger puzzle that will require a fair bit of testing before it's stable.

On the characters front just about all of the henchmen have their party banter, interjections and progression points mapped out. It'll be a fair challenge to implement all of these but a few sustained sessions should see most of that stuff in the module and working.

I have to admit that the wealth of stuff in the CEP is making dressing areas a whole lota fun although finding the right placeable can be a bit of a trawl due to the sheer volume of assets.

In the next update on Eyes of Eilistraee I hope to post a few screenshots so that folks can get an idea of the setting and areas they'll hopefully be exploring in the future.

Thanks for stopping by ;)

eR

Henchman Profile: Kyrie

Kyrie (chaotic good, human female, fighter) hails from the village of Barrow Vale nestled in between the cold forests and harsh mountains of the north. Uninspired by mundane village life, she left her home and headed for the city of Westgate seeking adventure.

After spending a number of months enjoying the delights of the city, Kyrie found herself broke and unemployed. Ever a capable swordswoman she became a mercenary to pay her way. However, after seriously wounding two well respected noblemen in a dispute over fees, she was forced to flee into Westgate’s underworld to escape hanging.

She spent the following months working as a lookout for the Night Masks until news reached her that Barrow Vale had been under attack from a group of wizards. After a harsh re-assessment of her loyalties Kyrie gave her employers the slip, stole out of the city and headed home.

Henchman Profile: Federo Blacklock

Federo Blacklock (chaotic neutral, human male, rogue) has a notorious reputation as a gambler, swindler, thief and con artist in the cities and townships along the Sword Coast.

Born in the Amnian capital of Athkatla he was fortunate enough to be educated within the city’s wealthy elite. However, a taste for skulduggery and a rebellious streak saw him join the ranks of Shadow Thieves upon completion of his schooling. Following a number of successful robberies and scams he became very popular within the guild only to have his rise to fame cut short, when the Shadow Thieves put a price on his head for failing to pay off huge gambling debts. Settling his debt with the proceeds of a successful heist against the Zhentarim saw Federo earn new enemies faster than he could placate old ones.

With the recognition that his life was in danger he decided to put as much distance as possible between himself and his victims. Under the shadow of darkness he left Athkatla and headed north. Following months without word, a recent sighting has sparked a rumour that Federo has holed up in some disreputable tavern in a northern village called Barrow Vale.


Federo VO line 1

Federo VO line 2

Eyes of Eilistraee: New NPC profiles on the way!

Just about to upload a new profile, more to follow soon.


eR

Eyes of Eilistraee: Update

This is just a short update on my progress with Eyes of Eilistraee just to show that I’m still beavering away on it despite the lack of recent news.

What’s new? Well quite a bit. The module was always fairly neatly split into 3 acts and since the last update acts 1 and 2 have received a lot of attention. As a result much more of the module is playable (and robust) and you really start to get a good feel for the scope and story. Act 3 is a bit shorter than the others and so shouldn’t take too long to implement. 4 out of the 5 optional henchmen have basic implementations (I.e they’ll join you, get fired and re-hired) and I’m starting to give them some life by dropping in appropriate interjections based on location & PC actions.

So a lot has been achieved over the holiday period which is great news for everyone, especially yours truly. One less positive aspect is that I’m having trouble getting hold of someone to create additional art resources to help me promote the module. I have some cool stuff (that will make it on to this blog in the future) but I need a few more art assets to take the production values up a notch. Any volunteers?


eR

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