Shaar/Blacklake screenies

To SoZ or not to SoZ...

Jon: To make CotI SoZ-compatible or not to make CoTI SoZ-compatible…the choice came down to me (mostly as the only one with spare cash.) I’ve already read most of the arguments for and against so I’ll try and make some useful points.

PROS: (Ignoring those already mentioned)

OM/Party conversation/etc.

I think we’ve got to look at these aspects of the game in the same way as we did the NWN campaign as a whole; it doesn’t quite work as it stands (the OM in particular reminded me of those old Pokemon Game Boy games. ‘You have encountered a ___: Fight/Run Away!’) but there are infinitely great opportunities for modders. The only time party conversation really worked (for me) was when my female Warlock managed to flirt some information out of a randy Port Llast bartender where the boys were having no luck.

Ideas for party convos; f.i. you control a couple, battling their way through the world. Say a sleazy bard tries to chat up the woman of the party; her responses can range from temptation to repulsion, while the man can either suffer in silence or snap, with varying results. Possibilities of having your evil blackguard and good cleric play good cop/bad cop are endless.

Toolset.

Some much-needed and lovely stuff here, particularly in the effects department. Want to have a raven pecking at dead corpses, and then taking off as you approach? Yes. Want streams of light-and-shadow moving around you as you pass through forests? Yes. I’m sure some of these have been under-used in the game- why the hell have I not seen more snakes dangling from vines? Also jagged rocks, giant ferns, and snake tilesets which can easily be adapted. Sigh…

Continuity:

SoZ agrees with pretty much everything we assumed would happen after the OC, and we’re so happy. Aside from the Thayan Enclave in Blacklake, there’s nothing we’ll have to change, and it’s even given us a boost towards giving the OC companions a decent amount of dialogue to see that some of them have (somehow) survived. Now we just need to work out what happened to One of Many…

CONS: (Ignoring those already mentioned)

Scrappiness.

Constant poor spellings and bad grammar don’t ruin the game. They’re fine if you come across them on the Vault? But for a professional game, it’s not exactly smart.

Bizarre autosave

Poor doctrine on ‘entering unknown dungeons’ means that the autosave is still blanking the screen while my poor ol’ cleric is dashing blindly into harm’s way- once he was actually dead by the time I could see what had hit him.

Suitability of Chult.

OM is fine- it’s about time we had an improvement on the ancient World Map. But it means SoZ never gets a chance to make Chult what it should be about; towering canopies, huge ferns, your heroes wading through intense terrain rather than just being represented by a little man on a map.
I think our agreement is to make two versions, one with the Ape King and Neverwhere sidequests revamped for SoZ material (see above). It’s just too lovely not to use, and I hope we’ll be able to do with the borders of Chult what I’m blathering about in the last point.

Been A While: New Screenshots (Beware of Spoilers)

We've been having fun with one of the campaign's big battles. We don't want to give too much away, so ignore these screenies if you want to save the best for playing :D Problem was, they're just too damn pretty not want to share them.

Tricky part was figuring out a way of making the battle epic-scale without slowing the game down too much. Frame rate is still a problem, sadly.

All the best,

Nick

Screenshots

Screenies of areas already completed; we've been working on conversations (and romances...) solidly so there's not much new exciting stuff to show. But there will be- Gardens of the Immortals is currently in dev...

Screenshots #5

Shots today feature the 'Hall of Pleasures', where you'll briefly stop off in pursuit of your enemy. It uses the Estate tileset to make a giant demonic palace, with exterior views- we're adding more complicated lighting, so it will look less starkly red.

Daernvan, the paladin companion, is also featured. We wanted to get away from the 'typical' paladin- this is a man whose idea of 'lawful good' has been stretched to the limits, manning an abandoned Neverwinter colonial post by himself out of a sense of duty.

Also a few shots of the 'Neverwhen' major time-travel sidequest...you'll get to go back to the just-founded Neverwinter Docks (we thought a bit of a 'Wild West' feel) and help your future fellow hero out by stopping an Old One attack hoping to retrieve a certain artifact....

Screenshots #4

Jon- These are actually old shots, from the first chapter of the game; enjoy.

Godlike Abilities

Nick: Our little way of making the KC bigger and better. Some brave soul in the future may dare to break the level cap...but in the meantime we're getting around it with Godlike Abilities.

You'll receive these much like the history feats, but with very obvious benefits (and disadvantages) and they'll reflect your own state of character. Nobody will be able to get them all- for instance, if you slaughter a villageful of Th'ungi women and children and become 'Stuff of Nightmares', you're unlikely to be able to get the 'Protector of the People' ability later on- and if you do it the other way round, you'll probably lose the PotP.

Basically we wanted these to reflect your ever-growing power and, as importantly, the ever-growing legend around you; so the first ability you'll receive will be the 'Legendary Stature', which gives you dialogue and combat advantages against the speaking races (monsters, it's assumed, don't listen to folk tales).

In other news, we're all busy playing through MotB to make sure we have a couple of acceptable test characters rather than the scary Battle of the Builds titans we've been using up until now. And I'm betaing my Hallowe'en entry. Life goes on...

Custom Parties

Jon: The screenshots below are me playing with a 'custom' team of non-plot companions; Nick's got a lot of feedback from people saying they'd like a chance to ressurrect the old gang, so we're putting in an additional Custom Area at the beginning where you can also gain levels and collect some equipment if you want to create a new build. There will also be easter egg NP-companions- legendary heroes and familiar faces- who require certain conditions to be 'unlocked'. :P.

As you can probably tell, both areas are far from ready, but it was still fun to have a go. The ruins battle is the site of an old Neverwinter colonial bastion you visit, the Neverfall- an integral location to the campaign. The jungle battle takes you onto the northern borders of Samarach to fight, amongst other things, the ape king Ghan.

Screenshots #3

Second Screenshot batch

Nick- From Andy's work-in-progress, the Hardcastle colonial settlement, plus a few shots of a Shaar Hyena attack.

The Making of New Harbor

Andy: The campaign begins in 'New Harbor'. For the purposes of the introduction, we wanted the PC to return home for an opening which echoed the very beginning of the OC and gave the series a 'rounded off' feel. So my job was to recreate West Harbor as it might have changed over the years since it fell into shadow.

Our theory was that WH went unoccupied, a place of fear, until the news that the KC was alive was transmitted back to the Sword Coast. Since then, it's been steadily rebuilt by an enterprising architect by the name of Shuckholt, who's hoped to encourage settlers by capitalising on the fact that the new village is built on the remains of the KC's home.

New Harbor was constucted on the OC's design- the 'dead harbor' format, as we figured the earth would be permanently scarred. Creating a new area from an old's actually pretty fascinating, because the basic groundwork is done and you have space to be creative. So younger trees are now taller, older trees have become stumps, grass has begun to grow, a very different sort of house is under construction- I even widened the meander of the stream where it would have eroded over the years.

While the Farlong home has been reconstructed, certain houses- the home of the ill-fated Starlings, for instance, have been left in ruin; even the naive, fresh-faced inhabitants of New Harbor want nothing to do with it.

First Screenshots