Clarification on Malakai's personality.

I hope you all are enjoying Fallout 4. I know I am! As I prepare my demo for an eventual release, I wanted to clarify an important detail that's annoying the hell out of me. Some of you may remember this screenshot I released earlier of Malakai speaking to the protagonist. As I continue expanding my story script, I'm already regretting that screenshot, because there's an important change I'm making to Malakai. No, I have no qualms with his condescending tone, or the fact he's an asshole. It's the word he throws out at the end -- whore.

The word itself is fine; however, I noticed several characters are calling the protagonist a whore! Drunks, orcs, bandits, sailors... If I'm not careful, her father might call her a whore! I feel like it's getting comical, and a word can lose its meaning when it's used too often. There are a few other similarities I'm noticing outside of the screenshot, but overall, I'm sensing this clash of similar personalities is driving Malakai into monotonous territory, so I'm changing him. He will still be a condescending asshole, but I want to emphasize he's also intelligent, calculating, and manipulative. I'll save the trashy immature one-liners for NPC's who only think with their dicks and not their brains (clarification #2: Malakai thinks with both).

Those kids really love Star Wars and Frozen.

I've been trying to keep these updates going, but my work schedule has been pretty hectic. I work at a coloring book manufacturer, and our busiest months are before Christmas. The upcoming Star Wars movie is also complicating things -- a day doesn't pass without printing either Star Wars or Disney's "Frozen," making this my busiest year on record, and requiring a lot of working weekends. For better or worse, after the Christmas rush dies down, there's almost no work, and I'm practically laid off, so that will be my peak modding days.

Regarding the mod itself, I'm focusing on the early content because I want to get something released as a tech demo, of sorts. Obviously, the mod runs fine for me, but I need a few people to test it so I can iron out any requirements or anything else unforeseen. I've received some great comments about how I can best tackle this, and I've decided I'll do a demo covering just the first half hour. I'm keeping it short because I plan on having you guys play through it again when the final version (of chapter 1?) is released, rather than worry about transferring decisions, calling it a prologue, etc. When you rush through the mod on your second play-through, I suspect it will only take a few minutes, lol. I suppose that is one advantage to a text-heavy mod is that it makes it quicker to play-test. Looking at my script, if I were to create a prologue, it would last about three hours -- not small enough for a demo, and not big enough for a separate release, in my opinion.

On an unrelated subject, I recently finished my mod for Crusader Kings II. It's a static portraits mod, meaning you can substitute your own images as portraits. This has been done before by others, but what I've done is released template packs, art files, and information to train others who want to achieve the same results. Plus, I'm sharing this link so anyone can connect with me on Lover's Lab, if you happen to use that forum.
www.loverslab.com/topic/52211-ck2-static-custom-portrait-replacer-ver-098-244-horse-lords-compatible/?p=1310789

Opinion on forced true neutral starting alignment?

One thing that's disappointed me in several NWN role-playing mods is how irrelevant the alignment system is. Sure, your decisions have an impact on your alignment, and certainly there are good vs. evil decisions, but your alignment seems to rarely be referenced. If your evil, shouldn't certain NPC's be a bit intimidated and submissive towards you? Likewise, if you're good, shouldn't they be more friendly and assertive? Obviously, a character's reputation plays a part in this. After all, NPC's must know some of the protagonist's good or evil deeds before they can decide how to behave around them. This means, early in the story, it's okay to dismiss the protagonist's alignment, but later, your alignment should mean something! The issue is it's hard for a developer to gauge the magnitude of a player's overall deeds when a player locks himself into Chaotic Evil or Lawful Good to start a game! It's made worse when the player commits an evil decision when they're already Chaotic Evil -- your alignment can't be any more evil than that, so the impact of your decision feels a bit negated.

Onto my point: I'm considering adopting a Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic approach where the player is locked into a true neutral alignment. Decisions will impact their alignment over the course of their story. A starting alignment provides me a base-line, so I can better direct some of the content.

This alignment restriction also makes sense from my story's perspective. Your character is a young woman who has lived a fairly sheltered life under her father's roof. As she exits her final year of home-schooling, she's uncertain about her future as her father pressures her into joining the Church of Knox. She knows very little about what lies beyond her city's walls. Many of her adventures were spent inside the pages of fictional story novels. Due to her inherently benefiting from her father's wealth and prestige, she lacks a morale compass regarding concepts of money and power. Basically, it's impossible for her to be Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, because she doesn't know what good or evil really means.

I find the protagonist's lack of understanding interesting from a character-study perspective, as she will be tested by various authoritative figures, most notably her Church's instructor, Malakai Varus, who isn't shy about taking advantage of her. Several more opportunistic characters will await the protagonist. How you confront them will shape the kind of woman she becomes.

Anyways, I'm aware some people hate being forced into a starting alignment, so I'm open to your thoughts. Of course, it's your decisions that will matter the most and not necessarily your alignment. Your alignment will simply be one of the consequences reflected by your decisions.

Game of Thrones is love. Game of Thrones is life.

I recently finished watching a little show needing no introduction called Game of Thrones (GoT). Prior to scripting my story, I admittedly had never seen the show. I decided to discover what all the fascination was about, and like everyone else, the show left a huge impression on me. I imagine it also left an impression on the author for the NWN mod, Demonheart, by Lamb, as she shares the avatar for Melisandre in the board game version of GoT. I love the show's tension, ironies, and plot twists, evoked in the most mundane or inopportune moments. I enjoy how indiscriminately GoT kills its cast, keeping viewers on edge and reminding them no one is safe. It's a world governed by deception and death, exposing the dark side of human nature.

I've learned my universe shares certain similarities, so marrying some of GoT's concepts seems only natural. GoT has caused me to give my script an extra pass, and I've realized some of my mod's conversations lacked tension. I don't consider this a set-back, as most of my scenes already were pretty tense, but some needed a bit more spice. GoT is unique in that it respects the time of its audience -- I want to do the same with my mod. Seemingly boring scenes should invoke emotions, and most characters should have accentuated personalities to make them memorable. Even if you think one of my characters is an asshole, pussy, sadist, or straight-up idiot, at least it invokes an emotion. Maybe you'll be hoping that person dies. Maybe with your choices, he or she actually can!

There are a few things GoT does I will refrain from, as I feel it doesn't fit the context of a mystery adventure. First, having too many major characters muddles a good mystery. I am striving for lots of characters, but most are minor, and are there to make the protagonist's city feel alive. Second, switching narrative perspectives is rarely used in mysteries. For example, how often does the narrative switch away from Sherlock Holmes, or Phoenix Wright? The fun of a good mystery is stepping into someone else's shoes and experiencing things exclusively from a fixed perspective. Thankfully, most NWN mods use a fixed narrative anyways, so this will feel natural to the player.

If you haven't watched the show, just watch it. Don't let the amount of episodes scare you away from it, like it initially did for me.

Clarifying why updates are slow, and why I created this blogger.com page

This is a bit embarrassing, but hey, it's part of the modding experience! When I first created this blog, I did it with the intent of initially setting it to offline mode so I could tinker with blogger.com. I knew I eventually needed a blog or website, but at the time, all I had was my story script and character biographies, meaning I had nothing substantial to share. Regardless, I was excited to create one. I thought, "No problem. I'll create the blog, then set it offline as I continue developing my script."

I created the blog, then something unexpected happened -- I couldn't find a way to set the blog offline! Sure, I could have deleted it, but I had already spent several hours on it. My solution was I'll avoid mentioning the blog! Surely no one will find an unannounced blog page for a video game over 10+ years old! Well, we know how that turned out! I believe the floodgate opened up from my avatar link on Demonheart's "followers" page, but let me know if you all found the blog elsewhere.

At this point, my mod's development took a sharp turn. In an effort to provide blog content, I embraced the opened blog and switched from less story scripting to more visually oriented content. This is a dangerous practice. After all, you shouldn't start directing a movie without a complete script, just like a modder shouldn't mod without a finished story. I began providing content for a blog that wasn't ready!

So this is where we stand: I'm sitting on a huge script that continues to grow, but I'm paranoid at transferring most of it to NWN because of what might change. At the same time, I want to provide you guys with updates. What I'm thinking is providing more updates on my ideas or approach to the mod. Then as I work my way up to incorporating more of my script into NWN, I'll start sharing more juicier content. I know seeing blog posts without screenshots is boring, but I'm realizing now it's better than not posting any updates at all.

Examining Objects. Potential Prelude Chapter.

Here's some greater detail from my last post when I mentioned 80% of the mod's objects are interactive. Clicking on almost anything results in pop-up text above your character, giving insight into your character's thoughts. This includes even mundane objects, that may or may not be related to investigations. (Note: If items are in your inventory, you must right-click them and select "examine.") I could have adopted the lazy route of forcing players to right-click, and then click again to "examine" for all objects even outside the player's inventory, but that's an inconvenience. Instead, by simply single-clicking objects, it makes an otherwise tedious process more stream-lined. All of this interactivity was inspired from Phoenix Wright, where I fondly remember the series having a running gag over the discussion of mundane ladders.

You'll know an object's interactive by hovering your mouse over it and seeing a blue silhouette. To make things easier, I recommend mapping a key to the "Tool Tip" command in the "Misc" section in-game. When you hold that key down, all interactive objects become highlighted. I don't remember what the default key is, but whatever it was, I hated it, so I recommend mapping it close to W,A,S,D.

All of these single-clicked objects come with a technical price: Each object requires a unique script. This likely increases area load times, but I have a fairly strong PC with my new SSD, so the load times seem fine to me; therefore, I'm not the ideal candidate to test this mod's specification requirements. I think what I'll do is release a "prelude" chapter, serving as a technical demo. This prelude would span the introduction, and finish the first investigation. It would take maybe 1-2 hours for a player to finish, but it would provide me valuable info, including whether the load times are acceptable, if the mod's dependencies on other mods are working, general feedback, and whether the mod simply works. It would also give everyone an idea whether this mod is right for them or not, because again I have to caution there are adult and evil/dark themes.

Even though it's a prelude, I do plan to have decisions, meaning I'll have to worry about carrying the decisions you've made over to the next chapter. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone were to finish the prelude mod, only for me to build upon that mod and turn it into a "chapter 1," they'd have to restart the mod from the beginning, since their saves would no longer be compatible. I won't allow that to happen. That's akin to punishing players for play-testing.

AAA - Areas, Armors, and Animations

Long time no see! I know I haven't been updating much, but I have been working on the mod nonetheless. I've been jumping around on creating many things. I have typed out enough of the script where I know for a fact what will be in the mod, so I've finally begun settling on things, otherwise this mod will never get finished!

I've adopted an arsenal of programming code using past mods for inspiration. The one I'm most proud of is the sex animations (obviously). I'd show an image, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to do that here, even though I did flag this blog for being "adult only." The animation was harder than I thought, involving locking the player to the ground to keep them from moving, equipping nude "armors," and getting animations to line up. I'll also occasionally employ standard fade-to-blacks used in nearly every other adult NWN mod, if I lack the animations for what I'm wanting.

I'm also creating a lot of the areas. Ironically, I thought level design would be easy and boring, but it's actually immensely challenging and fun. I have to ask myself if placing each and every item makes sense in the grand scheme of things. For example, the shopkeeper, Tyrus Amerigo, is obsessive-compulsive over security and lock-picking, so his shop and bedroom is tailored to fit his persona. Kraus is a scientist and inventor, so his place is a junkyard of various technologies. Each of the main characters has their own room in the Church, so every character is getting similar level design treatment. This was inspired from Dangan Ronpa for the PSP/Vita (very fun mystery-solving game).

The Church of Knox is the main hub for your character in-between missions. The ground floor, in particular, is visited several times, with each visit changing NPC conversation patterns and NPC locations. Think of it like a town in Diablo, only the NPC's aren't always in the same place and I spice things up each visit. These are great opportunities to delve into the minds of characters, although most of it's optional. The ground floor is divided into a cafeteria, training room, merchant store, library, laboratory, private meeting chamber, and military training ground. You'll see how all these areas play a part in the story as you progress. (Note: Not all areas I mentioned are in the image. That's because some of those areas you'll rarely visit, so I don't want the player to load them into memory again and again and again...)

Starting armors you can select

The merchant store, operated by Tyrus, sells equipment sanctioned for use by your Archbishop, Malakai. The problem is Malakai's an asshole, so Tyrus is contractually required to only provide armors Malakai deems you fit to wear. This, of course, means sexually suggestive attire. The armors are provided by the Church, meaning it's all free. Feel free to grab all the armors! I'm a fan of options, and unfortunately NWN doesn't provide a character armor preview feature, so I just said, "To hell with it." He also sells free color dyes to further personalize your armor's colors. (Note: Everything else costs gold, including potions and the option to enchant your armors.) I'll feature extensive use of the enchantment option, so you can scale your favorite armors later into the game. Eventually, you may have to swap these out for a different selection of heavier armors you'll find later in the game, but I'll be sure to have these heavier armors cost the same as enchantment stacking the depicted lighter armors. I'm doing all this because nothing pisses me off more than finding an awesome looking armor, only to discover it has garbage stats.

Speaking of items, as an Inquisitor, you'll use items to convict others of heresy. The overall experience is similar to the DS/3DS Phoenix Wright games, where you present a piece of evidence contradicting a statement and catching someone in a lie. This means exploring your environment for clues. About 80% of all the objects in this mod can be clicked on, displaying a pop-up text above your character's head. If they're in your inventory, instead, you may right-click and "examine" them. I've swapped out many mundane item descriptions to tailor the mod to investigations.

These investigations are fairly small in length, and are not all you'll be tasked in doing. To keep things from getting repetitive, you will enter combat, and many heretics will not die quietly! Of course, romance is present, with certain characters operating differently to extort what they want from you. In particular, one powerful character who I have yet to introduce will blackmail you, forcing you into making payments, otherwise...

That's all! I have more to share, but this post is long enough as it is, so I'll save it for next week.

Migrated to an SSD. Finally adding scenes from script.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! It's been a while -- time for an update.

First, I acquired my first Solid State Drive (SSD) for Christmas. I had to backup and migrate my old data to the SSD. Everything went well and the SSD runs great. It's a Samsung 840 EVO ~750GB. The data transfer speeds are insane compared to my old spin drive. The data below is my spin drive. The data above is my SSD. I'm not 100% sure what the numbers in this benchmark screenshot mean, but the graph indicates huge improvements! Judging by my speeds in the NWN Aurora toolset, this means less painful load times and faster modding.

Since the last update, I've mostly been implementing additional resource files. I have all the portraits settled on and installed, including new characters I haven't mentioned yet. I'm writing some in-game books for lore purposes. I also added custom loading screens and increased the number of playable classes, so you can now play as a Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, or Paladin, as opposed to only Paladin. Finally, I think I've settled on a soundtrack. Depending if NWN Vault accepts the mod with this soundtrack, I may have to release two versions of my mod -- one with the soundtrack and the other without. I know for a fact the Nexus won't accept this, as they're anal on copyrights. I tried uploading a Skyrim anime Berserk soundtrack mod to the Nexus, which didn't work out, lol. Anyways, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm keeping the soundtrack a secret until release.

I'm finally taking some of my script and creating scenes. Until now, all my in-game content pertained to resources, so it's nice finally seeing things fleshed out. I must stress it's important I nail down the script and resources first, because working with the Aurora conversation editor is cumbersome. I'm waiting for it to grow on me, but it hasn't, lol.

As I expand my script, I am concerned about a promise I originally made in my FAQ I may backtrack from, especially since I'm a one man crew. I said, "I'm striving for a Japanese visual novel approach. Unlike most western games offering a huge decision near the end (ex. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), the Japanese visual novel approach provides major decisions near the middle of the story. Each route branch caters to a specific in-game character based on your past decisions." There's a problem with this I didn't account for: Japanese visual novels typically aren't detective stories. For a good detective story to work, it needs a strong conclusion. Ultimately, only one path will truly satisfy the player, as it is the only path where you discover the main culprit.

I think this is how the endings will work: One path is the true ending. This ending further branches into extended segments with whoever your romance option is. Your romance option is decided by choices you've made and scenes you're witnessed unique to your romance. Any other endings are "bad endings," generally involving rape, sexual slavery, etc. The problem with the true ending approach segmenting off into these romance endings is I must put it near the end of my mod and not the middle, because once the culprit is captured, all sense of suspense is lost, and I want to avoid degenerating the mod into a sappy love story. Romance is definitely a strong theme, but my hierarchy of importance is still mystery > sex > romance. I'll create a flow chart for those interested in seeing all the endings.

Hopefully, I can keep this blog more updated. I work a full-time job, so I'm trying to juggle this behemoth of a project while I can. Part of me wonders if I should have quit a long time ago, but I'm too deep into it now and I'm excited to know what you all will think of it upon its release.