I mentioned some of this already in a few comments, but I owe it to everyone to make an official detailed posting. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the speed-of-progress I would like from my mod, so rather than leave everyone in suspense and do a disservice, I'm temporarily suspending the mod's development until I have something substantial. I'm not cancelling it, I'm just suspending it. As I look at the months flying by based on my prior post dates, I'm realizing my development is not proceeding as quickly as I'd like, and I'm feeling embarrassed by the downtime.
This would be the part where an author makes excuses, such as they have a wife (I don't), kids to take care of (nope), or a dying relative (nah, I've been pretty lucky). I've been healthy, enjoying life, and my boy Trump even won the election. By all accounts, life is good. The blame is mostly because I didn't anticipate how difficult juggling multiple mod development can be, namely for Crusader Kings II. It's like writing multiple novels at once, only each novel requires a different tool to publish it (Clausewitz for CKII, Aurora for NWN). What's worse, I've built up a following for both titles, and people on both aisles asking for updates, lol. One distinction I can't ignore is the number of potential users -- I could mod for a currently active game with a vibrant growing community and have my mod enjoyed by up to thousands, or I can mod for a game with a small community and possibly have it enjoyed by a few hundred.
When I first started this mod, NWN Vault was still online and Lamb's Demonheart mod was still in development, so the game looked very attractive to me. Now, not so much, but considering how much work I've put into the story and what I've done in-game so far, it feels like a tremendous waste of time to quit on it all now. To put what I've done in perspective, the average Goosebumps novel is 22,000 words, and I've currently typed over 3x that much, yet I still have a long way to go. Oh, and I'm writing for free, and unlike a book author, writing is only half of my struggle -- the hard part is making it all work in Aurora. I've realized now why most mods exclusively focus on hack-and-slash, lol.
I'll offer an update when I have something concrete. Just to reiterate, I'm not cancelling the mod; I'm suspending it. I promise the next update I make on this blog will be a substantial one, because I'm exhausted throwing out minor posts just for the sake of reminding everyone I'm alive. Hell, maybe I'll just wait until the entirety of chapter one is complete, so I can redeem myself. Once I do that, I can finally start promoting the mod.
Hey, I like being reminded you're still alive! Plus I never would have learned about the world of publishing otherwise. Thanks for checking in :)
ReplyDeleteI think myself and others have previously said that it's cool to post a non-update every 3 months or so, we aren't really entitled to expectations and it's nice to know you're still tossing ideas around in your head, so personally I would say, don't feel obliged to post nothing until you have a demo to share.
I completely understand the issue of audience size, having a thousand fans clamouring for updates must be hard to put off for a while, and working on two different creative jobs at the same time is tough, you keep having to hit a reset button in your head and it's just not an instant switch.
I seem to recall you've previously posted about why you picked NWN to tell this story, but I guess it bears repeating since you're re-evaluating its usefulness. To alleviate some of the issues around publishing tools, have you considered alternatives lately? For one thing, there are probably people in the NWN community who have plenty of experience with the programming side of modding tools but niether time nor inclination to create novel-sized amounts of content. Prwo springs to mind (a dance with spies) but there may be many others. Would you consider approaching others to delegate the implementation of the mod so you can focus on the writing?
Of course that doesn't solve the issue of audience size. Have you thought about a visual novel framework like ren'py, or choicescript? Or is there too much implemented in Aurora already to even consider switching platforms?
Hi again Bob, I thought about switching to a different engine, and I even considered making it exclusively a text-based game, especially because, yea, I'm not deep into my mod with Aurora (~%14 spread across all my chapters), as most of what I have done is towards my story/script.
ReplyDeleteWhat made me reconsider switching away from NWN was the negative feedback towards Demonheart. Not to take away from its Indiegogo campaign (it looks great, and there's definitely an audience for it), but that didn't seem like the right direction based on the comments, especially because it's apparently no longer adult-rated anymore, as it's only ages 17+ with sexual references.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/demonheart-a-different-visual-novel--3#/
Lately, with the success of Tyranny and Path of Exile, I can tell there's still a demand for top-down RPG gaming, so at least Neverwinter Nights has aged well! In terms of audience size, I'm going to release chapter one, advertise the hell out of it, and see what the demand is like. If it's crappy (like only a a couple hundred downloads), I may cancel the project.
Currently, I've done almost no advertising of my mod, and everyone on this blog posting right now are probably people who stumbled upon it, so I'm not discouraged by the blog's activity.
As far as reaching out to others, it's probably better if I do the mod myself, although I do have technical concerns from time to time that I'll need help with in the future.
Demonheart is now complete and out on itch.io. I was one of the original backers, and I'm glad I did; it's a solid story and well pretty well done for such a small team. I must admit I do hugely miss all the adult content that was cut, it's not really the same without - but I'm glad she managed to tell her story.
DeleteHave you given your tale any more thought lately? And have you considered a patreon campaign over time, rather than a direct sales approach?
Whoops, I get Path of Exile and Pillars of Eternity confused. I meant Pillars of Eternity. They're both PoE, lol.
ReplyDeleteSad time for NWN modules of this particular genre, it seems! It's nice to have something concrete to go on, at least, even if it's not the news I was personally hoping for. Enjoy your modding endeavours ReMeDy, wherever they take you, and I hope to see Dark Paladins of Knox show up when I peruse the Neverwinter Vault sometime in the future. :D
ReplyDeletehttp://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/283/235/7e3.jpg
ReplyDeleteSo... any news :x?
ReplyDeleteStumbled upon this and I think I play this one if you ever finish it. Sound interesting. Best of luck.
ReplyDeleteSad that it got abandoned
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