Middleforest - A Project for NWN

EA - Deal with it

2012-01-16T04:47:00.002+01:00

(logo courtesy of someone on the Bioboards.. I guess)

Below are answers to the most commonly asked questions about Origin and Mass Effect 3. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to answer them.

1) Will Origin be a requirement to play all versions of Mass Effect 3? (Digital and/or from a retail brick and mortar store)
Yes, Origin is required for all PC editions of Mass Effect 3, physical or digital.

Wooohoo, another bloatware running alongside my games, preferably as a Windows service, and does absolutely nothing for me then being an inoperable cancer that eats ressources and is a constant annoyance.

2) Is constant Origin connection required or is it a single one off authentication when the game is first installed. Is there also a limit to the number of installations available?
Mass Effect 3 will require a one time, single authorization for the single player game. There is no limit to the number of installs. Playing Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer will require a constant connection.

Nothing a CD check couldn't do as well, and multiplayer is the best DRM even without having to run Origin. Don't come with anti-cheating, punkbuster functions etc. now, ME3's multiplayer is a Coop mode (which most people probably have zero interest in anyway).

3) Is Origin required for the retail versions of the game?
Origin is required for the PC versions of Mass Effect 3, both physical and digital.

While you say PC - Just for the record and as some sort of comparison to your competitor - EA is also the largest publisher for Mac games, yet Origin is not available for the Mac. Steam has that neat little feature called "SteamPlay", which allows you not only to start a game on computer 1 and continue on computer 2, but even allows that cross-plattform. Oh right, and when you buy a cross-plattform title, you automatically own the game for all supported plattforms. EA does not even have any solution for Mac gamers, can't even download one.

4) Will ME3 be available on Steam?
During initial release Mass Effect 3 will be available on Origin and a number of other 3rd party digital retailers, but not on Steam at this time. Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content. We are intent on providing Mass Effect to players with the best possible experience no matter where they purchase or play their game, and are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our consumers.

Let me rephrase this: Steam wants to offer the DLCs and patches and everything the consumer needs to play all in one place - their store. That does NOT mean Steam restricts publishers to sell the DLCs only to their store, it just means that if they want to publish their game on Steam, they have to offer all the DLCs on Steam too instead of having the customer buy it in their own place only.
Steam of course wants a little share of the profit in return.
What EA would have to deal with is 1. that customers can pay for the DLCs with real money and not with abstract Bioware points, and 2. that Steam might offer the customer a better deal, while EA has never ever had a special deal for DLCs ever. Oh, and has anyone ever tried to buy only one single DLC like, say, Kasumi for ME2 for I think 540 Bioware points? Right, you can't buy 540 Bioware points, only 800 or 1600. So if you want to buy Kasumi, you pay for 800 Bioware points and then look for an option to spend the remaining 260 points somewhere... oh damn, there is no DLC for 260 points? Ah, too bad.
Oh, and have you ever compared prices between the Bioware point shop and the only other place where you can get Bioware points (the EA store?) Don't laugh if you do, it's just sad.
End of the line: Stop feeding us EA's PR talk, it's ridiculous. For the player, Steam offers the better deal.

5) Is there an opt in or opt out clause for data collection?
Users will be allowed to opt-out of Mass Effect 3 data collection from inside the game.

Great wording here. You can opt out of ME3's ingame feedback just like you could in Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. This has nothing to do with Origin, you can't opt out on anything in Origin.
For the recoird, Steam asks before it does hardware surveys and you can opt out anytime, you even have to opt in in the first place. Origin just mines.

6) I’ve seen reports that Origin is spyware. Is this true?
Origin is not spyware, and does not use or install spyware on user’s machines. In order to allow Origin to install games and their patches for everyone to use, Origin implements a permission change that results in Windows, not Origin, reviewing the filenames in the ProgramData/Origin folder. This is an ordinary Windows function, not an information-gathering process.

Past versions looked very much like Spyware, current versions don't, but EA's EULA grants them every right to change that right in the next update. We'll see what happens once the current shitstorm is over and EA has forced a large enough user base together. It could happen anytime without further notice. Also, there might be a difference between "Windows just does stuff without us doing anything" and actively using these ordinary Windows functions to your advantage.

7) Has the Origin EULA been updated following recent questions in Germany?
The German Origin EULA has been updated. For more information, please review the Origin EULA here: http://www.ea.com/1/product-eulas.

Wrong link mister Priestly, the German EULA is here: http://www.ea.com/de/1/dokumente
Here I must say I'm proud of the German community that actually seems to care a lot more than what I've seen elsewhere. It's the proof for what the naysayers don't want to see, that you don't have to be sheep and actually can do something as a consumer, instead of just swallowing everything a company feeds you. It just takes a little more than sitting around saying "can't change them anyway, gotta accept it, and I have nothing to hide anyway". If you have enough backbone, you can do something, in the end it's YOUR money that leads to any company's decisions.

8) Is there a double-opt in for Mass Effect 3 marketing emails for German residents?
Yes, we always adhere to the German requirement of a double opt-in standard for marketing emails. Mass Effect 3 users must opt-in twice to receive these emails.

Another proof for the above. German residents get their own EULA and their own opt-out/opt in standards. Do you think EA did that on their own because they're nice? No, they were forced to because the German gaming community caused a shitstorm for them. Without that, the EULA in Germany would still be the same as the international version. Don't ever think you can't change anything.

I appreciate everyone's patience on this topic. Please continue to ask questions about Mass Effect 3 and Origin and I will continue to try to get the answers for you.

... said on Friday evening before he ran off to the weekend, while the Thread has been coming near the 200 pages by now full of unanswered questions. It was stickied and unstickied too multiple times, Mr. Priestly says it's not needed to sticky it because if it's really important for players, they'll keep bumping it up anyway.

A few things not covered in that FAQ:

1. EA's ridiculous Banhammer.
If you want to lose access to all of your games, just use the F-word on their boards. Hell, not even that, just quote someone who used it. There are other options too, this is just one example.
EA's PR talk already said it was an accident when it first happened a year ago, after it got media coverage. One year later it still happens, and only when the media picks it up it's another "error in the system". The result is always the same. Account ban, you can't play any of the games you bought on Origin, and the support is usually unavailable or unhelpful. So everytime that banhammer swings into your direction by accident, the fastest and easiest solution to fix the issue is simply getting the most media attention you can, other ways don't work. Which brings me to....

2. EA support.
Honestly, EA's support is about the worst thing I've ever experienced myself. Just took me a week to get my Mass Effect 1 DLC back which I lost access to due to Bioware pulling the old Bioboards down. Quick summary: Contacted US support because local support was unavailable. Chatted with EA guy. EA guy had no clue what I was talking about, assured me the current Bioware site and my account is accessable and threw me out of chat.
Phoned german support line. Waited 45 minutes in the line until I was fed up and hung up. This hotline is not free. Phoned them again two days later due to being unable to get into another chat. Waited 45 minutes again. Hung up. Finally got into US chat again after turning the "unsolved" ticket into a new issue. EA guy was more helpful but made me sign up for a new account on EA's kiddie/casual game website without any reason. Finally got my new DLC key.
This is just my personal experience with EA's support, but apparently this experience is quite average. Losing access to my Mass Effect 1 DLC btw doesn't really reassure me that all the other DLC I bought for DA or ME2 will still be accessible in 2 or three years.

I could continue, but if you compare Origin to Steam, like it has become a hobby of everyone who tries to prove what morons people are who complain about Origin, you have to take customer relation and support as much into account as possible datamining. Steam makes people sign up freely because they offer them an all-in-one solution comparable to Apple's iTunes: Sure, they have a monopoly, but they also have great deals, speak the right language and offer players some real advantages (SteamPlay, autopatches, daily deals on DLC too, etc. etc.). Many people like Steam, nobody likes Origin. That's not to say that Steam is the good guy, would never be interested in your data, and there are many games that force you to use Steam too Bethesda comes to mind. But honestly, Steam makes it much easier for customers to swallow, and there are enough who sign up without being forced.

Well, look for yourself, make your own opinion if you think I'm too biased, but I hope the shitstorm against the most useless bloatware forced on gamers recently won't cease. There's a Group on the Bioboards you can join, they have a nice little banner for your sig too. ;)

The state of my (our?) NWN2 depression

2012-01-07T00:56:00.001+01:00

Time for another rant. As you can see from my last posts, this blog has more and more drifted away from it's original purpose - being a diary of my building efforts in Neverwinter Nights 2. By now, most of the posts are probably reviews of and rants about other games. So have I completely lost the connection to NWN2? No... I wouldn't say so. I actually think about building every day, and all the games I play on the side are a great source for inspiration. But taking this inspiration and making something out of it, that's the main problem.
I said it before and it still hasn't changed - it's become too much and I have so many ideas I just can't make real use of because I wouldn't know where to start - and the technical hurdles are often too frustrating and making me drop the whole thing before I even really started.

Another thing though that frustrates me is the state of NWN2 and it's community. I often get the impression it's not only me who's depressed and frustrated, it's the community and the game itself. NWN2 has been in a constant state of being half dead, comatose maybe, for the last two years or so. When I look at the multiplayer tabs in Gamespy, there are maybe 5 worlds that share all the remaining player population, and a lot of very promising PWs (often of much better quality) hang there with zero players, maybe 4 on a lucky weekend. Do I really want to add another one to those?

Then there's the custom content scene. The good old NWN Vault is dying slowly too, hardly anything new and exiting anymore, instead it's overrun by Spambots and only sours my mood everytime I browse for something. I often thought the Vault might need a relaunch like the TES/Fallout/DA Nexus sites, they really show how to keep these games alive and interesting. Not to mention the ease of use with their download manager. And I think it's fantastic what modders do with the games, I mean, Skyrim hasn't even it's Creation Kit yet and still you can already turn the game completely upside down.

So, why don't I just follow the crowd and hop over to the TES/Fallout modding crowd? Because yeah... Multiplayer for one. And second, I never saw much on the story side from any Beth games and their modding scene. A lot of eye candy, lots of weapons, locations, etc. etc. But I believe the real storytellers can't be found over there, they stick to games like NWN.
Also, the Beth games never allowed you to make real standalone modules, another thing I would sorely miss. As nice as it is to discover new, community-made locations in Skyrim or New Vegas, I prefer making my own world. Still, I think the most immersive roleplay you can have in a game is not with an AI, but with a real person who enjoys roleplay as much as I do. That's why I believe in multiplayer.

Now for those who never play Neverwinter Nights 2 in multiplayer mode - you might say "join a MMO and be happy", and I'd have to yet again explain why NWN2's multiplayer is so unique. I spare you, the few people who read this are aware of that anyway. But this winter I tried out pretty much every free or free to try MMO I could get my hands on. Lineage 2, Age of Conan, Rift, DDO, you name it. The only effect it has on me is that I appreciate NWN2's unique multiplayer more than ever, and it will probably be the last of this kind. It is, for me, the lone king of multiplayer games.

So, back to NWN2 and it's custom content. As I said above, it saddens me to see NWN2 in this state, because I still think it is a diamond in the rough and has extreme potential, even these days. Everyone goes on and on about how moddable Bethesda games are, and yet NWN2 is even more moddable than any Bethesda game. Where are the multiplayer capabilities of Beth games, where can you make your own PWs, where can you DM a campaign or make the whole world like you want? And all the rest, all the custom content you see popping up for Fallout, Skyrim etc: It just needs someone to do it, NWN2 can do.

Now comes my bitter view back to some really innovative things the community started for NWN2, which showed how capable this game is. If we starts with models and custom content, NWN2 saw great things and I wish people wouldn't have stopped making more of it so early.
Some of the greatest things that never really got used came quite early by the way. YATT is an example. Creating maps with it IS geekish, I admit, but if someone knows how to use it the results are amazing. With terran like that, NWN2 doesn't have to hide behind Oblivion. I don't know of any PW that uses YATT but one that is still in the making (good luck, Cipher!), but I recently decided that if I give Middleforest another chance, I must make more use of it.

RWS is probably the most shining example of making great community content, but yet Hellfire dropped the ball just when things got really exiting. The swimming hak was a masterpiece that's at least useable:

... but the horse riding, although looking as good as done, will remain unseen as it seems.

Or what the hell happened to Qk's Custom animations? He had so much in the pipeline...

I'm still having wet dreams of those commando crawl animations I added to the wishlist.
Animations have always been a huge point for me in NWN2, and when people actually started making new ones I got very excited because I was hoping for a similar thing like in NWN1 (combat animations, romantic suite etc.). Sadly, nothing came out of it.

These are some of the most exciting projects, but there have been so much more. There are smaller things like... my small requests (coughs). Or outfits, hell, I'm such a junkie for nice armors! If I had any idea HOW, I'd start right away with wonderful community-made things like this or this. I know it's possible, I know people who know how to use Blender or 3DSMax would convert them within an hour. I tried to use Blender, I know I can import a .nif file from Bethesda and export a .mdb file for NWN2. The steps in between, i.e. translating the outfit to the NWN2 skeleton and making a lower resolution version, are totally beyond me. No biggie for someone who knows what he does, but nope, I'm clueless. And then we have some who do what I'm trying so hard, but have a problem with the community, which saddens me even more. If someone could at least provide a step-by-step... these are some things the Bethesda community did much, much better, I'm afraid.
To sum up, during the past two years NWN2 was a constant rollercoaster between high enthusiasm and, well, huge disappointments. A lot of great stuff never got release, some high hopes were shattered, and the community died out slowly.

At this point I think we have a catch 22 - the modders slowly give up because they think nobody's interested anymore, and the players/users of mods give up because they think the CC Creators have left the field.
If anyone's interested in hearing it, I could make a very long list of very specific requests - from changing the clouds over some models to armors. But I guess I'd have to switch to Skyrim for that. :)

Anyway, at this point I have no idea how the dying community could be revived again, but I wish it would happen because I still see no alternative to NWN2 on the horizon. If some skilled people would give it another whirl, I'm sure NWN2 could be modded upside down just like all the Beth games. I mean, there's no technical reason why the ENBSeries that are so overhyped in Skyrim and other games shouldn't work with NWN2 too, is there? Just needs somebody who knows that stuff to make the adjustments and we'd have an almost new game.
Ack, if I just had the skillz...

Rant over.

Quick advertisement: Steam autumn deals

2011-11-24T20:15:00.000+01:00

Just after praising New Vegas again, the game is available for just 4.99 Euros on Steam for the next couple of days, so if you were on the edge of buying it, now's the time. The DLCs come at very reduced prices as well. NWN2 Platinum for 9.99 is a very good deal too, Dragon Age Ultimate Edition for 14.99, and countless other RPGs including Witcher 2, Mass Effect, etc. etc. I assume the prices in $ are as low as the €. Great time to grab those RPGs you always wanted to try out.

Obligatory Skyrim Post

2011-11-22T01:52:00.004+01:00

You didn't expect me to forget making a post about the Game of the year 2011, did you? No, certainly not. Although, frankly, why waste any time on it when everyone's talking about it anyway? Well, I will keep the praises short, because everything that has to be said about how gorgeous it is has been covered elsewhere already. Just read the reviews, but actually... you're probably too busy playing the game already.
Fine, let's get the praise over with quickly, of course I have my obligatory screenies to share again. Just, before going into detail, Skyrim looks amazing. Fantastic. Breathtaking. The world design is wonderful.
And it's not (as some who stopped playing games after Oblivion might think) the latest, greatest next-generation graphics we have here. Actually, technically Skyrim is almost a little dated, at least compared to modern shooters. If you played the last two Fallout games the graphics are just the logical evolution from there on, a lot of it looks very familiar. That's not a bad thing at all, it only makes the game run very well even on slightly dated hardware like mine - much better than the Witcher 2, for example, which I had to tune down a lot. My dated comp (4-core 2Ghz Xeon from 2007, ATI 4870 graphics) easily runs it on Ultra, as long as I keep the Antialiasing on 4x - and there's really no reason to push that further up. Anyway - no, Skyrim is not the next Crysis, technically. But the world design is simply breathtaking. Period. And it runs on a wide range of hardware too, hooray! Chances are good you can play it with decent graphics - if you can run NWN2 with nice settings, you can run this.If you can run Fallout 3, you can run this.

And while we're there, let me explain that Fallout 3 thing here quickly for those who never touch anything non-medieval: Fallout 3 and New Vegas are both very very close to Oblivion and Skyrim technically and are the logical evolutionary steps in between the two. If you played one, you will immediately feel familiar in the other, Fallout 3 could simply be called Oblivion in a post-nuclear setting. And both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are great RPGs you really should play unless you're stubbornly demanding your elves and orcs. Hey, you can even use swords! That just for those who still think the Fallout games are First Person Shooters...

Back to Skyrim and.... Screenie time!

Water in Skyrim - probably the real "next-gen" thing, at least I've never seen better than this. I get teary eyes when I watch those streams and waterfalls. Wonderful!

Forest - probably not the best screenshot, but the forests are... what else, wonderful.

Climbing snowy mountains...

Walking into blizzards...

... and watching the northern lights over some icebergs at night.

Those are just some of the many screens I took, but I'm sure you've seen enough already. The world is incredibly believable (not to use the word "realistic" for a fantasy game), yet still artificial enough not to pass as a cold, hyper-realistic setting like Crysis etc. In one word, atmospheric.

Interiors and caves actually look a little less realistic, they're still good, but here it's easy to see the roots from Bethesda's past games.

What Bethesda really improved is the character creator. One possible reason why I never really got into Oblivion might've been that whatever you did, your character looked ugly as sin. Fallout 3 improved on that, but only Skyrim is really satisfying now. Whatever's still missing the community can and will fix with some mods.

Oblivion: Whatever you did, ugly as sin. Some mods improve that a bit, but it never got really good. Game of the Year or not, other games at the time had much nicer looking characters, even NWN2 could do better (without the face morphing of course).

Fallout 3: A lot better than Oblivion, but it still took quite a long time to make a decent face - most of the presets are still ugly as sin and require a lot of work. In the end, my characters always looked quite the same because only a few slider positions really looked okay. Some mods help here again.

Skyrim: just a googled pic, I think one of the presets. A very decent working base, can even be improved. You can make very realistic and good looking characters right out of the box, with upcoming mods I doubt there'll be anything left to be desired anymore.

What else is left to say about the world design? A lot of it is familiar from older Bethesda games but nevertheless great, like the realistic items and loot, the careful design of it, the little physics games. If other companies like Bioware just invested a little percentage of that into their own games (and don't mark everything as "junk" without even using a unique icon), they could improve their games a lot.

Bethesda also improved the NPC behavior quite a bit, their daily routines and reactions to what happens around them is very pleasant to watch (just run a few items over in their home and listen to them complaining). The Witcher is the only game I know that did better on the daily routines, but then again at least Skyrim's NPCs react to stealing in a realistic way and all, something the other game designers constantly forget. In that aspect, Bethesda's games were always well crafted and improve from title to title. Seriously, the world design can't get much better anymore than this.

Okay, now enough of the praise. "Casa", you ask, "where's the stinker? You always complain about something, don't let me down here!"

Why of course, I won't let you down. I'll leave the usual bugs and not-so-great UI design to the others.... The real stinker is the notorious bad writing in Bethesda games. And I don't blame Bethesda alone for this, I also blame you. YOU! Yes, that's right. Because wherever I nag about the writing, people don't seem to care - "It's a sandbox game, I don't expect good writing in one" is a typical reply, or "can't expect Bioware quality" or whatever. I reply: Yes, I expect that, especially in such an ambitious game that focuses so much on the detail in it's general world design. And don't tell me it's not possible - that has already be proven wrong. We'll get to that.

First of, the notorious "Bioware is the holy grail of writing" thing - I disagree. Bioware's stories haven't really improved since Baldur's Gate, and their standard formula is getting quite boring over the time. They still write a lot of dialogue trees, probably more than any other company, right.

Doesn't help with the fact that e.g. Dragon Age 2 was an incredibly boring game. And don't tell me either Mass Effect's or Dragon Age's main plot was anywhere new or exciting. It was just the presentation that made it good. But this is not about the main plot, because as I heard someone say recently - "who cares for the main plot in a Bethesda game? The main point is avoiding it as long as you can so you can explore the world!".

True that, nothing to add, and frankly, the main plot ideas in a Bethesda game were never any worse than Bioware's. No, it's about the small things, the dialogues and persons you meet on your way where Bethesda disappoints so greatly - and sadly, that's exactly the one and only thing that can't be easily fixed by the modding scene.

Now my real problem with Bethesda is that they just don't seem to care, and the best example for this is again companions. No, I don't expect Leliana or Morrigan in a Bethesda game, that's too much to ask for. But Bethesda's games have companions, and their companions have no life, they are simple tools/player slaves without any personality at all. You can give them orders, but you can't even ask them "who are you, what's your story?"
This was already my main problem in Fallout 3 (I never made it far enough in Oblivion to meet a companion, if they even exist), and Skyrim repeats it. Here's the main dialogue from a follower:

And you know what? This is so immersion-breaking for me it ruins my game. Realism (or say, a believable world) is not only nice landscapes, it's the right balance of everything. Bethesda is not Bioware, that's true, but they don't even care, they don't try at all.

And frankly, when I see reviews, comments or some youtube videos, I see that the target group of gamers just doesn't care either, and that's what saddens me most. The whole setting and atmosphere of this game is gritty, realistic, mature, but then they take a whole jump back and make the writing for kids who go on an egoistic power trip only. If you watch some youtube clips about Fallout 3 quests, you usually end up with the kiddo explaining a quest over his headset while running around like on pills, in power armor with a huge cannon... target audience. Doesn't care for dialogue, wants to blow stuffs up.

No exaggeration here on the power trip too, because another problem I had in the game, regarding quests, is that I'm yet again not only the saver of the world, but people fall on their knees again too when I come by and want to make me king of their own little world once I helped them.

I was literally bullied into the leadership of three guilds already, simply because Bethesda apparently didn't expect anyone NOT wanting to lead a guild. I promised my soul to 3 different factions too, simply because I had no choice, and my afterlife won't be pleasant when the werewolves want me here, the Nightingales there, the dragonborns... etc. etc.

Now, the most ridiculous idea Bethesda had was the introduction of in game wedding. This is so sad it's almost funny again. Don't get me wrong, this is not about romances or such - Bioware's romance plots are famous and probably the reason half of their audience still loves them. But what Bethesda did is... sad? I don't know how to put it, let me just explain quickly how it works. You see the above dialogue pic with a follower. Now, if you want a "romance" in game you have to acquire a certain amulet and wear it, which adds another dialogue option:

To which she replies... "I won't lie, I am. And you?" ...

To which she replies: "It's settled then, you and me." Expect a kiss or something? Ha, no no, new quest:

Isn't that romantic? Hand me a tissue... well, the explanation is simple. This is not for the romantic souls among us, it's for the powerplayers who like extras: If your spouse is a shop owner (or opens one), you get extra coins once a day. They cook a meal for you once per day that increases stats (sexism anyone?). Resting in the house you share adds a stat bonus too. Did you expect something like a nice dialogue or a kiss? Well, this is a Bethesda game, go to Bioware, you fool!

In general, during the quests, the story is streamlined like a shooter and often makes no sense at all, I mean, at least give me the option to say "no" sometimes, or let me explain that they can't have my sould because it was promised to someone else already...? What I hate most is not that Bethesda's writing is not up to Bioware's, it's that they don't even give it a try at all. And that's probably because YOU didn't ask for it, but go by the rule "if I want to explore, I play Bethesda, if I want story I play Bioware".

That there's room in between the two has already been proven by Fallout New Vegas, a Bethesda game. That's what makes this story so sad. Yes, the actual developer was Obsidian, using Bethesda's base, and that makes the huge difference. It's still generally regarded as a Bethesda game though, after all it's their logo most present on the box.

I already said it in my Fallout NV post back last December - the combination of those two studios would be ideal and Bethsda should for Christ's sake just buy Obsidian and let them do their writing. Obsidian is the notorious "We are excellent writers but have no clue about artwork" candidate who will probably go bankrupt after the next Alpha Protocol disaster, and Bethesda is the one with breathtaking game design but no clue about writing.

The problem is the gamers: Everyone complained about Obsidian's bad looking games, but nobody complains about Berthesda's non-existant skill in writing.

Anyway, what Obsidian made of the Fallout 3 base is easy to find out on youtube. And just for the record, Fallout 3 companions were exactly the same as in the Skyrim companion pic above.

Now here's as an example the dialogue with Veronica, one of the followers in New Vegas (btw, you Dragon Age 2 nuts, that's Felicia Day too, before Bioware decided to hype her for a mediocre DLC):

Notice something? Like, she talks about herself? Notice the amount of dialogue options you get? Should I continue with the whole questline each follower brings with them and that they never get tired to comment on a situation and are generally available for some small talk? Now, they might not be a Morrigan or a Leliana, and I don't even expect half as much from Bethesda as I expect from Obsidian. But hey, a little bit of life just for immersion? Because what Bethesda does with their companions is honestly an insult to roleplaying. And it completely ruins my immersion and throws me far out of the game. And yeah, it's sad that so few people agree. And it's sad that Obsidian brought the whole Bethesda series of RPGs a huge step forward in that aspect, and Skyrim jumps all the way back again.

Now, there might be hope... at least it can be assumed that Skyrim was already long in the making when Fallout NV came out, it was simply too late and that Bethesda's next RPG might actually be inspired more by Obsidian's writing. For Skyrim there's no hope, maybe for a DLC, and knowing the modding community for Bethesda games I know one thing that they'll never improve is story and dialogues. As sad as it is this is not the NWN modding scene that cares a bit more about things like that. One hope remains, another future cooperation with Obsidian that again gives us (or me) the best from both worlds.

Anyway, even with the huge disappointment on the story side, Skyrim's sure Game of the Year and a must buy. It could just have been even better - if anyone cared.

.. and another laptop post

2011-10-07T15:29:00.002+02:00

No, this is not turning into a hardware blog now, no worries. I don't want to show off my gadgets either, not that the thing up there is one. It's again NWN2 related, trust me. :)

So, what about that lappy up there? Well, it's a cheapo laptop, Europeans will know what Lidl is (a supermarket) and what kind of hardware is sold there. I didn't buy that thing either, my dad did. Unfortunately, my dad passed away early last month and left me with the burden of all his stuff (no sympathies needed, we hadn't much contact, although I'm not exactly happy about the sudden loss).

Well, anyway, that lappy up there was his and it's as good as new since he obviously had no clue how to use it. It's recent enough to be not complete junk too, something like 2008 or so. Well, my first thought was, I don't need it. I already have a lubberlee lappy (see last post) and a big comp for all my stuff, so... sell? It's not worth much, I almost considered giving it away as a gift.
Then it occurred to me... when I was working on Middleforest, wasn't one of my big worries about running a PW having to get a dedicated server? One powerful enough to run the server application, but still with a low power consumption that you can hide away in a corner and forget about? My initial thought was getting a used Mac Mini, but even a used one costs money I usually don't have lying around. So... here's the solution, my new Middleforest dedicated server! Say Hi server!

I already wiped the HD and installed a fresh NWN2, now I'm in the geekish process of reinstalling MySQL and NWNX2. All nothing compared to the router issues I'll have again, I'm sure. Anyway, this takes away a big burden from my past building plans, and I can leave a server up and running for test purposes now while building or playing elsewhere.

I'm still wondering about the specs though and would be interested in what other people with PW experience have used as a minimum server machine for NWN2. This lappy features a Pentium Dual Core T3200 processor at 2.00 Ghz (actually an entry-level Core 2 Duo Merom with no level 3 cache), which I figured should be enough for a server (my thought was that any dual core would do). 2GB RAM might or might not be sufficient (maybe someone has insights?), the HD runs at 5400rpm like most laptop HDs, not sure if this will affect performance. I doubt I'll ever see 20, maybe not even 10 regular players at once, so I doubt I'll need MMO specs. Anyway, if someone has NWN2 server experience or some tips, they'll be welcome.

RIP SJ

2011-10-06T11:12:00.001+02:00

Just reinstalled NWN2 on my beloved little Apple lappy (in Bootcamp, ha!) when I heard the bad news, so yeah, this is NWN2 related.
Goodbye, mister Jobs... thanks for having given me this bedwarmer that still runs my favorite game, and uh...my trusty old iPod. And all that other stuff I used or had to use, including the Microsoft "inventions". ;)
Having used your computers for 14 years and staying updated on any hardware news (even if I couldn't care less about all those gadgets you introduced lately) there was no way around you and it's hard not to be a little sad to see you pass. Even if often I could've sent a bag full of dog turds to your company and many times promised only to build Windows Peecees anymore. Even if I couldn't care less about iPhones as long as they don't run NWN2. Rest in peace old chap.

A late look at Dragon Age 2, part 1: Gameplay, first impressions

2011-08-16T07:46:00.001+02:00

Another month without opening the toolset has passed, and I still can't be bothered. All ideas I had for Middleforest during the past months are so different from what I've done last year that I could as well start building from scratch. But I can't find the energy to do anything NWN2-related lately, not even playing.

Instead I decided to finally give Dragon Age 2 a go. Prices for it fell rapidly and it has now reached the sweet spot where it might not be a complete waste of money anymore (EA seems to think different, they still want €54.99 for it in their Origin store... well, the box is available for below €20 nowadays). Same as with Mass Effect 2 for me really, I didn't expect much from it (still more than from DA2 though), but when it fell below 20 Euros I considered it a fair deal.

So, after all the heat around it's release and my hate-driven review of the demo, has anything changed? Well, for those who don't like my long ramblings and want a short answer... no, not much, my expectations were mostly met. But, I have to admit there were some surprises, even good things, and at one or two points I was even wrong. They won't change much of the conclusion I'm afraid, but maybe they are still noteworthy. Anyway, expect a long, chaotic rant again - even though I made 3 letter-sized pages of notes I'm just blabbering away now. Let's start again with the first impressions and the beginning of the game.

The game and the first bad impression starts, of course, with our default Mr/Ms. Hawke.
Have I already mentioned I hate Hawke? And I mean, really everything about Hawke. For me this person stands for Bioware Mass-Effecting everything, for bad taste and bad name choices, for heroes I can't identify with, bad art design (why the f... would I smear a red dash in my face every morning? It does not look cool, really not!) , bad marketing, I could go on and on. Good, fine, we know all that already, so let's get our medieval Shepard going.

So, we find ourselves in the demo again, been there already. But now I must really ask, why does the character creation come after this intro? That Varric exaggerated the breast size in his story, that joke I got by now (it's not that funny really), but using the same excuse for giving me the default Bioware appearance of Hawke in this first part of the game is a bit far off, don't you think? Anyway, knowing myself and that I probably get bored of a male character after level 3 and start over, I chose a female rogue right away. Shortly after the intro finally the character creation (isn't that the best part of any RPG really?) and I create some Jeanne-D'Arc-style redhead using the new hairstyles I actually like a lot. In fact, I ended up with a Hawke I consider quite an improvement over Dragon Age Origin's looks when it comes to realism, a small positive surprise.

Then comes the attributes and skill trees and.. well. I'm not really sure about it. First off, the classes are a lot more limited than before, and that's a really really bad thing. Why the hell can't a warrior use a bow anymore? Where are the crossbows anyway? Why can't a rogue use a shield? Right... because Bioware has a very clear idea on how these classes should play and don't want you, the player, to experiment. Fine, moving on. The skill trees might be considered an improvement by some, but I kinda liked the old system as well and don't think it's a real improvement, it's just different. What I miss terribly though is rogue skills, conversation skills, the usual Roleplay skills that are probably not of any interest in an action game anymore. WTF happened to lockpick, traps etc? Oh, just raise your Cunning attributes... really.... fascinating.

No, during the first 15 minutes you learn pretty much everything about DA2's new direction, which is clearly, undeniably streamlined action. It's what I expected, yes, and I still hate it, but maybe I'll also find some positive things? First off, I installed that Highres-Texture patch immediately and must say it does make an impressive difference to the very shabby Demo. Impressive does not mean I stare at the screen in awe and drool t the graphics, but at least the game looks much better now. With this patch, the difference between DA2 and Origins is really clear to see and this patch is a must for everyone who cares a bit about atmosphere, really. Why (and if) it requires a graphics card with 1GB memory while other games get the same thing done on much older cards I cannot say, but you definitely don't need DirectX11 to see it. My card doesn't support it.

The next thing is something I only discovered after a little while... how the look of your family depends on your customization of Hawke. Now that's a neat detail! If you look up at the pic, you can see I ended up with a short-haired sister, and if my Hawke was tanned or black, my family would match that look too. Also, the facial structure changes depending on your choices etc. Why they invested that much into realism here and ditched it totally again at other points in the game is beyond me, but at least this little detail I really like.

Anyway, a small detail, but the big first and lasting impression is the really bad general art design. I know I'm repeating myself, but some things can't be said often enough. I really really wonder who the target audience of this game is, because everything I see is all but a "gritty, mature RPG". Origins was neither, but DA 2 makes it worse, last but not least by taking a few of the more interesting characters from Origins and ruining them completely.

Next, of course, the combat animations. "button-awesome" might have that tiny little advantage that your character really react on click, instead of thinking for the long while that usually decides between life and death. But this... this is just cheesy, come on Bioware. Mages might enjoy their characters moving a little more, but how my rogue flies over the battlefield is just not funny anymore. This is for hyperactive kids and as mature as Ronald McDonald, really.

Or how about weapon design? Origins wasn't a prime example of good weapon design already, but this really isn't funny anymore. I'm feeling like playing some Free2Play kiddie JRPG, but clearly not a mature game. At the latest when Fenris with his two-handers comes into play it's time to hit your forehead on the desk, but my rogue daggers are already bad enough. Most of the time in the game I had to search for weapons that don't look totally ridiculous on my character. The standard daggers were okay, I never got to use any unique weapons because I simply couldn't stand their look.
So, for you, Bioware (I know you're not listening, but anyway). Look at the pic below, there's a a really cool badass sword from a mature RPG, and a really cool badass sword from a kiddie game. Where does Dragon Age 2 fit in?

I know this is a matter of taste and artistic style, but in a serious, mature game I expect one, in a kiddie hack&slay game the other version. And now I present you Bioware's own version of the most badass sword in the game!

Nuff said.

At least, and I'm thankful for that, you hid some items for us elderly players deeply, and after I found some normal looking daggers (actually swords, look at the size) and an actually really good looking armor, I was seeing things a little bit milder for the next.. well, one or two levels until the stuff got so old and outdated I couldn't survive with it anymore.

Which brings me to the topic of loot... partly a technical, partly an artistic matter. Technical side: Stuff outdates so fast that unique weapons are really not worth keeping or upgrading anymore. That cool thing you found in the deeproads an hour ago is useless junk now. And speaking of junk... you know, before calling every loot that isn't equipable "Junk", just leave it out right away. This is such an immersion killer, I'd rather have no loot at all than an item with a trashcan icon. Give me coins right away.
You know, I hate excessive looting, but in some of the better games it can be really fun to find out what loot is useful and what not. Maybe it has some secret meaning? Maybe it's a gift? This is one of those "minigames" in a good RPG, think of the flowers or shawls in the Witcher for example that you first toss away as junk until you realize you can finally get a nice lass to do you a favor, or such.
And please, the meaningless gifts that are marked as plot items for companion X right away... I actually liked to see the different reactions by different companions in Origins and finding out who likes what most. I know, that's details you might not care about, but it gives the game dept.

Moving on in the art design, let me show you a few random faces from the endless Hall of Shame:

Is this... an... artistical choice, really? To create such freaks? And what have you done to pretty much everyone's eyes anyway? Replaced with candy? And don't get me wrong, I don't mean the new appearance of elves per se - I'm fine with what you did there, make them less "cute human" and more like a really different species. As long as they look like in that pic below and not like those Playmobil figures up there.... *headdesk*

Oh, oh, oh.... and... what the hell is this?

Yes, that's your low-poly default NPC that simply shouldn't be in this game at all. Really not. Origins didn't have those, do you call that an improvement?

As you can see, I'm getting into a rage again when it comes to Bioware's "artistic choices". But seriously, until now I must've missed that part that makes this game "mature" in it's art design. Oh wait, wait, I got it...

Don't worry about Hawke there, it's just a little scratch and she still kicked those Qunari asses.

Then of course there's the matter of the legendary waves.
Now, the initial idea is not so bad because it can, potentially, add a lot of surprises and variation to combat. Not that I like combat that much, I usually play for the story and combat is an annoyance between the cutscenes. But there can be interesting combat, and Origins had some interesting and very challenging combat scenes at times.... between the tedious long hacking through miles and miles of darkspawn of course.
But as interesting as the potential of waves might be, as poor is the execution. Laidlaw and Co. stated multiple times that they wanted to improve combat because one fan somewhere long ago called Origins' combat boring. Now the improvement is the most tedious clickfest I've had in a long time, maybe comparable to the horribly boring combat in Venetica. It wasn't fun, it was even much more less fun than in Origins because I always knew exactly the next parachutes would come for sure. And boy were they immersion-killing.

Finally, to end this first post about the... what could I call it, main problems, first impressions, overarching issues... the Copy&Paste areas.

Now, when I first read about them I had no idea how bad it actually was, that there was really absolutely no variation at all, that you visited the exact(!) same place a dozen of times and were told "hey, you're wrong, you're in a totally different place now".
Mister Laidlaw said at the Bioware forums that every individual cave or house would take away resources from writing or whatever, but... call me stupid, maybe I'm a n00b to game design and I really only played in NWN2's toolset for a longer time (I tried Bethesda's Eden-thingy briefly and only looked at DA's toolset long enough to figure I hate it), but.... aren't interiors still tilesets, kinda? Can't you click a few tunnels together? How long does it take me to make a simple interior for NWN2? An hour? If it's not that easy, how hard can it be to change at least the lighting, drop a few placeables to change the look, whatever? But reusing the exact same area... There's no excuse. It only proves, just like a lot of other things in DA2, that whatever Bioware says they had NOT enough time, or were lazy as hell. And they can't sell me on the argument that a simple cave would've taken too much effort. Clicking together a basic cave from your existing tiles or prefabs is the easiest thing, and if it's not, then your game base has serious issues and you should consider a new Engine or whatever.

Enough nerdrage. In the next part I'll look at the story, companions and all that and see if I can dig out some of the nicer details. But one thing before I go - a proof that Dragon Age can look quite okay at times. The few exteriors aren't so bad. They have decent texturing, a sky that outshines Origins easily and I would've liked to see that quality standard throughout the game really.

Casa update and a quick look on the Dungeon Siege III demo

2011-07-03T22:06:00.002+02:00

Hi there, long time no see!

I guess I owe the few people who read this a little apology again for the silence. But when I check other blogs, I think I'm not the only one who's sometimes thrown out of the loop by reality.

Middleforest has been a little silent lately, especially since last winter. As fruitless as my toolset work was my custom content work too, and on Blender I completely gave up, call it a burnout if you wish, because it was. In real life I was completely burnt out too, which is nothing new. But it got worse and worse since last winter, so I took a little vacation, or should I say, it was suggested to me to take some time off out of town, which I did. Why am I telling you people this? Well, I think I'm not the only one in this rather nerdy circle who's been "under the weather" quite a lot, and I know how much it takes to admit that you need to be taken out, nursed and pampered for a while. Even though I panicked at first at the thought, it was good and I'd do it again anytime. The first week out there was the best week I had in the last two years, which means a lot, and in the end I came back with a lot of positive thoughts and insights - like, apparently you have to go to a place like that to finally meet people as normal as you. Anyway, that much about my long silence. And if you ever thought about doing something similar and have doubts - just do it, it's good.

Anyway, nobody there told me that gaming is bad, isn't that great? I even spoke about my favorite Dammendrech character once and it was quite interesting, I never got an odd look. The task is just finding a good balance between the hobby and real life, and not fleeing into some dreams all the time because you can't face reality anymore. And one thing I promised myself for the first week back home was playing my games until I fall from my chair.

Now that I'm here that's a little bit harder than I thought, I can't decide which one to play first! So what I did was starting with something easy, grabbing the Dungeon Siege III demo on Steam and have a look what Obsidian did this time. And I must say, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm not going to review it, just some quick notes on my first impression really.

So, Dungeon Siege III is of course not the latest great AAA title, neither were the first and second part. I only played the first part once, around the same time I discovered Neverwinter Nights 1. And while NWN1 was the much better game with a more interesting story, Dungeon Siege was still a fun casual RPG that was actually nicer looking in many parts. I also liked the lack of load screens...

Anyway, Obsidian making the third part meant to me "oh, it must look shitty and run like crap, but maybe it has a story now!". I can't really compare the games anymore since DS1 was too long ago, but that much stuck. In a review I've found a few weeks ago the usual Obsidian failures were mentioned again: Aging graphics, robot-like animations, horrible controls. Nothing surprising. Anyway, demo time.

Firing it up, it actually doesn't look so bad at all, and the first positive thing I noticed was that a simple assistant for gamma correction was actually forced on me, which was quite good because it helped the atmosphere later a lot. And of course I immediately raised the graphics options to as pretty as possible.

First thing you notice when playing the game is that you can't create a character. Sad, but at least you can choose from a few, which is already more than a Geralt (no customization at all) or a Hawke (looks only). The demo includes two characters, a male warrior and that female fire chick... guess which one I choose.

Now, that character looks actually... okay. You don't have the wonderful customization of a Dragon Age and it looks a little bit dated, more like Neverwinter Nights 2 actually than a 2011 game, but.... it's not ugly, I can live with the lack of realism. Then comes the intro and the first thought of course is "oh, hello Dragon Age". But, it's actually, and here we have a debut for Obsidian, a really good looking intro, rip-off or not.

So, has Obsidian maybe worked on the art department? Some new artists maybe, even though they had to fire employees lately? Good move, after the horrible New Vegas intro it was time to ring some changes! And furthermore, it was an intro I actually listened to - in most games I actually forget it the second it was told.

What comes next is a quick tutorial on how to move and do stuff while you run to your first objective. One word.... clunky. This is truly a console game, moving is no fun and hitting number keys for special moves extremely unfriendly to PC users. But: The game runs smooth! How can it be? It runs as smooth as Dragon Age! Not even my graphics card's fan going crazy like in a 5yr old NWN2! And what can I say... the graphics aren't half as horrible as I thought. No, it looks just "classic". No hyper-realistic, high-resolution textures and polygons up the limit, but the game does not look shabby at all. It reminds me positively of the old Dungeon Siege game which were simply nice looking without being fancy. And this is where I need to give Obsidian many cudos now: They actually managed to do some good area design! Yes it's simple, yes it's dated, but so was Dragon Age 2, an AAA title. And what can I say, this game is just much better looking. Because believe it or not, Obsidian got the atmosphere right!
Yes, I fell from faith too, but I really like the darkness, the autumn colors, the simple but efffective placeables. The game might look like from 2006, but at least it looks good. See...

Early in the demo you have to fight your way through a burning house. I say, this looks nice!

I really liked these candles too.

A forest road. Warm autum colors, nice tree shadows, and trees that remind me of the Neverwinter Nights 1 forest tileset - you know, where you never see the trees in a whole. I still miss that badly in NWN2

A lake in the forest, texturing is simple but effective, again reminding me of the old Dungeon Siege in comparison with NWN1

A village, not fancy but atmospheric enough. NPCs actually move around and even sweep the floor. Not as nicely looking as in the Witcher and often cloned too, but... again better than the NPCs in a certain AAA game released not long ago.

Last but not least, some more mechanical stuff. Bioware set a standard with the dialogue wheel now and everyone has to do it, but, again, I think Dungeon Siege III makes it a little better and not as idiot-proof as Dragon Age with it's stupid icons. I can live with this.

The dialogues are very static, instead of making horrible animations like usual, Obsidian wisely decided to better not even try it, so these guys don't emote at all and there's nothing like a real cutscene with camera turns. Not good, but in Obsidian's case better than ruining the whole thing with embarrassing emotes. It's okay, guys, you've learned. :)

Okay, that much on the atmosphere, and that's why I even bother to talk about Dungeon Siege III. We all know this is an Action RPG that is mainly about looting and killing hordes of stuff, and it's also really a console game frustrating to play on a PC without a game controller. But, in Obsidian's favor I just have to say that I can see some big improvements here: The general atmosphere is well done, the game ran incredibly smooth and, who knows, maybe even Dungeon Siege got an interesting story now, because that's what Obsidian can do.

Might buy it someday once it's cheap. :)

Ah, finally...

2011-03-30T21:08:00.002+02:00

I've really been waiting for this.

The Escapist : Zero Punctuation : Dragon Age II

Death and the Maiden

2011-03-27T04:55:00.020+02:00

A picture-heavy review.

Bored, uninspired, still unhappy about Dragon Age 2? What a good time to play some other game again! Speaking of DA2: More action, more responsive combat with less tactics, no isometric camera, a dialogue wheel, a set character, a city adventure, dumbed down roleplay, more console style: here's my bridge, because today's excursion will feature all that. Is it good too? Let's see. Well, Ben suggested not long ago I should review more games, and actually it might be fun to do that. But who needs the 520th review of DA2 right now? Why not take a look at one of the overlooked "B-Movies" before moving to the next blockbuster?

Let me introduce you to Scarlett.

Actually, they could've named her Ceira Nighty or Sheera Squirely too, for obvious reasons, but away with that. Scarlett is the heroine in Deck 13's 2009 RPG debut Venetica, and we'll guide her through the game (which is nowadays available for a bargain). The plot line is quickly told:

Scarlett is an orphan who grew up with her aunt and half-brother Leon in a picturesque little mountain village near Venice. She has a goodie-two-shoes boyfriend called Benedict. We start the game in a little tête-à-tête with Benny in a corner of said village, but good gracious! Assassins attack the village and kill poor Benny! Drama time, revenge time!

Scarlett then finds out her real daddy is Death himself and that she has the power to travel the realms of the death, sort of a spiritual parallel dimension. Daddy Death tells Scarlett that she's the only person who can stop the corrupt and, good gracious, undead(!) council of Venice from taking over the world. Of course Scarlett accepts the task, whether for her dad or for revenge or for Benedict or for her own power, that's one of the first choices we as a player can make for the lass.

Death and the maiden - meeting daddy

But game mechanics first. Obviously, Venetica is a much more cartoonish game than the other RPGs we usually talk about. It's fortunately not cartoonish in a J-RPG style, otherwise I wouldn't have touched it in the first place. No, actually the style is not uncommon in many adventure games, I'd almost call it quite typical for German point&click adventures. Generally, this doesn't hurt, in Scarlett's case it's actually pretty well done, and the area design is in most cases very well done too.

Scarlett is a very likable designed character. She's cute, but not your usual RPG amazon with huge curves pressed into a chainmail bikini. Even though the armors she'll get during the game are usually quite "light", there's no point where she deserves a sexist stamp or the like. No, actually she's a character a teenage girl would probably like to play, not the dream of a male gamer.

NPCs though, here the cartoonish style is sometimes a little too much. Some look good, some look a little too weird really. Doesn't hurt too much, but it's a style I'm usually not too fond of. You'll see more in later screenies.

But let's stay with the mechanics first. Venetica is labeled as a RPG, so we should find some RPG elements, right? Lessee.

Here we see the main character screen. As you can see, this is very simple. We have just 4 main stats to put points into, and actually I never got deeper into this than keeping them mostly on the same level. Let's not be rude, but... let's call it an alibi system.

On top of that character sheet you can see some tabs, half of them are currently hidden: On the left we have a few inventory tabs - one for serious stuff (weapons, armor), one for various junk we find and usually either consume or sell, one for quest items. On the right side we have our skills tabs. Oh, and as you can see there's a little icon on the right which shows the time of the day.

Above you see the skill trees, on the left physical skills (weapon stuff), on the right mental skills (majicks etc.). Each of these trees must be unlocked first by visiting a teacher. Or, in case of the mental skills, visiting the realms of the death by using certain portals we find during the game and meeting the spirit of our beloved Benny who teaches us stuffs.

On every level up you get 3 points to spend on character stats (strenght, wisdom etc.) plus the game auto-assigns a few. And you get 20 skill points to spend each level, where 1 skill increase costs 10 points each. Why they didn't simply make them cost 1 point and give the player two points to spend each level is beyond me.

One of the main problems with the game and the interface is actually visible right in this screen already: The quickbar. You have 10 quickslots there and nothing more. Well, actually you have 10 quickslots for each of the 4 different weapons you'll use in the game, but still, in most cases you'll want most of the skills to be available regardless what weapon you use (i.e. all the magic stuff). There's not enough space! You'll have to choose your favorites and forget the others, because outside the quickbar, there's no way to activate them. Sheesh.

Okay, I mentioned 4 weapons, so let's go to fighting stuffs. Throughout the game we'll ony use melee weapons and some majicks. Nothing ranged but spells. The 4 weapon types are:

The Moonblade: A special blade to cut through things that would not die to an earthly blade, mainly undead and demons. Very quick and effective, but does't shed out as much damage as the other weapons.
Sword. The Earthly blade. Quick and probably the most used weapon because it works in most situations.
Spear and shield: Good to block aggressors and counter-attack, but I rarely used it. The giant shield looks funny on lil' Scarlett too.
The hammer/axe. Now that's actually a fun weapon, or let's say Venetica has introduced a new über-weapon. First, of course, this is the weapon you'd least expect on a tiny little lass like Scarlett, but let's put realism aside - This weapon is much slower than the rest, and when Scarlett swings it, you sometimes think "hope she doesn't fall back over", you can really feel the weight. Enemies also have good opportunities to rip you to shred while you try to lift that darn thing. But once it falls down on them, it's like an earthquake, deals massive damage, knocks them back and on the ground, a final swing does the rest. Oh, and you can also bash some wooden doors with it you can't enter otherwise.

Right, that's the theory, now how does fighting work? Well, Consoleros, your turn! Fast and furious of course! Hitting stuff is done by clicking the mouse like crazy... actually, there's a system behind it, the good old chain of attacks we know from other games. Click at the right moment, get a 2nd, more powerful swing in, and so on. You can also block attacks, just as your enemy can, and then, you have to move constantly, by rolling out of their way.

Now, the rolling can actually be a little tedious. You certainly have to get used to it during the first hours. It's done by hitting the movement key (wasd) and the space bar simultanously. In some cases, especially when Scarlett is in big trouble, that darn combination refuses to work. Also, tight spaces and the camera can get you into big trouble here. There's always a last way to escape though - later.

Anyway, the rest of the fight is just a chain of attacks with fancy weapon trails and stuffs.

In the pic you see the glow around Scarlett's sword hand - that indicates it's time for another click to finish the chain of attacks. No worries though, just crazy blind clicking will get you there too, this part is not rocket science.

Boss fights are a bit trickier than normal ones. Most of the times, they come as a riddle. The big guy is usually out of your reach until you find a way to hurt him or her with trickery, like... having something collapse or bring down stuff they use against you. Direct attacks mostly do nothing.

Once the big guy is down, there's the problem that the big guy is usually an undead, a necro, who refuses to die just like that. So we get sucked into daddy's realm of the dead and face the spirit of that boss, usually a pretty ugly monster:

These guys usually need a certain tactic to bring them down, mostly it's about dodging their attacks, then find the right spot and the right timing, which is again sort of a small, but simple riddle. In some cases though it turned out to be a little messy, and especially the very first boss fight took me a while to figure out.

What should be mentioned here is that the fights are absolutely bloodless. Yes, dear Americans, this is a German game and you know how the silly Krauts deal with violence in games. No blood, nuh-uh, not a drop. But this game is rated 12+ in it's own country, and in Germany teenagers may be allowed see a nipple, but surely no guts and severed limbs.

Now, this doesn't hurt the action much, although there were several cutscenes where it was surely wrong. Sorry, but when I see a sword being poked through a man's chest, I expect blood. Not a fountain of blood like in Dragon Age, that's just as silly as none at all. But some blood. However, let's just go with "this is a teen game" and live with it.

Matter of taste or cultural differences - what's sillier, huge blood fountains or no blood in an obviously bloody situation? Get real....

Now, the little extra element they threw in here to spice things up is "The Passage". As I said, Scarlett can hop into the realm of the dead, sort of a parallel dimension. During fights, where this is often her emergency exit when things get nasty, this has a similar effect as the "Hide in Plain Sight" feat in D&D. You pop out of existence, the enemy stashes his weapons and ignores you while you move to a save position, reposition for a surprise attack or heal yourself up. You can only stay in the passage for some limited time though, then you're kicked back into reality.

But that's not all about the Passage. The Passage also reveals hidden things to you, like some secret portals, or dead people. So let's hit the quickslot icon...

Zoom. Reminds a little of Mask of the Betrayer's shadow plane, maybe. In front of us a hidden portal is revealed, the bar below tells us how long we can remain hidden.

Throughout the game, you can sometimes hear a certain buzzing sound in corners, at walls, etc, that' the sign a portal might be nearby and you can hit the shortcut. And yes, deaf and hard hearing people might have a problem here. Now, where this skill shows a little more potential is around dead people....

In the upper screenie I combined a before/after situation. You find a skelleton and can't help but notice it's shadow is moving! Gasp! Let's enter The Passage and see what's going on. Oh, aha! Deader walking around, let's talk to him and see what he's doing here. Sometimes they tell us their story of their fate, give us an item or whatever. Neat idea, huh?

Ah, yes.... behind the skellie we see a chest. Of course we'll also have to loot a lot in this game. And oh my, some chests are locked! Now, sadly we have a very basic roleplay system here and never take any skills in that direction. But fret not! Help is on the way. In the beginning of the game we meet two brothers who will... soon after... cease to exist. Poor souls. But wait! Their ghosts stay with Scarlett to assist her, phew. So, when we come to a locked door or chest, this will pop up:

As you can see, there are four lockpicks in different colours. The two now hit them in a certain combination, we have to watch and then just repeat the pattern. Easy? Well, sometimes. A combination of 4 is kids stuff, but a combination of 8 sometimes requires a good sip of coffee. It's a good indicator to tell you when to stop playing - if you fail 3 times in a row it's time to go to bed. Now, to get the basics done, a final look at the interface:

This is Scarlett about to attack someone. In the upper left you see the status stuffs. Red is her hitpoints, blue her mental energy (let's call it "Mana"). The circle of 5 violet elements is her... well, what's it called... death energy? This could be called her "lifes". When an enemy brings her down, it's not completely game over, no, she enters the passage and can flee or reposition etc. She has 5 chances to do so until that energy is gone and we hit "game over". This energy can be refilled by killing stuffs with the Moonblade, which happens rather quick. This makes the fights rather easy in most cases.

In the center you see her current level and how close she's to the next one.

On the upper right you see the minimap. This is quite useless, and especially the option to mark a quest from the journal on the minimap is utterly useless, you never see it until you open the big map anyway. And then there's the small day/night icon. Then we have the quickbar, oh right, and the enemy status bar. The quickbar, by the way, is not clickable - you never see your mouse cursor in the game. Instead, you have to hit the appropriate number key on the keyboard.

What this screenshot also reveals is another flaw of the game: Tricking the rather stupid enemy AI. As you can see, there are 4 guys there but only one status bar is shown. That's because the other three are out of perception range. "What, but they're right in front of you!" you might say. well, they're wearing shades or something. In this case only the one with the status bar will come over and attack Scarlett. Easy way to decide a fight for us. The worst: In a large, open area like this, you can often simply backroll a lot and they will stop chasing you after a while. Then you can single one out again.

Call it cheating, or the only tactical element in this game.

Enough about fighting. The last crucial element in the game mechanics are of course the dialogues. So let's take a quick look at them:

Lolwut? Innit a dialogue wheel? Aye, 'tis. You get a short summary of the flavor and Scarlett does the rest for you! The options are pretty much the same as you know them from Mass Effect, Dragon Age 2 etc, and in most cases it's obvious, sometimes even marked "oocly" in which direction this will go.

Sooo.... let's actually go into game and look around a bit! The world we're about to explore is basically just Venice, our mountain village and a short trip to Africa. Most of the game takes us through the quarters of Venice.

Our journey takes us from our home in the mountains over the shoreline to the Outer City, where we can get warm with the city, learn the basic rules and do our first quests that bring us into the inner quarters eventually. Each of these parts is filled with quite a few sidequests and always a mass of people who want to kill us, obviously. And at this point it's hard to find a way to keep this review organized, because the ups and downs come so damn fast. Maybe I should just sum up the ups first by describing how we travel and what we see.

Let's first note that the game (this is game version 1.02) appears to run very smooth and bug-free (a few remain, that'll come).

Even though the style is cartoonish and the game certainly not made to impress with next-generation graphics, the (somewhat low-poly, mind you!) areas are mostly very atmospheric and nicely done. The simpler areas, let's say, caves, interiors, mountain paths etc. all have a very nice feel to it that makes it easy to get immersed even though they're all but realistic. The small forest area for example would show Dragon Age how a forest is done properly while keeping things simple. There's not much detail, not much effect, but most areas are spot on, mainly due to good lighting.

Here's a very simplistic, and yet effective enough forest area.

Same goes for interiors. A tavern in an old windmill at the shore. What I like is that the mechanics on the wall and the millstone "table" slowly rotate. Simple, but hey, why doesn't NWN2 feature stuff like that? Details that help immersion. And how does this tavern look outside?

Not the only time the area design is going for extremes, and it's indeed quite impressive. When we turn around we catch the first view on the city:

Well, after a while we get there, and in Venice more picturesque areas wait to be explored.

Canals, lots of them. Actually, after exploring this city I get so many ideas I want to rebuild Rungholt again. And look how we move around, not only by running through the streets, but also swimming the canals searching for entrances to the sewers, or climbing up on the rooftops...

Swimming, climbing... boy, do I miss these two in NWN2. Scarlett by the way always cuts a good figure, in contrary to some much larger scale productions (I mean you, Obsidian!) She always has cute and appropriate animations.

And as if this wasn't enough, the Arsenal district rewards us with extremes again.

This is high on top of the Arsenal district, yes, Scarlett climbed all the way up on her own, even fighting lots of bad guys on the way.

And the reward on top of the district is a neat little sailor's pub that has yet again one of those simple but spot-on interiors.

The docks district again is one of those you want to print out and put into a frame.

Now, what I didn't show you up there is the excursion to Africa. Actually, I did... in that screenshot presenting the main interface and an encounter. Not much to see there, you say? Well, actually, the whole Africa level looks like it was quickly dropped into the game. The exteriors are boring, simple and look more like Tomb Raider 3 or the like. Really nothing impressive, no need to show a screen (we already have enough, don't we?)

Also, not every interior looks as good as the two I've picked out up there, most are quite boring. What needs to be noted though, there's still variation, they're not all copy/paste. What I also liked was the staircases and that the rooms were often more cramped than the over-dimensioned interiors in NWN(2) or the like.

Speaking of rooms, did I mention resting? Aye, you need to do that too, and you need to find a bed to do so. Thumbs up, I always hated the stupid "sit down for 5 seconds" in other RPGs.

The resting is pretty much like in the Witcher or Fallout 3 etc., you choose the time you want to wake up at on a small day/night cycle thingy. What confuses a bit though is that this thingy never shows you the current time, another (minor) flaw.

Let me sum up the positive impressions I've had quickly:

A very likable main character
a "different approach"
Many beautiful smaller areas
some cinematic exteriors
Nice variation in areas with some welcome surprises (suddenly you're part of a pirate crew for a quick sidetrip etc.)
Good ideas to spice up gameplay, like the passage and it's secrets
Unique, different style (in some parts a negative too, but I'll add that to the plus list)
Smooth gameplay with few bugs
Small, likable details and ideas or just their execution. A minor thing, but I liked the lamp you have to refill with fishoil, for example.
Climbing, swimming, walking on rooftops
Puzzling areas - often you see that chest right over there, but how to get there... where's the ladder, where the door...
The feel of the hammer, heh.

But let's get serious here, somewhere in all that beauty must be something that stinks, huh? Well, let's take a quick look at some reviews. Let's keep in mind here this is not an AAA production but a debut, so magazines were probably not paid big $ for a good rating and all that...

The biggest German mags said:

Gamestar: 83% ("fascinating story, great quests, charming heroine")
PC Games: 79% ("surprisingly good, tight atmosphere, not very challenging for RPG veterans"

I usually put more trust in the Gamestar, its the more "mature" magazine of the two and usually meets my own tastes better.

But let's see international reviews:

Metacritic: 61 (oops), User score 7.7
IGN: 60 ("If you don't expect much from it, you'll have a pretty good time with Venetica. However, without the patience to figure out quests and gameplay elements on your own, you'll end up incredibly frustrated.")
PC Gamer UK: 60 ("The shallow mechanics and technical problems make this one to avoid at full price")

Now what's going on here, Casa asks when first reading that? The usual obviously - cultural differences! What else...

The logic: Look at the huge differences of reviews of whatever European game that hits the US market. Usually, I don't give a shit. America loves D&D and candy, Europe likes dark and gritty, and so on. These differences exist and they show in Reviews. Germany for example just luvs those strategy games like Anno, Settlers and the like, those are selling much better here than over in the US. Did you know that games like Risen come in two versions for both markets, one in dark and greyish colours as intended for the European audience, one more colorful and bright for the US market? Hell, even printer and scanner drivers do that, auto-correction of your Epson/Canon/etc driver delivers different results in America than it gives in Europe. Over here, we loved the Witcher to bits, in the US the reviews were much more lukewarm. Not to mention nipples and guts, hehe. Someone stop me from ranting on and on...
So anyway, that's what I thought when I grabbed Venetica. Trust my game mag, don't mind the silly murcans.

Boy, was I wrong.

"What", you say, "after this giant intro up there and all the shiny pics?"

Well, the point is that I'm incredibly frustrated about the failure of this game. Because, you can see the potential. It has great ideas, great area design and all that. The combat isn't great, in fact it's tedious, but the system works at least, kind of.

The actual bugs in the game are tiny, I've found just a handful that stood out, most of them minor glitches like...

... some items floating in the air where they don't belong (couple of times, maybe 5). A missing floor texture there, just 1. Africa featured more, an example is that relic of something I destroyed long ago, but that wouldn't go away. In Africa I also saw people walking in the air, which again makes me believe that the whole level was rushed in for whatever reason, as a filler.

So, where are the big failures? Let's make a list.

Controls. It took me long to get used to the key combos. Sometimes I wish all RPG makers could just agree on one standard, like WASD for movement already is. I constantly hit the wrong key because it's mapped to a different one in most other games. The space key dodge often failed for me, and I often was dead before I found the right number key for a quickslot - I'm just used to click my quickslots, dammit! That's something I never got used to in the whole game.
Encounters. The variation is... wait, rephrase, there's no variation. You have like... 10 different things to kill or so throughout the game, plus bosses of course. Most of the levels you only face one and the same type over and over again. Example: All the way from your home to Venice you only run into busloads of always the same assassins. They all look the same, do the same, always come in pairs, and sometimes you run into a boss Assassin. In Venice the same goes on with first Rogues, then Marauders, later some African warriors and Necromancers. Always the same scheme, always a busload, never some variation. The most tedious quest was when I came back to my home and was greeted by "Necros all over the place", then I had 30 necromancers to search and destroy. The only type of Demon you find is called "Lector" and easy prey.
Loot. While I like games that don't spam the player with über-items, some variation or something of interest would certainly be welcome. That keeps people going, you know. Nothing in this game. Only junk you sell for money, mostly ducats and some jewelry. Looting is tedious and uninteresting, even in the most well hidden place with a well-locked chest you only find boring things, nothing that makes you think "oh cool, I want to try this out!"
Weapons and armor. Boring too. As for armor, there is no variation. The game features exactly 6 for specific purposes. Scarlett gets exactly 1 casual outfit that does nothing but look nice, exactly 1 leather armor that offers basic protection against everything, exactly 1 plate and exactly 1 dress with magic protection. Those are the basics, then come two more armors I found throughout the game. As for weapons, there is more variation, but basically the only difference is that one does more damage than the other. Again, no brain computing time wasted on what to use, you pick the one that hits hardest and done. All these but junk weapons from enemies are available at stores, nothing that makes looting more interesting.
Character design. I mentioned it before, in some cases the cartoonish style is very fine, it certainly doesn't hurt Scarlett, but some PCs are totally over the top. Actually, some are again good over the top, like the very fat citizens. But the quality ranges from "funny" over "pretty" down to "terribad". Especially the waves of enemies don't look very cool, for sure not scary. Many of the male citizens or merchants feature a certain german casual game cartoon style that makes me cringe.
Sound. I usually don't mind sound in games much. I play with a simple, cheap 2.1 setup and onboard sound on my comp, never use headphones and don't care for cinematic surround stuff at all. But in this case actually some sound effects seriously bothered me, by being too "cheap effective". It's hard to explain. Maybe you know the NWN toolset and the sound effects you can choose for an area, like "Hallway" and the like that adds a big echo. Those are usually way over the top and I rarely ever made use of them. Well, in this game they did, and often it bothered me. Other than that, voice acting (Scarlett) and music was okay.
Puzzles. The first time I found one I actually thought "hey, nice, hope there'll come more interesting ones too". There didn't. Hit four items in a specific order. That's it. Everywhere.

Now, let me catch breath. All that doesn't necessarily make a bad game. At least not for me. There are die-hard mechanics freaks who put a game to the trash as soon as the combat isn't to their liking, but I can forgive. Sheez, speaking of repitive combat, just look at the Witcher's Drowners or Dragon Age's hordes of Darkspawn. Venetica might be a "little" more repitive than that, but I can forgive, as long as the story catches me.

Fail.

Really, I don't know where to start. It's not the main plot idea, no no... show me one good RPG that doesn't come with a cheesy main plot (don't come with Mass Effect now, haha...). No, it's the execution that fails right from the beginning. And yet all the opportunities are there, dammit! We have a likable charming girl that is sent on a big mission, and the first impression is "I like her, let's get going". All about this character is perfectly okay. Even the start with the dead lover is believable and something you usually don't see in a game - Bioware would throw 8 potential lovers at you to choose from (including bi, gay, straight and probably a hermaphrodite) instead of taking away the only one right in the beginning, without a replacement.

But the whole world around Scarlett just fails to add immersion or any kind of dramaturgy completely. There's an ugly aunt and a "who the fuck is this?" half-brother and you're told that Scarlett has a strong bond to them, while you just have no idea what to do with them altogether. Your half-brother is an obvious asshole, but Scarlett (contrary to the player) always seems to care about him, just that you sit there and say "why the hell is she friendly to that douchebag?". All the NPCs right from the beginning are life- and characterless and you feel absolutely nothing for them.

Your two ghost friends (the lockpickers): You meet them still alive, exchange a few words that are maybe supposed to be funny, but... not really. Soon after they die. Scarlett reacts as if they were old friends, big drama, but you just sit there and shake your head because you, as a player, have known these guys for like two minutes in which they failed to impress.

Throughout the game you never actually meet a character you care for, and honestly, that's a huge element that keeps other games going. Companions, for example... but oh, we have no companions, we always travel alone. Other NPCs like main quest givers? No personality. Often they talk more out than in character anyway. None of them is touching, spikes even a minor interest. Most don't even make sense.

Which brings me to absolutely horrible quest design. Most are "go there, bring that". Some are so completely unlogical I can only "headdesk". Invade home of necromancer who's supposed to help Scarlett. Necromancer says "Who are you? I don't know you, I don't trust you. BUT, if you go out and join one of the three city guilds, I might trust you. Come back when you joined a guild". I'm sorry, but quests like these (and this is not an exception, it's the rule) deserve the worst possible rating in any review.

Then we have the exact same quest in multiple locations. Venice, Outer City: "Go to the Outer City catacombs, kill Gribbler queen for a reward". Later we go to the Inner City... "Go to the Inner City catacombs, kill Gribbler Queen for a reward".

At other points there's obvious Out of Character knowledge on all sides involved in the quests, etc. etc. etc. It's annoying, it's frustrating, because this is the exact thing that brought the whole game down completely.

The main plot is just the same.... there's no dramaturgy, never does the player get the feeling there's any urgency or pressure. At some points the music raises and for some reason Scarlett cries out "NOooooooo", that's the point where the player wakes up, looks around and figures something must've happened. Then the player wonders for a moment why the lass made such a big deal of it and keeps going, bored as usual.

As much as I hate to admit it, there's a review on metacritic by "Absolute Games" which gave Venetica a measly score of 44, but is right on spot:

"Despite the picturesque sights of the fictional Venice, Venetica is bleak and mediocre in everything, from two-bit quests and meager weapon selection to tiresome combat. Don't expect proper character development, because there are only four stats, two of which are health and mana. Don't expect colorful characters, because the entire city went through a copier two or three times. Don't expect brain-teasing puzzles, because there is only one variety: "Push four buttons in a correct order"."

All the game-mechanical issues away, I could still enjoy this game if it had proper storytelling. If there were people in it I cared about. If I could at least care about Scarlett who has the potential, but that is taken down completely by the uninspired, dumb world around her. Which means the life in the world. The areas are often wonderful, the world is there, just the people living in it is where the development process of this game obviously stopped. It's a crying shame because you can see the potential everywhere, but nothing of it was fleshed out, and the storytelling fails completely.

Now If I could just figure out where Gamestar saw a 83 score there... although, if they gave Venetica 83, I can easily see where the 87 for DA2 came from.

But fascinating story? I'm sorry, if a game magazine found a "fascinating story" in this game, they are completely out of there.

Sad, sad. Casa would give.... well, that would mean agreeing on a scoring standard. If I go with the big players who shed out high eighties to a Dragon Age 2, I'd go with something like the Metacritic average. On a personal scale from 1 to 10 the 5 is hardly scratched. I cannot recommend it to any serious RPer as more than an inspiration for building. Kids might enjoy it still, and this is one game kids can safely play, rest assured. Maybe they can live with the big flaw of the story and just enjoy some repetitive hack and slay in nice areas.

But for me.... Next time a blockbuster again, maybe?

Some more DA2 thoughts

2011-03-17T19:38:00.003+01:00

Gotta love the blogosphere and the Bioboards these days. My my, emotions are cooking. Now, the main reason I waste some more time on the topic is hearing the same line over and over again:

"You are not entitled for an opinion unless you played the whole game"

Yo. That's my favorite. So, I want to let the developer and the publisher know that I don't like the current development by... actually buying the product? That's great thinking, really. After all, the publisher is only interested in sales. If a game sells good, it's a proven success, all the whining on the internet by disillusioned fans means absolutely nothing at all, as long as the product sells. Geddid? Is it that hard to understand? Do I need to buy the Farming Simulator 2011 too and play it from A to Z before I'm allowed to say "that's not my kind of thing"? And will anybody care once I've paid the money for it?

See, Dragon Age 2 might've caused a huge controversy, but yet again everyone buys it anyway, it's on top of the gaming charts. The only thing we as players can do to change their ways of thinking is to vote with our money, if we don't like the current development and want to change it, we don't buy, it's simple like that. Once we buy, nobody cares anymore what we write about it on the boards and blogs. Conclusion: I don't buy it, period. If someone gave me a copy to play and change my mind, sure, I'm open, but Bioware won't send me a copy and I'm not going to pirate that thing either to review it, so that's how it is. Now, the real question is, am I really not able to judge the game at all, because I don't own it? Let me recap the development from my personal view...

1. Mass Effect: I liked it. For it's presentation, not really the storyline. In all honesty, I've heard so much praise about Mass Effect's storyline, but for me it was the first time Bioware's storytelling started to annoy me a little. I thought it was stereotypical and aimed at a playerbase who still wet their pants about Star Trek-like honor and pride stories. However, presentation was cool.

2. Dragon Age Origins: I loved it. It had it flaws, I wrote about them, but it was still great. Again, it was not the storyline but the way it was told, the characters, and, that's a main point for me, in contrast to Mass Effect the feel of a real RPG with free character creation, all these Origin stories etc. More about that later.

3. DA2 announcement... Boy, that was fast. How much quality can DA2 have after such a short development? Remains to be seen.

4. Hawke. Okay, that was the first real downer for me. I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY HAWKE! I want to play my own personality. Shephard was enough, geddid? It's cool, have one game series with a set main character, but hell, leave me my choice in the other game, like you already DID in part 1. And why not? Only for the reason that some kids need a voiceover? I don't need a voiceover, quite the contrary. I want something left for my imagination! And that's where the dumbing down process starts. I actually wanted to write a whole post just about how a set character or a voiceover alone dumbs down a RPG, but it's not always as easy as that. To make it short, it depends on the game, and in Bioware's case it's generally not my thing. I generally prefer to play my OWN character, that's what makes a classic RPG for me. Playing Shepherd or Hawke is not giving me the feeling this is my adventure, it's the feeling like playing Bruce Willis through Die Hard and make decisions for him. The voiceovers are not what I'm saying deep inside that character, it's what the actor I'm giving commands to says, especially because the voiceover leaves nothing to my imagination anymore. To make it short, it's a different kind of RPG, and DA turned from RPG type one (classic) to RPG type 2 (uh... modern? Console? *shrugs*)

5. Dragon Effect. That dialogue wheel is not the greatest invention in gaming history! STOP F...ING using it in every game just because Mass Effect was a success. It didn't make Alpha Protocol a winner, and it doesn't make Dragon Age 2 a winner. Not even in Mass Effect it's cool to hear Shephard say some idiotic line you totally didn't intend to say, but hey, in Mass Effect the dialogue wheel has been sort of... part of the series, you got used to have it in THAT game. Do I want it in every other game too now, do I think it's an improvement for all RPGs just because Mass Effect was an okay game? No, for sure not. Mass Effect wasn't great because it had a dialogue wheel, so stop treating that dumb thing like the holy grail of all future RPGs. It's not, it's a Mass Effect thing and it should remain in that game.

6. Mass Effect 2. More of the same. Honestly, what's the big deal... it played faster than part 1, more action, less clutter, amazing... Maybe it was better than part 1, I honestly can't say. It was quite enjoyable, I admit, but it was play and forget, and a refined repetition of the same Bioware formulas. First time actually I wasn't interested in the romance subplots anymore. Why? Not because I don't enjoy romances in games, quite the opposite. But I'm getting tired of always the same formula... since Baldur's Gate it's always been the same steps, from the first dialogue choices that show some interest over the stupid reputation-point-farming to get on their good side, then the obligatory "make a choice" showdown, the naive kissing and FOX-save romance scene... YAWN... seriously, after a half dozen games it's getting old.

Anyway, nothing in Mass Effect 2 felt new and exciting anymore. Maybe, if I had to choose between 1 and 2, I'd take 2 as the better, more polished game, but that doesn't mean much.

7. Dragon Age 2 Lore/ingame scenes/community info... blablabla.

Lore: Seriously, I couldn't care less about the bigger picture of Ferelden. When I play a D&D game I don't care about the big world of the Forgotten Realms either, I care about the small world my character will see when I play. I'm not interested in the 5000 years of history or relations between the different states or why King soandso fought that war with state xy 300 years before... Let me be so blunt and say, everyone can make that up. It just takes some patience and detailing out from some hired geek who likes to write up lore. In most cases it's based on either Tolkien or the Forgotten Realms anyway, with some changes of times, names and places to hide the ripoff, and I wouldn't even notice because I honestly don't care. I don't read lore, I only care for the world my character will see and feel in a game. In real life, I'm no historican either and I don't need to know which tribes fought what wars an eternity ago to make my way around.

Ingame scenes: I don't care for fighting mechanics, sorry. The fighting is a minor part in following the storyline and getting immersed. I only don't like if it's looking more complicated than it has to. DA2's fighting scenes looked rather messy to me, a minor turnoff. Big turnoff: The dialogue wheel, again. Did I already say I don't see the point of adding it to every other game just because Mass Effect sold good /despite/ the wheel (surely not because of it)?

Community info: Oh jeez. Romance, romance romance romance. Let me repeat I like romance subplots. But the fuss on the Bioboards was ridiculous. And now every character has to be available for romances, every taste has to be catered. Character x is not bi? Oh my god! Political correctness outcry, what will the gay community think? No no, make him/her bi fast. Just make everyone bi, shall we? Also make them so outwashed that surely every taste is catered, throw away every personality and... oh right, do some market studies about the look. We have to make sure our teenage players get exactly the partner they're looking for!

Before anyone comes with the homophobic stamp now: I played a F/F romance in Origins too, it was enjoyable. I absolutely love how the gay characters in New Vegas are done. That's not my point. My point is washing out every originality and edges.

Was there any other topic on the Bioboards, besides some chest hair? I must've missed them.

Let me recapitulate now. So far there was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing I saw as any improvement over Origins. Everything I saw was taking away things I liked in Origins, and putting nothing in it's place that made up for it, only things I consider unnecessary or even bad decisions.

Then came the demo. You've read my post? What's there to say... come on, people on the boards even defended that one and said it cannot be used for judging a game... it's old, based on an earlier build of the game, uh... should not demonstrate any aspect of the final game... err.... are you kidding me? It's a DEMO! It's supposed to be a demonstration of the final game and it should make me buy a game, no? There, it failed. If a Demo of a game fails to impress, I don't buy a game, isn't the world like that? Now I'm told I'm supposed to ignore that demo and buy the game anyway, because I should've known that the demo is not, in any way, supposed to be a demonstration of the final product which will be a completely different experience?

I'm sorry, but that's a logic that completely escapes me.

Anyway, all my past prejudices towards DA2 were not only proven right, but even increased by that Demo. Not only all the points I listed above, it got even worse. They made the dialogue wheel even more dumb, to the point I'm honestly thinking "how retarded does Bioware expect me to be, if they even give me icons that show me that the asshole answer is not nice?".

The few cutscenes were cringeworthy at it's best. How much more stereotypical and, unintended, funnier can it be? I'm sorry, but there was no drama there, it was "headdesk" only.

The sugar on top was the graphics. I don't expect Bioware to come up with something breathtaking like The Witcher 2 or Skyrim, don't worry.... we all know Bioware games aren't meant to be next generation graphics, but...

...Are you kidding me?! This is an AAA game with 90+ scores?

For the shameful rest just look at my past rant. Some people still call that an unique style, I call it shit. Crap. Worst of the worst. There's nothing, absolutely nothing stylish or of unique beauty there. You can load up a game from 1999 like "Alice", THAT is a unique style with lower polygons, even by today's standards it's Art. Dragon Age 2 isn't art, it deserves a headslap for the graphics. And I've not even started about the breasts yet....

Okay, that's up to the point of the demo. I'm still following the reviews of the game, and especially Mat's at his Rotted Rose blog. This is by far not the heated, hateful perspective you see from many other sources, quite the opposite, and I'm absolutely not expecting Dragon Age 2 to be such a pile of crap like some Metacritic scores by users make it appear to be.

No, what I expect it to be is actually yet another Bioware standard game, but not of highest quality. If I played it, I'm sure I wouldn't give it a total thumbs down, because I know Bioware's formulas work. At some point it'll be the same as Mass Effect, the presentation will catch me again, the formula will invade my mind and I'll want to see the end. Just like Mass Effect 2. Just that Mass Effect 2 didn't have the "woah, awesome" effect on me anymore it has on most other players, simply because I'm already bored of the Bioware stereotypes. And after all I've seen, Dragon Age does not have the polish of Mass Effect 2. No, with my prejudice in mind, but also knowing how the games can catch you, I'd expect me to give it a score slightly below 80. Which means, it plays okay, but I'll probably not play it again. Just like ME2. It was okay, but one time was enough.

However, there's another point why I support the massive outcry of half of the community, and why I like seeing those metacritics scores: Because it's damn right the only way to stop Bioware to do it again. Everything else, like going out, buying it and playing it anyway just to be able to make a more detailed review is sending EA and Bioware the signal "Just go on, simplify and homogenize your games even more, we'll still buy it". No. I'm stubborn like that, I still believe in quality having a niche in all this multimillion dollar business. I think after all I've seen of DA2 so far I have the right to say "no, it's shite, I don't need to see more", and I want Bioware not to do the same thing again in DA3. Which they will do if Dragon Age 2 is a success, and sadly, the sales figures speak for themselves - it's on top of the game charts, and I'm losing my hope it'll get better again.

Now, the last thing for this long rant is a quote from the Bioboards that summarizes almost everything about the dumbing down of Dragon Age 2. It was in reply to someone mentioning the fact that you can't put armors you find on your way on your companions (doh?)...

Stanley Woo wrote...

You can find armour upgrades for Fenris that "would be perfect for Fenris." All games have limitations. We can't cater to every individual's imagination.

Not sure if there's anything more to say. Guess I've said enough.

'tis so frustrating....

2011-03-08T04:27:00.012+01:00

The mysteries of 3D design. I can't describe how dumb I feel when I look at any 3D design program. Long ago, I mean, really long ago, I learned some basics of Cinema 4D at my art school. "Learned" is a little bit of an exaggeration here, I managed to import some models and combine them to a scene, and that was it. In the meantime of course I forgot even that again, and it doesn't really matter anyway, because Cinema 4D is probably the least commonly used program for what I'm attempting to do. So far I've only seen it at advertising companies, used by artsy Mac-Users to design toothpaste tubes and boxes for ads. Fascinating.

No no, the whole world out there uses the Autodesk products, and mainly for game stuff you actually can't avoid 3dsmax. I have absolutely no clue whatever to do with such a thing, and it's a bit hard to get my hands on it too, given the ridiculous price. 30day trial you say? In 30 days I might learn how to navigate inside a scene, but surely not how to do the stuff I want to do. Okay, scratch that.

There's also Blender. Blender is actually an incredibly powerful tool, it's free and can do pretty much everything the other big players can do too, as it seems (see movie still above), at least for my needs... but... Jesus Christ, I'm crying like a baby once I look at the screen. What the hell are all these things for? This is nuclear physics, no less.

Okay, paddle back... Why am I doing this? Because I'm sick of hitting walls in my attempts to make some custom content in NWN2. "Make" is a little bit much, I'm mainly just retexturing things in 2D. It took me an eternity to get the basics of NWN2's normal maps, alpha channels in texture maps and all that already, but I managed, at least I was able to make my reskins for Jester's nudes and create some undies for them by manipulating textures of preexisting clothes. But I'm hitting a wall. Some things I totally want to do are just not possible with the models I have access to, also, some texturing work never turns out to be satisfying, mainly due to doing normal maps not in a 3D application or having a too plain base.

Often when I have no inspiration for Middleforest like now, a little custom content work got me back to it. You know, having made a nice new outfit you want to see it in game... you open the toolset again and load the mod and think 'ah well, now I added the blueprint, could as well make a new shop'.

Well, lately both Middleforest and custom content were more frustrating than ever, everything I did was pretty ugly. The module scares me off with all it's details that don't work, and with clothes I hit the said wall where it's no fun anymore. Mainly because of the lack of model bases, and me being horribly scared of 3D stuff.

Okay, after a long time of avoiding it I thought I'd at least give it another try, if only for converting stuff from other games. I tell you I have no clue what I'm doing, one day was already wasted on getting Blender and the import/export scripts to work (wrong Blender releases, wrong 32/64bit version, wrong install paths, outdated scripts, etc.). Inspired by a sour comment of Mr.Nixon on his fallout blog, I thought I'd stubbornly try to get an outfit from Fallout to work, actually a splendid idea because there are so many outfits and other models at the Oblivion/Fallout Nexus vaults that just wait to get used.

Using two different versions of Blender (older, stable 2.49 32bit for using the .nif import/export stuff and a newer 2.55 64bit - 2.56 is again unusable - for using the .mdb plugins... headache anyone?) I was at least able to get everything into one scene, and with some pointers from Jester's tutorial included in the .mdb plugin, even managed to apply the textures. Hooray!

So... here we are. I have a body base from NWN2 (that's one of Jester's) and a nice outfit from Fallout 3 right next to it in one scene. Hooray. Uh... what now? Yes, that's it. I have no clue what now. I probably have to... make it fit, combine somehow with the Fallout outfit fitting the base nicely and making use of it's skeleton... avoid clipping... uh... clean some stuff up... uh... figure out how to control polygon counts... I... I have just no idea what to do.

At this point I'm again wondering if I should use a 30day trial of 3dsmax because apparently everyone knows how to use that one. That they know does absolutely not mean they are willing to share though, let's face it, the few people in NWN2's community who are skilled in 3D are locked away in their ivory tower and only sometimes throw an awesome model out of the window down to us mere mortals. No bad feelings, they are busy with the serious stuff... just saying... :)

And 30 days for all the stuff I'd like to do? Can I even save useable files? I have no clue... mastering Blender is a dream, oh my god, what could be done if I had any clue what I'm doing in this... (at this moment it takes me 30 minutes to find the right button to change the view). Or... just forget about it, drop everything because I'm just too dumb to use this?

*cries like a baby*

Edit: Oh, and Happy Birthday mom.

That new Bioware thing

2011-02-23T23:55:00.008+01:00

Yeah, I want to join the Cool Kids Club too and talk about my impressions on the hyper-hyped Dragon Age 2 demo like everyone else. So forgive me for not talking about that corpse of a NWN2 module there under the table... But no worries, this'll be short.
I admit, my expectations weren't that high, and Dragon Age 2 wasn't on the highest position on my shopping list so far, but of course trying the demo was obligatory. After all, Dragon Age: Origins was a really great, great game I thoroughly enjoyed. It had it's faults, of course, my past post about it covers that, but still, played it 4 times, money well spent.

Anyway, now to the demo of that new shiny thing that makes it all ten times better. Know what, just enjoy the screens.

So, we have breathtaking area design again... again? No, it puts even DA:O to shame. Sense some irony? Silly reader.

We have masses of darkspawne! No really, Bioware, how did you know that Darkspawne were the part of the first game I really enjoyed most? Thank you! Give me those Hurlurks, Ogres, ...

Ah! Finally less to read and more action! I always thought Mass Effect's dialogue wheel made things much easier, especially turning off the brain completely and focus on... um... Miranda's.. err... Isabela's chest or something. I totally need to know what's the friendly answer and what the unfriendly too.. because I can't read that much text, I can't read at all, but your neat little colored icons for good, funny, bad fixes that. Thank you!

Ah, more drama. Even in the demo we have shockingly dramatic cutscenes. This woman breaks my heart, no matter her ridiculous look and texturing, clumsy movement (game's set in old times, Mass Effect in the future after all, so of course Mass Effect's cutscenes look more modern and Dragon Age's outdated. Makes sense.) Actually, it worked without me even listening to the dialogue, because I knew already what was happening! Isn't that great?

Ah yes, Flemeth... she looked like an old swamp hag in DA:O, of course that had to be changed to something more 1337. How unoriginal is an old woman in the swamps who's secretely a witch when you can do something awesome like a dragon (gasp) landing in front of you and shapechanging into a super-cool looking MILF with an extremely sexy and exotic outfit? Haven't seen that before in any other game, great new turn, Bioware.

Ah yes, Bioware, you noticed that the gap between Miranda Lawson's legs was probably not the best idea.... because too few people noticed it, maybe? Now that's fixed, everyone will for sure notice this yummy pair. Well thought out. And for the searchers of secrets, there's surely still enough to discover further below on Isabela's hot little outfit.

(wanna bet below that outfit will be another set of those laughable "avoid a FOX scandal" undies that already made me spit my coffee over the table in part 1 and Mass Effect 2? ;-) )

Variations available, covered in blood, honey, chocolate...

Seriously now, folks. DA2's demo has finally turned me off. There's almost nothing I like about it, beginning with the choice between a male and a female Shep.... err... Hawke, over the backstories of the same that totally don't remind me of Mass Effect of course, over the dialogue wheel because we're too stupid to read text (or Bioware being too lazy to write it) etc. etc.

It goes on over the cutscenes in the demo and the apparent storyline that was again so generic and so "Bioware" that I already have the feeling I played DA2 three times before it even got into the stores. The sloppy area design and graphics that seem even worse than DA: O's (maybe proud owners of DirectX11 cards see something awesome, but I only see shite with my Ati 4870) does the rest. Sure, you get some cool new combat moves, more action, instant reaction on click, and as an alibi for the geeks you can again configure the AI in tactic slots.... blabla. Details that don't make the big picture any better.

The only thing that reminded me a bit of art was the new style for the narrated scenes. That was okay, but seriously, I've seen better.

Well, here I am, voice alone in the dark while the rest of the world runs into the stores to push yet another Bioware "instant classic" on top of the game charts. Personally though, I'm getting bored of Bioware's more and more generic game design. I'm even more interested in Dungeon Siege 3 at this moment, and that means something.

Edit 24/2: Look what happened, here I thought Bioware was at least creative enough to name that pair of walking boobs "Izabella"... wishful thinking, it's just plain and simple Isabela. Edited. :)

Custom content, LOTS and LOTS.

2011-01-18T13:17:00.008+01:00

Have we all survived the winter so far, yes? A while ago I actually thought I'm a winter person, lots of thoughts and inspiration during the dark season. In fact though, I couldn't get myself to even open a single area during the last month (good riddance, December) and spent most of my time with long rants, as the blog proves. What I managed to do though was updating some haks and cleaning others, and only now I'm actually starting to make use of the new stuff.

Speaking of that, and my older post about autodownloader problems, I need to rant a little again. When you read through the various Persistant World-related posts at the Bioware boards, one of those things you constantly hear is that you should go with the times and use the autodownloader-ready haks from the vault as is, so players don't have to download the same content twice. Sounds fair enough, but the reality looks more like builders having to manage a neverending list of haks (who wants to assign, say, 72 individual haks to their module?), having to find out which content overrides which, and if the next of tiny hak #57 update won't conflict with larger hak #62 below. If it does and, say, a new model in hak #57 suddenly overrides that awesome model in #62, it's time for fixing. But hold! And that's the problem number two, you can't fix the original hak, you need to pull the content up into a custom hak, because the next time the autodownloader is used the fixed hak would be overwritten again...

And that's the next problem I already ran into sometimes... a good example is Heed's PC Tools. The original hak has a bug, and there are two different fixes for it. One is a fix within the hak itself, the other is a fix in the script. Now, both fixes seem to work, so some builders used the hak fix, the others the script fix. The result is, if you go server hopping, chances are good the PC Tools are downloaded and replaced over and over again, or even worse, if you come across a server that doesn't use the ADL, players suddenly can't use their PC tools there anymore (because they played a different server before) and can't figure out why. It took me a long while too to figure out why all of sudden my PC Tools in Middleforest stopped working, even though I was sure I fixed them... after a long time I remembered being serverhopping and found out I had a different version, but hell, that took me some days. Anyway, fixing these things is a major headache because more often then not you first have no clue why things suddenly go wrong, then you need to track down the culprit.

Next thing is, bloat. I shouldn't really rant about bloat, given the size of Middleforest's current hak set (it exceeds old 3C). However, that doesn't mean I just grabbed everything fancy out there and made a giant compilation, no, I DO care about the content and it's quality. Some of the largest haks I use are armor compilations for instance, and a huge amount of outfits in, say, Aleanne's or the Always Summer clothing haks simply neither fit the setting nor do they meet my quality standards anymore, they are bloat. I recently cleaned up all the clothing haks and was able to reduce the size by over 300MB, plus making room for other outfits again.

Last but not least, I do believe that a 500MB download or even a Gigabyite (hey, I'm not there yet!) is not too much for a PW anymore. These days kids download Gigabytes of Free2Play games all the time only to install them once, try them out and delete them again. Singleplayer modules are a different matter though, if I made a singleplayer game, I'd carefully choose every single model and only add what I definitely need in this or that scene. For a PW project though, I think it's important to have a good base which gives you much of building freedom right from the beginning, because you intend to use it much longer. A PW admin doesn't try to attract players for a single quick playthrough, but for a long-time game with an open end. I think players who are really interested in a certain Persistant World understand that and don't mind a single huge download, especially in times of terrabyte harddrives and broadband interwebz. But massive hak changes later, while the server already runs, that's much more painful.

Anyway, that's why I decided for a custom Middleforest hak set. Mainly because I don't have to manage more than a dozen haks, because I know pretty well what content is where in case of trouble, no sudden hak updates that break something, and because I can decide what of a hak's content I want to use and what not.

Moving on to what's inside the haks. So, why has nobody ever told me that there's a NWN2 conversion of one of my favourite NWN1 tilesets at the vault? Tsk. Now that's one of my latest additions, and even given it's higher fantasy content, I must say I'm quite pleased with how good some of the buildings fit into Rungholt's elven quarter (and not only there). I love Tupoun's City hak, but as nice as it looks, a whole city only built with it doesn't offer that many surprises anymore. That's where the CODI buildings can really make a difference, I think.

There are some minor problems with them though, that's why they need to be used with care. First, they are not tintable. Not such a big deal because the City Hak buildings are and can be adjusted to match the CODI buildings. The next, bigger problem is that the buildings apparently don't block the line of sight, which can lead to game mechanical issues. There's also the point that they don't fade the same way as the NWN2 buildings, I'm not sure if that will lead to big camera troubles or not - in the toolset it was a little strange though because they fade out at some angles and I'm always scared I accidently deleted one... anyway, still a wonderful addition.

The next thing that kept me busy last weekend was skyboxes, and that's not a success story. Initially, I got very excited about them - they are very easy to make technically, and Google helped me to find some panorama skies that look great in game.
Before you know-betters ask, no, it's not the fact that Obsidian decided for some utterly silly double-image-wrapping thing... what's that, the non-know-betters ask? Oh, the image is used TWO times on the skybox in game, so if your image has a sun or moon or tower or other landscape feature, it'll show up 2 times in game, once in front of you, once behind. Yeah, silly. It's okay with a mountain, but not so much with a sun. However, no, I found images that work well enough.

No, the big big problem is that the stupid skybox doesn't change in game. You might have a skybox option in every single day/night cycle stage, but nuh-uh, if you want to use different skies for different times of the day, forget it - the game only uses the default one. That's not the worst, the worst is that the game has no options to actually darken or brighten the image, so if you have a bright blue sky picture during the daytime, you'll have the same bright blue sky picture during the night. Bye bye immersion.

As you can see below though, I found a way to darken the scene during the night still. It doesn't look like midnight, but at least like nightfall, say, 9pm. But, this is only made possible by using the bloom options and lowering them a lot. That means, a player who doesn't use Bloom doesn't see any of it and still faces a bright sky. Plus, lowering the bloom options that much not only darkens the sky, but every highlight in game, including all light sources like torches, fires, the nightvision effect. Long story short, it's unusable for a PW, a weekend wasted. Anyway, just to show you what could've been:

Yeah, I shed a tear about that... the default sky now looks so terrible to me...

A last thing I found at the vault recently is not a hak, but some scripts. Thanks to my excessive Fallout playing, I grew fond of the idea to have a realistic resting system that, doh, uses beds. Yeah, no "I feel so exhausted, let me kneel down for 10 seconds" anymore. Na... I like the idea of having to look for a nice place to spend the night... a free bed, a rented bed or a simple sleeping bag. Additionaly, (I admit I got that from an adult mod in Fallout, but liked especially that functionality) I want to animate the process properly. Not just click-rested-done, na, a proper animation has to go with it. And, if you use a sleeping bag in the wilds, the chance to get disturbed by a thug.

And hooray, it's already been done long ago by Patcha! Isn't that nice... now, the problem is, Patcha's system contains a little too much, I only want some of the basics really. I know many players cringe when they hear "bedroll", the first thing coming to mind is HCR with the mean resting restrictions. I don't want that, I'm no friend of rest timers, rations, partial or no spell/feat/hitpoint refreshment and all that. I just want something more immersive than kneeling down for a few seconds, that's all. Anyway, yeah, that's the plan for the near future, I hope I can use Patcha's scripts as a base for something more simple and convenient, however knowing myself I'll cry for scripting help again as soon as copy and paste won't do it anymore.

Well, so much for now, as you can see I haven't given up building completely yet.

P.S. I almost forgot, after all my Fallout tallking lately I must point you at Mr. Nixon's project here. Looks awesome, I'm sure I'll keep an eye on it.

Story depth, sexism and equality

2010-12-20T12:33:00.015+01:00

"Jeanne, next time just keep the long hair, ask nicely for that breastplate and bring your girlfriend too."

(Edit 21. Dec.: to avoid any confusion, the blog entries and comments I quoted have now disappeared)

Ah, reality check today. This is going to be long again. A few days ago I linked you people to Alazander's community check during my long Obsidian rant. Who would've thought it'd stir up the trouble it did? I don't ask you to read it all, instead I'll quote a few passages that lead to the argument. It raises some interesting thoughts really.

"I see 300+ page threads dedicated to an upcoming companion's chest hair, and I wonder if the earnest D&D or RPG enthusiasts of the past are now huddling in a corner staring in slack-jawed terror at the teenage girls who have taken over the establishment."

Aahh... my my, bad mistake. Seriously, in the whole context of that long post I didn't stumble over that one, or let's better say, I got the bigger meaning without assuming he's actually blaming girls for the downfall of all roleplaying communities. It was a cynical remark, irrelevant. Let's hop into the comments section now...

"But I'm sorry - the problem with the RPG community today is that teenage girls have "taken over"? Are you serious?"

Other points made in that comment are totally valid, it was just that I hadn't read the same into the post as this person did... moving on in the comments it's getting too much to quote really, people got really upset about this one line and that Alazandar called The Witcher's gritty setting "refreshing" compared to Bioware's "we cater everyone" policy.

"I always like to use The Witcher as a good example of game that sails close to the edge to present a believable world, at the risk of offending or alienating significant groups of people. Not that I think that is a good thing in general, but it’s a breath of fresh occasionally."

That was apparently just feeding the fire and even took it over to other blogs with statements like...

"I think I’m most amused/bewildered by the claim that political correctness is so rampant that games with sexist/oppressive settings and content are a “breath of fresh air”. Like tossca said, I… really don’t know where to start. :/"

"I think statements about how misogyny or other sorts of oppressiveness are “a breath of fresh air” are a bit indicative of what the person in question thinks the world should be like.
Which is clearly indicative that nobody should take them seriously, because that’s really self centered thinking and yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t seem to have caught on."

"His breath of fresh air stinks for everyone else."

Now, short break here, to get that part out of the way. Up to the point where the first person argued about the truth behind the "teenage girl" statement I can agree that the words weren't exactly well chosen. The "girls part" was meaningless to me, I think those of us who stare in awe at the Bioware Social Community all get the bigger meaning... those boards appear like a chatroom with so much babbling about nonsense like, cough... chest hair... that one's getting close to a seizure. I was following the boards when Dragon Age was new and yes, they changed faster than lines in a chatroom, with the most frequented topics being about character look and who's the cutest bunny and that.

It's not important if it was teenage girls or males who started those, although we all know girls chat faster ;-) (yeah, joke, but call me sexist now if you like). Moving on to the part about male sexism on those boards and teenage males opening dozens of threads about boob size... all valid, sure, teenage males are horrible, teenage girls too, can we move on? The point is that more serious modders feel a bit lost in the kindergarden, not if it's teenage girls or teenage males who started it.

But, since the sexism topic came up now, let's stay there and look at Alazander's new post.

I don't want gaming to become the equivalent of Mass Effect's medi-gel and omni-tools: all-purpose, all-inclusive, homogenized. I refer to the mechanics, yes, but also the stories, the characters, the themes. This is particularly important for RPGs because they form so much of the experience. When one comes along that doesn't knowingly dull its edges to avoid potentially offending someone -- and even BioWare's games do, on occasion -- I'll stand and applaud the artistic integrity instead of screaming blue murder.

Phew... so much for the background... you might've noticed I left a comment there already long enough for a blog post.

Let's make this part short now. Yes, I agree completely with him and I think the Witcher is a great, great game, to a large part for being so different to the homogenized rest. What are we really looking for in a fantasy game? A truly medieval feel or rather a game that caters everyone at the same level? If the latter, how many opportunities for a great story are really there and how many lost? A matter of taste maybe?

So, if I want to make a commercially successful Middleforest, I'll make sure that the world feels all the same to men, women, lesbians, gays, probably a few more. Yes, that's the Bioware recipe. Modern canadian liberal political correctness, as Alazandar called it. May I add.... boring?

Yes, I think Bioware games get more boring lately. I still enjoyed Mass Effect 2, but I don't feel the urge to play it again.
Dragon Age was great, and I especially loved it for the origins, but it dulls out a bit after those.

Let's not forget by the way that DA:O was years in development, they started long before being bought up by EA. Now, the latest developments though don't really spike my interest anymore. I don't care much for Mass Effect 3, and for sure not for Dragon Age 2 which appears to be just a medieval Mass Effect. And may I add that I have my doubts that these games can be really deep and epic anymore with only one year of development and always following the same successful recipe?

No, a game I want to make would be closer to the Witcher's world than to Bioware's standards now.
Do you read into that that I want to make a world in that only heterosexual male players are catered, that female players, or homosexuals or whatever fun you have in your life, characters are not welcome? No, dammit, they should be strong in numbers! But please, don't expect the same treatment. Why? Because it's absolutely unrealistic, it's boring, it ignores so many opportunities for great stories.

Even Bioware was still doing it at one point - play the female City Elf origin in Dragon Age: Origins.
Sadly, they didn't continue this way throughout the game... but even without the gender now... how many people thought it was a brilliant idea that elves or the lower born dwarves are the outcasts, the scum, nothing but slaves in that game and had to fight against all the odds?

Ah yes, as long as it's just a fantasy race, it's a great idea... but telling a story about a woman who has to fight against the odds in a realistic sexist and gritty world is no good idea? Or a gay warrior who has to keep his orientation a secret in a world that would burn him for his sin? That wouldn't make fantastic stories?
Well, just look at literature and real history. Who'd give a damn f*uck what Jeanne d'Arc has done if every second soldier/knight in the army had been a woman during that time? She'd surely not be holy by now, she'd be forgotten.
Would Mary Read and Anne Bonnie still be remembered? What for? There were more successful pirates at the time, they had no males to fight against, and since female sailors/pirates who dress like males and have a same gender affair are considered utterly normal and plain boring...

"Just a snapshot of some average girls in their day job, nothing to see here."

In my comment I took "The Pillars Of The Earth" as an example. Did this book cause an uprise among female readers (who apparently bought it) for treating women not politically correct? The women in this book are usually treated like scum, most of them raped at least once, and yet they are the most memorable characters... because they fight against all odds.

The Witcher created a world that is not even that gritty, but surely closer to medieval society than Bioware's games are. And yet, most players still remember most of the female NPCs clearly because they stood out. And not for their boobs. It's just been three months since I played Mass Effect 2, I barely remember the storyline or the characters anymore. Sure I remember Liara-cutiepie still, but honestly, isn't she just a sweet little modern teenager with not much depht at all? I wasn't really impressed by any of those characters, and if there's anything I remember of that Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2, it's surely her rearside and a suit so detailed that I'd call it more sexist than the whole tarot card collection in The Witcher.

"Miranda Lawson (Mass Effect 2) - modelling that gap between her legs was surely a necessity. Honi soit qui mal y pense."

Triss Merigold though, I surely remember her from the Witcher, and I'm sure her character would eat any of the Mass Effect chicks for breakfast.

Last, because I'm only rambling again and will probably edit every 2nd sentence later for making sure I'm not misunderstood - Michael has posted a great blog entry a (long) while ago, he's a much better writer and much smarter than me anyway. Make sure to read all of it, not just this little quote that should conclude this post.

"We can't solve the ills of society in a little blog post. But, by extension, neither can we solve them in a game. And really, should we? If conflict is the center of storytelling, isn't the base conflict of woman versus the limitations of society compelling? I've seen character backstories by the truckload that deal with a woman being driven to a life of adventure to escape the chains of an arranged marriage, and nine times out of ten, the conflict stops there. Women in fantasy, it seems, are only chained by society at some distant point in the past. They make a decision to not be the puppets of men and then everything is roses from there. Surely, fantasy is a wondrous thing!

(...)

Being a woman in S&S takes strength. Being a woman and an adventurer, doubly so. The conflict that births that strength should be played up, not down; such resolve in the face of injustice is the thing people tell stories about long after things have changed... if they ever do."

There are no words...

2010-12-18T10:37:00.003+01:00

.. to describe all the feelings this message causes in me.
Seriously... I want to go on a killing spree, I want to break stuff, I want to...
What the hell do you want from me, autodownloader?
Yes, I admit I've been a bad bad Casa and decided to clean up my Middleforest module. That means, I exported all areas, made a new module by the same name, with all the scripts and blueprints and stuff, reimported everything, used the exact same module properties, used the exact same settings for the autodownloader, assigned the exact same servers, assigned the exact same files to them... WHAT THE FUCK?!

Seriously, I hate hate hate hate hate this thing. It cost me 4 hours so far, all the settings are the same as in the old module and all the files it wants sit on the server just waiting to be used.

Rant day: Obsidian, Fallout, Communities, Influences

2010-12-14T15:17:00.012+01:00

It's time for some long ramblings again, please forgive me. I should make some general games blog someday, but there are too many of those already. However, this is sort of NWN2 related again, and also very much to my Middleforest, because believe it or not, I'm getting a lot of influences and ideas from other games, even if they seem to have nothing in common with NWN2 or medieval fantasy.
Like, say, Fallout.
Well actually, Fallout has a few things in common with NWN2, first off it's a Roleplaying Game and last but not least the developers.
And that's reason number two for my rambling today, Obsidian. The first one would be talking about the game itself, and the last reason is a post by fellow blogger Alazander over here.

Now, how do I get all this together? So, Obsidian, where do I start?

Over in the Dammendrech chat, they're usually called Obtusian or Obsidiot and whenever something goes wrong on the server, the first line is "It's an Obsidiot game, what do you expect?" and they are generally called incompetent. Well, there's so much truth in that, but the point is, Obsidian is actually a likeable little studio with a lot of potential and a lot of flaws and bad luck. And Fallout New Vegas is an ideal example for this.

Let's first look at Obsidian's game list, maybe over at the Wikipedia because that's my bridge.
That list isn't long and as we all know, mostly sequels. What had all these sequels in common? They were kind of... lacking. What were they lacking? I'll come to that.

The other thing we see is that Obsidian was founded by and employs people who made some legendary games, last but not least the original two Fallout parts (Black Isle/Interplay), Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate together with Bioware etc. Also not to forget members of Troika with now legendary flops like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines or Arcanum. Today all veteran roleplayers still start drooling over these names.

So... what the hell is wrong with Obsidian? They always seem to make "okay" sequels that are said to be less good than the first part, and they are legendary for their game bugs.

But let's be fair and objective for a moment, because I'm getting a bit tired of all the Obsidian bashing. Their games have some serious flaws, but also a lot of strenghts, and with Fallout New Vegas I've found the best example. It shows both sides very well, and the comparison with Bethesda's original Fallout 3 works incredibly well. Because this time, fortunately, Obsidian didn't try to reinvent the wheel on the engine side like in NWN2.
That earned them some bad reviews and "outdated" remarks, but actually, I guess it saved their arses. At least they couldn't mess it up completely. Because yes, it's true, they aren't good at making a smooth engine, not at all.
But the main thing they aren't good at is another, and I think this is what earned them their reputation. It's not the programming, but the Art. I think Obsidian is made of geeks, geeks of the sort like the old veteran roleplayers who claim at some game forum that they don't care for anything else than the text in the game. They still enjoy their text-based RPG from the late eighties and don't need visuals at all. Unfortunately, they have to go with the times, try and... fail.

But now, let's get to Fallout 3 and New Vegas. First off, they are both very high in my favorite games list, but one's the clear winner.
All you need to know about the difference between the two games is the two opening scenes which were also used for trailers. They tell almost everything. So, lean back and start with Bethesda's.

And here comes Obsidian's:

Okay, do I really have to explain it or is it obvious? Does nobody else have this "Meh" feeling after the New Vegas one? They use the exact same game engine and tools, but... is it just me, or does Obidian simply have no clue how to do arts? Atmosphere?
Bethesda's is spot on with the atmosphere, it's rich in detail and sets the dark, gloomy mood for the game. And the music by the Ink Spots was the best marketing move anyway, although I hear kids hate it.

Obsidian though, you just get the idea they try to compete... but they can't. And they fail miserably. The very first seconds are okay, but then the camera moves to the New Vegas Strip and poof... immersion gone. There's no detail, nothing... a perfectly clean, plastic Strip that cries out "I'm rendered!", then comes that soldier guy who's there for the same reason as the one in Bethesda's: "I need to look totally badass so the kids buy the game". Nice try, he's okay, but after all that plastic look of the Strip he can't save anything anymore. Only nice touch: The headshot. It's sort of funny, and that actually is the point where they did something right. But then... I just have to post a pic...

That's the point where they probably lost the young ones completely. Are we watching Toy Story (1)? Obsidian, please.. before you do something like that, don't do any cinematics! You scare off the whole gamer crowd who buy graphics cards beyond $70... it's not that it's not high end, it's that... it's just bad! And let's remind ourselves this is a pre-rendered scene, not ingame graphics... the point is, ingame the characters look actually more realistic than that. Let's move on...

Do I have to say more? This area up there... how can you use it for the intro that is supposed to get players into the mood, how can you use this camera angle, how can you NOT throw some Photoshop filters over it or just use artwork... seriously, I'm not saying that Obsidian should use high end graphics, not at all, that's not the point... it's just that you can get better and more immersive screens in a 10 year old game. And really, it's not nitpicking on one pic here, it's the whole trailer, isn't it?

Lastly, let's take a quick look at Obsidian's recent first own development, Alpha Protocol. As everyone who's a bit interested in games or in Obsidian's doings outside NWN2 should know, this game flopped. Badly. And that was my first impression right from the first screenshot I saw... that it will flop badly.
Ingame graphics are not everything, I agree, and a good game surely doesn't need high end graphics. But there's a certain point at which the bad art design actively ruins the game... the story suggests a serious moment, but the graphics are so unintentionally comical that you actually have to laugh about it.

As an example for small mood-killers you might have seen too... Dragon Age, romance scene... it was supposed to be a really romantic moment, and the game is so well written you were really in the mood. Then they start this "sex" cutscene in those ridiculous undies with rather weird animations and I actually snorted my coffee over the table. Now, in Dragon Age's case it couldn't ruin the game, it was just a bit funny.

The problem with Obsidian's games is, they are worse. And according to all reviews I've seen about Alpha protocol, I think that was what ruined the game completely - the bad marketing surely didn't help too, nothing from the ads to the game box was in any way atractive. All of the reviews said the story's quite great and the game is surely worth playing... if you can ignore the horribly outdated graphics and the comical animations. Most said that some combat animations were unbearable. Reminds you of another game? Maybe NWN2? Let's look at the Alpha Protocol trailer for completition, there's some ingame scenes at the end that don't look totally unbearable, but by no means unique either.

Now... would you say this trailer gets anyone into the stores? Even to a torrent site?
To tell you the truth I was almost praying for Obsidian that this game wouldn't flop, that there would be people less picky than me who'd buy, play and enjoy it. Didn't happen. I was even expecting Alpha Protocol to be the nail in Obsidian's coffin. Glad that didn't happen though, not yet... maybe New Vegas saved them... but who knows how much of the cake will actually be left for Obsidian, given the first big name on the box is still Bethesda.

Now, enough of that, onwards to New Vegas. Maybe I'm an oracle or something, but my gut feeling has yet again not failed me. I like my guts, they always tell me the truth, and they did about this too.

Because, surprise, I totally loved the game. Obsidian failed to ruin it, quite the opposite, they made it a small masterpiece and definitely better than Bethesda's Fallout 3. And that was the first feeling I had when I heard they'd develop it. Why?

They have an engine ready and can't screw up by making a new one, so that's out of the way.
They don't try to change the graphics, pheeeew.

Game magazines gave them worse reviews for keeping the old engine, and yes, on metacritics Fallout 3 scores better than the successor. But hell, well done Obsidian, keep your hands off things you don't understand and work on your strong side. That's the writing. And hands on, on the storytelling side, Bethesda cannot compete.

Fallout 3's wasteland was a great place to explore with so much atmosphere and detail and stuff to do that it outshone the big failure it was on the story side. It had stories and quests, sure... but my, most of them were really lacking. They were short, didn't have much detail, many of them were not much better than your usual Fed-Ex quests.
The main storyline was linear and could be completed in a rush, it offered, wait... one or two choices at the end, and your general influence on the world was quite black & white.. either you do the good thing and earn something good for it, or you do some bad thing and be a bad person.

Bleh.

Now, my personal Fallout 3 trauma is this person, she's called Clover:

Clover was my favourite companion in Fallout 3, and I hate travelling alone. Not because they add to the firepower, just because I like company. I loved the dog too, but the dog didn't speak, so I ran my Karma all the way down to being horribly evil just to get this "crazy slave girl (ingame advertisment)" as a companion. I mean, who wants to travel with a Paladin in heavy armor, please...

Now, the actual trauma is, I could've sticked with the dog.

Miss Clover here could've been a really rich person... she's a little masochistic, very sadistic and was the private slave of the big badass slave trader in the game, one of two girls (Crimson & Clover, haha). She could've had stories to tell you can't imagine, or just doing random fun stuff that actually fit her "crazy" reputation.

She doesn't. She has exactly three one-liners as voice-overs and the same amount of dialogue options to adjust her companion AI. She's a robot. A dog.
Actually, the dog barked more than she had to say. And don't think it was just her, no... all companions in Fallout 3 are that "rich". They are.. aimbots? Meatshields for lazy players? Something like that. It was just sad, but it's one major point of Fallout 3: Even though being a RPG, it's clearly aimed at the shooter crowd a little too much.

What I was hoping for when New Vegas was announced was that Obsidian did exactly that: Leave the working base alone and work on those parts Bethesda failed in. And Obsidian delivered.

Here's one of my favourite companions in New Vegas, Veronica. Veronica is extremely nice and a little bit silly, babbles a lot, even unasked. She has a long background story including a girlfriend (another companion is gay, in both cases you learn it just from a side remark they throw at some time and nothing else follows, which just adds to the realism of the fleshed-out backgrounds). She has her own long questline just like all of the eight companions you can choose from, and was generally a pleasure to have around. She wasn't Clover though, but still, she was fine.

The companion example is just the most obvious one, but Obsidian really played out all their writing strenghts in New Vegas. As for the setting, the Mojave desert, it's not as detailed graphics-wise (surprise!) and hasn't as many "Oooh" effects as Fallout 3, another thing some reviews mentioned, but it's certainly not ugly and still has a lot of surprises.

You really just have to force yourself over the badly done intro and the first hour or two, and suddenly, with the first sidequests, you notice how rich the world is, and how incredibly well the writing is done. Main storyline? Ah, forget it, the sidequests are rich ones. There are some that are just told in a few computer logs and scattered pages, and yet some players put up movies of them on youtube and go on about how great they are.

Some places tell the sad stories just with a room and scattered placeables, you walk in and imagine the big story behind it. But not to forget NPC dialogues... even the small sidequests are often told like a main quest in any other game, characters you meet all have a unique personality and feel truly alive. And last but not least, there's one thing only Obsidian could do: Bring the humor from the original Fallout series back into the game.

That's not to say Fallout 3 didn't have any humor, there were some funny parts in it too, but most of it was actually in the area design, not in what you actually experienced.

New Vegas though does it spot-on, and I can even see Obsidian's writers leaning back with a huge grin thinking "see kids, that's how it's done". There were many parts that were incredibly funny, but yet again told in a way you take the whole story still serious. Fallout 3 had cynism too, but it was too gloomy, too serious. New Vegas is more lighthearted and yet more immersive and realistic as well, never silly.

That's one thing the trailer actually transported well, the one point. Both have the martial looking guy in armor, made to attract the shooter kiddies I guess. But Bethesda's trailer is just gloomy, while, well... the headshot in Obsidian's is sort of funny, and everything is a bit more colorful, and I assume it's meant to be.

Both games have the same violence level and animations, but in Fallout 3 it feels worse because the game feels too serious. In New Vegas there's always that slight hint of humor and being over the top on purpose. Fallout 3 takes itself damn serious, New Vegas doesn't.

I could go on and on about how much Obsidian improved things here, like the unforeseeable consequences of your doings that are at least on par with The Witcher, and in this case it outshines all the negative parts. A few hours in the game and the miserable trailer is forgotten. The area design is not on par with Bethesda's, but since they mostly use the same stuff, it's not bad at all, and lastly, it's different enough to clearly set the game apart from it's predecessor. Where Obsidian tried to retexture things (like, new outfits), it actually is bad, mostly. Not bad enough to ruin it this time though, and there are already mods out that fix these things.

Fallout 3 needed armies of super mutants to scare you, in New Vegas you should better be scared of these little buggers or giant insects...

Now, as for the Obsidian part, here's some sort of conclusion.

Obsidian needs a big brother. Like Bethesda, Bioware, whatever.

Or they really really have to work on their Art and Programming department, although, I think art is the real problem. Yes, Obsidian's games are buggy, but hands on, Fallout 3 was and still is a bug-ridden crashy beast too, I'd call it much less stable than NWN2... just that it runs smoother as long as it actually runs is a major advantage.

New Vegas is of course buggy as hell too... but really, most games are. I played Stalker, I tried to get others to run that failed completely, Obsidian's games are certainly not as clean out of the box as Bioware's latest, but they are not the worst I've ever seen. What they really really need is atmosphere, players are much more forgiving if the crashing game looks immersive and well designed... see Fallout 3, it crashes like crazy but people are forgiving because they're soaked in.

Now, the big news of the weekend was Bethesda's announcement of The Elder Scrolls 5, ask Ben.
While I'm not that much interested in it really (never got warm with Oblivion, even though I tried multiple times), it means one other thing - Bethesda will probably not work on Fallout 4 for a long time, even though it's an extremely successful license.
Now, but since Obsidian already made a successful New Vegas, and Bethesda has a new engine ready for TES: V... one can dream, no?
In fact, I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if Bethesda and Obsidian would cooperate for a much longer time, and if Obsidian's in trouble as a studio, why not even buy them up? A fusion would be good for both sides, together they could do awesome things. Wouldn't surprise me at all if that happened.

Last. I mentioned Alazander's Blog entry above, and I'll get back to that now before I fall from my chair after this monstrous post. The different communities and why we should stick with NWN2. After exploring also the Bethesda modding sites, I think that fits in here well.

Agreed, on everything. NWN1/2 is a special case in this whole modding community pool, and even if we forget about multiplayer, I don't see any alternatives. Even more, I think NWN2 has matured a lot and it's a great base for everything.
Seriously folks, and I mean you, NWN1 veterans, you dropped off way too soon and never really gave the game a chance after the second patch didn't fix everything. Give it a go again... the game is a very good and stable base, it has remaining bugs, but hell, NWN1 has too.

The overcomplicated toolet is actually easy to use once you get the hang of it - I tried The Witcher's Djinni, Fallout 3's Gecko and Dragon Age's toolset so far and everytime I ran back to NWN2 quickly. For multiplayer, I don't expect any alternative anymore. In the long future.
Atari is in the middle of a lawsuit over DnD, so forget it, and all the others will never give us Co-op and PWs for free. The future of commercial online games is only in MMOs with micropayments, I don't expect anyone to throw us a bone anymore.

I wish people hadn't given up on NWN2 so fast, it offers the same modability as NWN1 and much more freedom in design, and now, 4 years later, everyone should be able to play it fine on lower end hardware.

And there's the communities Alazander talked so much about... there's none comparable to NWN's. What he says about Dragon Age is what I also see over at the Fallout and Oblivion modding sites. Take my complaints about Clover up there... I bet if NWN had had such bad companions, it would've taken a few months and someone would've put up a mod that adds dialogue to them. At the Fallout Nexus you will find mods that make them better in fights or turn them into japanese lolitas, but anything that adds immersion and story? Forget it. Don't get me wrong, there are some great and good mods for all these games, but they are all weapon stuff, technical, retextures... an immersive, playable module? Same thing as Dragon Age. Technically possible, nobody bothers. They want some ultra sharp textures, naked Anime companions and a cool machine gun (I'm not opposed to good technical mods nor some nude skins *cough*, but really... anything else?).

Anyway, in case you wait for the next big thing to come, better stop... everything after NWN2 failed to deliver so far, so why not look at this little diamond in the rough again?
And if you ever had the same impression as me - NWN2 looks just ugly... that's Obsidian's area design, they have the tools, they can't use them. But you can.

Rumors of my demise have been... etc.

2010-11-26T20:54:00.011+01:00

(warning, post contains mild pixel nudity)

Ha! Thought I gave up, didn't you? Well, I won't do you that favor yet. I don't want to say I was terribly active since my last post, but I did a little more than it might seem still. Not everything, or let's say, as good as nothing of it I considered worth a blog post yet, though.

When it comes to area building, I reworked a lot of the existing ones, but you wouldn't see that on a screenshot. For example, with a bleeding heart I split up Rungholt into 4 quarters, because it just seemed so unplayable to me as one giant area. And, it's not half as bad as I feared. However, the performance gain was only half as much as I hoped for too, so... well, that's one. On screenies it still looks the same as before.

I made interiors too, a whole start/introduction base. I'm quite proud of it, but you know how interiors are, they look boring on screenshots, so I didn't bother.
What else... loadscreens. Expect a lot of forest loadscreens in game. Again, no screenies, surprise surprise.

But now, with some screenies that might make some of you literally facepalm, a huge timewaster project of mine lately - the evolution of my nudie stuff.
Oi, you might say, silly Casa, that old pervert, only has nekkid elves in mind anymore.
Wait! It's not that easy. And first and foremost, it's not about nudity, it's about clothing. So let me try to explain my old skin project again, because now I've made a lot of progress with that.

The point is, there's a lot of custom clothes for our characters and NPCs over at the vault, clothing haks almost everyone uses, like, say, Chimneyfishes Always Summer. You know the kind, short dresses showing a lot of skin, some look a bit silly, some are actually quite nice and useful. All of them have one thing in common, they are based on a nude skin, Zylch's Nude.

So, let's keep in mind: Nude skins are not only for running around nekkid, nude skins serve as a base for all those clothes that show a bit of skin.

Right, next step. There are a few problems with this base. First off, it's a bit old. I know, I'm nitpicking, but the quality of Zylch's base is really not up to date anymore. Edgy, low polygon, and very washed out textures. That people who made clothing textures on the base re-jpg'ed the skin over and over didn't help too.
Then there's the problem with some personal taste, like, let's say, a skinny elf girl might not want to carry around those huge bombs... you know. Not to mention the male base by the way (yes, that exists too!), I won't lose another word about it. So, first problem: Quality.

Okay, you might say I don't care for the polygons and washed out textures at all.
But the main problem I've had with all these clothes is: There are other races than humans in the game. Some of them don't have piggie-pink heads. Some of them have blue heads. By default, not by the skin tint you apply as a player on character creation. So if you make a Water Genasi and equip one of those nude skins or skimpy dresses from the existing haks, that looks crap. Totally. You can't tint the ugliness over, no way. Please see the screenshot of the Yuan-Ti further below if you still don't know what I'm talking about.

I know, many people don't care, they claim they started with text-based adventures in the mid-eighties and don't look at anything else than the chatbox anyway. Well, I like eyecandy and some sort of immersion, and I like the head of my character appearing to be somehow related to the body beneath. Huff. Rant over. *exhales*

So, what can we do about the head transplantation? Make retextures of every armor, for every possible character out there? Impossible. But... we can start with trying to make at least the nude bases that cover a lot of the various heads.
Still a hell lot of work you say? Yes, it is, I can tell you because I've done it.. even in various variations for male, female, small chest, large, etc... it's a bit crazy, I know. I started with this when Jester posted his new nude base to the vault, a base that exceeds Zylch's in quality by far. Not only that, he also included different variations and a proper male base, so almost everything is covered. Well, besides dwarves, gnomes and halforcs, but that's nothing new, they never got any love before, why would they now? (actually, I'd welcome them and make skins for them right away).

Anyway, Jester delivered a high quality base, and what's even more fantastic, a solution to make new dresses without having to replace/paint on the actual nude base.

Okay, that's the part I was never able to explain to anyone until they could see it in game. So... the idea is, you have the nude skin, plus a base to make dresses on that does not use the armor slot, but the belt model instead.
Sigh... let me try it like this. You make a new armor in the toolset, you choose a nice little dress, done. To add detail, you change the armor parts then, like boots, gloves, and belt. Now, with Jester's base you make a nude armor, and change the belt part to a whole dress that overlays the nudie skin beneath. Where the belt dress is transparent, the nude skin still shows.
So, that solution opens the possibility to make the base of the outfit the player's own custom nude skin, and the whole dress he/she wears just goes into the beltslot overlaying that base, so the uncovered parts still show the original skin color. Ack, dammit, just look at the pictures.

Sadly, it wasn't just as easy as that. The first big problem was, while you can easily make dresses that show up as armorpart: belt, it was impossible to make an actual item that goes into the belt slot. Just didn't work, technical limitation, NWN2 engine doesn't want that. So back to the drawing board, and Jester played around a little and discovered the gloves slot would work. So, finally we went with a gloves slot solution that works perfectly.

There's a second option though, a scripted one: Run a script that changes armor_part_belt to a specific number, like, when the player equips an item. Sounds like the best solution, no? Haha, if NWN2 would actually do that. But no, NWN2 doesn't want to. There is a NWNX plugin that supports this, however, not everyone uses it, wants to use it or has an idea how to set it up. So, the solution for n00bs like me is using the gloves slot.

Anyway, let's illustrate that whole thing now so you finally get an idea what I'm rambling about:

The first pic here is a comparison of the nude bases. We use the greenish elf head here because it shows the effect Zylch vs. Jester's base and my custom skin best. I think you'll agree the quality has slightly improved and it looks more natural, yes?

Fine, this next pic shows how the skin lands in the player's inventory, so they can actually have it too, not just NPCs made in the toolset. I made a big mirror in a bathroom here that lets the player choose between the various options (and there are a lot!). On the left is Jester's default nude base, already looking quite fine, but not actually a match for the greenish elf, as you might agree. A few clicks further through the dialogue and our little elfie has found one that matches better.

And now our poor little elfie is all naked and will catch a cold! We must prevent that and give her some undies!
As you can see in the pic, her undies are just pretending to be a dress, game-mechanically they are gloves and wander into that slot. The nude skin stays where it is and is not unequipped. As you see in the small inventory pic of the character, our elf has it a bit warmer now.

Well, and the Undies are currently the big side project, actually. They take a while to make and I'm still a noob when it comes to texturing, especially with normal maps I'm still fighting a lot. Below you can see a little collection of working test undies I made so far. But don't think it'll be limited to undies, there are a lot of options to make whole dresses with long skirts, suits and whatnot. It just takes time.

And finally, the last pic to convince some that might be on the edge still... I think this comparison shows the difference best. Left is the underwear as it is currently present in... uh.. Chimneyfishes? Aleanne's? Not sure. The poor Yuan-Ti lass looks quite wrong in it. Right is my own conversion of the outfit to a gloves-slot dress, worn over the Yuan-Ti nudie skin.

Phhheeew... that was a long rant. Anyway, yes, this whole thing has taken a lot of my time lately. And a thousand cudos go to Jester for being incredibly helpful in the process. If you like the whole idea, run over to the vault and give his (1) stuff (2) a high vote, he deserves it.

Besides that... oh yeah, I made some areas too. Did I mention it? I know there might be one or two people in the world who are not interested in nudity, so for those freaks, I'll try to gather some screenies of the few (or rather, two - and it even rhymes) exterior areas I made completely new. This first one is, yeah - call me a copycat - a ship, and even a starting ship. It'll probably be the intro to Middleforest. BTW, what made it impossible for Obsidian to make some f....ing sails? Hello? White Sheets? That difficult? Apparently, because they have multiple ship models, but no sails. Well, a creative builder taught me tapestries and curtains do the job too, if you don't look too hard at it... Oh, and btw, it has underdecks.

Well, and this one... the screenies don't do it justice, but I'm terribly proud of it. I just wanted to try out the RWS cliffs and somehow ended up with this area. Hope you like it, I do.

Wanted!

2010-05-01T01:04:00.008+02:00

Now the time has come to speak it out loud:

I think I could use some help over here!

I was really hesitant to ask in the past and I still am, maybe because I'm scared nobody's interested, maybe because I fear my maxime of "no compromises" can't be fulfilled, but now I guess everything's better than stagnation.
As I said in my last post, I have way too many irons in the fire and struggle to organize it or find a point to continue on anymore. So here's an open invitation to join the cause and help Middleforest to get a little closer to it's initial goals. Exciting, isn't it? Please, not all at once!

First, let me quickly remind you and myself where Middleforest is at this moment:
In one sentence, too early to play, too far to stop. Middleforest has a somewhat solid building base, a base hak set that works well enough, a core system that just needs to be put to use, a solid idea for the setting that is partly in the module plus a solid idea how things should work. Area wise there is the main hub in the form of a main city that is, building-wise, finished, plus it's surrounding lands, along with many interiors. Area-wise, it's enough for immersive role-play, however without quests, adventuring and the like. Rounding up this small base with some shops, quests, low level encounters and first and foremost a good introduction into the module will be the goal for the near future.

Middleforests main goals, now what was that about again? I'll spare you the time to read all my past posts, but let's keep it very short and simple:

Immersion. Middleforest's main goal is an unique, immersive atmosphere, a living, breathing world. Immersion always comes first, technical aspects second.
The european touch: Not aimed only at the european player, but trying to avoid many of the D&D, "americanized" high fantasy clichées in favor for a setting based more on european folklore.
Freedom of role-play: Less rules, more freedom. No alignments, less rulebook discussions, play the character like you envision them.
Away with only mob-killing for xp: An xp system that does not only reward the one who kills most and fastest.

So, who am I looking for? Experienced and creative people, first and foremost a scripter. I know, that's the first position any new persistent world is offering, and Middleforest is no exception.
What would this person have to do? No, I'm not just in need for someone I can tell what to do. If my only problem was getting a script top work, I could send an email to someone. No, I often fail to see what exactly must be done in the first place. I have often been offered help in specific aspects, e.g. if I need help with a script I can always ask. That's however not what I need, I need people who actively work and invent inside the module.

So, for a scripter there are two main aspects:

The first one is: Not to reinvent the wheel as far as the base goes. Middleforest will use Michael's S&S Core system, and if there are specific issues with the system, I think Michael is the best person to talk to. I'd need someone who finds his or her way into this system, suggest changes and improvements and puts it to good use. I believe in Michael's stuff, but I'm far too inexperienced with it too use it's full potential. There are other ideas for ingame systems I have, however, I do not want Middleforest to be overloaded with custom systems and geeky stuff that might overwhelm a player. First and foremost the world should be easily approachable even for relatively new players.

The second big construction site is quite simple and yet so complex: Creative ways to fill the world with life. A lot of this would be ambient stuff, things NPCs do, also thinking up creative quests and the like. If you usually do singleplayer stuff, great! I'd love to include a lot of singleplayer aspects and try whatever possible to make them work in a multiplayer environment. If you have experience with longer quests that tell a story, cutscenes and the like, you are more than welcome. If you can think up a good reputation system, have the time and willpower to make a lot of use of factions, you're the one.

That's for scripting. On which ends could I also need some help?

Custom content, to an extend. I think I already managed to make a good base. Middleforest has a somewhat well organized hak set (at least on the outside it looks like it's organized, hehe), class and race changes are in, we have custom gods and all that. But, these things tend to get messy fast and need a lot of maintenance. If you know how to fix an issue with a 2da fast or make a change to allow new content, I can definitely use your help.

Builders: Now this is a delicate subject. General area design is what I consider my main strength, and the issue on a lot of servers with more than one builder is that you can immediately see the different styles. I'd like to keep the main atmosphere under my own control, and would like to see all areas, interiors and exteriors, following the same main guidelines. If you think you can build in a style that is close enough (or better) than the areas that are already in, I'd be interested in seeing your stuff. However, I'm very picky there. There are aspects though other area builders might be better in, let's take lighting as an example.

What I could definitely use though are people who can make interesting adventuring areas, who like to make interesting encounters, creatures that fit the setting and don't mind if I take the main area and change it's visual style to my liking.

A final warning: A lot in Middleforest might not follow general rules or conventions. There are many building rules I happily ignore, and Middleforest could be described as a creative sandbox - throw in ideas first and fix it later if needed. A classic PnP background might also hurt more than it helps - PnP and the D&D manual play no role in Middleforest and are more often than not ignored.

So, if you think this sounds like something you'd like to be a part in, drop me a message - a comment here, or a private message to casadechrisso at the Bioboards, or register at the Middleforest forums and drop me a PM there.
A tour through the module as it looks now can be arranged anytime, however, plan in some time to download the haks and stuff, it'll take a while (about the size of an audio CD).

Casa out.

Now the second part

2010-04-27T15:15:00.009+02:00

So here's the second part of the overdue update, and this one's a bit a less shiny I guess. Truth to be told, at the moment working on Middleforest is hell for me, most of the time I'm staring at the toolset blankly and close it again after a few minutes. The one big step in january was soon forgotten and I'm just seeing the other big hurdles again. The point is, I can't really get my mind clear to work on areas as long as those other things are still in the way, and at this points I have way too many irons in the fire and really shy away from them. However, those are things that are supposed top make Middleforest unique and stand out, I can't just ignore them. One by one they might look easy and doable without much effort, however, those things are really not my speciality, and something like an easy script a good scripter would throw out in a few minutes can easily take me a whole night or longer to get working. Let's take a look at the main hurdles I see at this moment:

Items and stores. I must say making items in NWN2 is no fun, not at all. I somewhat enjoyed in NWN1, but here it is just painful, stupid work, I hate it. Armors are especially a burden, at least after the stupid Appearance wizard started crashing every 2nd time I use it (it's a Vista/7 thing I assume). The other way, using the standard properties window, simply sucks. I had great plans for armors and items, one being replacing AC with damage reduction, which I learned does not work as supposed - Dammendrech did that and there are multiple problems with armors using more than two different damage reduction types. To reduce every kind of physical damage though, you need 3 different damage reduction types: piercing, slashing, bludgeoning. The last of those is ignored by the engine. Also, the reduction works exactly the opposite way a logical thinking person would assume. I hate it, I don't want to deal with it, but I also dislike the AC standard system. So I kind of set that whole thing to the side, not wanting to think about it anymore.
I also plan to make multiple useable RP items, like actually edible food and stuff, things at least Michael should know from Nexus (also useable items that turn into placeables). But I just don't know where to start anymore, it's too much and I draw a blank. I won't even go into the weapons topic now.

Custom rules, renaming, 2da work, class overhauls. I lost track of this really. I wanted to remove everything alignment-related for example, I wanted to work on skills, renaming things like abilities, working on armor rules, changing base racial stats... it's a long list and I just lost track of what to do anymore. After making the class changes in january, I wanted to puke everytime I saw the tlkedit app... not because it's a bad app, but because I'm soooo f...ing tired of 2da work (and I'm teaching myself doing it on the way, mind you, learning is slow, research takes long, and the very next day I already forgot how I did things the night before.

Custom Content. On the side I was working on my nudie skins hak (hey, btw - why do I have a ESBR birth date thingy there while all the really ridiculous stuff does not?) and almost got a nice useable update done, then I ran into some isues and totally dropped it, leaving it unfinished. I was about to make my first belt-slot dresses too with some success (the actual reason I made the nude skins in the first place), but then lost track of naming conventions, had already forgotten again how to make a custom category for them, and gave up because I can't get my mind into it again. Everytime I experiment with custom textures and stuff again I have to relearn from scratch how to use mdbcloner, the naming conventions, how to get it into the game cleanly. If I wanted to continue this, I'd have to take a few weeks off in which I do absolutely nothing else.

Quests, dialogues: I have thousands of quest ideas, however, once I start making one I just can't get myself over the easiest hurdles, those often being the very first script needed in them. I also worry too much about how to use persistency I guess - I'm still absolutely oblivious about using the database and Michael's stuff with quests. It's unintuitive, I hate it, therefore I shy away from doing it.

Lore and Writing: It's all in my head, I assure you. But how do I write it up? I'm not a good writer, and being german and needing a proofreader doesn't help a lot. There's an insane amount of stuff I need to write down, all the basic information about the world and everything inside it. I have all the ideas, a lot of them just need to be written down, but an awful lot needs a lot of fleshing out too. This alone will take months. And when it's done, it's probably poorly written.

Adventuring: I admit it, I suck at making encounters. I hate mindless encounters and would love recreating some of the fun stuff I saw in Nexus, for example, however I can't get myself to set up even the easiest ones. I want some unique creatures, stuff that doesn't just bash hard, harder or hardest on you, but good encounters need some skill, skill I also lack. There's also my plan to make encounters more storydriven, throwing in aspects of singleplayer games, but starting these things are a long way, when so far not a single "red" creature is in the module.

Michael's Core and XP system. I know it's a wonderful thing Michael created there, it will help making Middleforest unique like few other things, however, it's still a huge bunch of scripts I have to get my head into and more often than not fail. Michael is extremely helpful whenever I need help with it and have a specific question, but I actually have to be able to voice that question first, and that is already quite a task. Bugfixing the S&S system is not really easy when most of the time I can't say for sure if it even works or not, if I set up everything right, you know... I will always remain a copy and paste - scripter, I can understand stuff in scripts when I look at it, it's like a german reading dutch: You get the meaning because the words are familiar, but hell, you can't speak it!

Ambience, the "living, breathing" world. Oh hell, this is one of my favourite subjects... I had so many plans for making NPCs living, but more often than not fail completely. I was looking at Uncle FB's NPC control and the stuff he did is exactly what I'd love to see in Middleforest, however... I couldn't get it to work in the first place, and again completely gave up on it because there's so many other things on my list to do. A while ago the blacksmith I made using his script started working all of sudden... fun to watch, but hey... why did it not work while I tried to get it to? Hell. All is voodoo in my building.

Rungholt. Yes, I'm still worried about it. Everyone told me I should leave it as it is, however, I think it's performance is horrible, I just completely messed up there. Rebuilding it again would be like trashing most of the module though. Everytime I enter the city I think "This does not work, players will kill me for this!", and yet the idea of splitting it up, making it smaller or whatever totally ruins my mood.

Minor hurdles with major annoyance. Example, my graphics card upgrade. This is just a small thing but as you probably know, it's often the tiniest stuff that causes an explosion. Last winter I had my 2nd nVidia card die quietly and I scratched together the last few coins I did not have and bought an ATI 4870, a card that should easily run circles around my old 8800GT. I bought this one especially for NWN2, because in the past I always prefered ATI's over nVidia's render quality. This is especially true in foggy areas in NWN1 and 2 where nVidia cards show ugly color gradients and ATI just a smooth fog. However... once I got the card I learned that ATI cards do not render point light shadows in NWN2. Not at all. Never did. What the f.... how am I supposed to make nice atmospheric interiors when this stupid thing does not render any shadows? Dammit! Apparently Obtusian was aware of that right in the begiining and included that little option called "ATIWorkaroundForPointLightShadows" in the nwn2.ini, but... yeah, guess what, it does nothing. I tried every Catalyst driver version, nothing. Made forum posts. Finally filed a bug report to ATI, I doubt anything will happen. Why? Because I looked at the NWN2 official website and saw it there: "nVidia - the way it's meant to be played". F*ck you, nVidia, how much did you pay them again for that?

Inspiration. That's the big one. All the things up there hurt my inspiration already enough, I only see work anymore and forget about the fun part. The sheer amount of work I just "have to do" drags me down enough already, but there are many more things that don't help either. There's always the issue of "being under the weather", feeling that I can't hold up to the promises I made or not meeting the expectations. I'm a paranoid person - I was showing people around in the few areas I made and got great feedback, but as a totally paranoid and negative person of course I think "they're just trying to be nice". That's me, can't help it. Then there's the influence from other worlds, projects, from roleplay. I'm currently having a total RP burnout, shying away from playing with others very often - that leads me to the question "why do I even bother making a multiplayer world?". Of course you can file that under negative Karma, and once I play a singleplayer game again I already wish again it had a multiplayer side, but anyway. I'm heavily influenced by other worlds and when things in, say Dammendrech go bad, I lose hope in Middleforest too. I see Khalidine hanging around with zero players and no updates anymore and wonder why such an ambitious project suddenly fell silent. I still see the low player numbers in all these PWs, more often than not hanging between zero and two, and wonder if Middleforest will end like that too, a waste of time. Well, that's just some examples.

Real life: Yeah, that too, but I guess everyone knows that. :)

So, do you see where this is going to? I guess you can, but I still hesitate. I told Michael two or three years ago that I don't want to make any compromises, but as it looks I will have to, whatever option I choose. I guess I finally learned my lesson that working on a PW alone is just too much, it's an impossible task especially with NWN2 and if you are aiming for quality. Quality is still my main goal, and I'd hate to give that one up. I'll probably ask the question soon, just not sure how to approach it.

An overdue update, first part: Screenies

2010-04-25T18:22:00.005+02:00

Hey there, long time no see. Before I'm finding long excuses and rant away though, I thought the blog could use some screenshots again. I'll spare you the rants until the part two. Some of the pics are from new areas, some are from interiors I already made a while ago, but never bothered to post about. The new exteriors you see below are still unfinished, but I guess you can already see enough for now. Both are connected to the farmlands I showed you an eternity ago, both are designed to transition fluently to it, like a so-called "super-area" (is that what it's called? An area that could be one, but is split up into 4 quarters?). Anyway, I'll come to that further below. Let's start with the St.Magnus Heights:

As you can see, another rural area. The cloister St.Magnus is located on a small hill with some surrounding farmlands, the second pic shows the cloister brewery - every good cloister should brew a good ale, right?
Now, the next one looks rather dull, while it's quite giant. I think you have seen enough grass in all my past pics, so here's ionly the north side of the area, the coastline:

Right, a long beach. Not much to say there, other than that I really hate NWN2's water. I left it out of the screenshot on purpose.
But what I wanted to say about the transitions, super-area like: It's quite a simple trick I first saw in Cipher's A Game of Thrones module, and the actual trick is the wonderful and totally awesome TerraCoppa plug-in. Simply copy the terrain (with all placeables and stuff) from the borders of one area to the unwalkable border of the next one connecting to it, and the transitions are as fluent and seemless as possible with this game. Look at the screenie below:

As you can see, the street behind the transition continues into the distance, you can see those far hills and all. Well, that's exactly what you will see in the next area, copied 1 to 1. It's a huge improvement in game and I wish I had known this trick right from the beginning. It's also a good idea giver for the next area connected - use the transitioning copy&paste on your new empty area and you already have a border of two tiles done, from there you can easier work your way to the next tiles than if you'd stare at a "blank sheet". Wonderful plug-in, highly recommended.

Next some interiors, I know I haven't posted many of these, that's mainly because they usually don't make good screenshots. But as a proof I have some, here you go.
With interiors I'm quite picky, especially the lighting of these is something I often don't like in other modules. Plus, these stupid tiles are just too big. A tavern that mainly is a 4-tile hall, located in one of these tiny buildings, that doesn't look right. Of course the interiors are always too large for the building, whatever you do, but I like to keep it as tiny and realistic as possible.
For example, this is an apartment house floor in Rungholt:

There are 4 apartment doors connected to his , plus two doors for the stairs up and down... all of that is on less than two tiles and I hink it looks okay. If I just used NWN2's default doors and tiles though, I'd end up with a 4x2 tile area your tiny little PC would look totally lost in...
Anyway, some more interiors...

As you can ee, I tried to make the lighting more atmospheric and realistic than NWN2's defaults - the areas are usually pitch black and only use hand-placed light sources. Furthermore, those have their own little day/night cycle, although I kept it simple. I use the Scripted Lighting System for it which comes with many useful prefabs already that don't need too much work anymore - far easier than making your lights from scratch. And here's what you can do with that:

Above is the dawn light: It's not black, but there's a very low blueish light near the curtain, this one is used in the early morning hours and in the evening, for 1-2 hours. In the evening it transitions to pitch black, at which stage a candle is lit on the table (and yes, SLS2 also adds and removes the candle flame effect):

... and finally, during daylight hours, the room looks like this:

And below is a van interior, just showing it as another example for a cramped little interior (maybe a third of a tile). Oh, and as you can see, I use Kemo's Animations here - no worries, it'll be the PG version ;)

Speaking of Kemo's, I also found a way to use these animations on NPCs (they are usually just meant for player characters who fire them via a custom UI). Was a pain to find out how really, but somehow I got it to work:

Okay, that's enough of screenshots and wannabe-updates that are actually already in for a long while. I'll have to rant a lot too and explain my current lack of inspiration, but that's for another post.

Races, classes and deities in Middleforest, part 1

2010-01-22T23:03:00.010+01:00

Base Races:

As you can see, most races sound quite familiar. The major changes here are the Halflings, who are Islanders in Middleforest's lore, The Spiritual (formerly Planetouched) and the Eglean.

The Dwarves:

These might remind you of Dragon Age, and I admit that in this case it was indeed the influence. We have the nobleborn dwarves who's favoured class has been changed to priest, the lowerborn ones who could be considered "working class", and the outcast ones that could be compared to the surface dwarves in Dragon Age, dwarves that completely left the dwarven society behind them. The Lowerborns still serve best as armsmen, the outcasts as Hunters.

The Elves:

The elves are changed from describing their bloodline to describing their favourite style of living.
The major changes here, short and sweet:

The Mountain Elf would be the drow in the original game, however in Middleforests lore they are all but the drow. They are dark, but usually have dark hair as well. They do not live deep below the surface, but in (as in: on the surface of) the mountains. They might be outside the society, but are not considered evil per se. Favourite Class: Scholar.

The City Elf, yes, I know what you think. Yes, they are almost exactly like the City Elf in Dragon Age, and no, they are not ripped of, Bioware simply had the same idea as I had, apparently. Sue me if you don't believe it. The city elf are based on the Moon Elf, their favourite class has been changed to the Scout.

Gypsie Elves: Based on the Sun Elf, and the name says it all. They are free, but stick close to urban areas. Their favoured class has been changed to Artisan.

Nomad Elves: Again, the name says it all, they are travellers, but usually stay far away from urban areas and meet strangers with suspicion. Their favourite class has been changed to the Shaman.

Forest Elf: Closest to the original, the Forest Elves prefer the forest and keep to themselves, their favoured class remains Hunter.

The Gnomes:

The main change here would be that the Urban gnome likes being a scholar (I just hate that bard from the NWN2 campaign!), and the Mountain Gnomes are more like nomads from the Mountains, and not somewhere in the Underdark. :)

The Islanders (Halflings):

Halflings in Middleforest are called "Islanders", because all of them descend from two islands named after the old clan families. This would be the smaller van Panhys Island, actually a formation of smaller isles with one main Island, and the large Claycomber Isle. Although Islanders have since moved to many other places and are a common sight around the forest, all of them can track their bloodline back to one of these two clans.

The Half-Elves:

The Half-Elf is just that, the offspring of an Elf and a Human. Even though sometimes met with prejusices, they are not unusual, since Humans and Elves meet often.
The Halfbreed is usually the unwanted, outcast child of a human and a mountain elf, the main reason they're met with suspicion and almost hatred is their dark skin and the fact that they're usually bastard childs. Often suspicious folks mistake them for cambions.

The Spirits (Planetouched):

The Spirituals are creatures that need a little more explanation, however, just for the game mechanics and some very basic info:

Fylge: Formerly Aasimar, favoured class "Blessed", as this is what they basically are - blessed.
Cambion: Formerly Tieflings, the favoured class remains. Also known as changelings, the bastard child of a humanoid and a dark spirit or daemon. In common lore, usually a succubus or incubus' doing.

Deva: Formerly Air Genasi, a Spirit of the element air, with their favoured class changed to the shaman and some adjustments to make that class worthwhile for them.

Faun: Formerly Earth Genasi and also known as Troll, Dryad, Tree nymphes and a lot of other things. Favoured class druid with adjustments that don't cripple this choice anymore.

Salamander: Formerly Fire Genasi and their favoured class changed to sorcerer with appropriate adjustments.

Nereide: Also known as Nix, Nekk, Water Nymph and others. Favoured class changed to Artisan (yes, the clichée of the singing mermaid ;) ) with appropriate adjustments.

The Classes:

The classes in Middleforest remain basically the same, with mostly cosmetical changes to overcome the D&D clichees and fit the Setting better. A major note, though: No class has any alignment requirements anymore. There are still RP requirements and rules of thumb, but alignments should not play any role in Middleforest.
You might wonder where the Red Dragon Disciple is hidden - well, it's gone, it's the only class that really has no place in Middleforest.
Also noteworthy is that some classes require serving "The Allseeing", the Templar and the Crusader. And what the hell is a Hanse Guard? Well, it's the old Neverwinter Nine class which serves now as the class for guards and soldiers of the Hanseatic League.

The Gods:

Gods in Middleforest can be tracked down to gods that are part of european folklore, however don't expect them to be accurate. There is one main Deity in the civilized areas, which would be the Allseeing. Most humans pray to him, and his "real life" counterpart should be obvious. He is changed in a way that keeps him a fictual god, however he's obviously based on the christian god, on purpose.
Most of the other gods are "minor" and there for "heathens" to choose from. A human who believes in one of these is usually an alien to his kin, since these gods are almost forgotten in human society. Someone who mentions believing in another god than the Allseeing would be considered strange at least. Some however still serve as patrons to some, e.g. it wouldn't be surprising to find a symbol of Lugh in a carpenter's house or the symbol of Eira in a medic's.

Alright, fine, I hate you Michael. :)

2009-11-22T20:45:00.005+01:00

So, if you've read through the comments of my last post, you might see where this is going - I was proven wrong, hmph. Not in the point that NWN2's expansions have a great soundtrack, no, but on my comment that there's no point in using custom music. So thanks to mister Sinclair, I just increased the amount of stuff you players will have to download. If you have any complaints about the file size, blame him (given that I get the autodownloader to work with music, never tried that).
Anyway, I have to wholeheartedly agree that this is some nice music that will add a lot to the atmosphere of.. well, some areas I haven't made yet, but they'll come. :)
Here's the youtube thing from the comments again:

Oh, and for your info, should you ever consider using these files for your mod: There's some typos in the 2das (or files, whatever you prefer) that prevent 2 or 3 of the tracks from playing. The mines and the dungeons are affected, just add the plural s to the bmu's file names and they'll work.

A sidenote on music

2009-11-21T06:07:00.006+01:00

File under ramblings...
A few things tonight triggered this post -

I was just adding sounds to my areas and was thinking about whether or not using background music.
I was sitting around in Dammendrech and thinking about the lack of music.
I logged into Khalidine to look at the systems (and if there was something to rip off) and heard the custom music.

Now, point 3 is the one I'm starting my rant with - well, there's apparently a lot, or maybe not a lot but some custom music at the vault. Nothing new, that existed back in NWN1 times too, but I never cared about it. Now, when I logged into Khalidine today I was reminded why I don't care. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound negative, but for me personally, it's very weird and almost drops me out of any immersion when I hear 3rd party music, especially in NWN2.
Why especially NWN2? Well, tastes might differ, but personally I think NWN2 has an awesome original score. Especially the two expansions. No, stop... the two expansions have an awesome score and the original campaign just one I'd remember, but not listen to much.

When I first played NWN2's original campaign there was certainly the main theme and some music like the village music that was memorable, it's a score you associate immediately with the game. That's fine, job well done. Not worth an Oscar, but the title theme is certainly original.
Now, when I first installed and played MotB I must say it was quite a different experience - I stopped playing and just stood still to listen. Especially when I entered the village of Mulsantir, I thought to myself "hell, what did they do here, that's really special!"
I think it's the fact that Alexander Brandon, the man hired for doing the MotB score, broke with a lot of the usual conventions. He didn't just stick with the usual epic orchestral score, he added a lot of sometimes a little strange folklorisic elements, swimming noticably against the current and making the whole soundtrack stand out in the masses. Frankly, I don't know why this fact hasn't been praised more on the forums and elsewhere - MotB had one of the most original scores I've ever heard in a game.
And praised be Obsidian, they hired the same man for SoZ and you can hear it. I never finished the game, but I have the score on my iPod. Hey, I never listened to game music outside a game before! I don't even have any movie soundracks, besides Neil Young's Dead Man or such.. but I truly enjoy going through my NWN2 playlist to find new music for my areas. None of the other recent games I played had such an effect for me. Dragon Age could have been even more epic if they hired that guy, but they did not, so it's just average epic. The Witcher's music was certainly okay, but nothing you'd remember for a lifetime either. But Alexander Brandon should make movie scores, really. He wouldn't have a problem coming up with a truly unique score for Peter Jackson's next fantasy movie at all, actually I could imagine The Hobbit with some of the SoZ/MotB tunes. :D

So, my conclusions...
Custom music for Middleforest - no way. I love the music that comes with NWN2 more than anything else I heard on the vault or elsewhere. And yes, I will add background music, it gives each area a very special feel to it, improving the immersion for me. Don't like it? Well, disable background music or turn down the volume, hehe.
For you "NWN1 forever" people, here's some examples from Youtube to illustrate what I'm talking about.

NWN2's original title score (not A. Brandon), unique theme but nothing more

NWN2 - MotB (Mulsantir theme)

NWN2 - SoZ (Plains theme)

P.S: It certainly helped me to have the music available in iTunes to decide on themes for areas (and tracks I like so much that I probably never use them because I save them for "some special area" ;) ). In case you didn't know, all the tracks are stored in C:\Program Files\Atari\Neverwinter Nights 2\Music (or Music X2), you can copy them and just change the .bmu extension into .mp3. Tedious work that's easier to do with some batch programm... I can only name one for Mac, but I'm sure there's something for Windows too.

The areas I'm working on now

2009-11-20T07:27:00.002+01:00

Some work in progress screens for you. The first area is a loooong road over a huuuuge bridge and it's the outskirts of Rungholt. I'm still a little unsure about it, it looks better in game than on the screens at least. Hmm.
The second area is one I just started yesterday, I simply wanted to have a forest. Now, forests in NWN2 are not that easy actually, you have to spam trees like mad to make it at least a little immersive. NWN1 was easier with the forest tileset, and much less ressource hungry. Still, I'm not completely disappointed - just don't look too close at the textures and grass, I was getting impatient and sloppy... need to fix that.

Rungholt outskirts - lots of farms and grass

A little closer to the bridge

A lake near the forest

I'm hopelessly romantic, I know....

Deeper in the forest

Oh look, an old mine!

The forest road - no other way south, hope there's no bandits in the bushes...

Dragon Age - Some impressions

2009-11-15T14:43:00.005+01:00

No, Dragon Age wasn't the reason why I've been silent for so long. And it's also not that I haven't done anything in the meantime - I just didn't think anything of what I've done was worth writing about. Some new areas are done, but frankly, screenshots of interiors are never satisfying to me, and the few exteriors I made are not screenshot-ready yet.
Anyway, this is about Dragon Age, the game I just ran a tour de force through. Typical for Bioware, it doesn't let you go, and now I'm feeling sick and tired and tempted to make another character and start over again. Yes, it's that good.
However, there's one point, and that's the hope for Dragon Age being a NWN replacement for us builders someday. I guess many remember the disappointment about the decission to make it only a singleplayer game a while ago, especially after many of us became frustrated about the NWN2 toolset. However, after playing it for a while now I must say it's maybe for the best, at least for now, because I noticed a lot of things in the game that were quite disappointing from a builder's point of view. There's for one the general artwork. If you aim for realism, I think DA is not for you, because the artwork is even more comicbook-style than NWN2. That does not include the characters, armors and weapons of course, which show a wonderful amount of detail. The placeables and area design though can't live up to that standard, some appear very outdated, some are just, to speak bluntly, crap. Bioware also did a very bad job with the textures at many points, as you can see in some of the screenshots I attached. As a builder, I wouldn't want to use any of this, Dragon Age would need a big overhaul like some of those Oblivion mods, or a Witcher enhanced version (although the Witcher already had extraordinary area design right from the beginning). To make things even worse, Bioware level designers didn't even make the best out of the limited ressources they had - the area design is sometimes just sloppy and rushed with no attention to detail at all.
All this doesn't hurt the campaign much, because you're so soaked into the storyline, but if you take a short break and just look around with builder's eyes for a few minutes, you might be as disappointed as I was. But that's Bioware, they've never been the best in the art department, however they are wonderful storytellers, a fact that saved a lot of their games in the past. It's just a little sad when you read the reviews and all of them mention these sloppy mistakes that could have easily been avoided. Just fixing up a few textures could've earned them a, say, 93% score instead of 91%. Sad.
I must add though that the general atmosphere of the game still works fine for me, if I forget about the details. The lighting is often wonderful, some textures still work great to give places a certain feel to them, and with a little more attention to detail, I think one can make a great mod here. It just won't be the style I aim for in Middleforest, it'd have to be more fantasy.

There's also the toolset I just opened for the first time this week to look around a little, then ignored again because I just had to continue playing. On first sight it's rather intimidating. Funny, that was my first impression on NWN2's toolset too, I thought I'd never learn it nor even understand it's basics. Now after opening Dragon Age's toolset, I have the same feeling again and NWN2's toolset feels like the easy to use one to me. Well, I guess it's too much to ask for a simple toolset like NWN1's again, but the professionalism of DA's was a little more than I expected. The first thought was again: This needs wizards... a lot of wizards.

I have to mention another thing that drags me down, and that's the characters. Why, you ask? Well, because I'd never be able to bring this kind of depth into a multiplayer moddule, not even a singleplayer module. Characters are what make this game again extraordinary, and Bioware even did a much better job here than in Mass Effect. Mass Effect still was too close to the stereotypes, and all the characters were somehow foreseeable and easy to understand. Even though they were great in how they came to life, their background and story was clichée. In Dragon Age though, the characters are rich in every aspect, and I was surprised of how much I cared for some of my companions. More than in every other game so far, at least.

The clichées bring me to another topic, and that's Dragon Age's classes and races. There's one huge problem I have to mention right at the beginning: The City Elves. I sort of saw this coming, started with the City Elf Origin and found my fears to be proven: Bioware did exactly what I imagined the elves in Middleforest to be. Why's that bad? Well, because of course everyone will just think I copied from Dragon Age now. Meh.
Besides that, Dragon Age did a lot of things exactly how I wished them to be in D&D. It was so refreshing to find what you could call an overhaul of the D&D system that gets rid of all the rubbish and makes things easier and better where it can. Many things are very familiar to those used to D&D and games like NWN, but you can expect some surprising changes as well. I had great fun with the overhaul of the rogue class, just to name one. New feats like the "Below the belt" one are extremely fun to have, even if they might not be very powerful. But the animation that goes with it alone is fun enough. Oh, animations... do I have to mention how wonderful animations are? This is clearly the department where Bioware can show Obsidian their middle finger with a huge grin, and proves how much attention they can pay to details if they just want to. My conclusion is, in the level design department they just don't want to.

Let's not forget some aspects of the game that were talked a lot about, like the maturity of the game. There's two aspects of maturity in the game, one is the actual storyline, the other is content. As for the storyline, yes, it's a mature storyline that should appeal to adults a lot more than Mass Effect. The characters in the game are not as naive and simple anymore as they once were, and there's a lot of grey now where once was black and white only. Bioware got finally rid of the simple good/evil axis and decissions in this game are very tough... some had me stare at the screen for minutes or a half hour, some touched me deeply. Job very well done.
But most people probably think of blood and sex when the topic is adult content, so let's talk about that. The violence level in Dragon Age might be 18+, but it's not mature - it's silly. Some might be realistic, I'll take the Witcher for comparison again. I'm sure Bioware looked very closely at The Witcher and adopted a lot of ideas from that game. Finishing moves, severed heads, that was just too familiar. But Bioware has overdone it, and that's where it's not mature anymore. In some scenes the fountains of blood and gore are so silly I fell back into my chair and slapped my forehead, it was not the Witcher but much more the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
This game certainly needs blood and violence, but they've not done it right.
As for the sex, this is again somewhere in between, and again we have to differentiate between storyline and graphics. As for the graphical sex, i.e. nudity, I have no clue where "partial nudity" is shown. In the hottest scenes you see characters in underwear, hardly nude (although parts of that underwear are quite detailed). There are some creatures that show a little more than underwear, but still no partial nudity. A demon and a spirit come to mind, both seem again a little familar (uh... Driad and Bruxxa in The Witcher), but both show as much as the Witcher's censored North American version, with the most delicate parts hidden. So as for graphical nudity, there's not much mature content.
As for the storyline, there are scenes comparable to the one in Mass Effect (Mass Effect's was done better in my opinion) and some "in between quickies". Bioware made sure absolutely every taste is catered to, there are hetero, gay, even options for a mix of all. None of them are very detailed, the main romance plotlines are very well done though, and very tasteful, mature in a positive way. And from my experience, it's not just a "discover everything in the game" thing, your companions can grow so much on you that you really want to get everything out of them. Again, well done, doesn't deserve a "filthy" stamp. Actualy, and you may think whatever you like about that, I'd rather have had partial nudity in the main romance scene, maybe hidden by the camera angles of the cutscene. The silly undies appeared too much like a self-censorship and actually deserve a negative point in maturity. I guess they wanted to avoid the stupid remarks about the Witcher, in which you see a little more and which earned the game an unjustified "sexist" stamp.

Now a last word on the ingame systems. I must say besides the "D&D overhaul" there wasn't much that impressed me. The influence on other characters is the same as in all Bioware games, hardly surprising anymore. Theres no "living, breathing" world around you like in The Witcher, no NPC jobs, no day/night cycles, no weather system, nothing at all. If there are any nifty ideas in Dragon Age, it's in the lore, the story, the characters and setting, but certainly not in any ingame systems. Well, of course there are nifty ideas in the class progressions, feats and spells, but that won't be easy to copy in NWN. But for a living, breathing world The Witcher is still the prime example in my opinion.
You know what my last impression is though, especially with the sometimes very archaic area design? Multiplayer... MMO. This game is made to run on as many systems as possible, on my now 3 year old computer it runs on he highest of highest settings, smooth as silk. There are many aspects ingame and outside that could lead to a multiplayer game, add to that some comments on the DA boards like "we wanted to focus on singleplayer for now" and and and.. it's just a feeling deep in my stomach, but it's not a positive next-NWN feeling, it's more a negative MMO feeling... And yeah, just a feeling, probably best to ignore it.

One "meh" for the textures

Another huge "Meh" for the textures... shame on you Bioware...

Realistic placeables? What for, in a fantasy game... meh.

Sloppy area design, part one... if you just use 10 spots of grass in the whole area (meh), you could at least place those ten spots correctly. Meh.

Interiors

2009-09-05T01:27:00.002+02:00

Autumn's coming, and with it new ideas for areas. I'm currently working on new exterior areas, but thought as a proof I did something since my last post, I'd show you a few of the Rungholt interiors I made. I still need much more, and not all of them are good yet, but to give you a general idea how the houses look like on the inside, here we go...

A noble tavern

One of the simple pubs

Once again from the entrance

A different pub

The Rungholt Brewery

One of these days

2009-08-19T10:32:00.003+02:00

Staring at the screen and drawing a blank. This is one of these days I hate like no other, I'm not satisfied with what I did, I think it's all in vain anyway because the performance of my city is too bad, I look at the scripting work that's coming soon and see that not even a simple script to close doors works properly. I doubt the whole PW concept and think I should've started a singleplayer mod, because PWs never turn out as you want to. I wonder if any player who'd join would actually be fun to roleplay with, or if NPCs might not be the nicer alternative, and even larger in numbers. I see new custom content I want to use, but already lost track of the stuff I already have in my haks and don't dare to touch it. The stupid toolset crashes again when I open Rungholt after working on a different area, I restart the toolset countless times a day. I hate the interiors I made, and how zooming out the camera ruins he immersion, while zooming in in character mode ruins the playability. Did I ever mention there's nothing worse than seeing the person you play with uses WASD walk? I don't know why, but I always think that person has some liters of Coke inside, potato chips on the table and plays a quick round of NWN before returning to Unreal Tournament. Of course that's bullshit, but still...

I think my Roleplay sucks. I'm not up for the task of DMing in the world I create. Talk about finding a lead DM when I also need a lead scripter, builder, custom content guy and what else I'm too stupid for but do anyway.

I want that signed Storm of Zehir copy so I get at least one birthday present this year ( I slept away that day), I want autodownloaders just to work, I want to have a fun and immersive place to RP in (Middleforest? I dunno, I doubt that at the moment), and... meh. I need a creativity dose, some new ideas that I can actually work into the mod without failing miserably or getting bad headaches. Saw an awsome modification at the vault today and wish I had the patience and technical skill to do that - at least I know I could've made the exterior a little nicer, that's already something, huh? But I think I'm making yet another NWN2 mod instead of something unique when I see that. I'm scratching more and more things from the list that I wanted to do at some point, simply because it's way too much work. Talk about custom classes, class changes, rule changes... meh. I cannot even find the patience to update that stupid nekkid-hak I created (what did I create that for anyway when I'm probably not even using it...?).

Windows terrorizes me too. Can't we have a Mac toolset? At least on the Mac side I have that GB RAM more that Windows is too stupid to see, and that's probably the GB Runholt needs to stay stable.

Oh, I don't like chatrooms too... yeah, Dammendrech has one and it's what I mean. While some people are fun to talk to outside of the game, some you wish would just... don't talk when they don't play... it's hard to RP with a character you might actually like when you know the player is someone you'd avoid. To prevent that, I don't want anything like a chatroom for Middleforest, no-ho. But first we need a Middleforest anyway, then players, then we can talk about stuff like chats.

So, enough rambling for today, my computer has finished the disk repair, defragment and whatever routine and is free for toolsetting again. Damn what a day.

A little more detail

2009-08-12T17:14:00.005+02:00

Bored of Rungholt yet? Well, I'm slowly getting to the point where I'd rather make some screens of new areas too, but, well... perfectionism. As I said in my last post, I'm a bit worried about performance here. It's not unplayable, but I'm getting serious framerate drops at some camera angles, and I'm pretty sure the cause is area size coupled with all the water throughout the city. The framerate doubles when I disable all water options, so that's a sure sign my theory isn't that far off. Of course I'm using a lot of placeables too, but them and the trees and lights and all don't seem to cause that much trouble alone. But at this point I'm just thinking "live with it", the area works, computer systems will catch up in time, hehe. So some more Rungholt pics..

A slum camp just ouutside the walls

An alley with red lanterns

The elven quarter

My favourite "isle"

Again, and yes I see there's a piece of wall missing...

One shot with the standard day/night cycle

Guess the character

2009-08-06T01:00:00.004+02:00

This is probably just for Michael. I had some fun recreating some old friends who might make an appearance in Midleforest (sadly, a few of my favourites just don't fit the setting), an idea I stole in Dammendrech.
Besides that, I still can't show off a lot of areas, but I think Rungholt is really getting great. One downside though, the performance is pretty bad, the area is just too huge. Not unplayable, but noticeable. I'll keep it anyway, not another rebuilt. That'll be another post though.

Getting somewhere?

2009-07-28T19:53:00.002+02:00

After all the babbling in the last posts finally some new Work in Progress screenshots, this time using a very dark lighting. Think I'm getting somewhere.

And while I'm on it, a reminder

2009-07-26T20:33:00.003+02:00

Baking is a pain, especially when the walkmesh just doesn't do what I expect it to do. So while I bake 10 minutes, make a small change, bake again, change again it seems like this is a good time for another reminder of the initial goal of all this. In my last post I already rambled a lot, now I'm going to list a few more specific things about what I would like to do that others don't.

First of all, like Michael said and, I assume, most others would agree on, I want to build the world I want to play in. Now, there are so many Persistent Worlds out there, and I assume a few of them already did things I want to do, but the perfect mix is still missing. So here are the main goals I have:

an immersive world. I want to get lost in it, forget about real life for a few moments and be in a different life.
a fair world. Where should I start about fairness? It would be a long long rant
a unique world
a fun world

First point: Immersion. Immersion is the general atmosphere, and the main factors are probably area design, setting and lore, and the quality of Roleplay. The most beautiful world is not immersive when the playerbase only consists of World of Warcraft-kids. The best Roleplayers cannot get into a world if it looks like a child has quickly thrown an area together. One goes with the other. The area design is what I think I can get done, it is not about the technical skill which I certainly lack, but I think I know what I want it to look like. I'm not a "form follows function" builder who makes a list of area contents and quests, then throws in the buildings as it fits. I have an image of a city or area in front of me, try to build it, then "walk through the streets" and consider what kind of interior a house might have, if a corner would be a good place for a market stand and so on.

The other side of area design is the technical side, to be immersive a world shouldn't be full of bugs, the NPCs should act realistic, scripts just have to work. That's step 2, I'm not even there yet. I'd rather have a nice looking base first I can fill with life, the systems behind it are secondary. Not less important, but when I see the world in front of me I can better imagine how I want it to function.

As for immersive roleplay, there are two factors: The world and the player. I noticed that when a someone's thrown into a really well built world, most people automatically adjust to it. If my server is full of exciting baddies to kill, players will focus on killing them. If my world has a lot of stunning areas, players stop and look around, and might even just want to sit at a lake for hours to enjoy it.

However, not every player is like that, and that's why, as sad as it is, there need to be rules. I hate rules, really, and I want to keep them low in numbers. Nexus had just one main rule, that was:

Everyone gets to have fun - Nobody gets to have fun on another one's expense

That's a good rule, however it's not enough. Not even for Nexus it was, for example there was the rule about no evil characters. There might have been many good reasons for that rule, however I think in an immersive world there's no place for such rules. There's actually not even a place for alignments, if we're talking about realism. Alignments are silly, I despise the whole system and it ruins my fun. The rules for Middleforest would contain different things, but I can live with the Nexus main rule above them all. A few examples for rules I consider necessary:

Roleplay. Live your character. Stay IC. Limit ooc chatter to tells
Strict PvP rules. PvP is allowed for realism, however only in rare circumstances when roleplay justifies it and only if all parties agree on it.
Classes are roleplay tools. Be free, experiment, don't think you have to act like a monk only because you took that class. Be a character, not a build
Be an adult, act like an adult. Adult content is not what a teenager considers adult content, it's about being mature and playing a mature game.
(A few rules to prevent munchkinism, like the 3-level rule)

There are not many more that come to my mind at the moment. Middleforest should be free of those hundreds of rules other servers require you to read. Middleforest will not have character applications, most classes will be treated as tools, not require certain roleplay. Players are required to play out their character build, but they are free to do that however they want as long as it makes sense. Why is that? Because the players know their character better than any DMs.

That brings me right to point 2, fairness. I hate unfairness, and there are many aspects of it. And it starts right with the rules above, and not only when it comes to social interaction between players. Unfairness could be that you don't let the other roleplay their character as they think it fits best. You are a rogue, you have to act like a rogue. Utterly bullshit. It continues to fairness in game mechanics, and the main point Michael's xp system is all about. There are many kinds of classes, and they all play differently, however they should all have the same chance to advance, without having to go completely out of character. Here's an example: In Dammendrech, a roleplay world, a lot of people play characters that are not combat orientated. However, everyone wants to advance, that's the crux with the levelling system of D&D. What happens? At some point they all go ooc grinding alone on different sides of the server, hoping not to be seen by others because IC their character wouldn't hurt a fly.

At that point I miss the relaxed fun of Nexus, where people just had a relaxed adventure together, not terribly in character, but it was fun.

In Dammendrech I rarely have that fun, just like in most other roleplay worlds. Adventuring becomes a necessity, you do it mostly on your own unless everyone agrees it's the half hour of ooc grinding of the day.

Now, with Michael's XP system I hope this one problem (My character would not kill, but I have to) will become obsolete. More ways of making xp that are not combat-focused is absolutely necessary. And good RP rewards. Back in Nexus, we could make a 1000xp by grinding for a half hour, but a RP reward for 4 hours was like... 100xp? People, I see that on most RP servers - RP needs to be rewarded, for many servers without a nifty xp system this is the only xp income for non-combat characters. And they are playing their ass off. Reward good RP generously, not like a small nod. The players will otherwise just be grinding again as soon as you turn around.

So, XP system and RP rewards, one thing. The other is encouraging party play in every aspect.

As much as I hate people around me only chatting oocly and grinding like mad like on most action servers, I also don't want to enforce an absolute strict IC rule. Sometimes it's necessary to relax a little, be half IC, but up for adventuring together even if your character might not fully agree. Everyone needs to let some steam of sometimes, and it's more fun together. It's fine, forget about it the next day, but it's a multiplayer game, it's a community game, it's not a singleplayer game. If there are four people on the server who are just in a killing mood, hell, please team up, do it together and enjoy party fun. It's better than seeing it as a monotoneous work and an evil necessity that has to be hidden from others. As long as it does not get out of hand and you don't annoy others with it. When a DM pops up players should be ready to RP, when someone else comes in and starts roleplaying I expect an immediate stop of ooc chatter (which should be kept to tells and party anyway) and appropriate IC reactions. For those who knew Nexus: The dock chatter there was fun at times, but it totally got out of hand. Real Life stories are a subject for tells, or go and look for a quiet room where nobody else comes along and talk there. I hope all this is not too much to ask on a RP server.

Now, for PvP I don't think there's much to say. This won't be a PvP server, PvP is only about realism and a last ressort. PvP is usually a thing that happens in RP, not in brute force. There are characters that don't get along and one might hate the other IC, however, there are almost unlimited ways to play that out without actually attacking the other. If there's absolutely no other way, then the fight must be IC, it must be in consense, and I'd prefer if a DM is around. There's no WoW-style "kill the n00b because I'm an evil rogue", such players are simply not wanted. We're all mature and expect players to behave like that.

Mature brings me to adult content, my favourite subject. 18+ = Oooh, pixelporn? No Sir, 18+ means 1. It's not a kindergarden but a mature game with mature storylines and yes, I'd prefer a mature playerbase. 2. I don't want to have anyone complain if a prostitute shows some skin or a drunken sailor uses dirty language. That's realism, and not pixelporn.

When I say 18+ I mean the average US-american rating by the way, I wrote more about that in an older post. In most european countries it would be 16+. There will be nudity if I decide it fits the context, there will be foul language if it's realistic, maybe even some minor erotic content. But I'm not building a "social" server where players meet to roleplay the act of reproduction, such players are as welcome as WoW-kids trying to get from 1 to 30 in a week. Saying this server will be adult-only is a precaution, nothing more. I don't want angry parents complaining about my content, as I've seen elsewhere. Expect adult content to be presented in a mature way.

Last, for the rules, the anti-munchkinism rules. It's quite simple, I like unusual builds and interesting combinations, but there's just the old issue of cherrypicking for power. And even if it can be explained IC, there's always a foul stench around builds like a Rogue29/Shadowdancer1. A class can mean anything the way you RP it, but it should matter nevertheless. I'd like to see people playing out the classes somehow and not pick it for just a single feat. So there's the 3 levels of each class rule that still stands, maybe I have to redefine that a little for NWN2, I might end with 2 of each, we'll see about that.

Now I think I covered most points of the lists above. The hardest thing is still making a world unique and stand out, and even with all those technical details, it's mainly the setting that makes the difference. Where will Middleforest stand out, if all my plans become reality and I really get all done I want to be done? Well, I think it will stand out in a quiet way, not outshine all the rest. I'm not aiming for an extreme world, I will stay close to what players are used to in NWN2, the differences being in the detail.

There's the setting. It won't be on the moon or underwater, it will be a fairly realistic world with some fantasy in it. But much more european than the original game and D&D, with more european (folk)lore and artwork.
The system. If I get SM's system in, it'll make a major difference.
the quality. I hope.

So what's the point?

2009-07-26T14:20:00.004+02:00

First, thank you all for your last comments, they boosted my morale a little bit again. Guess what, I already sat down and rebuild the whole thing. Well, I'm in the process, I have the same old walkmesh troubles again I had every time when I worked on the docks, and the terrain looks still very plain and simple. But I'm on it. And I've had a little success, I was able to configure the autodownloader and from now on could theoretically host the mod whenever I want, the multiplayer side is done. Not that there's anything in there to see yet, but so what, one thing less on the list.

But after all those troubles, I guess the question why I'm still doing this is more than justified. I'm not really sure where to start, there's a lot of reasons, and also a lot of reasons why I don't want to go back to NWN1, which has a stable, easy to use toolset and a lot of very polished community content. And last but not least, I'm envious of what Squatting Monk was able to set up, especially in regard of staff and helpers. NWN1 has a great community, and if I had sticked to it, Middleforest would probably be almost finished at this point. The decision to switch over meant being on my own on most parts. So what's so great about NWN2 then?

At first sight, nothing. When I started playing NWN2 I hated it in almost every aspect. The areas in the official campains looked worse than most NWN1 areas. More polygons, great. Terrain editor, wonderful. But what a bad artwork, so easily outshone by The Witcher for example, which was even built with NWN1's engine that was oh so old and oh so outdated and limited according to NWN2 forum posts. And, NWN2's performance was ridiculous. Such shitty artwork, zero eyecandy but crawling at 10 FPS? No thanks, we wait for Dragon Age.

Now, I think most credit for changing my mind goes to two persons. The first being lowfatpretzels, who I played a lot with in NWN1 and who insisted I should try some NWN2 PWs. The first of them was Abyssya, and my first steps in this world were exactly the same I later saw Michael do: A torrent of hatred against everything NWN2. "Why is the camera doing this, why can't I do this, why is my view blocked, why does my toon do that, why are my FPS so low when nothing here looks good... hell, I crashed" etc. etc. It wasn't really Abyssya's fault, I think that was a well made world, but I just wasn't ready. Neither was NWN2. I saw absolutely no reason to continue playing, went back to NWN1 and done.

A few months later Pretz tried again, and this time it was Dammendrech, the world he co-founded. I was a little frustrated with NWN1 back then, my old server Nexus was growing too old, nothing happened anymore and the few players who were left all fought each other. I was still absolutely sure I wanted to stick with NWN1, but I had no server to play on at that moment, so I gave Dammen a shot. Now, two things need to be mentioned here that are really important: 1. NWN2 had seen a few patches in between, 2. I had a better graphics card.

Yes, NWN2 is very demanding, but nowadays all midrange graphics cards should do the job fine, and boy, NWN2 can look so much better when you can actually enable a few more options and, this was the case in Dammendrech, someone actually knows how to make nice areas. Vulpina is a really good builder, and Pretz knows how to handle area lighting and all that eyecandy stuff, and both together are a very different experience than the areas Obsidian did.

Furthermore, customization. NWN2 has actually a very high level of customization, even though as a player you might only see that you can't change your armor as nicely as in NWN1. Still, it gave me some ideas of what is possible. There's a lot of potential in this game, you just have to dig a little. But there's also one more point, and that was simply Roleplay. After a while Dammendrech was just great to play on, I had wonderful Roleplay there, which hooked me up and made it more and more difficult to go back to NWN1 again where I actually had no idea where to play anymore.

So, three points:

Gaming hardware: NWN2 is a different experience when you can actually make it run smoothly (nowadays this is a cheap thrill, in 2006 it was expensive)
Players: If you enjoy playing with community one, why building for community two?
Customization: NWN2 offers more of it, especially in area design. I just love eye candy.

Now I mentioned two persons, and now we're at Mask's comment about Monty Python's Black Knight. That one has a name, and that's Rob McGinnis, Obsidian's former assistant producer and Community manager(?). I think nobody in NWN2's community was closer to that wonderful example than him. Whatever was wrong in NWN2, if a patch broke the whole game, if your computer exploded after entering Act 2 - Rob McGinnis fought for this game like a cat in the corner and was a good example for what I think was Obsidian's role in this story: They knew they f...ed up at the beginning, everyone knows Atari cracked the whip behind them and made them throw out a half-finished game. Obsidian/Obtusian/Osidiots did wrong whatever could be done wrong when it comes to game development, but hell they had dedication, and first and foremost Rob McGinnis who held the whole NWN2 community together all the time with his countless Developer posts. All that gave me the impression that there is indeed a community for NWN2, and even a likeable one. Hands down, NWN1 has a great community, but there was a lot of elitism there too, and often PW projects only seemed to exists as a show-off of what is all possible and who makes the greatest systems and whatnot - NWN1 just worked. NWN2's community was more like "Hell, this is crap, but somehow I like it, let's try to fix this up as good as we can and make the best out of it". And I think for he most part it succeeded, at this point NWN2 is very enjoyable, even with it's 1000s of bugs I can see it catch up with NWN1 and even taking over. It's like making a sculpture out of garbage.

Now, there's one more point, and I think this is a relict from NWN1 times. Competition. I admit, even with my limited skills I sometimes think I just want to do it better. I've played on some great servers, but I always see room for improvements, things I absolutely not like or that I just would approach differently. Especially in NWN2. I've seen a lot of good area design, but much more really bad area design. Just take all the official campaigns for NWN2: The artwork is just not what I would sell to anyone, I think I can do it better. Yes, it's an immense amount of work, but I want to show that more is possible with NWN2, there's so much potential.

Then of course there's the setting. I want to make a different approach than the others, not quite as different than Michael or Ben, but in details. I want to make the world I want to play in. And of course there's Michaels great S&S core system. Even in NWN1 it will outshine most others, and I'm a huge fan of it, even though in the beginning I just wanted a 1 to 1 copy of the Vives xp system. But in NWN2 I haven't seen anything like this yet, and I think making it work in a PW will immediately set the world apart from any others out there, as long as the quality of the building can live up to it. I like playing NWN2, and there's a system that makes playing a lot more enjoyable, but there won't be a NWN2 world ever using it if I don't. Someone's got to be the first, no?

Anyway, that's why I go back to the toolset now.

Rebuilding a city again?

2009-07-24T09:03:00.004+02:00

Here's a new Screenie for you:

Notice anything? Like... there's no terrain? No water? No textures?
Well, this is the best result that I could get after reverse-engineering the files the new autodownloader had prepared for me. In the process of preparing the files it was smart enough to erase everything from my module directory, apparently. Well, something did, and and I assume it was the autodownloader, or it's another new toolset "feature".
Want to hear more? It did not happen once, it happened twice. The first time I thought it was a mistake I made, was sure I can avoid it the next time and loaded up a backup - I was smart enough to backup my module folder before testing, uh huh.
Well, I forgot to make a backup of the backup though, and as you can guess, the toolset ruined my backup. Well done.
I honestly can't say how much more I'm able to stand... this is the second time in less than two months I can start from scratch. I consider dropping the whole thing, it's really getting too much.

More WIP

2009-06-27T08:29:00.002+02:00

This is going to be huuuuge! :D

In the flow

2009-06-25T22:25:00.004+02:00

(Re-) Building a city... again.

2009-06-25T10:15:00.004+02:00

After two days in NWN1, I usually had an area that looked almost finished. Sigh. Not in NWN2. I finally found the willpower to rebuild Rungholt, and progess is very slow, mainly due to the stupid walkmesh issues (see last post). But as a proof that I'm on it, here are screenies of the new layout. I changed the canals a little, the small "island" in the right half (the one the curved bridge leads to) might turn out as an interesting detail once it's populated, we'll see. The bridges are only for testing. I also use different walls for the canals now, the ones before look a little more interesting on the side, but always end in that stupid.. what is it, sort of a sewer entrance? Well, in Rungholt v.1.0 it was a detail that bugged me and I wasn't always able to hide it properly. Let's see how 2.0 turns out. At least the basic layout is done, now I can start with texture and houses.

Did you know...

2009-06-24T15:35:00.002+02:00

... that it can take more than 12 hours just to make a f*%!ing dock piece walkable in NWN2's toolset?!

Still working on it, my eyes feel like marshmallows.

Another short cross-promotion

2009-06-20T03:35:00.003+02:00

Yeah, again, sorry for no better subjects.
I started rebuilding Rungholt, that means.... I've made a new area and chose a base texture. Great, isn't it? When it came to the new layout of canals, I couldn't decide anymore and instead went on one of those overnight youtube-tours you might know... and that leads me to that cross-promotion, I decided to finally do what I wanted to do everytime after I went on a youtube-trip: Making a music blog. Sort of a diary, ranting about music and stuff, in no specific order, just what comes to my head during treasurehunting. So here it is: Life's too short for bad music - you can also just click on the link on the right side.
Back to business.

A quick cross-promotion

2009-06-17T22:48:00.005+02:00

... following Michael's example, I feel obliged to point my two readers at Ben Harrison's blog about his new persistent world project, The End Times. Ben's been a tremendous help back when I was still working on a NWN1 world, which unfortunately never happened (and I still feel bad about asking for so much help and in the end never making anything out of it).

Talented as he is, I'm sure that PW will be one you want to play on.

While you're at it, make sure to visit Michael's blog more often too - if NWN1 is still on your hard drive, you'll definitely want to try out his world once it's public, he has assembled a nice staff of very talented people by now and I'm sure whatever comes out in the end will be fantastic.

As for my building... I'm slowly getting used to the thought that I really have to start over again. My plea for help at the Bioboards was heard and people came up with good ideas, but nothing helped. Well, maybe I can file it under learning lessons for life. At least I learned a lot about the toolset since I began working on the areas, and maybe a new start will be easier, faster and a little more professional now. Just sad to know I should forget about those huge fields and grasslands, pity, I really liked those. :P

A new area, a sideproject, a huge drop back

2009-06-16T17:47:00.007+02:00

There are a lot of news, however, most of them are not good. The worst is the one I ran into two days ago, and it appears to put me back to zero. Let me start at the beginning.
Like a good builder should, I listened to the advise of the elders and always saved my module as a directory, not as a mod file, and also disabled autosave. A good student I am.
Like every true revolutionary should (see Shirt-post below), I didn't always listen to the elders and ignored some of their advise, like e.g. using just soandso many seeds of trees. I didn't run into problems, and that's why I kept walking on that revolutionary path with my fist raised high.
The one problem I ran into though - and there was no advise of the elders regarding that - was a crash occuring when I tried to erase grass. This seemed to happen from a certain amount either of grass on, or from a certain amount of grass types (there are a lot and I used a lot). But since my stuff always ran fine in game, I didn't care much about it and went on.
Recently though, my toolset kept crashing whenever I switched between areas. Loading a new one required to close the toolset, open it up again and load the area I wanted to work on. It was always an out of memory error, so I checked the size of my Middleforest directory which contains just 4 areas: 841MB. Shock. So I thought I'd better save as a mod and check if the huge size remains. And there it all started: I couldn't save as a mod anymore. Great. I tried to export the areas into an erf... crash. I tried to export them one by one - crash. I thought I used too many tree seeds, so I started deleting trees. Ended up with a module with no single tree or bush in it... still crashes, still the same size.
After much trial and error I was then able to export some erfs, but couldn't reimport them without the new mod giving out of memory errors. At least I figured that the crash occurs on importing the trx (Walkmesh) part of the erf, so I tried reducing the walkable areas to a minimum. But again, no change, a treeless and barely walkable module still crashing.
In the end I came to the conclusion that the grass is the root of the problem. I don't think I have to say anything more *points at Grasslands post*. I can't delete the grass in any area anymore, and it seems as if the grass crashes the module and bloats up area size. There is not even a way to tell the toolset to get rid of the grass at all in one step. Conclusion: My whole stuff is unuseable. Yay. That's months of work, and you can imagine how down I am at the moment, starting from zero is the worst case scenario, and I'm not even sure if I can avoid the bug in the future, unless I never use grass again. So that's what put my moral to zero this week, no idea what to do next... maybe new areas in a new module, putting the old stuff on hold, making alternatives.... rebuilding Rungholt is out of question, it took months to get it the way it is now, only an alternative attempt, basically a whole new city, would be possible.
Just to put a little more salt into the wound, here are some screens from the latest version (before I started to delete trees)...

I haven't taken any screens of the new stuff I'm working on, because it didn't pass my self-censorship yet. Basically it was the Rungholt road and the River crossroads from my old NWN1 module, after which the forest areas begin.

Anyway, there's some progress too, even though it doesn't affect the module directly, and that's my little sideproject of making stuff look nicer. I always hated how custom clothes that show a little more skin were only useable for chars that use the default human piggypink skintype - cursed you be if you use any other race or head variation with a different skin type, there you stood with a green head and a perfectly pink human body. Sorry, I'm getting eye cancer from such things, so I made... *drumroll*... a nude patch. Stop rolling your eyes, Michael... let me explain this embarrassing fact. So there's Jester who made a new nude patch, so to speak. It's a new nude model that looks a little nicer than the old one by Zylch001 which already served as a base for huge clothing compilations - basically everything that shows a little more skin (that already means no gloves or boots in NWN2!) is based on Zylch's model. Now, as for Jester's base, you probably notice it's name is New Nude (with Clothes), and what that means is that he made a dress base that isn't equipped in the armor, but in the belt slot, thereby not replacing the "Nude armor" the PC wears. And since the original skin is shining through, you can paint that skin to fit the PC head you use, and that's exactly what I did - after Jester even immediately listened to my request for a model with a little less breast (more realistic IMHO).
Anyway, I'll let pictures speak (cover your eyes kids!):

As you can see the dress the little drow wears is very basic, but what's more important, the original skin remains (and it's not just tinted, there won't be that ugly gap at the neck anymore, or at least the effect is reduced a lot. There are more pics at my vault submission, where you can as well give me a vote or drop a comment ;)
Next sideproject will be, you guess it, making dresses with Jester's base.
That's all for now, cross fingers I'm either finding an unexpected solution for my Middleforest problem, or the will to start over.

Things to learn from The Witcher (the huge comparison post)

2009-05-23T15:45:00.010+02:00

Somewhere in the comments of an older post Ben asked me about the NWN2 water, and I compared it to the Witcher there, and got the idea for a comparison of the two games.
Now, I've talked a lot about The Witcher in my last year's posts, I don't really want to repeat all that, and the two games are very different approaches of a Roleplaying game where you can't just say this one is better or not.
However, the two games have something in common, and that's the Neverwinter Nights 1 roots, and it's amazing how different two games based on the same technology can turn out, and even more what CDProject Red squeezed out of the old Aurora Engine (thereby customizing it a lot) while Obsidian decided to make their own partly backward compatible Electron engine for their approach.
But let's start with what triggered this post, the water. Ben told me that water movement was something he was missing in NWN1 and asked if NWN2 had something like it. The answer, to my best knowledge, is no, only a few optical tricks can give the slight impression of a river actually flowing, but in most cases it still looks like a perfectly calm lake. You can adjust ripple and waveforms a little, but that's it. Also, the realism depends very much on the lighting, in many cases the NWN2 water, even though having steep hardware demands when every option is enabled, looks much more artificial than The Witcher's, which is technically the more outdated solution. But see the screenshots.

As you can see, the river gives quite the impression it's flowing, and when Geralt goes for a bath, the water has that slight "flow around" effect. Not the most awesome realism ever seen, but it works. Now for NWN2:

Do I have to say more? Disappointing, isn't it? Now, to be fair, there are more options for water and a few tricks to make it more realistic, but whatever you do, you won't get the movement you have in the Witcher screen 1.
By the way, see the wonderful buildings in screenshot number one? If I could build a PW with the Witcher's placeables, oooooh yes, that would be it. Oh, that reminds me, The Witcher has a toolset too, called Djinni. Have a screenshot:

If you enlarge it, you'll see that it doesn't hide it's roots - you have quite a few sections there starting with "Neverwinter..." or NWN. Sadly, there's two problems: First, you can't play The Witcher in Multiplayer, and you're usually stuck with Geralt as only character (he's not a bad one, but a world full of Geralts would be boring after a while). And, we don't have a terrain editor in Djinni. We have to stick to the prefabs that come with the game, or use a 3D Editor to make our own terrains and import them into Djinni. That just as a side info, for Middleforest I'll have to stick with NWN2, no other way.

Now for a few things I saw in the Witcher and that I'd love to see in NWN2. Some things might be possible with some effort, some things nearly impossible, but since both Squatting Monk and I talked about ambience recently, I'd like to show you a little about the ambient system in the Witcher. So let's visit a country inn:

We enter and look around. It's early in the morning, just very few guests and the Innkeeper is sweeping the floor on the right. Since thee's not much to do here in the main room, Geralt goes around the corner and starts a little fistfight....

After we broke the fat guy's nose we go back for a drink, and see what happened in the meantime: A cat walks up to the window to enjoy the sunlight and a new NPC has entered and took a seat at the table, waiting to tell Geralt a tale for a beer...

We look around and see at the table behind us a quest NPC has appeared too... the cat sits and licks it's paws...
... and the Innkeeper has positioned himself behind the bar where Vesna, the barwench, has just appeared too and prepares to serve. In a few moments, she'll walk about talking to the patrons, and in the evening we'll meet her outside on her way home, where we might have to protect her from some thugs...

Or let's head over to Abigail, the Witch. It's again early morning and she just awoke and prepares to leave her bed and make breakfast:

We're polite and don't disturb her, so she chooses to ignore us and, after some breakfast at her table, starts sweeping the floor until we finally have enough and speak to her:

So this is the daily schedules NPCs have, exactly what Squatting Monk dreams about in his recent Ambience post.
But there's more, again something SM mentioned, and that's the weather system. See what happens when the weather suddenly changes to rain:

Scripting something like this would be a pain in the rearside, but imagine this in a persistant world... one can still dream, no? Or, well... there's an idea I have to look into... mayhaps CD Project Red has done that scripting work for us already? I'd have to dig in Djinni for NWN-compatible scripts.... but before that, a few more ambient things that make the Witcher's world so alive. Like, ambient animals. These are no creatures like in NWN2. In Neverwinter Nights(1/2) everything that moves is a creature and is clickable, or highlighted. You want some rats running around? You have to place creatures there, with factions, they will be highlighted when you point your mouse on them, they are clickable, they block your path etc. etc. etc. In the Witcher, we just have ambient creatures you cannot interact with, they are for the atmosphere. And see how that looks:

We see a few goose and decide to scare them...

They are scared.

Some pidgeons on the path, what do pidgeons do? Right...

The Witcher is full of these... rats that run from you, small frogs at the lake, hens in the Inn, etc.
But now an example for another type of ambience you will find in the game quite often: Random reactions of NPCs. They react to a lot, we've already seen the weather, but another example would be they pass another NPC on the road and make a snide remark, or they see Geralt walking by and make a comment. One example I like very much are the kids you often see playing on the streets, balancing on sidewalk edges or dancing or running about. Here's a nice one:

Kid stops playing as Geralt approaches and looks stunned...

But nosy at the same time....

Other comments include "Your hair is like milk!" Or, if a girl, "I'll become a barwench when I'm grown up!".
It's also amusing to see who suddenly joins you when you decide to rest at a fire. You sit down at a lone fireplace, take a small nap, when you wake up suddenly a few people sit around you throwing around random comments of all flavours from "I need a drink" over "I hate nonhumans" to "My balls itch". The ambience in the Witcher really makes half of the game, sometimes I laughed tears about the behaviour of some NPCs I saw down the road. And I still wonder, if all that is based on the old NWN1 engine... shouldn't it be possible?

Well, so much for my huuuuuge Witcher comparison. As you can see, the game is full of ideas and I only scratched the surface yet. A lot of it's content is worth being ripped off, and if you haven't played it yet. go ahead and get it, it's even running multiple times smoother than NWN2.

A little theory on races and classes (lore)

2009-05-22T15:04:00.011+02:00

It's time to think a little about theory, and since I'm already on it, I'll just share some thoughts and file this under rambling and brainstorming.

As the first cities and villages soon need to be filled with life, it's about time to decide how this life should look like. That means, I'm considering the different races, classes and how they fit into this world. I already pointed out that going with the standards and stereotypes is no option, however, I'm reconsidering the amount of changes I really want to make. On the server I play on, a lot of classes have very specific lore and places in the world, which first appealed to me and made me want to do the same. However, a very specific place in the world can also be very restrictive, like for example, a lot of prestige classes require the player to join a specific organization or guild, which again comes with a set of rules that might limit the character too much. But that alone isn't the problem, I also figured that some things that sound awesome in theory just don't work in reality. There are a lot of caveats, some caused by the amount of work for the player (requiring an incredible amount of RP time that can't be catered by DMs, feeling of being stuck), some caused by the amount of work for DMs, some caused by game mechanics. Also, I always thought it's not the build and choice of classes that makes a character, the game mechanics should just be a tool to form a character, and what counts is how it's played out. I want classes to blur into each other, in some cases it's even fun when you play for months with someone and never have an idea what his actual class is.

I thought I'd start loosely rambling about classes and races in between other things from now on, filling you in with some lore and ideas how certain things fit into Middleforest.

Why not start with races and my favourite race, the utterly adorable elves? A good start because they give me the least problems, I already know pretty well how they fit into the world. So here we go.

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Races - Elves:

Elves and Halflings are the most commonly seen non-human races in the civilised lands around the forest. As we know, the game mechanics give us a few options on elves, the most commonly used is probably the Moon Elf, while the special case is the Drow.

Even though the elven subraces blur into each other and one can use pretty much any base but drow to jump in right away, I might rename the most commonly used Moon Elf to City Elf.

These City - or civilised elves live in human cities, but often as second-class citizens. They might live as gypsies and travel the roads, might live in an elven quarter of a human city and work in human professions which may range from tailor to beggar. Female elves have a certain natural beauty that appeals to humans, so elven performers or, in the worst case, prostitutes, are well received by

human males, although rare due to the moral standards most elves still share. The male elf has it worse in a human society, as they can't even play the slight advantage of female beauty they are often simply seen as second class citizens or even picked on for their "lack of masculinity". However, elves with a strong will and a talent to impress occasionally gain respect and a good standing in human surroundings.

City elves still share a certain bond to nature like their wild relatives, however, they are far away from the usual cliché of tree-hugging ethereal beauties. Forget the Disneyland stereotype, they should more be treated as, say, an asian in Europe, different, but not astounding.

The only exception to this is the dark or "Mountain Elf" (Drow) who is so rarely seen many believe they just exist in tales.

Game mechanical note: I consider changing the City Elf's favoured class to something more down-to-earth than

Wizard, this is not decided yet but would make sense if it's not causing too many problems.

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Classes - Barbarian

I chose the Barbarian as my first example not only because he shows up first in the class list, but also to give an example for avoiding stereotypes in Middleforest.

The first thing we think about a Barbarian is of course the uncivilised rude Neanderthal who's barely able to speak but quick in bashing things out of his way. Maybe the nicest thing that comes to the mind is that of a proud, honorable tribesman, maybe a Native American, which already comes closer, but doesn't quite hit the nail. The name Barbarian goes back to the Greek who used the name for everyone who wasn't able to speak proper, which originally even included the Roman Empire, and the Romans adopted the word and used it for anyone not sharing their culture and education.

For Middleforest this means, Barbarians are Outsiders of all colours. They can be Nomads, they may be tribesmen, but they might also be of a certain education or civilisation "outside the ordinary". Think of Vikings, think of Goths, Saxons, Franks, or simply propaganda about a nearby land. We will not be historical accurate in a fantasy world, so while the "more civilised" lands might have reached the modern age already (cities might resemble a 16th, 17th century atmosphere), the atmosphere further in the wilds or a few hundred miles over the sea might easily drop you a few centuries back in time, and the warriors you meet there would simply be called barbarians even though being a knight in their society. Take this as an example for the freedom of choice you still have with this single class. Or, the other way around, the freedom of class choices you have if you want to be a barbarian in roleplay.

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Classes - Red Dragon Disciple

Unless someone can come up with a very good reason why I shouldn't - this class is easiest to deal with. Out. Disabled. It's a cheesy high fantasy munchkin class that doesn't really fit the setting at all. Winged characters would be considered demons, poked with pitchforks and end up on the pyre anyway. I *might* consider making them a totally evil, outsider demon thing that can hang around with dragons somewhere in a volcano, or somewhere where I store the tieflings, but it wouldn't be fun to play such a thing I assume. No really, sorry, but it doesn't make sense.

Something in between....

2009-05-17T01:47:00.003+02:00

Experimenting with textures at the moment, I thought I'd share this little screenie with you.

Viva la revolución! :)

More Grass

2009-05-05T17:51:00.003+02:00

A little update on my grasslands (I'm still working on it). After adding some more placeables, grass (the toolset crashes now everytime I try to erase it) and trees, and still not being satisfied, I added that old day/night cycle from Pretzel to the area for fun, and what can I say... It's exactly what I wanted it to be. Especially the darker stages are exactly what I had in my head. Just wanted to share these, enjoy. The last one might be to dark, even though I adjusted the curves a little. It's standing on the hill from the first pic at night, the place that will be very important later. :)