Didn't update my files to the latest cornucopia yet. Good to know that city state is in there.
As for music, I always wanted to use some music except the stock one, but never got the grip on how to. Would be cool I think to have some Vivaldi playing in the library. If I recall correctly, there was Vivaldi playing in Planescape: Torment on one of the function's bases... or something in that style. It's been a while. In any case, I really like the idea and how it fit the place.
Music is not difficult but there's a few steps along the way once you have picked your piece. Give me a shout when you want to do something and I will either write a tutorial or point you to one 
PJ
I can't wait to see this adventure come to life.
I must say, it would appear you have attracted quite a few talented mod makers in this thread, (myself excluded of course).
Let me know if I can help.
Hi Sirchet, and thanks a lot for the good words.
Yourself excluded... correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you in the team that brought Trinity and many more modules which saw hall of fame in the old vault ?
Anyway, you've helped me a lot in the past to get introduced in the toolset, and that's more than enough. But if you're up for it there always testing to be done, as well as brainstorming about several aspects of the campaign which are not yet completely thought through. Like some NPC character etc. Let me know if you are up for any of these things. I'll be happy if that's the case.
Irrelevant, have you played the Keep on the Borderlands from the Co8 yet? Is it bug free at this moment or still too many of them to try it out?
Hey Andy,
I'm happy to help out where I can, testing, dialogs, extra passes over areas for floating stuff and cleaning up walkmesh cutting, or whatever. Heh, I even remember doing a little VO work waaaaaaay back when. 
EC Patterson did Trinity.
And I like the library. Very memorable and unique area like the rest of your first campaign release.
Journal Update
Quite a lot got finished over the past few days, and it would be more if I didn't have the bad luck of getting some extreme lower back pain.
One quest which was in placeholder state since half a year now.
Of this one I'm really happy. I had the basic idea but because I knew back then that it will be a really big side quest I chose to leave it for the time being. Now I decided to finish, and I think it worked great. It is highly inspired by the Gremlich quest of the Co8 modpack for ToEE. Also, it is the first time the player will make some travel on another plane other than the material.
One other think I changed was the hangout area. The previous was just too big and was causing unnecessary travel between spots in order to talk to companions. This was not needed and now I have a cute little farm/campsite where they gather.
Scripting got in the way as always, and I figured a couple of new things.
First, I love mindflayers. I have one, and will be more later. The default scripts make the battle with them a joke. I was looking at the NWN1 AI script for them but couldn't make it work. Then Tchos told me that SoZ has mindflayers, and when I searched them they had already modified the NWN1 script in a more simplified version. Works like a charm. Now we get brain sucked 
.
I recommend this to anyone who would like to include such creatures in his/her work. All it takes is the copy of that script in your work folders, and the X2_SPECIAL_COMBAT_AI_SCRIPT variable specifying the script.
Another thing was the revelation (because I play less than building), that a spell cannot be cast on friends and foes. Either that, or that. I was already pretty far away on building to change the spell needed, so I chose to include a unique copy of spells.2da in a certain module in order to be able to cast friendly spells on enemies.
Lastly, I was curious if one can count days passed. I already use a script written by Tchos, meant for conversations where we set a timer in the form of a variable, and then check to see if certain amount of time passed. Very useful. But now I needed something to check from the world map. Something like "if 5-8 days are passed, go there instead of there". KevL helped a lot but the script was not working. Probably I was the one doing something wrong, but in the meanwhile I realized that the method could hide really nasty bugs.
Imagine the script requiring 5-8 days. Now imagine being in a city, and shopping, crafting, phone rings, getting hungry etc, but leaving the game open. 10 days pass in game, and we never get the encounter.
In any case, I will debug it at some point because I think it is quite useful and interesting.
With this and that I am done with these chapters and will do some testing myself before getting it to my testers to see what they have to say. Then I will create some small interior areas for SOAR, kinda like a break for me, and then I move on to a completely new chapter of my campaign.
And release chapter 1 for the public so they know to stick with the community for your next works?
Perhaps. I don't know yet. I have to gather opinions from the rest of the people who will play this as well, but it is an option since we talked about it.
Journal Update
I have reached the point where, before going further to work on the next city, I can finish some unfinished business. This is mainly companions.
I've been keeping them as place holders until now. Meaning, you could talk to them, but basically all they talked about was if they should come with you or leave the party. I always thought that this will take a while. Writing all these conversations, implementing influence and gifts.
But it turns up to be a great fun.
I worked on the entering script of the camp, with KevL's help. What this does is checking if certain conditions are met, like journal entries etc. Then warps the PC and companion of interest where the convo will take place and spawn an ip-speaker. If a condition is not met, we check the next and so on. And when a conversation happens, it won't happen again. I have to say I'm really satisfied with the result.
Another thing is the gifts. I created around 60 items which can be given to the companions, through conversation. If the item is correct for his character, we gain some influence. If not, we lose some. So far I'm not certain if all gifts will be available to all companions, and if all gifts will have a plus and minus on every companion. I think it's an overkill to be honest. So maybe, if the item is not for a certain companion, then an option to give it to him won't even exist.
The last thing is influence. They all start from 0, and during the game there are plenty of opportunities to bring it up or down. This will matter on several occasions, and of course to romances which will be the next thing to build.
It was helpful in DA:O when the companions dropped subtle hints about what they like in their conversations, so you can at least guess what to give them.
Well, some stuff might be quite clear. Like a statuette of Moradin will most probably go to the only dwarf cleric in the party. But subtle hints will happen on some other stuff. Like a perfume for example. You go 5 female companions, so there a hint is needed.
And that's what I meant when I said that it's fun making these conversations. Building all these characters, throwing some humor... it's a good thing .
Quite a lot got finished over the past few days, and it would be more if I didn't have the bad luck of getting some extreme lower back pain.
One quest which was in placeholder state since half a year now. ... <SNIP>
First, I love mindflayers. <SNIP> I recommend this to anyone who would like to include such creatures in his/her work. All it takes is the copy of that script in your work folders, and the X2_SPECIAL_COMBAT_AI_SCRIPT variable specifying the script.
Another thing was the revelation (because I play less than building), that a spell cannot be cast on friends and foes. Either that, or that. <SNIP> ... in order to be able to cast friendly spells on enemies.
Lastly, I was curious if one can count days passed. I already use a script written by Tchos, meant for conversations where we set a timer in the form of a variable, and then check to see if certain amount of time passed. Very useful. But now I needed something to check from the world map. Something like "if 5-8 days are passed, go there instead of there". KevL helped a lot but the script was not working. Probably I was the one doing something wrong, but in the meanwhile I realized that the method could hide really nasty bugs.
Imagine the script requiring 5-8 days. Now imagine being in a city, and shopping, crafting, phone rings, getting hungry etc, but leaving the game open. 10 days pass in game, and we never get the encounter.
All I can add, is that grab my mod upon its release, and maybe you can use something from that if you still have any need by the time its out.
Journal Update
I need to write something here in order to take my mind of the companion conversations for a while. While I'll write about them, at least I won't be writing them .
I had left the companion conversations as mentioned previously completely basic until now. As if I knew that it will take so much effort, and I didn't want them to interfere with area creation, blueprints etc. My gut was right. Writing these conversations proves to be the most effort I have put so far into my campaign.
I have written some complex conversation before, and some which go over 5.000 words each. And these ones now have it all.
First of all, I need to say that this passed the test, whether it's necessary or not, and whether I really want to do it or not. I said before that when I find myself in from of a big effort work, I pause and think if I really want it there, so that I don't fall victim to scope creep. Anyway, these felt necessary since one of my favourite aspects in these games we love is the companions.
It started simple. Some Tell me about your past questions. Checking for influence, and if we have enough then the companion might talk about his past. Then came the rest of the questions. For example, if we meet a companion while he tried to buy an artifact, and helped him buy it in order to study it, and the situation is left hanging, then we may ask Hey, do you have any news on that artifact? How is research going?
And then it gets more complicated. Gifts.
I thought, that some of the gifts could be just a thank you, it means a lot to me that you gave me this. Gain some influence, and move on. But some other gifts felt the need for further work.
Example, you give 3 rare books to a bard. He say, thank you. I'll read it and if you feel like we can talk about it. So now comes one more node. Have you read that book yet? I don't expect every player to be in the mood to hear what the book was about, so why not make a feat if we hear about them all. So I needed to make scripts as well. Same goes for another who would accept playing cards as a gift. Why not play with him?
In conclusion, the effort is heavy. But worth it. I try to build this as I would like to play it. Anyway, I haven't even bothered with barks yet, but felt the need to say how big of a workload this proves to be .
Hi EE. Long time not talked. I know, and as you saw when you played the work more than half is done. I thought it would be a good spot here, because it's a turning point on events of the main story, to take the time and write these.
And about the sounding all the same, don't worry. I worked on that for hours before even the campaign was starting and now I have a dozen documents describing their characters. But I know what you mean. Especially without voice acting, is hard to make them be different. With voices all you need is a "hi" to know if someone likes you or not etc.
Rather than record my own NPC dialogue, I prefer the easier option; find an existing soundset that matches the NPC's personality, then find ways to use their various soundset responses as conversation nodes.
I have an evil xvart bard in my current module who can become a party member if you manage not to make him hostile and try to kill you. The psychopath soundset is perfect for him, and I was able to find ways of stringing his various soundset responses together in his initial cinematic conversation. I even went to the trouble of generating lipsynch files so his mouth movements match what he says.
Some of the gems from that soundset include:
"Look at them - little ducks all in a row."
"I see fear in your eyes. It's good that you appreciate your situation."
"I can elevate your suffering to an art form."
Saw that in a module. Shoe horning companion voices into conversations. Very odd how they have no opening voicing then suddenly blurt out certain phrases.
It's an art finding ways to edit sound bites together into something halfway coherent. You have to start with the responses and work backwards to formulate the PC's questions.
I tend to do the opposite of your observation - have a voiceover for the first node, and perhaps the last, but with most of the conversation in between being silent. Most soundsets have a 'hi' and a 'goodbye' sound. Often the 'select' sound is more appropriate than the 'hi' one.
Storm of Zehir had some disjointed conversations. There'd be a few key conversation nodes with voiceovers, interspersed with some that lacked them. Perhaps those conversations were tweaked at the last minute, and there was no time to record voiceovers for the new nodes. It can be worse if they can't get the original voiceover artist, and someone else tries to imitate them for the last-minute changes.
Journal Update
Long time no update, but I have to say that some serious progress has been made during this time.
Companions almost done
I say almost, because some small things need to be re-looked. All the conversations are finished though, and all it takes now is to go through them and enhance them a bit. I figured some DM coloured text will come in hand here, in between their words were they say something which I need to bring up better. This is because, I noticed that if a companion says something and he's mad, it's tough to bring it just with what he says. Especially for me. English not being my first language hurts here. Perhaps a small coloured description is what is needed.
Fortunately, I will get help from the best when it comes to writing. Tchos will go through the conversations and see what can be fixed or stylized. I cannot explain how important this is for me. Because I always thought that no matter how good (if it comes out good) my work is, it will always miss a bit on the conversations. So I cannot wait to work with him, and express my gratitude for the effort.
In between this, I worked with the gtr_bark_node script. A really nice tool, and easy to use. Before that, I thought that the only way to make one speak an one liner while we walk somewhere, was to make a new script for each one of them.
The big convo closing chapter 2
For the past week or so, I have been working on this huge convo which wraps up chapter 2, and even offers an early ending. This is approximately 15k words, but don't be scared. It's not possible to go through all of them. Here, many decisions we made through all chapters will come back. Some side quests too. We get questioned about our actions and so on, and I cannot say more without spoiling .
Before I start writing this, I thought some good planing would be nice. So I opened the trial convo from the OC to see how they wrote that lengthy dialogue. Good trick. They used a new opening node for every subject. Of course, the first node (introduction) will open first, so you don't care that the rest are also openers with conditions. Then, link the rest to the end of the above. That way the branches don't expand to chaos and it's really organized.
Added some more visions
I don't remember if I mentioned this in the past, but here it goes. The PC has some random visions throughout the game. But I noticed that after a while I got lazy... and didn't add more vision events. This is an important part of the story, so I took the time and added three more.
"Consequences"
Back to the big wrapping convo. I'm a fan of the "Whaaat" effect, as I like to call it, in games. That is, when I make a decision, somewhere, and then someone mentions it somewhere else. At the time I make it, I might feel like it's just a quest. But when I see that people got happy or hurt because of it, I get a feeling of a hero, or that I should be more careful with what I say and do.
I like this, because I think it reflects reality a bit. Our games are based in cities and societies, and it doesn't make sense that one can kill without consequences.
For example, if you save a falsely accused prisoner, he will be happy. But the city watch will have another point of view. Perhaps not immediately, but eventually a decision like that will come back.
Release?
EE told me many times that I should release this once chapter 2 is done. But the truth is, that the more I think of it, I'd really like to wait for the whole thing to be ready. It's really not that much more. I don't think this community will get lost. It would have happened by now. Even I came quite late to it in order to mode, and I'm still here.
I thought I'd post some screenshots, something I haven't done in a while. I'd like to show some details of areas, and also make a special mention to some CC I use, which is a lot.
This is a library, in a desert temple. Using Rj's barrow tileset.
A mystical shop, owned by a drow, located above the earth. Perhaps she has a story to tell. Here I use a ton of little things from the witcher project, dark waters and Kalister's candles.
Details of an alley at the docks of the big city. Posters from the witcher and Purgatorio.
Also from the witcher. I shoved these walls on the outsides of city hak buildings. I thought they could add a slum-like feeling.
And finally, this is how the camp where we gather with the companions looks like now. So many things going on here. Also, this area uses this awesome inn from cornucopia (hidden OC placeables), and tents from RWS.
If you are already close to done chapter 2 by all means continue. You told me you had 3 going and I tested only chapter 1 which was not fully done. Considering you are the only medium to larger campaign active in this forum and even in the discussion of completion, people may be in a hurry to play.
You actually played more chapters, but by that time there weren't any closing sequences after the events which close one. Also, your playthrough was quite bugged, and I don't think you even finished. Do I remember correctly? Did you even reach the elven city?I don't recall. Because that one is a chapter of its own .
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