Yes he did and to this day I still feel rather fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with someone like EC who's imagination knows no limits.EC Patterson did Trinity.
I missed this reply here, sorry about that. At one point I would like to have a common report from people who test at the same time. That way we can all discuss things together from many different perspectives. However, it could prove tough at the moment, and also a bit early since the work tested now is not 100% complete story-wise. So, just via private messages should be fine, and I will sort them out even if I get duplicates 
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Journal Update
Testing... again.
I've given a quite fixed (hopefully) version of the prologue plus chapters 1-2 except the end of the 2 to some people to test over the next weeks. This should be the last test of this content. As always in such periods, the work progresses forward, while fixing bugs the testers report. One in particular baffled me. Really. Never heard of this before, and I played the scene a dozen times myself without encountering it.
A new companion joins for a battle, and at the end he says he wants to continue travelling with you. Now, what happened, is that a tester said yes, come with me. That moment the rest of the party disappeared and he got left alone with the new companion. He then travelled to the camp where the rest of the party waited. I checked the conversation, and nothing indicates that this should happen. In any case, point is that there is no way one can have a completely clean final version. I mean, even famous games come out with bugs. Such ones. Sometimes we know of it and can't do anything about it, other times they are sneaky and happen whenever they feel like.
Ending a chapter with a bang.
Now, the end of the second chapter is in progress. It includes the biggest cutscene I've ever written with many NPC's, all companions and plenty of events from the previous actions of the party coming back. For good or bad. It's a trial. I love games with trials! After that, it will be the first occasion in the game where depending on what happens, people will experience different paths for a while.
One can end the game there if he wants, continue with it or have a little sidestep to areas which won't be reachable otherwise (I wonder where ). A little spoiler, evil characters will most likely witness these areas and get some extra gameplay.
I chose this for two reasons. One, re-playability. And two, I sometimes feel that I need to reward an evil character with some special treats. Most games we play, no matter how you play, in the course of it people will actually treat you like a hero. Except in the end where your evil ending is different. I want people who play evil to think that extra thought was given to it, and that alignment, and most importantly, the way they actually kept true to that alignment mattered. I won't only check if you are evil or good. I will also check the previous quests and see what happened.
Imagine if we add and remove variables to give a verdict. A >5 score (imaginary number) will mean you are not guilty. So, an evil character might start this trial with a -2. Then checking his actions throughout the game, and if he actually helped people he will get some score and might end up not guilty. All is possible, just harder. One can also defend with diplomatic skills, or be helped from companions with good influence, or get doomed if he treats them like garbage.
So yes. Some times innocent people can't defend good and get punished and vice versa. It all depends on you and how you play .
The advantage of being evil is that you can lie your head off (bluff) or intimidate witnesses in order to avoid justice. Digging up some dirt on a judge or prosecutor and blackmailing them to your advantage is another time-honoured evil tactic, as is pure and simple bribery.
All good characters have at their disposal is the truth. Poor saps.
The advantage of being evil is that you can lie your head off (bluff) or intimidate witnesses in order to avoid justice. Digging up some dirt on a judge or prosecutor and blackmailing them to your advantage is another time-honoured evil tactic, as is pure and simple bribery.
All good characters have at their disposal is the truth. Poor saps.
Sleight of hands: plants evidence on prosecutor.
"I submit that the killer was.... the PROSECUTOR!!!!"
Sleight of hands: plants evidence on prosecutor.
"I submit that the killer was.... the PROSECUTOR!!!!"
In the US and Singapore maybe, we gave up the death sentence a few years back
I would love to see some evil ways to go leading up to the trial as DannJ mentioned, there is lots of scope there. But CG characters can have some scope for trying to rig things in their favour and perhaps even NG. LN could gather evidence to support their case. I think only LG woud sit back and take whatever comes to then but only if they agree with legal system under which they are prosecuted. A Lg character might try to fix the system somehow to bring it closer to their perception of good.
Or perhaps you could just have a trial .... 
PJ
I just stretched the extra content of the evil path. Of course, a character can choose what he wants. All options are open on the dialogue. I chose to not have any conditional based on alignment or race etc, but rather let the player choose freely how he responds. Gathering evidence won't be. Too much scope. But cross examining witnesses by the player is there of course, and let's just say that making a few friends won't harm.
Another thing is, that if you play, say NE. Then your LG paladin companion comes to testify. You somehow managed to get lots of influence with him. He will still say that he doesn't like your methods. I like to keep it realistic. That no matter how much influence one gets, he still differs from some people. He might conclude that despite your methods you've shown him some good sides, yes. But sometimes I like to keep the player afraid a bit 
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One of my testers keeps telling me that can't wait for the second big city to come to life, and I thought I'd share my work in progress for all to see. No life yet, just placeables and a path to walk, but the general idea is there. Also, some bumps on the roads, but a nice walkmesh in general. This city is smaller than the first big one you visit, given the fact as well that it has no separate sectors for docks/market etc, but it's all one area. This is the last stop before the plane travelling.
Witcher placeables and the latest City-State are used extensively as always.
And toolset view.
All that's left is to texture the hills a bit more, fix the bumps and add life .
Holiday break. See you all in about a month 
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Hi people. Small update to say that I'm back from vacation and to city and responsibility rhythm. This will be a stressful semester, since I chose to go back to university at 30 years old and change carrier completely. I'm going to try my luck in software engineering. I don't know how much time I will have for the toolset during this time, but I think I'll manage it as I managed it so far. So, back to building it is .
Welcome back then andysys, and good luck with your new education program. I wish I were young enough to start over in a different career; I'd have chosen software engineering as well.
Good to hear you're back Andy. I wish you luck with your studies.
PJ
Work in Progress. Perhaps unnecessary for some, but I just always wanted to do a logo for this work . Any thoughts?
On other note, I will take a small break for a bout a week or so because I want to help Lance with his testing.
I got surprised today when my girlfriend told me she did some work on the logo. I can say it looks better than mine .
That does look good. One other possibility is to add a drop shadow to give it a little depth. For example:
It's true, but I don't think it will be used on white. It's still WIP, because also the scythe shadow needs to go from there and add some highlight that looks better. Also the banner color needs some change. We'll see .
I was talking with Tchos after I played his module about these real time cutscenes, or as he calls them Valve-style. The ones that whoever played SoZ knows.
They happen not in the original cutscene mode, nor as a NWN1 style dialogue. The NPCs are there barking their dialogue, and the player can see them from a really cool angle, as if he is just moving around and a scene unfolds in front of him.
I thought I'd give it a dig and see how it is done, and I found out really amazed that the method they use in SoZ is really simple. A script fires... perhaps from a trigger or another conversation end. Any method will do. This script defines cases, which are used from the nodes of the cutscene conversation. Example:
Retour en haut
#include "ginc_misc"
void main()
{
object oSasani = GetObjectByTag("u02_sasani");
int nBarkState = GetLocalInt(oSasani, "nBarkState");
if ( (nBarkState > 12) )
return;
object oPC = GetFactionLeader(GetFirstPC());
object oCaptain = GetObjectByTag("u02_captain");
object oVolo = GetObjectByTag("u02_volo");
object oNas = GetObjectByTag("u02_nassirin");
object oOsi = GetObjectByTag("u02_osi");
object oSpeaker, oListener;
switch (nBarkState)
{
case 0:
oSpeaker = oCaptain;
oListener = oSasani;
break;
case 1:
oSpeaker = oSasani;
oListener = oCaptain;
break;
and so on. Each case is one node. What happens in the node itself, is just setting a local integer called nBarkState to the tag of Sa'sani, the create initiating he convo I guess, which increments on the next node and so on.
So for example if I needed an NPC to say on the first node "I've been expecting you.", and this NPC is tagged "creature", then case 1 on the above script would state him as the speaker (and listener whoever listens), and the node would have an action script ga_local_int(nBarkState, 1, "creature"), second node, ga_local_int(nBarkState, 2, "creature").
I find this to be a really cool way of making cutscenes where the PC has nothing to say, but witnesses it nonetheless.
One issue I thought about, is what happens if the PC moves during it if we don't want to freeze him for the duration, and enters another building. A solution would be to reset the nBarkState variable to 0 every time we enter the trigger, and destroy the trigger on the end of the convo.
I also don't know if animations and walking whatsoever works with barks, but perhaps this is the cool thing about the system, that it is actually not barks. It's a normal conversation behaving as barks, so why would an action script like ga_local_int work, but not a ga_play_custom_animation. Test will show.
One of course could do such a thing in one script too, using heartbeats and adding the string spoken directly in one script, not needing the dialogue at all. This was Tchos' system. Equally good, because as he said you can just write a script and the dialogue in it on a text editor without even opening the toolset.
Anyway though, I felt like sharing this "find". Perhaps too late in my campaign to implement the method, but I will certainly would like to use it on a next one, or see it more often used by others .
I say it's never too late to add something like that.
Perhaps Tchos . For good or bad, working on a project for several years has these issues.
4760, the same character doesn't even need a different tag. Just another opening node that will fire under different condition. And yes, I find having one script as template really convenient .
Journal Update
As expected, university doesn't leave much time to work on the campaign. For the past weeks I have only been able to fix some bugs and do small work on areas that don't require much time, like area building or NPC properties. No quests, since I dislike working on a complicated quest with many and long breaks. I tend to forget some things and get confused.
Anyway, before I say anything else, I want to say that I got to test some of Lance's work, but unfortunately university didn't allow me to finish. Sorry about that Lance. I got happy to see that at least two people got to the end. All I'll say is that The Scroll is worth a download. I'll let Lance say the rest .
Sad news, is that the problems since the format continue to appear. I would seem that copying vast amount of files could have caused a corruption in many parts. It's just that I find them as I try to build, instead of searching for them.
For example, the corrupted 2das didn't even allow me to open modules. Then the corrupted tlk gave me problems in convos, and then it was some scripts that I found by luck. They were written as if a Unicode setting was wrong. However easily fixable by copying them from my backups, it still was alarming and made me think that every session of the work has at least one corrupted instance. Today, it was an area. It refused to open by giving an error. I have no clue about how to try and find all these things though, and I'm thinking that replacing all current work with my online backup might be the best solution. Maybe back up the work I've done since yet and know it's healthy. It's only a couple of conversations and some bug fixes anyway.
I hope other people with huge campaign folders and tens of modules associated with them will take an example out of this. I really think this is what caused the corruptions. Actually not just the NWN2 folder, but the whole MyDocuments presented problems with corrupted files (Word, Excel, PS files etc).I think because I copied the whole backed up MyDocuments to the fresh from format one. Perhaps it's time to make some haks and clean my campaign folder to at least half the size. Also try to find duplicate blueprints... anything that will make this a healthier and more stable project in order to go forward.
I am optimistic, but on the other hand I wish it never happened . But perhaps it's for a good cause. So that I clear my work a bit.
Journal Update
... Anyway, before I say anything else, I want to say that I got to test some of Lance's work, but unfortunately university didn't allow me to finish. Sorry about that Lance. I got happy to see that at least two people got to the end. All I'll say is that The Scroll is worth a download. I'll let Lance say the rest
Hopefully, there will be a third tester finishing soon ... and there is a possibility of a tester reaching a second play through. All helps!
I finally was able to get used to my university rhythm and during the past days I got time on the toolset again.
First of all, the corrupted files seem to be good again after the clean up and back up I did. I can never know when something will show up again, but for now everything looks healthy.
The ending that can happen at the end of chapter 2 is almost done. After that, except from bug fixing, which by the way never seems to stop , there is nothing to be done on these 3 first chapters (Prologue, chapter 1, chapter 2). A full 40 hour gameplay with nothing to be added. That's music to my ears.
A small reorganization will take place after this end is completely finished. But by quick calculations there will be the chapters 3-4-5. However, I think the gameplay time on these last ones will not exceed 20 hours more. That is really calculating roughly though.
Related to that, are some things I chose to cut from the final product. Things I thought were essential but not anymore. I'll list them here.
I think after I create my new excel organization files with what needs to be done, I'll take the advice of a friend who is a director. Since he often needs to meet deadlines, he told me that it helps him having them. I will set one for me. Perhaps not for the whole project, but step by step. If I see that I meet them, then I'll publish a release date as well as an official deadline .
