The Sanctum

I recently became aware of an extraordinary new hak for Neverwinter Nights: NWNCQ by Chico400. It revamps virtually the entirety of Bioware’s default tileset assets, giving them a whole new look with stunningly higher quality.

Most of my first module, Sanctum of the Archmage 1, The Sight, was built using the standard Bioware tilesets. It took me all of a thirty seconds to open that module and add NWNCQ to the bottom of the hak list. After another few minutes to do a rebuild, the look of the module had been dramatically transformed. I’ve been playing it this afternoon, and it gives the module a whole new visual experience. Aside from needing a few relatively minor tweaks to get the look just right, it was very easy to do.

NWNCQ increases the quality of the default tilesets by replacing them with higher definition (higher-poly-count) models and better textures. The replacements are well thought out with often original designs that are built to still be compatible with areas made using the original versions. Among other very welcome things, it finally adds ceilings to many of the Bioware tilesets that needed them (City Interior, Ruins, Caverns, etc.). It makes Blackwing Lodge actually look more like a lodge now, to say nothing of the Ancient Ruins.

Because of all this I’m thinking of taking a short break from working on Sanctum 3 to release another update to my first two modules, mainly to enable using NWNCQ. The update would mostly affect Sanctum 1, although while I’m at it I’d also make a few additional updates to go along with it – such as adding skyboxes to Sanctum 1 and some additional high-quality head models to give players a better selection.

Here are some screenshots to show what I mean:

City Interior (Bioware Default)

City Interior (NWNCQ)

Blackwing Lodge (NWNCQ)

A Picnic by the Lake (NWNCQ + Skybox)

Comments (4)

I thought I’d post some preliminary screenshots from Sanctum 3.

Nicodemus’ Tower

Highpeak Castle

I also noticed that I hadn’t done anything with the screenshots on the module pages for Sanctum 1 and Sanctum 2 since before the v3.2 update. I’ve updated them to (among other things) show the new Pegasi and companion heads.

Comments (3)

The v3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage Chapters 1 - 2 has finally been released!

I heard from NinjaWeaselMan today and got his OK to host the Romantic Animations Suite on my website, so I decided not to delay releasing the Sanctum v3.2 update after all. I just finished updating the module pages and I think I’ve got everything set up OK, but if anyone has any problems downloading, installing or running it, please let me know.

Comments (18)

Since it’s now been nearly two weeks since I announced that I was about to release the Sanctum of the Archmage v3.2 update, I feel that I owe the community an explanation regarding why it has been delayed.

Since the Sanctum update uses NinjaWeasel’s Romantic Animations Suite (which I have been helping him to beta test), I have been waiting for him to make that publicly available before releasing it. I last heard from him on August 15th, in an email which said that he was submitting the RAS and that it would be available in a couple of days once it cleared the Vault. That should have been around August 18th or so. It was on the basis of that information that I posted my announcement that the long-delayed Sanctum update would be uploaded shortly, and prepared it for release.

The RAS hasn’t become available as I expected, either on NinjaWeasel’s website or on the Vault. I’ve emailed him several times over the last two weeks to inquire about the matter, but with no response. I’ve also tried to reach him through others in the community who know him, but no one seems to have seen him around recently. I hope nothing’s happened to him.

My only choices right now are to cancel my plans to release the Sanctum update until further notice, to release a version that doesn’t include the RAS, or to temporarily host the RAS hak on my own website. I’m not comfortable acting on that last choice without his stated permission, though, since I know that he wants to control the distribution of his work.

As I said in a previous post, I have a lot of RL related issues to take care of in the immediate future. So since I no longer have time to properly support a module release right now anyway, I’ve decided to postpone the Sanctum update until I do. I’m not sure exactly when that will be, but it will likely be in late September. Hopefully by then the unexpected confusion about the release of the RAS will be resolved, the Sanctum update can finally be posted, and I can get started in earnest on the next chapter.

Comments (4)

I wanted to share a recent article that I just came across, which gives a very positive mention to me and to the Sanctum of the Archmage series. It was on Brad Gallaway’s blog at GameCritics.com, in a guest post by romance and SF/Urban Fantasy author Ann Aguirre. Here’s the link:

Guest Blog: Writer Ann Aguirre talks games

It can also be found here with some comments on Brad’s personal blog, Drinking Coffecola. Here are Ann’s very kind comments about my module work, for which I would very much like to thank her.

"Write a script that determines the NPC love interest according to the gender the player chooses. That way, you only need to write one romance with minimal tweaks. I’ve seen this done with real expertise in player-designed modules for Neverwinter Nights. Andarian has designed an amazing module called Sanctum of the Archmage, where the romance is really well-developed in addition to combat, traps, and story. He integrates this swing-sex NPC with great skill, so if he can do it, why can’t the bigger companies?"

Ann makes several other observations with which I agree, particularly about RPG developers’ all too common lack of emphasis on writing decent romances – a topic that has been a hot button of mine for years. I particularly resonated with this one, which I’ve jokingly offered a couple of times myself:

"So why are the romances so half-assed, seriously? If you guys don’t know how to write one, CALL me."

Comments (5)

Just a quick note to say that the v3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage Chapters 1-2 should be ready to upload shortly, and hopefully by this weekend. I’ve finally had the time to finish the remaining work I needed to, which included updating the documentation and credits and helping to prepare and package some of the new custom content. I just finished my final playtest of Sanctum 1, and expect to be done with Sanctum 2 by tomorrow.

Comments (14)

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the status of the Sanctum v3.2 update, as well as some news that may be of interest to readers of my blog.

Between the demands of my job, vacation, managing the AME, and some other projects (see below), my schedule has gotten very busy in recent weeks – and that has unfortunately delayed my efforts to get the Sanctum update posted for general release. I have only a few remaining tasks to finish before I can upload it, but unfortunately my available time is still going to be very limited for the next few weeks. Hopefully when some of the smoke clears from my "real life," I should be able to finally get it completed and online by the end of the month.

The very talented Estelindis has graciously offered to develop some high quality custom NWN head models for the Sanctum update. We’ve been collaborating for a few weeks now on how to get the look just right for the various characters, and the results are truly amazing (if I do say so myself). Robin (both genders) and Orion are basically done, and Diana is currently in development as well. Here’s a link to a screenshot featuring (female) Robin’s new head and the use of the Romantic Animations Suite. Este, thank you very much for your fantastic work on this!

Although sworn to secrecy until recently, I can now also reveal that I’ve been a participant in the beta test for the Dragon Age Toolset since early this year – and I was invited to travel to Bioware HQ in Edmonton last week to participate in the Dragon Age Toolset Builder’s Event. I plan to blog at more length about that amazing experience when I have time – but for now, to see what it was all about check out the posts on the Bioware Blog here and here. I’ll only say for now that from what I’ve seen, the tools that Bioware is making available for Dragon Age are going to change the landscape of RPG modding. I’m very excited about it. Although I’m still committed to finishing "The Miracle Worker" in NWN1, I’m now giving serious consideration to completing Part III of the Sanctum Saga – The Alliance – in Dragon Age.

Thanks again to everyone for your patience and interest!

Cheers,

Andarian

Comments (5)

I’m happy to announce that the Sanctum v3.2 Beta Test 1 is Ready to go! As soon as I finish packaging the beta test files, I’ll contact those of you who’ve offered to help out.

Comments (3)

I finished my playtest run a couple of days ago, and I’m making the rest of the required changes now. Unfortunately, though, the list is too long (and in some cases the fixes are too substantive) for me to just finish them and upload the beta test. Some of the new changes (such as the new shopping system and modifications to some of the items) also have the potential to alter the play balance, so I’ll need to make one more playtest pass through the modules after finishing to make sure nothing serious is broken. Unfortunately, that’ll take at least a few more days.

Comments (4)

I took a detour from playtesting today to add something that I’ve been thinking about for a very long time: a complete re-write of the merchant appraisal system. I’m a big fan of shopping and of using the appraise skill, but the NWN1 implementation of it was really awful. Here are my criticisms of it:

• Appraise rolls encourage players to save and re-try to get better shopping statistics, especially since they are remembered from visit to visit until your appraise skill improves.
• An unlucky second roll can actually cause your shopping adjustment to get worse when your appraise skill improves, which makes no sense.
• Characters with a very high appraise skill can actually sell items back to the merchant for more than they paid for it.
• Characters don’t get a charisma-based shopping adustment, which I always thought would have been appropriate.

I’ve just finished testing the changes that I’ve made to Sanctum v3.2 to address these issues, and I think you’ll like the results.

Comments (4)

The long-awaited (certainly by me, anyway ) version 3.2 update to Sanctum of the Archmage 1 and 2 is just about ready! I’ve finally finished building it, and I’m just about to start what hope will be my final playtest before making the module available for beta testing. It should be ready by next weekend if everything goes well.

I’ve ended up adding a lot of new features in v3.2, most notably Romantic Animations and Ridable Pegasi in Sanctum 2 (thanks to NinjaWeaselMan and Hardpoints, respectively). The ridable pegasus system in particular was an enormous bit of work, and required probably the most elaborate NWN scripting system that I’ve ever had to develop. Most of the rest of the improvements are smaller and more isolated, and came from going through my "dissatisfaction list." These were a lot of little things that I never really liked or thought worked quite right, and someday wanted to figure out a way to "fix up." Often these were things in the base game or in the CEP that I needed to work around, such as the (I thought) awful crafting system, or the custom CEP items that you couldn’t cast Magic Weapon or Flame Blade on because of the very inflexible way that the scripts were written. I’ve paintstakingly fixed as much of that as I could manage, and re-vamped the crafting system for exotic weapons and materials in a way that I think players are likely to enjoy.

The beta test will be closed and I’d like to keep it fairly small, so if you’d be interested in participating, please let me know.

Comments (7)

I just wanted to give everyone a quick heads-up that Tybae and I will be participating in a "streaming preview show" on the NWN Podcast to announce this year’s finalists for the AME’s NWN1 Golden Dragon Awards for 2008. For details on how to join us in IRC, and to listen live to the show stream, see our announcement here.

Also, just an update on the Sanctum 1-2 v3.2 work: I’ve finished my playthrough, and I’m in the process of making some fixes. Once those are done, and I’ve done another playthrough to make sure everything’s working right, I should be ready to set up a beta test. So stay tuned!

Also, check out my submission to the Vault’s NWN1 Screenshot contest:

Mount Cassandra Peak by Andarian

Comments (1)

I regret to announce that my plans to develop any new updates or modules in the Sanctum of the Archmage series are suspended until further notice.

My reason for this is that the availablility of several cutting-edge cc (custom content) packages that I had been intending to use in the series has been called into question by recent events. For those interested in understanding the background and details of this developing situation, I recommend reading this recent post on my blog, as well as the comments on it from a number of prominent NWN cc authors. The bottom line is that some of these authors, in protest over having their work stolen and over the rude treatment that they have received by others in the community, have decided to either cancel plans to publicly release works that are in progress, or are considering doing so. Since it would be problematic for me to try to publicly release a module (or a module update) that is built partly with custom content that is not going to be made publicly available, I think it only prudent to suspend my development plans until I see how that situation works itself out.

The Sanctum of the Archmage series is being developed using some custom content that is in parallel development by other authors, and consequently it is directly affected by several of these decisions. Taking place in and around the Nurian Mountains of the World of Glorn, it is primarily a mountain adventure, and it also features a prominent romance sub-plot. For these reasons, I have been actively working to integrate NinjaWeaselMan’s Romantic Animations Suite into the series, starting with the v3.2 update to Sanctum 2. I had also wanted to use Lord Rosenkrantz’ Rocky Mountains tileset in the follow-on modules in the series, and I already use (and planned to continue to use) the Community Tileset (CTP) and the CTP Doors packages. The future public availability of these packages (and/or updates to them) is now in question, so I will have to do some hard thinking about how I may have to adapt my module development plans. If this situation cannot be resolved satisfactorily, I may have to switch to building with older or (in my opinion) inferior custom content, switch to building in NWN2, only release my own future modules for private distribution as well, or give up modding altogether and go back to writing my novels. These are all viable alternatives to my mind, and I am currently considering each of them.

I want to make it clear that I fully support these content developers in their protest. Since discussion of this issue is unwelcome on the Bioware forums, I have even helped to organize a web forum on which discussion and debate about it can continue openly and without interruption. That forum can be found at:

The ‘Modders Shrugged’ Initiative: http://www.moddersshrugged.com

I encourage anyone who may be interested in these developments to check out that forum, and to feel free to offer your (civilly expressed) thoughts on these matters.

It is my hope that an acceptable resolution to this situation can be reached by raising consciousness about it in the NWN community. I think that most players and builders here are decent folks, and that a consensus of support for content authors who do not want their work to be used without their permission can be arrived at if the matter is discussed and debated openly. In the meantime, though, further work on the Sanctum of the Archmage modules will have to remain on hold.

Comments (19)

I’ve been talking on and off for a while now with my good friend Charles – who is a professional artist – about the idea of doing a custom portrait for a character from my Sanctum of the Archmage saga. We’ve recently agreed to go ahead and try this out with Orion, and I thought I’d post (with his permission) his first sketch to solicit some player feedback.

Keep in mind that this is a preliminary sketch, and that he’s already working on several changes that we’ve discussed to better fit my image of Orion and his personality. The main ones will be to shorten his hair, and to change his pose and expression to be more direct (looking right at the viewer) and less threatening.

Here it is. If you have thoughts or suggestions, let us know what you think!

Orion Custom Portrait – First Sketch by Charles Imbro

Comments (15)

I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve posted version 3.1 of Sanctum of the Archmage Chapters 1 and 2, which is updated for Patch 1.69 and CEP 2.1. You can find the download links here.

I’m not 100% happy with the update just yet, since I’m still seeing some minor bugs in playing it (see here). I’m also planning a more substantial upgrade when Ninjaweaselman’s romantic animations and Hardpoints’ mountable pegasi are released. Unfortunately, I can’t spare the time right now to hunt down and kill those remaining minor bugs, and fortunately they’re ones that can very easily be ignored or worked around if one of them shows up. Because of the CEP Team’s unfortunate decision to reuse some of the same component names from CEP 2.0 to 2.1 (which has been complicating some players’ efforts to play CEP 2.0 modules), I felt that it was important for me to get a CEP 2.1 compatible version of the module out as soon as possible to support my players, and that this could not wait any longer.

Comments (0)

In case anyone missed it, I was this week’s guest on the Neverwinter Nights Podcast. Trey and I talked about Sanctum 2 winning the Golden Dragon Award for Best RPG, as well as my plans for the next chapters in the series. Here’s the link:

NWNP Episode 68 - Golden Dragon Winner Andarian

My interview starts at about 9 minutes into the podcast. I’m not sure why, but this time they decided to use a "listener greeting" from a non-guest instead of the one that I sent them. If anyone was looking forward to hearing my intro, here it is.

Comments (0)

I’ve just finished uploading the v3.0 update to the "Sanctum of the Archmage" modules (both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2). Please note that ALL of the version 3.0 files (including the music hak) are required to play the update, and that the downloads for Chapter 2 are now contained in these files as well. The module specific hak files (Hak, Music and CMP) will be moved to separate hak pages as soon as these requests make their way through the Vault approval process.

I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to the Beta testers who helped me playtest the update. Your thoroughness, enthusiasm, and attention to detail were very helpful, and very much appreciated. Thank You!

I hope that you will all enjoy the new version. Let me know what you think, and if you have any problems!

Andarian

EDIT: Here’s a screenshot from the new version. It’s a little too spoilerish for the module page, but check it out if you’ve finished Chapter 1. I thought it did a good job of capturing a particular moment that you’ll probably recognize. (WARNING: The image is rendered with the game’s "violence level" set on maximum.)

Proceed to Battle

Comments (0)

The long-awaited version 3.0 of "Sanctum of the Archmage: Act I" is finally nearing release! The last stage of the beta test is finishing this weekend, and barring unforseen issues, I should be ready to post it sometime next week. Version 3.0 includes updates to both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the saga, although the most extensive changes are in Chapter 1. I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to the beta testers who volunteered to give the new version a very thorough shakedown, and who offered many helpful comments and suggestions.

I’d also like to remind everyone that we’re now in the final week of the NWN Vault’s Module of the Year Contest, in which "Sanctum of the Archmage 2: The Miracle Worker - Act I" is a contestant. So if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to vote before the contest ends on Saturday, April 5th!

Comments (0)

I’ve been relatively quiet here lately, in spite of having several reader and player comments that I still want to respond to. Unfortunately, several aspects of my "real life" are demanding a lot of my attention, and probably will continue to in the near future. And I’ve been keeping relatively quiet to try to focus my attention on finishing the update to Sanctum 1. But I did want to take a few minutes to post an update on my progress.

First, the good news: this weekend, I finally finished an alpha test of my rewrite of "The Sight." The "makeover" turned out to involve much more work than I’d intended, and I’m glad that it’s now almost over. A lot of the changes involved doing certain things "right" that I didn’t know how to do properly when I first built the module, but do now. A lot more, though, involved adding new content (especially new dialogue, scripts and areas). After a few pages of relatively minor bugfixes and another Alpha test run, I should be ready to post a beta version, hopefully by next weekend.

On that note, I’d like to ask if anyone would be interested in helping beta test the new version. Several players have mentioned an interest in doing so, and ideally I’d like to try to find several people willing to test out each of the different options that the new version provides. (The main ones are: easy/hard combat, male/female Robin, and male/female player.) I won’t post a final version to the Vault until the beta test is over, since I prefer to do short and private beta tests with only a few testers, and after I’ve shaken most of the bugs out of the module myself. If you’re willing to play a (mostly polished) beta version and email me some notes on any problems that you see or thoughts that you have, post a note here or drop me an email, with my thanks.

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to the end of my ideas regarding how to improve the module yet – but I’ve decided that I really do have to draw the line at this point at making any more significant changes. I did take to heart the comments of players who objected to Robin’s "harshness" in several conversations. I reworked them to try to make them less punitive, to let the player feel less pressure to "be nice" to him/her, and to allow for a little more "attitude." I’ve also changed the way that Robin’s relationship "points" accumulate, which should make it easier for players to miss or pass on some choices for RP reasons and still "gain influence and fulfill the romantic aspect of the campaign," as LadyN put it. But I’m passing on some of the more extensive writing changes that I had in mind (some of which I’ll try including in the next module).

And thanks in advance for any volunteers interested in beta testing!

Comments (10)

Apologies in advance for my absence from the blog! I’m very grateful for the increase in posts recently, and for all of your attention and thoughtful comments on the modules. I do want to reply to more of those comments soon, but I’ll probably need a few more days before I can get time to do that properly. Work will be busy for me for the rest of the month, and I’ve been spending all my spare time trying to finish up the Sanctum 1 upgrade.

As for the upgrade: that’s now officially gotten "out of control" (my wife’s words) and turned into a pretty substantial makeover. That’s happened for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve got a year’s worth of ideas, player suggestions, and improved knowledge about modding to work with. I keep wanting to include all of those ideas, and since I’d like this to be the final update to Sanctum 1, this is the time to make them. So here’s another brief (and non-exhaustive) report on my progress:

• I’ve updated Robin and Orion to use their improved blueprints from Sanctum 2, including Robin’s single class of Rogue. This should make them a little more effective in combat, and relieve most of the pressure on players to take (possibly non-primary) thief skills.
• I’ve moderated the combat balance a little, and also added and tested an option to make the combat even easier still for players who prefer that.
• I’ve redesigned the "picnic swim" cutscene to be more elaborate, and to make use of some features that I also used in Sanctum 2.
• I’m making great use of the features of a new tileset that I added for Len’s Lab, the Secure Area, and the Master Control Room, each of which (along with the lower level of the ruins) has now been rebuilt from scratch. And I added a new twist to make the "repair operation" a bit more interesting and elaborate.
• I’ve also decided to rather significantly expand on the functions of the "Holo-Theater." I’ll won’t say any more now, except that this is what I’m currently working on, and it involves several new areas and encounters.

Comments (6)

In the comments to my last blog post, Wynele brought up a number of very good points about the RP and romance options in Sanctum 1 – some of which raise questions that I’d like to get feedback from players on. WARNING: SPOILERS for both Sanctum modules follow.

Wynele wrote: "The PC passiveness. I’d like to see the PC cave a little less to Robin. I know for story reasons, the two must get along-but even the best of friends want to choke each other out from time to time…

"Some instances I recall off hand. The soul drinker… If you take the violent option (which I though was amusing and in lines with what a rowdy BFF would say) Robin gets angry to put it lightly… The "High handed bitch" remark should probably earn Robin an equally insulting retort. (or a good thwap to the back of the head considering he’s being foolish)"

I was surprised by this comment at first, and only partly because I disagree that Robin is being foolish in that scene. (Neither of you know what getting the venom in your mouth will do to you, and Robin wants a practical reason to agree to your taking that risk.) But I do think there is something to Wynele’s general point here: that the romances are generally written to encourage kindness rather than confrontation. Given the sometimes frustrating complexity of Robin’s romance in particular, that may not always be appropriate. And Wynele’s observation has already given me some ideas about how to address that, including how to improve that conversation in particular. Thanks!

However, after thinking about it, I realized that there’s probably more going on here, something that’s related to the difference between the male and female versions of the module. Sanctum 1 was originally written with Robin as a female character only. When I developed the alternative version last year, I pretty much copied the dialogue over verbatim, except for things like pronoun changes and a few edits for lines that obviously didn’t make sense when spoken to or by a male Robin. I was very interested in feedback from players on whether some of male Robin’s dialogue might not have worked well without some more extensive re-writing, but until now I haven’t seen or received anything to indicate that this was needed.

Now I’m not so sure. To see why, try putting the line that Wynele mentioned back in its original context: as a threat of violence spoken by a male PC to a female Robin who has just been fatally poisoned. Perhaps it’s more my own sense of chivalry than anything else, but I felt that warranted a harsh response – which was later inherited by the male Robin version of the module. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just re-written this exchange differently for a male Robin. I took more cognizance of issues like this when I wrote Sanctum 2, since the dialogue there was developed with the fact that it had to work for both Robins already in mind. (For example, that’s why Prince Robin only yells at and humiliates the female courtier who kisses him without asking, while Princess Robin actually breaks the arm of the male courtier who does this.)

So now I’m thinking that a more extensive editing and re-writing pass through the Sanctum 1 dialogue may be warranted, to take more subtle nuances of this kind into account. And in line with this, I wanted to pose two questions. First, do players agree that this may be needed? And second, does anyone have suggestions about other exchanges to revisit?

Thanks in advance for any feedback –

Andarian

Comments (10)

Here’s a short update on the progress of version 3.0 of Sanctum of the Archmage 1: The Sight. I’ve made a set of tweaks to the selection of available items, and to some of the areas up to and including the first level of the ancient ruins. And I’ve rebuilt the second level from scratch, to for the most part (though not entirely) resemble the upper part of Level 2 from the current version. Some parts of it, however, have been broken out into separate areas of their own, and I’m working on those now.

I’ve also included a (short!) configuration interview at the beginning, to set two parameters for the module playthrough. One of them, of course, is choosing Robin as male or female, and I have all of the dialogue lines and variables written and set up now to support that. The other is a flag that I’m going to let the player set at the beginning, to indicate whether they would prefer to play with difficult combat (as in the current module), or with easier combat. I’ve written some code and have reworked many of the module’s encounters to make use of this setting, which I hope will make the module more amenable to players with varying levels of appreciation for difficult combat.

SPOILER SECTION

Here’s an example snapshot of what I’m working through now in the way of updating areas. It uses this tileset, which I rather like – except that the low ceilings do create something of a problem that I don’t think I’m going to be able to get around. The tileset is an upgrade to this one, which doesn’t contain the enforced (low) ceilings, and which I’m probably going to have to end up using instead. I’m interested in feedback, so feel free to post comments (prefaced by a spoiler warning ) if you have any thoughts on this.

Comments (9)

I announced recently that my last building task in Neverwinter Nights 1 (before moving on to Act II of the Sanctum saga in Neverwinter Nights 2) was going to be to do a final update for Chapter 1, "The Sight." In particular, I wanted to merge the two "male and female Robin" versions into a single module that supported both, to fix a few very minor and lingering bugs and spelling errors, and to do just a little more "tweaking" to improve the combat and playability. I started that work last week, and it’s coming along very nicely.

It’s coming along so nicely, in fact, that since this will be my last building project in NWN1, I’ve decided to turn it into a major overhaul of the first chapter. It will be a full version upgrade (to "Version 3.0"), and I expect the updated module to be ready sometime in February. In addition to the aforementioned improvements, I’ve decided to completely rebuild the whole of the "Ancient Ruins," which I was never fully happy with. I committed a classic "first time builder’s mistake" by making these areas too large, when I should have broken them into several smaller and linked areas instead. I’m going to do that now, and take advantage of the opportunity to use some very cool new tilesets while I’m at it.

I’m also tempted to retrofit some of the new features introduced in Sanctum 2 – such as the food and improved "bleeding" system. I haven’t entirely made up my mind about that yet, though, since I don’t want to delay getting started on Act II for too long.

Comments (7)

I’m happy to report that Sanctum of the Archmage I - The Sight is a contestant in the Neverwinter Vault’s annual Module of the Year Contest for 2006. Voting is open to anyone who had an active Neverwinter Vault account as of March 1, 2007.

2006 Module of the Year Contest

Comments (0)

(Warning: the following may contain spoilers for Sanctum of the Archmage I - The Sight.)

Continued from Balancing Romance Plots - Part I.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I had a ready-made solution to my problem: Orion, the character I’d had to remove from the saga to make room for the player to begin with. His personality was already well defined; all he needed was a new background and a way to add him to the story. His thoughtful personality made inventing a new background for him as a philosopher-scholar easy and natural. And there was also a ready-made place to insert him into the module: taking the place of Handol’s original companion, an elven ranger named Ferna Galen. Ferna was a relatively minor character who didn’t have an important role in the plot (although she might still make an appearance in the sequel). Replacing her with Orion tightened up and improved the story significantly, and enabled me to add back some of the plot and interpersonal dynamics that his character had originally made possible.

With this rework, I now I had both male and female romance characters and plots. And although they were written and designed as straight romances, I decided not to code gender checks on the PC to enable them – instead giving the player conversation options to choose which romance(s) interested him. Comfortable that I had now written a reasonably flexible romance plot for it, that was how I released Sanctum I.

After a while, though, I realized that I still wasn’t satisfied. By this time my thinking had fully evolved to the point where I had embraced writing a flexible and balanced romance as a module-building design goal. And while adding Orion to the story improved it in many ways, his romance plot was still a secondary one compared to Robin’s. Orion is encountered at the earliest halfway through the module, and by the end, the player has known him for a week or two at most. Although I have very ambitious plans for his romance in the sequels, in The Sight I had to limit it to flirting, since anything more would have been unconvincing.

This lack of balance in Sanctum’s romance plot became the subject of a very interesting correspondence that I had with one of the module’s players. We also discussed the fact that while there seemed to be a number of mods out there with "Romance the Princess" plots, that neither of us had ever seen a "Romance the Prince" mod. And perhaps not surprisingly, this got me to thinking about whether I could create a version of Sanctum I in which Robin was a romanceable male character – and whether I could sustain this option in the sequels.

After a lot of thought, I decided that I could. That decision led to my final update to The Sight in January 2007: version 2.1M. And with that update, I had finally balanced the romance plot in Chapter I to my satisfaction – while also setting the stage for an even more ambitious romance plot in Chapter II.

(To be continued)

Comments (0)

(Warning: the following may contain spoilers for Sanctum of the Archmage I - The Sight.)

As some of you may know, I’m a sucker for a good romance.

Building Sanctum of the Archmage I - The Sight was an educational experience for me in many ways. Being a hopeless romantic, that had to include learning how to develop an effective romance plot for a Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG). There’s a lot more to this than I realized at first. And the evolution of my thoughts on this topic ended up having a significant influence on the development of the first module, as well as on my plans for the rest of the series.

A key part of the "Sanctum" saga as I originally conceived it is the love story between Robin and The Miracle Worker – whose name in the novels, it may surprise some of you to learn, is Orion. One of the first things I realized when I started trying to adapt the story for Neverwinter Nights, though, was that simply importing the characters and the plot from the novel would not create the kind of FRPG experience that I wanted. I wanted to create an interactive story, one that the player would feel fully immersed into, and in as personal a way as possible. I was comfortable specifying the player’s background, since I’ve never thought that background defines who a person really is. But dictating the player’s name, personality, gender, and so on – in short, their identity – didn’t quite sit right with me.

I know that other (and some quite successful) builders have done this, and I did consider it. But one of the things I learned from my years as a Dungeon Master is the fine line that you have to walk between defining the story on the one hand, and giving the players freedom to contribute to and feel that they are a part of it on the other. This is something that a novelist doesn’t have to consider at all, because a novel is not interactive in the way that an FRPG is. As with any other kind of storytelling, a good FRPG needs to have a strong and tightly developed plot. But that plot also has to be flexible enough to make the player feel that they are a participant, rather than a spectator, in the events they are playing. So when I started building the Sanctum modules, I reluctantly decided that the personality of one of my most beloved characters (Orion) would have to be set aside – to allow the player to put himself into the story (and into his romance) instead.

As time went by, though, I realized that I still wasn’t satisfied with this. In keeping with the plot of the novels, Sanctum I initially only had a possible romance between a male player and Robin. But women play FRPGs, too. And as I came to realize, they not only make up a sizable part of the player community, but are often some of its most discerning members – particularly when it comes to romance plots. A Bioware forum discussion that I participated in last year really brought this point home to me, along with the fact that I was ignoring many of the players who might best be able to appreciate a module romance. So even though Sanctum I was already largely written and plotted out, I resolved to try to think of a way to introduce a male romance into it as well.

(Continued in Balancing Romance Plots - Part II)

Comments (0)