The Sanctum

Episode 31 of the Neverwinter Nights Podcast has just been released, which includes Part 1 of a round-table panel discussion that I participated in called "Storytelling Across All Neverwinter Nights Mediums." I recommend it highly, and not just because I’m in it. It was (I think) a fascinating discussion of the subject, from the differing (and yet often similar) gameplay perspectives of single player mods, DM-led mods, and persistent worlds. We ended up going for several hours, which is why the segment is going to be continued in upcoming episodes of the podcast.

The other two panelists were Bruce Nielsen, author of the "Light Reborn" module series, and Kevin Sheehan, creator of the Glorwing Persistent World. It was a unique experience to discuss NWN building and storytelling with such intelligent and thoughtful individuals. Thanks again to Trey and Jay from the NWN Podcast for setting it up!

Comments (2)

Work on Sanctum 2 is moving along, but perhaps not surprisingly, not as quickly as I’d hoped. Part of the reason is that I’ve inevitably gotten sucked into trying to do a series of new, challenging, and (to me) very interesting things that I either didn’t know how, or didn’t have time, to do in the first chapter. Some of these include:

• Almost completely re-writing the death scripts from Sanctum 1, including a radical upgrade to the "mortal damage" code. I’ve also worked out a way to circumvent the game engine’s mortal damage limit of -10 hp for players. Players and companions who fall in battle can now survive longer before dying, and can get saving throws vs. death to hang on a little longer when mortally wounded, hopefully making for a more complex combat dynamic.
• Including lots of new tilesets, skyboxes, placeables and music, to make for a far richer audio-visual experience than in the first chapter.
• Updated travel and rest systems, and a number of new (and I hope interesting) items that can be found while exploring.

The good news is that most of that infrastructure development is now complete, along with the initial scenes of Chapter Two as the player travels through the underground passage to Mount Cassandra. As I promised at the end of Sanctum 1, these are heavy on dialogue and roleplaying, with only a few combats (including  a couple of quite challenging ones). My current playtests run a little over an hour if I read all the conversations. And between now and the end of August, I’m fairly confident that I can finish the scenes that involve reaching Mount Cassandra and rejoining the resistance, which should probably constitute around 2 hours of play time all told. After that, though, I’ll have to scale back my modding for the fall, to finish one more part-time semester of graduate school.

Since Sanctum of the Archmage is a linear module series, I think that that work might be able to stand relatively well on its own, either as a demo mod, or perhaps even as a short module in its own right. So it occurred to me to throw out the idea of releasing it in that form, probably around the beginning of September or so. I’m curious what my readers think of that idea. Would there be interest in a demo version of Sanctum 2?

Comments (3)

I’ve been pretty busy recently, so I forgot to blog about the fact that my "Module Spotlight" for Sanctum of the Archmage was aired in Episode 30 of the Neverwinter Nights Podcast. A "module spotlight" is kind of like a short commercial for your mod work that you record and send in to be included in the show. Mine appears a little over 11 minutes into the podcast.

I recommend the NWN Podcast in general, and checking out the next couple of episodes in particular – since I happen to know that they have some really interesting stuff lined up…

Update: If you’d like to hear just the mod spotlight as an mp3 file, click here.

Comments (0)

I wrote the following comments on a Bioware Forums thread concerning my thoughts about NWN1 and NWN2, and thought that I’d repost those here on my blog.

MikeLM9215 wrote: "The two biggest problems with NWN 2 are size of modules and lack of creatures."

I agree, although I think that the instability of the toolset is an extremely serious problem as well. Some builders (myself included) won’t risk losing scores of hours of work trying to build in a toolset that might erase it due to module corruption.

The lack of creatures is primarily related to Obsidian’s decision to use a proprietary 3D modeling format and toolset (Granny 3D) for NWN2. I’m hesitant to criticize those decisions, since it’s easy to play "armchair quarterback" and I don’t really know the considerations that they had to face that led them to that decision. But I’m inclined to regard it as an extremely shortsighted and foolish move for the sequel to a game whose defining characteristic is its custom modding community.

The thing that gave NWN1 such a long life was its toolset and its moddability. And it is the NWN custom content community that provides the foundation for and enables that mod work. They do it by creating a veritable cornucopia of components that modders can use as raw materials to build ever more ambitious mods. Anyone who could learn to use Gmax (let along 3DSMax) could create models for NWN1 – whether creatures, terrain, placeables, or items. Artists could create compelling portraits for it. Musicians could create scores, coders could create script systems, and so on.

Regrettably, Obsidian was either unwilling or unable to provide the kind of empowerment for the custom modding and content communities that was really required for a sequel to NWN1. The "Granny Plugin" that they are scrambling to develop and test now should have been available at or before release of the game, not nine months after it. A stable toolset to enable the modding community to build for the game should have been their highest priority from the beginning of development, not an afterthought that is still not yet addressed. And the lack of these things at release should have been a signal to the NWN1 community – players and builders alike – not to jump ship to NWN2 so quickly. (I’m as guilty of this last as anyone, so that criticism is directed at myself as well.)

I’m hopeful that Obsidian can address these issues in the near future, but I’m now officially skeptical. Even if they get a stable toolset and 3D plugin out this year, it will still take another year after that before these can really be exploited to start producing good mods in the kinds of numbers that we saw with NWN1. That’s a year and a half before NWN2 can even begin to be able to function as a legitimate successor to NWN1. And that’s the main reason why I think NWN1 has plenty of life in it yet.

Comments (0)