Sunday, August 22, 2010

Path of Evil: 100% complete

Since the 98% post, all the rest has been completed. The companion conversations were the biggie, somewhere around 15,000 to 20,000 words combined. They're complete fluff (irrelevant to gameplay but good "color") but they were important for me. The areas I added still need testing, but they are straightforward dungeon crawling you can do once you have your stronghold.

Other than the fact I'd like to test those new areas a bit, I could give the old "TESTERS, ASSEMBLE!!!" anytime now. Someone posted a two bugs the other day on the wiki. It showed that they had gotten through the entirety of two modules with just two bugs. I knew my months of bugtesting and fixing time had been paying dividends. :-)

Anyway, why not give the ol' "TESTERS, ASSEMBLE!!!" ? In case you've been living under a brick, The Maimed God's Saga and The Wizard's Apprentice were just released, and White Plume Mountain is supposed to be on the Vault by the end of the month. I wouldn't want to compete with them for attention. The community doesn't have so many adventures coming out that we should compete for players attention with releases very close together.

There are still things I'd like to add, but they are fluff. The joke items I talked about a few posts ago. Add unique descriptions to some generic items in stores so they're not selling so many "This is a +1 sword" weapons. More joke graves in the old Black Isle tradition. More alternate ways to say the same thing, to give the player the ability to give more personality to their pc. But since everyone should be busy enjoying Maimed God's Saga, The Wizard's Apprentice, and White Plume Mountain for the next couple of weeks, I can take some extra time to add some of this fluff/polish to a project that is "100% complete".  Besides, everyone complains when a game gets rushed out the door, I can always look for more bugs.

If you're reading this and you'd like to test, or just a builder who'd like to look around.
Wiki with file downloads

Builders, you might find this a good laugh. The list of bugs that have been fixed. There were about a thousand fixed before this list was even started. Obviously this can be spoiler full.
Fixed bug list

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations! Must feel great. I also think it's a smart move to wait a bit to not drown in the buzz around the other modules (or draw attention from them). It'll give you time to polish.

    One question. How do you think the game would behave in a Baldur's Gate style cooperative multiplayer? Would it work but with small conversation hick-ups and some need for specific players to finish the quest? Or would it go crazy and make it impossible to finish?

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  2. Nice this and maimed god saga are the 2 main mod's i have been waiting for, looking forword to relase and thank you for whats looks to be a very nice mod.

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  3. Awesome Kamal ! I'm really happy for you. getting something like this mod finished is truly a feat og willpower and dedication. my hat off to you.

    this truly has been a great year for the nwn2 community when you think about the quality of the mods comming out. and yours from what I have seen is right up there among the great ones. now I will drop my paladin hat and throw away that holy avenger and do evil full time :D


    Good job and thanks for the effort you've put into this.

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  4. @Amraphael: I've tried to set things so they are multiplayer aware. It isn't something I can test myself of course but if people report multiplayer specific bugs I will fix them.

    Fights will be a little easy in the first part of the mod since you'd have more than the expected part size. Once you reach the OM though combat should balance better since it transitions to using more encounters than placed enemies.

    The writing does kind of assume you're one person and not a SoZ party. A minor issue for multiplayer I guess. You can pretend the main pc, his/her friend, and Kvas the companion who joins you immediately are all friends. The game already assumes Kvas is your childhood friend anyway.

    No companions are plot necessary after you leave Neverwinter roughly three hours into the campaign. I have set OC style death in Neverwinter, and then SoZ death after to reflect that.

    I hope people play with the companions, but it's not necessary after Neverwinter. I join the companions at level 1 and then let the player level them to the pc level, with free multiclassing and Kaedrin support, so if players want a class that's not represented they only have to give up the initial level. There are 2 rogues, 2 priests, 2 wizards, a ranger and a fighter available as companions. You pick up the rogue as soon as you start, and the ranger you also pick up in Neverwinter.

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  5. Congrats on the 100%. The next month will be a big one with a bunch of campaigns coming out.

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  6. Well done, Kamal. Time to start planning another campaign then ;)

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  7. Hi Kamal,

    The zip file for the Aug 23 'files other than modules' update had a bunch of corrupt files in it. At least it did for me.

    Just letting you know.

    cheers,

    - Jifu

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  8. Sorry jifu. If you have an older version, there shouldn't really be any differences of note. I'll get an uncorrupted version up in the next day or two.

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