Progress Update: June

I had to solve a problem with my loadscreens, they weren't displaying ingame. Instead I was getting the default "Neverwinter eye logo" loadscreen. Errors in my 2da. I also made loadscreens for some areas I didn't have screens for, and updated a few loadscreens where I'd made changes to the area. So loadscreens are working again.

I've added a lot of static cameras throughout the module. There's a good amount of interacting with placeables via conversation, and some regular conversations where the location of the npc is known. Static cameras let me have more "cinematic" camera angles, and will hopefully make conversations more dramatic and enjoyable. I'm fully aware some people are not going to like Crimmor because they prefer nwn1 style conversations, just like I expected some people not to like Path of Evil because you played an evil PC.

Filled in some placeholder conversations, and somewhat developed a placeholder quest I'd put in to address a hole in the plot.

I've made a number of playthroughs of Crimmor. Fixing things as I find them. So things are looking more polished there, and the number of bugs is less. Still plenty of bugs. :-)

Current making my first pass through areas placing sounds. It's a large and lengthy project, since I'm doing all custom sound. Freesound project . First I had to get all that sound in a format NWN2 could use, then get things categorized at least somewhat. Then, since the filenames are not very descriptive, there's a lot of listening to things before deciding what to place.

To do list of non quest/conversation stuff:

Finish sound and make sure it works ingame. [edit: sounds now placed]
Get guards to react properly to a door that's open when it shouldn't be.
Set store hours and get that working.
Get conversational spell use working. [edit: now working]
Add ambiance npc's in city exteriors and stores.
Get random results from pickpocketing working. [edit: doing this they way I want requires editing pickpocket, which seems to be hardcoded]

Dragon Age Bundle

Amazon is currently selling Dragon Age Ultimate Edition for $16. They are also selling Dragon Age Ultimate Edition bundled with Dragon Age 2, for $10. This means Dragon Age 2 is apparently worth -$6.

Told to defend a dead end pc turns to face the approaching enemies, enemies instead spawn behind pc, in the dead end (behavior I actually witnessed in a youtube let's play video). -$6 sounds about right.

Freesound and Endless Space

Started work on doing sound for areas (eg there isn't any sound right now) with a lot of blueprint work on my sound project. If you need a custom sound effect, perhaps best place you can go is freesound.org. They have a huge collection. And best of all for the modder, it's all creative commons licensed.

A while back I'd downloaded a lot of sound from there, and spent time converting things to a NWN2 usable format. The blueprint work could have been done quickly by someone with some actual programming skills, but no one ever stepped forward for my request. I'd reached the point where I really needed to start adding sound, so I can get a feel for how things sound ingame during playthroughs, so I just started plowing ahead and making blueprints. Lots and lots of blueprints, roughly 2200. Anyway I'll be releasing all the custom sound work to the community for others to benefit from, just like I release all my loadscreens, areas etc. Total size of everything is a bit under a gig if you used everything. I don't see why anyone would need it all, but perhaps it will form a common sound hak like the common tile haks or common monster haks. I got the file size down to under a gig thanks to converting to mp3, then nwn2 usable wav. NWN2 gameworlds are going to be able to sound a whole lot better, and you won't have to listen to the same three bird sounds over and over again (I have multiple ten minute forest birds recordings in the pack...).

You can find the bioware social thread for it here http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/163/index/12546943  with links to download.

I've also been playing a lot of Endless Space, a 4X style game (think Civilization) set in space. It was released for purchase as an alpha on Steam. Even as an alpha, it's in good shape I think. I bought it after it was recommended on the NWN2 irc channel. Good fun for fans of 4X games. Anyone interested can see more at their Steam Store site http://store.steampowered.com/app/208140/ or their website http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/ .