Trying to Build

NWN going into hibernation and other projects

2008-10-19T23:32:00.002+02:00

Alright, no more messing around, my NWN mod is on indefinate hiatus, not that it wasn't before, but now it's official, sort of anyway.

Fortunately, there are other things on my project list, things that suddenly have had quite an increase in productivity. This is my Java game project and my writing.

My writing is basically a response to the nearing of NaNoWriMo, which has made me increasingly interested in my story and thus made me work more often. It is also the product of a dead monitor, meaning less time on my own computer and thus less time to play games.

The other project, my Java game, is on rise, primarily because my friend who I tried to get a shared project up and running with, suddenly acquired the urge to create something. Therefore we are making a game from ground up, using Java, and actually completing stuff, now if that isn't impressive, I don't know what is.

The end result of this is that I will be restructuring my blog into something more general than NWN modding, and hopefully an increased posting rate.

Final note: Mass Effect is awesome, you must buy it, trust me on this.

Deviating

2008-09-03T19:08:00.004+02:00

I've started a Deviant Art account, and even better, I have an actual live audience! A small audience, but still an audience, which is more than I've ever had before.

This is also helping my writing... motivation... or is it fear of disappointing? I never can tell...

dA account: Usandru

Not Dead

2008-08-28T23:05:00.002+02:00

I still live, the blog still exists, and the silence has been broken, for a little while, anyway...

Of possible interest is the fact that I have created a Deviant Art account, nicknamed Usandru, where I intend to upload shorts, sketches, real drawings, novels and other similar stuff. O nonexistant readers, search for me there!

NWN2 is (as usual) in a kind of hibernation, I will do something, one of these days, but I doubt it is going to be soon, what with the latest batch of anime...

IntroConv again

2008-08-09T23:35:00.002+02:00

Here we go again with the first conversation. I kinda like it this time, it feels like it hits the right narrative style, of course that could just be me imagining things.

Surprise!

2008-08-09T00:01:00.002+02:00

The moment I shelve the project, it gains momentum. We're rolling again, with a partner in pacing, and redoing everything (as usual). Currently working on Neia's home (Greymist House) and Scene One. Details to follow as I work.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

2008-08-03T13:32:00.002+02:00

Well, this project has gone straight to hell.

Before I even try to think up new interesting things for me to forget about and ignore, I'll say that my current goal, with no specific deadline, is getting the fire back in this project, otherwise I'll just be saying stuff with no point.

I will of course still use the blog, if I want to write about my other projects.

Mixed feelings

2008-07-27T02:00:00.003+02:00

Well, I didn't manage to do anything about my module during my trip, I did however do a great deal of writing and work on potential roleplays and characters. I also drew quite a bit.

Quick status and yet another project

2008-07-17T03:02:00.003+02:00

Status, I suspect my "goal" of post five posts heralding progress isn't going to be very realistic, considering the fact that I must leave my computer for a week or so, however after that week, I might have a big post, which is almost the same, right?

I have also begun planning a novel, which I intend to write for NaNoWriMo (for you poor souls not knowing of this great event, try googling the name). This novel planning has been eating a great deal of my time, along with lots of reading and pnp roleplaying. However writing is interesting for this blog, as writing is a big part of the storytelling in a game. There are also a lot of similarities and differences between plot and writing in books and in games, that are worth exploring. So to start out this subproject, I'll talk a little bit about the story I am planning.

The story's core plot is that of a square peg in a world of round holes. The main character doesn't fit in, so we have the journey of selfdiscovery, the making of friendships and in certain genres, the saving of the world. The first two of these elements are present in my story concept, but there is a twist. First of all, the story is modern, the journey is out of necessity, not out of some desire to fit and the main character herself is "telling" the story, and supposedly, using lots of sarcasm.

In detail, the story is about a Half Dragon girl (currently) named Kate Rivers, studying anthropology at some university in a big city (I am still unsure what city to use, but I guess I'll figure something out), having managed to keep her secret for twentyfour years, this is all shattered in one night where she helps some poor guy against some thugs, using her special abilities. The government, having been on the lookout for something like this for a while now, grabs the chance and forces Kate to flee, along with the guy she saved, into the city.

The interesting thing about this story isn't really the plot, but the characters. Atmosphere is created because of the flaws of the characters, and the way that even their strengths can sometimes have unforseen consequences. This is important, characters become interesting when they have flaws. Tensions rises when the characters flaws begin to hinder them. There is also a good deal of symbolism in defeating your flaws.

All right, I want to sleep now, so this is the end.

I live...

2008-07-11T02:28:00.002+02:00

Please note, I am not dead. I repeat, I am not dead.

"Goal" for July

2008-07-02T16:54:00.002+02:00

My plans have crashed, so my goal for the month is posting five "progress" posts... Quite an achievement by itself...

That seems to be it for today, nothing happened here either.

Last day

2008-06-30T00:49:00.001+02:00

Well, this seems to be it for June, I'll give a full status report and goal tomorrow.

Tough

2008-06-27T21:37:00.002+02:00

The joint project just went down the drain. Unfortunate, but I'll figure something out.

Uh, is that my deadline?

2008-06-26T01:31:00.002+02:00

Umm... I guess I might not manage to meet the deadline... But I have good news! Now I am officially on vacation and can hang around doing nothing (as usual), all the time! A considerable improvement...

That aside, I have another deadline for myself, because I want to have the joint project I was talking about, either in prep phase, or abolished into the void... So, yeah, I might actually do some work one of these days...

Yet another day...

2008-06-22T02:48:00.000+02:00

Yeah, nothing once again.

Got something cooking

2008-06-21T01:24:00.002+02:00

Yeah, still nothing done, but I have another theory I might want to talk about soon, and I am trying to get a joint project up, possibly rooted in the meager work I've completed already. Something is definately cooking right now, lets just hope it doesn't get burnt...

Duh

2008-06-19T22:52:00.000+02:00

And again...

Uh...

2008-06-18T16:14:00.001+02:00

>.<

Yeah, yeah, I know...

2008-06-16T09:02:00.001+02:00

This really isn't going very well...

Whatever

2008-06-12T21:13:00.002+02:00

Nuff said.

Why is this thing even here?

2008-06-10T15:07:00.001+02:00

I am so amazing. I managed to... do exactly nothing, and forget posting about my complete lack of progress... Yay.

...

2008-06-08T21:20:00.001+02:00

Guess what? Still no damnable progress..

Ah... forget the titles...

2008-06-07T19:08:00.003+02:00

No progress, as usual... One of these days I'll have to do something, just to maintain my selfrespect...

Okay, yesterdays "On Development" post was quite interesting to write, so I am going to do another one, this time I'll speak about Flow as I understand it.

Flow is about difficulty, when something has flow, it will always maintain an even level of difficulty, relative to the player's skills. This means that everything will be challenging, without being frustrating or boring. The best example of flow I can give is Valve's Half-Life 2, as it somehow manages to maintain a roughly even difficulty curve. This is where somebody might scream in rage and shout that Half-Life 2 did not have flow, but was completely messed up regarding difficulty. This might very well be the case for some players, because of this simple human trait: We are not alike in every aspect. Games that are easy for me might be hard for someone else and games that are hard for me might be easy for someone else. This is where problems arise, because a game without flow is rarely a fun game, the few games I have completed that lacked flow usually had really compelling stories or really fun gameplay, despite the lack of flow.

In any game target a broad player demographic, flow becomes an issue. This is quite simply because the broader your playerbase, the more likely it is that someone will not have some crucial skill, and if the game is not capable of adjusting to this lack, certain parts of the playerbase will be alienate and less likely to buy future games. Effectively, you need a way to provide fun gameplay for as many players as possible, a daunting task to say the least. I personally have three general solutions, one I call dynamic flow another called generalized flow and the last I call player training.

Dynamic flow is about a game capable of adjusting certain parts of the gameplays difficulty, preferably on the run. Such a game should be able to identify the individual players weaknesses and strengths and adjust the game to provide constant challenge. The obvious benefit to such a system is that you likely will be capable of targeting the broadest playerbase possible without frustrating or boring them, which is a big plus. On the other hand, it is, to my knowledge, much harder to build any sort of dynamic system, especially a big one, making this a costly and likely very risky solution, not to mention the fact that trying to secondguess thousands or even millions of humans is extremely foolish at the best of times.

Generalized flow is about creating an ideal player and tailoring the flow to this player and then hoping the majority of your playerbase fits this ideal player. The benefits to this approach is that it is, relatively, much cheaper and faster, but it runs into the problem of humans never really conforming to any ideal.

Finally there is player training. As the name implies, this involves training the players to deal with the challenges presented by the gameplay. This makes the players match the ideal player to some degree, thus obviously helping the flow. This is in many ways the comfortable middleground of this issue, but in some cases it might still be too expensive to justify, in comparison to the generalized flow.

Each of these have variations, and both flow and the problems associated with it are not as simple as one might think upon reading this. But that is for another post.

On Development

2008-06-06T20:26:00.004+02:00

Alright, I may not be very quick or steady in my real building, but I do think an awful lot, occasionally about games, so I am starting this in order to display and store some of my ideas about how all this crap works. It should be noted that I have no experience of development outside playing finished products, reading articles and fiddling with editors, so please do not take my musings as anything other than that.

Now on to the interesting stuff. A game is made up of various parts, its story, its presentation and its gameplay, each part can be further split as needed. Each of these parts provide an important function, but the only one of them that can be done without is story, and that is mostly because story mostly is a huge subbranch of presentation, huge enough that it usually is its own part. Gameplay and presentation are both neccesary to a game, simply because if you can't do anything, it isn't a game and likewise, if you don't know anything about what is happening, you can't play the game.

Gameplay is the core of any game, it is about what the players can do, and what happens when they act. Most games have a goal or goals that the player need to achieve. Some games, usually simulators, do not, but allow the players to create their own goals within the framework of the game. In all games, there are obstacles. What they obstruct depends on the game, but they are always there. The possibility of success must always be connected with the risk of failure, otherwise there will be no joy in the success. To succeed, the players are given tools, such as the ability to move things, usually a character, in the world. To overcome the obstacles, the players must use their tools correctly, otherwise they will, obviously, fail. Basically, a game is about dealing with obstacles untill the game ends.

Presentation is multiple things. there is the way the game communicates with the player, through the User Interface, through the "world" if such exists, through the story, the audio, everything. Where gameplay happens effectively behind the scene, in the engine and such, presentation is everything the players see and hear (and likely, in the future, smell, feel and taste). Presentation tells the players what happens when they use their tools.

However story, while part of presentation, is also apart, because story is about giving reasons. Story is what makes the players want to overcome all the obstacles, what makes them happy when they do, it is incentive and reward. However the most important thing to remember about story, is that it does not have to be an epic tale about good and evil and saving the world, it can just as well be a story about you overcoming a set of obstacles and winning, by simply telling that to win, you must overcome these obstacles and suddenly, the game has gone from being pointless, to having purpose, and that can be very important.

In summary, gameplay is about the tools at the player's disposal, presentation is about communicating the gameplay to the player and story is about giving an incentive to play and rewarding "victory".

Surprise

2008-06-06T11:38:00.003+02:00

So much for posting once a day.

Progress is still low, or more accurately, nonexistant and it isn't looking up anytime soon.

Progress? Whats that?

2008-06-03T20:37:00.004+02:00

Title says it all.

More importantly, from tomorrow I will only have four "school" days left, my finals (sorta, these aren't important), spaced with atleast a couple of days each. While some time may be spent preparing for this, I will generally have lots and lots of time, so I expect a productivity spike somtime soon.

Unrelated but awesome: Aquaria... Things like this remind me why I want to be a developer. http://www.bit-blot.com/aquaria/

What title could be interesting?

2008-06-02T22:09:00.001+02:00

No progress today.

Status and Goal

2008-06-01T18:56:00.004+02:00

Alright, I'm back.

First things first, this didn't work as well as I hoped, but better than I expected. I have made progress, it is possible and I intend to make more of it. My goal for May was not met, unsurprisingly, but I did learn more about the toolset and how much effort is required to create something. I stalled at the end of the introduction, so I know what my next thing to do will be. Which brings me to the goal.

During June, I want to fully create the intro, making it playable and enjoyable. Furthermore, I want to have Graymist roughly finalised, meaning all buildings set, and as many props and textures placed as possible. I also want a post here every day, no excuses.

Wait... did I just do something?

2008-05-27T15:12:00.004+02:00

I surprise myself! I wrote a good chuck of dialog and furnished part of Neia's home! Progress DOES exist, even if it is hard to catch.

I hope to further this example and continue building... although I still would like another pacer... but that may just be rectified...

Note: This was done the 26th, not the 27th.

Progress... Damn that title...

2008-05-24T23:31:00.003+02:00

I did something! Impressive right? Okay, okay, I still have a long way to go... but I sorta built the first INTERESTING area... Neia's Home! Ta daa! I also fiddled a bit with the Convos, although I don't know if it works yet. The third and final part of the intro might be possible to make tomorrow? Meh, depends on stuff, but it sure would be nice, then I might even reach something slightly similar to my goal before the month is out.

Oooh... Progress

2008-05-22T22:28:00.003+02:00

I did something! Not much, but every journey begins with a single step... or so they say. Anyway, I placed a rural house and a shed, I'm thinking of using a Mulsantir House (one storey and as little fancy stuff as possible) for the townhall.

Edit: I am mister productive! I made Neia's IntroConv (or rather, I WROTE the Conv).

No Progress

2008-05-21T22:04:00.002+02:00

Well, hurray for me... or not.

I managed to do... exactly nothing on my module... Next bit of progress, will probably be in the weekend, if that. I better just finish the stuff I am playing as fast as I can... although I suspect that isn't going to help me much.

Progress and rant

2008-05-20T22:15:00.004+02:00

And here I thought this was going to be a productive day, what with me having nothing specific to do... well, turns out I am still a lazy git, who can't seem to focus on doing something real for more than about five minutes. Though I'll admit, I did make a rough "sketch" of the area, texturing roads and stuff like that, but gods! It feels too slow. I don't know half I should, but I know enough that the basic tutorials are pointless, I can't work at half the speed I want to, but I have no idea how I can achieve it... except spending many many hours working with the toolset... unfortunately I keep wanting an easy way out. Gyah. Well, at least it feels nice writing down my complaints, even if nobody are reading this.

Okay, summing up what actually happened today: I built (sorta) Graymist Village, and placed a few key things down. Tomorrow I think I should try to place the buildings and then try to write the first real plot conversation. That is, if I get that far...

Nice stuff: Maerduin playing stuff on banjo - http://mmoonsea.blogspot.com/

Progress Report...

2008-05-19T22:21:00.002+02:00

Well, I believe I managed to do what I wanted to, I should be able to make the next area tomorrow, although the entire area needs serious polish, and I still don't know if it really WORKS, but I can hope... I'd like to build the village tomorrow, or atleast a prototype, so I can link up the areas and create the first real bit of plot.

Words of Wisdom:
http://c.vnfiles.ign.com/nwvault.ign.com/fms/files/nwn2tutorials/13/ToolsetCommunityGuide_v4.pdf
http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=578694&forum=113

Lots of area building tips.

Progress

2008-05-18T20:47:00.002+02:00

I fixed up the area, and it looks sorta nice... but definately not GOOD... meh, I guess practice makes perfect, or atleast better. I believe myself to be on track, which is nice.

Gotta find a new title

2008-05-17T22:18:00.004+02:00

Found out everything was screwy, so I decided to redo the stuff. I trashed what little progress I had, and rebuilt the Intro area, cutting the original intro area in the process. Using new words of wisdom, I made an exterior that looked... decent... next up is adding props to the terrain and maybe finetuning some textures.

I didn't manage my friday goal, and it looks like I'll be somewhat busy for a while. The forecast is:
Sunday, I'll add some props and make the new intro look nicer, maybe add some sandbanks and reefs?
Monday, I'll make some NPC's and try to write the intro, perhaps a Journal entry?
Tuesday, I'd like to be done with the bloody intro (that is, have it playable), so I can get on with the damn story, this means having all the TRIGGERS and SCRIPT (curse 'em) up and working... Tuesday is gonna be tough.

Seeing as Wedensday is free now, I might even start the plot before the week is out, although I suspect I will encounter difficulties (myself and the bloody toolset). Perhaps I can create some other pacers... but that's another issue entirely.

Words of Wisdom: B G P Hughes exterior building tutorial (Vaulted).

Note: Started adding Tags.

Progress Report

2008-05-15T22:00:00.002+02:00

Today I believe I fixed a bug, making the intro conversation work, and hopefully making it possible to transit to the next area. Shooting for friday as area two playable seems... feasible... but I might end up playing something because of extreme boredom...

Progress Report

2008-05-14T22:10:00.003+02:00

Surprising amount of work done, I managed to set up the entire IntroCoast area (I pushed earth and painted textures), and presumably made the intro conversation work. Hopefully I'll finish (sorta) the IC area within the week, making it playable and the entire module testable... Shoot for friday?

Words of Wisdom: Jackyo's Cutscene Tutorial (look at the vault).

Goal for May 08

2008-05-14T14:32:00.002+02:00

At the end of May, I want my NWN module to be playable from the start, to the end of the first main quest. Note that "playable" and "done" is not the same.

First Post

2008-05-14T14:19:00.000+02:00

"Let there be blogs!" And there was blogs.

The first monthly goal post will be up soon.

Hurray for selfpacing!