The Exciting Conclusion

Alright, it has been a very busy work week, but here I am on a Friday with time to myself. I'll get right to the last part of this torrid series.

My modules, yes, plural, for Shadows of the Past are all gone. Deleted by MotB. After installing MotB it informed me that it was not in the correct install directory and that I should reinstall. Nevermind the fact that it was in the correct install directory! Frustrated after 30 minutes of shuffling files from folder to folder with no results I go to uninstall. Some of you might be shaking your heads at my foolishness at this point.

While the bar ticks away the destruction of my work (unknown to me, of course) I go and read some readmes on MotB and the current state of NWN2. You know, the BioWare boards and such. It is there that I discover that, apparently, a current issue with MotB is that if you uninstall it... it will not save your MyDocuments/NeverwinterNights2/modules folder's contents. Sure enough, when the uninstall was completed my entire folder was gone. Every module stored on my computer was within my NeverwinterNights2 folder. And they were all gone.

Really, I just felt numb at first. For the next day or two it didn't quite sink in that all my work was gone. Slowly, over the following week it all hit me. Everything I've ever created in NWN2 is gone. It is a hollow feeling; mostly, I mourn for the wasted time.

There is a silver lining, of course. The time wasn't truly wasted. I learned more about the toolset and the creation of quality modules than I knew I could. Now, with MotB firmly entrenched and working correctly I have begun a new project in earnest. Allow me to share a few screenshots.

Welcome to Llorkh. Some of you Realmslore experts will already recognize the name. Llorkh is a small, walled town, nestled into the foothills of the Greypeak Mountains of the North. Situated at the western end of the Black Road, this town is a stronghold of Zhentish might in the North. Ruled by a cruel devotee of Cyric, the resurgence of Bane and his followers to the east threatens the city with civil war as the Banites seek to depose the Cyricist lord of the city.

When you, an adventure of no small merit, wake up in the forests outside Llorkh, afflicted with a strange, magical disease and surrounded by Zhentish corpses, you have little choice but to seek shelter in the city to avoid the coming winter. What path you take once in the unstable town and what role you will have in the conflict to come, is up to you.

I'm extremely excited about this project. It will be substantially more non-linear than Shadows of the Past was intended to be. I have nagging concern about the module, though. MotB is a great game and I have taken a page out of their book in this game's style and, even, its story. In fact, depending on how nit-picky you get, I have taken several pages. Chapters. Reems. Time will tell exactly how similar my work is to Obsidian's. To an extent, there are only so many ideas in the world and it is not surprise that two entities have similar ones. The community, I fear, will have to be the ultimate judge of whether I am a big rip-off or just being paranoid.

I have a few cool gameplay tidbits to leave with before I get back to cleaning. Just like in MotB you will be able to kick your party members out and most of them will be completely optional, "hidden" companions. There will be a few times when a companion will be required but these times are few and far between and always have a reasonable explanation in game (instead of GOD WHY WON'T GROBNAR LEAVE!?). *ahem*

Also, the disease that afflicts your character is something that you have a medium of control over. You will be able to use it to attack and create other useful effects. This will be at a cost to you, of course.

My last specific gameplay goal for this project is to make it completely multiplayer friendly. This will probably be the most difficult of my goals but I hope to make it a reality. As I work on scripts and cutscenes I always try to mindful of what will happen if a second PC is present. Rarely do a make calls with commands such as GetFirstPC() and other similar things. I hope for players to be able to LAN up with a buddy or two and play through this game.

Okay, I've rambled on. It is time to get back to cleaning.

-Inder