Another episode of THE FORGE is in the history books and it was yet another raging success (as raging as 25 or so viewers can be). We gave away 100k Astral Diamonds courtesy of Zovya!
Along with the WED spotlight stream we recently added, we're thinking of adding even more live streams of the regulars on vent just playing content, specifically going after our bags in Neverdeath Graveyard as a start. The details on this will be coming soon™ so stay tuned™.
I also have received enough Astral Diamonds in tips to trade them for zen and buy my first mount, the Heavy Howler, which is an AWESOME mount.
I'll throw some screens up of it tomorrow as it's 3 AM and I'm tired.
-chili
Updates and information concerning Neverwinter Campaigns and Quests created by chili1179
Monday, June 3, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Great First Stream and Working on Some New Content
Out first stream went pretty good, I would even say great! We had a good time and hopefully got some much needed attention to the few quests we played through. We even got a Dev to come watch us stream and give us some tidbits of information on the patch headed our way tomorrow (Thurs) which is great news. I hope the sound issue gets resolved, that would make for some much needed ambiance to the quests.
In light of that success we also had a bonus "featured" stream today where we focused on just playing and having fun through some of the better, more polished quests out there and threw in some of our own quests as well. It went pretty well too, with some of the better moments being a jumping puzzle map that one of our Guild mates had quite a task completing the easier part of.
Speaking of the guild, I am the Guild Leader of Dungeon Masters, an author guild on the Dragon shard. It was given to me by a fellow author and I am proud to be the leader of such a great community of content creators.
On to the new thing I am working on, no it's not allowing the players to kill Darius, yet. Sorry.
It is the next part of the Circle of the Living Flame campaign and I am nearing completion. This one, much like the previous one, is more combat focused and less story oriented. Like the first campaign, it will end with a larger story based quest in the final part and of course the same wow factor. It's probably not going to appeal to many players as it is just a task quest with tidbits of story lore and lots of fighting, which is fine because that is where the story is telling me to go.
At any rate, that's pretty much all I have for this post.
Peace
-chili
In light of that success we also had a bonus "featured" stream today where we focused on just playing and having fun through some of the better, more polished quests out there and threw in some of our own quests as well. It went pretty well too, with some of the better moments being a jumping puzzle map that one of our Guild mates had quite a task completing the easier part of.
Speaking of the guild, I am the Guild Leader of Dungeon Masters, an author guild on the Dragon shard. It was given to me by a fellow author and I am proud to be the leader of such a great community of content creators.
On to the new thing I am working on, no it's not allowing the players to kill Darius, yet. Sorry.
It is the next part of the Circle of the Living Flame campaign and I am nearing completion. This one, much like the previous one, is more combat focused and less story oriented. Like the first campaign, it will end with a larger story based quest in the final part and of course the same wow factor. It's probably not going to appeal to many players as it is just a task quest with tidbits of story lore and lots of fighting, which is fine because that is where the story is telling me to go.
At any rate, that's pretty much all I have for this post.
Peace
-chili
Friday, May 24, 2013
Getting Featured making a Guild and Live Streaming!
Man has it been a long week since my last post here, for that I am sorry!
After being spotlighted on the forums, my quest Crypts of Carnage has now been featured in the game as well, and if you were not aware of this, its like hitting the lottery! I am honored to receive this recognition for my quest that started out as a simple no story hack and slash and molded into a simple light story hack and slash :P Get out there and play it already!
The guys who I spend most of my time with in vent in the official Neverwinter Foundry Q&A Ventrilo have banded together and formed a guild on the Dragon shard called THE FORGE. It's a small collection of authors who try their best to help the community as much as possible and shed light on the Foundry quests that often get overlooked.
With that said, THE FORGE is also branching out into streaming the lesser played foundry content out there to try and get the authors who put in a lot of effort to their quests some much needed plays and attention.
We have previously been doing this for fun and we want to try and get the word out there about some fantastic quests that fly under the radar so we thought it would be fun to bring others along for the ride and help promote authors and their works in the process.
For more information check out these threads in the official forums:
The General Discussion Pimp Thread
The Foundry Forum Submission Thread
The Live Stream Link
Come check it out Saturday May25th @ 3 pm EST for our first broadcast!
To help bring in viewers, I will personally be giving away 1000 AD to a viewer at the beginning and each hour after and when we finally conclude this week’s stream I will give away a bonus 5000 AD!
After being spotlighted on the forums, my quest Crypts of Carnage has now been featured in the game as well, and if you were not aware of this, its like hitting the lottery! I am honored to receive this recognition for my quest that started out as a simple no story hack and slash and molded into a simple light story hack and slash :P Get out there and play it already!
The guys who I spend most of my time with in vent in the official Neverwinter Foundry Q&A Ventrilo have banded together and formed a guild on the Dragon shard called THE FORGE. It's a small collection of authors who try their best to help the community as much as possible and shed light on the Foundry quests that often get overlooked.
With that said, THE FORGE is also branching out into streaming the lesser played foundry content out there to try and get the authors who put in a lot of effort to their quests some much needed plays and attention.
We have previously been doing this for fun and we want to try and get the word out there about some fantastic quests that fly under the radar so we thought it would be fun to bring others along for the ride and help promote authors and their works in the process.
For more information check out these threads in the official forums:
The General Discussion Pimp Thread
The Foundry Forum Submission Thread
The Live Stream Link
Come check it out Saturday May25th @ 3 pm EST for our first broadcast!
To help bring in viewers, I will personally be giving away 1000 AD to a viewer at the beginning and each hour after and when we finally conclude this week’s stream I will give away a bonus 5000 AD!
Thank you!
-chili
Friday, May 17, 2013
Necropolis of Nightmare is now LIVE!
Netho'relak Saga - Prologue
Dungeons of Dread NWS-DISAP2SA3
Part 3: Necropolis of Nightmare NW-DANM3TCD5
@chili1179
Campaign Summary: It appears that someone has set up a dungeon challenge in the Sword Coast and is calling out to all adventurers to come accept explore it's depths, to claim the riches that it may hold or meet your fate within. But, (there is always a but) all may not be as it seems, inside the dungeons lie a brewing back story that could cause you to lose your soul and forever change the all of Faerun!
Quest Summary: On the trail of Darius Red, the Neverwinter Guard have received reports that he has taken his kidnapped son to a remote beach North of Neverwinter called Death Knell Cove, home of a powerful Drow Necromancer named Xaxiuz Corpserender also known as The Lord of the Dead. The Warlock’s tower hovers high above the cove and gaining access will take some considerable will power and wit, and a little muscle probably wouldn’t hurt.
Gather your strength, set your fears aside and pursue Darius into the Necropolis of Nightmare!
Quest Type: Combat/Story/Exploration/PuzzleTime to Complete: 30 Minutes or so (Undetermined)
Combat: Heavy In Parts
Starts At: Protector's Enclave - Guard Frinko
Tips: Quest Trail can be misleading at times, use the minimap/map to locate objectives.
Difficulty: (Created for Solo Play)
This campaign is the prologue to a larger story which will introduce you to one of the story's major antagonist; Darius Red. It's starts off slow in part 1 with it focusing mostly on combat and then the story takes off in part 2 to get you familiar with the larger back story and finally wrap up in this quest which will end the Prologue. The story will then continue in the next campaign:The Circle of the Living Flame.
When providing feedback, I ask that you please the as detailed as possible with locations of glitches, bugs, typos, misspellings, encounters that need adjusting (harder/easier) etc... The more detail you can provide the easier it will to be to fix and help make this campaign an the follow up campaign(s) much more enjoyable for the players.
Full Image: http://i.imgur.com/mS2WTw7.jpg
Campaign Image Album: http://imgur.com/a/pCpXG#0
Promotional Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWkyY6etrDM
What are you waiting for? Go play it!
-chili
Dungeons of Dread NWS-DISAP2SA3
Part 3: Necropolis of Nightmare NW-DANM3TCD5
@chili1179
Campaign Summary: It appears that someone has set up a dungeon challenge in the Sword Coast and is calling out to all adventurers to come accept explore it's depths, to claim the riches that it may hold or meet your fate within. But, (there is always a but) all may not be as it seems, inside the dungeons lie a brewing back story that could cause you to lose your soul and forever change the all of Faerun!
Quest Summary: On the trail of Darius Red, the Neverwinter Guard have received reports that he has taken his kidnapped son to a remote beach North of Neverwinter called Death Knell Cove, home of a powerful Drow Necromancer named Xaxiuz Corpserender also known as The Lord of the Dead. The Warlock’s tower hovers high above the cove and gaining access will take some considerable will power and wit, and a little muscle probably wouldn’t hurt.
Gather your strength, set your fears aside and pursue Darius into the Necropolis of Nightmare!
Quest Type: Combat/Story/Exploration/PuzzleTime to Complete: 30 Minutes or so (Undetermined)
Combat: Heavy In Parts
Starts At: Protector's Enclave - Guard Frinko
Tips: Quest Trail can be misleading at times, use the minimap/map to locate objectives.
Difficulty: (Created for Solo Play)
- Group: Easy-Average
- Solo: Moderate-Hard
This campaign is the prologue to a larger story which will introduce you to one of the story's major antagonist; Darius Red. It's starts off slow in part 1 with it focusing mostly on combat and then the story takes off in part 2 to get you familiar with the larger back story and finally wrap up in this quest which will end the Prologue. The story will then continue in the next campaign:The Circle of the Living Flame.
When providing feedback, I ask that you please the as detailed as possible with locations of glitches, bugs, typos, misspellings, encounters that need adjusting (harder/easier) etc... The more detail you can provide the easier it will to be to fix and help make this campaign an the follow up campaign(s) much more enjoyable for the players.
Full Image: http://i.imgur.com/mS2WTw7.jpg
Campaign Image Album: http://imgur.com/a/pCpXG#0
Promotional Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWkyY6etrDM
What are you waiting for? Go play it!
-chili
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Some spotlight love and weekend release for NoN!
This week I was surprised with the honor of being featured on the Neverwinter site for my Crypts of Carnage quest in the community spotlight.
It's something I am really proud of have but I think there are tons of other authors who are more deserving but I'll take it!
In other news, I have been working my butt off on the Necropolis maps and have the story complete, the maps complete and the encounters complete. I just need to tie up a few dialogues and proof play/check all the details to make sure it's ready to unleash to the masses. It's probably best played solo but I tried to keep in mind that players will go in groups so I tried to make it challenging but not overbearing or cheese fights.
The combat gets pretty heavy in the second half of the quest but not with stacked groups with hard abilities to destroy the player. I tried some experimental things with it that work best with a solo player but I still think groups will enjoy the story and I left a lot of room for exploration in the outdoor map with a lot more combat than the direct path will bring.
The outdoor map also has a couple of flavor items laying about for those explorers to find that should reward them with a little back story to the area they are playing.
I did manage to snag some screenshots this time as I played through it on the live server.
That is all for this update, should be posting again after the quest goes live.
Peace
-chili
It's something I am really proud of have but I think there are tons of other authors who are more deserving but I'll take it!
In other news, I have been working my butt off on the Necropolis maps and have the story complete, the maps complete and the encounters complete. I just need to tie up a few dialogues and proof play/check all the details to make sure it's ready to unleash to the masses. It's probably best played solo but I tried to keep in mind that players will go in groups so I tried to make it challenging but not overbearing or cheese fights.
The combat gets pretty heavy in the second half of the quest but not with stacked groups with hard abilities to destroy the player. I tried some experimental things with it that work best with a solo player but I still think groups will enjoy the story and I left a lot of room for exploration in the outdoor map with a lot more combat than the direct path will bring.
The outdoor map also has a couple of flavor items laying about for those explorers to find that should reward them with a little back story to the area they are playing.
I did manage to snag some screenshots this time as I played through it on the live server.
 |
| This is me working on the final boss room. |
 |
| The first boss you encounter |
 |
| A nice peek at the tower from inside a cave below. |
That is all for this update, should be posting again after the quest goes live.
Peace
-chili
Monday, May 13, 2013
Re-Published A New Threat!
I just re-published the Circle of the Living Flame Part 1: A New Threat with the changes needed to make the story more in line with the events that take place in DoD even though the final part of that chapter is not published.
Speaking of which, I have the first tower room in the Necropolis completed with all it's epic-ness and started working on the upper tower room but have not decided what exactly it's going to be, I'm thinking a puzzle room but not sure yet perhaps a small maze with puzzle aspects. Will have to mull over it a while. Still have the whole other tower to think about as well.
No further screenshots on that as I really want it to be a surprise, and I think you guys will enjoy it.
-Chili
Speaking of which, I have the first tower room in the Necropolis completed with all it's epic-ness and started working on the upper tower room but have not decided what exactly it's going to be, I'm thinking a puzzle room but not sure yet perhaps a small maze with puzzle aspects. Will have to mull over it a while. Still have the whole other tower to think about as well.
No further screenshots on that as I really want it to be a surprise, and I think you guys will enjoy it.
-Chili
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Necropolis Update
Been working pretty hard on the next chapter of the DoD campaign; Necropolis of Nightmare. Added some caves for one of the quest objectives and building an old Dwarven Crypt for another one of the objectives. Still have to add encounters and work out the dialog and quests but that will come later, after I build the interior to the towers themselves as I am still working out the exterior story in my head.
For the interior I am thinking of going with a maze for the first floor but it might not appeal to many having to traverse a maze so I may also throw in an optional puzzle to bypass the maze and also include the option to the player, if they solve the puzzle, to traverse the maze too (for those who want to). I just have to figure out a puzzle that is complex enough to warrant bypassing the maze.
But that is pretty much as far as I have gotten with this one. I did make a teaser video while the servers were down yesterday, so feel free to have a look at that.
More updates to follow as I progress with this quest.
-chili
For the interior I am thinking of going with a maze for the first floor but it might not appeal to many having to traverse a maze so I may also throw in an optional puzzle to bypass the maze and also include the option to the player, if they solve the puzzle, to traverse the maze too (for those who want to). I just have to figure out a puzzle that is complex enough to warrant bypassing the maze.
But that is pretty much as far as I have gotten with this one. I did make a teaser video while the servers were down yesterday, so feel free to have a look at that.
More updates to follow as I progress with this quest.
-chili
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Just an update to DoD: Pt 3
I have a name for the Dungeons of Dread Part 3: Necropolis of Nightmare.
The pic I posted in the last update has been drastically changed for the better as I am now finished with the building phase of the Necropolis and started throwing ideas around for the inside, which will be piece built using the large cave tiles because the offer the best layout for a multilevel round tower interior and the lighting will be easier to manipulate. I will most likely be using a varied set of walls, floors, doors and ceilings that will also vary in height as it will allow me to create stair cases and winding pathways.
This will be a tough build but I think I can make it work. I plan to make it at least 3 levels, but I might shoot for 5 per tower (2 towers) and the final bosses level, but we'll see what kind of difficulties I run into along the way.
Here's the updated and final rendition of the Warlock Xaxiuz' Necropolis of Nightmare floating tower.
Good night!
-chili
The pic I posted in the last update has been drastically changed for the better as I am now finished with the building phase of the Necropolis and started throwing ideas around for the inside, which will be piece built using the large cave tiles because the offer the best layout for a multilevel round tower interior and the lighting will be easier to manipulate. I will most likely be using a varied set of walls, floors, doors and ceilings that will also vary in height as it will allow me to create stair cases and winding pathways.
This will be a tough build but I think I can make it work. I plan to make it at least 3 levels, but I might shoot for 5 per tower (2 towers) and the final bosses level, but we'll see what kind of difficulties I run into along the way.
Here's the updated and final rendition of the Warlock Xaxiuz' Necropolis of Nightmare floating tower.
Good night!
-chili
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Pulled "A New Threat" to make Room for Dungeons of Dread Part 3!
The story in DoD: Labyrinth of Lunacy ended with Darius escaping the player with his son to sacrifice to Netho'relak and this is where the DoD campaign was going to come to an end and the Circle campaign was going to begin and officially kick off the Netho'relak saga with the player playing cat and mouse with Darius through a lengthy campaign.
I decided to scrap that idea and go ahead and have a final part of the DoD campaign end with a the player tracking Darius to one of the Circle founding wizard's lair, a Drow Warlock by the name of Xaxiuz, where the ritual to sacrifice Darius' son will be in progress for a climactic ending of the campaign.
Since that is happening, the story currently in "A New Threat" does not apply, since it references Darius' son and the player is supposed to be chasing after them both.
Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you as to how it plays out :)
But I will show you this:
I decided to scrap that idea and go ahead and have a final part of the DoD campaign end with a the player tracking Darius to one of the Circle founding wizard's lair, a Drow Warlock by the name of Xaxiuz, where the ritual to sacrifice Darius' son will be in progress for a climactic ending of the campaign.
Since that is happening, the story currently in "A New Threat" does not apply, since it references Darius' son and the player is supposed to be chasing after them both.
Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you as to how it plays out :)
But I will show you this:
Enjoy.
-chili
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Netho'relak Saga Chapter One: Circle of the Living Flame
The area around Mount Hotenow is facing a new threat calling themselves the Circle of Living Flame, a group of Wizards lead by Darius Red who is collecting souls to feed their supposed God, Netho'relak. Short on men and resources, the Neverwinter Guard is asking for volunteers to aid with finding the source of this threat and helping to eliminate it as their attacks are getting more frequent and closer to home.
This story picks up where Dungeons of Dread left off with you trying to track down and find Darius Red before he can sacrafice his b*stard son to the god Netho'relak and put and end to the cultist group Circle of the Living Flame in which he founded.
Part One: A New Threat
A notice pasted to the job board reads:
"The area around Neverwinter has been encountering a new threat from the already hostile areas of Neverwinter Wood and Mt Hotenow. Short on men and resources, the Neverwinter Guard is asking for volunteers to aid with finding the source of this threat and tracking down its nefarious leader, Darius Red before he can sacrifice his own son to an alleged new god and gain the power to draw souls from the living.
Speak to Guard Frinko for more information."
It appears that there is trouble stirring in the area around Hotenow. The Circle of Living Flame, which was founded by the now wanted criminal Darius Red, is causing problems to local travellers and merchants in the areas around the Sword Coast. The Neverwinter Guard is calling out for volunteers to assist one of their best in investigating a cave complex that they reportedly started moving supplies into and hopefully find Darius, and his son before it’s too late.
Genre: Combat - Light Story - Not Much Exploration
Difficulty: Average to Hard
Map Setting: Caves
Time: 20 Minutes or so (unsure at this point)
This is my most detailed map to date. Working with the large cave tiles proved to be a pain but I got it like I wanted it with some help from my buddies Apocrs1980 and Nyghoma.
I hope you enjoy it.
-chili
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Minor Labyrinth of Lunacy Update and Next Quest in the Story is Almost Ready.
I made some minor changes to the Labyrinth of Lunacy quest tonight after getting some feedback from Nyghoma (fellow author, check out his quest Gloomlight).
- Made the quest easier to follow at some points.
- Changed some quest objectives to help players find where they should be. (sparkly trail)
- Added invisible walls to prevent trail from leading through solid objects/walls where the player cannot pass through.
I also have been putting in major time to my next quest Circle of the Living Flame Pt 1: A New Threat and I think players will enjoy it as much as they have the previous two. It goes back into the heavy hack and slash and dungeon crawl, which are things I enjoy myself and my work reflects that. This time though we are heading into a large cave complex with large open areas and claustrophobia inducing tight passages.
I spent a lot of time meticulously placing all the assets
and lighting and I think it looks great. I just need to do bit more polish with some encounters and
dialog tweaks and maybe some subtle lighting changes here and there.
I’m debating whether or not to prevent players from falling
below the floor in some areas but I like the bottomless pit feel and it may
cost me some ratings, which is fine because some players are dicks and give
shitty ratings for no reason other than because they can, fuckers.
Anyway, I will be publishing this quest soon so stay tuned.
No Screenshots, sorry.
Peace
-chili
Monday, April 29, 2013
Dungeons of Dread Head Start Updates
Made some updates to Dungeons of Dread in both quests.
Crypts of Carnage:
Crypts of Carnage:
- Added more encounters because it just wasn't hack n slash enough for me.
- Reworked the 2nd boss (Cold Storage) and made it more difficult and more interesting (I think).
- Removed all dart and arrow traps until they are fixed.
- Removed all spike traps until they do not spam spikes and lock players in place leading to death in some cases.
- Replaced spike traps with saw blade traps.
- Placed an invisible wall in the Morgue so the quest trail would lead players the right direction and not through a solid wall.
- Currently trying to lighten up some of the darker areas without removing the fact that it's an underground crypt and those places are normally dark.
- Made some visual improvements to the kitchen (gore).
- Added some flavor text to help with finding the brewmaster's door key.
- Removed the spike trap and replaced it with a saw blade trap.
- Added a couple of encounters.
- Added a flavor piece.
- Fixed a spiderweb that was showing through a wall.
- Adjusted the lighting in some places.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Promotional Video Cleaned Up
This is the final cut of the sequencing of the video, I am still debating adding some text to it or just let it speak for itself. I removed some text and tweaked the shots a bit to make it flow a bit more smoothly.
The scenes are shown in order of how you will see them in game. The demo record currently does not show custom actors, which is why there is a void of boss fighting and no shots of Darius (main antagonist) himself.
I hope you guys and gals enjoy watching it, I sure enjoyed making it.
-chili
The scenes are shown in order of how you will see them in game. The demo record currently does not show custom actors, which is why there is a void of boss fighting and no shots of Darius (main antagonist) himself.
I hope you guys and gals enjoy watching it, I sure enjoyed making it.
-chili
Dungeons of Dread Promotional Video
I did a 720p WIP version of my promo video and uploaded it for all to see.
This took 12+ hours of demo recording, encoding and converting and is just the base of what I wanted. Currently encoding a 1080p version and will upload it tomorrow. Finished product should be more promotional with what the quests feature.
It's late, enjoy.
-chili
This took 12+ hours of demo recording, encoding and converting and is just the base of what I wanted. Currently encoding a 1080p version and will upload it tomorrow. Finished product should be more promotional with what the quests feature.
It's late, enjoy.
-chili
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Head Start is LIVE!
Today the Neverwinter Head Start (5 day early access) has successfully went live without a hitch that I know of. Best of all, my foundry content is in tact! Whee!
I played my content to snag some demos to use for my promo video and I'm currently doing the conversion process now and will begin to build my shameless self promo later today. It should be finished this evening and I will toss it here for your viewing pleasure.
5 more days till the whole world gets to see this amazing game and the content created by some skilled authors.
Stay tuned for more updates.
-chili
I played my content to snag some demos to use for my promo video and I'm currently doing the conversion process now and will begin to build my shameless self promo later today. It should be finished this evening and I will toss it here for your viewing pleasure.
5 more days till the whole world gets to see this amazing game and the content created by some skilled authors.
Stay tuned for more updates.
-chili
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Quick Demo Video
Just another quick video I made as I played around with a short demo. I played around with the camera pathing and speeds to get used to editing my point nodes.
May be a small spoiler to the quest.
No sound in this clip.
I do plan to use parts of this for my promo video coming before OB launch.
-chili
May be a small spoiler to the quest.
No sound in this clip.
I do plan to use parts of this for my promo video coming before OB launch.
-chili
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Getting Ready for Head Start, Working with Demos and the G+ Foundry Community
Neverwinter Head Start
Neverwinter Head Start kicks off in just 2 more days, as a foundry beta tester with a published foundry quest, I get to join in with the other head starters and this pleases me greatly! I will not only get a head start in the game but in the foundry as well meaning I do not have to reach the mandatory level 15 to jump into the foundry and start editing my quests or starting new ones. This also pleases me greatly.
Instead of trying to push my second campaign, Circle of the Living Flame, into a working state by the 30th (open beta launch) I am going to be creating and working with foundry demos to put together a OB Launch promo video for Dungeons of Dread for maximum exposure.
I suppose I should explain what that means exactly. In Neverwinter, you can type in the chat box /demo_record filename and it will start recording whatever you are doing, typing /demo_record_stop will end the demo recording. Each time you change maps you have to type the command again as well. Then you can create a shortcut to your game client and add -demo_play filename to the command line and it will play the demo you recorded in the client. You can pause, speed up and slow down the demo at any time.
Here are a few action shots I took in my demo I made last week:
Also, you can press F2 and detach the camera to get some really nice action shots. But this is where the sexy comes rolling in, It also has a camera manipulation tool built in so you can edit where the camera is for that awesome action video feel. You can edit the paths after you created them to get it just right.
Oh, it gets even better...I know that's tough to believe at this point, but it does. You can also save your camera manipulation and change the command line in the short cut to RECORD the camera adjustments into screenshots, load them into a video editor that imports sequence shots and export it into a video.
Here, allow me to show you an example:
This is an amazing tool and thought I would share in this update. I will spend the next few days playing around with it and hopefully master it enough to have a decent video to present at OB launch to showcase my campaign.
For more information and links on demos, check out the G+ Neverwinter Foundry Community, join in and chat with foundry authors and even some devs from Cryptic.
Until next time, peace!
-chili
Neverwinter Head Start kicks off in just 2 more days, as a foundry beta tester with a published foundry quest, I get to join in with the other head starters and this pleases me greatly! I will not only get a head start in the game but in the foundry as well meaning I do not have to reach the mandatory level 15 to jump into the foundry and start editing my quests or starting new ones. This also pleases me greatly.
Instead of trying to push my second campaign, Circle of the Living Flame, into a working state by the 30th (open beta launch) I am going to be creating and working with foundry demos to put together a OB Launch promo video for Dungeons of Dread for maximum exposure.
I suppose I should explain what that means exactly. In Neverwinter, you can type in the chat box /demo_record filename and it will start recording whatever you are doing, typing /demo_record_stop will end the demo recording. Each time you change maps you have to type the command again as well. Then you can create a shortcut to your game client and add -demo_play filename to the command line and it will play the demo you recorded in the client. You can pause, speed up and slow down the demo at any time.
Here are a few action shots I took in my demo I made last week:
Also, you can press F2 and detach the camera to get some really nice action shots. But this is where the sexy comes rolling in, It also has a camera manipulation tool built in so you can edit where the camera is for that awesome action video feel. You can edit the paths after you created them to get it just right.
Oh, it gets even better...I know that's tough to believe at this point, but it does. You can also save your camera manipulation and change the command line in the short cut to RECORD the camera adjustments into screenshots, load them into a video editor that imports sequence shots and export it into a video.
Here, allow me to show you an example:
This is an amazing tool and thought I would share in this update. I will spend the next few days playing around with it and hopefully master it enough to have a decent video to present at OB launch to showcase my campaign.
For more information and links on demos, check out the G+ Neverwinter Foundry Community, join in and chat with foundry authors and even some devs from Cryptic.
Until next time, peace!
-chili
Friday, April 19, 2013
The End of the Foundry Beta - What I Will Do in the Down Time
The End of the Foundry Beta.
Well, the foundry beta has come to a close. I think I probably needed it to close to give myself a break as I have spent every free minute of the last week(s) cramming things together for open beta on the 30th. This included of course tweaking the DoD campaign and a ton of new material (CotLF/Secret Project) to keep me busy after launch for quite some time.
In the mean time, a fellow author (Moondawg) has enlightened me to the MS Office tool called One Note, which I got to play around with a bit and discovered it's awesomeness to organizing my material for the foundry. This will be a staple in my future quest and campaign creations as it makes keeping everything I need to know in one nice and neat location. If any prospecting authors are reading this, get One Note, learn how to use it and USE IT!
So with that in mind, I will spend some time organizing my files for my quests and campaigns, once OB hits I will probably also try to rework all the dialogue/item descriptions in the DoD campaign and copy it over into ON just in case I have to fix something that could get broken down the line and to catch some misspellings that I am having a tough time locating (no one ever tells me where they are, just that they exist).
-chili
Well, the foundry beta has come to a close. I think I probably needed it to close to give myself a break as I have spent every free minute of the last week(s) cramming things together for open beta on the 30th. This included of course tweaking the DoD campaign and a ton of new material (CotLF/Secret Project) to keep me busy after launch for quite some time.
In the mean time, a fellow author (Moondawg) has enlightened me to the MS Office tool called One Note, which I got to play around with a bit and discovered it's awesomeness to organizing my material for the foundry. This will be a staple in my future quest and campaign creations as it makes keeping everything I need to know in one nice and neat location. If any prospecting authors are reading this, get One Note, learn how to use it and USE IT!
So with that in mind, I will spend some time organizing my files for my quests and campaigns, once OB hits I will probably also try to rework all the dialogue/item descriptions in the DoD campaign and copy it over into ON just in case I have to fix something that could get broken down the line and to catch some misspellings that I am having a tough time locating (no one ever tells me where they are, just that they exist).
-chili
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
DoD Updates for Open Beta - DOD/CotLF Screens and a Secret Project!
Dungeons of Dread
Made some final touches to my DoD campaign to get it ready for the masses come open beta.
Bring on Open Beta!
Secret Project
I have been working on a secret project that came to mind, so far it's working out like I had hoped and I'm pretty excited to get it in the works. It's my first complete outdoor quest and it uses the largest outdoor map I could. It's going to be single map quest but should be pretty rewarding for those who like old school RPG classics. Warning: it will have tons of dialogue!
I do not plan to dive into it as I was testing something when the idea sprang to mind, but I will have a week or so of downtime
Dungeons of Dread and Circle of the Living Flame Screens
Here are some eye candy screens from my DoD demo and the CotLF campaign. Enjoy.
Made some final touches to my DoD campaign to get it ready for the masses come open beta.
- Added interactive objects in the lobby to add a little flavor to it. This leaves the possibilities of some interesting dialog if I so choose to include them, which I will at some point. Maybe tomorrow.
- Fixed some typos, misspellings and item names. I probably missed some but that's okay.
- Fixed a pesky mob in a wall.
- Fixed some crates that were in a wall.
- Added ambient lighting through out.
- In Crypts of Carnage, added a door bypass in the twins boss room to get to final boss from respawn point.
- In Crypts of Carnage, made the final boss more difficult. MUCH more difficult.
Bring on Open Beta!
Secret Project
I have been working on a secret project that came to mind, so far it's working out like I had hoped and I'm pretty excited to get it in the works. It's my first complete outdoor quest and it uses the largest outdoor map I could. It's going to be single map quest but should be pretty rewarding for those who like old school RPG classics. Warning: it will have tons of dialogue!
I do not plan to dive into it as I was testing something when the idea sprang to mind, but I will have a week or so of downtime
Dungeons of Dread and Circle of the Living Flame Screens
Here are some eye candy screens from my DoD demo and the CotLF campaign. Enjoy.
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| Hey, you got something on your face. |
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| Sometimes you just have to get face to face with a monster. |
 | |||
| Sometimes you have to run like hell. |
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| Very unhappy Orc. |
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| This dude means business. |
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| Dressed to Impress! |
 | |
| Shrooms.
That's all for this update. Will probably be adding more tomorrow as I buckle down and get DoD polished even moar.
-chili
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Sunday, April 14, 2013
Circle of Living Flame Major Updates!
Well since my last post I have been knocking away at the foundry pretty much in all my free time except for movie breaks (Oblivion and Evil Dead are must sees!)
Let's start with A New Threat: I have this quest completed now and only need to tweak out the dialogs and clutter items/lighting but it's pretty much ready to roll, at least for testing purposes and tweaking but it plays well.
Where There's Smoke: I have been super busy on this quest, my last post I mentioned getting the first map started but now I have almost the whole things finished, it's almost at the same point that ANT is currently with some minor tweaks to the detail. Which brings me to Map 3, the fire caverns. After ANT and playing with 2 maps of large caves I decided to go with a prefab map for the first time. I used one of the Cryptic designed maps because it looks amazing, problem is, it's a nightmare at placing any clutter because of the height adjustments that need to be done or your items end up on the ceiling or below the floor. This is most troublesome with encounters because you cannot adjust them with the 3d editor. Luckily the map is supposed to be nothing more than a lava filled cave with some elemental baddies to fight, which it serves that purpose well enough. I'll probably get some complaints about it being linear but I can live with that.
Extinguishing the Flame: This is the 3rd quest in this campaign (and final) and I have been working with it as well. I have the maps finished and a couple of experimental things I wanted to test, specifically the end boss encounter. I also used another Cryptic created map for this one as well, a large graveyard area that looks great and much easier to work with than the large caves (I will most likely not be doing large caves any more). I had fun playing around with the GY map and have it set up to allow the player to explore areas and find things hidden away, it should be fun. On the down side, I use 3 maps, two of which are out door maps, but they all are relatively small and I have the player back tracking through the GY, but it will be much different the 2nd time through than the first. Get you fighting pants on, there's going to be lot of things to fight.
I did manage to snag some screenshots of some areas but the Foundry currently has a mouse cursor bug that will not allow me to go into first person and I hate taking shots from 3rd person.
Here are some anyway. Here is the link to my imgur album for this campaign.
That's all for now. I will be working pretty hard to get this campaign completed for Open Beta at the end of the month as well as tweak out my previous campaign. I have a head start on the next campaign but I may just tie the rest of the stories into this campaign since they technically all deal with the Circle of Living Flame and it's head Wizards, but we'll see.
Peace
-chili
Let's start with A New Threat: I have this quest completed now and only need to tweak out the dialogs and clutter items/lighting but it's pretty much ready to roll, at least for testing purposes and tweaking but it plays well.
Where There's Smoke: I have been super busy on this quest, my last post I mentioned getting the first map started but now I have almost the whole things finished, it's almost at the same point that ANT is currently with some minor tweaks to the detail. Which brings me to Map 3, the fire caverns. After ANT and playing with 2 maps of large caves I decided to go with a prefab map for the first time. I used one of the Cryptic designed maps because it looks amazing, problem is, it's a nightmare at placing any clutter because of the height adjustments that need to be done or your items end up on the ceiling or below the floor. This is most troublesome with encounters because you cannot adjust them with the 3d editor. Luckily the map is supposed to be nothing more than a lava filled cave with some elemental baddies to fight, which it serves that purpose well enough. I'll probably get some complaints about it being linear but I can live with that.
Extinguishing the Flame: This is the 3rd quest in this campaign (and final) and I have been working with it as well. I have the maps finished and a couple of experimental things I wanted to test, specifically the end boss encounter. I also used another Cryptic created map for this one as well, a large graveyard area that looks great and much easier to work with than the large caves (I will most likely not be doing large caves any more). I had fun playing around with the GY map and have it set up to allow the player to explore areas and find things hidden away, it should be fun. On the down side, I use 3 maps, two of which are out door maps, but they all are relatively small and I have the player back tracking through the GY, but it will be much different the 2nd time through than the first. Get you fighting pants on, there's going to be lot of things to fight.
I did manage to snag some screenshots of some areas but the Foundry currently has a mouse cursor bug that will not allow me to go into first person and I hate taking shots from 3rd person.
Here are some anyway. Here is the link to my imgur album for this campaign.
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| Bridge Leading into Fort Dwelmeitre |
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| Ruins of Fort Dwelmeitre |
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| Mine Entrance |
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| Old Fort Dwelmeitre |
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| Neverwinter Guard Group getting ready to go fight some cultist. (A New Threat) |
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| I see dead people. |
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| Same dead people, different angle. |
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| More dead things. |
That's all for now. I will be working pretty hard to get this campaign completed for Open Beta at the end of the month as well as tweak out my previous campaign. I have a head start on the next campaign but I may just tie the rest of the stories into this campaign since they technically all deal with the Circle of Living Flame and it's head Wizards, but we'll see.
Peace
-chili
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Update to Crypts of Carnage
- Removed Bouncer Bob's dialogue. (see 3)
- Removed DM Apprentice and his dialogue. (see 3)
- Removed the Abort Exits (tavern and dungeon). They are no longer a requirement.
- Changed the skins to many of the skeletons to make them more varied.
- Changed the group name of many of the monsters since it is now possible to do so.
- In light of #5, also changed many of the monster names to distinguish the former guards from the other corpses that have returned to life.
- Changed the skin of the Cell Block bosses (boss 1)
- Changed the skin of the Twin bosses (boss 3).
- Changed the final boss to make the encounter more difficult. (this is phase 1 of the boss encounters, expect more difficult boss encounters in future changes).
-chili
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Circle of Living Flame: Where Theres Smoke
Started working on my first outdoor map that will be used in quest 2 of Circle of the Living Flame campaign. I tried several different outdoor maps before I came across one that was best suited for what I wanted to do functionally and just started throwing out some ideas and playing with some of the cluster items that come with the outdoor maps.
The idea was to have a ruined fort that was overrun with the Circle cultist, a squad of Neverwinter guard fighting with those cultists, some makeshift camps and a nearby mine shaft where the player would go complete their assigned task.
The mines will probably be two maps in length but we'll see how the story plays out.
Here's some sneak peak screenshots of the work I did this morning.
The idea was to have a ruined fort that was overrun with the Circle cultist, a squad of Neverwinter guard fighting with those cultists, some makeshift camps and a nearby mine shaft where the player would go complete their assigned task.
The mines will probably be two maps in length but we'll see how the story plays out.
Here's some sneak peak screenshots of the work I did this morning.
They are far from complete but look pretty nice so far.
-chili
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Campaign Update: Labyrinth of Lunacy
I got a ton of work done today on the LoL quest, including the complete functional quest from start to finish. I made some major and minor changes to the story overall and I think it will get players involved in the complete adventure.
I find it funny how the story evolves as I edit in the foundry, Darius is an evil bastard as you will find out just how evil he can be. I may have to go back and rework some of the dialogue in the CoC quest to hint a little more about his evil-ness.
I'm pretty satisfied with the story but the polish needs some serious work, like tidbits of quest lore and dialogue tweaks. I admit I am not very pro with the dialogue, I like to keep it direct and too the point and stay away from complex dialogue options.
Over the next couple of days I will be hard at work on cleaning it up as I did publish it for the alpha testers to play through as give me feedback so I can make it a great adventure for the players come open beta.
It's 3 AM, I will throw some screenshots up tomorrow of some of the newer areas and mobs.
-chili
A little later than promised, but here are some screen shots:
I find it funny how the story evolves as I edit in the foundry, Darius is an evil bastard as you will find out just how evil he can be. I may have to go back and rework some of the dialogue in the CoC quest to hint a little more about his evil-ness.
I'm pretty satisfied with the story but the polish needs some serious work, like tidbits of quest lore and dialogue tweaks. I admit I am not very pro with the dialogue, I like to keep it direct and too the point and stay away from complex dialogue options.
Over the next couple of days I will be hard at work on cleaning it up as I did publish it for the alpha testers to play through as give me feedback so I can make it a great adventure for the players come open beta.
It's 3 AM, I will throw some screenshots up tomorrow of some of the newer areas and mobs.
-chili
A little later than promised, but here are some screen shots:
Friday, April 5, 2013
Campaign Update: Labyrith of Lunacy
I have been working quite a bit on the LoL quest as the Open Beta launch date for Neverwinter has been announced for April 30th.
Also my first quest Crypts of Carnage has been featured in the screenshot of the week!
So with that said, I have been quite busy in my spare time getting the second chapter ready for completion. I have had a bit of trouble with current bugs in the Foundry editor such as this major one:
But I am pretty diligent as most of the CoC quest was completed with this bug. The LoL quest is going to be quite a bit longer than CoC as I mentioned previously because I have quite a few dialogues, a lot of item interaction, finding keys, unlocking doors and reading lore pieces. Fret not,m there is also plenty of combat. Here are the bosses I have placed in map 2:
A fun fact: The Steward Monte got his name from a old school friend of mine named Monte Stewart. He is a great guy. I often use names of my friends in my quests (as I have done even in pen and paper days) such as Bartender Berta in the tavern portion of my quests, who is a good friend of mine from World of Warcraft.
There is still a lot of work to do as I have not tied up the ending of the quest but I am in the last area of the maps to do so and have changed the quest quite a bit from the beginning as ideas stem from creation. I will say that this chapter is where the player finds out a ton more about Darius, his role in the CoC back story and the larger story of the Circle of Living Flame and the "God" Netho'relok.
I'm not sure if there will be a chapter 3 to this story arch, as this story seems to reveal most of the information that was going to be introduced there, so this might end with 2 chapters that lead into the Circle of the Living Flame campaign where as the 3rd chapter in that one ties Darius to the Circle and the main villain of that campaign as well as leads into the next campaign.
I still have to fine tune the dialog and add more clutter to the maps as well but I suspect this quest will be ready for open beta come the end of the month.
Here are a couple of bonus screenshots of random areas in the upper map of the LoL.
Also my first quest Crypts of Carnage has been featured in the screenshot of the week!
So with that said, I have been quite busy in my spare time getting the second chapter ready for completion. I have had a bit of trouble with current bugs in the Foundry editor such as this major one:
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| Steward Monte |
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| Chef Lambert |
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| Brewmaster Cobb |
A fun fact: The Steward Monte got his name from a old school friend of mine named Monte Stewart. He is a great guy. I often use names of my friends in my quests (as I have done even in pen and paper days) such as Bartender Berta in the tavern portion of my quests, who is a good friend of mine from World of Warcraft.
There is still a lot of work to do as I have not tied up the ending of the quest but I am in the last area of the maps to do so and have changed the quest quite a bit from the beginning as ideas stem from creation. I will say that this chapter is where the player finds out a ton more about Darius, his role in the CoC back story and the larger story of the Circle of Living Flame and the "God" Netho'relok.
I'm not sure if there will be a chapter 3 to this story arch, as this story seems to reveal most of the information that was going to be introduced there, so this might end with 2 chapters that lead into the Circle of the Living Flame campaign where as the 3rd chapter in that one ties Darius to the Circle and the main villain of that campaign as well as leads into the next campaign.
I still have to fine tune the dialog and add more clutter to the maps as well but I suspect this quest will be ready for open beta come the end of the month.
Here are a couple of bonus screenshots of random areas in the upper map of the LoL.
Until next time, be safe and play hard.
-chili
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Campaign Updates Labyrinth of Lunacy
Worked pretty heavily on the LoL quest in map 2 but I have been so distracted with my new video card and playing games on highest settings that it's getting in the way!
I hate working with dialog but I seem to be adding more and more to this quest because it just feels like it needs it to drive the story home. I may be revealing too much in this chapter as well but since I will not publish it until I have the campaign finished, it doesn't matter. I'm considering not releasing any of the campaigns until I have the whole story complete with exception of dealing with the main villain, which would be the climax to the story. Maybe I will have all that done before launch anyway so it's a moot point right now.
I fully expect to have quest 2 finished this week and then just fleshing out the dialog, clutter, lights and sound.
I also do not have any screenshots to post because there are some things I want to keep a secret for the player to experience first hand.
I'll snag some boring wall shots or something for the next update :)
-chili
I hate working with dialog but I seem to be adding more and more to this quest because it just feels like it needs it to drive the story home. I may be revealing too much in this chapter as well but since I will not publish it until I have the campaign finished, it doesn't matter. I'm considering not releasing any of the campaigns until I have the whole story complete with exception of dealing with the main villain, which would be the climax to the story. Maybe I will have all that done before launch anyway so it's a moot point right now.
I fully expect to have quest 2 finished this week and then just fleshing out the dialog, clutter, lights and sound.
I also do not have any screenshots to post because there are some things I want to keep a secret for the player to experience first hand.
I'll snag some boring wall shots or something for the next update :)
-chili
Friday, March 29, 2013
Upgrades!
Waiting for UPS to deliver my new video card and headset I ordered from amazon!
My current headset, while was a cheap Yapster headset, lasted almost 4 years until the normal wear and tear of getting caught up in my chair wheels, dropping and just general all around abuse finally paid it's toll. So I decided to splurge a little and get a "better" headset and bought the Creative HS-800 fatality set. Hope they last as long as those $10 ones did.
The video card is probably a bigger upgrade as I will be going from a GeForce 9800 GTX 512 to an MSI GeForce GT 640 1gb. My old card has been a fantastic card for several years and still performs like a boss but sometime during some GW2 play it failed and I lost the 32 bit color and everything is now in 16 bit, which looks fine most of the time but some serious color banding appears. The new card also has Dx11 support and HDMI which will be amazing on my 47 inch tv/monitor. Every review I have found said for the price this little card is a monster.
I also just recently upgraded my ram to 4 gb and my OS to 64 bit (Windows 8)
So that is the latest update and pretty much why I have been slacking on the foundry updates.
-chili
My current headset, while was a cheap Yapster headset, lasted almost 4 years until the normal wear and tear of getting caught up in my chair wheels, dropping and just general all around abuse finally paid it's toll. So I decided to splurge a little and get a "better" headset and bought the Creative HS-800 fatality set. Hope they last as long as those $10 ones did.
The video card is probably a bigger upgrade as I will be going from a GeForce 9800 GTX 512 to an MSI GeForce GT 640 1gb. My old card has been a fantastic card for several years and still performs like a boss but sometime during some GW2 play it failed and I lost the 32 bit color and everything is now in 16 bit, which looks fine most of the time but some serious color banding appears. The new card also has Dx11 support and HDMI which will be amazing on my 47 inch tv/monitor. Every review I have found said for the price this little card is a monster.
I also just recently upgraded my ram to 4 gb and my OS to 64 bit (Windows 8)
So that is the latest update and pretty much why I have been slacking on the foundry updates.
-chili
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Circle of the Living Flame: A New Threat
Circle of the Living Flame is what should have been the first campaign for the overall series since it introduces the main threat of the larger story plot, which is the Circle.
Basic plot for this campaign:
Basic plot for this campaign:
The area around Neverwinter has lately
been encountering a new threat from the already hostile areas of
Neverwinter Wood and Mt Hotenow. Short on men and resources, the
Neverwinter Guard is asking for volunteers to aid with finding the
source of this threat and helping to eliminate it.
Spoiler Version:
The Circle of the Lingering Flame is a
group of Wizards who are wedging a war on Faerun starting with the
areas around Mt Hotenow. They worship a (supposed) fire deity by the
name of Netho'relok who is believed to have been born from the fires
of Mt Hotenow's eruption.
So there you have the premise, pretty simple.
A New Threat
As for this particular part of the story, the player will be tasked to deal with the rising threat. The frst quest will take the player into a cave complex to nip this new thread in the bud. They are asked to team up with a Neverwinter Guard Veteran, Sergeant Graegos (Graegos was my first pen and paper character back in the 80s and has been a character in every RPG I have played since, I will do a bio on him later) as he deals with the threat head on.
I started working on this map some time ago but side tracked onto "Sewers of Insanity" which was to be the second quest in DoD but it got scrapped for Labyrinth of Lunacy. I have now decided to get this quest published to give more back story to the main plot of the series since it has a more direct connection early on than DoD.
Here are some screenshots of the new map:
The cultist of the Circle will cover a wide array of "intelligent" monster types including "civilized" races. To join the circle they must agree by contract to worship this new deity and serve him and the Circle until death as they plot to take over Faerun.
The player can expect some nice surprised in this quest as well as a deeper insight to some of the subtle hints dropped in CoC but will not make any major connections yet. It's not so dungeon crawly as DoD are but it still has that hacky slashy feel, because it is a quest to kill off a fledgling cultist group.
That's all for now on this campaign and quest, peace.
-chili
3/21/13
Made some more updates to this quest over the past few days but currently unable to access the foundry and take some screenshots, will do it later.
I have map one complete and functional it just needs some clutter love and to perhaps add an encounter or two. The dialog for the while quest is still very basic as well, I will be adding much more to it as I get the maps laid out as I get good ideas while laying out the maps most of the time.
Map two is almost completely built, I tried some really cool things in this one as far as design goes, it will be much less inhabited by living cultist and more undead and fire elementals and will be low light most of the time. I probably will not add much clutter to this level of the map as it's supposed to represent a newly formed cultist group who has yet to get a foothold in this cave.
As soon as I can get some screenshots of some of the content I will.
-chili
As promised, screenshots.
3/21/13
Made some more updates to this quest over the past few days but currently unable to access the foundry and take some screenshots, will do it later.
I have map one complete and functional it just needs some clutter love and to perhaps add an encounter or two. The dialog for the while quest is still very basic as well, I will be adding much more to it as I get the maps laid out as I get good ideas while laying out the maps most of the time.
Map two is almost completely built, I tried some really cool things in this one as far as design goes, it will be much less inhabited by living cultist and more undead and fire elementals and will be low light most of the time. I probably will not add much clutter to this level of the map as it's supposed to represent a newly formed cultist group who has yet to get a foothold in this cave.
As soon as I can get some screenshots of some of the content I will.
-chili
As promised, screenshots.
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