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).

1. Made the quest easier to follow at some points.
2. Changed some quest objectives to help players find where they should be. (sparkly trail)
3. 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

Dungeons of Dread Head Start Updates

Made some updates to Dungeons of Dread in both quests.

Crypts of Carnage:

1. Added more encounters because it just wasn't hack n slash enough for me.
2. Reworked the 2nd boss (Cold Storage) and made it more difficult and more interesting (I think).
3. Removed all dart and arrow traps until they are fixed.
4. Removed all spike traps until they do not spam spikes and lock players in place leading to death in some cases.
5. Replaced spike traps with saw blade traps.
6. Placed an invisible wall in the Morgue so the quest trail would lead players the right direction and not through a solid wall.
7. 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.

Labyrinth of Lunacy

1. Made some visual improvements to the kitchen (gore).
2. Added some flavor text to help with finding the brewmaster's door key.
3. Removed the spike trap and replaced it with a saw blade trap.
4. Added a couple of encounters.
5. Added a flavor piece.
6. Fixed a spiderweb that was showing through a wall.
7. Adjusted the lighting in some places.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

1. 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.
2. Fixed some typos, misspellings and item names. I probably missed some but that's okay.
3. Fixed a pesky mob in a wall.
4. Fixed some crates that were in a wall.
5. Added ambient lighting through out.
6. In Crypts of Carnage, added a door bypass in the twins boss room to get to final boss from respawn point.
7. 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.

Hey, you got something on your face.

Sometimes you just have to get face to face with a monster.

Sometimes you have to run like hell.

Very unhappy Orc.

This dude means business.

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

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.

Bridge Leading into Fort Dwelmeitre

Ruins of Fort Dwelmeitre

Mine Entrance

Old Fort Dwelmeitre

Neverwinter Guard Group getting ready to go fight some cultist. (A New Threat)

I see dead people.

Same dead people, different angle.

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

Update to Crypts of Carnage

1. Removed Bouncer Bob's dialogue. (see 3)
2. Removed DM Apprentice and his dialogue. (see 3)
3. Removed the Abort Exits (tavern and dungeon). They are no longer a requirement.
4. Changed the skins to many of the skeletons to make them more varied.
5. Changed the group name of many of the monsters since it is now possible to do so.
6. 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.
7. Changed the skin of the Cell Block bosses (boss 1)
8. Changed the skin of the Twin bosses (boss 3).
9. 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).

More changes to come soon.

-chili

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.

 

They are far from complete but look pretty nice so far.

-chili

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:

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:

Steward Monte

Chef Lambert

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