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Updates
Sept 10, 2014 2:20:58 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Sept 10, 2014 2:20:58 GMT -5
The Star Mounts - After we get the new upperdark/lairs connected to Unicorn Run we'll then connect the Star Mounts or rather the eastern section of them. In the end, the Star Mounts will have three regions, Eastern, Central and Western all comprising a few dozen or more new maps each. We're also going to use these areas/regions to pay homage to the good old days of PnP by modifying old D&D adventures to fit our setting. Once the Eastern Star Mounts are open for exploration, it'll contain our version of the old D&D Adventure, "Against the Giants - Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain". Later when the Central Star Mounts appear, part 2 of that adventure series, "Against the Giants - The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" will be included. Later, we'll add part 3, "Against the Giants - Hall of the Fire Giant King" to round it all out. If you're wondering, yes, we do plan on carrying over the whole series with the drow themed D and Q series modules. This is awesome. And, well, with the mystical nature of the Star Mounts, if you were tempted to include an homage to "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks", another of my faves, I'd certainly have no opposition. I'll admit, its one of my favorites as well and we've had vegipygmies in the CEP for years. There's a few spaceship interiors based on existing bioware tilesets that I could choose from and add one to our haks one day. We'd really need one to pull off the feel of adventuring in an alien spaceship, but I don't want a full blown space or D20 Modern hak added just for a few new dungeon areas. There's also a couple of new carnivorous plants I had passed over from the Bioware Forums February CC Challenge I could add (neglected adding them this past June, thinking they'd never be used ). There's lots old D&D Adventures we could add or pay homage too as time allows ... Temple of Elemental Evil anyone?
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Updates
Sept 10, 2014 3:36:15 GMT -5
Post by crediblethreat on Sept 10, 2014 3:36:15 GMT -5
Yeah, it was mostly a tongue-in-cheek request, I'm certain there'd be a lot of logistical difficulties involved, but, as I said, it always was one of my faves. Sadly, the other great S Series dungeons rely a lot on puzzles and secret doors that don't always translate well into PWs because of re-playability. But, there's always tweeks. White Plume was another of my faves, despite the blatant Stormbringer rip-off, the rest of the mod was compelling.
But, anyway, adding the Against the Giants series is simply an awesome idea. While those weren't necessarily the most creative modules, no one can deny that they are nuts-and-bolts classics and could make for awesome epic death marches.
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Updates
Sept 10, 2014 11:24:33 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Sept 10, 2014 11:24:33 GMT -5
Yeah, it was mostly a tongue-in-cheek request, I'm certain there'd be a lot of logistical difficulties involved, but, as I said, it always was one of my faves. Sadly, the other great S Series dungeons rely a lot on puzzles and secret doors that don't always translate well into PWs because of re-playability. But, there's always tweeks. White Plume was another of my faves, despite the blatant Stormbringer rip-off, the rest of the mod was compelling. But, anyway, adding the Against the Giants series is simply an awesome idea. While those weren't necessarily the most creative modules, no one can deny that they are nuts-and-bolts classics and could make for awesome epic death marches. "Awesome Epic Death Marches" is the trade marked name of my own Sunday night outings darnit!
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Updates
Oct 14, 2014 14:19:17 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Oct 14, 2014 14:19:17 GMT -5
Just a quick update on our "Update" progress here. With our June, 2014 hak update, we also removed all of our areas that were stored in a serverside hak and reimported them into the module itself again. This has enabled us to add small details and fix minor nitpicks in these areas, which we then send back into our serverside hak after testing them. This is a project that will be ongoing until the previous 600+ areas we had in a hak are reviewed and we've only put back around 250 of them so far. Some folks may not even notice many of the small changes, it doesn't matter as "I" do. Regional Update Status: - Unicorn Run: We're still finishing up building and populating the caverns and upperdark locations underneath the Unicorn Run. Once these are ready and connected, the Unicorn Run will be fully open for business. Stay tuned. - Upperdark, Under the Direwood: This region will be open just ahead of the Unicorn Run surface/upperdark regions and connect other upperdark regions to them. Stay Tuned. - New Quests/Options: Many new features are being added to both existing and new dungeons and adventures. Exactly -what- these new features are I'll leave as a suprise. Trust me, you'll know them when they are found. - Cooking: The present cooking system is being converted to conversation based system (similar to crafting) and recipes will be displayed based upon ingredients found in your characters inventory. No ETA and we'll not convert until its fleshed out a good bit. - Crafting: I'm adding one new crafting option every day or so, but be patient as I usually only update the hosted module once or twice a week. Once all of the basic weapons and armors are done being added, we'll start on custom items based on class, race and guild affiliations. - Loot Drops: Even with all the variety we have for loot drops here, we'll constantly be expanding upon the types of items that are found. Custom drops for most -Boss- encounters are also being added. - Hak Updates: Hak updates are planned, but we're awaiting the release of a reliable version of CEP 2.60 or later before we decide what if any additional content we'll be adding. Currently, the CEP 2.60 update breaks versions 2.4 or prior here. Next update will be sometime this evening, stay tuned.
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Post by kalbaern on Dec 9, 2014 22:26:29 GMT -5
12/08/2014
- Fixed issue with goblins that spawn in with random weapons. No bolts were supplied when they recieved light crossbows.
- New Custom Loot Drops for Goblin Leaders.
- New Custom Loot Drops for Goblin Casters.
- New Custom Loot Drops for regular Goblins.
- Reset Spell selections for Goblin Casters and set variables for their summons spells. This will continue for some other NPCs along with new unique summons options for some and a later expansion of the custom summons selections made available to some PCs based on Class/Alignment/Race.
- New Creatures added: Mountain Goblins. "Mountain Goblins" have recently evicted their darker cousins in a popular fortress/dungeon. Adventure carefully. Deep Goblins have now retreated to dark regions devoid of sunlight.
- Troll appearances updated.
- New Troll Leader found in a cave somewhere in the Central, Western Graypeaks.
- Ambiance scripts added to trolls.
- Summoned Earth Elementals now have "Hurl Rocks" x1 to match other elementals one shot abilities.
- New Custom Loot Drops for Bugbear Casters.
- New Custom Loot Drops for regular Bugbears.
- Reset Spell selections for Bugbear Casters and set variables for their summons spells. This will continue for some other NPCs along with new unique summons options for some and a later expansion of the custom summons selections made available to some PCs based on Class/Alignment/Race.
- Teleporting option to location: High Moors - Moorsedge Village has been removed. We'll be replacing most if not all of the High Moors soon, utilizing newer tileset options that should give a better "feel" of the atmosphere and be a little less ... for lack of a better term ... boring.
- Xvarts have shrunken/become smaller (now use a dynamic brownie appearance). Made corrections to their abilities. Xvarts now have random heads and hair colors for diversity.
Secomber is connected, but interiors are still being added. The build module that held many new areas was corrupted and while we've salvaged some things, most are being redone as quickly as possible.
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Post by kalbaern on Feb 4, 2015 0:03:55 GMT -5
02/03/2015
- Tantarn's Inn (Llorkh) has been replaced with a nicer and as far as we can tell so far ... glitch free tileset. Though it was a diversion from Secomber/Unicorn Run updates, the previous tileset we used had a few glitches wherein opening doors or standing when seated near a wall could -bump- your character into blank tilespaces where you'd then be stuck until a reset or a DM came to the rescue.
- Rescripted the "Glowy" Mushrooms found in dark places to -light- quicker now.
- New Specialty Summons added: Animental - Air Wolf.
- New Creatures added: Fire Trolls and Ice Trolls.
- New Creatures added: Wood Xvarts.
- Rewrote PC Exporting script (IG Auto Save).
- New Creatures added: Norkers.
- New Creatures added: Abyssal Ghouls.
- Random "Evil" Adventuring Parties are now even more random. Previously, these encounters spawned a group with predetermined race/class assortments. While this provided a varied encounter, only one each of any possible race/class combo would occur. Now, any race/class combo could appear multiple times. I.e, you could now see more than one cleric or rogue, have a spawn lacking casters, have a spawn with all barbarians, etc... . The possibilities are nearly endless.
- New Creatures added: Fire Giants.
- Disabled the Auto Save Feature as it was causing issues with some polymorph options. Automatic Saves are still made when you rest or when you log out. You can also use the "Save My Progress" option on the IG Crafting Menu to save anytime as well (as many already do).
- New Creatures added: Dark Orcs.
- New Creatures added: Darkmantles.
- New Custom Loot Drops for Xvarts.
- Map pins added to merchant locations in Llorkh (other towns will follow soon).
- New Creatures added: Girallons.
- New Dungeon added: High Forest - Eastern, Southern - Simhardukr.
- Frannies Fashions opens in Secomber.
- The Good Smythe's Great Armors opens in Secomber.
- The Red Roof Hin opens in Secomber.
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Updates
Feb 17, 2015 14:38:22 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Feb 17, 2015 14:38:22 GMT -5
Just a quick update on the status of updates in general.
I've been doing small updates every 3-4 days this year, but will save making update posts like the ones above until we've a decent amount of new things to brag about. Our small updates also often contain new areas/dungeons still needing tested and tweaked, and I prefer not to advertise these areas until I feel they are actually ready and bug free.
One thing we do before adding new regions here is to make a series of test maps and then templates which we'll use as the base for building a new region. Test maps are played with so we can isolate pathfinding issues if they exist, along with working out the various idiosyncrasies each tileset seems to have. then templates are made which preset the general lighting, fog, skyboxes, music, scripts and other things the "regional maps" will all share. Anyhow, as part of this process recently ... well, get ready for a current region to be overhauled.
The Unicorn Run areas are supposed to be magical, mystical, ancient and timeless. They are the single most favored place in all of Faerun for fey that are good or benign, not to mention, the best place to ever catch a glimpse of the fabled unicorns for which the region is named. So what does all this have to do with updates you wonder?
When we made the current Unicorn Run areas, we made several test maps using various tileset options to see which would best represent this magical region. One key requirement was that the tileset be capable of creating large cascading waterfalls. At the time, the "wildwoods" tileset we used to overhaul the "High Forest - Eastern, Southern" maps was what we'd hoped to use, but it lacked any options to create the waterfalls I mentioned. Other tilesets either weren't adequately wooded or had other limits which disqualified them, and in the end, we used the CEP Forest which is further enhanced by the overrides we've added to our haks in the past. It looked pretty good. For better or worse though, we expanded our tileset haks in our last hak update and, well, there's a much better tileset we could have used had it been added prior to making this region. Still, as I've been putting finishing touches on Secomber and completing the upperdark maps under the Direwoods, High Forest - Southern and the Unicorn Run, I've at times made new test maps and templates for areas/regions beyond these. So a conundrum has occurred. One of our newer forest tilesets just looks so much better suited to represent the Unicorn Run than the present incarnation. So before using it as the base for some other High Forest regions that are planned, I'm going to rebuild the Unicorn Run areas first.
Redoing the Unicorn Run maps is something I've been debating for a few weeks now. I'm not a big fan of constantly redoing things for one, and secondly, "Jaynah" put a lot of time and effort into the the 36 maps currently in the module. still, its been nagging me. So, with lots of thought and a little reluctance, I decided a few days ago to just get these areas reworked. They're half finished and with luck, we'll have them swapped out before the coming weekend.
Once the Unicorn Run overhaul is complete, I'll get back to finishing Secomber and the adjoining UD and wooded areas again, along with more crafting additions.
Anyhow, stay tuned folks.
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Updates
Feb 24, 2015 2:30:41 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Feb 24, 2015 2:30:41 GMT -5
Well, after remaking The Unicorn Run .. and testing most of it with Jaynah ... I corrupted the module somehow. So I'll have to do it all again. At least I've some free time this week. With luck, I'll have it redone in a few days along with some new crafting options.
Stay tuned.
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Updates
Feb 26, 2015 11:37:11 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Feb 26, 2015 11:37:11 GMT -5
02/26/2015
- Gabriel's Gadgets and Gizmos opens in Secomber.
- Helms and Shields added to The Good Smythe's Great Armors in Secomber.
- New Dungeon added: High Forest - Eastern, Southern - Ruins of Eaglestone Keep.
- Fixed Duration: Dominate Monster.
- Fixed Duration: Black Blade of Disaster.
- The Better Smythe's - Greatest Weapons opens in Secomber.
More to come soon. Enjoy.
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Updates
Mar 5, 2015 21:55:09 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Mar 5, 2015 21:55:09 GMT -5
03/02/2015
- Added/Replaced Unicorn Run maps 1-12.
03/03/2015
- Adjusted encounters and loot; Ruins of Eaglestone Keep.
- Added/Replaced Unicorn Run maps 13-16.
- Added ambience script to Orlbar Male Commoners.
03/04/2015
- Updated "Elven Crossings" to recognize (be revealed to) Non-Evil Elves, Half Elves, Druids, Rangers and Harpers.
03/05/2015
- Added/Replaced Unicorn Run maps 17-21.
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Updates
Mar 15, 2015 19:03:40 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Mar 15, 2015 19:03:40 GMT -5
03/07/2015 - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run maps 22-24.
03/08/2015 - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run Maps 25-26.
03/09/2015 - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run Maps 27-28. - Added ambiance script to Orlbar Female Commoners. - Added/Replaced Severed Woods Maps 1-3. - Amildur has moved west from "Ranger's Rest" and now resides in the woods of Unicorn Run.
03/10/2015 - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run Maps 29-32. - Added/Replaced Severed Woods Maps 4-6. - Amildur now has an expanded selection of druid gear.
03/11/2015 - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run Maps 33-36. Unicorn Run areas are connected and replaced, but entrances to underground areas are not connected yet. Underground entrances will lead to portions of the Upperdark along with new lairs and dungeons soon. - Added/Replaced Severed Woods Maps 7-11. - Added/Replaced Unicorn Run Maps 33-36. - Updated Green Dragon loot drops. Lowered gold piece reward, but added a nice selection of custom weapons they'll now drop.
03/12/2015 - Fixed broken OOC Exit on map 11 of the new Severed Woods areas. - Tweaked various Severed Woods encounters after our recent walk through of the region.
03/14/2015 - Fixed broken northern transition on Unicorn Run map 14.
03/15/2015 - Amildur now has an expanded selection of ranger gear. - Lorian's Scroll Shop is now open in Secomber. Mage scrolls of 4th to 6th are available here. - Dave & Duke's Adventurer's Emporium and Trading Post is now open in Secomber. - Boat travel between Loudwater and Secomber is now available.
Enjoy folks.
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Post by kalbaern on Sept 4, 2015 16:01:58 GMT -5
Sorry for the overly long absence of updates and postings, but this was a hectic summer that is only now shifting into what I hope will be a less hectic fall. Having been working 10-12 hours, 7 days a week since late spring hasn't allowed for much progress this summer I'm afraid. A few new areas trickled in, some script fixes were made, but in general, little was "done" that the average player would actually have noticed. My RL work hours are slowly decreasing as are the demands after work of maintaining home and garden, so things should pick up here, update-wise at least, very soon again. Before tooooo much new stuff starts getting added to the module, I'm going through it and making lists of incomplete/unfinished stuff that will be addressed first. Feel free to post regarding any issue you all know of and I'll make certain they go on "the list" as well. Clean up and updating will be along some fairly broad lines and often overlap as I'll explain shortly. Often the tasks involved will require sharing resources with others here that are contributing their own time to our project. I especially want to thank "Jaynah" once again for all of the work on areas, both new and old she's done and continues to do. Scripting Fixes, optimizations and new "things" are currently underway. Having only short time windows this summer, most scripting that was overly technical or involved was constantly shelved. I've made decent headway the past week or so and foresee it continuing. FixesFixes involve rewriting broken spell scripts and minor tweaks to various other things. OptimizationsThis covers mainly our random spawn systems and will be an ongoing and lengthy endeavor. For any fellow programming geeks here, our random spawns consist of hundreds of "if" statements that while make reading and editing easier, consume more CPU to run. So each, as time allows, is being rewritten to use "cases" instead, which are much, much less CPU intensive. I recently redid the High Forest spawn system this way and CPU spikes were eliminated. Other encounters as well as random traps and a few other things will follow suit as time allows. Things like this however are being done outside of the tool set, normally during daytime breaks and done on my laptop in Notepad or Textpad. This way, it doesn't affect my evening tool set time and I can afford interruptions without screwing up other ongoing updates. New "things"This mostly covers a new Quest System I'm converting us over too. When completed, it'll add a "Hero" status to PCs that will affect how many NPCs view them as well as determine what other "restricted" quests/tasks are available. Expansions to both cooking and crafting systems here are included as well. Areas/RegionsCurrent incomplete areas/regions are our initial focus. Every map is being double checked for oddities like "floating" placeables, tileset weirdness resulting from our converted overrides and other things. In addition, many will receive more design details like flavor triggers and added decorative placeables. Missing map pins and other things will also be addressed. Incomplete areas/regions These are a top priority, though will often require delays as associated scripting for them is finished as well. Replacement of certain areas/regionsA few areas/regions will be removed and redone from scratch using tilesets never seen on any other PW to date. This will also first require a hak update. No real ETA as the tilesets are still being created, but things are looking good and with luck it'll happen over winter this year. Why new tilesets? Well, there's just some areas/regions that still "fall flat" even with all of our current enhancements. We'll be using a tileset based on the "Badlands of South Dakota" to remake the High Moors and there is a new Drow City tileset in the works that we'll use for .. well .. figure it out. ... The badlands tileset will go along ways to making the High Moors areas each unique, yet remain bleak-ish and barren. Currently, this region lacks sex-appeal and can be monotonous when exploring and sees little use once most venture there. Stores and Custom LootWe'll be doubling checking existing merchants and adding items we may have over looked or forgotten first. Then, new merchants as well even more variety in "found" loot items will be added. If anyone has suggestions or requests, please post them in our suggestions section. Hak UpdatesHak updates are in the works, but no ETA as of yet. New creature, weapon, placeable, clothing and other appearance additions are being worked on, but until a working "Badlands" tileset is available and tested, we'll not actually update our haks here. Anyhow ... stay tuned. Lots of updates and good stuff is coming soon.
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Updates
Sept 30, 2015 21:48:31 GMT -5
Post by kalbaern on Sept 30, 2015 21:48:31 GMT -5
09/19/2015 - Fixed requirements to spawn "Eldreth Veluuthra". They should no longer appear when "Forest Bandits"
do. - Updated/replaced tombs in the Orlbar Crypt.
09/20/2015 - Updated Herb picking system.
09/21/2015 - We still get unexplained random "pc skins" dropped by NPCs and occassionally created on PCs
themselves. Recompiling (opening and forcing the script to rebuild if still default) will be an ongoing
project for a week or two. The "skins" are a vestige of the Bioware Horse System from the 1.69 update. - Updated Vegetable picking system.
09/22/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells A to B (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing). - Updated Mushroom picking system.
09/23/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells C to D (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing). - Updated Berry Bush picking system. 09/24/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells E to F (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing).
09/25/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells G to K (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing).
09/26/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells L to M (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing).
09/28/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells N to O (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing).
09/30/2015 - Recompiled spell scripts for spells P to W (to fix last vestiges of "pc skins" appearing).
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Post by kalbaern on Oct 29, 2015 11:28:18 GMT -5
The update which will require our newest haks is just a few days away folks. Make sure and grab them before this coming Sunday evening. After we've updated, there will be a few days of bug testing before more updates go live. While things may change, this is our intended order for additions and changes. - Close off the following Areas/Regions: Highstar Lake, The High Moors and The Serpent Hills. - Replace Highstar Lake with reworked region using a different tileset that better fits the region (IMO at least). - Add several new dungeons into existing regions which were incomplete. - Add Turlang's Wood and Hellgate Keep areas. - Replace Map Pin System with a revised version that should work more reliably. The current map pin system seems to fail when used to store pins in areas here that are stored in a hak (to reduce module resources). These areas technically don't exist until a Player or DM enters them is why. So as part of our updates, only interiors (stores, dungeons, inns, etc...) will be kept in our serverside hak. Exteriors, including most underdark areas, will remain in the actual module. Preset map pins denoting directional enter/exit zones will be set on exterior maps as well if lacking. Cities and well travelled roads will also "auto reveal" as we update them. Mapping in cities and a few other select areas will be disabled. When the new map pin system goes live, PCs will receive a new widget on which the information will be stored, so you'll need to start over with your personal pins once again. But hey, at least we'll still have that option and *crosses fingers* it'll be more reliable in the future. - Replace The High Moors and Serpent Hills. - Connect the Eastern Star Mounts. - Continue adding/expanding even more areas/regions. Stay tuned.
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Post by kalbaern on Nov 19, 2015 11:16:43 GMT -5
Did a small update last night. Then did a short walk test of the new Highstar Lake region. I'm much happier with the look and general "feel" of it now.
I apologize for delays in updating as well. Along with our recent hak updates, I also upgraded the server from 4 to 8 gigs of RAM and replaced the computer I normally build and play on. My new building and playing computer Id had several issues with which were causing frequent toolset and game crashes. After a few weeks of hair pulling, wiping Windows 10 and installing Windows 7, grabbing older drivers, etc... it's humming along smoothly now.
I'll post details of what was added when I get home tonight. A few new quests are being designed for the Highstar Lake region, so updates will continue for the next two weeks there, barring I don't have too many interuptions with the coming holiday here.
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