Also, not even thinking twice, I ordered another hard drive. At this point, I didn't care about money, or how I could somehow get out of buying another one. I have a damn deadline to meet, and I needed my laptop. Plain and simple...

So, being my last day at work, all of the work I had been doing on the current Mapquest Mobile project was more or less finished. So, I indulged myself a bit, and played a ton of foosball with a fellow co-worker. Now, this particular worker is very funny, because no matter how bad he loses, he still manages to talk sh**. We must have played for an hour or so after lunch, and I beat him about 11 games to 3. It was great.

Not to toot my own horn, but we were on a roll. We maybe lost 3 games in those 3 hours. And of course, the one worker kept talking sh** the entire time:) Great fun. Will definitely be investing in a foosball table when I get an apartment down there...

So, with those major bugs cleared up, I was able to move on to the polishing of some of the side quests in the game. The foundation was already there, but I just had to finish up some convos, and some other minor things. All in all, it looks like my plan has been working. I knew saving all the little till the end would work out, and I haven't been proven wrong yet.

But enough with that boring stuff! I want to get to the interesting stuff, such as the ending sequences of the game. I really want people to get the same feeling they got after beating Final Fantasy 3/6 or The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time. I have always been a fan of great epilogues, but I really haven't seen them in games lately... I mean hell, even every subsequent Final Fantasy ending seemed to get shorter, which I guess makes sense since it was easier to do a 20 minute long ending with sprites than a 5 minute long CG rendered ending. Anyway, I am trying to bring it back to the old days. The fact that I will be on vacation for almost 2 weeks is perfect, as I won't have that rushed feeling of trying to get important stuff done (the way it usually is, working 9 hours a day, plus the 4 hour commute).

Well, as always, gotta get up early, so that is it for tonight. This Mapquest Mobile project at work has been getting more and more interesting everyday...

At this point, I am feeling very good and confident about the progress. Add to the fact that I start my vacation on Thursday, and you are looking at a happy man that isn't worrying as much as he usually does... I am glad I made the decision early on to have ALPHA testers as early as November of last year, because a lot of the main problems have been fixed already. I can't really get into specifics, but besides a few key issues, the bugs aren't really a serious issue. In fact, the majority of the reported issues aren't bugs, but rather things that are missing (things that I am polishing up this week).

Well, of to sleep for me. I have been continuing this thing of getting into the office at 8:00 am, because I am the lead engineer on the #1 priority project right now (as if I didn't already have enough going on in my life). To anyone that cares, Mapquest Mobile is the best selling phone app of all time (if that really means anything), so we are making various updates to it. I have to admit, I am really enjoying working on this project, and I wish it had come up after Cry The Beloved. Oh well...

Everything for it seemed to work out. I am using a custom tileset, but since I have already used it somewhere else, I was familiar with all the tiles, so I didn't lose a lot of time playing with it. I have the perfect piece of music for it, and the area sound effects/lighting is just the way I envisioned it. As always, I will still have to connect this area to the rest of the game (i.e. transitions), but the meat of it is done.

Tomorrow, I will piece together everything I worked on today, and then, work on some other end game scenes. I will be printing out a list of the bugs I received from the testers, and work on the them next week while on the train. They are trivial enough to be done then. 

Speaking of bugs, out of the 2 remaining annoying bugs, I believe I have come up with a solution. Essentially, one party member would lose all of their inventory when they died. I kept avoiding this bug for damn near a year, but I happened to stumble upon it today during my own play testing, and had an epiphany. Since this only happens with the one party member, and all my scripts are the same for each party member, I thought maybe it had to do with the creature blueprint itself. So, I essentially created a new blueprint, and voila, when they died, their gear was still there. I am sure I will have to do some more testing to get down to the bottom of it, but I am hoping that is all I have to do.

Till tomorrow...

When I got home, I got caught up on the activity at the forums, as I was a day behind or so. We have a couple of very cool Easter Eggs in the work, and the best part is, other team mebers are designing them. All I have to do is implement them, which should be easy. Ah, the pros of teamwork:)

In short, everything is going well... There are a ton of threads I need to still read over, and even more issues I have to fix, but I am going to leave that for the weekend. As I fix things, I will post back in said threads so the reporter will know I have acknowledged/fixed the issue. Alistair has also started giving me edits, along with the constant stream of stuff from Jason. In fact, I probably have close to over 20 e-mails from him with edited dialogue. It's great! It is so easy to integrate into the game, and is something I can do on the train in a few hours. In fact, I am going to download all of the attachments from his e-mail, and do that tomorrow morning. Sounds like a plan!

8/31 - Work from home (hey, I get tons of work done for the game on these days)
9/1 - Summer Friday (don't have to spend vacation day)
9/3 - Labor day (don't have to spend vacation day)
9/4 - 9/7 Vacation days

I am also hoping to take a few days off the following week as well. In short, I will be spending he rest of my days. Some people may think I am crazy for doing this, but look at it this way. The instant Cry The Beloved is done, I will literally be on vacation:) I have so many plans (i.e. playing Secret Of  Mana multiplayer with Rick Sanderson), it will really be a great couple of months. Plus, Final Fantasy XII & The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be out as well. Hell, these are the series I grew up on, the ones that inspired Rose Of Eternity, so of course I have to show them love this fall, and buy 2 copies each!

Well, I gotta run. We are doing a software release tomorrow morning, and I gotta be in the office at 7:00 am, which means I have to wake up at 4:00 am (4 hours!).

At home, I worked on one of the many cut-scenes I need to finish. In between that, I was on the forums, answering questions, reading up on the newest bugs and whatnot. I have to say, I like the few days or so after releasing a new build, because there is so much activity on the forums. In fact, 2 of the testers already played through the entire game, and reported some key bugs that were pretty bad, but easy to fix.

After that debacle, I turned my attention towards my original plan of the day... The implementation of a new, but pretty short, informative cut-scene. Going into it, I knew it would be easy. I already cut up the music track to get the parts I wanted, and I had listened to it for many days, so I knew exactly how it should play out. Luckily enough, creating it went smoothly, and I was able to knock it out in 3-4 hours. A great way to end the day.

Tomorrow, I will continue my month long job of polishing up the game. Also, if I receive any bug reports after writing this update, I will focus on those as well...

Long story short, I expect this to be the 2nd to last BETA. It is content complete, except for a bunch of dialogues (they can be added very easily anytime), cut-scenes, and the prologue. Again, these are things that can be added at any time, so I only focused on the major things. Besides the game not breaking, I am hoping that I will get a wider opinion on certain parts of the game, and the tester's comp's ability to run it. I have ideas on how to make things smoother, but I want to see how things run first.

Finally, if you have wanted to be a part of the BETA team, your time has arrived. I need as much help as I can get. It's not that the people who are testing it aren't sufficient, but it is always good to get a second set of eyes in a project late in the game. So, if anyone has a few hours to spend over a week or so, please e-mail me at gamecoder@optonline.net. It would be greatly appreciated:) The more help I have, the sooner the game can be released to all, and the sooner I can get my life back:)

Now, I am off to start work on some of the final cut-scenes!

It actually worked out great because it gave me that much more of a drive to fix the issues. At 3:00 am, I was finally able to get everything together, minus a few fixes. Unfortunately, I didn't have the energy to do another test run, so I hope everything works out for him.

In getting said changes in, I actually ended up writing up close to a page worth of notes, but luckily, I was able to knock out 90% of them within a few hours:) Luckily, most of it had to do with end game stuff. During my play though last weekend, I was not able to complete the final hour or so of the game due to a game breaking bug. I have all but eliminated this issue, thankfully.

Funny thing is, I contemplated using the exact track that inspired me, but for some reason, I just feel weird using Star Wars music in this game. Perhaps because it is so well known... I really don't know... It just feels wrong for some reason... At any rate, now that I have my imperialistic track, I can further design how the cut-scene plays out.

Tomorrow, I hope to continue knocking out issue after issue. I might put out a call for more testers. To those of you that have sent me e-mails requesting to be one, I haven't forgotten about you! I still have the e-mails saved. We'll see how things go. I need to get it done sooner rather than later, because there is one particular scene that I think I may have to tone down. It might break some people's computers:)

Darkness Over Daggerford

What is this, you ask? Well, it is the very large module that I have been testing over the past few weeks. It was developed by Ossian Studios, headed up by the CEO, Alan Miranda. Alan was a producer on such games as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate II: Throne Of Bhaal. It has been in production over the last year, with contributions from various people in the NWN Hall Of Fame, including:

In addition, the following people helped test it over the past few weeks:

As I mentioned before, Darkness Over Daggerford is a very large game set in the Forgotten Realms. Here are some highlights of what you can expect:

Now, what immediately struck me when playing this was how it was very reminiscent of Baldur's Gate. As you all know, I am a console RPG guy, but the first PC RPG I played was Baldur's Gate, and I loved it. I quickly moved on to its expansion, and then its sequel a few years later. I didn't know much about DnD, but I sure as hell loved the game!

So, playing this game really took me back to 1998, when I didn't have a care in the world. The main reason is because there always seems to be something new and exciting to do. Being a tester, I obviously played through the game many times, and I can assure you that I was discovering new things each time. It was truly amazing. Of course, one of the main reasons it felt like Balder's Gate was because of the new and innovative map system, which any fan of Balder's Gate will immediately recognize, and remember how to use.

Another thing I have to comment on is the area/sound design. Rarely do I ever play a game, and just sit back at the visuals. I really felt like I was in a real world. Add in some excellent music by David John, and you have a recipe for losing 10 minutes of your time just sitting there. In particular, there was one town (which I will not spoil) where every time I traveled there, I listened to the music play at least 2 times through. If you are into video game music, then you will know what I am talking about when you get there.

The best part is, you can have all of this free on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006. Some people have been claiming that NWN is dead. I can assure you, they are wrong...

Till tomorrow...

So, as expected, I was knocking out tons of the issues I jotted down in my notebook while playing. I got through about 3 pages total. Mostly text changes, but also other little things like adding an enemy or 2 to an area, repositioning of some placeables, or scripting changes. 

So soon in fact, that I can finally drop the ball, so to speak. I have been given the green light by the man upstairs to remove my gag with my next update. So, on Tuesday, August 15th, around 11:00 pm or so, I will be making an entry, which will focus on the secret project everyone has been whispering about for so long. Don't forget to tune in!

I also ended up taking about 6-7 pages worth of notes. As always, like 2% are bugs, and 98% are polish things. I expect to fly through the minor stuff real fast. The other stuff, well, we'll see. Once I finish everything up, I will send it to the testers, and then continue with more polishing.

I also had to spend a big chunk of my time on the other project I have been working on. There will be word within a few days, so no more cryptic messages from me:)

Game play wise, I was having a ball. Seriously. Yeah, I am the one who made the game, but to see all the custom systems come together, and work perfectly, definitely stirs my heart a bit. For instance, even though I tested all custom skills I implemented, before today, I never had the chance to really play around with them that much. So, to be able to use these during boss fights was pretty cool. There are still some more ones to come, but I am very happy with the ones that have been implemented thus far. Also, I know I have said this many times before, but to have specific systems that I designed back in 2004 for The Coming still relevant in the game today, makes me smile. This might be a bad example, but it might be how the designer(s) of the ATB (Active Time Battle) System, which was first introduced in FF 2/4 in 1991, felt when 9 years later, the system was still in use (FF9).

So, at the end of the night, interestingly enough, I just got to the content I started putting in the game 2 months ago. That is so crazy... Seriously... I don't remember how long I had played up until that point, but it was a while. And, I still have more to do tomorrow. Man, will this game ever end! :)

Actually, let me back up a bit. First off, the plan was to go through the game with a fresh Aramus, one that didn't come from The Coming. I know that there will be people who played through The Coming, but perhaps didn't still have that saved character. So, to make up for this, I check to see if the character is below a certain level, and if so, besides leveling them, I give them all the gear they would have gotten in the first game. So, bringing in a level 1 Aramus, I am leveled to 3, given the Sword Of Galladoran, Bracers Of Galladoran, Left Ring Of Galladoran, and various other important items. Luckily, that code worked fine. As a side effect, I was able to play through the game with the new custom portrait for Aramus. Let me tell you, that thing looks sweet. Since we already have one for Clopon, it only makes sense to get one for Challseus. I can't wait to see how it will turn out.

The other reason to do this is to try to balance the game with the lowest level possible. I mean, it doesn't make sense to balance a game with the upper level character, since lower level ones would be screwed. The way I see it, those who start out at a higher level will just find the game slightly easier. Those who played The Coming know that it isn't always about how many HP's you have, but rather, how you use the weapons/items you get in the game, so balancing turns out to not be that much of a problem.

However, I was finding the game quite difficult as this level. When I say difficult, I mean, I was dying all the time. It was not acceptable at all. So, I had to stop my testing, go back, and change some things. In reality, all I have to do was raise the AC on a piece of armor Aramus was wearing (why the hell was it at 2?!), and when I started the testing again, it was still difficult, but doable.

So, after all the times I had to stop/start playing the BETA, I ended up passing out around 3:00 am, having gone through about 4 hours of actual game play. I knew I had much more to go through, so I wanted to have a good night sleep (well, better than if I pulled an all nighter!). Oh, and just to keep things in perspective, it regularly took me about 3 1/2 - 4 hours to complete The Coming:)

So tomorrow, I will be getting everything ready for my play test over the weekend. If I can have everything ready by the time I get home from work tomorrow, that will be perfect. If I just pull another all nighter, I might even be able to get through at least half of the game. Maybe more. Hell, I don't even know how long it is at this point, which is another reason why I need to do this:) I am sure I will have TONS of notes, but I am fine with that. Those are the things I can work on while on the train next week.

Then, I finally decided to just create a test module, write up some dialog in it, and then export them as .erf's, and import them into my module later. So, all was not lost. I was able to work on some dialog that only the players who want to see 100% of the game will encounter. They aren't necessarily important conversations, but it just fleshes out the characters a bit more, and gives them more personality.

I also used the bit of downtime I had to get up to date on most of the threads in our forums. Man, there was one particular thread in the Brainstorming section about new abilities and whatnot. If I remember correctly, it was at 1 page early yesterday, and every time I was going to sneak in a reply, like 5 more replies worth of abilities were added. By the time I got around to it tonight, the thread was 3 pages long! I have to tell you, there was some great stuff in there. Shout out to Rick Sanderson, Alistair Gill, & Gravelooter, for all of their ideas. Because of them, we might have the final list of abilities everyone will get in the game. In fact, there was so much stuff that I already have ideas for Rose Of Eternity - Chapter 3. Seeing threads like that really make my day.

On the train ride home, I began compressing a lot of the tracks I hadn't done over the past few months. I was amazed at how much space I saved by doing this, without compromising the quality of the song. It was great.

Speaking of the BETA, even though I wanted to do my run through of the game last weekend, it was before I knew of the wedding. So, instead of trying to fit it in this week, I will keep adding more content, and then go through it this weekend. Hopefully, no one else is planning on getting married:) The way things are going, I should have the final sequence (cut-scenes, dialogs, final battle) finished by the time I begin to do my run through of the game.

The one good thing about not being able to test in game stuff on the train is it gives me the time to continue the polishing process. My initial plans were obviously to finish the last sequence, and then polish, but this works as well. Damn, there's that Extreme Programming thought process again:)

Till tomorrow...

I also plan to finally start going through some of my favorite classic games again. Props to Rick Sanderson for hooking me up with an emulator, and tons of games. He might have damn near given me every classic Square soft game ever released for the SNES. As a side effect, perhaps I will get some inspiration while playing them as well:)

So yeah, there you go. No NWN2 for me until it is actually released. I look at it this way. It isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon (crosses fingers!). Hell, I joined the NWN revolution at the tail end, and I have done fine for myself. I mean, I would only be gaining myself and extra month maybe of development, but in the long run, I don't care too much. Some people have been caught up with trying to be the first person to get a module released, or be the first person inducted into the Hall Of Fame. Man, screw all of that:) I just look at history. Being first isn't always a sure sign of success. Genesis/Saturn/Dreamcast anyone:)

Right... So, back to business. Well, I fixed a pretty significant bug in my animation scripts. Some may remember DLA's Ragnarok_mr4's Alternate Combat Animations package that was released last Fall. Well, I immediately swooped it up, and integrated into Cry The Beloved. To make things easier on me, since I was also using Vaei's Alternate Animations, I created a animate_manager.nss script, to handle all the utility methods I was using to switch animations and whatnot. Well, it turns out, I was using some phenotype constants, but in the wrong order. So, for nearly a year, I have been getting the wrong animation when using certain methods, and I never knew why. It wasn't a big deal to me, because I knew I would someday come back and figure out why. Well, I did today, fixed it, and wiped my hands clean of the situation.

I also FINALLY broke out of my designer's block and figured out the ending to the final fight of the game. Only took more than week! :) So, I began scripting what I came up with, and so far, so good. Too bad I came up with it at the end of night... I won't be able to work on it on the train because of battery problems, so I will have to wait until I get home tomorrow night.

Sort of off-topic, but what happened today with regards to me coming up with the idea for the ending of the last fight really shows off this Extreme Programming thing I have been talking about. Here is a particular quote, taken from Wikipedia:

"Proponents believe that being able to change requirements during a project is a better (and more realistic) approach than attempting to strictly define all requirements at the beginning."

Yep, I think that really defines what I have been doing:) Now, it obviously isn't for everyone, and hey, maybe it is the wrong way to do things. I have been successful so far, as well as my company, so until it doesn't work, or I find something better, it is my philosophy.

I was also on a video game music kick today. I was continuing to fill up my library of old school video game music, courtesy of VGMusic. Of special note would have to be Ninja Gaiden. Heh, you can probably say that it had more than one influence on me. Any old schooler will fondly remember the cut-scenes used in the game. Yes, that's right... Cut-scenes on the NES back in 1989. They were great, and really immersed the player in the game. I would play the game over and over again just to watch them. Plus, the music was really great as well. In fact, there was a secret code to be able to listen to all the music for Ninja Gaiden 2. I would put that code in, sit and there, and listen to the music for hours.

You know, it's funny how the things you do as a kid are really the precursor to what you do as an adult. I loved video game music back then, what am I always saying is the most important part of a game? I loved cut-scenes back then, and what do I love to do now in my game? Sorry for getting side tracked, but life really is funny sometimes... Anyway, I also got music for Killer Instinct (ULTRA COMBO!!!!!), Strider (NES), Super Dodge Ball, and the Dragon Quest (Warrior) series. Tons more to come!

Finally, I renewed my license for my Audio Converter, so I will most likely get to work getting the final pieces of custom music in the game. It has been a long time coming. Hell, off the top of my head, I think I may a bit over 60 songs. Not bad, huh? And for those of you that think I may run out of songs to use in my upcoming games, fear not. There are at least 20 songs I wanted to get into this game, but when it came down to it, they just didn't fit.

Whew... Okay, bed time...

Well, I am off to bed now, because I have to be up early to meet my Mom, as she will be taking me out for breakfast as a late B-day present. I was thinking Cracker Barrel, but I.H.O.P. is closer:)

Finally, I came up with a brief cut-scene that will give a little more back story to a particular NPC. It will be brief (a little over a minute), mainly because I have the perfect piece of music that will accompany it, so I obviously have to make sure it is in sync with it. Besides the area design, scripting the cut-scene should be easy. No complicated camera angles, or anything like that.

Tomorrow, I have the wedding at 2:00. Luckily, I got a haircut yesterday, so if I wake up early, I can get at least 2-3 hours worth of work in before it starts. Here's hoping...

So, something funny happened today. Usually when I work from home, I am able to take care of everything in the morning, and just stay online for the rest of the day, in case anyone needs me. Well, today, it seems people needed me all day. So, as weird as it sounds, I literally worked all day:) That obviously put a dent in my plans for the day, as I expected to be able to little things here and there between work. Oh well, it happens...

When I finally was able to work on the game, I literally spent the entire time working on the last piece of standard dialog that will play at the end of the game. As you can imagine, being the last piece of dialog, I had to spend as much time as possible to make sure it was really memorable. Luckily, Phil is going to take what I did and well, you know... Make it better:) Nevertheless, I still took my time with it, so that he doesn't have to guess as much with what I want. As always, I will also be looking for him to put his little touches in here and there, besides just rewriting it. Since it is quite late, I will have to send him all the stuff tomorrow morning.

As my luck would have it, I have yet another wedding to go to this Saturday. Why in the hell does my girlfriend have so many friends? :) Hopefully, this should be the last one for the year. Even better, she wants to make it a small and short wedding, and that is all good with me. By the way, don't get things confused... I am not no introvert, or anything like that. I love being around people. I will love it even more when I release this game:)

While at work, between, well... work, I was conversing with Olaia about what she has been working on for me, via AIM. With her living in Spain, it really screws me up when she is talking about having lunch/dinner when I just got to work:) Either way, I think we are finally coming to a close on the design part of what she is doing.

So, later in the night (yeah, I still was working late into the night) I was chatting with Phil about some new dialogue that I wanted him to put his magic touch on. In general, I have been disconnected from the writers (as in, not giving them anything to write) for a while, so I will be taking the steps to change that this week. I will be working from home tomorrow, so in between work, I should be able to handle that. We also began to talk about something that I have wanted to get into the game for at least 6 months. I am excited about it, as I think it will be yet another thing to separate this game from the masses. 

All in all, this was definitely an administrative type day for me. Sometimes, it just happens like that...

Well for one, I will indeed be releasing information about the game, in order to stir up a little hype. Even though I have been showing mad amounts of pictures over the past year, I have been quite good at keeping all the little secrets of the game within the inner circle of the Cry The Beloved team. Without going into super major detail (more of that this month), if you thought The Coming had a lot of custom aspects to it, Cry The Beloved will blow your mind. It literally is what has been taking so long. If it wasn't for me trying to make everything so unique, I probably would have been done a long time ago. Even though I attempted it with The Coming, I REALLY want people to take off their DnD hat, and just appreciate it for what it is. An RPG... Not a DnD RPG, just an RPG... Period... I know I have talked this concept into the ground, but dammit, it needs to be said!

I also will most likely have to shell out some cash to upgrade my music converter, so it can handle songs over 2 minutes long. Funny thing is, I have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM doing that. Investing a few bucks into my career is something that just has to be done. I have just been putting it off for a month or so (just because I am lazy!), but I really need this particular piece for one of the final cut-scenes. In fact, off the top of my head, I need about 5 more tracks. I am sure there are more, but my brain is fried...

When I start to release new info, and people start to remember who the hell I am, I will hopefully be able to get some more testers. I feel bad that the current BETA testers have been through the