So, it was with great joy that I began working on a new one between Challseus & Aramus.  In fact, I have pushed back the release date of the ALPHA so that I can at least get this one new ability in, so that the testers at least have some new skill to play with.  As you all know, I can't just create some generic ability.  Nope!  I have do get my hands dirty and come up with some slick scripting:)  I already know what needs to be done, so perhaps I can get that done tomorrow on the train tomorrow.  The biggest issue actually will be creating the special effects.  After this one, I will think about moving on to creating a new one between him and Clopon.  I emphasize think, because I don't want to leave the testers hanging that long...

If I give it to them now, I would first have to make another play through, to make sure everything is in working order.  A year ago, this would be annoying, but since I have cut-scene skipping this year, it is so much easier (sorry that I keep talking about cut-scene skipping, but since this is everyone's biggest complaint with The Coming, I am so happy to have it working).  I will probably end up just giving it to the testers now, and moving on.  We'll see...

I have to say, I am really happy I got the cut-scene skipping implemented.  Testing is a cinch now that I don't have to sit through every cut-scene.  Don't get me wrong, I think they're great (hell, I should since I made them:)), but after 40+ times, they begin to get old.  Tomorrow, I will begin to go through the various pages of notes I have, and make fixes.

Till tomorrow...

So, now that I am done with this current iteration of building, I am going to go back into polish mode.  A bunch of bugs (about 18) have been piling up over at the forum, and I really need to address them.  They are not major, but they still need to be addressed. 

Here's a little interesting thing however.  I know it takes me about 3-4 hours to complete The Coming, and I made the damn thing, so I obviously know where everything is, and don't take the time to read the dialog, etc.  The ALPHA is currently running about 5 hours (most testers said it took them 4 hours, and I added at least another 1-2 hours of content in the past couple of weeks).  So, this is GREAT, because there is a lot more to come.  So, in short, my promise about making Cry The Beloved longer than The Coming looks like it is coming true!

Till tomorrow...

Okay, back to business.  So, as you may or may not know, I went through The Coming over the weekend.  Lets just say that I had a very good time:)  So, besides looking for things wrong, I was also trying to get a feel for what was magical in The Coming.  I wanted to know what made it special, so I could easily transfer it to Cry The Beloved.  In all actuality, the part I had the most fun with was the combat.  I guess it makes sense, because the core of development went towards that part.  For example, it was very fun to be fighting in North Shinkara Forest, where those goblins could activate a Last Resort and kill you quite fast.  I almost forgot about the Rose Of Courage (this will entice enemies to attack Aramus), but once I remembered, I loved the strategy of using it.  I am not sure why, but it seems like combat with 2 party members was more interesting than with 3.  That might be due to the fact that once meet Challseus, you would have already gotten your 1st Last Resort, as well as some other items, making the combat a bit easier.  I guess what I am trying to say through this rambling is, I want to have that same feeling when I play Cry The Beloved.  It's almost there, but I will definitely have to tweak the current monsters I have created, possibly making them tougher (unless my ALPHA testers tell me the game is already tough enough:)).  

The point in development I am at right now is going to be quite interesting to say the least.  I have more or less finished up the placeholder dialog, as well as a short intro cut-scene.  Once I implement the skipping functionality for all of the cut-scenes I have created over the past week, I will begin the creation of a new area, as well as a host of new/old enemies.  I also have to come up with a new Unison Ability for Aramus/Clopon, Aramus/Challseus, etc.  I don't want to ruin too much, but lets just say this new area will add a sense of replayability to the game, and that is always good.  In essence, this sequence has been a long time coming...

On the forum front, things have slowed down a bit, but it makes sense, as no one really has many new bugs to report.   New ideas continue to be developed however, and I imagine once I get the new ALPHA out, things will pick up again.  Well, off to sleep now.  I am responsible for pushing out new server code tomorrow morning, so I have to be up very early:(

Anyways, I did not get that much development on Cry The Beloved, as I decided to just take a day for myself.  Instead, I watched some of the playoffs, and about 3 episodes of 24.  Besides that, I didn't do much.  I am now going to go to sleep a bit earlier, so I can feel refreshed for the week.

The next thing on my plate is implementing some new Unison Abilities for Aramus/Clopon, Aramus/Challseus, etc.  This definitely long overdue, and I have to take extra care with it.  I don't want anything overpowering, yet the player has to feel cool when they get it to work.  Again, another one of those fine lines I have to walk carefully...I have had some ideas in my head for the past couple of months now, but I got some really good suggestions from some posts at the Cry The Beloved forum, which I think I will implement.

Speaking of which, things are going pretty well there.  A lot of bugs have been documented there, and it will be so much easier to check back there for other bugs when I go into polishing mode again (hopefully, in 2 weeks).  One particular part that I like is the Character Development forum.  Here, everyone can debate about the story, life, and future of various characters from Rose Of Eternity, such as Castias, Kain, or Adelas.  I already have some foundation stories, but it always hopes to get other perspectives.  In and all, I am glad it was set-up.  It may not get all of the traffic in the world, but it's all good:)

Well, I'm off to do something I didn't think I would do for a LONG time...Replay The Coming...There are 3 reasons I am about to do this.  One is, see if the current party member AI issues I am getting exist in it.  That will tell me something broke when I updated to 1.66 (yeah, it was that long ago I played it).  The 2nd reason is because I want a fresh Aramus, exported from The Coming, which has everything.  I want to be able to balance Cry The Beloved using the best possible character that would be available, and then work my way down from there.  The 3rd is quite simple.  I want to remember what annoyed me about The Coming, and make sure I don't repeat it in Cry The Beloved (and I am not talking about inescapable cut-scenes:))

Once I got back home, after checking some work e-mail, and checking with my boss what I was supposed to do, I did some coding for a project I worked on 3-4 weeks ago.  Once I was finished with that, I really didn't have anything else to do, so I began to work on the game again.  After a couple of hours, I had to stop again for about 40 minutes to call into work for a conference.  After the conference call, I of course went back to developing.

Everything at the new forum is coming along very good as well.  There have been so many posts, it is difficult to sift through them.  I tried my best to answer as many questions today, but I know that I am going to have to take at least 2-3 hours tomorrow morning to answer everything.

For the past few months, every 10-15 votes I receive, I get a vote of 5 or less from people that attempted to play a module that obviously was not something they should have tried.  I just don't know what to do, except find ways to stop giving a damn...

Actually, I am starting to understand how famed module author Rick Burton feels.  Since his modules are so beloved by so many people, he endured so many low votes from people expecting too much, or just trying to bring him down.  At one point, he essentially said "screw the community", and stopped posting for a while (this was before he got hired by Bioware).  I am not comparing myself to him in anyway, but mentally, I feel like I can really understand how he felt.

I wish it could just roll off my shoulder, like some other module authors (whose name will remain anonymous), but it is just so damn hard. There is no logical reason why I should be pissed at these votes...I...just have nothing to say anymore...Perhaps this will give me the reason to really strive to stop caring what people think.  Once I get like that, my NWN life should be easier for me...

Till tomorrrow...

On the train ride into work, I created the boss fight, and interestingly enough, it just worked, with no problems:)  On the train ride home, I began to work on the next area.  I have successfully added a new custom track for this area, as well as some nifty CEP placeables that will make the area seem more authentic.

I was thinking about it the other night.  I have around 7800 downloads...My module, as you all know, requires a pre-made character, and is not a typical NWN module.  Yeah, yeah, we all know that.  I just sometimes wonder how many more downloads I would have gotten if people were able to create ANY class/race they wanted to.  I wonder how many more I would get it is was set in the Forgotten Realms.  Now, I am not about to change what I am doing, but I just sit back and wonder about it sometimes...

Finally, as a funny aside, not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but in New York, McDonald's is having a promotion till the end of January, where you can get a 6 piece Chicken McNugget for $1.  I work with a lot of people who will go anywhere when there is a sale.  So, about 5 of us walk down 7th Avenue towards a McDonald's, and the place is packed like hell.  Anyway, once in line, someone asked me what I was going to get, and I said "I'm getting 3 six piece McNuggets, why else would I be here?".  Then, some lady in front of me turned around and said that was her reason to.  Then, someone said the offer wasn't good in Manhattan.  So, about 8 of us (not my friends, just strangers who wanted their damn Chicken McNuggets) asked the manager, and they said the deal doesn't start until Wednesday, even though all commercials said it started on Tuesday.  At any rate, once that info got out, I thought there was going to be a riot.  You know how it is when you get a mob of people with similar feelings towards something?  That mob mentality thing?  Well, I was in it.  I thought they were going to hop over the counters and just steal as many Chicken McNuggets as they could find:)  It was crazy.  People were yelling, and eventually, about 75% of the people left, saying they were going to Burger King.

So, did I get mad at the manager you ask?  Hell no...Know why?  I worked at McDonald's for 4 years.  In fact, it was my very 1st job when I was only 15 years old.  So, I can definitely relate.  Not sure why I am about to write this down, but I guess talking about McDonald's is making me reminisce.  When I graduated from High School, I had a scholarship to a college up north from me.  I turned it down, to become a manager at McDonald's.  At the time, I was thinking, "Wow, a real manager.  I can put this on my resume".  I know better now...And that is all I have to say about that...

So, I did not get that much done development wise today.  I mean, I did create the blueprint for a new creature, but I did not actually test fighting them yet.  Once I do have this enemy completed, I will be able to move on with the new area I am creating, and get on to the next story portion of the game.  In fact, I designed the boss 4 days ago, so all in all, things seem to be moving quite quick, as expected.

As of now, this forum is only open to whoever is working on Cry The Beloved, but I hope to have other categories that anyone can post in.  An example of this would be making the Brainstorming category public, so everyone could have a say in it.  I think that it will be quiet for a while, but once more people start posting, activity might pick up.  I am really trying to make this a community effort, so it would be very cool if this forum thing really works out.  In fact, hopefully tomorrow, I can spend some time creating some more topics that people can post in.

So, now that I am a finalist, I have to prepare for my trip to San Jose, California.  If you want to know all the details, just read the link I posted in the 1st paragraph.  Essentially, I will have to demo the module in front of people at a booth for 2-3 days.  The funny thing is, my company (Zingy) will be at the conference as well.  What a weird coincidence that I have been begging my company to send me, and now I have a reason to go.  It would be cool if I even had a booth next to my company's:)  Anyways, showing the game should be easy.  I can just start off with the trailer, and then have some pre-saved games of certain areas where they people can see the combat in the game, most likely in North Shinkara Forest.  I can even use this time to premier Cry The Beloved:) 

So, what I am about to say will probably shock 95% of you...I will NOT be that upset if I don't win the competition.  I am looking deeper into things.  By this time, everyone knows I want a job in the game industry.  Well, I will be SURROUNDED by people from the industry the entire time I will be there.  This will be my chance to do meet and greets with them, explain to them my passion for video games, and see what they can do for me.  So, in other words, this is just another opportunity to get my name out in the public eye.  I have to strike while the iron's hot, and this is the time.  I will have to do a lot of research on all of the important people that will be there, and see how I can approach them.  Yes, I will be that annoying guy running everywhere with my laptop:)  I am literally willing to do anything, and that includes annoying the hell out of people:)  Now, I know there are a lot of skeptics out there that say the chances are slim to none, and that I shouldn't waste my time.  Well, they are right about one thing...The chances are slim to none.  However, my feeling is, you will never get anywhere in life by sitting back and thinking everything is impossible. 

You know, it's funny.  I was just talking to both my Father & Mother, and they were telling me how they used to worry about me as a kid because all I did was play Nintendo.  Kids used to tease me in school because all I ever talked about was video games.  I had every issue of Nintendo Power, and knew all of the secrets to every game, including the infamous Konami code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start).  I actually came up with my own designs for bosses for the Mega Man series.  I brought my Super Nintendo EVERYWHERE I went, including to my grandparents apartment in Brooklyn, New York,  and my other grandparent's house in Chicago, Illinois.  I used to hum the music to Final Fantasy 4 & Actraiser while I studied.  I daydreamed about the opera scene of Final Fantasy 6 while in church.  I skipped football practice and had to run for 30 minutes straight, just so I could be the 1st one to get a Nintendo 64 along with Mario 64.  I drove around for 5 hours and went to over 16 stores with my co-writer, Brian Rhodes just to be able to get a copy of The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time.  I mentally developed what would become Rose Of Eternity for 7 long years.  And you know what?  I am DAMN PROUD OF IT!  I would never be where I am today if it wasn't for my prior actions that some would have classified "uncool" back in my high school days.  Sitting back, reflecting about all of this really makes me feel good.  They are such great memories, and hopefully, 18 years from now, I will look upon this period of my life the same way...

At any rate, there are other things that my tracking software tracks, such as keywords people search for.  I always look at these, but when I was checking them this morning, I noticed one that made me laugh out loud.  It was, "Toman how to cook fish".  At first, I had no idea what it meant.  Then, a light bulb went off in my head.  As some of you may know, in The Coming, there is a quest where a man asks you to get some food from his wife.  When you give him the fish, he complains about it not being cooked.  So, apparantly, whoever was on the site did a search for how to cook the fish:)  Yeah, yeah, I know, it isn't a big deal to anyone else, but it just makes me smile to find out people are coming here looking for other ways to complete quests in this game.  It almost makes me want to go back and add that option.  If I have an extra hour, I might just do that...

Another thing that I never really talked about was the traffic that the other parts of the website receive.  Now, I only really used to look at how many visits I received a day, and I always assumed that every visitor was more or less coming to this updates page.  After checking the numbers however, I can see that people still go to the other pages of the website, almost as much as they come here.  For instance, people are still going to the Last Resort, Unison Ability, & Cast pages a lot.  And I mean a lot.  Another page that gets a lot of hits that is no surprise to me are the walkthrough pages for both Aramus & Challseus.  Anyway, my point for bringing it up is, I feel that I should make some more updates to these pages, as people still go to them.  What I have had in mind for a while is to update the Custom Items page with every item in the game.  On the Last Resorts page, I would list every last resort, along with who can perform them, and what they do.  In general, this website would transform into a full fledged strategy guide.  Especially since I know everything that is going to be in Cry The Beloved, people may become overwhelmed with everything in the game.  This of course is still a little brain child of mine, but perhaps I can find time to slowly do this on breaks at work...

I will try to knock out as much as possible, because I expect to be dealing with A LOT of e-mails over the weekend, concerning the ALPHA.  I have to say, now that I have others helping me with Rose Of Eternity, I could easily spend up to 4 hours just sifting through e-mails and such.  It is a very ambitious task of trying to coordinate everything, and I know I am not perfect.  I know there are things that could be done more efficiently.  This is all a learning process, and I am very blessed that the people I have been working with are ALL accepting of this fact.  Many thanks to all of them:)

With this new ALPHA, first and foremost, the testers will see 95% of the bugs that they reported fixed, as well as a whole bunch that I discovered, but never said anything about.  They will also get to play with a few new areas, see more of the story unfold, and a lot of other small tidbits that I will not disclose at this time (and hopefully, the testers will not leak anything out as well:) ).  I am really looking forward to their feedback, especially with how I am treating the intertwining stories.  As weird as this sounds, I also can't wait to get all of the bugs.  Now, there will always be bugs during development, but the fact that I have been able to have a good group of people finding them has really been a godsend.  If I ever get a development studio of my own, I know where to go to fill out my QA department:)

In general, I am going to have to start coming up with some new things to talk about, because from this point on, it seems like everything is a big spoiler:(  Hell, I am even running out of screenshots to post...

Till tomorrow...

Essentially, after running through the ALPHA, I found yet another bunch of things I wanted to change.  Some people may look at it as being picky, but the ALPHA testers have been very meticulous in finding errors (THAT IS A GOOD THING BY THE WAY!), so I just want to take care of as much stuff as possible.  Towards the end of the night, I decided to take a break, and watch an episode of 24 (I have the DVD and love it).

After I release the next version of the ALPHA, I will yet again move on to the next area.  In general, I am quite pleased with how things have been progressing.

So, I did have one moment today where I wasn't sure how to proceed.  I have many functions that run at the end of my cut-scenes, that aren't canceled out by using the cut-scene skipping functions of Gestalt's Cut scene Package.  There is nothing wrong with his package, but I was just doing things that aren't conventional.  At any rate, once I figured out how to proceed, it was smooth sailing...Sort of...

Again, on the train ride home, I stayed awake the entire to develop.  I am proud to say I successfully fixed all of the bugs/issues I had found earlier this week.

When I got to work, I tried not to call too much attention to myself.  I just wanted to sit down, and sift through various e-mails, and in general, not get any new work:)  Well, after about 30 minutes, a worker from the QA department comes over to me and says, "Welcome back Leonard.  I gave you 30 minutes to get situated, and now, I have lots of questions for you..."

So, even though development has been coming along quite well, in the honor of the new year, I need to do some re-structuring to better streamline things.  

GET TO SLEEP EARLY

By following the previous goal, I would have gotten to work before 9:00 am, allowing me to leave at 5:00 pm.  If I can do this, I will get home at 7:45 pm.  This gives me more time to unwind before getting to sleep early.

ONLY DO TRIVIAL TASKS ON THE TRAIN

This is quite simple.  I should stay away from large tasks that could possibly take over 4 hours.  An example of this would be when I was refactoring my summons code.  That sucker took like 4 days on the train!  No more of that I tell you...I will leave stuff like that to be done on the weekends when I can devote more long term time to it.  An example of a smaller task to do would be adding placeables to an area, or fixing typos.

DEVELOP MORE ON TRAIN, AND LESS AT HOME

As the title suggests, I need to do more on the train, and less at home during the week.  When I am on the train, I don't have any of the distractions I would have at home, such as the History Channel, NWVault, or the internet in general.  Following goal #1 (Getting to sleep early), I should be able to stay awake of the train, allowing me to achieve my goal.

KNOW WHEN TO QUIT

This last point is definitely the most important.  I need to know when I am doing too much.  Sometimes, I think I can do it all, but when I think about it, I have been developing Rose Of Eternity as a whole for NWN for over 20 months.  That is a long time to have something in your every waking thought.  In short, it is stressful as hell.  And anyone who was following my updates in the early part of December know the toll it took on me.  As many have pointed out in their e-mails to me, I need to stay alive in order to get Cry The Beloved out:)  I just need to stop pushing myself too much.

Seriously though, I truly wish I could do this for a living.  It's not that I don't like my job.  I really do like it when I am there, but the commute annoys the hell out of me, and in general, it was nice to not have to wake up early every morning.  I know that come Thursday, I will have to face the realities of life again, but for the past 2 and a half weeks, it was great!

Till tomorrow...

The end result was quite good.  I'm not sure how I came up with it, but I am very pleased.  In the process, I also ended up creating a new custom item.  So, even though I may have pissed off players in The Coming, I think they will be pleasantly surprised for having so much patience.

I didn't get to mess around with any new custom monsters today, but tomorrow, I will definitely focus on playing through the module, and making sure there are no show stopping bugs.  Have to have that ALPHA ready:)

So, usually, at the beginning of them month, I reflect on what happened the previous month, and what I plan to do in the coming month.  Well, as you can imagine, I will be sticking with the same theme.  Just replace the term month with year:)

***Warning*** This could get long, so for those that just want to know what I did today, scroll down to see you see the appropriate title.

Funny thing is, The Coming was delayed more times than I am willing to say.  I never actually posted anything on any forum giving a specific date, but mentally, I have many release dates for it, that I never obtained.  In fact, I was really close to releasing it in May, but then I went through a period of not thinking it was good enough, which pushed the release date back to the current one (July 6, 2005).

I remember the weekend I released it, I was in Baltimore for a bachelor party for one of my best friends.  Even though I was happy to be around all of my close friends from elementary and middle school, in the back of my head, all thought centered on Rose Of Eternity:)  At one point, I was getting yelled at left and right because I was spending too much time at the main download page, instead of actually hanging out with them.  Thankfully, a community member by the name of DaNippers fielded the majority of the questions, as he was one of the 1st to download it, and go through it multiple times.  Many thanks to him again.

So, the very 1st month was very good in my opinion.  I got tons of downloads, tons of votes, and A LOT of feedback.  Because of the way The Coming was being received, I immediately began to work on Cry The Beloved.  Some say it was a crazy decision, and that I should have given myself more time, but I have to admit...I was addicted to building, and making my long time dream come true...

After about a month into building, I decided to put up the Job Opportunities page, and was totally flabbergasted at the amount of e-mails that I received from people.  I never actually thought people would put in THEIR free time to help me with my dream.  It is a testament to the greatness of the NWN community.  The state of Cry The Beloved could never be where it is now, without the help of everyone.

I often just sit back and reflect on how things have gone from April 16th, 1999 to today.  Just a little vision in the head of myself and co-conspirator Brian Rhodes turned out to be this.  You know what sparked the idea of Rose Of Eternity?  One night, myself and Brian were sitting on a cliff called Khal Rock.  It was the local hangout for everyone.  Right in front of Khal Rock was the Hudson River, which flows from the north of New York all the way to New York City.  There are countless bridges up and down the river, but we were looking at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt bridge.  Then, out of no where, Brian says what I will never forget: "Hey Leonard.  Wouldn't it be cool if in the beginning of some RPG, they were building a bridge.  And, if you actually sat there for many game days, the bridge was actually built?"  At the time, the concept seemed very cool.  Then, we started talking about who could be building the bridge.  Then, and I still don't know how I came up with it, I thought of the name, Defenders Of Legacy.  We now how the bad guys:)  So, we needed some protagonists of some sort.  I will now share some notes I jotted down, straight out of my original notebook.  Now laughing please:)

4/16/99 - When walking though first forest with Hero, masked woman, and wizard, run into many ambushes with enemies.

4/17/99 - In the beginning, credits roll as you're kicked out of beginning village.

4/18/99 - Main 20 year war occurs between Defenders Of Legacy and some other group (note to self, come up with name of other group...).

4/25/99 - "The Coming" - Clopon's Mentor: He is murdered by a lieutenant of the Defenders Of Legacy for preaching about the inevitable fall of them. He is really good friends with wizard (note to self, must eventually come up with name of wizard...).

4/25/99 - "The Coming" - Wizard: He is met in a forest. You find out that the Defenders Of Legacy want to get him also. He speaks of Clopon's mentor and she tells him the bad news. He and Clopon vow to kill the mysterious "lieutenant" of the Defenders Of Legacy.

5/3/99 - "The Coming" - When Clopon and Main Hero meet Wizard, a fight breaks out at his house with some Defenders Of Legacy.

5/3/99 - "Rose Of Eternity" - Source of all life for entire planet. Widely known that when the last petal falls off, world comes to an end. When world is prosperous, and filled with good people, the rose blooms.  When opposite, it starts to wilt. In beginning of trilogy, rose is already wilting. "The prophecy of time" is when someone brings the peace to the world.

...Yeah...Stop laughing now...So, note that I left out the notes that would give spoilers, as there were a lot.  Anyway, as you can tell, I hadn't come up with a name for Aramus, Challseus, or Kain.  Looking back at these notes, they seem very cryptic, and would only really make sense to anyone who knew about the Rose Of Eternity.  Some things that I wrote about 6 and a half years ago actually made it into the 1st game.  Some didn't.  It is still a pleasant trip down memory lane to read through these.  Perhaps I will continue to post some of my old notes this week...

Now that I am done looking into the past, I need to look ahead to the future.  This year has the potential to be better than 2005.  By all means, Cry The Beloved is a better game than The Coming.  It may not get as high a rating, or as many downloads/votes, but I know it is better.  The only concern is, getting it done in a timely fashion.  I know that the population of the NWN community is declining.  I know it will get a bit of a spark right before NWN2 comes out, but for all intensive purposes, it will never be the way it was.  That said, I really need to get it out to reach as many people as possible.  Yet, I don't want to rush it so much that the quality goes down.  It is a weird predicament, but I will just have to grit my teeth and get through it.  Here's to a wonderful 2006! (raises glass of wine in virtual toast).

UPDATES - Actual Stuff People Come To This Page For :) 

What did I accomplish today?  More and more conversations.  If I could go back and design things differently, I wouldn't have had so many damn characters in the game:)  Well, it isn't that bad.  Once I finish it up, I will be moving on the the next combat area for the game.  This is where my talents truly shine (in my opinion), and I always have fun building them, so I can't wait.  Lately, it has been very hard to actually talk about what I did without giving away any spoilers.  In the 1st months of these daily updates, I could freely talk about the work on Dematol, because everyone knew that is where Cry The Beloved starts off.  Now, things are getting harder.  

As far as the new enemies, I have had about 5 new ideas bouncing around in my head, and I haven't actually settled on any one yet.  Hmm, maybe I can just use all 5 ideas:)  3 of them I know without a doubt I could implement.  The other 2 I am not e