BigRob

Thanks Eleima, I like to make sure I finish what I start, especially if I've promised other people, so I'll try and make sure he's done, I think the trick will be making sure that it's within a decade!

Thanks for the votes of confidence. I hope when he's done he lives up to the expectations.

Sadly, it has been seven years, hopefully I can keep that from ticking over into eight, at least in terms of writing completion. As to the list of what's done and not done, it's not much different from the previous update, but it would be here now: Finished: Main Romance Track Aklon Flirting PC Flirting Player Initiated Dialogues (romance and non romance) Banters, interactions, NPC romances and conflicts: Aerie, Anomen, Cernd, Edwin, Haer'Dalis, Imoen, most of Jaheira. Left to go: Friendship Track (partially completed) Banters, interactions, NPC romances and conflicts: a few of Jaheira's, Jan, Keldorn, Korgan, Mazzy, Minsc, Nalia, Valygar, Viconia, Yoshimo, the PC. Quests (planned, but not written) Interjections into in-game events (planned, but not written) Coding (somewhat started, thanks to some generous help from Berelinde)

Wow, has it really been over a year and a half since I put something up here? My apologies to everyone still around, I really have no idea what happened to 2011, it just seems to have disappeared from my mind (and my writing, it seems). But I'm here to let you know about what progress has been made, so here we go. Good news, there has been some, bad news, not as much as I (and presumably you) would have hoped. Jaheira's talks are nearly done now, just a few more to go before I move on to Jan. And to give you some idea of what I've done, Jaheira talks a fair bit with Aklon, and I've got 21 talks and banters with her completed, for a bit over 30 pages of dialogue. You won't see all of it in any given playthrough, because a fair chunk of it is conditional, so depending on what you do, you won't get everything. I'll do my best to get her completed by the end of January so there'll be a new progress post in less that a stellar orbit this time.

Since you asked so nicely...

Other than a bit of further edging forward, sadly, not much. I have a conference coming up in a few weeks, which should actually give me a cahnce to make some god headway. Having long traveling time and deliberately leaving other work behind does give me a chance to do quite a bit of writing one way or another.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid it won't be soon. I'm edging forward faster than I was, but he's still a ways off, unfortunately.

Though I hate to give dates, since every one I've given has been passed over, I'm hoping to get the bulk of the SoA writing done this year, and hopefully make a start on the coding around then too. I've managed to be doing a bit more writing of late, and if I keep it up, I should be able to get at least close to reaching that goal, as there really isn't that much more to go.

Yes, I have been making a bit of quiet progress in the background. I'm still working on Aklon's interactions with Jaheira, of which there's currently 15. I should be done with them hopefully shortly, then I can move onto banters and interactions for other NPCs. There should be generally fewer of those to do, Jaheira's one of those Aklon has a lot to talk about with.

I definitely plan to finish Aklon all the way to ToB. I already have the broad sweep of the plot and romance planned out for ToB, and the main ending points decided on. The real thing is time, as it's always been, unfortunately.

Hi Aryene, thanks for hanging on so long, I'm going to keep on working and I'll get him done someday. One of the things that tends to happen with my real-life schedules is that I drift in and out of activity, but if you're still willing to do the voicing for Aklon's sister, then I'd be very happy to have you aboard for that, when I get up to that stage (and the uncertainty over that time is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to talk about this stuff very much). As for remakes of the portraits, I thought the first ones you did were pretty good, but if you can improve on them further, then please feel free.

I've always found letting the characters evolve from SoA helps in that regard, since for the most part you've got spell, weapon and other equipment combos already sorted out, since what works in SoA usually works in ToB. We seems to be a little split on opinion here. I'll aim towards getting at least the SoA portion to alpha level first, but I have been doing some parallel development, doing the occasional bit of writing or idea making that ends up in ToB (and there are some incidents in SoA I'm hoping to have impact in ToB), so hopefully the ToB portion should be finished and entering alpha as I get the SoA into some kind of testable/playable condition.

I was going to suggest some of the already mentioned romanceable males the other day (actually thought I did, but I guess my browser's issues were more terminal that day than I thought), but obviously I was beaten to it. I'd originally intended to release him all in one go, SoA and ToB portions together though possibly as separate packages to allow just one to be installed at a time. Given my writing speed though, I'm debating whether or not to get Aklon's SoA portion done and released before moving onto working on the ToB portion and his epilogues. Is there a general preference?

Thanks Psionica, I hope I won't disappoint when I finally get him finished. I've been having a bit more time to work on him of late, so there should be some progress to report soon.

I like the use of the red coloration for weapon hilts and wrapping, it's obvious and makes sense that a better crafted weapon may have some embellishment.

Thanks Lilyan and Prestal for sticking around and supporting me! I've been making a bit of writing progress in the last few weeks and hope to have some interesting stuff ot mention in the progress thread soon.

Thanks for the encouragement Freyka. It's nice to know there are still people interested even after all the time I've taken just getting to where I am. I'll keep typing away and have Aklon ready to go into your party as soon as I can.

Thanks very much Parasol, I'll try my best to ensure that the wait isn't too long. I've been sayiong that for years now, but I'll still do my best!

Thanks very much Guest, I'll do my best to get AKlon out in some kind of reasonable timeframe! In temrs of release style, Huzzhfortimelines, I was hoping to do a combined release for SoA and ToB, though given the time taken to get this far, a release of SoA first may be in order, then the paired version.

Welcome aboard, Nightwoe, hopefully you and everyone else won't have too long to wait. Molly, I'll not be releasing an official Beta, since once I get it to that stage, I'll be trying to get testing done to do the full release as soon as possible. I'm a bit leery of releasing something to people when I haven't got most potential gamebreaking bugs sorted out first and disappointing them.

At a conservative guess, I've got 70% of SoA done and 5-10% of ToB done. Some of the material I have left for SoA should write a bit faster because I have the plots already worked out in my head, but a big chunk of what's eft for SoA is banters, which do come out more slowly while I play around with the ideas and make something coherent come out the other end.

No, not at all. I actually managed to get some more writing done this week, though I do need to sit down and do a lot more if I want to get at least SoA finished this year, as I hope to. That's cold comfort for all you you still waiting so patiently, I'm afraid. With work winding back to something more reasonable now, I hope to have more to show for all of you soon.

Is that dialog.tlk or dialect.tlk? And what are you trying to do, install BG1NPC, download BG1NPC or download the game from where you bought it?

Well, it's more I could do with some help with work and other things. Sadly my time has been particualrly constrained by real life in the last couple of years, and hindsight being 20/20, I really should have been writing more when I had the free time to do so. I'll keep plowing on though, don't worry about that.

Thanks for the encouragement, I'm grateful that people are still waiting patiently on this. I've been able to get a little writing done since the move, but not all that much. Work has decided to stick its oar in as well, so my time has been somewhat limited. I'll keep going though, and hopefully should have some more extensive progress to report soon.