BigRob

There's still a bit of writing to go, unfortunately. There's the remaining banters (all NPCs bar Aerie and Anomen) as well as quests and interjects. Interjects should be quick to do, as they're just characterful one-liners, and banters should be relatively swift (without complicating factors like Aerie's romance and Anomen's conflict), so I'm hoping to get wrapped up soon. Of course I've been saying that for a long time.

Thanks everyone for your continued interest and all the encouragment. When he makes it into the light of day, I'll try to make sure he'll be worth the wait!

Real Life has unfortunately been a bit psychotic lately and not leaving me much time to write, but I have been making a little progress. I'm nearly finished the current talk I'm on, just filling in the remaining class specific methods of trying to get Aklon and Anomen to be a bit more chummy.

The remaining Aklon/Anomen talks don't feature the PC as a participant, so they'll be quicker. Then we move on to Edwin's banters.

I'll try to keep everyone a bit more informed (and, more importantly, make more progress while I'm at it).

Maybe if you pick the right ending to the conflict.

Don't worry though, PCs won't be abandoned by the pre-game slap and tickle. The Aklon-Anomen conflict has 16 talks prior to commitment, not all of which will necessarily fire. I'm hoping to engineer the talks to pop up randomly, so that there'll be a slightly different experience each time.

There'll also be between three and five post commitment talks, depending on Anomen's alignment. The Bhaalspawn is involved in several of those, which is why it's taking so long to write.

That definitely sounds like you've got some strings messed up in there. You might be able to fix it with a total uninstall of all mods, but I fear this one might need a complete game removal.

I figure you haven't seen the response in the "Comments on Progress Reports" thread, so I'll repeat here. Please don't be offended about deletion of your post, I like to keep this thread clear of comments.

So, ummmm....what's up?

But in answer to that question, I'm currently writing still more of Anomen's conflict (the 21st talk, so I've done a fair few in the intervening time) and this particular talk is going rather slowly due to a high level of player involvement in it. I'm hoping (but always say that) to get it done in the next week or so and quickly move to finish Anomen's conflict.

Sorry for the move Patty, I'm keeping the Progress reporting thread just my posts to help people find things.

But in answer to that question, I'm currently writing still more of Anomen's conflict (the 21st talk, so I've done a fair few in the intervening time) and this particular talk is going rather slowly due to a high level of player involvement in it. I'm hoping (but always say that) to get it done in the next week or so and quickly move to finish Anomen's conflict.

In principle, it would be easily possible, assuming that backstab is an ability that is not hardcoded and can be added to the CRE for a transformed druid.

Thanks for the vote (and the Rawr!) of confidence.

I've not posted any progress in a while, mostly because work is being a real pain in the unmetionables right about now. I have been writing, but it's a long talk, with a lot of PC input, so it's still not done. Hopefully the work situation will ease up a bit next week and I'll be able to write a bit more freely. I do hope to have the current talk near completion by then anyway.

And as to enslaving Aklon, that's what an evil run through the game is for, right?

And may I say, Welcome to G3, Guinevere. Thanks for choosing Aklon to make you register.

I seem to recal that the stats are needed at the start of the game, but Meira or Darios could confirm.

Ahr dunnor mush 'bout n, stuff n tings.... *hic*

But seriously, Aerie is done and Anomen is nearly done (4 talks to go as I mentioned above). The other NPCs will go much quicker, as there aren't any love/hate talks to write for them, just the banters. Jaheira will have some additional material for a friendship as will Haer'Dalis for his romance conflict with Aerie.

After that, I just have the quests and interjects to go, plus editing for some of the earlier work, then coding can begin. I know I say this an awful lot, but I'll try and keep things moving forward as quick as possible, just put the leashes away.

Thank you everyone for the encouragement and the votes of confidence, even the one at the point of a tickle doom ray. I've had a bit of a hiccup on writing in the last few days, but I'm now up to the stage of Aklon and Anomen starting their friendship (or at least not-trying-to-pickaxe-one-another-into-the-ground) talks, and there's only 4 more to go until I get that wrapped up. I'm going to try and get as much done this weekend as possible, and hopefully I'll get started on the next NPC within a week or so.

And in case no one did it already, Welcome to G3 Moogle.

Congratulations on the release! This went from "Hey did you hear about..." to "Oh, there it is" very quickly.

Another quickie while I'm here: CN Anomen is done and I've completed the first talk for LG Anomen. I've spent the last week or so planning out exactly how the friendship between the old rivals will develop (or not) and where the player can input into that. I hope to get started on the actual talks today or tomorrow.

A mini progress report- I still haven't got Anomen's conflicts finished up (sorry all, work has been pretty savage this last couple of weeks), but am currently working on the last of CN Anomen's interactions. I'll then be moving onto LG Anomen and trying to finish up on him as soon as I can. More as it happens.

I'm late to the party too, but this mod looks great so far.

 

I'm not sure if you've answered this elsewhere, what is the average content rating of Aklon? I've become spoiled by some of Domi's work (Coran Romance, IWD2 NPC Project) and have a difficult time playing through the near bleach-clean PG-13 Bioware romances anymore because they seem so dull.

 

Hoping for something geared toward us older players, but I'll still have to try Aklon out even if he is kid friendly.

Reading over the topic so far, I think Aklon will be in the area you're looking for, for reasons as summarised by irishwhiskey. Aklon was enslaved and he does have some issues, but they're things the PC can deal with, not must. For the most part, he deals with these issues entirely on his own, and generally out of sight of the player (unless they want to pry). He's got his own opinions and while he is quieter than Jaheira, he will speak his mind if he feels it necessary. I am hopeful that he will be an interesting character to have along, both for romancers and friends only PCs.

There is also some more "mature", less PG-13, content in the romance itself.

If a rawr from someone who mainly (who am I kidding, I am queen of lurkdom) lurks would be of encouragement then...RAWR!

 

This mod looks very good and I am impressed with all of the work you have put into this. Thank you!

Thank you for the kind words, the "rawr" and the delurking to do it.

RAWR!!!!

Cor, that was a loud one.

so does this mean that aklon and anomen (a+a! sorry, i notice stupid things like that), anyway, does this mean they'll be becoming friends...ish after the whole fiasco with the PC is done? sorry if you've already been over this...

Yep, the possiblity exists that Aklon and Anomen can become something like friends. Once the extra aggravation of competition over the hand of <CHARNAME> is out of the way, they will have a chance to close the rift through their mutual respect for one another as warriors. <CHARNAME> will have some input into the process, and it will depend on the outcome of Anomen's quest, but things won't be getting any worse between them.

"Rawr"s are never too late.

Thank you second wave rawrers and the cheer squad.

And a small update for everyone's trouble: Progress has not been as spectacular as I'd hoped this week, due to some serious incoming things at work, but I'm still inching forwards. I'm hoping to have Anomen's conflict complete within the next couple of days and move onto the friendlier chats between him and Aklon.

*Hrm* Yes, for a fee, gladiators can be hired for command performances, or for private... parties. *hrm*

Thank you, everyone, for that enthusiastic burst of encouragement.

I'll hopefully have a new chunk of progress to report in the next few days as some recompense for those sore throats.

As long as you've bee working on this mod is it ever going to be a reality? I mean after all I've seen post as much as 3 or so years ago

 

DragonMaster

 

Considering BigRob's been working on the project for three years and it still hasn't died, I'd say that spoke to some commitment to getting it done, wouldn't you?

Tarayani has it right, I will be finishing Aklon, but writing a large mod does take a long time. I am, however nearing the end of major writing, with only (some) banters, interjects and quests left to go. There will be some time for editing of old dialogues and coding, but then the SoA portion will be complete.

Thank you for your kind words, the interest in Aklon and the long time lurking. I'm hoping that Aklon will have more than content for predatory fangirls and be an NPC that many people enjoy and want to have along in their games.

At the same time, I certainly won't be ungratified to get a chorus of "RAWR!" shortly after release.

Hello... just a little newbie popping in to say I'm really looking forward to playing this mod. What I've seen and read about it so far sounds amazing and I'm sure it'll be a romance to rival some of the best ones out there!

Thank you for the vote of confidence, it's nice to see new people taking an interest in Aklon. I hope he'll be up to those expectations!

And thanks to everyone who's stopped in again to check on progress. Writing has been continuing since the progress report, so hang in there, I'm still trying to cut down on that wait!

Hmm, it's been two months since the last post, which might explain the request for news.

And obviously I've not been writing as fast as I thought. The good news though, is that Anomen's Conflict and resolution talks are half completed, with 10 talks written. I'm hoping to get a couple done over the weekend, and finish them off before the end of this month.

As always, more as it happens and thanks for your patience everyone.

Bondage work costs extra.

*Eyes the large stick* Well, I- *flees for cover*

Actually, it's not that bad and I'm definitely hoping to have Aklon complete before year's end. I've been writing with reasonable speed. So far, all the Anomen banters are done, and his conflict/resolution talks are about half done. With a long weekend on for me, I'm hoping to make a bit of a spurt with the writing. I'll put this up in the progress reports thread too, while I think of it.

Truly excellent work, Mrs Cake, these portraits really capture the style of NWN and the personalities of the NPCs (or at least the ones I know).

Certainly there's a large cluster of NPCs who'd take very badly to the PC arranging the assassination of a small child (the mother might be let slide by some, sue to the fact that she's a con artist). They would almost certainly leave/rebel if the player tried it.

However, a PC might also arrange for the daughter to be adopted by more stable parents, and have the mother paid off. Of course, whether or not she'd go for that is another matter, losing a convenient meal ticket and her daughter at the same time.

Hiring an assassin to kill Lanie should definitely make a paladin fall, but I would be reluctant to code that unless there are other examples where a single monstrous act results in a paladin's fall.

Probably the simpest way to test that would be to have a paladin character (with 20 rep) kill an innocent, and see what happens. Most reputation losing acts in the game is not so much really evil as slightly self centred, normally involving insisting on payment for help. I can see this as an bad, but excusable thing for a paladin to do, since they tithe heavily to their temple so they may, in effect, be insisting on a donation to their deity.

I don't think I'd complain if my ranger or paladin immediately fell for deliberately killing, or having killed, an innocent for purely selfish reasons.