JPS

Just a quick note to let you know I'm still alive. (that's strange. I get the distinct feeling I've written those very words before...) I was going to write a really nice explanation, involving run-on sentences, secondary characters (and several parentheses), but I finally realized that it would have taken a couple of weeks and that you'd probably prefer if I just showed up again instead. So I did. Nice to see you all again.

Quick update: I've been bogged down by other, completely unrelated problems, but things are starting to look better. I'm writing again, and will try to be visile here more often. Unfortunately, I might have problems with my net access for a while. The ISP says that they'll have everything working "within a week", but like most ISPs they're evil lying bastards who should not be trusted. See you.

Good point. The idea has always been that the quests should be possible to play through without doing the rest of the romance, but I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean that the coding will be neatly self-contained as well. There will at least be some additional conversations for PCs who are romancing Haer'Dalis. I don't know exactly how complicated that will be, coding-wise, but then again I don't exactly know how complicated anything will be. I guess it's about time I buckle up and learn some coding...

All right. I've had a bit less time, and a bit more guilt, than I expected, but it's getting better now. I'm going to try to finish the two quests first and then move on to the romance itself. The plan is that the momentum and general sense of accomplishment I manage to build up by actually completing something will be enough to get me through the rest without losing steam. Let's see how it works out. The quests will be an integrated part of the romance, but they're also meant to work on their own, so they could theoretically be released, or at least completed and thoroughly tested, while I'm still working on the rest. No estimated time of completion for anything yet, I'm afraid, but be assured that things are happening. Thank you and good night.

All right. I reinstalled Baldur's Gate II today, for about the 75th time, and expect to actually have some free time later this week (or at least time that I can spend on non-university stuff without feeling too guilty. Guilt-free time, perhaps?). Expect... something. These announcements are just getting better and better, aren't they?

A progress report: The writing is going well, all things considered. I'm working a lot more slowly than I would like, but that's nothing new. Also, it seems like I end up neglecting the forum pretty badly whenever I manage to catch up with the writing, so don't expect to see a lot of me until I'm done. I suppose I could make an appearance a little bit more often than once every month, though. Say, once every two weeks... I still have no particular deadline in mind, but at least I'm beginning to see the end of it now.

Well, that certainly didn't go the way I expected. I didn't quite disappear from the face of earth, but it was pretty close a couple of times. I could tell you what took so long, but it's a long and terribly dull story and I would probably not be able to resist the temptation to lie a bit to make it sound more interesting. And you wouldn't want to make me a liar, now would you? I'm sorry about not keeping you informed, even if it would only have been a bunch of "Oops, looks like I won't be back this week either". Now, I have a vague memory of something we used to do here... what was it again? Oh yeah, modding.

All right. I'm back. I might have a somewhat unstable internet connection for a while, but I finally have time to write, and will just have to post things when the connection is working. It should be very temporary anyway; the important part is that the Term that Ate my Soul is finally over.

Er... could we pretend that I said "Sunday, 5 June" instead? Thanks.

I've moved a number of posts that were not progress reports to the thread Comments on Progress Reports, in order to keep this thread unclutttered. Nothing wrong with the posts themselves, mind you, they were just in the wrong place. I've got two weeks left of this term, so as you might imagine modding hasn't been my highest priority. I'm trying to read through all of my old material again so I'll be able to start working directly once the last course ends, but apart from that there won't be any progress until Friday, 27 May.

I've gotten a little bit of editing done, and I've written some new material, but I still don't have anything that I'm ready to show anybody. I realize this is probably because of me and not because of the actual state of the material, but anyway... I'll try to keep you informed about how things are going, but I'll probably fail miserably and only show up once every other week until the end of May. After this prolonged stretch of not getting anything done because of university work I'll be back to my regular schedule of not getting anything done because I suck at getting things done (this term basically ends on May 27. After that you have my permission to bug me if I look like I'm not doing anything).

The good news: I'm not dead, and the mod isn't dead either. The bad news: I haven't really had time to do anything for the last month, or whenever I was here the last time. Everything's still in an annoying state of "almost finished, but not quite". Things are looking a little better on the real life front, though, so I should be able to get things done sooner or later. It depends on how you count. If you count the number of dialogues and so on, I'm mostly done (there are still blank lines in most of them, and some of them should probably have more branches, but I'm generally getting a feeling that I'm closer to the end than to the beginning). That doesn't really say a lot about when I will be finished, though, and that would probably be more useful to you. I don't know, but it sould be relatively soon. That's probably the best answer I can give at the moment.

My plan is working even less well than I imagined. And it was such a nice plan, too Reall life hits me pretty bad until next week, at least, so don't expect too much until then. I might be able to get something done over the weekend, but that's all. I'll let you know when things look better again.

All right, just to get this off to a good start, I didn't write a word today. I recently uninstalled BG2 to try to do a full install (which requires some annoying workarounds under Mac OSX, if someone happens to be interested), mainly bacause I had problems with one of the CDs (disk 2, if you're taking notes). Well, it turned out to be a bit difficult to install the game without one of the disks, too... I'm basically just filling out the blanks at this stage, so I can write just fine without having the game installed, but I've just wasted a day on this, so I'm a little bit annoyed at the moment. If all goes well, I'll actually get around to doing something tomorrow... Oh, and do I win a price for modding a game that I don't even have a working copy of? You know, for devotion, or something. Umm... with my track record, I should probably settle for "something".

So far, my "write something every day" experiment hasn't really worked out, so I'll try another approach: Starting tomorrow, I will finish and post one dialogue every day until I'm done. I'll start with the core lovetalks, and then I'll move on to quests, flirts and other secondary material. It's about time we get to see some results here. Wish me luck...

Yeah, it's definitely time for an update. I was planning to use the holidays for writing, but as it turned out I spent most of the time on going through the material, re-evaluating the plot, and generally making a fuss about things that were working out pretty well as they were. I'm alright now, though. That means that I'm pretty much at the same point as I was before Christmas, as far as the amount of written material goes. I suppose that this whole reevaluation business counts as work as well, but it was work that I hadn't planned. But on the other hand, I had planned to be finished six moths ago, so I should have learned what my plans are worth by now... One of the things I looked over was my working schedule, however, and I think I'll be using my time more effectively from now on. Instead of only writing when I have a large chunk of time availiable (or only writing "when I feel like it", which I've also tried, and which led to a really good dialogue being written in June, and some serious editing being done in October), I'm trying to write something every day, no matter how small. I'll let you know how it works out.

The good news: I'd say that I'm about 75% done. For some odd reason, not writing regular progress reports and spending the time on writing mod stuff instead really seems to work... (I should probably point out that this means that I'm about 80% finished with about 90% of the dialogues, not that I'm completely finished with 75% of them. That's just the way I work, and unfortunately it means that my "not letting anyone see my unfinished work" syndrome is still getting in the way of useful things like previews and proofreading and coding. And I really owe the poor guy who offered to do voice acting an apology. ) (Oh, and to those of you who checked my numbers and noticed that 80% of 90% actually means 72% of the whole and not 75%: ) The bad news: Real life strikes again, and I probably won't get anything done for the next two weeks. At all. I'm hoping to get some serious writing done over the holidays, but don't expect to see anything happen in the way of previews, release dates or further progress reports until early next year. I was planning to be done with the SoA part by then and well into the ToB material, but this is just the way it is. Sorry about that. As always, the forum is open for comments, questions and general encouragement, but I probably won't be around a lot for the next couple of weeks. Not that I have been around much for the last two weeks either, but anyway...

My new keyboard arrived today, and I'm in the process of isolating myself from the world to write for a week or so. After that there should be a real progress report. You know, with progress and stuff. Now if I would only stop hitting F13 instead of backspace...

A small update: I've ordered a new, ergonomically correct keyboard, but until it arrives (next week, they say. I bet they're only making fun of me for all the times I have said "next week"), all of my work on this mod will be things that I can do by hand, on paper. That means the previews I've been promising for a while now will have to wait, unless you want me to scan a couple of my handwritten planning/layout pages.

In case you were wondering: No, I haven't disappeared, and I haven't been eaten by a bunch of angry vegetarians. Three years of using a laptop computer have finally caught up with me, however, and at the moment I can't type for more than five minutes at a time, which has put me a bit behind schedule. I'll go shopping for a new keyboard tomorrow, and after that I should be back to my normal writing schedule (24/7, as in "24 minutes, seven days a month" ). Thank you for your patience. (If you weren't so patient, you could... umm... start playing the mod before it's finished, or something... Or start posting bug reports before it's released )

The curse strikes again! I would say that I'll post the previews before I go to bed tonight, but then I'd probably fall asleep in front of the computer and never wake up again, so I'll just say that I'm working on it, and will post something soon.

Just a quick note: I've split this topic again to keep it uncluttered. Feel free to add new comments in the thread "Comments on 'Progress Reports'" Still working on the preview material...

Ah yes, the curse. I admit that being attacked by unspeakable horrors from another dimension every time I try to write is a minor inconvenience, but what's really bothering me is the terrible dance routine. Of Doom! And now for something completely different: an actual progress report in the progress report thread! I bet nobody was expecting that. At the moment, I'm mostly working on editing the material I already have. That would be the quests, about half of the lovetalks, some player-initiated talks and a couple of minor things (NPC reactions, some additional material for the long and dreary days after the romance has been completed). Most of these things are almost finished, except for some small annoying parts (like interjections from the other NPCs, or more choices for the player, or the beginning, or the end...). After that, I'll move on to the rest, which should be the other half of the lovetalks, some non-romance-specific things that will be availiable to all players, and as many player-initiated interactions as I can write (that includes, but is not limited to, flirts). There should be some preview material up for... umm... previewing... later this week, or as soon as I'm done editing it.