CamDawg

The key to a good mod is a lot of testing, and we're asking for your help. We've put together a special alpha build for the purposes of playtesting balance and bug hunting. It's your chance to help us while getting a sneak preview of the mod.

What's included:

* NPC-Delainy banters

* Delainy's spear upgrades

* Delainy's unique howls and skills

* Delainy's three encounters

What is not:

* Love talks and romance tracks

* Interjections into existing SoA quests and banters

* Delainy's main quest

* Audio (music and voicing)

* Custom artwork

Fixing bugs and addressing balance issues are our primary goals behind the release. We're also interested in suggestions on the banters as well as rewards attached to Delainy's encounters.

The release will contain some mild spoilers and offer a preview of what will be in the full Delainy release. You will have access to a separate forum for the testing. If you're interested, please send a private message to Bri or myself.

Thanks all!

Dec 9 - CamDawg

Next major milestone passed. Fortunately I can't count and I had fewer NPCs to finish than I had thought. NPC banters are now done and weighing in around 1400 lines and 30k words, including several original poems and songs. Bri's been a busy girl!

The three mini-quests are done, though I'm still making some tweaks. I am comfortable saying the mini-quests and NPC banters have reached 'beta' stage.

Dec 7 - CamDawg

I was hoping to have the next milestone alpha out today, but I've run out of time. Spent the first part of the weekend changing my ToB install into SoA for compatibility testing since I suspected one of my spell effects was ToB-only. Confirmed and fixed.

Third party interjections are almost complete (four more NPCs to go) and the third mini-quest still needs some debugging and testing. I especially need to get this done before Bri starts burying me with love talks.

At Grim's suggestion I coded a love talk accelerator component that would decrease intervals between love talks for those that like to play BG2 quickly. "Four lines of code" suggestions are always welcome.

Dec 4 - CamDawg

New dogs can learn new tricks. Spent most of the last four days recoding a lot of existing dialogues with some shortcuts and better triggers. Now that some quest stuff is coded, some quest stuff bugs are coded as well. Spent a lot of time actively trying to break the scripts, and I've been rather successful so far.

My wife and I are big Rouroni Kenshin (aka Samurai X) fans so we've been vigorously expanding our collection. Between my b-day and Christmas we'll probably have most if not all of the collection by the end of the month. We also nabbed the expanded Fellowship of the Rings DVD, which is approximately 418 times longer than the theater version.

Nov 30 - CamDawg

New otaku DVDs kept me away from the mod for more time than I anticipated (but they were sooo good). Spent the remainder of the weekend coding quest-related goodies. The three "mini-quests" are essentially finished. Didn't get around to the third-party interjections since I needed a break from dialogue for a bit. Found and corrected some minor bugs. Delainy was a helluva pickpocket--for a wolf.

Actually managed to play a bit of SoA for fun, not related to playtesting. (Well, kinda. Delainy's in the party ) First time I've gotten to do that in a while. I'm hoping to wrap up some more items and knock out some work on the major quest before Bri starts burying me with lovetalks.

Ugh, I have to work tomorrow?

Nov 28 - CamDawg

Had a great Thanksgiving--easily my favorite holiday. Now that it's passed I can finally stop being mad at all the Christmas decorations that have been up... since Halloween. :D

Currently working on ~25-30 quest-related creatures. Coded in the finalized howls and a few items. I have an idea to fix the whole shapeshifter/disspellable paws problem and may consider adding it as a separate component to the mod if there is sufficient interest (and I can get it to work to my satisfaction).

I'm hoping to have the three mini-quests of the mod coded in by Sunday along with the final additions to the NPC banters.

Nov 26 - CamDawg

Alpha v4 completed. Passed what feels like a major milestone--coded the last of the NPC banters. All but two NPCs still need their third-party interjections added though.

Interjections, encounters and quests next on the list.

Don't worry about me, I've got plenty on my list before I catch up. Take a break and concentrate on your finals--they're more important.

Nov 24 - CamDawg

Polished off a few more NPCs worth of banters, including a massive Edwin song--definitely my fave banter so far. Added interjections and finalized two NPCs worth of banters. I have some free time over the Thanksgiving holiday; I'm hoping to get the last of the banters coded and begin work on the planned quests. Added s'more scripting, including Del's aversion to silver.

*sigh*

Of course Elvis is dead--it's his brain that's being preserved. It's being kept in a storadkfkak..&klj!@l;sad.^%$

[NO CARRIER]

Nov 20 - CamDawg

Woo hoo!

Officially passed the halfway mark with NPC banters; eight NPCs have been coded. Finalized and implemented changes to the Belladonna item. Updated to WeiDU v141, stuck it in a box and called it Alpha v3.

"Encouraged" Bri to reduce a 56-continue banter with Keldorn.

Nov 18 - CamDawg

Knocked down banters for two more NPCs. Realized that of all of the banters coded so far only one of the characters is currently in my playtesting party. I'll post a screenshot of a working banter when I get the chance.

Got tired of typing @, = and ~, so I coded s'more scripts for Delainy and worked on compatibility with Weimer's shapeshifter rebalancing. Fixed bugs in the last alpha build.

Plans are still to finish coding banters.

@Bri

Nov 16 - CamDawg

After a lazy Saturday in San Francisco, buckled down and got some work done today. Discovered the nuances, wonder, and beauty of state weighting while muttering and growling, trying to debug my dialogue files. Banters for three NPC's are coded and working, just eclipsing the 300 mark for lines of dialogue.

Nov 14 - CamDawg

I saw this on the DLTC site, and thought it might be a good way to promote the illusion that I'm working. It has the added bonus of being entertaining as well, on par with Vogon poetry.

Started making a list of stuff still left to do. Bad idea, very discouraging. Got a beer; list looks better.