Sunday, January 4, 2009

New Year, New Job, & SoS III Early Partial Beta

It has been far too long since any updates on the Sands of Solvheil series has been talked about. I am pretty close to finishing up an early partial beta that explores the first third or so of the module. With the great cutscene work done by JasonNH, I think this will be a pretty fun little peek at the adventure.

I have also decided that I will be simul-dev a few things at once. I have been spending quite a bit of time on my Isle of Sampeatos overland map, and I am pretty happy about the results. I want to start developing some of the specific areas to be used with it, but I don't want to delay Crusaders of Shalihir that much. I have already been doing enough self-admitted slacking in that area.

So enter a new year, and new opportunities. I recently switched seats at work (what can I say, the music stopped), and took over the Software Engineering program. While I may be busy ramping up the degree program and trying to secure both incoming students, as well as industry partners for class projects; I should have a bit of extra time. Time that could, I don't know, be spent with the toolset?

I mean, technically NWN2 development is pretty close to software engineering with a .NET framework, right? Riiiight. I hope to keep both projects rolling to keep from getting burnt out on either one. JasonNH has done a breathtaking job bringing some of the early conversations to life in SoSIII. I think it only fair that I do my part to finish what I started, and get this trilogy finished.

While I don't plan to continue with part IV, Chasing the Golden Dragon, I think that the story wraps itself up pretty nicely at the end of the current module. That will let me switch gears permanently and work on Isle of Sampeatos, which will be a wilderness adventure (SP or MP) that will feature multiple different levels of terrain encounters. Along with quite a bit of drop-in adventure areas that may or may not be assigned via NPC conversation within some of the more 'civilized' areas of the island.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a pity, that it would be continued. I loved these old-fashion, low-magic setting.

The first adventure where accepted the death of a NPC, without reloading to rescue the burried items.

Will "Isle of Sampeatos" be in a simular setting?

Raith Veldrin said...

Actually, I'm still working on part III. II was recently fixed in patch 1.22 (undoing the damage done by 1.21). So its back to the saltmines.

Sampeatos will the same gameworld/setting. Although I can see pushing that off until the trilogy is complete.

Design Documents: