JasonNH does it again!

If you haven't been following the progress lately on the NWN2 Forums then you're in for a treat! JasonNH has uploaded a fully functional overland map system for RoU that features ship travel, buying deeds and dingys!! This system is part of the RoU Overland Map project which is attempting to recreate Britannia for use with the overland map system.

Here's a sneak peek:


You can find the thread here and download this awesome system, complete with demo mod from the prefab links to the left. Thanks JasonNH for this great work!

The Grumpy Strumpet Finished

I'm happy to say that I've finished the submission for the BouncyRock Halloween Project. Now hopefully they will be able to get everything working together in one mod. I can't imagine the headache it would be to get 30+ mods working together in a campaign.

With that finished I can turn my attention to my Realms of Ultima project: Shades of Doom. This is a smallish module based after the events of the Ultima games and the ascention of the Avatar. I'm working on the prologue now that will be mostly cutscene with a little bit of playable content. The intention is to fill the player in on all the back story and introduce the main villain.

Here's the story:

Many years have past and Britannia has survived a cataclysm caused after the
casting of the Armageddon spell and the defeat of the Guardian. Lord British has
died and magic, as it was known, has changed as well. The Age of Restoration is
at hand.

The Council of Virtue, formed after Lord British's death has entrusted the remaining Orb of the Moon as well as the eight Virtue Stones to the Lycaeum for study. Various experiments have caused moongates to open randomly throughout the universe. It is through one of these moongates that you now come, not called as the Avatar once was, but arrived none the less. Of what fate awaits, you can only guess...

Arcadion has waited many millennia for his chance to return to Britannia. Perhaps it was chance, or fate, or just dumb luck that managed his escape from Pagan, but with his freedom at hand, he was now free to search for the item of his revenge, the Shade Blade. You learn a lot about a prison from being inside its cells, and Arcadion was now armed with the knowledge that spells Britannia’s doom.

I've uploaded a couple screenies too:

Community Halloween Module Project

Bouncy Rock Entertainment has started a Community Halloween Project that I've joined. So far there are 30 module authors that have joined forces and when it's all said and done, it should be a pretty fun experience for the community.

Jaesun (THANK YOU!!) and I have been hard at work on The Grumpy Strumpet tavern as our contribution and I'll share some screenies of the work so far. The area is pretty simple and really will just have a few things to do, but it's been a fun divertion and I plan to use the tavern in Buc's Den later so it's not time wasted. I'm using some custom content available on the Vault. The majority of it is the excelent City Hak by Tupoun and the Fright Gallery by Frank Perez (a.k.a. Elysius). Both of which I have modified and will probably not use all the content so that the TGS Hak is smaller.

Storm of Zehir & Other Inspirations

Things are quieter now and I find myself inspired once again. First, the announcement of Storm of Zehir, the second expansion for NWN2 has me all excited for the really cool new content, like Dinosaurs, and snakes, and everything tropical. The addition of the Overland Map and the new Party System is really cool and offers a lot of great story options that just weren't there before.



I'm not sure if it's the heat of California or I'm secretly wanting to go hike in the mountains, but I've almost finished an area prefab for the Serpent Spine Mountains that will be part of a trail leading to Stonegate. The picture is of an ice cave that the player can find with Yetis.



As if reading my mind, ArtEChoke from the Cutom Content Forums has done work on the Uthraki model from MotB and made Yeti. Hopefully they will be released on the Vault soon.

News Snippets From Strumpets

It's been a while since I updated things do to a rather extensive move to California and then summer hitting, which turns out to be my busiest time. The month of July was nuts. I was lucky to check news, let alone open the toolset.

California
After the ridiculous process of packing my life into a truck and driving across country, I've finally settled in. I've even had the chance to do some more photography, which this area is almost perfect for.



The scorpion is a common household pest here. At least these aren't the deadly type.

Go West Young Strumpet

Well, you might have noticed a bit of a delay in news on the RoU front. There are several prefabs in the works as I type, but I am in the midst of a major move to California to take a new job. It will be a few weeks until I'm back to building, but in the meantime the other members of the team are working of various projects. News and screenshots to come soon.

New Magincia Prefab Released!

I've completed enough of the New Magincia Prefab to get it released on the Vault. I'll be updating it of course with the finished version which includes the caves, house interiors and the Gargoyle inhabitants.

For now however, you can check it out.

New Magincia Prefab Nears First Release

I have a small update about New Magincia. After getting inspired, I slammed out the second and third isles and have NM close to first release status.

The first release will be the external isles (4 total) in a 32x32 area. There is the small village of New Magincia as well as docks, a ring of stones for moongate travel, and the Shrine of Humility which is accessed via other means.

I'll be updating this of course with house interiors a small cave system and some final polish. That will be part of version 2.

Magic, critters, & wine oh my!!

It's been a couple weeks since and update, but things really haven't been sitting still. Here's the latest:

Work begins on the Realms of Ultima Gameplay System
Jason White has joined the team and started work on the RoUGS which will be a large revamp of the NWN2 magic, class and racial systems to bring them more in line with the Ultima universe. This isn't a small task and Jason is awesome for taking it on. Here's a brief summary of the changes to the classes:

Classes change to 8 core classes: Warrior, Paladin, Mage, Tinker, Druid, Ranger, Monk, and Bard. Each class would have a patron virtue and city.

Here's the breakdown:

• Warrior - Basically a merge of the Barbarian and the Fighter (one mean raging sword swinging maniac)
• Paladin - This is the Knight of the classes. Keeps all it's abilities, just no gods. (small fudge, but I can live with it. Patron Virtue is Valor.
• Mage - This is a merge of the wizard and sorcerer, using mana and reagents.
• Tinker - Basically the Rogue, but without the thief mythos. Tinkers picklocks, and know how to hide and disarm and use traps.
• Druid - Virtually unchanged except that they use mana and reagents, but access the druid spell line. No gods, just nature. This becomes the primary healer class. Perhaps move all the healer spells to the Druid line.
• Ranger - Unchanged, just use mana and reagents for ranger spells.
• Monk - Warrior of Humility, basically unchanged.
• Bard - Unchanged except uses mana and reagents for the bard spells.

A note about the Warlock - The warlock is disabled for RoU. Doesn't fit, never will. PrCs will be either disabled or changed to fit with the Ultima mythos.

RoU Custom Critters
I started to put together some custom critters for RoU prefabs and here's the result. I'll add more as time goes on, but these will be part of the RoU Starter Module available on the Vault.





Time to Make Wine!
A while ago TeLLan created a wine press model but it was not released in the proper format for NWN2. Thanks to Baron Rosencheckl from RWS we can now have our monks of Empath Abby making wine. Tavern owners rejoice!!

Merry Christmas to all from the Grumpy Strumpet!