It has been almost 8 years since actively working on my Neverwinter Nights 2 campaigns. During this time the NWN/NWN2 community has continued at neverwintervault.org and I have only periodically chimed in on the forums. However, with the completion of my HCGS and Apple II development efforts, I think it reasonable to turn an eye my never completed projects for NWN2, despite the slow decline of players and loss of many regular contributors.
By 2017 I had published two Neverwinter Nights 2 campaigns, released significant mods for the NWN2 OC and MotB, and uploaded a large number of items and scripts intended to help other NWN2 modders. I had contributed to other campaigns and had two campaigns of my own in development - Gems of Power and Farlong and Away.
Gems of Power was intended to be campaign set in Faerun that involved time travel with multiple areas being accessible in different periods of time. My thinking was that seeing the evolution of areas would be interesting to show. This required a significant amount of research and after mapping out a general plot I began building the starting areas. Then I got distracted by other efforts and it was left in that state.
The Farlong and Away campaign is also set in Faerun and takes place in 1345 DR shortly before NWN2. It details the adventuring of the Farlong brothers Duncan and Daeghun. (Read more about it here: https://bbellina.blogspot.com/2017/01/farlong-and-away-new-campaign-for-nwn2.html). Unfortunately while I did significant research, sketched out the plot, and did a little proof of concept this effort also stalled due to circumstances of life.
This year NWN2 Enhanced Edition was released, and while it is primarily focused on adding console an gamepad support, having it available in Steam means that there are new players and a new platform upon which to release mods, the Steam Workshop. So I have spent some time researching and experimenting with the Steam Workshop, migrating my content to the Steam Workshop, and also developing new items that will work better for players of NWN2 EE. This work has led to my decision to rework my first released campaign - the Silverwand Sample Campaign (SSC).
SSC was released early in the days of NWN2 and was developed even before the release of MotB. At that time most NWN2 modders had been NWN modders and continued to use the techniques they had learned using the NWN toolset. Several stand-alone modules converted from NWN had been released but not a single campaign had been released. I saw a need and decided that while learning the toolset I would intentionally develop a small multi-module campaign that could be played and also serve as an example for other NWN2 modders. I believe the Silverwand Sample Campaign was the first campaign that was released on the old IGN vault. And after doing so I had many conversations in the forums about why a campaign and not a module so that other NWN2 modders would begin to release campaigns. Many NWN2 standalone modules that were released in those days were never converted to campaigns by their authors, so I also published information on how to convert a NWN2 module to a campaign.
After all of this time though SSC is no longer a very good example of how to build a campaign. It includes many useful scripts and demonstrates many useful techniques, but it was released before SoZ and lacks the SoZ party editor and crafting capabilities. From a story perspective it also is not set in Faerun and does not fit into the NWN2 lore in any way other than to allow the young wizard Amie to be used as a companion. Enter the new campaign Taking the High Road: The Silverwand Sample Campaign Anniversary Edition (SSCAE).
SSCAE reuses some of the areas and quests from SSC for its first act but changes the setting to Faerun's Sword Coast in the year 1334 DR, years before both Farlong and Away and the NWN2 OC. The second act of SSCAE initiates the quest for the legendary Unicorn Blade, leading south to the great city of Waterdeep, and then in act 3 northward to the mysterious ruins of an ancient lich-mage's abode. All of this is compatible with the published lore of the realm and there are connections to Baldur's Gate 2, and the official campaigns of both Neverwinter Nights and the NWN2.
At this time I am developing the areas within the city of Waterdeep. Because these are based on published city maps I am unable to take advantage of existing city areas, so I expect this to take some time. I am hoping to release SSCAE before the end of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment