13 replies to this topic

[FredSRichardson]

I've been working towards the first beta update with a few hitches. I can almost play through all the way to kuldahar, but I have some CRE conversion glitch that is causing an area load crashes in a few areas (currently the windmill in the area right before Kuldahar). I can always use a rule to re-map the CRE's, and I probably will anyway. But I'd like to nail down the bug. I actually think it might be another "unknown" parameter in the CRE.

[FredSRichardson]

Alright, for today's blog:

This was quite frustrating, but I did figure it out. Every time I entered the converted AR2004.ARE the game would crash. For some reason it took me forever to narrow it down to one CRE. The item slot conversion for the Orc Archer (ORCA2004.CRE) was bogus. He had a bow in weapon slot 1, his short sword was stuffed in shield slot 1, and the arrows were in weapon slot 3. Of course the original CRE is completely legit. I'm not sure how I missed this bogus conversion before without a crash.

Anyway, at least I found it. Back to the grindage ;p

[FredSRichardson]

Alright, I've made it through to Kuldahar. The arch druid was invisible when he initiated the dialog, and the Yeti's wiped out my party, so clearly there's some work to do, but up to that point things were going pretty good.

In the back of my mind I'm trying to think of an "auto-cr" way of transforming creatures from IWD1 to IWD2. It looks as though certain CRE parameters could be set consistently for different challenge ratings. Anyway, it's something to think about and it might work a bit better than the current CRE conversion (when I'm not replacing and modifying existing CRE's).

-Fred

[FredSRichardson]

Okay, I solved the invisible-talking-archdruid problem. I tried replacing the Yeti's with the ones from IWD2, but they're way too tough. I need a more balanced Yeti, so we'll see.

Aside from that, I want to try to play through the Kuldahar areas, and then see what happens in the Vale of Shadows. But for the Beta release, I'll only have up through Kuldahar working.

[FredSRichardson]

[George Hamilton as "Alfonso de la Pena" in "Once Upon a Crime"]
"Ah, the Yeti. One of life's truly misunderstood creatures. To whom no man is truly worthy."
[at the camera]
"It's what I do."

The lowest level Yeti's in IWD2 are quite powerful and (of course) so are the automatically converted ones. I'm trying to see if I can make sense of how creatures should scale. I'm trying to scale the stats that change with creatures that occur later in IWD2. This also means that I I'll keep adding adjustment fields (like SET_HP, or SET_NUM_ATTACKS), but it almost seems that I should have a complete CRE descriptor language for building up CRE's from scratch. It's a nice idea, but I'm not really willing to put that kind of effort in until I absolutely have to.

[FredSRichardson]

I'm sorry, it didn't get out this weekend.

I got bogged down with the Yeti conversion. It opens up a host of conversion problems that are going to hit sooner than later, and I have to come up with a way to deal with them now. I think a CRE spec syntax is needed which will take some work. The side of this is how to go about scaling things: there's at least one unknown parameter which appears to scale with monster CR.

[FredSRichardson]

Sorry, nothing new to report. I've been playing through IWD1 with two half-elves: a Fighter/Mage/Thief and a Cleric/Ranger. I just thought it'd be fun trying out a compact party

I don't have a good sense of what level you should be at at each stage of IWD1. I'll probably have to start again with a full party just to keep a record of this.

I have no progress to report on the Yeti issue. A custom CRE is an easy fix, but I fear the problem is going to spread rapidly as I get beyond Kuldahar. Ah wel...

[FredSRichardson]

BAM! I couldn't figure out why Arundel was invisible, but then it turned out that the BAM's for him aren't in IWD2. So, anyway, I've had them added to the key file as part of the conversion. Problem solved.

This should also take care of the Sahuagin which don't have any animation in IWD2.

-Fred

[FredSRichardson]

I have to admit that I haven't yet gotten much done towards the next beta. I want to try to give you guys something worth playing through a bit more, which will take some time (and perhaps you all aren't too eager to play through the same part again). My programming energy is also a bit tapped as I'm doing more coding at work these days.

[FredSRichardson]

Wow, it's been a long and interesting past week. I've fixed and added a lot, and I'm hoping to get another beta out, but there's still a long way to go. The really good news is that I think I may be getting close to farming out some of the work. I've been approaching this by a CRE modification system that lets you select an existing IWD2 CRE and script in a bunch of changes (AC, HP, CR, Spells, ITM's, etc.). I think most of the work for this mod will happen here.

It's a fledgling system so far, but it's promising. I want to extend it to ITM scripting as well (adding/removing abilities and effects).

I've play tested through the Vale up the the entry into Kresselack's tomb. The party level is a bit low, and the monsters are a bit tough so I may need to do something there. Music is in the air (I had a messy conversion bug with the music files). The skeleton spawning traps don't seem to work right and I'm not quite sure why.

This may be a spoiler (well, all of this is), but an optimal party definitely needs 2 tanks, a cleric and a rogue. I like having a Bard and a Wizard as well. The encounters are tough, so any front line non-tank will get chewed up and spit out. A cleric will make quick work of the tons of undead in the Vale (they can be a pest otherwise). I think you might get a bit more XP from one or two early encounters if you have a Bard, but I'm not sure.

[cewander]

Michael Furlong, on Nov 23 2007, 08:55 AM, said:

The prievious poster has got a point, the people who actively search for and download this mod will much more likely than not, be an experienced user of both the infinity engine as well as DnD in general.

However, it may be that the game just gets harder as the game progresses and become nigh-impossible by the end, which i may not be a fan of.

Iether ways i am very glad thier is progress, icewind dale was a fun game and im glad work is being done on it to make it better.

I belive Fred mentioned earlier he was interested in making the "difficulty settings" into a mod for a bunch of the users to fix, and rather consentrate on getting things "right" with the main mod. From the sound of things, this would make the game hard, and be dependent on fans to make various difficulty settings (There is a thread about this further down, lots of interesting opinions).

So it seems to allready be more or less desided

While there might be a large favor towards the more "hardcore" gamers, there are also some that would appreciate a lesser difficulty, and I remember at least one said as much on this forum.

Besides that I agree whole heartedly though, like the challenge.