Congratulations Epic!

Gears of War is looking very cool so far.

Neverwinter Nights 2 modding

Been busy picking apart NWN2 this weekend. Here’s some info I posted on the message boards:

• Correct Normal Map directions for NWN2 maps
• Hooking up new tilesets

NWN 2

So far, so easy and straight-forward. I can convert Obsidian’s stuff to .obj, hook up the diffuse maps and make my own models based on those templates. The asset complexity doesn’t look too bad, either. Getting this back into the game is an entirely different matter, it’s currently limited and you have to resolve to hacks. Waiting for some better tools to add custom geometry with all shader effects into the toolset.

I guess I’ll get started on some simple tileset stuff. Looks like NWN2 tiles are just arbitrary building blocks now, with no more connection rules and crazy stencil shadow meshes to consider like in the old NWN.

Now Playing: Neverwinter Nights 2

God I’m excited for this game. The first one was good, the construction kit was great, and from what I hear the editor for NWN 2 won’t be an inch worse than what the first game offered. And that’s really what it’s all about, you know: the construction kit. I spent a good part of my highschool life making D&D modules for Unlimited Adventures, and…well, making stuff for “other” games (even though I barely finish, let alone release, much anymore) is plain fun. I’m hoping for a fun built-in single-player campaign, but tapping into NWN 2′s seemingly limitless potential is what it’s all about.

Too bad this game is such a resource hog. My 7800GTX can decently render the interiors at 1280×1024 (which is a crooked resolution for my natively 1600×1200 LCD ), but as soon as I leave the house and get into that first campaign fight the game chugs majorly for reasons entirely unknown. It all looks decent, but not very complex and like it should warrant such high system requirements. And the toolset doesn’t even load on my Dell, it crashes on startup. Probably some laptop ATI driver issue, my desktop machine works fine. But still annoying as hell when said toolset is such a major selling point.

I’ll dig in deeper over the weekend to evaluate the gameplay. First impressions were okay, but I haven’t played far enough yet. I hear the story and conversations are really good, so that’ll be fun to explore. And of course I want to see how painless it currently is to author custom content. I already downloaded the .obj converter, but it’s 3rd part and I don’t know yet how well it performs.

Now Playing: Dark Messiah

The copy of Dark Messiah that I bought yesterday leaves me no choice but to bitch. I really wanna like this game, but in the first 10 minutes of the game I’ve already died a dozen times and am stuck because apparently, I need some degree in Fantasy Ladder Climbing to get up a ladder that *might* save me from a quickly approaching zombie thing that came out of nowhere and I can’t quite defend against. Instead, I keep running into the ladder with nothing happening and get killed again and again. Apparently I’m not the only person this is happening to, and apparently it’s a bug. A bug where you can’t climb a ladder on the critical path ten minutes into the game?! You got to be kidding me.

Let’s not even get into the fact that I first installed the DVD version, and when it asked me whether I wanted to associate the game with my Steam account (cool, I think, gets the game patched automatically) it did not just associate the game with my Steam account – it downloaded a 2nd copy of the whole game into my Steam directory! Which took about 3 hours.

Maybe I’ve been too spoiled by console releases that work out of the box, or maybe the PC market is really going to hell. Judging by the even small area of shelf space that my local EB now has alloted to PC releases, that’s definitely the case. And who can blame them when consumers have to deal with stuff like this.

On the positive side, this game does look very promising. Can’t wait until I can actually play it! ;(

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I reinstalled the DVD version of Dark Messiah and was able to proceed at the point where I was formerly stuck. Since then, the game has run smoothly and without bugs.

It’s a good game, the first one that has made sword- and other types of melee fighting fun for a long time. Handling those daggers is pretty damn cool. And I find myself going back and forth between all sorts of ways to kill enemies, everything is well done. Graphics are okay, but the environments are kinda bland. Maybe I’m too biased because of Wheel of Time, but I still haven’t seen a fantasy game that has made significant visual leaps and bounds from what WoT offered 7 years ago. The story isn’t terribly intriguing yet, and I get most mission objectives from them telling me “now do this”, not because they naturally flow from the game. But then again I don’t really care once the atmosphere of the current mission grips me.

Fun little game if you expect WoT/Thief and not another Underworld or Arx Fatalis. I’ve read that it gets repetitive later on, but so far I’ve been entertained.

Lair on TV

If you have Comcast On Demand and want to see some more Lair, go to the “The Cutting Edge” section, pick G4tv and the TGS section. They have a short version of the Lair trailer, and if you watch the “PS3 Report”, you get some gameplay footage and commentary. Nothing, that you haven’t seen yet on the internet – but you get to see it on your big TV and can show it to your family and everybody else that should see it!

Gothic 3

So, Gothic 3 ist draussen und anscheinend leider (noch) recht Bug-verseucht. Was mir doppelt und dreifach leid tut – zum einen hatte ich die Jungs von Piranha Bytes vor einigen Jahren getroffen und dabei viel Spass gehabt – ich wuensche ihnen also alles Glueck der Welt. Zum anderen sind sie jetzt in Essen, wo es sich natuerlich automatisch besser lebt Und letztendlich finde ich die Gothic Reihe einfach geil und will den dritten Teil schnellstmoeglichst spielen.
Nunja – noch nicht wirklich ganz fertig, hier und da ein bisschen gedreht und geregelt, um das Spiel wie mit dem Publisher vereinbart rechtzeitig zu releasen – alles schon erlebt, alles schon mitmachen muessen – passiert halt immer wieder in dieser Branche.
Im Grunde bin ich nicht traurig, dann werde ich mir Gothic 3 eben wie eigentlich geplant erst zu Weihnachten schenken, wenn Victoria und ich hoffentlich wieder in Deutschland sind. Bis dahin hat es bestimmt den einen oder anderen Patch gegeben, der die Probleme behebt. Und ich kann vorher noch Gothic 2 zuende spielen. Dazu bin ich naemlich irgendwie nie gekommen.

Now Playing: Half-Life 2

I have finally finished Half-Life 2. The original game, that is, I guess I’ll continue with Episode 1 now. Somebody give me a medal or something!

—

Well, that was unexpected. HL2 Episode 1 just sorta ended. It was fun, but not quite as long as I thought it would be. I guess now I’m really done… And Victoria can stop complaining about the loud shooting noises eminating from my office

Lair footage from TGS

Update 2: High-res version of video.
Update: Probably the most complete (albeit a bit small) video of the TGS demo can be found on Gametrailers. 5:45 minutes, includes sound!

Most videos are tiny resolution, the game runs in true 1080p. Still, this might give you an impression of what the people in Tokyo are playing. Here’s the page for the Gametrailers video (HD version should be added soon), and click on the image below for another high-res video.

SSI Goldbox Emulator

With all these great emulators to play the old Ultima, LucasArts etc. games in a Windows environment, why has nobody written one to play the old SSI Gold Box games? There’s two programs that update Unlimited Adventures (which I used for ages back when it came out – but I don’t know if I can find any of my old modules today ). But what about a fancy Windows emulator that lets me play Pools of Darkness etc.? Not that I can’t get them to run using DosBox, but I don’t really want to