There and Back Again. . .
It's been a busy July! Out of the entire month, I've been at work for a total of TEN days. This week has flown by and as well as it should have considering that I just returned from Edmonton and I'm off again for two weeks. I'm not going to give you more details about flying but in its defence, the flight to Edmonton and back was uneventful :)
If you're interested in checking out the events that unfolded for the Dragon Age event, check the links below.
Jay Watamaniuk's Thoughts
Fernando Melo's Three Part Commentary
GameSpy's First Editorial
GameSpy's Second Editorial
Aloha!
| 20° 48' N 156° 20' W | 07.18.09 |
| 53° 34' N 113° 31' W | 06.26.09 |
Departures. . .
So I signed an NDA in December 2008.
Since the last update, I'm happy to announce that Shadewood won Module of the Year 2008 (Vault Award), Best Dramtic Module and Veteran Author Award (AME Award), Almraiven passed the 10,000 download mark and
I'm flying out to Edmonton in eleven days to meet the good old fashioned men and women of BioWare.
I hate flying too. 737-700 (winglets) plane. I type that because at first I thought it read "wingless" but I guess that's just my fear of being in the air and not in control. Sure, they say statistics show the odds of getting in an accident in a car is higher then flying. I'm not sure about you but driving at 60 km/h, (Canadian, eh?), doesn't sound so deadly as say, falling from the sky at 500 km/h while the men and women around you scream and children look at you with a questioning look of "what's going on?" when the plane is flipping and twirling through the air as you attempt to grab the oxygen mask which keeps slapping your face just before the plane explodes on impact.
Last October I flew from Toronto to Montreal for work and it's about an hour in the sky. You're up and then you're down. It wasn't so bad, after asking for two vomit bags while on the plane. To add to all of that, I had the middle seat in the row.
The year before that I flew out to Calgary. Never unbuckled the seat belt, had nothing to drink or eat and looked straight ahead while holding on to the arm rests. I was so nervous that I left my boarding pass at the bar. Could have been the beer though. 
Summer is here, hot, sticky and humid, so building has really slowed down. I do my best, when I can, to pick and poke at the module, playing it to keep the story in my mind fresh as well as to come up with new ideas. Progress is always slow at this time of the year for me and is no different compared to the time I spent building Almraiven and Shadewood during the summer months. Canada Day is just around the corner, so Happy Birthday Canada!
I've been told my igloo in Edmonton has been reserved. HA! Good fun!
| Clouds | 06.01.09 |
I see shapes in the clouds. . .
I've ventured to the realm of skyboxes for the first time, custom ones that is. Do players really need to see a sky when the isometric view of a camera offers more visibility around the character? My own personal playing style is not done by dropping the camera behind my character but perhaps it's popular with some.
It's been fun learning a little about a side of the game I've never customized before. In Almraiven, the skybox was always available when outside in the streets. Shadewood offered it in a few choice places outside of the wood and both used Bioware default skybox settings. Even then, the only time I really took notice of it was when it was time to take screen shots, otherwise the camera angle I prefer never showed the sky.
Is it really worth the effort and additional size to a hakpak when it's all said and done or is it just a nice backdrop for those screen shots. In comparison, the earlier shots posted offered no skybox, which created a more darker and sinister view of the Land of the Dead.
Here are some shots with custom skyboxes enabled.
| Dunroot Hollow | 03.21.09 |
A spirit's thought. . .
I've seen a good number of strange places during my time in the Land of the Dead but I've yet to come across anything as strange as Dunroot Hollow.
Nestled along the border of Felwood does Dunroot Hollow reside. It's quite the journey for some spirits but well worth it if you're the adventurous kind.
Mushrooms twist around everything, growing upward to bask in the warm air above, breathing in the moist humidity which give birth to their enormous size.
Those trees that happen to grow tall enough, eventually lose the fight to the larger and more aggressive fungi.
Stranger yet are those who dwell here, burrowing into the very earth to make homes for themselves, harvesting the wide variety of abundant mushrooms which grow all around.
Like the mushrooms, Spring has Sprung!
| Twyll | 03.07.09 |
All Twylled Out!
From one idea to the next, the Land of the Dead begins to take fold based on the overall thought projection spirits bring to the realm. Each memory is accessed by the Well of Souls and becomes a projection that shape and create the Land of the Dead.
This beginning has allowed the third installment of the series to offer more creative areas and an open flow compared to Almraiven and Shadewood. The dead that roam the realm come from many other places of existence and not just the Forgotten Realms itself.
Welcome to Twyll, a projection from one of these other realms, situated on the very edge of an endless Void but still traveled across nevertheless. Such travel is made possible by airships that ride the thermal winds of the Void. These airships ride the vertical geostrophic wind to its peak, then launch outward, floating their way to the next one until they are caught in the jet stream located in the upper portion of the troposphere.
With the destruction of the portal in Shadewood, the Darkness that lingered in these parts has fled, allowing passage in the Void to resume. Captains of these airships are not very keen on testing the Void and many airships remain docked in port, nestled between aging trees, jagged cliffs and illuminated rope lines.
| An Introduction... | 02.17.09 |
The Unexpected
Took the time to complete the introduction cutscene, which, if you enjoy being spoiled, contains...
a prelude introduction, which span the recreation of your spirit after it has been captured from the Well of Souls at the end of Shadewood and the events that follow.
For those who don't mind a slight spoiler, just highlight the empty black box of text above.
| Projections | 01.14.09 |
To die, is to live again.
In the Land of the Dead, each spirit that becomes sorted by the Well of Souls, gives their memory freely from the time they spent in the Land of the Living.
These memories become the very foundation of the realm that is created. Such projections begin to form the Land of the Dead, spanning across all four corners of the realm.
Strange places, wicked places, born from spinning worlds and distant thoughts. It is in this realm that nightmares do come true, leaving very little hope for anything.
Darkness has come.
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