Inizio Per i giocatori Player Profiles Dragonlance Adventures: Part II

Dragonlance Adventures: Part II

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk

Last week, we introduced the massive, community-made project known as DragonLance Adventures, and Top Uber Commander, Robert, gave us a peek inside the organization and thinking required to create such a large-scale project with talented volunteers. This week, we get the scoop on some of the details about what fans can expect when DragonLance is completed.

Where can I go for more information on DragonLance Adventures?

Robert: http://www.dladventures.com

Can you give us some numbers on what we can expect in terms of new creatures, tiles, placeable objects, and so on, when you release this?

Robert: Sure - currently:

• 17 tilesets. Highlights include our much feted Solace Tileset, a new high density vegetation swamp, our Rolling Mixed forest (featuring birch, spruce, pine, oak, cedar, poplar and oak trees and a bazillion bushes), and terrain that rises and dips with hills and valleys.
• About 70 new creature models. Those include: new goblins, new hobgoblins, new 3E style ogres, draconians, new dragon models (including a flying version), dragon hatchlings, griffons (flying version), horses, donkeys, mules, ponies, warhorse and paladin's mount, centaurs, unicorn, nightmare, satyrs, catoblepas, 1st ed. and 3E death knights, new cursts, new elder vampires, dread guards, runic guardian, skeletal knights, gully dwarves, kender, snowy owl, cobras and rattlesnakes, and a bunch more. Some of these, such as the treant and the crystal golems, we released back in December of 2003. Some others we have yet to mention. I'd add that, since we've added our new Lead Animator, Adam Anden (Ragnarok_mr4), to the team, we've been a lot more bold in adding entirely new models with new animation sets for both creatures and PCs. It's exciting to do entirely new stuff.
• One thing we have also tried to do is a lot of model variants. 8 new goblins, 9 new hobgoblins, 3 ogre variants, etc.
• Placeables are hard to gauge and track right now as we dress up our tiles as needed and we don't plan for most placeables other than in a general "make us some XYZ by Tuesday" way. I'd estimate about 500+ with 200 of those being flora alone. I think we are at about 350 or so currently.
• A lot (and I mean a LOT) of new robe models and PC parts. Not just new geometry and new textures, but with all new underlying PC animations (those are necessary to get PC animations working every time you make a new robe geometry variant). Our Lead Texture artist, NexusJnr, and his partner in crime, Lisa, finally beat the .plt system into submission to make it do precisely what we want. As a result, we've abandoned traditional NPC .tga textures unless they are absolutely necessary by reason of geometry (long hair is about the only reason we go with an NPC model now). The result is that our content should be a lot more flexible for the entire community.
• Cloaks: In addition to new robes, dresses, skirts, tabards, and long coats, we have a new, robust cloak system with all new PC animations. We are developing two cloak models, one of which is not modeled as a "cape" but is more cloakish and wraps around the shoulders. We are quite excited with these and we are certain they will be a hit.
• We are developing the tools and tricks to make all of these new skinmesh "robes" able to be combined on one PC at the same time, one with the other, so you can wear a cloak and a robe together. The only mutually exclusive thing is coats and robes (which would be like wearing two coats, so please don't think you are missing out!). In addition to just clothing, many of our new armors are robe based too. Elven leather, elven chain, and even some banded and scale mail are implemented as robes. Apart from an orgy of tilesets, we've really embraced the new robe system and gone all out with it. We've redone all of our PCs and almost all of our NPCs to use them and changed a lot of underlying animations. It's a little CPU intensive, but deformable mesh systems update the look of NWN dramatically. Together with our .plt textures, the look of NWN is dramatically different than it was in 2002 or even in HotU. The flexibility of the robe system was DLA's favorite addition in HotU, by a country mile.
• Equipment: new rotational VFXs in 1.63 will provide us with a series of new equipment possibilities on PCs, such as sheathed weapons, quivers, backpacks, necklaces, pouches, and so forth. Rotational VFXs are a lot more adaptable and transportable than adding those details to PC parts. Again, the focus is on highly customizable detailing for PCs and NPCs so that the system is reusable by the entire community - "maximum bang for the zot."
• We should weigh in at around 20 or so new PC heads and a lot of new portraits.
• Weapons and armor: dozens of new armor types, swords, maces, bows, and a collection of "elven weaponry" we are quite excited about. We have developed new animations and code to support hoopaks, a DragonLance weapon particular to kender. The hoopak was quite an engine challenge as we had to add a new missile weapon to the game, but we did it. At the same time, it functions as a melee weapon without swapping out the model.
• We have added a lot of new scripting features. We have a new dialog system, and Mikael Pajunen (BrainByte) has created a new camera control system for us as well. An overland map has been added to the game. There are a lot of other goodies for the community but I want to be careful when describing scripting features until we have them in and all working as so much can go wrong with code when it interacts with an engine that is beyond our capability to change. Our party control code continues to face hurdles. Unfortunately, the NWN game engine actively resists implementing party control almost at every possible stage. It's been very frustrating.
• We are adding a lot of sound, soundsets, new voicesets, and about an hour of new music. We've created a sample page where you can hear the music we've worked into the various areas on this page here:
  
  http://www.dladventures.com/audio/index.html
• And yes, lastly - but far from least - fully customizable, dynamic, rideable horses. We promise they will look and animate as well as we can possibly make them.

All of that adds up to a download archive which will make the CEP look very, very small. 90%+ of DLA content has never been released before to the community, so it promises to be quite interesting for players and builders alike.

How big a download are we talking about?

Robert: We are not sure yet as so much is sound dependent, but it will be larger than HotU, no question of that. Players should expect a download worthy of an .ISO. When we mean that we are creating an XP for NWN - we mean an expansion pack.

Will DLA use the CEP?

Robert: No we don't. The rule at DLA since we started is that if a DLA staff member did not create the custom content then we don't use it. There are no exceptions to this rule, ever.

That said, it is our intention to make our content as CEP compatible as we can make it because the community wants it that way. We don't promise absolute compatibility with both CEP and CODI's Foundation, but that is our intention.

I have to ask: when do you expect to release your project?

Robert: And with a nod to Stanley Woo, BioWare QA Ninja Extraordinaire, I have to answer: it will be released on Slartybart, the 37th of Flavius.

We learned from the best: "when it's done." When we start making some serious noise, you'll know we're close.

If you haven't already, check out Part I of the DragonLance Adventures profile.