Apr 20, 2012
It's been a long time since the last update of this site. PORR is out for 6 years now and has reached
71000 downloads in this period of time. Wow. Thank you for all your continuing feedback.
I went through the last version (1.7.1.4.1.3) lately and it's still working nicely with the latest version of NWN2.
Of course there are always things who could be better, fixed or improved.
I'm playing with the thought of going through the conversations and cutscenes for some improvements in
cinematics and camera angles. Maybe I'll find some time.
Jun 21, 2009
I've updated PORR to a new version 1.7.1.4.13. This latest update saw several stability fixes in scripting and a
full rebake of all areas. The sinking bodies bug - which came with SoZ - should be gone, now.
Mar 29 , 2009
Some people are complaining about a strange "sinking bodies" bug. The first sightings of this problem were
after patch 1.21 came out. I was not able to reproduce anything like that so far. In addition to that I didn't
change the basic game mechanics at all. So anything that works in NWN2 should work with PORR, too.
I will see about that as soon as Lolthanchwi is out.
Jan 4, 2009
Obsidian came up with a 1.22 beta patch that fixes the issues mentioned below. I'm in good hope that the
final patch 1.22 will solve the problems with the on_enter scripts of the cutscenes.
Happy New Year everybody.
Dec 15, 2008
They've broken the on_enter script with patch 1.21. This means some of the in-game cutscene triggers
won't fire with this version. You may encoutner a game-stopping bug with version 1.21!!!!
I hate it when they do that!
They say a hot-fix patch is on the way. Let's hope it will be coming soon.
Feb 20, 2008
We are receiving a lot of encouraging feedback. The mod of the year contest is drawing near and I hope we
will get nominated, too. For now we've been forgotten. The reason is that the early pre-alpha of PORR was
released in 2006 - but there were no nominations for NWN2 in 2006.
I've wrote a message to Maximus to explain this.
Feb 01, 2008
I am not yet satisfied with the final sequence. We had some criticism about the balancing. The dragon
battle is not the climatic battle people expect as a final boss fight. The cutscenes and narrations get much
praise.
I've been working on the dragon. The whole technical realization is changed now and I've added fighter levels
and more special abilities to the dragon to make him harder. I will be testing the final sequence some more
times and then I will upload the new version to the vault.
Jan 15 , 2008
Well, the final release of PORR is doing well at the vault. it seems people out there like what we've done.
Still, more than one week after the release we see, that there are still some things not perfect.
Obviously the latest version 1.11 of NWN2 breaks Natural AC and so our dragon with his Natural AC of 27 is
just a weak shadow of itself. I won't do anything about it at the moment. You never know how long it takes
until they fix it and I had some bad experience back in the old AHTD days. Back there I had some basilisks
and beholders at Myth Drannor and gaze attacks were broken for some time. So I did my best to make them
challenging opponents. Damn - they were really powerful when they fixed it. It was impossible to beat them
and I had to hurry to fix it up, again.
Another dragon related issue is, that it sometimes dies without firing its death script. This breaks the final
sequence and is a really nasty thing. First I thought it was a timing problem and my solution was to
prespawn the dragon and just let him jump in. Well, it made a nice difference in performance but it did not
solve the problem.
Then I thought it was happening when the dying dragon was covering the spawnpoint and I made him spawn
out before the new dragon was spawned in. But it seems there are still people experiencing this problem.
Somebody told me, it could be related with the damage the dragon is taking upon dying. I saw strange
duplications of companion items in this last battle while testing and I am more and more starting to think, this
is another bug of NWN2.
Well, anyway, I will keep an eye on that and bring a solution as soon as I have one.
Jan 7, 2008
Two years of work finally come to an end. We are proud to announce that
POOL OF RADIANCE
REMASTERED IS FINAL NOW !!!
We did our best to get this hopefulyl last version stable and polished and hope you like it. Many of the ideas
and suggestions of the community made it into this final version. But of course, you can never please
everybody.
It is time to lean back and see how the people like our baby. Feedback is always welcome.
Dec 21, 2007
Our public beta is now availlabe at NWVault. It is already tested and should have no game-stopping breakers
anymore.
We wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays.
Dec 14, 2007
We've finally made it! Chapter 3 is ready and we are starting the last internal beta test today. Public beta will
be released as soon as the testers are satisfied.
Anybody who wants to join this itnernal beta is welcome. Just contact me at
markus@schlegels.de
Dec 02, 2007
I've made a full walkthrough of chapter 3 and it works fine to me. Of course there are always some minor
flaws and small issues left but they are no problem.
Iain sent an email a few days ago. He is still "alive" and I'm sure he can do the final narration for us. Great! it
would not be the same without him. With Patrick doing the journals once again the old team is again doing
the final polish of this part.
I will assemble a new mailstring with all those ppl who did help me in the past months. Maybe some of them
are interested in doing a first internal beta. They surely have earned the right to do this.
Nov 26, 2007
We've added two new screenshots. Chapter 3 is done but we are still polishing things and working at the
conversations. We'll have two complete walkthroughs to make sure everything works.
Maybe next week ... .
Nov 22, 2007
Well, I've caught a bad cold two weeks ago and it threw me to bed since last friday. I'm slowly recovering.
After taking a look at some other submissions at NWVault I've decided to remove all the movies and redo
them with the game engine much like SirChet does in his Red Hand of Doom. Iain's voice still creates the
mood I wanted to see and it's much easier that way. We can even do an epic narrative ending that way.
There is only one serious problem left: I need Iain to do one last voice recording and both of his email
adresses we have don't work anymore. He is simply gone, no way to find him anymore.
So anybody out there, if you know Iain Cowden, actor and musician from London, UK, please tell
him that we need him and his voice for the final sequence.
We will add two new screenshots every week from now on to get you into the mood for chapter 3.
Nov 7, 2007
Chapter 3 is making good progress. We are working at the final quest. This one has several stages and
will take a while.
Oct 25, 2007
We are making good progress with chapter 3. I dropped by at the NWVault entry of the Neverwinteros, who did
the translation of chapter 1 to spanish - to find out that they have been featured in a spanish print magazine
and are leading the top list of NWVault international modules with their translation of PORR.
Congratulations for that, guys. I hope you translate the other two chapters, too.
There's another team working on a chinese translation. I'm really eager to see their works, too.
Oct 15, 2007
Well, I've been working a bit at the second quest and so far chapter 3 starts to get some kind of atmosphere
- and I like it. I want it to be fast, hard and climatic. The player will see many elements of chapter 1 - but
different and from a different point of view.
Obsidian has fixed the intro movie bug (finally!) and so I've converted those wonderful intro movies into *.bik
files. But there is still trouble. NWN2 launches the intros every time the game loads a new area. Is this my
mistake or something that is still messed up? I have no answer yet.
Denis has agreed to check out some of the old bugs of the chapters 1 and 2. They are minor things like the
orcs swords and the ingots bug - nothing that breaks the story. So I am delaying the next update to give him
time for those things. Maybe the movie problem is solved when he is done.
For now I will upload the new movie as a *.wmv to the vault as we did with the other two movies..
Sept 27, 2007
Today I am updating to the new 1.10 patch. Such updates are usually nothing worth mention but Obsidian has
a present for all those who knew the original Pool of Radiance:
The Bronze Dragon!
By the way, chapter 3 is making good progress and I've already completed the first of the three new large
quests. I've added some screenshots to show you the progress we are making.
Sept 15, 2007
I've finally managed to compelete the needed area templates. Some of the standard conversations are also
done. I will start quest building as soon as I find time to.
Sept 8, 2007
I was really busy with busines issues this week. So I'm still not done with the area designs of chapter 3. I hope
to find more dev time during the next week.
Sept 2, 2007
Real life kept me rather busy this week. Nevertheless chapter 3 is making good progress. I've almost
completed the area templates and will be starting the storyline implementation next week. maybe I will come
up with some new screenshots?
Aug 23, 2007
Chapter 2 testing is done and the crew gave me green lights for the release of the final version. There are still
some minor issues but they won't spoil the game and will be solved with the release of chapter 3.
I've been working on chapter 3 during the last couple of days and area building has really made good
progress. I have only one exterior area and 5 interior areas left.
Aug 18, 2007
This week's update brings good new to all who are waiting for the final version of chapter 2. We've been
working hard on 0.85 beta and many issues have been fixed. Most of them were minor issues like spelling or
rare script breakers. I am still not satisfied with the A.I. scripting in crowded areas (like the inns)
and the trading system in general. Anyway those problems require new ideas so they will not be fixed in the
upcoming version of PORR.
I've started working on chapter 3 while the testers are doing their part with chapter 2. So I'm changing the
developement status to chapter 3.
Aug 10, 2007
I'm back from vacation and burning to do the final version of chapter 2.
July 26, 2007
Well sometimes things come and go even quicker than expected. Surprise, surprise! We've uploaded our
latest beta to the vault. I hope you enjoy it. I'll be back in two weeks.
July 25, 2007
Our request for beta testers has been placed at the vault last week and the feedback was overwhelming.
We started testing with a large testing crew of more than 20 people. Impressive. Their feedback is most
encouraging so far. Looks like our version 1.4.0.8 (we are combining chapter 1 (v 1.4) with chapter 2 (v 0.8)
now) is already stable and only requires some polishing.
I will be leaving town for 2 weeks of vacation with my family on friday but we will have more news items for the
community at the vault during my absense.
I've been contacted for the authorisation of a simplified Chinese version of PORR last week and - of course -
gave my approvement. I wish you good luck with that. :)
July 17, 2007
You may have noticed, that I took a few days off for some vacation with my family. I spent the last days with
testing and I think most big issues should be sorted out by now. So it is time for a public beta. I will host this
version at my own site since NWVault restrictions (size limit) don't allow quick updates.
Anybody who wants to give it a try contact me by mail at: markus@schlegels.de
The beta should be available in the next couple of days.
July 2, 2007
We had a breakthrough this weekend. All areas are done now and I started building the final stage of chapter
2. It would have been easy but I found out that the Zhentarim camp area was mysteriously broken and all my
backups had the same problem. Something must have happened to it in March. In the end I sat down and
made a new camp area.
I think I can do the final scripting this week and I have a good feeling about the whole thing. Still we will see
how it works when we try the first full walkthrough next weekend.
June 26, 2007
My job is still keeping me busy. We've been accepted in a new government project. A great chance, a lot of
money but also a lot of work. But don't worry. I'll finish PORR, don't worry. Well, I'm working on the pyramid at
the moment and this quest should be done until next week. There is not much to do after that but I need to find
the time to do it.
Estimated release of chapter 2 should be at the end of July.
June 15, 2007
I'm sorry for the long silence, but I had a class trip to London and final exams kept me busy. I've finished the
Podol Plaza quest and Denis' custom scripts of the disguise work exactly as they are supposed to be. The
drafts of all journal entries are also ready for Patrick's final editing. There are only two quests remaining and
they should be not too difficult to do.
May 30, 2007
The community is really coming to life in these days with many good and interesting new mods. This is a good
thing becaus it draws more attention to NWN2 and thus helps us all.
We have finished many parts of chapter 2 including the library and the graveyard quests now. This means we
are starting the hardest part now. You will disguise yourself as an orc and go into the lion's lair. Denis has
provided me a custom script and it works perfect so far. We will see how it does in the "real world" of the ruins
of Phlan.
Iain is done with his audio lines of the intro movies so Markus can start rendering. I hope the movies will be
done, soon. Patrick is working at the first part of the journal entries so they will also be ready, soon.
Things are taking forms now. Maybe we can hold our loose deadline of the end of July for the final version.
May 22, 2007
I've had a run through the first half of chapter 2 yesterday. I love the feeling the whole thing has - hope the
people out there feel the same. Two answer the current discussion at NWvault:
You will have a group of 3-4 companions in large parts of chapter 2 and the game feeling changes with that.
You may also hire several mercenaries to increase your melee power but they will stay independent
individuals (henchmen).
I've started playing with the animation option in dialogues and this feature really rocks. I was never satisfied
with my early tries but this time my results really add to the atmosphere of the conversations. This means,
that I will have to go through ALL the conversations of chapter 1 as well as chapter 2. Great.
This week is keeping me really busy at works so we will see how much time I can find for PORR.
May 14, 2007
PORR saw a lot of progress during the last weeks. We were able to finally eliminate to problem with module
loading. It was simple: The module names were too long. I've changed the names leaving out the "chapter"
and now it works perfectly.
I've been testing ALPHA 2, the Clearwater quest, during the last week and I like it. I've given a couple of issues
to the others on the team and I hope that they come back done this week.
If things go well during the days off this week we will be able to release a new version (ALPHA 3) with two more
quests this weekend or next week.
May 4, 2007
The problem with automated loading is still there and I simply have no idea how to fix it. I've reverted version
1.3 to separate modules to have a working release version but yet I am not fully statisfied with the way it is
now. Some of the people at FRW are looking into the matter. Maybe they come up with a solution for that.
Version 1.3 is out along with the 0.3 alpha 1 of chapter 2.
May 1, 2007
PCGAMER UK have finally released their feature of new NWN2 mods. PORR is listed first and they really
found some nice words for us. I've added the review as a separate page to this site. Since they mentioned
our efforts with the pyramid at Sorcerer's Isle I've added some screenshots of it this week.
Our testing brought some great improvements to PORR and I can say, that chapter 2 adds tremendously to
The atmosphere of chapter 1.
I am still not satisfied with the stability of the module transitions between chapters. Although it works fine
to me some of the testers still get those fatal freezes. That's why I decided to hold back version 1.3 for another
week.
April 24, 2007
We are testing version 1.3. It feels good so far but I want some minor issues tested before release. The
upcoming version is a radical change from technical side and will give insights into the technical design of the
whole series. That's why I want the bones tested and strong before I put flesh on them.
April 17, 2007
Last week saw a lot of changes and additions. I've converted the module PORR into a full campaign. The
prototypes of chapter 2 (Alpha 1) and chapter 3 (just s testing area) have been added. This means the basic
skeleton of PORR is done now and it only needs flesh to the bones.
We will do some internal testing of this new version and when the basic mechanics work properly we will
release it as version 1.3 at the Vault.
Version 1.3 also includes bugfixes for the issues mentioned at the Vault - especially the freezing bug and
Sokol Keep breaker bug. We've significantly reduced loot and vendor buy prices to reduce the amount of gold
a player may get in chapter 1. This means taking a holy cow to the butcher to me (German saying) but I don't
see an easy way to simulate realistic economic environments with the NWN2 store system.
April 11, 2007
We are making good progress. Maybe we will have a first internal alpha next week.
March 30, 2007
Start of quest building phase
March 16, 2007
Many of the new areas are done. Again we are trying to make them unique places - realistic places. Area
building goes hand in hand with the creation of the needed custom items and creatures. Once all areas are
done we have all the needed parts to put the puzzle together.
Febuary 1, 2007
Start of development chapter 2. Area building started.
January 28, 2007
Release of chapter 1 (v.1.0 final)
January 6, 2007
We've reached beta status. Most issues have been solved and PORR001 is stable. We will do some
Polishing now and have some extensive testing.
Final release: Last week of January.
