Jun 21 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 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 4th 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 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 this!
They say a hot-fix patch is on the way. Let's hope it will be
coming soon.
Feb 20 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 prealpha 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 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 testign the final sequence some more times and then I
will upload the new version to the vault.
Jan 15 Well, the final release of PORR is doing well at the vault. it seems
the 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
himself. 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.
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
good 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.
Another dragon related thing is, that he sometimes dies without
firing his 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
doublications 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 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 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 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 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 the are interested in doing a
first internal beta. They surely have earned the right to do this.
Nov 26 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 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 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 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 into spanish - to find out that they have been feature in
spanish games 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 at 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 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 things 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 upcomign
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 I'm back from vacation and burning to do the final version of
chapter 2.
July 26 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 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 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 availlabe in the next couple of days.
July 2 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. Somethign 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 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 at 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 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 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 with 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 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 yoru melee power
but they will stay independent individuals (henchmen).
I've started palying 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 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 fine.
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 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 seperate
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
the 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 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 seperate 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 soem of the testers still get those fatal freezes. That's
why I decided to hold back version 1.3 for another week.
April 24 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 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 We are making good progress. Maybe we will have a first
internal alpha next week.
March 30 Start of quest building phase
March 16 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 Start of development chapter 2.
Area building started.
January 28 Release of chapter 1 (v.1.0 final)
January 6 We've reached beta status. Most issues have been solved
and PORR001 runs stable. We will do some polishing
now and have some extensive testing.
Final
release: Last week of January.
