Log

28.November.2009: A Good Month Gone

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:44:00 -0500

Hail and Fair Greetings Blades Fans,

Just finished updating the RST threads on BGS and also on TESA so thought I would take a moment to update the log!

Some of you may have noticed a new look here on the Dimension. I started seeing a lot of ES Mod sites utilizing the same theme on webs.com and not one to go with the flow I decided to try something new. The custom header is a screen from the dojo of Sancre Tor in RST; one of my favorite screens. Looking through the screens from RST really takes me back, the screenshots captured moments in the last two years of development and as I browse through them I can recall special moments of triumph or epic failures! LOL I've decided to add a new featurette here in the Projects section called "RST:About the Screenshot" which shares some of these screenshots along with an anecdote of what that image captured for me. I thought it might be a neat way to share and recap the journey with all of you.:D

So what's new with Reclaiming Sancre Tor you ask?

I'm so glad you asked! Things with RST's quest build are finally moving forward with haste. The first 90% of chapter three proved very challenging to make manifest from dev plan into the CS. I learned a lot on the way and my skill set increased as well which probably adds to the road getting easier. This screenshot above here is from chapter three where you will be questing with a companion, Any time you add horses to the mix things get trickier to stabilize. There will always be moments where a mounted NPC wanders a bit off task, I'm just doing my best to reduce the number of misadventures they take in RST.

This week I think I should be able to finish chapter three, I'm at a really good place, only another 10% to go, then a short dungeon dive, and chapter four begins! Such a good place in the story too. The thing I like most about RST is that its a story that keeps giving and keeps you moving forward on a journey that is about discovering your destiny as a Blade; truly epic fun.

Armor master Nicoroshi has been working on RST's missing armor concepts and is nearly finished! WhoGuru is about to begin Alpha testing round 2 now that the quest is more stable. I will be moving forward striving for the finish line always. Wind is still working hard to finish his model work and of course, my mates around the Alliance are always willing to help tweak a script or edit a .nif, anything to help me finish. RST has been my journey, but all of you have been there with me the whole way and I am proud to be sharing this with so many of you.

I will update again when I reach the next goal line in the questbuild!

Happy Modding!

DarkRider

01.November.09: Back on Task

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:34:00 -0500

Hail and Fair Greeting my Friends,

The hot sticky days of summer are officially behind us and the essence of autumn is in the air. The cooler weather stirs my spirits and my creativity! Thought it was time to dust the cobwebs off the Dimension, give her a face lift and update my log! :D

Many of you followed along the recent activity on TES Alliance regarding the Halloween challenge: The Oubliette. In an unprecedented manner, 16 modders from the Elder Scrolls Community, novice and veterans, Oblivion Modders and Morrowind Modders, came together to create one massive dungeon crawl in less than a month. Truly a unique feat! For my part I got to play coordinator and helped to tie the whole thing together into a functioning mod. The end result is a truly wonderful playing experience, and I thank everyone who participated in making it happen. Learned a lot of new things that will be applied to next year's Halloween Challenge!

The Oubliette is now released and relatively stable so of course my thoughts return to Sancre Tor, which has been sadly neglected for the last 9 days as finishing The Oubliette required my full attention (even school got sidelined :ohmy:). With the beast feeding happily on the masses I can return to my work.

I will be diving back into the Main Quest build tomorrow. I tested out a number of techniques for RST during The Oubliette that I will now be able to implement further. I have also found a mate to replace my quest building helper so I should have more steady backup. Very good news is that I have bartered a small modding deal with another well known modder, nicoroshi. He is now assisting with some top secret things for RST in exchange for some assistance on his dialogue. This sort of fair trade is a great way to get help when it is scarce....help someone else and get help!

This week I will be modding steadily on RST, with The Oubliette out of the way now WhoGuru and Windmill Tilter will also be back into RST mode to help me get things finished. I have been giving some recent consideration to releasing a non voiced version of RST early and releasing the voiced version later as modder Middark did with Heart of the Dead. The reasons would be of course, faster release, and also, I can take the time to get really solid actors on the cast rather than taking who I can get. I haven't made this decision yet, but I am considering it.

I will update the log again in a week or two with progress news, and I will update the progress bars on BGS then, I haven't been able to do it of late because I need to re-examine my dev plan to see where I'm at. Being focused on a large quest can be disorienting.

Until Next Time!

DarkRider

02.October.09: Into the Breach Dear Friends

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:52:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings Blades Fans!

Fall is in the air, and there has been much rumoring of late and a bit of chatter about RST's release. I know that, not being one for idle concern, if Crashpilot comes seeking word of my whereabouts on BGS, I have gone too long without updating my log. LOL I'm grateful for the reminders, it's not that I desire to be derelict in my update duties, it's just that when my mind is focused on RST, I sometimes lose track of things. In the first phase of RST's development there were clearer progress markers, I knew to update whenever I had finished a new block of building. Now, it's a little grayer, my triumphs seem less grand somehow, not worthy of mention until I'm finished, but a good mate reminded me today, even those small victories hold meaning for those who are watching in earnest. So, for you good knights, I will endeavor to give more frequent updates.

So, two months eh? This is gonna be a long entry! :D

Quite a bit has happened since my last update, both for me and for RST. This semester I have gone back to school to finish my English Literature degree. My classes are online so I don't lose as much time out of my day by going to traditional classes. Aside from essay papers, school is fortunately not taking much away from things I'd rather be doing. TESA continues to grow; the site is going to be a wonderful home for RST when she's finished! I'm very proud of the people working to make TESA one of the great ES fan sites, it's just a fantastic group of people to chat and work with.

Progress on RST remains steady, but still slow going. I'm trying to tweak and test as I build the quests to reduce the number of bug reports in the BETA testing phase. My goal is to release the most stable finished product I can so that, when added to your varied load orders, there will be fewer issues in the long run.

I have discovered that Radiant AI is not quite as radiant as we'd like it to be. Even with identical factors in three different tests, the NPCs can do three different things. This is frustrating when I need them to do one thing, the same thing, every time with some predictability. During this middle part of the main quest there are a lot of NPCs, characters who interact with the player, those who interact with each other, and the more NPCs you have the wider the margin for error becomes. The good news is, I'm nearly through this part of the main quest. The next part involves dungeon diving so there are far fewer NPCs and fewer chances for random hiccups, for which I will be grateful.

I have been able to recruit a bit of help with RST's remaining armor concepts from PacificMorrowind and DaMage, though both blokes are fairly new to armor modeling, so this is a bit of a learning experience. While it would have been ideal to have a single experienced person working on them, I run the risk of stalling RST's release by waiting for said person to appear. This way, they are being worked on and Pacific and Mage have both shown themselves to be dedicated to doing the best job possible. I am confident that RST's armor will be as stellar as the rest of the new models.

I have also recruited InsanitySorrow as an assistant to lend a hand in fine tuning some things here and there so I am not pulled away from quest building to sort them myself. At the moment he is working on a small new world space that was planned, and binned, and re-planned, and almost binned again recently until IS stepped in to finish it in my stead. It's definitely an element of the main quest I did not want to discard, but it was taking too much time away from quest building. This way, it gets done and so does the rest of my work. I couldn't ask for a more easy-natured bloke to help out.

Despite the progress, RST has suffered a couple setbacks in the voice work area. A couple folks who were cast have backed out, one was carrying a rather large portion of the male dialogues, and replacing him will be no easy task. Fortunately, there is some new talent coming into the voice actors project on TESA and I should be able to recruit some extra help. Dialogue is currently being recorded, as I finish each quest I dump the dialogue into quest scripts for the actors to record. I do think the voice work is going to ultimately take longer than forecast and may delay the release. If I have to record every male role myself, I will, but I have faith that I will find the talent to help.

Let's talk about release dates, there are some rumors flying about as far as release dates so I thought I should clear up some things. Truly the only one capable of knowing when she will release for sure is RST herself; I take my cues from her. But the only actual announcement you should take as valid is mine, because regardless of other estimates, no one but me can see the scope of the whole project so those estimates thrown out there may be light. I expect a lot of great work to be done in October, but at this time I don't see us releasing that soon. Not knowing for sure is frustrating for me too, I wish I could say with certainty we will release by X date, but for now X date is still elusive to pin down. I had hoped to finish by end of summer, but with Fall beginning now that hope has passed. There's still a bit to do. I am determined to get her released this year, I just can't foresee what's coming up and what setbacks the project may encounter.

I can say one thing for all certainty, and this is my pledge to all of you as a man of honor: I will finish what I have begun. There is no chance, regardless of the success/failure rates of large projects, that RST will not be finished. I will continue to work on this project in earnest and will release her as quickly as humanly possible.

On the horizon, I hope to finish the main quest shortly here, I've already set up the side quests, they just need dialogue added in now, but the characters and markers are in place. I have finished adding NPCs and AI to all the towns except for the characters in MorDradig. I'll be relieved when the main quest is done; I know it seems to be taking forever it feels that way to me too. Just remember, the vanilla Main Quest has 14 chapters, RST's has 20 and I'm just one bloke so it takes time! LOL WhoGuru is currently doing ALPHA testing as I build; WindmillTilter is working hard as ever to finish the remaining models for RST.

I will update again soon, hopefully with more progress news now that I have some helpers taking a bit of the stress and the workload off my shoulders.

Cheers!

DarkRider

11.August.09: Into Blackout

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:32:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings RST Fans!

I thought I would take a minute to post a brief update here in the log and to share some new pictures from my last testing session. I heard there were many anxious voices on BGS crying out for some glimmer of progress news. So, here is your glimmer. Progress on RST had slowed during the website upgrade on TESA, but since that upgrade I have gradually begun to withdraw as my staff is capable of running the daily business of the site without me. Starting today, I have entered what I call a blackout phase which basically means except for a brief checking on messages across the net in the AM, I am offline, and 100% focused on RST.

I took these occasional blackouts early in RST's development to push through long LONG hours in the CS building her many wonderful locations. Because of the stall during the upgrade I felt this was a good time to go offline again and to turn all of my attention and energy toward the goal of completing RST's quest build.

This shot was taken outside of one of my favorite ruins in the vanilla game, Lipsand Tarn. While RST has a host of large, completely new, dungeons, I've also made use of some of these beautiful, but not quest related, dungeons from the vanilla game; adding to them as locations for more minor quest tasks.

I've added some new pics from my dungeon crawl here on the projects page, but don't get too excited, I'm not revealing any secrets just yet! :wink:

Now, for more info on progress, I am hesitant to update the progress bar on BGS just yet because I just went into blackout this morning, and only came back to update the log here at WhoGuru's behest. The reason is because I expect progress to radically increase over the next few days so better to wait until I come out of blackout next week and do a proper update with more pics, and increase the progress bar at the end of this period, rather than at the beginning.

The next planned phase for RST, phase 03, is the BETA testing and voice acting phase. Originally it was planned that this phase would begin after the questbuilding. However, due to the bulk of what's left, I decided that would not be the most time efficient way to handle the process. So, as I finish each leg of the quests, I am exporting dialogue and posting it for my cast to begin work on. Several actors have already submitted finished lines for the release. Also, WhoGuru and I are testing the mod as I build it to greatly reduce the number of bugs that will crop up in the next phase of BETA testing.

While I was hopeful for a summer release I'm no longer certain that will be possible. I do know phase 02 will be complete by the end of summer, but I believe there will be loose ends to tie up at that point before I can release her to the public. Those loose ends partly involve finishing the dialogue/mastering and the second BETA testing phase. The rather large issue, in addition, is that the armor concepts that were unfinished when Rayn left the project an age ago, and remained unfinished when AlienSlof left the project, are still unfinished. This is a blow to release I have been anticipating. The task of completing them has now fallen to Windmill Tilter, who has been modeling for RST since the beginning; but he has quite a bit of work of his own to finish already. If there is an experienced armor modeler willing to finish these armor concepts, please get in touch.

So, I return now to my blackout to build as much as I can in this one week uninterrupted. Check in again next week for news and a proper update on BGS.

Cheers,

DarkRider

20.July.09: Winds of Change

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:28:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings My Friends,

I find myself in much better spirits these days, feeling more like my old self again. I want to thank everyone for their kind words and support, it's good to be surrounded by friends at times like these. I know so many of you have been dying for some word on RST's progress this week. I am still making progress, just not as quickly as any of us would like unfortunately. I had not expected the last burst of financial support toward the site change goal from the Allies at TES Alliance to come so soon! Upon reaching the goal line, it was time to kick the site change into high gear. This change has been a long time coming.

When I started TESA, I always knew we would get to this point, so I guess it's been in the works since the beginning. It's very important that the site come to full power before I finish RST, because that will be her home when I finally pass her into your waiting hands!

The site change is rather dramatic, although the workload is a bit daunting. As you can see by this graphic, the old blue of TESA has been replaced by this rather medieval charcoal and black theme. I've added several more ES images throughout the site. Also added some new music to the jukebox. We're doing away with the site features that were in little or no use, such as the lousy nuke evo downloads module, and adding some new things to really make it a real hot spot for ES fans. I won't spoil it for you! We are at about midway through the change right now. I suspect the forum conversion to be finished tomorrow and after that, my team and I will have to get things set up and we'll be ready to open our doors again!

There will be a whole host of new things to explore so be sure to drop by and check it out when we launch! Modders, be sure to bring your mods to TESA and be among the first to host with the hottest upcoming site!

LOL Okay, enough plugging TESA. Once things settle down a bit, probably by about mid week, my attention will be returned to RST in force. Things for RST have not stopped through this, despite my heavy workload with the site I still find time to work on it a bit. I hope by next weekend to have enough done for a proper update and some new screens. I am quickly running out of summer, so things have got to stay in high gear for awhile it seems! :ohmy:

I will do my best to finish by the end of August at the latest. Have had some set backs in the voice actor area so don't know if they will be ready by then. We'll see. Proper update next weekend, and new pics too!

Happy Modding,

DarkRider

12.July.09: Naked and Unsure

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:24:00 -0400

Hail RST Fans,

Well this week has been an interesting one to say the least. So much has happened within the confines of these few days, both personally and in regards to progress.

I think my gran's death last Sunday morning took a harder toll on me than I first realized. As I tried to soldier on as normal, things began to crumble around me. They crumbled and I tried to hold it together, but the harder I tried, the worse things seemed to get. At this moment I feel a bit like a wounded lion in a cage. Some people come to the cage to taunt or challenge the lion and they get attacked. Some try to help the lion, but in his pain and distress, he maims them too. And some unfortunate souls, just choose the wrong place to strut their egos and end up within striking range. To anyone who has had a run in with the lion this week, you have my apologies, to either friends or foes. I don't wish anyone harm, truly. I will be withdrawing a bit from my usual forum haunts just to give myself space to reclaim my calm and to avoid any further unfortunate conflicts. I will return when I feel more myself again, so please, no one worry.

I don't usually share such intimate details about my life, but something told me to do so, perhaps admitting it to all of you, is how I can admit it to myself. So, thank you for your patience and your support always, my loyal Blades fans.

Okay, enough of my musings, on to more exciting tidings. I did not make it all the way through Chapter 3 of RST's quest build this week. Despite my best efforts, other issues with the mod decided to crop up. The most interesting seems to be a bit of rampant nudity amongst the Blades! As I was leaving the barrack Blade Lt. Owain came around the corner in his birthday suit! I thought it was hysterical....until the rest of the day shift paraded passed me on their way to the barracks, as equally undressed as the good Lt. There is a bit of leveled list confusion to sort out, and I had to shift gears away from questbuilding a bit to sort it and some minor puzzle issues from Chapter 2. All of that is taken care of now, so, by tomorrow I should be back at Chapter 3. I am about 1/4 of the way through this section of the Main Quest now, so there's a bit more to go yet. I look forward to Chapter 4, less talking, more dungeon crawling! LOL

My entry for the ORE Water Challenge was completed this week, so that will no longer be demanding any attention. I have sent my entry off to Shezrie for BETA testing and I'm eager to see if she passes inspection. This was a nice break from the technical side of RST's modding, to get back to basics with some simple cluttering was fun. I can't wait for you all to be able to see this one, she's quite a little gem if I say so. I'm not really expecting to win, I talk big to my competition, but that's just fun play chat. Reality, I have no delusions of grandeur, but it was nice to compete and to be challenged a bit! After she releases, I will upload some pics in the gallery here.

In other good news, the site changeover for TES Alliance is about to take place, The site will be getting a new look and a host of new features, including mod hosting! I'm looking forward to hosting RST on the Alliance! I was not expecting the recent flow of financial support from the Allies that brought the change about so quickly, so I had to hurry and finish the new site theme! LOL The techs are all on standby, and fingers crossed we could be unveiling the new site by Wednesday! I hope you modders will consider hosting your wonderful projects with TESA as well!

That's it for this update. This week I will be trying to finish Chapter 3 and start Chapter 4, I have asked WhoGuru to begin pulling dialogue into quest scripts for the voice actors to start work on. It's going to be a busy one.

Be well, my friends, and Happy Modding!

DarkRider

06.July.09: Into Darker Things...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:35:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Tidings, RST Fans!

Time to update the log and the rest of the site it seems! I know I promised you all an update on Sunday, but my poor old gran passed away yesterday morning so I spent the day with my family. No one is comfortable with death, but it is just another road, one that we all must take to quote a famous wizard. Life for the rest of us goes on and for me that means RST among other things.

Over the weekend I managed to get the RST Guards whipped into shape as planned; adding AI to 40 guards is no short bit of work! The village is now well guarded by several point guards and a couple patrolling. With the village being vastly comprised of Blades disorder is not very common, but troublemakers will spend some time in the brig. The brig is a bit different than standard jail, you don't lose skill points, but you will have consequences.

I also managed to smooth out the rough edges of the chapter two quest givers and the journal entries have a much smoother progression now. I have been able to play halfway through the ranking without issue and it's rather exciting to see it all going so smoothly for a change. There were so many issues kicking off the main quest, but it's really working out as planned now.

Here are the rank images I promised! I was going to include them in the opening post of the latest thread on BGS but I had to lose a couple links or the post wouldn't take on the forum; too long!

The latest thread makes number five! I remember back when I first got started on RST I had my first thread for months and it only had about twenty or so posts. I would see other projects with Thread IV and Thread VII and I always wondered how some projects got that kind of action! Now I know! It's good to see so many fans for RST, she's a great project and going to be among the biggest to release for Oblivion. It's been hard to watch some other big WIPz waver so close to failing; it makes me feel very humble and also, very grateful to all the fans who have supported RST for so long and all those modders who lent advice or the occasional hand to help me along the way. I can see this project really breaks the odds when it comes to release.

Today I start in on Chapter 3 and push to finish it this week even though it's a long one. There is quite a bit of story delivered in this chapter as we begin apprenticeship under a blademaster and strike out into the world. Working with Companion AI can be unpredictable, but we'll see how it goes.

I will update again next weekend at some point and let you all know how it goes!

Cheers, and Happy Modding!

DarkRider

26.June.09: Back In Lines

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:39:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings RST Fans!

Some good news at last, I have managed to breech the issue that had stonewalled progress for a time there, with the help of a couple coders whose Oblivion scripting knowledge surpasses my own. Progress on RST has now resumed swift progress. I have finished inputting all the generic dialogue with the exception of a few special lines I've asked WhoGuru to draft up for me. I am experiencing a persistent bug in chapter 2 where the NPCs are delivering a quest giving line before they should and spurring off the next part of the quest before the first part is finished. I am hopeful that Chapter 2 may be finished in this coming week. There are a couple character quest scripts ready to be posted in the hidden RST Voice Actors forum so actors will be able to start in on some quest dialogue.

In other news I have entered the House Modding Challenge being hosted by Meek/Shezrie of Oblivion Real Estate. The object is to build a house on water; a concept that sparked an idea in me. I have never entered a modding contest before and thought with so much time before the contest finish I could work on it a bit here and there. A little house mod would give me a welcome distraction from very technically heavy phase 02 of RST. Do not fear, my friends, RST is still my number one commitment and is right on track. Building for the ORE challenge is just fun bits I do when I need a break from staring at the questbuilder.

I hope you will all cheer me on to victory in the ORE challenge, and if you fancy building a house of your own, stop by the registration thread HERE and sign up. You will have to the end of July to finish your entry, and I hope you will!

So, in short, this week I will be trying to finish up Chapter 2 in RST's quest build. I don't foresee any other major issues in this chapter and some of the things I've learned will carry on into the next chapters as well. I do wish it was going faster, but you just can't rush some things. I'll post again soon, hopefully to announce the end of chapter 2 and the start of long chapter 3.

Happy Modding! :D

DarkRider

19.June.09: Hitting the Wall

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:09:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings RST Fans!

Time for another update. I wish I could say progress has been moving right along but I have hit a pretty serious wall in RST Main Quest build. It's one of those thing that is such a road block I can't even go around and come back to it as the story can't progress without a solution. I really really, REALLY, do not want to have to re develop Chapter 2 this far into the project. Unfortunately, if I don't find a solution, I may have no choice.

This new image is of the Blades Tournament Arena, where the Blades have tournaments to keep their skills honed and provide some entertainment for those who are in attendance. This is also where Blades are tested as they progress through their training, and where the player will be tested as they progress through the RST Main Quest.

I will be posting a new update when I have breeched the wall that is holding things up, hopefully that update will come soon, keep your collective fingers crossed!

Cheers!

DarkRider

31.May.09: Reclaimed at Last!

Sun, 31 May 2009 23:55:00 -0400

Hail and Fair Greetings Blades Fans,

Thought I'd pop in for another log update. This seems like the best way to keep information extended as I work my way through the RST questbuilding. My most recent plan of doing all non essential NPCs first basically flopped. I found myself in this weird limbo where, to place NPCs and get their AI going I needed queststages, but to create quest stages, I need NPCs in place. Quite a conundrum. :roll:

I finally took a deep breath and plunged in, starting at the beginning. I downloaded a MQ Complete savegame and created a clean save for testing purposes, then began building in earnest. As I build, I add the characters, AI, creatures, etc in as I go, filling RST's world in around her quests. Today I finished the first leg of RST's Main Quest and actually made my way to reclaimed Sancre Tor for the first time as part of the running quest.

This screen shows Blade Captain Steffan and I as we travel to Sancre Tor. As the teaser storylines in the RST thread reveal, the initiation to the main quest is a simple escort mission. Captain Steffan asks you to follow along as second blade when he escorts a group of holy brother to the compound at Sancre Tor. It seems bandits and would be thieves have taken to watching the roads, interested in the Blades caravans that have been hauling goods to the growing castle fortress. This is not as easy as it might first appear. One of the things I wanted to capture in RST is immersion. I love to play this game like I am living it. For me, that means not always being in control. On this mission, you can't fast travel away, as that would leave Steffan alone to defend the four brothers. You can't order Steffan to stop or follow, he is leading the march. The player must follow and guard. The player can also scout ahead, but be certain the road behind the party is clear or they may come to harm after you leave them.

I've made this trip with Steffan and the monks a few times today and every time, there were moments where the scenery just captured me and I forgot for an instant that it was just a game. You can't rush through, you have to live the moment and take in your surroundings. You must be mindful of where the brothers are and what dangers might spring out. If you fail, you have to begin again, because in allowing one of the brothers to die, the Blades will lose confidence in you and the quest cannot proceed, It is very challenging, but elegant and I think you are all in for a wonderful treat as this expansion begins.

This is sadly the only bit of the quest I can openly reveal in such details, since this part of the story has been public for over a year. Even now though, I think there will still be surprises for you on the road to Sancre Tor.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing; Captain Steffan gave me quite the run for my money the last 2 days. Just getting him to lead the trek from Cloud Ruler to Sancre Tor has been one headache after another. He is now the star of a comedic "In Dev" video that will be available on the RST home site after release. In the end, my old standby "less is more" proved to be the key once again and I straightened him out. He now leads steadily and is quite an asset to have when the going gets tough. Radiant AI is always fun for a few laughs and the occasional headache! :lol:

That's it for this entry, but I will post again soon when I've made more progress. Finally I feel things moving forward with vigor! It's going to be worth it all in the end. Keep checking in here for the latest news and information. I will continue to post current project images on the Projects page here, though not in the gallery. All new photos are being uploaded at RST's future home.

Cheers, and Happy Modding,

DarkRider