Toolset vs. Computer

It seems to be one of those kinds of days today where my PC and the NWN2 Toolset doesnt seem to want to get on. Had to restart it twice as it refused to open modules and several times as the apperance editor decided it was just going to lock up completely, grumble.

Still having sorted all that out I've decided that I'm not overly happy with the general layout of the area for the second scene. Which is a bit of a pain in the bum really as I baked it over the weekend having decided that the layout was perfect.

Before I ramble more I probbaly should mention that I'm using scene in a highly broad and generic sense to refer to any area and/or cutscene that relates directly to a plot point, player task (not a complete quest but possibly part of one) or other important part of the module.

Anyway back to the point, where was I? Ah yes.. backed it over the weekend... mind you at that point the cell scene was going to consist purely of the player in the cell and one of the potential companions (Frin Teathorn) was going to turn up and break the player out. However when I tried to build and test the that part of the scene it quickly became apparent that it didnt really work for me. Not that it didnt work in the game or that it looked bad or anything more that I decided it wasnt how I wanted to start after all. It was probably partly affected by the fact I was leaning far more to Frin being a Favored Soul rather than the Rogue that was required to sneak in and open the cell door.

Of course the first draft of her character had her as a Rogue, but at that time the opening scene had the player being caught in a rock fall in a cave and since it was intended that Frin is with you from the start a Rogue didnt fit there either so she became a Favored Soul. I kind of fickle like that...

Still lots of other things have changed since then as well... I'm on opening scene version 4 or 5 by now. Ok actually it's not the opening scene as such, that hasn't changed. Well I lie there too, the dialog has changed slightly to accomodate the change in location of the subsiquent scene.

So the versions so far have been:

1 - Player wakes in cave after being caught in a rock fall, Frin heals them and they make thier way out of the cave together. Rejected as it didn't give the generally avoid the bad guys on the way out task I wanted to start with (everything seems so "player meets some bad guys and has to kill them" all the time and I wanted something a little different).

2 - Going for the dramatic, city under attack by Dragon Riders player must escape the ruins of a cellar and then run away from the dragon that chases them when they emerge. Really like the "run away from the dragon" idea so will use it in a later part (if I make it that far), but to build a city that's in the process of being conquered is a very complex and highly time consuming task not to mention the toolset doesnt have all the items I want (and I'm trying to avoid custom content to start with so I can actually learn the toolkit basics) meant that it just isnt going to fit into the scope and purpose of the first module.

3 - The player wakes up in a cell and gets rescued by Frin version.. didn't quite work for me in terms of the story.

4 - The current version, player wakes up in a cell with Frin and a few others, they effect an escape together and live happily ever after (ok that last points not true.. but you get the idea). This seems to be working for me at the moment, it's got an initial puzzle (good), some characters you can interact with (not that show up then disappear again) from the start and the player can still do the "avoid the patrols" escape thing. Although this time they'll have four others in tow.

So here's hoping I dont change my mind again, otherwise I'll never get anywhere.