Ernie Noa's RPG Blog

Keep on the Borderlands broke 10,000 downloads within the past 24 hours. I am very pleased, but I'm also surprised. I think it's solid, and fun but not a great mod. I think Tomoachan is a much better module, but downloads are coming MUCH slower. Either way it's all good.

I wanted to give a shout out to Gront (Gront0307). I've been corresponding with him on the NWVault forum about Tomoachan. He mentioned he'd posted about the mod on a German forum and sure enough on the Planet Neverwinter German Forum there is a thread about many mods. Keep on the Borderlands is mentioned but Tomoachan got a very nice mention with some screen shots. Check it out in German here . Babel fish did a so-so translation job, some of translation reads a little funny, but here's the text in English: Before the module corner sinks completely under the bubbling waves MotB threads, and for all, which do not trust that 1,10 Patch yet over the way, here fast a further beautifully made Mod (nearly as good as the Conan Chronicles): "Tomoachan" (level 3-6) leads us from the high north down there into the tropical south, offers a story-constituent romance (jaha.. with influence change!) Indian temple and stufenpyramiden as well as a migration by the probably-tur...

I spent a lot of the day testing and debugging Tomoachan, except for some time with the kids, and watching the Illinois Football Game. Go Illini! It's slow going but good progress. My stuff, my original stuff preceding the 'dungeon' is very stable and good enough to be called done. The dungeon is slowly improving. I have progressed half way through, with luck I'll be able to slug through the whole thing. I'm presently testing with the beginning of the dungeon moving forward only. If I can get through the whole thing I'll switch from testing to adding loadscreens. Being able to get through the whole thing will be another milestone in a sense. The stuff that is vexing me was not a problem in Keep on the Borderlands. Fetching items from placeables, making placeable bashable, talking to placeables, I'll figure it all out, it's not awful, but less is working than I would like at this point. I'm officially feeling pangs of burnout. I want to releas...

I have hit a major milestone today. I have finished building the dungeon with two exceptions sound and loadscreens. It is untested, but the dungeon represents the converstion or adaptation of the original Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan. My 'wrapper' goes around it and is interspersed with in it. My to do list before I begin testing is as follows: Write the end scene/battle. (It's finished in my head) Write the epilogue, with 2-3 different outcomes (Also in my head) Set up battles encounters for the wrapper (dialog and area transitions are done, just need the bad guys). Pick load screens for each area. Place sounds for each area. I may wait and take screen captures during a test run and turn them into load screens. It is possible I could be ready to be testing by the end of the weekend. If not by the end of the week is very likely. I have a lot of varied scripting to check so testing could take a while, but that light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger. Burnout is ...

I have 34 rooms in the conversion/adaptation of Hidden Shrine done and 20 to go. Tons of progress, very little testing. My story and areas that largely 'wrap around' the original dungeon remain nearly complete. I need a break and will try to remain disciplined enough to take one. I am greatly enjoying the work but I want it to be finished. Not so much burnout but definitely excitement and impatience to complete it and share it with people. When... I don't know. It depends on how much and how often I can work and how long testing and debugging takes. I'm hoping this module is as stable as Keep on the Borderlands. I think Keep was a pretty simple hack and slash mod but it was stable and I was proud of that. Once again I'm going to say what I always say. This is it. This is the last mod and I'm quitting and giving it up. Maybe I can break the toolset after I release this mod. I'm retiring from mod writing... again... the same way I do after each mod...

B2 Keep on the Borderlands made the NWVault Hall of Fame . Woo hoo! It's always a thrill to have a module make the Hall of Fame, and I am thrilled to have a NWN2 module make it in. Night Howls in Nestlehaven by jackyo123 and Dark Waters 1 - Highcastle by Adam Miller, which were much higher rated modules than mine we also inducted. I've played most of Adam Miller's work and highly recommend it. I haven't had a chance to play Night Howls in Nestlehaven yet, but look forward to doing so.

I had a couple of kind replies to my last post (Thank you), one of them was from Amraphael. He's got a very humbling and flattering post that mentions Keep on the Borderlands on his blog . I've added a link to his blog on the right hand menu of my blog. I looks like he's working on a conversion of Zork 1 for NWN2, sounds pretty cool. I can't wait to be peaking in mailboxes, and hacking trolls with a nasty axe. :-) Check out Amrapheal's blog here . There is a nice screen shot of the dam part way down the page. Looks pretty cool! Good luck Amrapheal and thanks for the post and kind words. Much appreciated!

Well what do you know! Ain't that a kick in the pants. I got a 1 or 2 line blurb at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry for Keep on the Borderlands .

I am tempted to write again. I thought of resurrecting my efforts to port C1 Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan over from NWN1 to NWN2. I had an expanded plot outline. The original C1 was the dungeon and nothing else. I figured I'd add a back story and wrap up after the dungeon. I really got burned out after Keep on the Borderlands which was frustrating because the module could have been so much more. However with Keep so warmly received and having been given a very kind review I was tempted. It's raining where I live and I'm inside and my three young sons are either absent or quiet so again it's tempting. I opened the editors, and I started pursuing various scripts. I popped in a movie soundtrack (great mood music) and settled in. Then I called my friend Bruce (aka Darmok) and asked him to remind me why I am not writing another module. He had to tell me six times (I made him repeat it), but I closed the editor and came to my senses. Perhaps next Fall/Winter. Maybe w...

B2 Keep on the Borderlands was reviewed on NWVault by Dormammu . Dormammu is a long time reviewer who was kind enough to review my first module for NWN1 Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan . The full review can be found here: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Reviews.Detail&id=6 I really enjoyed Dormammu's review . The comments were very fair and in my opinion quite positive. More important I got to enjoy a narrative of his experience while playing the mod. I get such a kick out of hearing the story from the players point of view. I always used to DM games and I suppose it's the same type of satisfaction and enjoyment for me. Here is one of my favorite bits that illustrates what I am talking about: Nothing surprised me more than taking my group of four (level 2 at that point) into an “easy” cave of goblins, only to have one of the goblins start yelling “HELP! GET THE BIG ONE!”, and an Ogre comes running out at us. Zounds! I went from feeling invincible to as vulnerabl...

Berliad rated Keep on the Borderlands a 7.0 and posted a detailed response on both the vault and his blog . You can read his review with some great screen shots here . Here is the text from the review: My Vote: 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look Character Played: lv. 1 Human Female Chaotic Good Cleric, advanced to level 5 by end. This is a fun, old fashioned, low-level D&D dungeon crawl. It's pretty straight and to the point -- there's a bunch of Bad Things living near the keep, and the local leader thinks it'd be great if you'd go kill them for him. So, off you go to the Caves of Chaos to slay evil and rid the area of their infestation. The thing I really enjoyed about this module was exploring the many intricate and interconnected dungeons that make up the many Caves of Chaos. Each cave housed a different tribe representing a different sort of monster, and each tribe had a "boss" leader of sorts that I needed to kill. But while that sounds fairly simple, ...

Looks like Keep has been uploaded to other sites beyond NWVault. I am thrilled, but I wonder how this happens, I only submit it to NWVault. Here are links if you are curious. GameSpot Softpedia A second mention on Berliad's Blog (thanks Berliad) It's also on fileplanet . I think it's kind cool, but I'd love to track my download count. It looks like 460 or so downloads from file planet... Thanks to anyone who's checked it out. I'm tempted to write more, but I keep calling my best friend who's agreed to talk me out of it every time I consider it. :-) Ernie

I got an 8.25 rating from Lariam on NWN vault. Lariam posted/corresponded with me a bit before the release of his module and I was looking forward to his feedback. I was not disappointed. Here is his post from NWVault. Finished! It took quite a while, in the end... Thanks for the many hours of fun, ENoa4. :) I don't know the original, but I must say it's a pretty funny story. Or should I say a simple one. ;) Of course, it's all about hack & slash and dungeon crawling - I knew what to expect and wasn't disappointed. What did I like? Well, the module looked pretty good. The Keep was very nice, and so were the caves. Also, the location relevant to the elves was somehow touching. The fights were a lot of fun, mostly. (With regard to both these issues, however, I did find the module slightly monotonous, at times. I know that's due to the original.) I know that many have said they would've wished to see more developed companions - more dialogue, etc. Now, of co...

Oh how I am tempted to write again. I won't, at least not now. I know I can build better than Keep on the Borderlands. Keep was supposed to be a warm up to my real modules for NWN2, but the build time is a killer. I've read the comments and posting on the Keep forum eagerly and think they are all fair and reasonable. The fall into several broad categories. 1) Details, typos, floating objects, little things clearly wrong that aren't huge to tweak. They'd exist in anything I write. 2) Issues related to personal preference. Some folks just don't like A or B and that plays into comments I receive. 3) Design or Depth issues. Good gravy, I'd like to have deep henchmen, endless dialog that morphs as the story advances, a robust death system, a robust bleeding system, a resting system, etc... and more complex and open ended story with interesting NPCs. I think good companions are key to a successful module. This is the category that bugs me the most, not the com...

Keep on the Borderlands was mentioned on NWNPodcast episode 24 . The podcasts are very good, and I listen to them weekly. I was flattered and grateful to be mentioned. Thanks to hosts for mentioning the module!

Well, I wanted a break, and I think I'm truly there now. It looks like traffic and frequency of ratings on keep on the borderlands is slowing down. I'm not patching it like crazy (which is good), and I have time to play other NWN2 mods and I picked up Half Life 2 - Episode 1, which crashed the computer badly every time until I found a post suggesting I run it in directX 8.1 mode. Now it's fine. Some strange artifacts in the reflection on the metal walls, but it is still very fun. The feedback on the module has been great and inspirational. I really need a break, but it is oh so tempting to write again. Having something nicely received by players is a very strong motivator. I'm still retired, or semi-retired... for a while.

Keep on the Borderlands got a very kind mention over at Alazandar's blog . Thanks Alazandar!

If you have not visited RPGMP3.com and listened to their wonderful audio, you really should. There is a thread on their forums about keep on the borderlands. You can peak at the thread here if you are curious

My first update is done (v1.0.1) with a variety of minor adjustments. I will upload it shortly. I need to FTP due to file size. I'll post again when it is available. Here are the list of fixes: * Tried to fix problem with freed prisoner (wild man) causing alignment shift if killed. * I added map points showing the entrance to each cave in the valley. * Curate now casts greater restoration in addition to heal when curing the PC & party. * Curate sells multiple remove disease scrolls. * Added a few magic items to the stores in the keep. * Evil clerics started out wounded. Fixed. * I got a few comments on the lighting. I turned down the shadow intensity for the default lighting in the caves. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. It’s a guess. It was approx .42 (default). I changed it to .22 * Added map points to cave exits (interiors) * Folks have noted Castellan should be spelled Castlian. In the original mod it is consistently spelled Castellan. I stuck with the original mod....

Keep on the Borderlands was mentioned in the mod spotlight at NWVault. Click here to read the article.