Hearkenwold Beta

[slowdive]

Downloading now. My 10 year old daughter, 5 year old son, and I have been playing Icewind Dale EE on our iPads the past week in multiplayer mode and we are having a lot of fun together. They are starting to better understand the AD&D system. Natalie is an Archer, Ben is a Sorcerer, and I am a fighter/cleric (the tank). We are in the Vale of Shadows main crypt level 2 now.

I think once Ben goes down and Natalie is still awake for a bit, she and I will play Hearkenwold together. I will let her make two characters that she controls and I will make two for me. This should be lots of fun. Maybe I'll try and record our play throughs.

On another note, we are finally under contract with a house that should close at the end of the month. This has been a crazy and challenging year with selling our last home and living in an apartment while trying to find another home in this crazy market.

[Dorateen]

That is great news all around! Good luck with closing the sale. And IWD seems like a good place to introduce AD&D.

It's interesting how you are teaching your son and daughter. Reminds me of what I read about Gary Gygax prototyping Dungeons and Dragons with his daughter who was about Natalie's age, and her younger brother. Hope they have fun, and develop a long lasting interest in the hobby.

[zach_holbrook]

Yes, good luck! Icewind Dale remains one of my favorite games of all time. So replayable.

[youngneil1]

[Dorateen]

October Update

Not much of an update here, but I did make available a new version that uses build 173 of the IceBlink Engine. It can be downloaded from the following link:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/ic ... earkenwold

This fixes the issue of equipped ammunition vanishing upon reload of a save. Thank you, youngneil1, for looking into this an applying a fix so quickly!

As before, any existing saves from previous campaigns can be copied over and pasted into the saves folder of build 173.

Still trying to finish the Cleric guild quest. It has some elements that could be frightening, so it would be appropriate to make a Halloween release.

[youngneil1]

Hehe, Halloween release sounds like a fine goal there ! Once I have finished writing all those guides in 2027 (setting up movers, trait system and interactive props, how paint sprites in order to enable automatic pc/prop animations), I look forward to entering Hearkenwold again (I think I will do the building of the test village afterwards, we will see..).

[Dorateen]

To celebrate Halloween, I have a preview screenshot from the upcoming release, where the party can meet this charming fellow.



I have the cleric guild quest now completed, and have been testing things the past few days. I would rather release the new version over the weekend, so that I have time to make a more detailed post.

This, being the first of the class specific quests, which players must resolve to obtain guild membership and the associated benefits. I'm glad to get this one out of the way.

[Dorateen]

November Update

I have a new version of the Hearkenwold campaign ready to download. The file can be found here:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/ic ... earkenwold

This version uses build 174 of IceBlink, and now includes the first of six class related guild quests. Here, clerics in the party shall have the opportunity to join the Order of the Crystal Hearts. It is not an easy path. A number of conditions will need to be met, including locating an NPC sponsor and then finding the guild itself. Then of course, the party will have to risk life and limb on some dangerous mission, to satisfy the demands of the guild.

I would like to take a moment to mention the faction system that the IceBlink currently has built into the toolset. Upon first review, I think this is something that has a lot of potential, and could be incorporated into what I had planned. However, after playing around with the faction editor, I don't think it is quite ready for the purpose I need at this time. Essentially, the way the guilds work in Hearkenwold, it is a designation that gets awarded to a specific character (as opposed to being a party-wided buff) much like a Trait. And so, that is in fact what I ended up doing. I created a trait that will be given to a cleric in the party, once the quest is completed and they petition the guild master. It appears like this, with corresponding stat boosts:



I might revisit this in the future, should I get a better handle on IceBlink's faction editor. Another thing is, I need to have a faction assigned only when certain conditions are met. I was able to create a faction in the journal, but it showed up from the beginning. Instead, I need it to work like a standard journal entry that can be called from a script later in the game. Again, I resorted to working with the Journal Editor that is already in place. So now when completing the guild quest, a new entry simply opens up in the journal.



And finally, something additional I have added as part of these guilds. I always liked the level ranks that AD&D had used for each class. Like how a 2nd level thief would be called a Footpad, or a 7th level fighter is a Champion. In Hearkenwold, there is an option to approach the guild master, and find out a character's title for their respective level. Here, a 6th level cleric is called a Canon.



As always, anyone who has been playing through Hearkenwold, can transfer existing saves by copying the folder into the saves folder of IBBeta174.

With the cleric guild quest out of the way, I am now going to start working on content for rangers.

[Pongo]

Looking great Dorateen!
Have you given any thought as to what the ultimate maximum level might be for PCs in the campaign? I think my party of dwarves are currently around level 8, but you've added loads of content since I played last played it.

[Dorateen]