The last of the new quests for the Sanctum 1 remake are done! After a dedicated session of building over the weekend, the hardest part of the work —  structuring the quests, creating the areas where they take place, setting up their scripting, and writing the associated dialogue — is all finished. I did a quick play-through of the critical path, and everything worked. There were a few minor glitches, of course, and it’s going to need a fair amount of tweaking to get everything just right. But today definitely marks a status change in the V4 update for Sanctum 1, when it finally goes from “in development” to “in QA and test.”

Here’s a quick list of some highlights for the new version:

• Three brand new areas, two new major quests, and five new minor ones
• 7 old areas split up, re-designed, and expanded into 16 new and re-built areas to replace them
• A new (temporary) henchman
• A dozen extensive new conversations and significant additions to existing dialogues
• Use of new CEP 2.4 and Project Q 1.5 content, including new monsters and placeables
• Expanded relationship options (including an increase in the max scores)
• Two quest tie-ins to the rewrite of Sanctum 2

And, of course, more. 😉

I’ll probably need at least a couple of additional weeks for that “tweaking,” and for alpha testing before it’ll be in a form that I’m comfortable putting out for a community beta test. But September is definitely starting to look more and more like a good target date for that. So if you might be interested in helping to beta test SanctumV4 Chapter 1, drop me a note or post here to let me know!

I’ve been focusing most of my available time this summer on building the Sanctum V4 update rather than blogging about it —  but since it’s been a while since my last post, I thought it was time for at least a quick update. Here are some of the things I’ve been working on and accomplishing recently:

• I’ve now finished a complete re-working of the custom content (CC) framework for Sanctum V4. Among other things this will make it compatible with the latest versions of both CEP and Project Q, integrating and using resources from both along with my own module-specific custom content. This finally brings both Sanctum 3 and the re-writes of chapters 1 & 2 up to using the same CC architecture, making content from both CEP 2.4 and Project Q’s brand new v1.5 release available for me to use in all of my future modding work. When released, it should also provide a useful starting framework for other modders to use in developing CEP and Q compatible modules in the future.
• Aside from some possible tweaks, I’ve now finished the level building and rebuilding for Sanctum 1. This included adding a number of new areas, as well as splitting up and re-making most of the existing ones in the module. Much of the re-making turned out to be a necessary consequence of breaking up the existing areas. That was because I found that in order for them to work well together as pieces, in many cases the logic of what was in them and how they were arranged had to be re-thought. The new layout for some of the areas (the lower ruins south is an especially good example), while still having some familiar encounters, will be nearly un-recognizable in layout to players of previous versions of “The Sight.”
• I’m now working on the last task for the rewrite of Sanctum 1: finishing two new quests that will also potentially extend into the rewrite for Sanctum 2. Once the conversations and quest variable handling for those are finished, and I’ve had a chance to do a full playthrough test and fix any obvious bugs, I should be in a position to get the module out to the community for a beta test. My best estimate right now would be in September.

After that, the next step will be to do the rewrite of Sanctum 2. The good news there is that much of the rework needed for the second chapter will already be done when the first chapter is complete (e.g. the CC framework). The biggest challenge there will be at the end: re-making the flying areas using the new “Sanctum Flying Skyscape” tileset that I’ve been using for Sanctum 3.

I also have a surprise announcement regarding the future of  the Sanctum saga planned for after the Sanctum 1 & 2 remakes are released. More on that to come, though… 🙂

Although I’ve provided some more recent updates in the comments, it’s been a couple of months now since my last post. So I thought I’d share a quick update on the Sanctum v4 update, which is progressing rapidly now that I’m finally more or less settled into my new home and job.

As I wrote in my last response to Aderyn in the comments, I’ve now finished with the structural changes I had to make to Chapter 1 to accommodate the two new races: the Hellmen and the Earthen. It turned out to be a huge amount of work, and quite a bit more than I expected. All the new encounters, creature blueprints and items are done, and for the most part tweaked and tested. Among other things, the “Delay Quest” battle near the end looks and plays very differently now as a result. Not surprisingly my initial tests for it started out as completely un-survivable for the party against the newly designed Hellmen and their allies, even with the help of the Guardians (a couple of which, to my surprise, actually took some damage in the fight). I’ve since re-balanced the battle, and aside for a few tweaks to support the area rework (see below!) , I think it’s pretty much done. One additional tidbit I’ll share: General Y’thra can now be either a male or female character, and will be set to the opposite of Robin’s gender. That’s to make it so that I can emphasize the threat of making Robin his/her personal slave consistently for all of the player’s RP choices.

I’ve also just merged all of the Sanctum-specific custom content into a single hak in preparation for one final “2DA merge” with the new CEP 2.4 and Project Q 1.5 content. That’ll be my last major task. I’ve also been re-writing the lore to be consistent with the new races and other new story elements, such as the introduction of and emphasis on the Church of the Divine — and of Orion’s order within it, The Order of Light. I’ve also been adding new lore as well; for example, The Legend of the Defender is already in as a new book. I’m also including some new conversation and role-playing elements that I think will add some new interest and color to the story. Aside from needing a few minor tweaks the new treasure system is also done and seems to be working quite well.

The biggest task I’ve been working on recently is that I’ve finally decided to fix the “beginner’s design problem” Chapter 1 has always had with the size of the areas in the Ancient Ruins. The Upper and Lower ruins levels have now been cut up into three separate areas each, with transitions linking them, and each (except for one) with their own portal rooms. That required a certain amount of re-resign in their layout, moving some rooms and encounters and introducing a few more into the resulting extra space.

The update for Sanctum 2 will be easier in some respects, and harder in others. The easier part is that many of the changes needed in chapter 1 either don’t apply to chapter 2 (like the treasure system), or (like the Earthen) are already done now. The real (but fun!) challenge in chapter 2 will be re-building the flying areas to use the new “Sanctum Flying Skyscape” tileset.

All in all, the v4 rework is going well and proceeding quickly now. Hopefully I’ll be ready to invite playtesters to try out the new version of Sanctum 1 within the next month.