After thinking carefully about the issues that I raised in a previous blog post (“A Builder’s Dilemma“), I’ve made a final decision to return to building the next installment of the Sanctum saga in NWN1.
I won’t rehash any of the reasons for that decision now, but those who are interested can find a good discussion of them on the Bioware forums (here and here), as well as on my blog and on the Sanctum I module page. I want to sincerely thank everyone who shared their thoughts and gave me feedback on my questions. That was invaluable in helping me think through the issue — and, I think, to make the right choice for the next chapter of the sequel. I’m still confident that with a little more time, NWN2 will mature into an awesome modding environment — so I will almost certainly be switching to the new game for the last two chapters (three and four) of the series.
I’m also thinking of changing how I’m structuring the series. My plan had been for the three sequel modules collectively to constitute “Sanctum of the Archmage, Chapter 2: The Miracle Worker,” and to refer to each of the modules individually as “Acts” in the second chapter. This is similar to how Savant is treating the fourth chapter of the Aielund saga, “The Fall of Aielund.” I’m now thinking that it might be better to stick to referring to each module as its own “Chapter,” so that there would be four chapters in the series all told. The first half would be in NWN1, consisting of Chapters 1 (“The Sight”) and 2 (which I’ll probably now call “The Miracle Worker” instead of “The Alliance”). The second half of the series would be in NWN2, consisting of Chapters 3 and 4 (names yet to be announced). I could refer to the two halves as “Acts,” so that Act I would be in NWN1, and Act II would be in NWN2.
How does that sound? Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on this?
Hey, you actually suggested your mod to me (after a string of others that were NOT your mod, though, so it wasn’t a shameless plug by any means!) on the Bioware NWN forum.
Anyway, I wanted to let you know that, among everything suggested, all of which I do eventually plan to play (or at least whatever I have time and energy for), I had this feeling about Sanctum. Anyway, I’m playing the first part right now (obviously since it’s the only part) and enjoying the heck out of it!
And I sure hope you’re right, that NWN2 will eventually be a great environment for mods. It’s sad we have to wait, I mean it’s practically been out for a year now…
I’ll try to remember to keep my save at the end of the chapter and not just export the character!
Thanks so much for your hard work, though. You can bet I’ll be keeping up on the series and any other projects you happen to put your effort into. We’ve got a pretty darn cool thing going on here with NWN 1 and 2 and the talented people (you! and many others) who are doing free, professional grade work just to entertain us.
Hey Jesse,
Thanks for stopping by and trying out Sanctum I, and thanks for your very kind words!
– Andarian