It’s been a while since my last blog post, so I just wanted to take a few minutes to say “Hi” and to give everyone a quick update on the progress of Sanctum 3.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can spend most of my spare time working on the next chapter, and I’m having a great time at it. It’s coming along so well that it’s actually exceeding my expectations, which I’d set pretty high for the project. I’m still aiming for a release sometime this summer, although it’ll be a couple of months yet before I know how well my progress is matching that goal.

One of the things I’ve done to help expedite the next release is to scale back the scope of Chapter 3, which as I’m now planning it will only cover the quest to ally with Rayche. I’d always intended the Rayche mission to be the most extensive and elaborate of the quests to form the alliance, and I think that will give the module a good starting point as well as a good point of closure. Now that I have most of the quests written out in detail I’m also realizing that it’s going to make a sizable module in its own right (and will certainly be much longer than Chapter 2 was).

It’ll also have a somewhat different design from my previous work. Chapter 1 and especially Chapter 2 were very linear, and had what I think was an unusual quest structure compared to most other modules. In Chapter 3, though, I’m planning a more non-linear plot with a more familiar adventuring quest style — but without compromising any of the story-driven focus that players have come to expect from the saga. The different quest threads will be thoroughly interwoven with the main plot, but they will also offer a lot more choice regarding which quests to do, in what order, and how they can be resolved. Indeed, I expect that it will be difficult to complete all of the available quests on any one playthrough (and impossible to see all the outcomes), which I hope will make Sanctum 3 an especially good module for replayability.