Sanctum 2 Wins Golden Dragon for Best RPG!

2 - The Quest, AME

I’m very proud to announce that Sanctum of the Archmage 2: The Miracle Worker, Act I, has received the Golden Dragon Award from the Academy for Modding Excellence (AME) for Best Neverwinter Nights Roleplaying Module of 2007! Here’s a link to the announcement of winners, including a very nice (if I do say so myself) awards video produced by qkrch:

NWN1 2007 Golden Dragon Award Winners and Video

The segment announcing Sanctum 2’s win for Best RPG starts around 3 minutes 32 seconds in. I’m very proud of the video as well, not only for the honor of having my work included in it — for which I’m deeply grateful — but also because I actually did most of the video capture scenes for it myself.

I should also mention for the record, since I am a member of the AME, that the Academy has strict rules for when one member nominates another for an award. (Members may not nominate their own work.) In those cases, the nominated member must immediately recuse himself from any further participation (voting included) in that entire award category (in my case, Best RPG) for the rest of that year’s awards cycle.

Having worked with the other members of the AME for over a year now, I can only say that receiving an award from a group of people who are as dedicated to recognizing quality as I know them to be is a profound honor. Thank you!

EDIT: Be sure to listen to the great awards podcast with hosts Trey and Skunkeen, and AME member guests BGPHughes and Tybae. The awards segment for Sanctum 2 starts at about 22:35 into the show.

NWN1 2007 Golden Dragon Awards Podcast

AME NWN2 2007 Golden Dragon Award Winners Announced!

AME

The Academy for Modding Excellence is pleased to announce the winners of the 2007 Golden Dragon Awards for NWN2! These awards cover 12 categories including Best Roleplaying Module, Best Adventure Module, Best Custom Content and the Community Contribution award. You can see the awards announced below in an awesome video produced by AME member qkrch, or listen to the announcements live on this week’s episode of the Neverwinter Nights Podcast.

For more information about the Academy for Modding Excellence, please visit the “About AME” and the Academy Vision and Goals pages on the AME website.

And congratulations to all the winners!

NWN2 2007 AME Golden Dragon Award Winners – Part I

NWN2 2007 AME Golden Dragon Award Winners – Part II

AME NWN1 Golden Dragon Module Finalists Video Posted!

2 - The Quest, AME

I just wanted to let everyone know that the NWN1 2007 Golden Dragon Award Module Category Finalists have been announced by the Academy for Modding Excellence (AME). As before, we’ve also produced an announcement video, which can be viewed here:

 

 

 

 

 

I’m particularly proud of this one, since I actually produced most of the video clips that were used in it myself. Qkrch edited those clips to create the final video, adding the sound, voiceover, and titles.

You’ll also see, at about 4:50 into the video, that Sanctum of the Archmage 2: The Miracle Worker, Act I is a finalist in the “Best RPG” Category. (Since I’m a member of the AME myself, according to the Academy rules I wasn’t allowed to be involved at all in that nomination, and had to recuse myself from further participation in the NWN1 Best RPG category once I’d been nominated.) I am very glad that my fellows in the Academy decided that Sanctum 2 was worthy of a nomination, though, and I’m hopeful about my prospects for winning the award. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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EDIT: Here are the nominations and video for the NWN1 Recognition and Custom Content category awards. These two videos also include the (combined NWN1 and NWN2) sound/music nominations.

 

 

 

 

>

AME Finalists and IRC Chat Announcements

AME

Some of you may know that in addition to my module development work, I’m also a member (Vice-Chairman, actually) of The Academy for Modding Excellence, or AME. I wanted to let everyone know that the AME has recently announced the finalists for the NWN2 Golden Dragon Awards for 2007. Our resident video expert, Qkrch, has posted a pair of fantastic videos demoing and announcing the finalists. For the announcements, see the AME website, here and here, and check out the videos below!

Also, the AME wil be holding a public IRC chat on Saturday, May 3 at 4 pm GMT. I’ll be there as well, and I’d like to invite anyone who can be available to join in. Hope to see you there!

UPDATE: See here to read the log from yesterday’s public IRC Chat.

Now THAT\’s a Pegasus!

2 - The Quest

I haven’t had much time yet to get caught up on the new content being developed for NWN patch 1.69. But I discovered something today that I’m definitely going to have to incorporate into Sanctum 2:

Unicorn, Pegasus, Nightmare and Horses for HotU 1.69

To see why this has me positively drooling, take a look at this image:

Pegasus

These gorgeous models are adaptations of the DLA horses for NWN1 patch 1.69. And best of all, from what I can gather from reading the hak page, they’re going to be able to be made ridable!

*SPOILER WARNING* for Sanctum of the Archmage 2

So now I’m doing some serious thinking about how these could be incorporated into another update to Sanctum 2. One reason for this is that the original story (and my original plan for the module) featured the Pegasi of Mount Cassandra more prominently than the final version of the module was able to allow. In the original plan, the Pegasi served as steeds for the heroes on their quest to recruit allies for the fledgling alliance. But doing this properly would have required ridable Pegasus models, which didn’t exist for NWN1 (much less for NWN2) when I originally built the second chapter. That’s why I developed the idea of using Queen Talina’s “Wind-Walking” cloak for this purpose instead — which I think has actually worked out to be a very good alternative.

But I still have a soft spot in my heart for the idea of the loyal Pegasi of Mount Cassandra, carrying our heroes on their quest to build The Alliance against the Warlord Zomoran. So when these models and patch 1.69 become available, I’m at the very least going to add a cutscene showing the heroes actually being carried up to the peak of Mount Cassandra from the foothills. But should I redo the Wind-Walking scenes to include the pegasi as well?

 

Sanctum of the Archmage Act I, v3.0 is Now Available!

1 - The Sight, 2 - The Quest

I’ve just finished uploading the v3.0 update to the “Sanctum of the Archmage” modules (both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2). Please note that ALL of the version 3.0 files (including the music hak) are required to play the update, and that the downloads for Chapter 2 are now contained in these files as well. The module specific hak files (Hak, Music and CMP) will be moved to separate hak pages as soon as these requests make their way through the Vault approval process.

I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to the Beta testers who helped me playtest the update. Your thoroughness, enthusiasm, and attention to detail were very helpful, and very much appreciated. Thank You!

I hope that you will all enjoy the new version. Let me know what you think, and if you have any problems!

Andarian

EDIT: Here’s a screenshot from the new version. It’s a little too spoilerish for the module page, but check it out if you’ve finished Chapter 1. I thought it did a good job of capturing a particular moment that you’ll probably recognize. 🙂 (WARNING: The image is rendered with the game’s “violence level” set on maximum.)

Proceed to Battle

Sanctum Act One v3.0 Nearing Release!

1 - The Sight, 2 - The Quest

The long-awaited version 3.0 of “Sanctum of the Archmage: Act I” is finally nearing release! The last stage of the beta test is finishing this weekend, and barring unforseen issues, I should be ready to post it sometime next week. Version 3.0 includes updates to both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the saga, although the most extensive changes are in Chapter 1. I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to the beta testers who volunteered to give the new version a very thorough shakedown, and who offered many helpful comments and suggestions.

I’d also like to remind everyone that we’re now in the final week of the NWN Vault’s Module of the Year Contest, in which “Sanctum of the Archmage 2: The Miracle Worker – Act I” is a contestant. So if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to vote before the contest ends on Saturday, April 5th!

Sanctum 2 in 2007 Module of the Year Contest!

2 - The Quest

I’m very pleased to announce that voting has now begun on the NWN Vault for “2007 Module of the Year” — and that Sanctum of the Archmage 2: The Miracle Worker, Act I, is a contestant!

Voting is open to anyone who had an active Neverwinter Vault account as of March 1, 2007, and only one vote is allowed. So of course, I’d like to encourage fans of the Sanctum of the Archmage series to visit the poll and cast their vote!

The poll can be found here. And good luck to all of the other contestants!

Beta Testing Sanctum 1 v3.0

1 - The Sight

I’ve been relatively quiet here lately, in spite of having several reader and player comments that I still want to respond to. Unfortunately, several aspects of my “real life” are demanding a lot of my attention, and probably will continue to in the near future. And I’ve been keeping relatively quiet to try to focus my attention on finishing the update to Sanctum 1. But I did want to take a few minutes to post an update on my progress.

First, the good news: this weekend, I finally finished an alpha test of my rewrite of “The Sight.” The “makeover” turned out to involve much more work than I’d intended, and I’m glad that it’s now almost over. A lot of the changes involved doing certain things “right” that I didn’t know how to do properly when I first built the module, but do now. A lot more, though, involved adding new content (especially new dialogue, scripts and areas). After a few pages of relatively minor bugfixes and another Alpha test run, I should be ready to post a beta version, hopefully by next weekend.

On that note, I’d like to ask if anyone would be interested in helping beta test the new version. Several players have mentioned an interest in doing so, and ideally I’d like to try to find several people willing to test out each of the different options that the new version provides. (The main ones are: easy/hard combat, male/female Robin, and male/female player.) I won’t post a final version to the Vault until the beta test is over, since I prefer to do short and private beta tests with only a few testers, and after I’ve shaken most of the bugs out of the module myself. If you’re willing to play a (mostly polished) beta version and email me some notes on any problems that you see or thoughts that you have, post a note here or drop me an email, with my thanks. 😉

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to the end of my ideas regarding how to improve the module yet — but I’ve decided that I really do have to draw the line at this point at making any more significant changes. I did take to heart the comments of players who objected to Robin’s “harshness” in several conversations. I reworked them to try to make them less punitive, to let the player feel less pressure to “be nice” to him/her, and to allow for a little more “attitude.” I’ve also changed the way that Robin’s relationship “points” accumulate, which should make it easier for players to miss or pass on some choices for RP reasons and still “gain influence and fulfill the romantic aspect of the campaign,” as LadyN put it. But I’m passing on some of the more extensive writing changes that I had in mind (some of which I’ll try including in the next module).

And thanks in advance for any volunteers interested in beta testing!