Araknuum's blog

I've been in Alaska at my sister's since the end of August. She has 2 boys, ages 21 months and 6 months, just babies. I've been helping her with them and every other household thing, and having a great time! My Brother-in-law works all day so it's just us and the kids. Because of the time consuming nature of raising babies and such, I haven't been on DS at all this month. I'm still taking notes and drafting ideas, but the execution of any such is delayed until I'm back home. I still visit here at least once a day, and I've not lost my desire to mod and play DS.

The last couple weeks have been very different from my norm. I've barely touched DS, except in the Siege Editor, mapping. I still have a thousand thousand questions about how DS works, how it can be used to make a game, and those questions are getting more specific as I imagine, and learn.

Is being Dead in Multiplayer, as a ghost, a game mechanic that can be used to complete quests or puzzles?

Can DS support more complicated animations? The kind needed in order to make more active FMV's or in game interactions?

I've let modding go for a couple of days, only working a couple hours at a time on a map in Siege Editor. My mods to Farmland Mobs are all running smoothly now, and the next step will take me through The Crypt of the Sacred Blood a few dozen times to note, edit, and bugfix changes to the mobs there. I already have working versions of skeleton.gas and gargoyle.gas, but the changes I want to make in The Crypt are turning out to be more subtle than in The Farmlands.

About a month ago, I decided I would like to fundamentally revise many DS1 "givens" which I feel the designers set in place based on current (to the early 2000's) gameplay and hardware standards. The software is still quite flexible, and could allow for a near-modern (to 2016) gaming experience, but the computers of the time weren't friendly to games that didn't limit themselves in some way.

The image above may be graphic, but don't let what you are seeing frighten you. Yes, Dungeon Siege actors can attack their friends, or become so anti-social that you'll never see two of a kind anywhere near each other (GASP), unless you do happen to catch a fight or chase going on.

Well, there's this Phrak, see, and he's special. He likes to chase chickens, and he doesn't like water. I showed up at my neighbors Krug farm, after old Norick died on my bridge (eww), and there was this special Phrak, pursuing that poor hen all around the property. The chase stopped suddenly, when the chicken dove under water. I don't have a clue why this happened, and I don't know if it'll ever happen again, but I hope so!

Progress has been made. I have no errors so far, and I've edited every Enemy (for real, all of em this time) from Farmhouse to Crypt, again. The game speed is more frantic, and the ability to pause, change weapon/spell, and then decide on actions is heavily relied upon. I've added some useful rewards to the Edgaar's Basement Quest, and I'm beginning to add more useful and consistent loot to Boss drops. I've a long, long way to go, but the foundation I've built so far could support a full overhaul of Ehb.