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ALDEBARAN CITY AND THE FORGOTTEN EMPIRE : Chapter One

Readme File – fabianscorpio

Version 2.0 - December 31, 2009

CONTENTS

1. Game Description

2. Requirements

3. Installation

4. Credits

5. Feedback

6. Suggestions for better play

7. Updates since the first release

8. HINTS and TIPS

9. Fixes

1. GAME DESCRIPTION

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"Aldebaran City and the Forgotten Empire" is a single player role-playing game set in one of the lesser-known Forgotten Realms of the world. The adventure is open to all classes, and alignments, and the player should start at level 1.

NOTE: Orc is not recommended due to story conflict, but not enforced through script.

-Approximate Game play Length: 40-70+ hours (unknown)

-Content Rating: Teen (minor language)

-Multiplayer: None

-Dungeon Master: None required

-175 Areas to explore. (including house interiors)

-# of Quests: 30+ (small,medium,large)

NOTE: The ‘epic’ quest concerning the main ‘villain’ can not be completed until Chapter 2, as well as one other quest that is triggered shortly before the end of Chapter 1 as this quest deals with your character’s goals in Chapter 2.

PROLOGUE:

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“Far from the shores of Waterdeep, on the other side of the world, lay another forgotten realm. Built upon the stars and constellations of our galaxy, this forgotten northern region needs only you to bring it into existence.

The northern region is a place recently reborn from the ashes of a people that lived so long ago. A land far across the Great Northern Ocean, the small continent that lay there was once home to a great empire. For the land was different then, one thousand years ago. Peace was at hand, and religion flourished. But things would not remain as such. Even the shape of the continent itself would be scarred from the destruction those people had brought upon themselves...

...Now, one thousand years later, lay Aldebaran City. Having a huge dome constructed to shield the city from the frigid climate, Aldebaran City is a haven to those who travel through the Pleiades Mountains and seek warmth and shelter. The land is once again home to beings and creatures of all kinds. But some things, that have been forgotten for so long, are about to be rediscovered. For the land today may again soon change once again, if the forgotten empire and the secrets surrounding its destruction are realized.

When the northern region becomes the subject of a series of unforeseen events, a hero arrives to this forgotten realm and is thrust into a race to restore order. However, in order to do so, this hero will uncover truths and understanding that may challenge the very order he seeks to mend. Will you be that hero?”

GAME INTRODUCTION:

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Your village is situated within the vast borderlands of two great empires. However, its isolation makes it difficult for either empire to defend it, and its small size makes it difficult for them to even care. Fueled mainly by the desire to survive, as well as lingering hate from The Great War, the village is frequently targeted by small bands of nomadic drifters who survived the war by escaping to the vast borderlands between the two great empires.

For you, living a modest life in this small war torn village has kept you ignorant to the ‘civilized’ world. You know little of the religion that flourishes outside of your village, and living this sheltered life has grown frustrating and tiresome. So, you gather up what little you own and decide to charter passage across The Great Northern Ocean to the historic city of Ralerham. Rumors of its fine sights and modern seaports balance upon truth and tale throughout the village. As the ship sets sail, you look out over the calm waters ahead and begin to daydream. Thoughts of walking the streets of this peaceful city are refreshing indeed, but at moment, the famed city seems a world away.

After a few weeks voyaging across the waters of the Great Northern Ocean, a storm emerges and visibility soon becomes a thing of the past. Huge waves slam the boat's hull from all directions, and the small vessel seems no more than a leaf thrown into a raging river. As the storm continues, so does your journey...

2. REQUIREMENTS

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"Aldebaran City and the Forgotten Empire" has the following requirements:

- Both expansions (SoU and HotU) are installed

- The game version is patched to 1.69

- The override directory is empty to avoid compatibility issues. Note: with 1.69, the override contains 9 new files most beginning with Is_car_*.

3. INSTALLATION

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- The "Aldebaran City and the Forgotten Empire" mod file should be directly put into your modules folder as usual.

*A note concerning an item dropped by creatures called ‘PC Properties’.

NWN Forums thread concerning PC properties

Basically, PCs with multiple targets (especially spellcastors) can cause ‘burps’ in the game engine. This causes the PC properties item to stay in the creature’s inventory, instead of being removed because multiple targets are being calculated. I play a wizard and have noticed this item frequently when using Issac’s and other spells. I tried the following HAK and it seems to work fine. So, if this particular item bothers you, then consider using this HAK to prevent the item from dropping.

The Krit's 'Remove PC Properties' override

NOTE – v21 does not need this HAK file, although rigorous testing was not done, it seemed to work fine for me.

-Once again, this HAK file is optional for pre v21 users.

4. CREDITS

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Developed by, Fabian S. (fabianscorpio)

Design and History

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First, I’d like to say that my ‘vision’ is to have an opening and ending movie, and also have custom load screens to this module. I think it would really ‘complete’ the game, in my eyes. However, I always wanted to keep it free of hacks. This was to simply make it very easy for anyone to just drop and play. I have ambitions to upgrade this module ‘visually’ in the future by using the CEP, and then perhaps at that time I will go all the way and add the load screens and movies. But for now, I believe this ‘hack-free’, user-friendly module is a great play regardless of any shortcomings as I may see them as its creator. But don’t mind me, I tend to be very critical of my own work.

All area design, scripting, story lines, main plot and their characters were done by myself. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. Creating a 'virtual' book, as I have referred to it many times, became especially challenging doing it 'on the fly'. I realized now that it would have been much easier reading one of the many great Forgotten Realms novels and taking the story from there. The cities were named and laid out using a star chart guide, as I am very fond of the universe around us, but also…where else can you find really cool names? I do want to give credit to TSR as well. Some features, such as the custom creatures, were designed using the ‘D & D Rules Cyclopedia’, a remnant of my days of playing PNP. Yeah, it’s an old copy, but it came in handy. Furthermore, some of the custom items were designed using my chest of ‘Dungeon Master Decks’. These are boxes of ‘item cards’ used by the DM, or mod builders, for PNP play. Again, came in handy for me here.

I want to give another mention to Gestalt’s library of functions and include file for cut scenes. Wonderful tool, and has been so easy to use. Thank you so much. I recommend it to any serious mod builder. GestaltCamera Scripting System v2.0

I started this module after beating the OC back in 04. Not really serious or even thinking about creating anything ‘vault worthy’, I was simply curious to see what the toolset had to offer. So, I created a small desert area, placed a dragon and chest in it, and then proceeded to play my ‘game’. Well, the more I dug around the toolset and fiddled around with tilesets, the more I saw potential to make something ‘neat’. Again, not thinking about making a module for the public, I started to create a city. Yep, this would ultimately become Aldebaran City. The idea for the dome and why it was on top of a dormant volcano, I have no clue…I forget where the idea came from. Although, I can imagine the idea of the dome came from the need to trap heat. It may be interesting to know that there were 2 wizards in the city at one time…and Mistrom was one of them. At that time the characters were not developed and they were simply neat little figures in my city. The maze was the second area I created, and after it’s creation, it needed a keeper. So, Mistrom was moved to his own tower. Even at this time, the idea of creating a story was not even a thought, and Mistrom was a friendly old man that lost a trinket in the maze and you had to find it. But once I started fooling around with Hyades Power, a major idea for a quest became clear…and in fact, it was this idea that the original release is based upon. Originally released as, ‘Kingdom in Chaos’ in 05, it lacked luster in design, depth in characters, suffered from a weak but decent little story and it did not have any cut scenes. If you want to see how much has changed, try it out, although, I’m not sure it works. lol. Anyway, after it’s release in 05, I considered it done...until I played it a few months later. I remember walking up to the windmill and thinking how cool it would be to go inside. To be honest, that simple desire to get inside the windmill has lead to this, four years later. Before then, there was no Drogo, no apple orchard…just a house on a hill with a windmill. Over the years I have struggled with story ideas and many times I got so sick of the writers block, that I needed a break for a few months. But I always came back to my ‘visual storybook’, mainly because I had already invested so much time into it. This ‘fresh’ point of view caused me to go back and re-write quests and dialogue many times. I have boxes of hand written notes to myself regarding story ideas, quests and whatever else I could write down fast enough. In fact, I have documents upon documents with pages of ideas that haven’t even been implemented yet. Quite simply, it has been a very long road. And in Jan 09 I was at the point where I wanted to release something. It seemed my story was at a great point to ‘end’ as ‘part 1’ of a series. So, I brushed up a few cut scenes for the end and sent it on its way to the vault. While the module has gotten great reviews, it was clear to me upon thinking about Chapter 2 that story improvements still needed to be made. Also, player feedback had me adjusting other things as well. So, after almost a year of work and improvements to Chapter 1, the new version was released…12-23-09…and I can say it’s finished. There ‘may’ be some dialogue that may change to ‘flow’ into Chapter 2, but nothing major will change as far as story, area or NPCs. I’m going to be working on Chapter 2 now and you may be happy to know that much of Chapter 2 has already been written. Over 100 areas have already been done, 10 quests, many dialogues for new NPCs and new items are already there. Now it’s just a matter of finishing the story. Don’t be fooled, there is still much work to be done, but I don’t see it taking 5 years…I ‘hope’ to have it done in 2010 sometime. That is, if it doesn’t kill me first.

I see that modules can be judged on scripting, so I wanted to make a note about ‘my scripting’. Or perhaps it is an ‘excuse’. Lol. Anyway, I’ve been programming for over 20 years, (first was BASICA on my Tandy 1000 EX, then Qbasic, C, C++…then the visual versions VB and VC++) and I know how important it is to use uniform variables that make sense, and stick to certain naming conventions. I also know how important it is to use comment blocks to describe the functionality of the script itself. So, what I will say next will seem contradicting. Most of the custom scripts I wrote ‘do’ contain details on functionality, but it pains me to say that throughout many of my scripts are segments of comment blocks that really make my work look…well…sloppy. I can only say that if I knew five years ago that this module would turn into the ‘project’ it is today, I would have ‘planned’ a strategy to complete such a project. But instead, this module was a day to day ‘tinker toy’ when I first started out, and I had never conceived or even considered such a huge game. Working alone, I always felt a bit rushed with so much work to do once the scope of the module was realized. And the result is clear to see in many of the scripts that were simply cut and pasted, and to save time, I added no comments whatsoever, and failed to change the original comments. I hope it will suffice to say that this is usually only true when testing simple conversation variables. Try juggling 5 conversations in your head while trying to keep track of who said what and when they said it, and then trying to set up all the variables to handle everything properly…yeah…I was working as fast as I could before my feeble brain forgot what it was doing. Lol All jokes aside, even so, this is very poor, and I must apologize to anyone sifting through the conversations and trying to figure out what is going on in the scripts. I hope the custom scripts that I wrote may be of use to someone, and are detailed enough for your use.

Art

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Myself ~ World map art.

Boris ~ Title Cover (modified with text overlay)

Music

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No Custom music. Bioware.

Beta Testers

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- Myself.

- My wife played through several very early ‘unfinished’ versions.

- Hagaar, who has helped by reporting spelling errors, offering suggestions and testing new areas that are updated. Thanks for the communication and your willingness to help.

- An ‘anonymous tester’ who has been very helpful with the most recent version.

Special Thanks to:

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- Gestalt's Cut Scene include file and its functions. Without them, my module would not have reached its potential as I saw it. Once again, a BIG thank you.

- Brian Watson for the excel sheet containing all the wave files and dialog for the voice sets I found on the vault. Priceless resource.

- Anyone on the NWN Forums that had helped in some way over the last five, yes, five years.

- My children, and the time this game has taken away from them. I have many times felt guilty sitting downstairs programming and hearing the footsteps of them above. Although I can imagine the smiles on their faces, seeing it for myself has proved to be something I could never live without. Love ya kids!

5. FEEDBACK

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Please post your comments on the NWVault , as I'll be looking there.

*emails are welcome too. fabianscorpio@

6. SUGGESTIONS

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- As in the NWN campaigns, exiting a conversation could prove fatal to a quest. So don’t do it. I've tried in many places to keep this from happening, but there are places that it was very difficult to achieve this. Just try to keep your finger away from the 'Esc' key during conversations.

- ‘Disable second story tiles’ by selecting ‘never’ in the options menu will help the atmosphere of your gaming experience. Nothing sucks more than having half of a building disappear. It just looks like crap. However, there may be some areas that this makes sense to disable it. It's just my opinion.

- There are NO places that I made it so you have to 'squeeze' through. Such as a 'tiny' gap between two rocks, mushrooms or fence posts for example. So if the objects that may blocking your path are not even 'examinable', then don't bother, as they are there to keep you from wandering into an area of the map that leads no where.

- It is suggested that you start the game with the default video settings. This is only to help the opening cut scenes run more smoothly. After the mod is loaded, and you are ready to explore the first area, you can adjust it back to your preferences.

- It may be required that you disable Antialiasing as I had problems with the MOD loading.

- The game was not intended for players that want to kill every NPC that they come across. So don't expect to be able to go into a tavern and kill everyone. This may cause problems if you try it. There are of course NPCs that may be killed where the location of this 'murder' would make more sense if a player wishes to do so. Such as a room at the inn, chance encounter on a road or perhaps another more secluded area.

Enjoy the game!

• Please report any bugs.

• Your honest vote is appreciated. As you may have read, I’ve spent over five years working very hard, and putting very long hours into what you have played, or are about to play. So please, vote and/or comment.

• Your suggestions are welcome.

Email at fabianscorpio@

7. MAJOR UPDATES vs. First release (Jan 09)

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More atmosphere, more depth to story and new quests, more depth to the world. You decide.

-Added more areas

-Added a few more NPCs

-Added new sub-plots

-Added more quests

-Added new unique items

-Added new unique creatures

-In most areas, the layout has changed, in some…drastically!

-The game now has ‘various’ creature encounters per area, instead of just one creature type per area, which was very tedious.

-Add a few more cut scenes

NOTE: As stated on the vault, I am periodically (sometimes day to day) updating the module to correct minor errors and/or adjust game flow.

8. HINTS and TIPS

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- The game is very light on RP, but there are instances that exist throughout the game where your actions can help you tweak your character slightly. Such as, lying or murdering can give you points to make your character more ‘evil’, or telling the truth may give you points to ‘good’.

- At the start of the game, a henchman will approach your character. Many conversations have interjections, and many areas contain one-liners for him, some contain important clues and information. Of course, most of this information can be obtained elsewhere from other NPCs. I suggest playing with him at least once, as his information is often very helpful and adds depth to the world, not to mention that some encounters may be tough to pass without him.

- Random EXP bonuses were placed on doors, containers and traps. Therefore, using skills, spells or magic items to unlock doors and disable traps will sometimes yield experience.

- READ BOOKS! The books are in the game for a reason and reading them will add depth to your knowledge of the world.

- Traveling…there are several ways to travel excluding walking/running. Your character can travel by rowboat, teleportation and portal orbs. Sometimes, using a combination of these methods can save your character a huge amount time, rather than ‘tediously’ walking. The teleportation and the portal orbs are sold by an NPC in Aldebaran City. The rowboat is available in Bellatirx.

- As mentioned above, if an area appears ‘blocked off’ then it probably is best to leave it until an NPC directs the PC to pass it. This is especially true before the PC reaches Aldebaran City.

- Try to carry plot items yourself. There are a few plot items that have some added weight, and you can certainly give it to Gala to carry if you are on the weaker side. Just remember to place the item back into your inventory when speaking to NPCs that it may pertain to.

- I tried to think of every possible way the player could ‘break’ the game. In doing so, the game is very flexible, and allows for greater freedom for you to choose what you want to do next. ‘Try’ doing things in different order if you decide to play a second or third time. Although this causes nothing major to change, you may notice that NPC conversations will change slightly to reflect what you have or haven’t done in most cases.

- There are 6 books in the game, each give bonuses to their respective attribute. I offer this ‘trick’ for spell castors and I’ll use a wizard as an example. A wizard finds the book that increases intelligence, he/she uses the book and now sees empty spell slots that are virtually useless because the ‘buff’ received from the book is once/day and resets after each rest. As a frequent player of spell castors, I know how frustrating this can be. So, the trick is, rest…but do not rest completely. Fill your ‘low level’ empty slots with the desired spells, and then rest. ( I find I can get an extra magic missile) Then wait until the last second to cancel your rest, and you will see that you can memorize spells without a complete rest. However, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to get the higher and highest-level spells as they are usually reset close to or at the end of the rest cycle. You can leave your spell book up on the screen and watch as they are memorized, and cancel when needed. Of course, performing this ‘trick’ will not reset any magic items until a complete rest cycle has been established.

- An Easter egg…pay a visit to ‘The Buyer’ at his home when you know he is there. Don’t worry, this ‘should’ make sense to you after you play.

- As of v20, a hidden option was added. This is option is considered ‘beta’, and recommended ONLY after you have played through the game at least once.

The hidden option is...in the Temple of Botein in Aldebaran City, there is a Golden Goblet is a chest of drawers, in the room where the dead bodies are laying. There are 2 Urns in the room, one to the left, one to the right if you are facing them. Place the goblet inside the urn to the left AFTER the goblins are done, and speak with Lari. You can now add her as a henchman.

*If you already placed the goblet inside before the goblins were done, no worries, place it inside again. If you said no to Lari after she asked to join you, place the goblet back inside the urn once again to trigger her conversation node again.

*Note about this option…keep in mind that she is strictly for ‘fun’, for something different. She has no interjections, and very little in the way of conversation. However, there is ‘some’ dialogue there concerning a touch of background info.

Once again, I sincerely hope you enjoy the game.

-Fabian

***********************Spoiler Alert**************************

9. Fixes

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- All versions before v15 apparently had issues with a certain cut scene. The ‘bellam cut scene’. However, not all players reported issues with this cut scene, and it has always worked for me. I’ve tried many ways to ‘fix’ this issue, but obviously I have come up short. So, since it works for some and not for others, the game now has 2 options…‘Speak with Bellam directly’…OR…’View cut scene’. The game will notify players just in case they did not read this Readme file. Hopefully this will bury this problem once and for all.

*The following fixes are for pre v7 downloads.

NOTE: I’m sure you realize that using any of the following commands to spawn yourself an item if you do NOT need to do so, will only result in breaking the game if you use it to try to cheat. You were warned.

BUG FIX 1 (ONLY use this fix when you realize you can’t pick up the item)

If you downloaded the module before v7, then you may have encountered a problem picking up the diamond for the quest. This issue has been fixed in v7.

How to fix this...

press '~' to bring up the DM console

type "DebugMode 1" (NO QUOTES)

press '~' again then type

"dm_spawnitem crystalkey" (NO QUOTES) and click on your PC

then Type '~' "DebugMode 0"

Your PC can now pickup the duplicate that was spawned at your feet and forget about the other one. Game play should proceed as normal.

BUG FIX 2 (ONLY use this fix when you realize you can’t pick up the item)

If you downloaded the module before v6, then you CAN NOT pick up the Mintakan Leader’s head for the quest. This happens regardless and you WILL have to use this if you are playing any version before v6. This issue has been fixed in v6.

How to fix this...

press '~' to bring up the DM console

type "DebugMode 1" (NO QUOTES)

press '~' again then type

"dm_spawnitem kc_leaderhead" (NO QUOTES) and click on your PC

then Type '~' "DebugMode 0"

Your PC can now pickup the duplicate that was spawned at your feet and forget about the other one. Game play should proceed as normal.

BUG FIX 3 (this bug was fixed a while ago and only applies to those who downloaded the module on 12-23-09, there was no version number assigned to it. I believe only 20 people got this module a few weeks ago, and the fix is listed here for completeness.)

IF your character talked to the priest upstairs in Orion’s Blade, then a variable was set by mistake. So, IF you spoke with this priest, then you'll have to reset the 'bellamcsdone' variable to ZERO. To know if this variable was set, some problems you may encounter…

• You were able to remove the logs in Saiph without being told to do so.

• The dwarf in the forest says things that do not make sense.

• A few NPCs in Orion’s Blade say things that do not make sense.

How to fix this...

press '~' to bring up the DM console

type "DebugMode 1"

press '~' again then type

"dm_setvarint bellamcsdone 0" and click on your PC

then Type '~' "DebugMode 0"

ALSO, IF you DID speak with the dwarf in the forest and he said weird things, you WILL have to set another variable as well, to reset his conversation. So set them BOTH before talking to the dwarf again.

How to fix his conversation...

press '~' to bring up the DM console

type "DebugMode 1"

press '~' again then type

"dm_setvarint plaxaskedpc 0" and click on your PC

then Type '~' "DebugMode 0"

*Once again, my sincere apologies for the hassle of having to do this. In any case…I hope you are enjoying the game.

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