I couldn't get on last night.
Here's the Dev Journal.
2/24/07
All right. More than a month. A pretty hectic month too. Let?s see if I can get it all down.
When I last updated you, we?d just had an art disaster as Kevin Wasden bowed out of product 4. We?ll he gave me two names and one of them has worked out VERY well. Anyway, I?m delighted to have her, and my goal is to get as much art out of her as possible before she realizes she?s too good for my company.
When I last wrote, I had also just finished the HERO version of the product and sent it off. That puts my projected release time right around 3/18. Let?s see . . . that?s about 23 days. Hmm. As I said in a post on the ICE board, that?s going to be all about the maps, but I should come in right around that time.
After the HERO version, I had to hammer right into the play test for product 6. When I posted that last dev journal I was already late starting it. I finished that in about a week and a half and now we?re happily playing away. There is a bonded item in it I?m not happy with, but I have time to play with that before it matters. Other than that, it?s going fine. I?m getting great reactions out of GerikGnome, so I know that someone who knows the IP will like it. I fear sometimes the subtle emotion is lost on the other play testers, who?ve never cracked the books and don?t seem to remember anything I tell them from one session to the next. They seem to be having fun though, so who am I to judge? (Update. Since I started this yesterday, we did another play test. A lot of cool things came out of History maneuvers and now at least two players are convinced K?lan is their favorite saint ever).
We added another play test group. They?re behind of course, but I hope to catch them up by product 4 release. It?s a HARP group so it serves double duty (I have some HARP stuff coming up and I need to get game-design familiar with it, which is a far cry from writing adventures familiar). The funny part was over half the group has been in the setting in past play tests, but they still roleplayed the first conversation in Act One of Throne of God for more than an hour. That?s commitment to roleplaying, when your willing to spend more than an hour playing out a conversation with no new information.
An interesting side note. It?s about the first real encounter (that isn?t optional) in Act Two of the first adventure. Don?t tell me your stories here, because it would involve spoilers and even with the spoiler features, let?s avoid accidents. Anyway, tell me how that battle played out for all your games. In every play test, it completely fell apart.
Haven?t lost a character to it yet, but each time we come REALLY close.
So, after writing the play test I hammered together the HARP version of product three (no matter how the play test notes look, that is ALWAYS a lot of new writing). Then I wrote PART 4 of the RM version (I wrote part 4 as HERO first, since that needed to be turned in. Then I collapsed in exhaustion and got a wicked case of pneumonia.
As another side, part 4 is a nightmare in this product. It?s only a few pages long, but it?s the hardest to write, since it involves Dwarven Rune Magic, a base profession (base class, d20), and two training packages (prestige classes, d20). No matter how well I have it laid out, it always takes forever to write. Especially in RM and HARP where the word Rune has preexisting meanings for me to hurt myself on.
Okay, so pneumonia. Here?s the good and the bad of it. The good news is that my lungs are so fricken huge that I can walk around and hardly notice with cases that cause doctors to go white (I got a panicked phone call once because I?d lost 80% of one lung and 20% of the other and they were afraid I was in danger of passing out. I was at work when the phone call came, chugging away oblivious because I?d believed them a week earlier when they said I didn?t have pneumonia). The bad news is my lungs are so big, or there?s something about their structure, that I get pneumonia on average once a year.
So, I?m wrapped up the HARP version, threw the RM and HARP versions at ICE and I get smashed with a really bad case of pneumonia right before a big convention. So, at that time my schedule says I?m supposed to be writing d20, Datanet 6, two adventures for Guild Adventurer, Doing errata for Spacemaster, and scanning the new pagemakes of SM that for errors. At the same time I need to prep an academic paper on Religious and Mythological Symbols and Archetypes in Game Design with a focus on the Echoes of Heaven (for the con, which is really a symposium).
That was a bad week.
So all the SM and Guild adventurer stuff suffered and then we were straight into the convention. That went well . . . even got some sales. Someone gave me magic pills that are supposed to . . .
Dammit! Life changing news.
About six weeks back (this was in the lost dev journal) I was told that I probably have celiac disease. So now I?m avoiding gluten (I haven?t been officially diagnosed, and I?m keeping it that way because I don?t have insurance). So I can?t have any wheat. Wheat?s in everything BTW. By the time I got to my favorite soy sauce, I was about in tears.
So anyway at the convention someone gave me magic pills that are supposed to break down the gluten before it has time to do much damage. Not an ideal solution, but a good backup. I THINK my first experiment was promising. I had a huge gluten meal and it had only slight effect on me. Problem is, I did it a second time the next day (which they told me not to do) and I?ve been paying for it ever since.
So convention. Symposium. Whatever. I got to hang out with Kevin Wasden. Generated GREAT buzz for the setting. Hung out just a bit with Brandon Sanderson (read Mistborn). Met and had lunch with Stacy Whitman from Wizard?s Mirrorstone books. Hung out with Dan Willis (Dragonlance author) and Howard Tayler (www.schlockmercenary.com). Picked up a stalker. Was able to buy original Wasden Spacemaster Art at the auction. Overall a very nice event. We had some kinks with the writing workshop due to massive turn out, but Brandon took half the people out. They want us to do another at Conduit in May, but the Brandon already backed out and Dan is a little worried on the format. We?ll see.
So. Product Three was a bear to convert. The main reason for that is the Warlord and another character, both epic level (to use the D20 term). It?s amazing how long it takes to write those guys up properly. In the d20 version, PCGen does great, but it chokes on a 50th level character with Divine Rank of 0. Go fig.
Anyway, since the convention ended, I?ve finished the d20 conversion of three (yesterday) and the first draft of Datanet 6 for SM. Now I?m trying to hammer out two adventures for Guild Adventurer. One is Spacemaster, because I?m their SM guy (naturally.) The other is a RM adventure that takes place between Episode Two and Three of Moving Shadow in Echoes. I?m happy about that, but now I?m realizing it will probably come out after three. Oh well. It?s still a fun little Echoes adventure.
So. There I am. Tonight I?m back to my same old. My schedule, as I see it now, is pretend I?m writing for Guild Adventurer (I?m actually already done for the day), then do the Equipment Manual Errata for SM. Then MAYBE scan all the pagemakes of Privateers, because I saw a pagemaking error. Maybe do some chapters for a novel (new draft, not new writing), then I?m into maps for three. We?ll see how much of that I actually finish. I already critiqued a chapter for a friend, during ?lunch.?
Anyway. Keep smiling. If the world gets you down, punch it in the throat a little.