Outlands

[aulslime]

The Concordant Domain of the Outlands is the Outer Plane where the souls of people of Neutral alignment are sent after death. The Outlands are also home to the gate-towns. At the center of the Outlands is the Spire, atop which Sigil can be seen.

To get to Sigil, the player must find the portal near the center of Hopeless. NOTE: The portal will be moved to its real location once the quests we need to have are in place.


EDIT: Players, please flag any weak conversations you find.

EDIT II: Players, please flag the NPCs who need to be resized.


I am aware that the dialogue in Hopeless needs some cleanup. You guys were right that I built it in a ridiculous hurry and it was a huge amount of work. Getting just the doors put in the right way took several days. Thanks to Jack for making us a really strong exterior for the town. The final product will be much cleaner and focused. For the DEMO we just put together something bare bones that would work and show you where we are going with the idea.



Please post your feedback and bugs below.

Orange = Fix is in & will be in the next update.

Reported bugs and notes:

OUTLANDS
Review cowboy music, seek slow and intense
Beef up and personalize Hachepsu conv

HOPELESS
Dwarf at Gate to Hopeless resize to 1:1:1
Fix random NPC conversations in Hopeless
Mayor Thingol conv general rework (put K/S on voice acting)
Smooth out Razbojniza's conv, pull the words "this one"
The Nest cannot be entered

HOPELESS RANDOM NPC DIALOGUE:
Show in a more complex way exactly how the people are hopeless, and all that. Perhaps even a small dialogue "quest", like Sere the Skeptic and the other guys in the Dustmen Bar in PS:T.
Also, cut the generic questions. I don't want to ask everyone the same thing, and hear a slightly different rehash.

EDIT/ADDITION ON POINT:
Dialogue really needs to be rethought; while it's easier to have a "menu" of questions that you keep returning to, they have to make sense with the line before them, and you should try to keep it from *feeling* like a menu. Real conversations are even better.

IN GENERAL:
- Why are there buildings that are on fire? It either needs to be made clear or the mystery of it played up more through dialogue and cinematics.

[Kaeloree]

Outlands:
- I'm not sure if the cowboy western feel of the music works; personally I'd prefer something slower and more intense.
- The tree bathed in light works well, but what is its purpose?
- While Hachepsu is interesting, his dialogue--as, we assume, one of the first dialogues seen in the module--really needs to be excellent, and work the exposition in a little better than random questions from the PC.
+ Nice graphics
+ I like the dead bodies; kind of appropriate.
+ Heh. Wasteland boars.

Hopeless:
- I just want to reiterate that Thingol's dialogue really needs some work.
- Not sure if the "random abandoned animals" works so well.
- A couple of people seem very ready to unload their life stories upon you, eg. Lollwei Kuerdish; I think this could be done more effectively without them telling the PC their whole story. The rule of thumb I use: if the character is a beggar, they have about a 5-10 second window to catch their potential benefactor's attention. Then they have 10 seconds to convince him/her before he/she walks away.
- Razbojniza: Er, his lists? He makes lists? If this is a piece of Planescape lore, it probably needs to be explained. Also, "this one makes you feel uncomfortable"--"this one"? Very awkward phrasing.
+ Really like the Mirthwatcher(s) patrolling the streets, I think they add greatly to the atmosphere. Makes it feel like a truly oppressive place. Maybe add some more?
_________________
Spellhold Studios Administrator

[DarkEmpathy]

I like abandoned animals and golems. Even the animals and constructs are hopeless in hopeless.

Hopeless feels so empty. And finding the portal is kind of a joke as is. You talk to NPC's who have given up hope looking for a way out when there is a HUGE bright glowy portal in the middle of town that anybody can just walk into and find yourself in Sigil. I don’t know what you plans are for hopeless but it looks to have the potential to be a great starting area.

For example you could have a quest chain where the player learns more of the lore behind planescape that leads to gaining access to the area with the portal. It would not be d&d without a twist like "I would give you the key but last night a abyssal dire rat ran off with it.." or something unfriendly waiting by the portal

[Starwars]

I think it's fine to keep the golems and animals. I especially liked the rusted golem.

I think the place needs more "purpose" (even though it's Hopeless obviously). As is, we could just run right through to the portal, and not *really* miss out on anything. It needs challenges. Not necessarily combat, but maybe an interesting quest or two, preferably with different ways to solve it. I guess logically tie one of them to using the portal, where the player has to *do* something special in order to get to use it.

As for the writing, it's not what is there is necessarily bad or anything. It just needs to feel more natural in that it is a conversation. As it is we, the player, can basically just ask about various things and then say goodbye. Consider Planescape: Torment (just because it does so well in this area), where NPCs often challenge the player to explain their viewpoints as well as providing options based on stats and have the NPC react to that. It needs to feel more like real conversations instead of NPCs just answering questions.

There are so many seemingly interesting NPCs in Hopeless, and in the rest of the mod as well. But it's very rare that the player gets to get "under their skin" and have interesting interactions with them.

[Nimzar]

A couple of little things struck me as odd in the Outlands area (the only area that I've tested thoroughly thus far).

http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt294/nimzar/ScreenHunter_0007.jpg
I found this on accident. I clicked on the other side of the row of houses (so I could check out a dead body) and ended up walking through this wall.

http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt294/nimzar/ScreenHunter_0008.jpg
This just kind of bugged me. This looks like a path to somewhere. But after point it is non-walkable. Is there an area transition planned here? If not a simply adding some text to appear as the player walks in that direction could be helpful. Something along the lines of. "After walking down this path a few steps it becomes obvious that this is a deadend containing nothing of interest."

Other than that my major concerns have already been stated (Weak conversation, minor glitches with doors, any the general campaign complaint of cutscene style conversations vs. NWN1 style).

This area does seem very well designed (I liked the deer/elk thing watching me from across the chasm it was a fun little detail.)

[thewindlistens]

When the portal from the swamp dissapears, if I hold my mouse over it, the game crashes.

[kunikos]

This guy needs to be resized -- the portrait looks very different from the actual model, which looks like it is horizontally enlarged. Also, in Hopeless there is a demon that looks tiny by the entrance.

[kunikos]

Also, you may want to check the pathing around the houses in the Outlands. Getting to the dire rats on the other side caused all kinds of weird warping behavior.

[Conteur]

I can't enter in the door "To the Nest". I hope I won't miss a quest...
There is also many doors leading to black walls.
Some armor seller would be needed as I came here with only commonner clothes...
Thingol the Mocking is effortless?
I would like to intimidate/diplomacy/bluff Razbojniza. It could even lead to a fight.

Edit: Forgot to say the most important thing, the area is very cool to look at! I love the cutscene conversation. I've stopped playing SoZ because small window conversation makes me dizzy...

[roninwolkedout]

I've noticed a bug within the city of Hopeless, I've been trying to interact with the portal to Sigil. I went through the text/cutscene interaction, the portal did it's animation but left me standing exactly where I was without transitioning me to the next area.

[aulslime]

[roninwolkedout]

No, I tried it multiple times with two separate characters and neither worked. Could this be because I have SoZ installed?

[Horred the Plague]

SoZ is definitely not a factor in this. I had it installed months before we officially added it to Purgatorio. All I can think of for now, is to check your Campaigns/Purgatorio/ptp_scripts folder, for ga_rds_conv_trans(.ncs and .nss). This is the script that activates the portal, and sends the party trans-module from Outlands to Hiverunners. That, and check your modules folder to make sure you have Hiverunners_ptp.mod in there. This portal has worked for hundreds of people, hundreds of times--understand what you're experiencing is a sharp anomaly. Something else is most likely causing it. But we'll try to figure it out.

[roninwolkedout]

I checked the scripts files and the mods, and downloaded and replaced the Hiverunners mod. That seems to have done the trick!

[thewindlistens]

I remember an onld screenshot of the coast of the inland sea of Tir. I don't remember that from the demo, will it be added later or was the idea scrapped?