Friday 29 March 2013

Petey's Weird Dreams

Kaz here. I've been making videos of some of the parts of Beyond Boulder Dome I worked on for my portfolio and wanted to share them. Here's a quick vid of Petey talking about his weird dreams.

Fun fact: they were all actual dreams. What kinds of crazy things do you dream about?



Wednesday 27 March 2013

Locations of Deadpan's Journals

As of version 1.0 of Beyond Boulder Dome, there is an unmarked scavenger hunt to find Deadpan's lost journals. If you're itching to read his accounts of being trapped in a cave for 200 years, go out and find 'em! If you get stuck (or lazy), here are some videos. The first shows the locations and presents each entry for your reading pleasure. The second is the short version, just showing the locations. A list is included in the description of each YouTube page.


If you're a writer who likes Skyrim and wants to help the team mod, be sure to check out the previous entry for details! 



Monday 25 March 2013

NOTICE

I'm now looking for a new writer to work with our team on Skyrim projects. Must be an experienced writer, with sample work to show. Must be dedicated and reliable and able to work regularly on the projects. If you've got what it takes, then drop me an email introducing yourself, with either attachments or links to some of your work. The address is: typingsound@gmail.com

Friday 22 March 2013

Beyond Boulder Dome v1.0 Released!


Beyond Boulder Dome is now out of Beta, and version 1.0 has been released on the mod's page at the nexus, which you can find here: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/46907


Change List

-All files have now been re-uploaded, to make installing the mod easy. Now all you need to do is download all 5 parts, and extract each one individually into your Data folder.

-Issues with the secret entrance beneath the Zax not opening, when the player sides with the NCR has been fixed.

-Various other fixes that I've forgotten to mention.


Here is an extensive list of changes made by Kaz Foxsen:

CONTENT ADDITIONS

- Added unmarked scavenger hunt in Boulder Underground for Deadpan’s lost journals. Each one adds an entry on pickup.
-DPan makes various comments in Boulder, and I added/fixed Mojave comments
- Fixed and reinstated DP’s Atomic Wrangler scene.
- Fixed and reinstated Connie’s unmarked book quest.
- Food/drinks can now be purchased from Jeff after completing “Open for Business.”
***NOTE: If you’re playing an old game save after this update, his vendor chest will probably be bugged and have almost nothing in it. Waiting for it to respawn doesn’t help.
- Added a Wild Wasteland Easter egg to a Boulder Underground squad invader


CLARIFICATION

- Player tells Kate to “go some place safe” when fired in Colorado if Boulder Underground hasn’t been discovered yet. Adds map marker.
- When DP is first fired to the Lucky 38, he gets inspired and writes something (originally, a third play rehearsal scene would explain Petey’s “Scar Pei” comment, but the audio was lost, so this note does that)
- Added note of dedication to Stork Shrine to clarify what she means to the town.
- Added message box at the end of Caroline’s “Open for Business” quest to inform player when trading is available in Boulder Underground. This replaces an unvoiced line.
- Reinserted medical supply combat warnings for DP (in addition to the lines he says)
- Asking DP about Gremlin is now top-level topic
- Made it more obvious that Gigi can play Caravan after “Open for Business”
- Added North Markers to all Boulder Underground interiors


CLEAN UP

- Mark now has lip files for his guitar intro and ending
- If Firefly fires warning shot at player, player can attack him w/o triggering witnesses to attack
- Fixed bug that prevented Boulder Underground NPCs w/o home interiors from reappearing in the town during the day. They also teleport straight to bed after midnight, except Sam
- Sam will now appear in front of Boulder Underground as he should regardless of sleep scripts
- Cleaned up some of the gremlin quest (including adding some more fail-states if sources of info die)
- Added fail-states if the Player/companions kill Boulder Underground residents
- Boulder Underground NPCs now properly chase and attack the player after a murder!
- Fixed Whiskers/Boxy rehearsals
- Stopped Boulder Underground NPCs from saying Hellos to Kate that are linked to responses, which she doesn’t have. Otherwise they will talk to themselves.
- Fixed some typos/grammar errors
- Suppressed Kate’s hired message to make her more like standard companions
- Removed “Companion Message” from Kate’s message boxes to standardize them
- Replaced Kate’s vague fired/quit messages with specific message boxes
- Moved Kate’s firing messages from Result Script Begin to End so they don’t interrupt her.
- One of Clive’s logs mentioned taking Jet, which didn’t exist before the war. Changed it to whiskey.
- Raised counters in diner so NPCs lean on them properly
- Dead baby deathclaws now disappear after a day
- Changed Boulder Underground lunch packages from sandbox to eating
- Set ownership of The Best Only Diner to residents
- Firelight inside Boulder Underground interiors go out at night as well
- Moved Ferocious Loyalty companion scripting higher in their quest scripts so they could still activate perk while waiting.
- Moved trashcan in Boulder Underground park down so it’s no longer floating


AUDIO

- Added some music to the diner
- Blocked female generic ghouls from saying unvoiced lines
- Added remaining DPan audio
- When DP sacrifices himself fighting for the player, he now shouts “Save yourself!”
- Added/replaced Connie’s unvoiced lines.
- Replaced Ingrid’s unvoiced gremlin line
- Updated audio for Andre’s lines if he gives the player C4 to destroy shrine
- Fixed mistake in one of Caroline’s lines
- Disabled noises made by dino toy and hula girl in Boulder Library


AESTHETICS

- Some minor decorative additions to Underground Boulder (notably giant-head bicycle lady)
- Created yellow texture to make certain books stand out
- Improved Gofer Gang logo texture
- Added vanilla normals to hydrant and fire truck texture sets


KNOWN ISSUES:

- If you’re playing an old game save after this update, Jeff’s vendor chest will probably be bugged and have almost nothing in it. Waiting for it to respawn doesn’t help.
- Deadpan will not teleport home after 7 days like other companions. I’ve tried everything I could to fix this, but nothing works. If he gets lost, type in the console "prid 06084598," hit enter, then "moveto player" or try “coc BDDPanGreenRoom,” to enter the room where he goes during auto-wait sequences.
- Interrupting DP’s speech to James/Francine Garret in the Atomic Wrangler to rehire him is supposed to reset him, but glitches. Try telling him to wait, then follow, and leave the casino.
- Lenore’s Ferocious Loyalty effect is buggy.
- If DPan is dismissed to Jacobstown, sometimes he sits and types on invisible keyboards. Many of the chairs in the lodge have computing animations attached to them. Supermutants don’t type, so no one would’ve noticed.
- If DP is given new glasses, once in a while they get stuck the wrong size or the strap on his normal pair disappears. I’ve never been able to reliably duplicate this glitch.
- Sometimes the Boulder Underground NPCs answer their own greetings. This is due to having Hellos with linked responses. If the listener doesn’t have a response, the speaker ends up responding. For Combat dialog, the Exists condition would fix this, but it doesn’t work on Conversation dialog.
- When DP is KOed and revives, the lip files don’t work for those Wake lines
- Sometimes Night Light doesn’t glow


AFFECTED VANILLA STUFF:

- Jacobstown Lodge: a teleport marker for Deadpan and Lenore
- Old Mormon Fort: a teleport marker for Kate
- Atomic Wrangler: added 3 markers
- Various dialog quests: added conditions so remarks about Raul are also triggered by Deadpan
- Added cubic activators to trigger DP’s remarks at Camp Golf, Cottonwood Cove, Quarry Junction, The Fort, The Fort Summit, Gomorrah, Goodsprings Cemetery, King’s School entrance, Camp Searchlight house, The Strip, Boulder City, Vault 22, Red Rock Canyon, Lucky 38 entrance, outside Raul’s Shack, Nipton, NCRCF entrance, and near the dino.
- The Gomorrah generic dialog quest has scripting added to a couple of topics so DP responds to propositions
- VMQTops quest, Goodbye topic has scripting added to make DP comment on Yes Man

Thursday 21 March 2013

Classic Game Project

Hey guys, sorry for the radio silence! Been very busy these last few weeks. The team is now starting work on a new game (that's right, I said "game", not mod!) It'll be in the classic, 2d point-and-click genre, akin to such great games like Beneath a Steel Sky and Fate of Atlantis. I can't tell you much about the story just yet, but it'll be a scifi adventure, with professional quality writing, artwork and voice acting. So if you're a lover of this classic genre, then check back here for more details soon!

Friday 8 March 2013

New Concept Artist!

A new concept artist has joined the team. Jimmy Nilsson! Check out a few practice pieces he dazzled us with, below:


Tuesday 5 March 2013

Hircine's Hunting Grounds

[Level Designing is already 100 percent completed. Screenshots to come soon!]

Story rough draft:

Player discovers a vagrant in Bloated Man's Grotto. He seems like a normal traveler at first, but reveals himself to be the servant of Hircine. The man tells the player that Hircine is impressed with him, and would like to invite the player to his hunting realms, where great bounties can be had.

If the player accepts, the man opens up the nearby portal to Hircine's realm, and the player is told to enter. If the player refuses, the man calmly informs the player that Hircine cannot be refused, and casts a spell on the player, transporting him forcefully to Hircine's realm.

Once in the realm, the player will find himself accompained by the servant, who will teleport away, but not after telling the player the rules of the hunt.

He tells the player that only the best hunters are invited to Hircine's realm, and here they must compete, to hunt or be hunted. Should the player prove himself worthy, by being the last man standing, only then will he gain the honor of facing Hircine himself. You must hunt and succeed, or die here.

There are 10 other hunters in the realm, brought here for the event. Some will actively hunt the player, others will hide and wait. The player may see one defeated by another, so the player shouldn't be the one to kill all ten, as that wouldn't make sense. 10 is not the final number, that is just an idea for now.

It would make sense, and add some variety, to have the best of each Skyrim species as the contestants. Like a nord, an orc, a dark elf, etc. Also, this won't be a straight-forward, go and kill them and be done with it style of mission. The contestants will have story elements woven in, and dialogue, to keep things interesting. We want this to be an interesting story, with twists and turns, not just mindless killing.

So, hit me up with some ideas for the contestants/hunters. I can't promise I'll use your ideas exactly, but I'll at least take inspiration from them. We may even be able to have another custom creature made, if necessary.

Here is an early model-draft of Hircine, by our modeller, Xenoo:


Monday 4 March 2013

New Blog!

Welcome to the new blog of the team that brought you Beyond Boulder Dome for New Vegas!

This blog will contain progress updates from all our projects, rather than keeping blogs for individual projects  like we did with BBD.

We have now moved, for the most part, to SKYRIM modding, and we have a couple new DLC-scale projects in the making. Our main project is called Northpoint, set in the northernmost lands of High Rock, home of the Bretons. We also have a smaller project called Hircine's Hunting Grounds, set in the realms of Hircine, the Daedric god of the hunt.

This time around we're focusing on smaller, tighter projects, so we can release our work more frequently. Rather than creating at the scale of BBD, we'll be creating something closer to the size of an official Skyrim DLC. All our projects will contain new, professional-quality models, and be fully voiced by only the best voice actors in terms of acting skill and recording quality. We've learned a lot since BBD as to what makes a project successful, and we now aim to deliver a much more professional finished product, for everything we release.

We have Iain Bell (IonisTheBear) as our lead level designer, and myself (RJHelms84) as lead programmer for the projects. So Iain and myself will be working together as co-leads.

Check out this video to see the fabulous quality of Iain's work, below. The following is showcasing the Solstheim project Iain was working on, before Dragonborn was announced as an official DLC, at which point the project was abandoned. Luckily we've been able to salvage and repurpose a lot of the level designing for use in future projects:






We will try to keep this blog updated regularly with new information and media to show off, so keep checking back with us!

Best wishes,

Rob