Passing time

Well I have wandered into a very pleasant nocturnal existance, which I am going to keep up for a while as I have to work nights next week. I should be getting lots done on KotB, but alas I have been distracted by U5:Lazarus. Its just amazing, the quality is extraordinary. Instead of just the occasional monster wandering aimlessly around the wilderness, there are encampments everywhere: ruined towers, evil magicians around cauldrons with undead, ettin camps, troll camps, bandit camps, shipwrecks on the beach, even one graveyard-like place with ghosts / skeletons that had a hidden entrance to a little dungeon with a black drake at the bottom! (and a LOT of magic gear once I had killed it, yee-ha!) And this isn't even the main game - this is just the stuff out in the wilderness between towns! Amazing... and when I say, 'everywhere', I don't mean annoyingly frequent, the spacing, frequency etc is also just perfect. This is truly a class piece of work. Inspirational for the rest of us modders.

I have been picking at KotB though, and one thing I have done I am pretty happy about is added a journal. You get to buy it from an appropriate character who is there for various reasons. What it does, is has 'entries' that appear for each flag. For instance, there is a quest thingy in the game where you can get poisoned weapons (good characters can turn in the poison-maker, evil characters can get themselves some poisoned blades). You also learn that the Priest has obtained a poisoned weapon himself - one of various little 'clues' you can discover to show that he is a baddy and expose him.

Sooo... when the flags are set various ways (specifically, the one variable governing it is at different levels - don't waste flags I say ;-)) the journal will read things like:

- X has told me I can buy poison from Y

- X has told me the Priest had a weapon envenomed by him

etc. The flags are there for internal tracking, this allows the players to remember what they have done/learnt (over and above the big stuff like completed quests / reputations). I am quite happy with it.

Now to hit post and see if this works: the blog has been acting funny lately.