Also, I’ve changed the gallery component away from Coppermine, and over to something a little more Wordpress-integrated. Among other things, it adds some nice AJAX magic to image-viewing, but also allows me to display gallery sections here on the site without having to redirect the Reader to a gallery sub-site.

NWN 1.69 was just released; this is the final patch BioWare plans to release for the game. It introduced a bunch of new tilesets and graphics changes, so some of the tilesets I’m using will be adapting to those changes in the near future; look for such changes to be reflected here on the site as they happen.

So feel free to download it and give it a try!

To talk, just press ENTER, and then maybe try a few old Ultima keywords. Or try being polite.

If you are Catholic: Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Hopefully this is a season of renewal and grace for you and your family, and if you are not able to attend Vigil Mass this evening may you have a holy and blessed Easter Sunday and find time in the hectic pace of visiting family and preparing large dinners to partake of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Be thankful that God does not see the world as we — being merely human — do, and praise Him for His love.

If you are Christian, but not Catholic: Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! May this weekend be a time of spiritual growth and a season of renewal and grace for you and your family. Be thankful that God does not see the world as we — being merely human — do, and praise Him for His love.

If you are religious but not Christian: May this weekend be a time of rest and of spiritual growth for you, and may you continue securely in your journey of faith. If you are spending the long weekend with family, may you have an enjoyable time with them, and grow closer to all your loved ones.

If you are agnostic/atheist/secular: Have a safe and happy long weekend, and may your heart and mind remain unclosed to the meaning that so many people around the world attach to this blessed week. If you are spending the long weekend with family, may you have an enjoyable time with them, and grow closer to all your loved ones.

Feedback can be left in the comments.

UPDATE: Okay, it should all be working now. My sincere apologies to anyone who has downloaded any of the files for this module only to find them corrupted; it appears that the download manager I was using for this site (and which I am using at Aiera) was causing the file corruption.

Strangely, it does not appear to be causing corruption at Aiera.

At any rate, I’ve switched to another download manager (I’m really just interested in logging download statistics when I use these things) and everything seems to be working again.

MORE UPDATE: Apparently I’m an idiot who can’t discern the difference between user permission level “0″ and user permission level “public.” Thanks go to Petrell for pointing that out — now everything should be working.

I’m kind of planning to base the layout of files for download on the way that they do it over at Project Britannia; updates to each file will be posted at (ir)regular intervals, with a list of changes made available for reference. Visitors to the site will be welcome to download and test the module at any point, and to leave feedback as it progresses. It’s a bit more of an open framework, and will mean that there won’t be any formal demos released at any point…but at the same time, it will also give us the opportunity to frame our progress in concrete terms for any and all interested fans, and will also (hopefully!) give us the opportunity to make corrections as we go along, as they are reported.

I’ve also been given NWN2 by my wife, and while I’ve played with it a bit, I’m hoping to experiment with the Electron Toolset a bit more in the next little while. No, this is not a prelude to an engine change for the project, but it is to suggest that if Lost Sosaria is a success, there may be a sequel in the works. Or a completely new project. Time will tell.

At any rate, as a little “gift from us to you” on this weekend, I’ve posted a dozen new screenshots of a mountain range in Lost Sosaria that I’ve been working on lately. They can be viewed in the sidebar of the site.

The Rocky Mountains tileset that we are using now is, in some ways, not as versatile as previous iterations of the idea that have been released for NWN. On the other hand, in some ways it is quite superior, especially where vertical scale is concerned. The mountains are towering giants now, which is how it should be. They’re a little bit harder to navigate, on the other hand, and building areas requires a bit more advance planning, as well as a goodly deal of care. But the tradeoff is worth it.

And in another month or so, it will be even more worth it; a new version of the mountain tileset is being released, and it looks immensely promising.

So, at any rate, Happy (Ukrainian) Christmas, O Reader. Enjoy the screenshots, and feel free to offer your feedback on the look of the game thus far!