Dungeon Crafting Made Easy(er)

The goal of GenMod is to do as much of the repetitive drudge work as

possible, so you can focus on high-level mod design and final tweaking. 

GenMod does not eliminate the need for hand-crafting of interiors, but it

does speed up the process. By automating room layout and basic item placement, GenMod can reduce the time it takes to create new interiors by as much as 50%.

Q: Why am I beginning this post with a quote from the description of GenMod v3.1 on Morrowind Modding History?

A: Because I've already heard enough criticism regarding random level generating programs for other games, claims that using such programs is one of the most disreputable things a modder can do.

Look people, this is what these programs are designed to do. Get over it.

Having said that in defense of GenMod, now we can talk a bit about what it can and cannot actually do...

Honestly, I wasn't going to do another post about this program and just let my previous post of one sentence and 100 screenshots stand on its own. However, some interest in this was expressed by my massive following of readers so I thought perhaps I should be a bit more verbose on the topic.

Basically, GenMod for Morrowind can quickly generate up to 100 random, consecutively-linked playable dungeon interiors using a variety of tileset, treasure container and monster themes (among other specific settings that can be adjusted by the user). All a modder really needs to do in order to play the resulting dungeon(s) is to somehow connect the new cells to the rest of Vvardenfell via either a teleport marker or a physical entrance added to an exterior cell.

As the description of the program accurately states, GenMod can significantly reduce the time it would take to create a new interior cell. However, from a more aesthetic perspective, the resulting product still needs a human touch or it will likely feel artificial when experienced in the game.

Here's an original, untouched GenMod cell:

...and here's the same cell with a few human touches made to the layout:

In terms of layout, one thing I noticed right away when looking at the original cell in the editor is that GenMod's rooms are almost always square or rectangular, but that's easily fixed by copy+pasting a few tileset pieces into less mechanical-looking shapes. Adding new rooms to a pre-generated cell and modifying the pre-existing rooms can start to feel a bit like playing TETRIS, but that's okay because I enjoy such things. Then I notice the random layout of the hallways; some rooms have multiple paths leading to them and often these hallways are parallel and thus a bit superfluous. (If I had to guess, I'd say that the program does this to ensure that no inaccessible rooms are generated off in the aether somewhere.) This also means that there are a lot of superfluous doors, which can become rather annoying for me since I always travel with at least one companion NPC and Morrowind's companion AI apparently dictates that they must jiggle the doorknob of every open door at least a dozen times before passing through the threshold. The hallways can also be corrected easily with the editor, but now one has to start giving more thought to what it will be like to actually play through the level. While I don't want the level to be totally linear from start to finish, I do want most rooms to be accessible by only one hallway. My idea is to make the exit of the level a locked door which will require the finding of a key elsewhere in the level. Which brings us to the creatures...

NINJA MONKEY !

GenMod's default creature placement is actually pretty good, but I notice that the leveled creatures it uses are all of the level+0 variety; for an added challenge I'll throw in here and there creatures from the level+1 and level+2 lists as well. Then there's the matter of the key I mentioned above; I'm thinking that such an item should be placed in the inventory of a unique boss creature, maybe even an enemy NPC like a vampire or a necromancer, so of course I'll have to create and place those myself.

I'm not satisfied with GenMod's placement of containers and furnishings in this level; bookshelves and cupboards will be fine for levels that I'll re-populate with vampires or necromancers, but for the haunted tombs I'll want to replace such furnishings with urns, ashpits and the like. (Though I should note that the random generation of such things this time around might simply have been the result of a variable I neglected to set properly in the GUI before generating the cell.)

Finally, the generation of generic treasure like random gold is okay, but to make the levels feel like they're worth playing I'll also add some customized magic items, weapons and armor. (I sincerely doubt that anyone will be motivated to hack'n'slash their way through 100 tombs just to collect random gold, non-enchanted iron equipment and bonemeal.) While I don't know jack about quest scripting, I might even go so far as to leave some notes lying around in some of the nearby cities to tempt the player with mention of some unimaginable treasures.

So, to make a potentially long story shorter, GenMod can indeed create a decent basis for an interior cell, but as the creator of the program tells us in the description we should endeavor to take the generated cells and add as much of our own creativity to them as our ambitions will allow.

Q: "Herculine, are you really going to devote the time necessary to polish 100 randomly-generated tomb interiors to create a playable mod for a game that's ten years old?"

A: Maybe, maybe not. I've been known to produce some crazy mods like over 100 companion characters or adding a couple hundred randomly-spawned monsters to a game, but then I've also been known to --

Ooh, wait! Was that a butterfly? Shiny!

Development and Testing

Until now I've kept revisions of my infamous Doom Upgrade mod to myself until I've felt they were worthy of an official release but today the fancy struck me to try something different this time. I'm still working on what tentatively will be called the second edition of the mod and, while I don't feel that I've accomplished everything that I want to do before calling it a final release, the current version is very much playable and I have already made enough changes to it that in many ways it is quite different from previous versions. Thus I'm going to post a link to the current version of the mod here and, if you few readers of the blog feel inclined to do so, you can download it, do some beta testing of your own and give me feedback here. This time instead of suddenly getting a new version thrown at you from out of the blue you can let me know what you think of the development thus far and even make suggestions as to what you'd like to see in the mod in the future. So, without any lengthy descriptions of what you'll be getting yourselves into, here's the link:

HERCULINE'S DOOM UPGRADE: SECOND EDITION

This is a direct link to my DropBox file, which gets updated whenever I feel I've done enough editing worthy of saving. It's a work in progress, but at this point I think the only new additions will be monsters, brightmaps and such so the file found here should always be totally playable. Enjoy (I hope)!

EDIT:

Oh, I forgot...

For any newcomers, this mod requires either ZDoom or (preferably) GZDoom and of course a licensed Doom IWAD. I also recommend a launcher and a custom music WAD.

PSXSM

No, that's neither a Roman numeral nor am I typing in cryptograms again; PSXSM is the acronym for PlayStation Style Music and is the title of my latest Doom mod. Though the mod hasn't been fully-integrated into the DoomWorld / id Games Archives yet (i.e. it does not appear in a search with the page where it can be voted upon), it has however been accepted and added to the gamers.org archives and thus I am able to provide the direct download link found there in the first sentence of this post. The DoomWorld and other various mirrors should catch up in a week or so, at which time players will then be able to vote on the mod and post their valued comments.

EDIT: Just minutes after I published this post, the mod became visible here in the Archives as well.

So now you're likely wondering what exactly PSXSM is and what I mean by "PlayStation Style Music". To put it succinctly, PSXSM is a 94.534MB Doom music replacer WAD containing tracks in .ogg format. While it actually contains no music from the PlayStation versions of the game this soundtrack in my opinion elicits the same atmospheric mood that Aubrey Hodges achieved with his legendary score that was more ambient sound than actual music, hence the title of the add-on.

Faithful readers of my little blog here may recognize most of the tracks included in this compilation; this is indeed a re-working of a previous arrangement I had done. I've given it a new title since most of the tracks have been rearranged and at least half a dozen new ones have been added. If you enjoyed the previous version of the mod, please discard it now and download this version.

There's really not much else that I can say about it, except that I hope at least a few of my Dooming readers will enjoy using this alternate music as I have.

Thanks. Game on...

Neverwinter Nights OHS

I've recently found myself back in the mood to play Neverwinter Nights, and in returning to the game I've realized that I've never gotten around to posting more about it here despite the fact that it's one of my favorite games. I won't waste your time or mine doing a lengthy review of the game; it's been around long enough now and enjoyed enough popularity in its day that most gamers should already know what it is -- and if they don't, more info on this Dungeons & Dragons game can easily be found. In this post I want to instead focus upon what is perhaps my favorite mod for Neverwinter Nights.

Like many of my other favorite games, one of the things I love about NWN is that there's a modding community that has produced for it more custom content than you can shake a +1 Longsword at. However, it took me a while getting around to enjoying the game and its massive library of mods because I thought that it was exclusively a MMORPG. While I might enjoy playing such a game with a few of my close friends, our schedules and interests rarely align to make such things possible; aside from that handful of gamers, everyone else I've met on the internet has proven to have drastically different ideas about gaming and it's likely we'd be unable to cooperate long enough to play an entire chapter of NWN, let alone complete the entire story. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that NWN has a single-player mode in which one can complete the entire game!

But there was just one catch: while there is indeed a lot of single-player content for the game, many of NWN's most popular award-winning mods are designed for multiplayer gameplay and thus would be drastically imbalanced for a single player. If only there was a way to create a party of AI-controlled companions...

This is where the OHS Henchman System becomes invaluable to players like myself. While the default game limits the number of cohorts a player may have and restricts the player's level of interaction with said cohorts, OHS allows the creation of a party of as many custom cohorts as the player is willing to keep track of. Furthermore, no modding tools or knowledge are necessary to accomplish such a feat; everything is handled in-game through dialog that avoids breaking immersion as much as possible.

The mod comes with a variety of pre-made cohort characters that can be summoned from the start of (almost) any module, but I prefer to play with a party of characters of my own creation. The easiest way I've found to do this is to use OHS in conjunction with a character-creation module like PGC3 (and there are several others) to create player characters, save them in the local vault and then register them as henchmen which can be summoned whenever I need them. While these cohorts are not as advanced in AI or as varied in appearance as the companions we've created and enjoyed in many newer games, they are sufficient to fill any roster vacancies in one's adventuring party. Most importantly, the behavior, equipment and level progression of OHS companions can be controlled and managed entirely by their party leader (that's you). I've been so pleased with the performance of my OHS companions that since discovering the mod I've never again used any of NWN's provided cohorts. In fact, I've become so accustomed to adventuring with sisters Dolci and Danuta (a barbarian and a rogue, respectively) that at times I forget that they aren't a natural part of the game.

So if you need an adventuring party for Neverwinter Nights but all your friends are playing Modern Warfare, or if you're just tired of Tomi Undergallows and Boddyknock Glinckle, I highly recommend that you check out the OHS Henchman System. OldMansBeard has done an exceptional job with the mod and deserves all the praise he has received. I feel that OHS has added a new dimension to my NWN experience and I'd wager that you'll enjoy it as much as I have.

Aeons Of Death v6

Never let it be said that I'm afraid to let folks see my competition...

The classic Doom mega-randomizer Aeons of Death has recently been updated to version six. To describe it in a nutshell, it pretty much works the same way that my own Doom Upgrade works, but where I did my best to keep things in the original Doom flavour AEoD does its best to cram into the game every possible bit of content from every other game possible. I'm not saying that as negative criticism; I'm just saying that's what it does. But rather than attempt to describe it in text, I'll let you judge for yourself from a variety of videos and screenshots.

The mod can be downloaded from the following links (both files are required):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bun9am

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4fgd5n

...and you can read more about it here...