Time for an explanation... On April 1st 2001, while I was actively developing The Opera, a total conversion for Half-Life, I launched an "Opera Pre-Alpha", which is actually still visible and downloadable HERE through the Internet Archive (amazing... the ZIP file is still there to download!). You can read the entire background there.

No images are visible in the archive, but here it is for those of you unable to run that version:

Six months ago, amidst the news of "D&D Next", I made the choice to do it again and create another language interpreter using Dungeons and Dragons content. To be honest I had three choices of games I wanted to emulate: Zork, Wizardry (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord) or Ultima (III: Exodus or IV: Quest of the Avatar). All things considered, Zork was the easiest to do.

I did not have the benefit of having the source code to the original one I created 12 years ago (in C++, if you're wondering), so I set out to re-create the entire natural language interpreter in C#.Net. Yes, you read that correctly... I didn't use an existing interpreter like Z or Muddle; I created my own interpreter from scratch.

The result was The Caverns of Mayhem: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure!

This was actually somewhat of a challenge to do. Not so much the language interpreter - I've done that at least three times before, each time in a different programming language - but how exactly to translate the D&D game mechanic to an interactive text adventure. I did the best I could, but there are certain things that are noticeably absent; for example, I didn't implement skills because I didn't quite know how. And the cleric's Channel Divinity powers were for the most part omitted because most of them were reactions which just wouldn't work.

To "win" you have to battle your way to the treasure room, take the treasure and return to the tavern with it. There are goblins and a medusa in your way; everything else is just filler. As was the case with the first one I did in 2001 (read the write up linked above), there was a lot more that I was thinking about but just didn't have time to do. For example, I had much more interaction planned with the tavern staff, the orc and the gazebo.

Now, in case you haven't tried some of these, here are some things you can try and some Easter eggs:

• There are numerous responses taken verbatim from Zork, such as responses to suicide, jumping, yelling or typing "xyzzy" (or any other magic word from Sorcerer, Enchanter, Spellbreaker or Wishbringer for that matter).
• Use any one of George Carlin's seven dirty words.
• Use a Doom cheat code like "idkfa" or "iddqd". The response mimics what the game Hexen does if you try to enter a non-Hexen cheat code in to it.
• As a wizard, "cast magic missile" while in darkness.
• "Cast burning hands" (as a wizard) or "cast flames of the phoenix" (as a monk) in the presence of the gazebo.
• Sell the orc's pie in the tavern.
• Count the leaves. This is an inside joke in several Infocom titles. The number also has special mathematical significance: 69 in hexadecimal is 105 in decimal, and 69 in decimal is 105 in octal. I had other plans for the leaves, but just never got around to them.
• Search the refuse in the Refuse Room. Yes, I implemented dire rats that most people will never see.
• As a barbarian, you can "rage" or "flip out".
• Roll the dice and either get snake eyes (curse) or box cars (boon).
• Try to cast a spell while in the tavern.
• Besides myself, all the other names in the README are characters from films directed by Stanley Kubrick.
• Other things I don't remember.

I worked on and off on it for the past two months, and it was kinda fun to do and I'm actually really proud of it. I wish I could do more, but there simply wasn't enough time. And it wasn't perfect; there was actually a crashing bug if you tried to eat the leaves (among other commands). I have since fixed that and uploaded the new version.

If you are curious, below is a link to where you can download the complete source code in C#.Net to The Caverns of Mayhem: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure! The project is compatible with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and only requires the Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 to run.

I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Maybe next year I'll have a Wizardry emulator...

Download complete The Caverns of Mayhem:
A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure source code
(C#, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010)

"Omne ignotum pro magnifico"

If you've been following this blog, you know that we have had our fair share of communication with the legal department over at Wizards of the Coast, and as a result we have not only learned a great deal of what we can and cannot do as far as licensing but we have been able to figure out exactly who the right person to talk to is in order to get the necessary licensing agreements in place

Several months ago, after a great deal of negotiations (most talks of which started with the words "now please don't sue us, but...") we have managed to talk to the right people and sign the proper agreements to do what we thought was impossible: secure a provisional license to use the Dungeons and Dragons brand name to create the next state of the art video game based on the "DnD Next" rule set. The official press release can be read below:

Official Press Release by Darklight Interactive (PDF)

Since we are not authorized to be direct competitors to the upcoming MMORPG Neverwinter by Cryptic Studios, our product is a single player campaign that will be a traditional delve through a dungeon. While we have had a group of professional, well known writers working on the story - most of which you are familiar with, but we are not allowed to disclose names yet due to Non-Disclosure Agreements - I and a group of experienced software developers have been working on the engine.

Since we do not want to take funding away from Wizards of the Coast and would rather they spend the resources they have to get "DnD Next" developed and released, in a few weeks we intend to launch a Kickstarter project to fund the development of the final product. We did not want to launch a Kickstarter before we had a "proof of concept", and unlike some other companies we do not want to launch a Kickstarter to fund said "proof of concept". So we have been developing the engine on our own, on our personal time and at our personal expense, in the hopes that it can show the world what we're capable of and more easily reach our goals once the Kickstarter launches.

After further negotiations, and painstaking work over the past few months to get it in running condition, I have been authorized to release our first "proof of concept" (which we refer to internally as an "alpha" build) for The Caverns of Mayhem: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure (tentative title... we'll let the writers come up with something better) that you can download below!!!

Download The Caverns of Mayhem: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure (ZIP)

The game engine is not exactly a direct port of the "DnD Next" ruleset simply because, as is the case in Neverwinter, a lot of the rules don't exactly port flawlessly from the tabletop to a video game. But it has everything you've come to love about D&D: it's got dungeons, it's got monsters, it's got treasure... and, heck, it's even got a dragon!

The "proof of concept" which you can download below has been developed for Microsoft Windows (we're investigating a Mac port, but none of us actually own a Mac so we'll probably have to wait for funding on that) and requires nothing more than the .NET Framework 2.0. It is not graphics intensive so it should run on pretty much any machine; in fact, for those of you with inferior machines our game will probably run significantly better than Neverwinter because the hardware requirements are much lower. And, thanks to proprietary compression technology, it uses a lot less drive space!

As we mention above, it is a very early "alpha" build and has some known issues. And, since it's an "alpha", I ask that you do not start reporting bugs in it; we pretty much know what most of them, and have tried to document them in the "readme" file included with the distribution. Please read that file prior to launching the game so you understand what to expect and are aware of the aspects of the game that have yet to be completed.

We here at Darklight Interactive are entering an interesting time, and we would like to thank everyone at Wizards of the Coast for giving us the opportunity to use your license. We hope that, after looking at our proof of concept below, you support us and await our upcoming Kickstarter launch.

Thank you all for your support.

Download The Caverns of Mayhem: A Dungeons and Dragons Adventure (ZIP)

Requires Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0
(c) 2013, Darklight Interactive - All Rights Reserved
Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Neverwinter, Wizards of the Coast, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries, and are used with permission. Hasbro and its logo are trademarks of HASBRO, Inc.
Please don't sue us.

1) I don't remember the last time I wrote a review about anything. So this may not be the most perfect of reviews; it's more of a brain dump, if you will.

2) I have never played World of Warcraft. My recent MMORPG experience is only Everquest II. Well, except for when I beta tested Ultima Online (before you ask: yes, I was in Britannia when Lord British died)

3) I am extremely weak when it comes to Dungeons and Dragons lore. For example, I know there's a city called "Neverwinter", but that's pretty much all I know about it.

Anyway, here goes...

He's a big one, ain't he?

This weekend marked the third beta test weekend for Neverwinter, so I got the opportunity to experiment with it.

All in all it was a rather enjoyable experience but I think the product is going to suffer because of the way it is presented: it's being billed as an MMORPG at the same level as World of Warcraft, but it clearly is not and should never be considered as such. To me it looks like a single player experience - something like Neverwinter Nights, Kingdoms of Amalur, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, etc. - that just happens to have a LOT of NPCs in it.

And I mean LOTS... Compared to other multiplayer games I've seen, the engine manages to handle over a hundred players in one zone amazingly well. You wander through Protector's Enclave and you are simply surrounded by dozens of other players. This gives the environment life and makes it feel like an actual city, not like the barren wasteland that cities are in most other games. Granted you can't interact with each and every one as if they were an NPC, but it just feels grander. I remember walking through the "great" city of Qeynos in Everquest II and wondering where the hell anyone is; you certainly won't feel that way about the city of Neverwinter.

Beyond that, the game progresses like a single player experience; I pretty much solo-ed the entire game all the way to level 30. At the end of each zone there is a "party only" event that requires you to have 5 players, but it's really optional and isn't required to proceed along the original quest line. So if you're looking for the true multiplayer experience, the thrill of 20 man raids or interaction with teammates, I'm not sure if Neverwinter is for you.

The Good

1) The game runs remarkably well, all things considered. Granted, my machine is as low end as you can get, the video quality was abysmal for me and there were certain areas where I felt I was watching a slide show than playing a game (the zone with the "mad dragon" was unplayable due to frame rate), but running through Neverwinter with a hundred players around me ran pretty well.

2) If you liked the single player games I mentioned above (specifically Neverwinter Nights and Kingdoms of Amalur), you should enjoy this game. It's really nothing more than a single player game that requires an Internet connection; there are multiplayer aspects of it (not many that I saw) but they're not an obligation. A majority of the zones along the main questline are instanced and not shared so you'll be all alone most of the time.

That crumpled heap at the bottom? Yep... That's me.

3) It feels like D&D. It may not feel like 4th Edition, or any edition for that matter, but there's no doubt about the fact that you're playing a D&D game. The first time you get attacked by a mimic or the first time you plow in to a gelatinous cube will be memorable (I'm not sure if either one can be detected prior to attack; it all happened so quick). And once you get to the 30s, you can experience a rather large green dragon (that crumpled heap at the bottom of the screen is me).

4) Some of the zones are beautiful. The Plague Tower, with huge chunks of stone floating in mid air, is a sight to see.

5) I was concerned to a point about the "free to play" model and whether there would be "pay to win". In the 30 levels I've played I managed to accumulate two companions (can only have one active at a time though) and a horse without having to spend real world money, so that says something about it. Granted, I can imagine certain things would be a lot easier had I shelled out some money - I'm betting I wouldn't have taken such a beating with the green dragon if I was buffed with stuff I bought - but that doesn't mean I can't play the game. You can still enjoy it without shelling out a dime.

The Bad

Plowing in to a gelatinous cube and getting instantly engulfed was rather alarming.

1) If you're looking for a true MMO experience, I don't know if this will be your cup of tea. I'm sure you can team up to do quests, but even so it's very personal and doesn't feel like it's designed for massive raids other MMORPGs tailor to.

2) The main questline follows a very linear progression: do everything in zone "X", then move on to zone "Y". At least in games like Everquest you sometimes have the need to go back to old zones, and in EQ there are cases where an instance of a differing level than the surrounding zone exists, but here as soon as you're done with a zone forget about it. For example, if you finish Blacklake and move on to the next zone you can never again do the dungeon or skirmish missions that were there and have no reason to ever go back to Blacklake.

3) Because of the linear progression, I can't help but wonder what's going to happen once you hit the level cap. At least with Everquest you have things to do: zones to explore, raids to participate in, thousands of quests to complete, etc... but it doesn't quite feel like that will be the case with this one. I question what there will be to do besides retire your character and make another one. Time will tell.

4) All the zones don't become available until you complete necessary quests and unlock them. I would prefer that all zones be open; if you're level 1 and you blunder in to a level 60 zone that's your problem but that's also your choice. They mentioned zones like Icespire Peak which I can't even go see if I wanted to.

5) Inventory management becomes an issue quickly. Unidentified items are worthless and cannot be equipped, but the only apparent way to identify items is with a Scroll of Identification which is extremely rare. At level 30, I was constantly running around with a pack busting at the seams with unidentified items that I would have to discard now and then just to make room.

6) Expect to run around a lot. Most zones only have one main entrance in or out, so since there's no fast travel I've found that the quickest way to go to another zone is to kill yourself (diving in to the Rift in Neverdeath Cemetery was particularly entertaining, especially when my companion dove in after me a few seconds later). Eventually you get to buy a horse but it doesn't feel that much faster.

7) Monsters don't appear to be tied down to a specific spot. In Everquest you can be chased by monsters up to a certain point where they will break off the attack and return home, but here you can train dozens of monsters across the entire zone. Since every monster in the zone has pretty much the same level it's not that big of an issue; you won't have problems like Fansy the Bard dragging a boatload of high level creatures over to pound you in to batter.

8) The voice acting is pretty bad. And, in some cases, really bad. The fact that they won't shut the hell up when they're standing near you really doesn't help.

The Ugly

1) This. Just... This.

Every time you enter a new zone - and sometimes while you're playing - you get hit with this. It's "Patching"... What it's patching I don't honestly know, but it got to be quite infuriating. On some zones it's quick, but on other zones it took upwards of 6-8 minutes. My longest wait was 496 seconds.

What is that for? I would much rather wait an hour for the game to patch itself on launch before I even play it than to get constantly interrupted every time I zone. And, quite honestly, if I invite you to a zone and it takes you ten minutes before you even show up I'm going to kick you from the group.

2) This has been touched upon by others much better than I, but women's armor has some... issues. I mean, this is my female halfling rogue:

What the hell kind of armor is that? It's better than chainmail despite the bare midriff. And what is that, a duck crammed in to my toon's cleavage?!?

I recently tried Wizardry Online and was immediately turned off because every female player looked like a prostitute. This isn't as bad, but it's pretty damn close. And I'm hoping that wardrobes will become considerably more diverse; for now, considering everyone on the main questline gets the same rewards, expect every level 30 rogue to have pretty much the same appearance.

3) There are bugs, which can be expected. But many have said that Perfect World has a tendency of not fixing things and launching anyway which is somewhat disconcerting. There technically weren't any actual "showstoppers" but there were some really glaring issues that I feel should have been dealt with on the first beta.

Conclusion

All in all it was an enjoyable experience, and I think it's a game that captures the feel of D&D and shows some great promise. Whether this will have the necessary longevity to keep players playing has yet to be determined, but in lieu of that if you're looking for a long single player experience this might be worth it. If you're looking for a hardcore MMORPG, I question whether this will give you that.

I look forward to the next beta weekend!

OK, so maybe my cover needs a little work...

Today I decided to try and get Revenge of the Kobolds finally out the door. It's been sitting on my drive for some time, and I think it's time it get some air and some feedback on whether the mechanic I put together actually works.

Here is the intro:

     For as long as you can remember, you have been victims. Even after reducing the senseless attacks on nearby villages and trying to lead a peaceful, isolated life they still came. Every few weeks another group of “heroes” would barge in to your lair just because it was there, and they would not hesitate to try and kill everyone in sight and take all the precious things you’ve struggled to collect. Sometimes your clan was able to beat them back, but other times you simply weren’t so lucky. When your clan is going on their ninth chieftain in the last six months, you know you have a problem.

     Most of the time you and your group of warriors were there to try and fight them, and sometimes you managed to kill one or two of them before having to inevitably retreat, but now it’s different. It’s as if they waited for you - the clan’s latest and most highly trained protectors - to leave on a routine scouting trip so they can waltz in and ravage your lair. The ninth chieftain and the remainder of your clan didn’t stand a chance this time.

     Enough is enough! Your clan may have been decimated (again) and your latest leader may be dead, but there is no way you are going to let these paltry “heroes” get away with it this time. It’s time to go in there to take your lair back, and show these gutless intruders what a proud, fearless kobold is truly capable of!

-=O=-

     Revenge of the Kobolds is a Dungeon and Dragons™ 4th Edition “challenge” adventure designed for between four and six 1st level characters. This adventure is designed similar in concept to the Lair Assault series of mini-adventures published by Wizards of the Coast. It is designed to be used within a single game session with characters specifically made for this challenge.

In this adventure the players are all kobolds who return to their lair only to find it occupied by “heroes”. They must reclaim their home by killing every intruder they find.

I would have published it already but it lacks art. Not for the PDF that is... I don't have any art for the listing on Drive thru RPG. So I'm going to spend a day and see what I (or someone else that's willing) can come up with.

As promised here, I intend to also release this product FOR FREE here and on Drive Thru RPG.

Once I get this out of the way, I can focus entirely on Return of the Crystal Scion (for Pathfinder) and an extra-special secret project that I'm hoping to complete for early April.

Stay tuned... The kobolds are coming in a matter of days!

...and I don't quite know how I feel about that now.

The article was written over a year ago (my source file has the "last updated" date of 1/9/2012, but the approval for the article occured as early as November 2011), and quite honestly I've changed a lot since then. In retrospect, I don't quite know how I feel about the article in question; it's been a long time, and my design style has changed considerably in the past year. There are parts of it I'm not all that thrilled about, but I admit I've felt that way about everything I've ever published so I assume that's just the write in me panicking about the quality of everything I type.

For starters, if it's the bio I think I wrote it's really... and I mean really... weak. To be honest, I had a harder time writing the bio than I did the rest of the article. For those of you that haven't tried it before, it's actually fairly difficult to describe oneself without getting all preachy and while trying to maintain a little bit of humor. When asked to do it for this submission I kind of panicked and didn't know what the hell to say, so I wrote who I was and even mentioned my own company (Darklight Interactive). At this point I'd be surprised if WotC even published a reference to my own company (they did, after all, C&D me at one point).

Secondly, I've never had to fill out an art request before. In the past I always had a certain level of faith in artists in the same way as people have faith in me as a programmer. I never expected to have to go in to vivid detail on exactly what I wanted for art; I figured I'd give them a general idea and let the artist use their own creativity to come up with something that fits. Rather than tell them "draw me XXX", I had to go in to vivid detail of the scene I would have liked to see... Even going as far as capitalizing key words that I thought important ("... ELEMENTAL CHAOS ... MOLTEN LAVA ... THIN WINGS ... SHARP CLAWS ..."). If a client of mine went in to that level of detail when asking for a program I'm supposed to write, and even went as far as capitalizing keywords like that, I'd probably tell him to stuff it.

Finally, and I've said this many a time before, I suck at writing lore. I can create monster stat blocks until I'm blue in the face and can work on crunch text for weeks on end, but I now had to come up with lore background for the article. Luckily I was told up front that the article was going to be co-authored (at the time I didn't know who the other author was), so I prayed that the other author would be much better than I in terms of introducing the article and providing the necessary top level background lore.

But, regardless of that, I still needed to write the lore for the parts of the article I did write. So off I went to do research... After several hours of searching I managed to dig out the original Fiend Folio out of storage and I even spent a stupid amount of money to buy the UK5: Eye of the Serpent adventure module on eBay because that's where some of the creatures were introduced.I even dug out the D&D 3.5E Monster Manual and the Pathfinder Bestiary to ensure I had every bit of information I needed to do this right.

Why go through all this effort? Well, there's a big difference in creating something from scratch and creating something that has thirty years of history; I wasn't about to create something that the die hard D&D historians will immediately identify as being flat out wrong.

I was worried. Part of me created the stat blocks with the absurd amount of detail I normally put in to doing such a thing, but I was still concerned that these new creations of mine would not fit in to the established history of the creatures. In addition to the history across multiple editions, I had another concern: these creatures had already introduced in 4th Edition in an article by Logan Bonner. They were familiars then, but even if they weren't represented in the same style as previous editions they were still considered existing 4th Edition canon - they are in the DDI Compendium - so I technically couldn't create anything that went against that either.

It took me over a month to write the article. Actually, let me be more specific on that: it took me a few weeks to build up the courage to write the article, then spent a few days writing, then spend another few weeks staring at it and thinking "is this really good enough?" It was my first article to be published in Dragon/Dungeon, so I was nervous as hell. I think I even had my wife hit the "Send" button in the end because if not it'd still be sitting in my "Drafts" folder waiting to go out.

But regardless of all that, there it is... my name as an author on the Wizards of the Coast website. It's not a stellar, earth-shattering article I admit, but it is a personal accomplishment. Technically, I can now add "published in Dragon Magazine" on my resume. That's got to count for something, right?

Hopefully now I'll get the chance to fulfill another bucket list item of mine: getting my article errata-ed by WotC!

And, like I promised, I'm releasing it ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Here's the intro...

Few people in the village of Ravenshire spoke of the manor atop the hill to the north, and even fewer dared approach it. After the horrific events that happened there so many years ago many believe the mansion and the estate grounds to be cursed, haunted by the restless dead, and some of the village residents could swear they have seen movement and lights coming from the seemingly abandoned mansion.

Throughout the years the village has had its share of disappearances; most of them had been blamed on the harsh environment of the surrounding forest and the natural dangers of the world we live in, but recent evidence leads to the doorstep of the Seyvoth estate. And when two young women – Jessi and Lyssa Hawthorne, daughters of a village elder – go missing,  the village immediately sent out search parties in to the surrounding area. Two separate groups of scouts passed through the iron gate at the entrance to the estate… and have never returned.

Now a local mystic warns of the danger looming in Seyvoth manor, how the daughters will soon be led towards the darkness and turn against the village they once called home. Are you brave enough to step through the gates and seek out the missing scouts and rescue the two women in distress? Are you willing to unravel the mysteries of the Seyvoth estate, even if it means risking your own life?

A Night in Seyvoth Manor is a Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition adventure for a party of 6th level characters. It is intended to be played in a single session, and it is very much inspired by "fourthcore" but with kind of a different tone.

I still need to piece together the tactical maps in to a usable format; for now I'm just including an archive that contains the raw map JPEGs in 100 DPI format. Eventually, time permitting, I'll slice them up nicely in to a PDF.

I never got around to playtesting this the way I would have liked, so if you have any feedback regarding it I'd love to hear about it. Beyond that, I hope you enjoy this.

If this is well received, I will start working on a Pathfinder version almost immediately.

Anyway, here are the links. I really do hope you enjoy this.

A Night in Seyvoth Manor (4E) at Drive Thru RPG

-=O=-

Addendum: For those of you that may have issues with Drive Thru RPG, here is the "complete" download which includes the module itself, supplemental materials and tactical maps. Although I do have to say this: I would much rather you use the link above and get it through Drive Thru RPG because it's easier to track the numbers on it, it'll get you added to my mailing list for future products (if you are so inclined) and it places less of a burden on my poor server.

Thank you for your support.

A Night in Seyvoth Manor (4E), Complete download (37.7Mb)

I admit that I don't do all this adventure design for the money. Heck, I can't imagine anyone doing this sort of thing for the money. Unless you somehow manage to have a multi-million dollar Kickstarter campaign, it's a hard industry to make a profit in.

And sometimes that makes little sense to those outside the industry. Take my wife for instance... "why haven't you created a game and made millions yet?" It just doesn't work that way, dear. I can't just whip up a multi-million dollar game - especially a video game, which both my wife and son seem to think can be whipped up in a weekend by a 25-year programmer such as myself - and expect it to make me stinking rich.

But I think I realize the problem with this industry: we, us happy few that create,  enjoy it too much. We aren't motivated by financial gain or a windfall as our products sell millions. We are motivated by the simple fact of enjoying what we do, sharing our creations with the public. I've said this many a times before: I could spend months, maybe years (I spent two years on The Opera, so I've been there) creating something... If I manage to get *one* person to enjoy it, it's all been worthwhile in my mind. With that mentality, no wonder we can't retire as soon as we'd like.

Another problem is self worth, trying to put a price on something we create. Look at my DriveThruRPG page... Comparatively speaking, my stuff is dirt cheap. Why? Because I haven't a clue how much it would actually be worth. And I have a hard time upping the price because (1) it would deny the product from getting in the hands of people, and (2) it feels like I'm price gouging. Since I don't have an accountant breathing down my neck trying to figure out how to make the next payroll, I can accept selling stuff so cheap.

So here I am, staring at the products on my DriveThryRPG page, troubled but not decimated at the fact that I haven't sold one in a month, wondering what to do with them. I want everyone on the planet to see what I've done, but it makes zero business sense to just give it away, right? Some of this stuff might not sell ever again, only to have it disappear in to obscurity. That to me is more unsettling than anything else... I don't care if I don't make a profit, but it's personally important to me that people know who I am and what I do.

At the end of last year one of the most well known sites in the RPG industry, ENWorld, was hacked and pretty much decimated. It's taken a painstaking amount of effort for those to run the site to get it back to what it once was, and they have decided to turn to the wonder of Kickstarter to fund the re-establishing of the system and creation of new tech to empower the site.

So I figured... If my products serve no purpose sitting idle on DriveThruRPG, maybe they can help someone.

So I'm happy to announce that I am now a stretch goal for the ENWorld Kickstarter. If the listing manages to reach 11K in the next 25 days, everyone who contributed $25 or more will get every single product Darklight Interactive has published so far FOR FREE.

If anyone in the community needs help, it's these guys. They have an awesome site and provide an invaluable service to the community.

In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I do. It might not be a cash cow of a hobby, but I could live with that.

But I was selected, so I thought it was time to post something.

This past year has been interesting to say the least. I didn't accomplish everything I intended to do, but it worked out overall. "The Heart of Fire" was released to what has become a dry market, so much so that I'm sure the six people that bought it really enjoy it. Other products went out here and there, but while D&D is in design limbo there has been somewhat of a market shift.

As a result, I'm looking at 2013 a little differently. Here's what's in store for you all:

• "Revenge of the Kobolds" (D&D 4E) is being edited and reviewed by third parties. It will be released for free, without art (except for the map, anyway) on this site as soon as I feel comfortable. It might not be perfect, and it might not work very well mechanically, but it'll be released nonetheless. I predict that will be released by month's end, but don't hold me to that.
• "A Night in Seyvoth Manor" (D&D 4E) is undergoing similar editing and review, and will probably be releadsed on or about the same time as RotK. Because of the nature of this adventure it's much easier to port to other game systems, so I'm looking to port it at least to Pathfinder and, if all goes well, other systems (AGE, 13th Age, Hackmaster, DCC, etc.). I may even use Kickstarter to fund the development for the other systems; don't know yet. The initial D&D 4th Edition version will be released for free asd well.
• I'm imagining that my epic adventure "The Crystal Scion" will not have much public interest, so I have decided to convert what I have and finish development of it for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. It's a fairly high level adventure - I'm predicting between 12th and 15tyh level - so I'm somewht worried since I've never done anything like that before. It'll be an interesting experience to say the least. I don't know if there's a market or demand for such a thing, but I imagine the market to be better than what 4th Edition is now...
• My mega-campsign "The Coming Dark" has been going through some serious rework in my head; looking back on what is my first creation for 4th Edition I see a lot of things I did terribly, terribly wrong. So I'm reworking 99% of it and intend to release this for D&D Next as soon as it is possible (assuming it is possible... Licensing for Next is unknown at this time).
• I have a lot of other small projects in the works. Not sure what I'm going to do with them right now, but until D&D Next is released it might be a toss up between 4th Edition and Pathfinder.
• I have a couple of programs in the works, such as character and monster builders for D&D Next I've started on We'll see if they ever get to see the light of day.

Beyond that, stay tuned everybody... Lot more to come from us!

But during that time I have released one tiny product, The Absent-Minded Alchemist... and even at its low price of $0.99 I've sold no more than six copies. The 4th Edition market is effectively dry, in no small part due to Wizards of the Coast's choice to seemingly pretend it doesn't exist. Heck, there isn't a single 4th Edition product in WotC's own gift guide.

So I have a bit of a dilemma... My intention was to use Kickstarter to fund the art for at least one of these products, but I can't help but think that creating a Kickstarter for a market that no longer exists seems like a waste. I can't in good conscience create a Kickstarter listing that I personally feel will inevitably fail. It makes no business sense.

Furthermore, I can't bring myself to publish and charge for a product that I personally feel is inferior or not the best that it can be. Sure, I might like the mechanics of the two modules, but to charge players any amount of money for a module with zero art in it just doesn't sit right. Yes, I've done that before... but it's always felt somewhat awkward.

So I've made some executive decisions:

• The D&D 4th Edition versions of Revenge of the Kobolds and A Night in Seyvoth Manor will be released FOR FREE on this site and on Drive Thru RPG once I feel comfortable about the mechanics and have given it at least one editing run through by someone other than myself.
• I am looking to convert Seyvoth Manor in to other game systems, most notably Pathfinder and a few others (13th Age, Hackmaster, earlier editions of D&D, etc...), and if I do these will probably have a small price to them (I'm not in it for the money, as you might be able to tell). Many have told me to create a "system neutral" product... the issue with that is that my thing is mechanics and "crunch", if you will, which goes contrary to making a neutral product.
• I will not be creating any more large scale 4th Edition products. I will probably create small side-treks like The Absent-Minded Alchemist or an occasional snippet of content here and there, but don't expect any 100+ page 4th Edition modules any time soon.
• Until "D&D Next" is closer to release and we have a better idea of what the licensing is going to be for it, I am going to keep myself busy somehow. Odds are that I may find myself doing some more Pathfinder work than I'm use to.

Revenge of the Kobolds will probably be released first because it's the smallest. It may not be perfect and I haven't playtested it as much as I would like, but I think releasing it is better than just having it sit on the virtual shelf without any exposure. I will also see if I can get the Seyvoth playtest off the ground one of these days.

I'm hoping that, with the release of "D&D Next", we'll have another D&D Renaissance and things will be much better. One can only hope...

As it turns out the reason I can no longer access my events is because the FLGS changed owners; I haven't been there for a month (been busy moving in to a new home), but although I was aware it was going to happen I didn't think it happened so soon. Apparently I need to get authorization from the new owners to run any events there. Since I am currently without a car, that will have to wait.

That explanation is acceptable, but I have to admit the manner in which they handled it really needs a lot of work. The reason wasn't vocalized to me until I was locked out, submitted a customer service ticket and had it "escalated". Furthermore, sending an email to me saying in effect "we think you're a fraud" and that I need to be "educated", and then simply locking out my account without any warning, is definitely inappropriate and just not cool.

WPN, conceptually anyway, is a great concept. It works really well for WotC's bread and butter product - Magic: The Gathering - but I don't think it works as intended for D&D. The purpose of the program is to get people in the store to spend money on the product; sure it's conceivable for someone to be buying a new M:TG booster pack every week, but it's really hard to imagine someone buying a new D&D product just as often. Maybe I'm mistaken on this, but how often do the players participating in a D&D Encounters game change from week to week? Do you really get that amount of new blood in the middle of the campaign? Do they buy product from the store or do nothing more than take up space (at least from the store's point of view in terms of business revenue)? How often do the participants buy something in or out of the store?

In my opinion, I agree that WotC should promote in store play as much as possible in order to help the local business but they should not lock out anyone who is trying to run a game outside of the store. Right now, unless you're a WPN event coordinator bound to a store, you have no access to the Encounters and Lair Assault packages and are simply not allowed to run it at an alternate venue (anything from the library to your own home). I'm not saying it should be that way right out of the gate - having a new product only available in stores encourages would-be players to go there - but eventually that product should be available for anyone to run it. In a few months I should be able to buy War of Everlasting Darkness for the regular ticket price of an adventure, not for $200 or more on eBay.

Anyway, until I can sort out my transportation issue, go to the store and visit the new owners, I will remain blocked from doing anything WPN related. Life goes on, I guess...