Darkniciad

I found this site while looking around for information about getting Neverwinter Nights to work on Win 7, and it's just plain awesome. http://www.gog.com/ Neverwinter Nights worked "out of the box" after downloading and installing. No need to apply the enormous, hard to find critical rebuild patch, and all the necessary setting tweaks were applied directly to the shortcut the installer created ( although I did add XP compatibility mode ) I haven't tested everything, but the game itself and the toolset both launch and save properly. Considering how much pain and suffering I've seen in Google searches during the research process, that's a monumental relief. Plus -- NO DRM! Woo Hoo! I had to replace my CD drive at some point after I originally purchased Neverwinter Nights, and the first time I tried to boot the game, the stupid DRM wouldn't recognize the drive, and I couldn't play my legitimately purchased game. I had to crack a perfectly legal game to play it. None of that with GOG games. Completely DRM free! What I picked up was the Diamond Edition, which includes Neverwinter, Hordes, and Shadows, plus the premium modules and what appears to be a couple of others. A great value at only $9.99 It even runs properly on this new computer, which it never did when I originally played it, because my old system was a piece of crap and even with the bells and whistles turned off, I got massive frame drops *laugh* Likewise, I'm currently downloading the Might and Magic Limited Edition Six Pack. If games as old as Might and Magic I work "out of the box" on this, this site is the holy grail of old school crpg gamers. Again, $9.99 for hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay. Signing up also granted me a bunch of free downloads. There are a couple of Ultima games in there, so if you like that series, you can start rebuilding that collection for free. If you've never played Might and Magic, IV, V, and VI ( all included in the six-pack download ) are great games for the micromanager. VI is great graphically ( if not up to today's standards ) I fondly remember once I'd upped my power a lot. The first area contains spots where there are hordes and hordes of goblins. I used to fly slowly over the area, drawing them all into a tight knot, and then while hovering above their range, I would drop a meteor swarm directly into the heart of all of them. Instant, huge kill ratio. It was absolutely hilarious. The most important thing is that having access to the toolset from NWN will let me start making interior maps again that match those I'd already created in the past. Once I locate all the necessary hack packs, I can update and increase the number of my "creatures" listings as well, since the images for my creatures were also created in the NWN toolset. A HUGE thumbs up to GOG ( Good Ol' Games ) for keeping these games alive and presenting them in a format that will work on modern computers. That has always been an issue when an OS updates. Hmm... I wonder if they have Monty Python and the Holy Grail... I haven't been able to get that game to work on the last two computer systems. I'll have to take a look

Recently gave in to the nag screen from MSN Live messenger to update to Skype. Lo and behold, the "upgrade" doesn't check my bloody hotmail account! Son of a... Solution: https://www.trillian.im/ Skype will likely never get opened again. Fucking Microsoft... I've known about this program for years because my Baileykins used to use it. When Live Messenger fucked me with this "upgrade", I checked it out to see if I could get back notification on my damn hotmail account. Got that, and much more. Now I can get notifications on all of my email accounts ( pen name and personal ) as well as keep up with twitter postings Only have to have one thing open to have notification across everything.

Here's a preview of how I'll be updating the old indoor maps. At the moment, there's no way for me to run Neverwinter Nights on this computer ( though I'm looking into that ). So, I can't recover ( I believe I have all the files on an old hard drive ) or recreate the original maps for those in the same format. Likewise, I've not found a program that really does what I want in order to create these kind of indoor maps. Hoping I can eventually get Neverwinter running on this system, because I could save much better resolution versions of these maps. However, I can take advantage of the tools I now have at my disposal to at least make the suckers a little more readable. Here's the ground floor of Blackhawk Hall ( Original Map ) http://www.darkniciad.com/maps/blackhawk_ground_old.jpg And here's the new version with more readable ( and in one case, properly spelled ) text. http://www.darkniciad.com/maps/blackhawk_ground.jpg Until ( and if ) I can get Neverwinter Nights running, this will have to suffice. My overland maps, on the other hand, I do have the original files to pull up the fractal landscape. One way or another, Campaign Cartographer will let me do something nice with those. My original idea of re-creating the maps completely in CC3 just isn't feasible. I could make some damn pretty maps, but it would take bloody forever. I'm hoping to find a happy medium by using the old fractal terrains and adding in a bit of "splash" along with more elegant borders and readable text.

These are three of the ones I've been dreading *laugh* They didn't turn out too bad, and they're certainly better than the originals. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/king_thakkorias_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/thakkor_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/royal_sacrifice_09_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ars_09_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/royal_sacrifice_14_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ars_14_cover.jpg There are a couple I still want to highlight text on, and still a couple of "maybe" updates ( The Offering and Thricegiving ) but I'm absolutely in the home stretch.

Got some more updated. These didn't really take all that long. I've just been digging through the wayback machine pulling a lot of lost images from the snapshots of artmam. There are a lot of things that I found inspiring toward stories that I never saved, and they're still there. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/what_friends_are_for_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/what_friends_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ll_first_anal_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/first_anal_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ll_gift_of_three_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/gift_of_three_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ll_toy_time_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/toy_time_cover.jpg I almsot didn't update What Friends Are For, because it wasn't as small as many of them. I also considered finding a completely new image, but didn't really have anything appropriate. Then, I decided since I had the original image, I'd expand it and make the text look a little better. For Toy Time, I went with a new image, because the original was too blurry even as small as it was ( capture from a live cam show ) and it would have looked horrid when expanded. Two I've been dreading are in the pipeline now: The Royal Sacrifice covers. The original for one looks like complete crap, because I had a really dark monitor when I made it, and couldn't see how terrible the hair I added on looked. With the other, the original image is corrupted, and I remember it was a nightmare adding the hair to Guy on that one as well ( though it turned out much better ) Beyond that, I'm debating whether to update The Offering and Thricegiving. I know I have the original female images for both, as well as the egyptian chest I turned into an altar and the backdrop for Offering. Depends upon how I feel when I scroll through all the images, and whether they look out of place. There are a couple of others that are remote possibilities, but the bulk of the updating is done, and I'm quite happy with the results

Covers for some seasonal fantasy stories as Dark and Les updated. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/while_cupids_away_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/cupid_gone_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/last_chance_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/last_chance_cover_old.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ghost_of_a_chance_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ghost_cover.jpg I didn't have the cross-eyed cupid I constructed in Neverwinter Nights' game creation engine, but I'm happier with the image I have on there now anyway. While Cupid's Away was and adventure. Didn't have the original image and couldn't find it. On a whim, I hit the wayback machine. Ended up grabbing several more that could be useful along the way, and eventually found it. Problem was, the full-sized image itself wasn't saved on the wayback machine. I did have the title, though. Luckily, a google search for the title in quotes turned up the image somewhere else, and the cover is done Only a handful left to fix for size/looking crappy. A smaller number need some text tweaking. Once that's done, I can finally feel good about how the cover images look on the website again.

My three horror tales are done On these, I mostly went with new images beyond the main female. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/harvest_of_blood_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/denethia_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/home_by_the_sea_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/home_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/les_home_by_the_sea_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/les_home_cover.jpg

http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq_5_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq5_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq_1_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq1_cover.jpg As with before, there were some images I couldn't find, but they were all on VR: DQ 3 this time. I couldn't find a single one of the original female images, so I had to pull several different ones together. Beyond that, almost every change is based on having more room to use the DQ graphics on the covers. I'm especially happy with Rubiss hovering behind Gwaelin and Renelle. Renelle is also a composite construct. She's an original character, so there's naturally no character art for her. I took a female priest ( from DQ9, I believe ) and use bits of hair from the female DQ3 hero to give her some longer tresses, because all the DQ9 priest images have cropped hair. Just didn't fit Renelle. I feel so much better about having these new images up. It has bugged me since I revamped the site that all those old, small images with poorly executed text were up there.

Feeling a little better, but it was my first day back to work after vacation, and I didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm beat. That means more cover updating http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq_4_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq4_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq_2_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq2_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq_3_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vr_dq3_cover.jpg

http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/deified_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/laresa_3_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/marked_vengeance_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/laresa_marked_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/finding_the_key_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/laresa_key_cover.jpg Unfortunately, there were some images I couldn't recover. The musher and the huskies from "The Blinding White" were something I didn't save. So, I had to find replacements. Remarkably enough, I found the exact same pirate and flag for "Marked for Vengeance" even though I hadn't saved it. I decided to go with a different ship anyway, since I had more room to put a full, tall ship on there. I did horizontally flip the flag this time. That's why it looks different, even though it's the same one. For "Deified" I would have used a different corner image even if I had the original. I'm fairly certain those are actually Mayan symbols on the original, so now we have Inca symbolism on there The bad one was "Finding the Key" I couldn't find a single image from the original cover either on my hard drives or on the web. I had to replace every single element on that one. I considered just leaving it be, ( since the image of Jonathon was so perfect ) but with every other story in the series having a full size cover, it clashed like hell. So, I dug up new images and went to work.

Still too sick to write with the cold meds making me nod off *sigh* I did get a little writing done early this morning, but I just can't close my eyes and visualize. It doesn't help that the boy has been watching Transformers the Movie ( animated ) and rewinding various parts over and over and over... That just eats into your brain *laugh* Good news for those who wish I'd quit messing with this: There aren't many old covers left to muck with Honestly, it's been bugging me for a long time. I kept putting it off and putting it off, thinking it was going to be an incredible pain in the ass. Once I started, I discovered that it actually isn't taking long at all. Photoshop is a godsend, and I learn more about it every time I play with it. Just discovered the "stroke" FX function today, which can be very useful for making text stand out. So, I went to work on cleaning up the Laresa's World series covers. New on the left, old on the right. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/fear_of_freedom_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/fear_free_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/the_blinding_white_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/laresa2_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/genie_valentine_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/vday_laresa_cover.jpg

Four more Yeah, I know everyone would rather I was writing, but this cold, the boy, and cleaning house today just kept me from getting in the right frame of mind to write. New on the left, old on the right. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/no_purer_love_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/pure_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/expectation_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/expectation_cover_old.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/kindled_in_fiction_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/kindled_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/grandfather_yule_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/yule_cover.jpg

Had to go ahead and fix the stuf that was bothering me on the Magic of the Wood story covers New on the left, old on the right. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/steward_of_wood_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/steward_cover.jpg With Daughter of the Wood, I couldn't find the original image. Fortunately, it was a bigger size to begin with, and I was able to upscale it without losing too much quality. That let me fix the only thing that was really bothering me about it: the low visibility text. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/daughter_of_wood_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/steward_2_cover.jpg It was the same issue that bothered me on Secret and Forever. I decided not to muck with the size of them, and instead just highlight the text a little better. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/forever_wood_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/forever_wood_cover_old.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/secret_of_wood_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/secret_of_wood_cover_old.jpg

Four more done New on the left, old on the right. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ebon_genesis_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ebon_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/catchmerchant_princess_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/merchant_princess_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/queen_alicia_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/alicia_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/adams_aunt_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/adams_aunt_old_cover.jpg Unfortunately, I couldn't track down the original image I used for Lavina -- which represented her perfectly as I see her in my head -- and had to substitue a different image. At least it doesn't hover quite as much as the original Lavina did.

Okay, I lied *laugh* Actually, I'm on cold meds, and as soon as I closed my eyes to try to visualize, I was zoning out. So, I had to do something with my eyes open. Five more covers updated. New on the left, old on the right. http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/devans_decision.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ardane1_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/kampars_wand_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ardane2_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/sisters_shadow_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ardane3_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/teachers_pet_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/ardane4_cover.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/window_to_a_dream_cover.jpghttp://www.darkniciad.com/covers/window_cover.jpg

And, yet another one - "Blackhawk Hall" Old Cover: http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/blackhawk_cover.jpg New Cover: http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/blackhawk_hall_cover.jpg I remember this one originally took me the better part of a weekend when I first made the cover for it. Part of the reason why is that the images I'd chosen ( which are great representations of how I see both Arilee and Christi in my head ) are so different. Here's how the originals look side by side. http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/arilee_resized.pnghttp://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/christi_resized.png Balancing the color saturation and lightness was hard as hell. It tickled me to no end when I got it right. Then, I had to go through and carefully cut out Arilee's image, followed by even more meticulous pixel by pixel work getting rid of artifacts left by that process. Then it was fighting the text, and... You get the picture. It took me all of twenty minutes from start to finish to do it this time. Twenty minutes as opposed to two days *laugh* I used to swear that there were few paid programs available that I couldn't utilize free programs to duplicate the effects of. To some extent, that's true. The problem is that you have to use about a half a dozen of them, and the features are usually documented poorly -- at best -- and difficult to use. Photoshop utterly changed my opinion with its ease of use and full features. Of course, I only sprang for the "Elements" edition. Hell if I'm paying full price for the maxed out version. This one does just fine I decided to go darker on Ari instead of going lighter on Christi this time because at the higher resolution, mucking with making Christi lighter just looked too pixellated -- especially next to Ari. Okay. I'll try to stop messing with covers for a while now. Those old, small ones have just been bothering me for a long time. They will get replaced eventually, and the remaining LST3Ks without covers will get them as well. The nice thing is that when I decide to do something like this now, I don't have to edit html files, I just go into my backend utilities, change the database entry, and the changes go into effect immediately

And another one: Casting Off Convention Old Cover: http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/casting_cover.jpg New Cover http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/casting_off_convention_cover.jpg Here's the original image I was working from. Blue jean denim just doesn't work *laugh* Had to do something about that

Dug up a pile of the old images I used to build my covers. In addition, I located some higher res versions of some of them. Now that I have much better tools and a great deal more practice, I can clean some of those poor old things up. All of these images come from artmam.com by the way. The site has a policy that allows you to use any image in any way you wish so long as you link back. I do so on my copyright page, and I'll do so here again ( even though it appears that the site is all but dead ) Here's the first for "Finding Karen" Old Cover Image: http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/karen_cover.jpg New Cover Image: http://www.darkniciad.com/covers/finding_karen_cover.jpg

Well, at least the javascript problems were my mistake. Doesn't explain the need to apply two-week-old patches to the latest distro release, though Everything on the forum should be working properly again. Not that anybody would have noticed *laugh* It's been too long since I had a consistent set of story releases to draw people in ( other than to RR, and even my writing/releases there have slowed down of late ) Still not upgrading again until new versions have had plenty of time to simmer and all the bugs to get coughed up and fixed.

And, another one. Edited some of the old docs to begin work on the Danica Info section of "My Worlds" http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/danica_world_preview.jpg

And, here's a preview of the Characters section of "My Worlds" http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/characters_preview.jpg

Here's a better preview of Maps which is actually doing something now *laugh* http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/more_map_preview.jpg The page now reads the map information from the database. It can be displayed either by clicking the overlay link, which brings it up in the expanding jscript overlay, or by clicking another link, which opens a purpose-designed page to display the map in the same window. It's much more elegant than what I used for the pictures placed throughout "about" - at least for those who don't use the jquery overlay. If that works for you, absolutely use it. Much more convenient. Not sure whether I'm going to work on coding the backend utilities to populate the maps database, or start cleaning up some of the maps. All the maps have presentation issues that need to be addressed. They were created in various programs and edited with Paint. I have much more powerful tools now in Photoshop and Campaign Cartographer, so I'm going to take advantage of them to make the maps look a lot better. Regardless, I'll need to finish those utilities and at least clean up a few maps before launching "My Worlds" Not to mention getting at least a little of the content for Characters, Danica's World, etc. ready.

This must be a turn-of-the-year thing, because I'm having problems again. ( Just noticed the post date on the last message ) I'm aware of the problems using things such as your User CP ( dropdown not functioning ), shoutbox doesn't work, changing themes, attaching images, etc. I have a support ticket in for that. Had to apply a patch from the 13th to resolve other issues, even though I downloaded and upgraded to the latest version on the 29th. WTF is up with that? Patching the newest distribution? Why in the name of Alpha Trion is the latest distribution not already patched with something that was released two weeks before? Still had to do that damn security patch as well. Where is the sense in not applying those to the main distribution? In addition, the IPS forum is chock to the brim with angry users complaining about a multitude of bugs , and there are my own problems with the jscript ( which appear to be unique ) This latest release appears to have been nothing more than a public beta ( at best ) and I'm not fucking amused. I will not be upgrading from this point forward until such time as users have had time to figure out whether the release is actually stable and functional. Everything was working just fine prior to the upgrade, and there's nothing in the new features that I care about. IPS appears to have over-indulged in holiday cheer before this release. Here's hoping they sober up and release something stable next time so I can get this place working properly again... Grrr...

Well, I'll do this the hard way. The forum wonkiness is related to javascript, which means that attachment, moderation, and things like the drop-down menus and pop-up overlays aren't working. Support ticket is in, but the holidays will most likely delay an answer. Had to apply a damn patch to even make this post work. This latest release was obviously nothing more than a public beta, ass-deep in bugs, and I'm not amused. Anyway... Here's the preview images of the upcoming new sections. http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/shorts_preview.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/comment_preview.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/my_worlds_preview.jpg http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink/maps_preview.jpg

Here's a few previews of the new "Shorts" section that's about to go live, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes work on "My Worlds". EDIT: Let me get back to you on that. The forum is acting wonky on me.