Sergorn Dragon posted a link to this interview in a comment, but it’s a good interview and so is worthy of direct mention on the main page of the site. 

John Loch, the Middle-Aged Gamer, had the opportunity to interview executive producer Rick Hall, lead designer Jonathan Hanna, senior programmer Kevin Saffel, and writer/community coordinator Amy Sage from the Ultima X: Odyssey development team back in 2008, and the interview he posted to his blog is simply a must-read for anyone curious about this unpublished Origin game, its aim, its beginnings, and its untimely end.

Ultimately, the game failed and died because the team didn’t want to move away from Austin, during a period when EA was attempting to consolidate its development and studios in its California office. It’s difficult to place all the blame on EA for this; they had done the same with Maxis and Westwood before doing so with Origin, and in both cases had seen a majority of each studio’s personnel opt to move to California to continue working on games from there. There wasn’t any particular reason for them to think, I suppose, that it would be any different with Origin.

But there must be something about Austin. Actually, I’m almost certain there is; the city is almost a legend in its own right, and it seems to inspire a very fierce loyalty in the people that move there (especially those who work in various entertainment-related industries, including game development).

Indeed, Rick Hall confirms as much in the interview:

EA had no desire to drop the project. Remember, they made offers to most of the dev team to try to relocate them to California. They absolutely wanted to finish the game. The whole issue was driven by investor relations. Wall Street demands efficiency. At the time, EA had studios all over the world and each studio requires money to operate. It was making EA less efficient than it could have been. Investor pressure caused EA to attempt to consolidate their satellite studios into “hubs”. 

That’s one of the reasons why Westwood was shut down, and many of those developers moved to EA’s San Francisco office. Shortly thereafter, EA attempted further consolidation with both Maxis and the Origin studio. I think the EA execs truly expected a higher percentage of people to accept their offers to relocate the Austin guys to San Francisco. After all, they had success in Las Vegas with Westwood (around 85% accepted the relocation offers), and EA expected to repeat that success with Origin. 

Unfortunately, Las Vegas is very different than Austin. There aren’t many game developers in Las Vegas, so the Westwood guys were going to have to move anyway. They had no other viable options, so they just took up EA’s relocation offers out of convenience. In Austin, there were 20 other game developers right there in town, and practically everyone in Austin knows everyone else. It wasn’t hard for a lot of people to find jobs right there. The end result was definitely not what EA expected. The UXO project died simply because of logistics, not because EA wanted to shut it down.

Again, it’s hard to place all the blame on EA here. Consolidating studios does make sense from a business standpoint, or at least it did back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It would have been much more efficient for a developer to have different groups sharing resources across floors in an office building, as opposed to sharing resources across the span of a continent or an ocean. Even in this day and age, that’s generally true, although the maturation of technologies like CVS and broadband have lessened ineffeciency that geographical separation of studios can cause.

But a decade ago, these things weren’t as pervasive as they are now, and were more costly. And had a goodly number of people from Origin opted to move to San Francisco, UXO would almost certainly have been released. But Austin is…well…Austin, I guess. People from Origin stayed there, found work with other developers in the area (and there are a lot of developers in the area), and Odyssey simply couldn’t continue as a result.

Of course, EA has of course pretty much stepped away from the idea of consolidation now; their biggest and best studios are spread all over the world. DICE is in Sweden. BioWare is in Edmonton (and Austin, and Fairfax, and Montreal). EA has a dedicated Montreal studio and another in Vancouver…and a QA group in Romania. It’s pretty to think that they got off their consolidation bent in no small part due to the downfall of Origin, that they learned that particular lesson and actually took it to heart. It might even be true.

Has the Higgs boson been discovered?

An internally leaked memo briefly teased the possibility that the elusive “God particle” had been observed in the Large Hadron Collider. Sadly, this is probably not actually the case.

On an unrelated note, my home city amuses me greatly sometimes.

Earth Day was a major flop in Edmonton this year, and not just because the major event to “celebrate” it fell through for a lack of volunteers. No, Edmontonians went one up on that and actually increased their power consumption during the day. (We did the same during Earth Hour earlier this year.)

What kind of gun are you?

I’m apparently an Uzi. I was hoping for a Glock.

Iran has evidently become the target of a second cyber attack.

This time, it’s the “Stars” virus, or some such. One wonders if this, too, was an engineered virus targeting industrial control systems?

Canada does not even rank in the top ten as regards internet freedom enjoyed by its citizens.

This saddens me.

Estonia comes out on top, with the US in the #2 slot.

Neat little app: Barcodas.

It turns superstore bar codes into music, apparently. Check out the video at the link for details.

End of an era: the typewriter is officially no more.

The last typewriter factory in the world just closed down.

Tonight’s post brought to you by accountants:

That’s right, Dragons and Dragonette’s; it’s October 20th! Three years ago today, the Dragoness and I stood on the altar at Holy Name Catholic Church in her home town of Vermilion, Alberta, said “I do,” put rings on each other’s left hand…and with those outward professions and actions declared our marriage to one another. (I’d say that the priest “pronounced” us “man and wife,” but that’s not how it actually works.)

Three years, already…it seems, at times, as though they’ve raced past. Granted, having a child like Dragonlet #1, who at times seems to be the physical manifestation of motion itself, would tend to have that effect. I seem to recall that our first year or so as a married couple went by at a quite reasonable pace, in our cozy little apartment not far outside of Edmonton’s downtown core. It’s a pity we had to leave it behind, and thus leave behind the little tea shop, the ice cream shop, and all the other little places we liked to retreat to as well. (That too is an effect of having kids, at least in Edmonton; there are some properties that will refuse to rent to you. Bollocks to that, I say.)

Don’t let anyone tell you, Dragons and Dragonettes, that marriage isn’t a challenge; it most certainly is, or rather it most certainly is a series of challenges, some short-term and some ongoing. Chesterton said it best: “The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis.” Equally, however, don’t let anyone tell you that marriage isn’t immensely rewarding, and among the greatest of gifts that one can both give and receive in one’s life. At the core of marriage is giving, the giving of the totality and sum of oneself to another person, and then just that person.

Marriage is more than just a legal arrangement; at its core, it has a Spiritual quality that sanctifies and blesses the married couple, making their union into something more magnificent than just the sum of two people. Sacrifice is necessary in marriage, and the need for Honor and Honesty are absolute. Though marriage and the intimacy of a couple is not a war or a battle of wills, marriage should be approached and committed to with Valor, a strength of mind and soul that enables one to encounter everything with firm resolve. Marriage should inspire Compassion, make one thirst to both seek Justice for one’s spouse and be in all things Just with her. Marriage requires both spouses to act, toward each other, with Humility.

There must be, in other words, Truth, Courage, and Love in marriage, without question. I know, for myself, that I have not always lived up to this standard in how I have approached my marriage to my lovely Dragoness; she, on the other hand, has tended to live up to it in how she has approached me. For that, I can really only be grateful.

And I am.

I’m a groomsman for my friend Tiago, who is getting married this weekend in Ingonish, Nova Scotia. Which means I’ll be spending most of the day on a plane between Edmonton and Halifax, or on the road between Halifax and Ingonish. Which, I’m told, is a five hour drive.

So…I won’t be near a computer all day, and I’ll be shutting off my iPhone from right now onward, so that the darn thing has at least a but of battery power left by the time I need it to provide me with some driving tunes.

Oh, and Monday is a holiday for me, do I’ll probably see you all again come Tuesday. (Expect a triple update!)

Just a quick note: I’ve arrived safely. No hurricanes in sight.

Call me picky, but if I’m going to be a fan of a band, I tend to make it a general requirement that they be at least as good in a live performance as they are on their album(s). Granted, there’s some flexibility built in to such a policy — obviously, in a live performance, the occasional missed note can’t be smoothed over with auto-tuning, and guitar riffs can’t be redone if a off chord is played here and there. Human beings being imperfect, it’s understood that one will occasionally hear such missteps in a live performance.

But given that understanding, there’s still an expectation that the band will perform to a certain level. And Flyleaf delivered handily in that regard.

I’ve been to only a few concerts in my life: Matthew Good (twice, once when he was still touring with the Matthew Good Band and once when he had gone solo), The Tragically Hip (twice), LiVE, Rebecca St. James, the Newsboys, the Dixie Chicks, and now Flyleaf. And in general, I’ve been lucky…most of the groups listed above did pretty well in concert, with one notable exception.

Of all the concerts listed above, two were held at Telus Field (the baseball stadium in Edmonton), and both times the band I went there to see hailed from Texas. The Dixie Chicks hail, I believe, from Lubbock, whereas Flyleaf hails from Belton. But the difference in quality between the concerts was pretty striking.

When I saw the Dixie Chicks perform, the band itself did well; the music behind the vocals was excellent. But Natalie Maines was having an off day, I guess…she was often off-key (and compensated by singing louder when she was — ugh!), often off the beat, and just generally failed to impress. Which is a pity, because the rest of the band (as noted) turned in a fine performance. That was the one concert I’ve been to which didn’t impress, and did quite a lot of damage to my appreciation of the Dixie Chicks as a musical act, especially because most of their songs don’t exactly feature challenging tonal progressions.

Conversely, Flyleaf turned in an all-around great show. What few off-key notes Lacey Mosley sang weren’t nearly as offensive as Maines’ missteps, in no small part because Flyleaf’s songs tend to feature somewhat more complex tonal progressions, not to mention a fair bit of minor key work. And their cover of How He Loves has basically ruined all other versions of that song for me, for how much power and drive they added to it. And of course, the band was just on fire; Sameer Bhattacharya‘s guitar work was particularly impressive.

Also, their closing piece — a cover of How He Loves Us — has forever ruined other, slower and/or more acoustic renditions of that song for me.

Why didn’t anyone tell me?

Okay, let me just clarify. I could probably do without some of the emo baggage that the various Flyleaf fan blogs are veritably infested with, but Memento Mori hasn’t left the CD player of my car* since the Dragoness gave it to me for my birthday a few months back. I first came across them back in November of last year, during (of all things) an NFL highlights montage on some sports channel. (Go figure.)

And the timing is eerily perfect. I have to head to New Jersey for a week to do some work at a client site, but I’ll be arriving back in Edmonton on the evening of the 27th. The concert is the following day. And it’s only $10 to get in!

I’m really, really tempted.

* Except, of course, when I’ve been driving Dragonlet #1 around; she insists on Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood. But when it’s just me? Yeah…

In Edmonton, the coming weekend is a long weekend, which means I will be offline (or, at least, away from the site) until Tuesday. As such, I will be using that time to test a new template for the site that I’ve slowly been polishing up. Come Friday afternoon, Aiera will look quite a bit different.

Now, let me reiterate that this is only going to be a test. I will be deploying a new template (‘Milano’, by this guy) in place of the current one (‘Aspire’, by these guys); no site content will be changed or removed. And come Tuesday (or possibly late Monday) I’ll put the ‘Aspire’ theme back in place while I review comments that I hope — and I’m stating this now to get your attention — visitors will leave.

Truth be told, I’m not 100% satisfied with the ‘Millano’ theme, though it has a few nice features (such as a jQuery-driven rotating featured content pane, dropdown menus, and other stuff) that are the primary focus of my test. ‘Milano’ likely won’t be the actual new theme I select for Aiera, but I want to see how people react to different interface elements that the new theme, whatever it ends up looking like, will probably feature.

So come back on Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday, and leave your thoughts!

Framing context: a couple of weeks ago, the Dragoness picked up a new toy for our daughter…a toy cash register. It’s a pretty neat little setup actually: it came with a few groceries and a pressure-sensitive scanner deck that beeps when you it something on it, and the register itself is also a calculator. It also came with a toy bank card, and there’s a little slot on the register that plays a beeping melody when you swipe the bank card through it.

So…this morning, as I’m leaving for work, the Dragoness asks me to leave my debit card with her, just in case she decides to take in — and take our daughter to — some of the festivities happening in downtown Edmonton today.

Just after I do so, the Dragonlet — who is, mind you, 21 months old — runs up and starts pointing at my wallet, saying:

“Yeah? Yeah?”

That’s her way of asking for things, you see; she wants a card from daddy’s wallet too, because Mommy got one. So I give her one of my points/membership cards from one of the national department store chains. Dragonlet takes the card, grins, and makes a bee-line for her toy cash register. I arrive in the living room a minute later, to find her merrily swiping the card, laughing at the beeps.

I…worry I’m sending the wrong message here.

So I missed updating a download yesterday. I’ve since made such a change (Marzo’s Serpent Isle Fixes is now downloadable again), but I’ll have to make two tomorrow in order to get back on track.

In my defense, let me just point you toward the harrowing tale of my journey from Edmonton to Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Apologies to those I promised would see an update come Monday. I’ll get to your project tomorrow.

Back when I was still actively working on Lost Sosaria, I wrestled with various “morality” systems that I might want to work in to the game…the default karma approach that had featured in precious Ultima games didn’t particularly appeal to me. Taking a hint from BioWare, even without having played Knights of the Old Republic I devised a system of virtue and anti-virtue scores, based on the seven cardinal and theological virtues of the Catholic faith. What I came up with was a bit more than just a multiplication of KOTOR‘s morality system (which is still just basically karma). Indeed, it was rather more like the system in Mass Effect…but with fourteen counters instead of just two. Moreover, I devised a system whereby the Guardian — or, rather, those who server or were enslaved by him — gained power if the player racked up high anti-virtue scores.

Not that I intended for there to be overt Catholicism in Lost Sosaria, mind you. But it seemed quite reasonable to use a system of virtues in the mod that could in various ways be related to the Britannian virtues without actually using the Britannian virtues. (See also: Serpent Isle.) at the same time, I wanted to experiment with just how extensible, beyond the boundaries of the practice of the Christian faith, the virtues really were.

And so faith, hope, love, temperance, prudence, justice and fortitude were to be the virtues of the land of New Sosaria.

Obviously, I never got to experiment with my idea that much, owing to the fact that I had to set the project aside to meet the demands that a new and growing family placed on my already-limited free time. However, I held on to the idea, and thought about how I might adapt it to another story or game plot idea I had a while ago. That idea was much more sci-fi in nature, and wouldn’t have been related to Ultima at all…and would have pitted the player against two different categories of enemies: corporeal opponents who were either willing servants or slaves of some evil entity, and supernatural foes that grew in power as the player racked up the tallies of the anti-virtues. Worse still, the acquired bonuses were permanent; there were no corresponding reductions in enemy power for high virtue scores, nor did the player himself gain any combat bonus against his foes.

I shelved parts of that idea after I realized that it would make enemies in the game almost impossible to defeat by the end, except in very small groups. But I also realized that in a way, that was probably the point. Which is to say: if there is any supernatural effect caused by human wrongdoing, we are — or would/will be — powerless against it.

We are very amazing creatures, fearfully and wonderfully made…but we are also very limited creatures. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been enjoying Mass Effect so much: though a Reaper is still a corporeal foe that can be individually defeated with much struggle and effort, the Reapers as a collective are beyond both the ability of mankind (or turiankind, or hanarkind, or what have you) to understand or defeat.

Despite living in Edmonton, and despite knowing a few people at BioWare, I don’t have any inside details on how Mass Effect 3 will play out…but I suspect that any lasting victory over the Reapers in that game will not come about by way of force of arms. Especially not after seeing both how high the cost of defeating one Reaper was in Mass Effect, and then seeing how many Reapers there actually were at the very end of Mass Effect 2. Against such a multitude, none could prevail…not by force.

If there is to be a victory for the Council races in Mass Effect 3, it will come about by some unexpected means, which will likely require great sacrifice.

It is this ability for — and inclination toward — sacrifice that really sets man apart from other creatures. Not that other creatures will not lay down their life on behalf of kith and kin; many animals (man included) do just that. But where man is unique is, I think, in his willingness to risk life and limb on behalf of complete strangers, in ways and for reasons that go far beyond notions of altruism or “reciprocal” altruism. In like manner, man is unique in his ability to forgive wrongs done against him — any other animal would opt not to stick its nose where it hurt once before. But we humans are willing to forgive one another, even if we disadvantage ourselves and risk further or repeated abuses by so doing.

Easter is concerned with such concepts as these, as are the philosophical disciplines which concern themselves with the concept of natural law. That said, obviously not all of you who read this site are wont to observe Easter in a religious or particularly philosophical way.

So…if it is the good reader’s way to make such reflectionsas these inside of a church on this day or those that immediately follow it, well and good. If not, perhaps the good reader could nevertheless be encouraged to reflect upon the inclinations toward sacrifice and forgiveness which would seem to be a part of the fabric which makes up a human being. And perhaps we might all reflect on those things we have done, recently or some time ago, which we might one day like to be forgiven for.

And regardless, thanks for indulging a young Dragon his annual Easter reflection. Have a great weekend, hopefully in the company of family and friends.

I’m tapping this out on the WordPress app for my iPod Touch whilst seated next to the Dragonlet in the back seat of the car. We’re on our way, the fam-jam and I, to see the Dragoness’ parents in Vermilion for Christmas Eve dinner; weather permitting, we’ll be headed back to Edmonton for Christmas Day, to see my family.

The Dragoness is driving, the Dragonlet is sleeping, and I’m thinking that it’s high time I posted an update to the site; that, and it’s time for my customary Christmas greeting.

In the past, I’ve subdivided greetings into categories (for fellow Catholics, fellow Christians, other believers, and non-believers), and if I weren’t typing on an iPod’s tiny keyboard, I might have opted to repeat that format this year. But as it is, I’m sitting in the back of a Chrysler Sebring tapping away on my iPod, so I think a more general greeting is warranted.

Whether, good reader, you are a believer or not, and whether you are a Christian or not, hopefully you can recognize that Christmas has a deeper and more powerful meaning that goes beyond the usual trappings of the season. Past the gifts, the trees, the feasts, past the rank commercialism and sappy TV specials, and even past the gatherings of family and friends, there is something deeper that infuses this time of year.

That thing is love, and in particular is a special kind of love, one that most certainly can be (and is) shared between friends (in good friendships) and family members (in functional families), but which can also be shared between complete strangers. it can even be shared in a way such that the recipient of it remains ignorant of it.

Christians will recognize what I’m talking about; this is the love that Christ exuded with every breath, word, and action, and then in no way more powerfully than by His death on the Cross. But that same love’s first act was the humble birth of a baby in a stable in Bethlehem. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That humble birth was the first step on a road that lead inexorably to Calvary; the infant born that night was already bound, in His own small way, for the encounter with Pilate and then the Cross. But out of love, Jesus humbled Hinself to be born as one of us, for He desired to bring us a gift beyond any we might ever imagine receiving.

And that’s a gift offered to all of us. Granted, we don’t all — or always — see that gift. But even so, there it is, bestowed whether or not we are ignorant of it.

That’s the kind of love that infuses Christmastine; self-giving, humble, unexpactant love of others, and a desire for their betterment, even if only in some small way.

Now, before I turn this into a sermon, and before the Dragonlet wakes up, let me come to the point. It’s Christmas; to every reader, I wish a truly joyous Christmas and an earnest prayer that its days will be filled with the warmth and love of family and friends.

But I would also like to offer a challenge. We’ve all likely dropped some change in the Salvation Army collection bowl, or dropped a few cans of food off at a local food bank. My challenge, then, is: do even more, if at all you are able. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Check a local shelter’s website to see if they need help with anything. Help hand out presents at a children’s hospital. Bake cookies and hand them out to street people downtown. Put aside aprehension, misgivings, and critiques for a while and just help someone, directly, in his or her immediate need.

In other words: love, to the maximum extent you are able. If you take no other meaning or message away from these days, take that much. And if you do take deeper meaning away from these days, you already know why I’m asking this.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now go be excellent to each other.

I’ve signed on as the Technical Officer of a committee that is planning to host a gaming convention in my home city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. More details to follow, including recruitment/volunteer opportunities.

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that you were able to ring in 2008 in a way that was both safe and enjoyable for you and your friends or family; I spent it with my wife and her two sisters at the big New Year’s bash in Edmonton‘s downtown core.

Here, I’ll share a photo:

[image:140:c:s=1:l=x]

Anyhow, I said I wouldn’t be posting again until the new year, and this has happened. In the interim, a few things worth reporting on have taken place in the Ultima community. Dino’s Ultima Page has tracked a number of these, so let’s get down to those updates first:

Forgotten World

The Forgotten World team report that their world editor is progressing ‘fairly’ — rendering is essentially done, and they are almost ready to begin work on UI design. That’s a promising development for this in-engine remake of Ultima 9

To that end, they need someone to join the project to help out with that aspect of development. So, O reader, if you happen to be:

• an experienced user of world building software
• willing to help us design the user interface of our world editor
• interested in the Ultima series and in creating maps for the game
• patient, communicative and team-oriented
• experienced with programming (perhaps even with wxWidgets) as a plus

…then perhaps, just perhaps, you should drop the Forgotten World team a note and let them know you’d be interested.

Forgotten World was also evidently featured in a German game magazine, “PC Action“, recently.

Lost Sosaria

I have added a dozen new screenshots to the Lost Sosaria website, showcasing the mountain areas I’ve been working on recently. Hopefully, these will be the last screenshots released using the current version of the mountain tileset for the project; a new version is slated to be released shortly after the next update to Neverwinter Nights.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Spyder has posted a number of screenshots of Moonglow in the relevant developer’s diary (you have to be a registered user of the Titans of Ether forums to see them), including one of an Observatory and one of what might be a blacksmith’s shop.

Also, Direhaggis left a comment on the Redemption entry here at the site, imparting the following information:

The progress has been quite good. I think our 3D artist and the new writers helped to re-stimulate us all, as well as the main plot coming to a close in the next 3-6 months.

Management decided that a demo would slow down production. Originally, we thought of isolating New Magincia and allowing the Avatar to solve the quest there. As it is, we want to try to get the game out by the end of 2008.

Good to know!

Ultima V: Lazarus

The German version of Ultima V: Lazarus has been released. I have updated the project entry here at Aiera with the new files.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman puts his development progress at 94% now, and notes that several new features have been implemented since last we checked in with him:

• the Lord Blackthorn cut scene
• Stargazing with the telescope
• Quit and Save, with game resumption
• the Shrine of Spirituality
• food consumption and food obtaining, starvation
• Skiff and Frigate navigation, sea combat

Ultima: Iris

Build 1648 of the 3D client for Ultima: Online has been released. A copy is available for download from the project entry here at Aiera.

Additionally, I noticed that the following updates had also taken place on other remake project sites.

Pentagram

There’s no news from this Ultima 8 remake, but I did notice that a new version of the Windows snapshot had been uploaded on January 1st. This can now be downloaded from the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

Three core files for this project — britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres — have all been updated. Changes are as follows.

britannia_art.dsres

• 2 new lutes have been added
• More journal labels have been added — untested
• Two chest icons were brightened a bit
• A new trail ration texture was added

britannia_logic.dsres

• bookshelf animation reverted to a previous version
• minor bug-fixes to the sleeping system
• updated lute screen names
• updates to the journal UI
• a function was modified to allow NPCs to ignore locked doors
• …and at least 40 other changes

pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres

• minor change, just synching the compatibility layer with the latest updates in other areas of Project Britannia

The latest versions of these files are available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima VII Mod

Matt Johnston informs us that he has done a bit more work on his Exult total conversion:

the outdoor areas of the main map are mostly done; I’ve done a bit with usecode, including one NPC who sells some mostly useless things; sewers and theives guild areas under the south-western city demonstrate use of newly implemented support of Z coords in intermap teleports.

While not complete yet by any means, Matt assures us that he continues his work on this project. As he periodically uploads new content to the site (without announcement of this fact, however), I have updated the copy of the project available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Jaesun gives notice that the project is ON HOLD — it appears that the state Jaesun lives in suffered some catastrophic flooding recently. While he lost nothing project-wise, he did lose his vehicle, and was physically unable to enter the building for a few days as well.

In the meantime, he will be assisting with the Realms of Ultima project, a project he feels is “very important” for the Ultima community.

Which brings me to…

Realms of Ultima

What Project Britannia is doing for Ultima using the Dungeon Siege engine, Realms of Ultima is doing for Ultima using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. This is an exciting looking project indeed; NWN2 has a gorgeous engine, and Jaesun’s efforts above would seem to demonstrate that it’s possible to build very quickly with the engine.

A screenshot gallery has been posted online, with several amazing visuals. I have also added a project entry here at Aiera. There are even a few downloads for the project (although these primarily appear to be components of the whole, rather than early snapshots of the entire project).

Update: Ultima 7 Wizard

A user reported difficulties getting the Ultima 7 Wizard to run on their system, so I have updated the entry here at Aiera with the latest version (1.9) of the program, as well as a technical document. Source code (Borland Pascal) is included with this version.

The newly-minted Dragoness and I landed safely at Edmonton International Airport later in the evening last Friday (the 2nd of November), ending off our ten-day honeymoon in Greece tired and more than a little glad to be back in North America, but still in awe of what was, for the most part, an enjoyable adventure abroad. Although it started out feeling more like a trip than a honeymoon, we slowed our pace down a bit and just enjoyed each others’ company for a few days…and it was great. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful wife as she.

It was nice to just get away from all the hectic tedium of the wedding and post-wedding frenzy, and to be equally sure it was nice to just get away from the apartment for a day or ten. I had only moved my things over to the Dragoness’ a couple of days prior to the wedding itself, and hadn’t had time to unpack much. Add that to a considerable load of gifts* and it makes for one very messy, box-filled apartment indeed.

And really, I don’t think we could have picked a better place to escape to than the town on Crete that we ended up in. Hania is not exactly a “small town”, with a population somewhere between 57,000 and 70,000 depending on which source you consult, but the architecture has strong Venetian influences, and in the “off season” it has a slow, relaxed pace to it that we just drank in for all the days we were there.

So before we get to the news that’s happened in the last couple of weeks, let me just say that it’s great to finally be married to a girl whom I have loved so much for so many years now. I’m grateful that we had a blast in Greece and that we were able to travel in safety…but that gratitude cannot compare to the joy and praise that I feel in my heart at finally being able to see here there on the next pillow when I wake up in the morning.

And what an experience it was!

By some miracle, I managed to keep meticulous notes about each and every day of the experience, and so in the coming few days I’ll be converting my scribbled notes into full articles and posting them at various websites. For the moment, it will have to suffice when I say that on the whole, this was one of the most amazing experiences, and one of the most incredible journeys, I have ever had or undertaken.

And I’ve got 1726 photos to show for it. Now, admittedly, I won’t be keeping all of those…but still, that number ought to give the reader a decent idea as to the magnitude of the Jamboree. Failing that, there are a few statistics attached to the Jamboree’s Wikipedia entry that may prove enlightening.

I also made many good friends, and I would even venture to say that in working with the people of ICCS — the International Catholic Conference of Scouting — defined for me at long last just what my Scouting career means to me, and demonstrated just how I want to conduct myself as a Scout, and what I want to work toward as a member of that world-wide organization.

I made a number of new friends, met some incredible people, tasted great English bitters and IPAs, attended Mass and Taize prayer with what was, for me, a heightened frequency, and worked with between 50 and 100 kids a day doing little things to help them learn (or learn more) about the Catholic faith. And in the off hours, I had some memorable times with some or all of the members of the 59th Rover Crew that were in attendance at the Jamboree.

I have to say, though, that the best part of the Jamboree was coming through the doors out of the customs area at the Edmonton International Airport and seeing the Dragoness-to-be there. I had missed her so much during the trip, and seeing her smiling face across the arrivals area was the first breath of fresh air for this man when he finally made it home again.

Home. It’s strange, but over the course of the last three weeks, the very meaning of that word seems to have changed so much for me. Home is not, for me, the place where I’m currently living, the place I rest my head at the end of the day, or the place where my family is. Seeing the Dragoness-to-be again, I knew at once that the sneaking suspicion of a feeling I’d been having all Jamboree was true: home is where she is. Home is with her.

And so, O Reader, on that note I will leave, and will tell you only that you ought to keep checking back — I’ve got the feeling that the next update to Aiera will be fairly substantial. There’s one new project I already am aware of, for example.