Well, the exact writing process mainly involved Bronthion putting together the storyline and quest structure and initial dialogues, then myself coming in and editing them how I saw fit, without really changing the sense or plot points.
There were a few changes along the way from on high, mainly to try and keep the word count in check…DD was much longer dialogue wise and large word counts cause quite a few problems when it comes to the cost of translating the game in other territories. The hero originally wasn’t going to have proper lines…the argument being that people would probably not read them anyway, but it was something that myself, Bron and thankfully the testers didn’t like so the hero managed to get their own dialogue. Nothing too exciting you understand; but a lot more substantial than ‘yes’, ‘no’ ‘skull?’ etc.
The whole DK not being able to talk to NPCs was for pretty much the same reason and I had to wrack my brains to come up with someway that he could comment about the characters and situations if he was not actually in the room… or even if he was they had to be indirect comments. Hence the whole seeing through the hero’s eyes thing…. It was a headache to think through sometimes!
Because of the nature of way games like this are structured and dialogue editors, the game was edited in this order: Act 1, Act 4, Act 2, Act 3 and then a few random little dialogues, I didn’t see the battlefield stuff. The reason for that is if you get the beginning and end in place you’ve got more leeway to stretch the middle however you want. The dialogues were edited in alphabetical order rather than chronologic order, just because that’s how the dialogue editor arranges things. Again this makes for quite a few headaches.
As far as the DK goes, I am genuinely sorry if players weren’t happy with him from a dialogue point of view. His lines were an amalgamation of mine and Bron’s work, although if it’s sarcasm or nastiness (directed towards imps usually) it’s probably me… I hated them by the end, although Bron has a real softspot for them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I didn’t have that much chance to develop things story and character progression wise far from what was already there, just work with what I had. I can well believe that there were inconsistencies in the first act, as I remember there was quite a gap between editing Act 1 and then Act 4. Then of course it’s tricky to go back over previous acts because the dialogues have already been put into the game and are being translated and tested. So basically it’s pretty much a one shot deal.
I’m afraid Act 1 was a bit of an information dump from the DKs point of view trying to get in the info about soulforging, him not being able to talk and seeing through the hero’s eyes…and it’s probably the only time in the game he’s quite so helpful and informative!
Huge credit to Bron he managed to keep track of a huge array of characters and weave them into a convincing storyline which made it very interesting to work on. I hope to be used in future by Larian and to be involved with doing more original creative stuff like the novella and some of the book/letter texts I wrote. I’m always stoked when someone points out one they liked and I can proudly say to myself “that was me”. By the way has anyone come across the one detailing imps and their music? That’s one of my favourites <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Anyway hope that’s of interest
