June 8th
I was in LA yesterday recording George Takei. He was a joy to work with, very professional. It was really surreal hearing "Sulu" read words that you just created a few weeks before. I think you will enjoy his work.
I have decided to hand over the reigns to Scott Bennie for the day. He will give you a briefing of what he has been working on in the mission writing for SFC2
Till next time,
Josh
I've been living in "Lotusland" for the last three days. That doesn't
just refer to life in British Columbia; it's the working name of the
current scenario: #42 out of 50. No Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
jokes please.
One of the rules I've tried to follow in designing missions for SFC2 is
to give much better feedback on objectives and progress, areas that I
felt were lacking in SFC1. It's a good rule, but it makes puzzle-based
scenarios a little difficult. "Lotusland" is a puzzle-based scenario,
and it completely blows that rule to hell. If the player doesn't explore
and use his head, he'll flounder. It's also a damn weird scenario.
Lotusland may or may not make it into SFC2, but I hope it does. It's the
most experimental of all the missions I've designed for this project.
Today, I also reviewed the list of missions, doing my best to answer
Josh and Dan's questions, and I updated the doc to include "In Search Of…" a recently added Mission #10 in the Mirak vs. Lyran META campaign. I also came up with tentative names for my final five.
The next two missions on the docket are "Scars in Methane" and "Wounds
in Ozone". You can probably guess which SFB race is at the center of
those scenarios.
Unlike the folks at Taldren, I'm not involved in a Diplomacy game. My
spare time is spent in two bi-weekly D&D campaigns. In one game, Glen,
the self-proclaimed "lovable forest gnome" (3rd level thief/1st level
illusionist, CN, with a Greedy trait) is stuck inside a fortress during
a goblin invasion and is miserable, especially since his most stalwart
companion just killed by a wight.
In the other D&D game, Alan the Mace (10th level fighter, NG; a noble
and charismatic young slab of beef who suffers from a terminal dose of
testosterone poisoning) has donned the "Armor of Generals" and suddenly
found himself in command of a small army. He's placed it at the disposal
of one of his comrades as he tries to retake his home barony - a first
step towards battling an apocalyptic foe. Alan has also fallen in love
with the enemy baron's daughter, and intends to sneak into the castle to
woo her. I swear the big doofus acts more like a paladin than your
average paladin. There's gonna be trouble.
Anyway, tomorrow, I'll take time to work on the map for what's being
designated as "SFC2 X8 M2A". My pace is probably going to be slow for
the next week, but hopefully we can get to a roaring finish.
Scott Bennie
