Work-in-Progress Spotlight
June 19th, 2009 by Scud

The Quiet Dawn (Chapter II)

By Matt Livecchi

It may seem like Matt livecchi has been getting a lot of press coverage of late (sex scandal not withstanding), but I must say this preview has been at the bottom of my ‘to do’ pile for the last few weeks so this is not a case of nepotism I can tell you now. That said, my wallet has been rather full of late, but I’m getting off topic now. I’m sure you all played the first chapter of ‘The Quiet Dawn’ and if the many kind words about it on the forums, including Basse’s Blacksmith Feature, have not convinced you to download it I don’t know what will. My personal experience with the file which I gained from playtesting the project was one that involves language that is far too rude to mention here; but let me just mention that bodily functions occured due to my sheer amazement at what I was seeing. There is nothing much I can say about what to expect from the scenario if you’ve already played the first installment, it is pretty much more the same. However, this isn’t a bad thing, expect the game to be modded beyond all recognition (just like various ‘women’ of certain nightlcubs) you wouldn’t know it was it was a man all along still running off the standard AoK engine. Yet, like before, to avoid confusion and your computer blowing itself up with the force of a thousand suns, the scenario comes with it’s own handy installer. Run the installer, play the scenario, run the uninstaller and that is it – you’re back to your bland vanilla AoK:TC (if you are into that sort of thing…hey, you could even leave the file installed and open up the editor and mess around making ‘leet tricks’ and pretend you’re some super-cool modder for the day).

The story has a lot of promise, for the author himself says that ‘I like this second scenario considerably more’, so you’re in for a treat. In the usual fashion, exact details of the story were few and far between. Also, it is very hard for me to tell you all what I do know without ruining the first part of the story if you haven’t played it yet: so here is the spoiler-free story preview. The scenario carries on seven years after the events of the first chapter, but this time the forces of darkness are now at the pinacle of their power. The shift in mood is also reflected by a shift in gameplay, so that is good news for those who are less interested in puzzles and riddles, but there will be some to keep die-hard fans entertained. I know you don’t have much information to go by, but you much trust me when I say the story itself is very engrossing (well, I said no spoilers, so that is all you are getting for now).

Being a close friend (no nepotism, I swear!) Matty (as his friends only friend calls him) easily allowed me to ask him somre questions about his project in the works and designing in general:

There have been many pretenders in the realms of modding, who release only a trailer and nothing else. It seems you are one of the rare few who have come close to completing a project – what, if anything, has made you different compared to others?

Matt livecchi: Well, there is a nasty pattern to scenario design. First, you come up with an idea, and you think it is so grand you quit every project you’ve ever worked on to start it. You start designing the map and doing useless stuff like writing histories and drawing bitmaps. You make the prologue, and then you hit the nasty trigger work and endless playtesting. And it isn’t much fun anymore, so you take a little break, just a few days maybe. During that break you think up a new, grander idea and pursue it, dumping your old project. And this cycle continues…Modding just throws one more chore into the process, one more step that requires lots of work. It makes it just that much harder to finish, unless you completely rework the scenario design process you use. I’ve found a system that works for me, and I’m finally able to do the balancing act. I don’t set out to make a modded scenario. I just start designing, and at each part I design, I modify what I need to make it that much better. I don’t focus on idle tasks, and the map design isn’t fine tuned until near the end. Recently, it has been working for me at least.

In relation to the previous question – do you think the idea of promoting your project and using mods for the sake of them have detracted from the actual core content of the scenario: making it fun for the player?

Matt livecchi: Two questions in one! Well I’ve never been big for promoting my own work with multiple threads, teasers, youtube videos (yes, youtube videos have been done). Designs speak for themselves. I’ve downloaded stuff that was hyped, and knew it was junk in 30 seconds (at least by my somewhat harsh definition of junk). At the same time, whenever I have judged competitions, I have found that it is often a reltively unknown forummer who has quietly made the best entry. Of course, I’m doing this WiP, so I suppose I sound a bit hypocritical to all the readers, but I just do them to help our pal Scud out, HONEST! As to modding for the sake of it, now that’s a different question. For those who played part 1, you need to ask yourself if the core designing skills (making it fun to play, pretty to look at, etc) were still present. If so, then proper use of modding can only further improve the experience. This second part will be the same in that respect I hope. You still need to be a designer first and modder second for your scenario to be more than just a novelty.

What can you say to convince those who can’t be bothered to install any mods, let alone a mod for just one scenario?

Matt livecchi: Nothing. I don’t really want them to anyway. I put the effort into making a custom installer for the first part, as I will with this second one. Currently to install the campaign, the player must double click the exe file, click “Next”, click “I agree”, click “Install”, then “Next and finally “Finish” to launch the game. That means that in less time than it takes to unzip a ‘normal’ campaign and place its cpx and sound files in the proper folders, a grand total of 7 mouse clicks are required to install this campaign. Uninstalling is even faster. If you are not willing to do that, it is because you have some sort of ideological problem with modding, in which case I don’t really want you playing my files for the sole sake of criticizing them. I used to try very hard to convert these individuals, but now I’d rather they just go play the Joan of Arc ES campaign for the 6th time instead.

And finally, anything else planned for the future- I dunno, say maybe a mod and scenario set in the wild west?

Matt livecchi: Haha, that one’s been kept pretty quiet outside of SWS. See question #1 for what happened to that project (before I learned my own lesson). I still haven’t given up on it, but it needs a complete overhaul. As far as the very near future, I want to have this second scenario done by Summer’s end. We will see what else I get into after that. I’ve always wanted to work with the community on a large Age of Chivalry style expansion, but I don’t think I have the dedication Kor had, so unless modding becomes a more common skill in our community that’s probably not realistic.

Due to the economic slump, we can no longer sustain three screenshots every two weeks, this has now been cut to two: