Development diary - "The Witcher 3 update"
Hi folks,
Here are some more
bloody details on the content of 0.10.0 release.
Blood splatters, bloodlines, bloody baron, and 3rd Northern war bloodshed - everything is in there !
New bookmark - Fate of the North (1275)
We've added a bookmark for the start of The Witcher 3 video game.
Since some elements depend on
choices made in The Witcher 2, we've used as "canon" the default choices when you don't simulate a save, and scripted them in the mod history files.
Some dynasties have been added (Strenger, von Everec, var Moehoen).
Now is the bookmark balanced ? The map is quite frightening !
But Nilfgaard is really at the limit of over-expansion so anything is actually possible...
Skellige map redesign
Players were quite confused about the state of Skellige.
When creating the map, JonStryker took into account some leaked info on Skellige before the release of TW3, so it felt somehow familiar but also not the same at the game.
Undvik island and Tor Gvalch'ca mage tower have been added in the process, though the island is inhabited in W2/W3 timeframe, and there's no colonization mechanics yet.
The Witcher 3 interactive map was quite helpful in the process.
The map modding was quite a painful and complex process though, hopefully we won't need other redesigns
Holy Fury compatching
Vanilla patch 3.0 was massive and we'll probably need a few more iteration to use the full potential of its modding features.
The idea, as always, was to benefit from vanilla features to improve existing mechanics and/or expand the mod depth with free content and low effort.
Bloodlines
The old blood traits have been transformed into historical bloodlines !
The mythical clans of Skellige also have their bloodlines.
Most Holy Fury custom bloodlines should also trigger.
New portrait layers
Patch 3.0 has almost doubled the number of portrait properties. Since the mod has many custom races, they had to be updated to be able to use some of these:
- Freckles
- Physique (fat / malnourished) - except for dwarves and gnomes. Some mod events have been tuned to influence the weight variable.
- Pale (illness)
- Black eye
- Harelip - except for dryads
- Tiered scars
- Blood splatters - This one is compatible with pre-rendered portraits and will apply on top.
- Demon child
Modifier definitions
Any custom trait, culture or religion can now have an associated opinion modifier that can be used in anywhere else (traits, bloodlines, ...) !
Racist, tolerant and racial traits have been reworked using this capability in order to be more fine grained and understandable.
Random worlds
This is still work in progress, but merging of vanilla files was done with the idea to be compatible with random worlds, as it has lots of cool potential:
- Randomize the religion/culture on the map - playing exotic culture/religion from outside the Continent ?
- Randomize the features of mod religious - ever thought about the Eternal Fire Hierarch launching a crusade ?
Now there's quite some work still left to be done as parts of vanilla scripts had been disabled in the past (ex: crusades) as they didn't make sense in the lore, so they would need to be "re-enabled" for randomized religion features.
Thanks for reading, and as always don't hesitate to give us feedback - good or bad !