Nioca's Citadel

Welcome to my Blade of Avernum page. I will post any news about upcoming scenarios and such here, as well as anything major in the Blades of Avernum community. Assuming my dial-up doesn't have a coronary over Freewebs, that is.

Don't know what Blades of Avernum is? Go to Spiderweb Software and check it out!

Armory - My completed scenarios.
Laboratory - My in-progress scenarios.
Gallery - An art gallery of BoA graphics.
Archives - The script archives.
Barracks - Pre-made parties for download.
Portals - Links to other BoA sites.

During yesterday's expansion, I made several small errors. First, I mislabeled the party in the Barracks. It consists of two nephils and two humans, NOT three humans and a slith. Second, a few of the graphics had broken or incorrect links (oddly, I could have sworn I had fixed this before). Finally, the site background wasn't showing up on the new pages.

All of these have been fixed. So unless another observant Shadow Vale member notices something, that's all for now.

[Entry made: 12/10/2007]

It's a possibility I can't dismiss. But with the miracle of Freewebs' site builder becoming even easier on the dial-up, I've been able to go nuts. I've expanded this site and changed it to a sort of medieval theme. For example, the Graphics and Scripts pages have been changed to the Gallery and the Archives. New additions include the Laboratory, where incomplete scenarios are now housed, and the Portals, which contain links to other BoA webpages. The biggest change, though, is the Barracks. It's still a work-in-progress, but the basic idea is to provide premade naturally-built parties for immediate play.

All's quiet on the BoA front. The community is preparing for the 9th annual Blades scenario contest, and there's been some debate on pushing the deadline back for more scenarios to be released.

So, that's it for now. Till later...

[Entry made: 12/09/2007]

Long time, no update. You'd think that with everything that's happened over the last three months would have persuaded me to update. Unfortunately, it's a slow process which I'm rather reluctant to take up. In fact, it takes several hours just to do everything. Fortunately, Freewebs' most recent format change has made it a little easier on the dial-up. It's a small difference, but every little bit counts.

First thing's first. I've changed how this site works slightly. I've made it so that only the last three entries are available. This prevents sponsors from popping up between entries. Also, except for the logo, all custom graphics and scenario screenshots are available through links rather than being displayed directly on the page. This eases loading times for everyone, and allows bandwidth to be spent on the page as a whole, rather than being split between large images.

Now onto contest-related news. The 1/10 Contest is now over (and has been for a while). Frostbite by Lazarus was the winner, and Witch Hunt took fifth out of ten entrants. Frankly, considering how the scenario came about, it did excellently. Full results can be seen here. The 24-Hour contest, held by Lazarus, is underway and about to enter judging stages. I decided not to compete, since I have enough BoA-related stuff on my plate, though I have volunteered to judge. The Fifth Ratings Contest at the Lyceum came and went, with Gizmo coming out a winner with a massive lead. Finally, the 9th Annual Blades Contest is starting up. While entrants aren't getting accepted just yet, the deadline has been confirmed as February 1st, 2008, 11:59 PM GMT.

On a more local front, Witch Hunt has been updated to version 1.0.3, and has had screenshots added. See it over at the scenarios page. Likewise, several new graphics have been added to the graphics page, mainly creature graphics.

The experiment I was working on, by the way, was a failure. It was a way to remove items with custom graphics from scenarios, but unfortunately, it didn't quite work correctly.

I'll try to be more punctual with my updates from now on. Till later...

[Entry made: 07/29/2007]

Alright, this update is several-fold, so I'm going to take it one step at a time.

First, I've now released my first scenario, Witch Hunt. You can get it over on the scenarios page. Furthermore, since I've been a little lax on updating, it's also been updated to the most recent version, 1.0.2. I hope to have screenshots of it soon.

Secondly, the 2nd 1/10 Short Scenario Contest is now closed. Witch Hunt has been entered and is competing in the contest, while Veritas, the scenario I originally had planned to enter, is not. So good luck to all entrants!

Thirdly, I did get the site icon done, but it overrides the nice little backdrop on the top of the page. So since I'm not going to have a nice little GIF there, I am instead putting it in the introductory paragraph. In case you're wondering, here is the said GIF:

Gatlingnpc is now available on the scripts page. However, it's untested, so use at your own risk. I've also added two new creature graphics to the graphics page. One if them is a simple color swap, and the other is... well, look for yourself.

Veritas is coming along smoothly, and is now free of limitations set by the 1/10 contest. So it'll be a bit bigger and a little more detailed than if I had entered it in the 1/10.

Finally, I've recently taken up working on an experiment with custom items. It's shown some promise and success, and is definitely something that will revolutionize the BoA community... Well, maybe not, but it'd still provide an important breakthrough and lessen, if not eliminate, a sorely limiting factor in BoA. If it works, it'll be released with Veritas.

Whew! That's quite a bit of news. Till later...

[Entry made: 04/23/2007]