My sickness has come back after a week long holiday.  IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN

Nano is almost done- If I work very, very hard tonight, I think that I can get it done before 2am! Plus History homework, which I've had 2 extensions on, plus Cello practice for an exam on Wednesday and I STILL haven't learnt the scales, plus stuff for West Side Story Wednesday-Friday. I am doing too much now. Please be not giving me more essays.

History is really staring to bore me - I really couldn't care less about British Politics in the 20's, and incredibly irritated by the fact that both textbooks AND the teacher ignore the actual stuff we really need to know.

I've purchased Storm Of Zehir and, and, well, underwhelming is my reaction. Horribly buggy, screws up MotB and all player modules, the Overland map has a really, really nasty glitch on my PC so I can't actually see it properly. The story is not there. Nor are the characters. It's like playing Dungeon Siege all over again. The novelty of making several of your own wears off very, very quickly.
It feels like a glorified RTS/ RPG hybrid in the vein of King's Bounty or Heroes of Might and Magic, what  with the wandering about a map, fighting random battles, buying and trading resources and the party of heroes. Fun, but not exactly gripping. It might get better, and the cohorts might develop some personality (Lashti has potential).

Oh, and exams next week? Ho ho ho.

Are two words which accurately and concisely describe NWN2. Of course my computer could do with a new graphics card and me deleting some stuff, but really, NWN2 isn't really pretty or smooth enough to justify either the high specs or the bloody ridiculous 16 GB of space it takes up. Playing the wonderful Dark Avenger Series  is almost impossible, especially chapter 2 with its more crowded areas. Though I'm determined to complete it, as currently it has no equal in terms of roleplaying, story, NPC interaction and development (7 companions so far, 1 more to come, with a working influence and roster system) and general awesome. Despite the cheesy name it is very well written. Of course both Howls in the Dark and Harp & Chrysanthemum  also focus on story and character development, but are a little too linear and not quite up to Dark Avenger's high standard. Asphyxia looks very promising as well.

Promisingly, Storm of Zehir looks like it will have companion interaction and development. Though not to the same extent as MotB. Still, I'm more optimistic now than I was. Also, I am impressed by the fact that Obsidian responds to its fan base and answers direct questions with a direct answer. Unlike Bioware of course.

Finally, I've been going through The Whisper Queen's Daughter, and while it has viewpoint issues, an abrupt change of tone, a rushed ending and some flat dialog, I am quite happy with it, I like most of the description, I think that my characterisation is better than I'd thought (especially Primrose and Lilith. Alex needs work, and Justin's rather dull), and I like a lot of the imagery I use.

Summer Shorts Progress Report

Title: The Whisper Queen's Daughter
Words Today: 1,037
Words Total: 4,307
Summer Shorts Total: 4307/ 5000

Favourite Sentence: "A golden amber glow swaying in the growing darkness. They had lost the moon in the marsh."

I'm pleased at how well this is going. The plot's a little contrived, the viewpoint and the characterisation need work, and the style has to be kept in check or it becomes purple, plus I'm not sure shortening Alexander's name works. But still ,for a first draft, I'm quite happy with it.

In other news, Storm of Zehir is looking a bit less exciting.
Mainly this quote:
"In Storm of Zehir, we intend to take interaction to a new level. One way we are doing that is reducing the amount of lengthy un-interactive scenes and adding maximum reactivity to conversations. Cohorts help us to achieve this goal. Though they lack complex conversations of their own, and none of them will be love interests, they offer special responses in conversations that the player can choose, or not. The end result is that cohorts always give you more choices rather than sometimes “hijacking” and taking away choices. Because my meager explanation may not be clear enough, here is a specific example of this"

I'm not quite so interested now. I hope Obsidian prove my fears wrong and I'm misreading this. I really hope we're not going to see Dungeon Siege-esque  pack mules for companions.