If I were a Blizzard employee, I would probably say 'When it's done'. If I were employed in the game industry, I would probably be bound by contracts, deadlines, etc. However, as a hobbyist working on a module in his spare time, where should I draw the line?

When I started writing the story for this module, I had a very clear objective in mind - the story should progress in a very organic manner and the character driving the story (you, the player) should never feel that the story is taking a backseat to some inane side-quest. Of course, there will be times when the story takes precedence over the player's actions - the bane of every RPG in the eyes of the hardcore role-player but that is a limitation of the process.

As the plot progressed and I started making the levels and writing dialogue, so many possibilities sprung to my mind - why is this character behaving like this? Should he have a back-story? Should I have a side-quest where the player uncovers the truth behind the NPC's actions? After spending a week revising the story, I realized - why would the character, undertaking a critical task that is of personal importance, take the time to learn about every person he meets? It just didn't seem logical; the flip side is, without a convincing backdrop against which the player-NPC interaction occurs, the experience can turn out to be shallow, to say the least.

Then, I had what can only be termed as a serendipitous moment - in my attempt to provide many of the NPCs a background, distinct patterns had emerged. Taking that a step further, I revised the story again to introduce multiple factions into the story - each with their own objectives - and while they might collide with the player's story at some point, the ends are distinct.

...and then came DA2 and a brief PM chat with David Gaider.
After the initial DA2 announcement, I hadn't been following that too closely. I needed some clarifications on certain things I was including in the module and wanted to make sure it would fit in with the lore so I pinged David. Between the PMs and the initial promos for DA2, I realized some of the story I was including would vary from minor interpretational differences to portraying a completely different world. That resulted in the final revision which I have decided I won't change, come what may.

That defiant stance is primarily because most of the areas where I have applied my creative license to the lore would likely be delivered in a sequel to the current module - more on this later (it's all in a flux in my mind right now)

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After a weekend spent in rewriting and polishing up the first act-and-a-half, I decided to take a break and do some level building. There is still a fair amount of work to be done on the story though. To give you some background, when I initially started writing this story, I had a clear idea on what the end-game should be - the setting, the areas, the story-arcs in those areas and even a few quest lines were already semi-finalized.

The problem was - getting the player to the end-game. For reasons that will be clear when BaL is released, I couldn't just ask the player to go to the end-game areas via direct questing because that is not possible given the setting. Instead, I came up with various story arcs that would eventually lead the player there and these are driven by different factions each having their own agendas - with one manipulating the other, sometimes unwittingly; some with common ends but different means to get there, etc.

So, at this point, I have a very well-defined start and a semi-finalized end-game. The details on the transition between the two are being worked on as I find time - this will be the point in the game where some factions' lives are ended and other factions gain notoriety. Or something like that.

This week has seen the re-emergence of the level editor in my 'Frequently Used Tools' list. I've been working on the exterior village level that I started before going on vacation. I hope to finish it by this weekend and get it into a state that can be submitted for Community Contest #1. I've also been tweaking some of my earlier levels as I play through them and identify mistakes...like the one in the screenshot below with the tree prop stopping short of the ceiling.

The tree prop has been neatly sawed off to prevent structural damage :)

The second one to enter the 'Frequently Used Tools' list after a long time is the conversation editor. I went back and modified all the earlier conversations to use my own plots for skill/stats checks, generic functions, etc. As part of the story update, I also fleshed out all the interactions in the first half of Act 2 which has resulted in a lot of conversations penning themselves. I still have to put them into the toolset though *sigh*

In between, I have also been playing Divinity 2: Ego Draconis, the sequel to Divine Divinity (I really didn't like Beyond Divinity that much). It's been a fantastic ride so far and I am close to unlocking my dragon form which should make it even more enjoyable. Really, there is nothing like a hack 'n' slash to kill an hour or so of free time and Divinity 2 is doing great in that regard!

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I cannot speak for other module-makers but the first thing I set down when I started this module was - it should be different. Not completely alien with a new world with it's own lore and mechanics but should have something that makes it stand out from the crowd...at least in my own eyes. What could I do? Integrate the story with the official established canon. The two books - The Stolen Throne and The Calling - are pretty detailed about most of the happenings but there are some obvious gaps (well, maybe not gaps but interesting settings that haven't been explored fully) that can be exploited to tell a story.

Blood and Lyrium will seek to do that - weave a tale about already established settings, sneaking in canon events from the novels to influence the various threads. The story is set during Maric's struggle to regain Ferelden's crown and it is possible that the player might meet some of the key characters from the rebel camp. I haven't yet thought through the plot lines that extensively so it is also possible that you might not meet them at all - I don't want to give a tacked-on quest just for lore integration.

That said, this module will come with a race/background restriction for the player - Dalish Elf. This might turn off a lot of players but it is critical for the storyline - it wouldn't make sense for anybody else to play this story as it unfolds (except maybe one other race/background but that is for another post)

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