Well, here it is! The accountability has begun! While this is technically our first devblog, there’s not actually going to be a whole ton of information about development beyond noting that the website’s alive. So…
Hey! The website is alive!
You’ve been made aware. +10xp. All kidding and silliness aside, I wanted to take a moment with our zeroth post to sort of outline what it is I intend to do with this blog, what information you can expect to find here, and where to get which pieces of information. If you’ve been following the KoH project since its inception, you’ve been seeing posts on Discord, on Facebook, and a couple of other really weird, random places, including over on our Rust server page. Now that we have the necessary tools in place, we’ll be shifting a lot more toward getting everything set into its own, proper lane, getting onto a regular update schedule, and pumping content as quickly as is possible to maintain quality. Each of these communication channels will remain open, but will have more specific uses.
Discord: This is the overall umbrella communication server for the entire Serenity Valley Gaming community. As of right now, the only channel that exists for KoH is the #nwn-development channel. This is and will be the primary source of immediate contact, and tends to be a lot more stream-of-thought type posts. When I, or later, other members of design staff are working, this is a place for us to kick ideas back and forth to one another, and it gives SVG members the opportunity to see the process behind the scenes, and even add their own input as we go. More than anything, this project is meant to be a shared world, with inspiration from everyone forming the creative core–the very soul–of the project. This is where people can look into KoH’s beating heart and even squirt their own ideas straight into it, adding their own DNA to the project. Posts here will be sporadic, somewhat random, and unfiltered.
The Facebook Page: Serenity Valley Gaming’s main representation on social media, for now. This page serves as a place where people can find us and all of our projects on Earth’s most ubiquitous social media platform. To that end, this will be an outlet for some news, usually a bit more polished than the sort of things that you’d expect to find here. New posts about the project will come out every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday as a minimum. If something especially exciting has popped up, we’ll have some off-cycle posts here. This page will also serve as a kind of first-run for a lot of the lore of Haze. Right now, the majority of the world design and history has been blocked out, but nothing’s quite set in stone yet, and all of it is written with a mind toward the first wave of heroes to join the world as being the future legends of this world. Discussing character histories, sharing ideas for how the world is shaped, and those shared experiences and conversations will absolutely drive the design and feel of the world–so if you’re keen to share an idea, or you just want to start talking about the who’s and what’s of your favorite characters and heroes, this is the place to leave your fingerprints all over the surface of the world. There will also probably be promotions, contests, and giveaways here. Like the page. Share with your friends. I promise not to fill your feed with garbage or spam. This is also our Facebook page for our Rust servers, so you’ll probably see some cross-posting there about the events and goings on in the Rust side of the world, too. We’ve started tagging our posts with which game we’re talking about so you can just search for the #nwn or #rust tags to limit what you’re seeing on the page. There’s also a discussion page there, where the community can chat about whatever matters to them. We tend to be pretty loose on moderation, as long as people aren’t being horrible to one another. The discussion group is located here.
The Website: By Jove, you’ve found us! That’s this place. This website is going to have 3 primary goals. First, it will have all the information for new players on how to join us in the epic adventures taking place in Haze’s many kingdoms. That will include how to connect to our server, which Steam Workshop files need to be downloaded, and how to contact various in-game leaders if they choose to delve into the more political elements of the game. Second, it will serve as the sourcebook for the game world. Just as there are the Player’s Guide to the Forgotten Realms, or the Player’s Guide to Greyhawk, this page will fill the same role as The Player’s Guide to Haze. This content will be steadily added and expanded over the course of development, with new pages coming online or getting updated/improved weekly. Third and finally, it is our devblog, where you, our cherished visitor, fan, or supporter, can keep abreast with all of the changes, seeing the progress of bringing our world from concept to concrete, laying down the bedrock on which your future adventures will be built. Devblogs are scheduled to be posted every Wednesday, capturing information on all of the previous week’s updates, plus some time on Monday and Tuesday to catch errors, bugs, etc.
For now, that’s all we’ve got. The past week or so has been spent getting all of the infrastructure in place, and now I’ll be diving head-first back into getting the world built, playable, and online so you can join us in weaving as grand of an epic as Dungeons and Dragons has ever seen! Thanks, everyone for your support so far, and we’re looking forward to playing some great games with you all!
–Chris