It was inevitable, I knew this time was coming...

Well first let me tell you first, NO, I am not shutting Arbor Falls down. ..I know the title sounded kinda foreboding, but for me , well it is.

I have to overhaul Arbor Falls from scratch. As I was out on RL for a few weeks I have been reading all the bugs, inconsistencies and general mayhem that has appeared as of late. The thing is these bugs have been prevalent from the get go. You see in order to understand my frustration, you have to sit back and hear the tale.

Arbor Falls, from it's very inception was just that, Arbor Falls. It was a small hamlet located in some(as then) undisclosed *part* of the forgotten realms. It was meant for my cousin, my 2 friends and myself. 4 people. It originally was supposed to be designed as a waystop. A place to meet before going into the Inn and talking to the Innkeeper to get *whatever* new quest I had downloaded from the vault. Oh silly me...I thought I could you know, just trigger a *load* game and it would be sweet as cake. I didnt know about 2das or anything scripting, I was the modder in terms of 3d work, models, tilesets, creatures. (but thats another story), I especially didn't think about all the editing I would have to do to these downloaded mods from other people..*with all those scripts!!*...good god!

so I scratched that, and just said, I will make a random dungeon/crypt (which is the main crypts still in AF today), do my own thing and well...
the scripting was horrendous, I mean its bad still...12 - 13 seperate scripts to do what now I know I could have easily set up with variables a function and 1 script to do it all.. That being said..it *still* didn't matter..did it? I mean it's only 4 people and I can walk to their house, so its easy to fix bungles and botches (and trust me their were alot of them, does anyone remember the random script that would strip you naked , destroy all your stuff and leave you standing saying *wtf*?, yeah I do..)
Now, here is the part I *wont* explain..this is the whole part where I learned and dabled in PW database storing,retrieving, etc... now that was a learning curve..lol..

this goes on for a few weeks, and then one day this guy named *nolan* logs in. I hadnt realized I had publicly posted what was then a very unpublic Arbor Falls..
to be honest, this is the guy you have to thank and all I know of him is the name he chose for his PC.

This was the guy that in one night was like "dude? this is really great looking, you should showcase more of your design..just add a new area here, and there..you only need 3 or 4 areas to have a decent PW and yours will look incredible, you will get all the glory.."

now first of all.. yes, visions of glory!!. Bathed in golden dragon award lights for being the most fantastic cool noble hearted purveyor of free high quality fun in a D&D realm!.. (insert fanfare here)
second of all, You may all love *nolan* because Arbor Falls was created...but *SCREW YOU!!* nolan!!!
3 or 4 areas!! my ASS!!
anyways...sorry.

SO where is this going? well like I said, its a journey, and if you have gotten this far, perhaps you will have a sip of wine with me and sit down for the rest..

There I was now, all these tileset designed, areas littered with glory eyecandy goodness.. I may be humble, but even I thought to myself *damn* these areas do look good. ..
but as for quest building and journals, and items activation and ...well the list goes on and on and on..
I said before, Arbor Falls was a complete *learning* experience for me.. I had absolutely *no* clue how to build a simple module then when I started, and through it all gained the XP I now have (+1 to my INT for sure!)...

now? hell now, I think I could build a PW with my eyes closed.. and I try and break common boundaries within my skills now that have brought , what I consider pretty cool stuff... the intricacy of the updated housing systems/mail property..the dig systems, the special items..all these cool little parts that make Arbor Falls what it is today..
But its really difficult to have all these cross-dressing scripts ruining the fun for me...
for all you scripters out there. Do you know that I have Both activation tag based *and* tagbased scripting? yeah..not one or the other, but both..
did you know I have a hundred scripts just starting a dialog with an NPC...yes,they *all* do exactly the same thing.. like I said, it was a learning experience.

So what does this mean then for Arbor Falls?
well for one, it means no more updates for awhile.. no hak updates (at least to the public..)
I have a planned schedule to have this all moved over to a streamlined version by Winter (xmas) of this year.
this will also make it easier for anyone wanting to build off these newer releases to follow what the F' is going on with all my scripts,etc. since I am organizing my scripts by prefix as well as condensing many,many,many seperate codes into functions I can call from includes.
This will help my co-partner in crime, Borojb to have a better handle of everything thats happening under the hood.
Nothing on your end will change, gameplay wise (except hopefully being rid of many of the *Should be easy to crush bugs but in this pile or manure its impossible to narrow down*),
a few areas may get a facelift, a few new others may be added in, but for you, all, in the end, it will just be the same old' place. That will include all your housing and persistant data..so don't start panicking yet, this wasn't like the BIg Haul of 2009 where we all moved to the NWNx2 system from the standard bioware DB (remember that Shady? Shj3? Borojb you were around for that weren't you?)

I am still going to be actively updating this old Arbor Falls but just not any more big builds or new additions until I get this other slimmer AF ready for public.

There.. that should conclude my insane babbling for tonight. I hope this all makes sense and will explain how right when everyone seems to actually be enjoying Arbor Falls as a place to call home, I may seem like I am like..."Yeah? screw you! I am not doing a damn thing about it.."
because I will be,
Just think of me as the Wizard of Oz for a few months.. You will feel my influence, and I will do my best to answer your questions in the meantime.. but I will mostly be behind the curtain.

also, from the bottom and top of my heart,
Thank you *ALL* for joining me here in Arbor Falls..
Thank you SHJ3 and Shady for your unfailing devotion and time spent here, you have friggen grandfather clauses here..
Thank you Jaybonz and Doddi for helping me create the vision that is AF today, from its humblest beginnings much of AF was created from just hanging with these guys saying *what would be cool*
and Thank you Borojb, you know the scene's in movies where the guy gives his best friend like the keys to his car, or the ring to give to his wife when he is about to die..well your that guy when it came to AF. you really gave and still give AF a push in the realm of possibility, your stories and your skills in item/creature design has really helped to give this place a rich background, a unique history that has made it even that much more welcome to be part of.

and the rest of you, a BIG thanks!!. I wish I made money off all you fuckers playing AF out there! but I hey! I still love ya and your free to play here as long as I have a network connection that works!

*waves bye*

My Friend !! Way to scare the daylights out of me !! then

(No cash to spare at the moment, so some ego stroking... hope you don't mind !!)

I for one would like to say Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all the love and dedication you have put into this wonderful place. Even with all the bugs I've run into (vanishing quests anyone? , My "assassin" Paladin incident?) I still really only remember how something I said in a passing convo during a quest or three suddenly popped up in this world (sharpening stones... "would be nice to have an ID item guy in Stumpett Grove", "would be nice if I had a Castle to buy in Hothmourne" etc.)

Shady got me turned onto this place, the Eye candy kept bringing me back (all those Screen shots I still have (and sent in) (OMG...THIS IS REALLY NWN?!?!)... and STILL take to this day!!) and then the people I've met here... the list goes on.

OOO, can't forget the Underdark !!
"Holy Shit!! I'm in a REAL cavern !! Wait... How the hell do I get to that far corner ?? (150 map pins later) Ah Ha !! Uhhh... where the hell am I now?? No, it's this way I'm sure !! Gaaaa !!! Beholders !! Mind Flayers !! Crap... anybody bring a Stone to Flesh scroll?"

And, who of us who lived it can ever forget lugging around our barrels full of items and furniture !! and then losing a bunch of stuff when they went away after the port to NWNx2 happened 'cuz we kept storing stuff in them!!

Ya know... I loved Skyrim... I mean LOVED that game... long hiatus from AF for that game, but now that the charm has worn off.. I'm right back here. RL is kicking my ass right now and this place is a wonderful break from that.

Please do drop in now and then to visit us. We really do miss you!!

SHJ3

p.s One request... get rid of the Anti-SHJ3 script, please.

Arbor Falls. Love it. Thank you!

Lord of Worms,

I really understand what you are feeling, and the agitation it causes as you start to lose enthusiasm (as more problems arise) you originally started with, or would become what you would imagine it would be and then never enough hours in the day/week or month to do what you wish to do.

Was one of the first to download and play your mod, the areas and your creature designs were breathtaking and the amount you tried to implement even then was staggering, but maybe a little too much for one person without support at the time, I recently tried AF on my server to try again and was good, just some features of the PW (especially for new starters are not very clear, as in the shadow plane etc, which I unfortunately hit at level 1).

Maybe if building on the world gets a bit much, your creatures and tilesets are just superb so maybe they may give you a break along with maybe some prefab areas for a PW builder? - maybe like a plugins for scripts, areas, creatures etc.

When I played on my server I did not experience script lag as such, but it did seem a little too much was going on at one time.

Good luck! I tried rewrite mods etc in the past and found for some easy and some so hard, but I hope or have to hand someone who can script to help and if they can be so nice to leave comments in scripts be so nice - just out of curiosity you have never tried some of the ready made base mods on the vault, and then added your mod on top so to speak and then configure?

All the best, I always chat too much!

First Thank you all for the support!

Just a quick bit of info.

I am almost complete with the rebuild of Arbor Falls.

basically I wrapped alot of extraneous and odd scripts into single functions.
rewrote several system wide scripts into a nice include
edited *alot* of the uneccessary Database calls and rewrote the scripting to allow most of this info to be stored on your persistant runestone (token system) this includes journals and such.

currently the only thing I will *not* be editing nor touching in *any* way

1) persistent housing
2) persistent storage (except for a few script fixes for stackable items)
3) Hall of Heroes system scripts

I aplogize to *everyone* I have just not been able to touch base with recently...I dont have a whole lot of *free* time, so whatever I do have I delve right into AF to *crossess fingers* get the new streamlined version up by Halloween.

the biggest leap I have now is all the documentation I have been writing *along* with the rebuilding so that *anyone* should be able to pick up this MOD, and start building into it right away with at the least a beginners idea of scripting.


so once agian, Thank you all so much for your diligence and your support!!!!

Hi i was wondering when were you going to put up the upto date of Arbor falls on live stream?

look forward to see the next upto date AF with fixs

Have a nice day

Tavion xx

What about combining your creation with the epics of PRC or CEP? Now that would be one hell of a mod. I'd be more than willing to help. How does one get in contact with you?