Touring Fort Masen with SW Chris and Syntax

While we're on the topic of not completing builds...

SW Chris visited ActiveWorlds last month to tour sites in SW City as part of a video series called "Before There Was Minecraft." This video series celebrates Chris hitting 1,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel by revisiting his roots in ActiveWorlds. Syntax and I joined him for a couple of hours to explore various sites in the city, including one that I spent a lot of time working on: Fort Masen and an incomplete dungeon underneath that was designed for SW City Interactive.

Some background:  Fort Masen was initially built by SW Comit and is built in the style of a historical fort, complete with an old wooden ship and cannons.  Some time after I became involved with SW City Interactive, I set my attention on Fort Masen as a potential site for a series of archaeology quests and digsites.  Over the years, I've added a number of quests there and began an undertaking to build a cave/dungeon adventure under the fort.  It is partially completed: there is a lengthy quest chain available to SWI players that actually gives you access to the dungeon, but after another sidequest it abruptly ends and doesn't let you progress further.

That would be the end of the story... except for SW Chris' video series.  Chris, Syn, and I explored on past the end of the current game, and we did a complete video commentary on incomplete areas (including a partially-complete interactive boss!) and some puzzles further in the dungeon.

The commentary is split over two videos, #6 and #7 in the series. Fair warning for SWI players, there are tons and tons of spoilers in these videos:

So there you have it, some insight into one of my many unfinished projects!  I might actually finish this one day, I'm a sucker for coming back to work on SWI stuff. :)

If you're interested in more video commentary, visit SW Chris's Youtube Channel! He's done a couple of series now on ActiveWorlds that you guys might find interesting.

Masen Keep Commons - Photo Blog

Hey everyone... just stopping by to offer some interior shots of the recent updates at Fort Masen.  If you didn't catch the blog from a few days ago, there's some new content there... including quests and new digsites.

SW City Interactive November Updates

Hey everyone!  I've been hard at work on SW City Interactive this week, and I have some updates I'd like to share.

November Changelog
QUESTS: (4)
'Coaxing Spirits'

• Descritpion: A large Hotep idol is blocking your path to progress deeper into the Keep, and you have been tasked to find out what happened.
• Prereq: Completed 'Opening the Gate'
• Find the spirit within the Masen Keep Commons to begin!

'Unearthing Statuettes'
'Unearthing the Bronze Statue'
'Unearthing Cannons'

• Description: An unlikely friend within the Historical Society is working with the Hyokos to protect their culture, while simultaneously recovering Imperial artifacts to appease the society's patrons.
• Prereq: Completed 'Opening the Gate'
• These 3 quests are repeatable
• Speak with the Gray in the Fort Masen Historical Society to begin!

DIGSITES: (2)
Masen Keep Commons

    * Just beyond the foreboding doors of Masen Keep lies the Commons, an open space that was once used for trade and commerce.  After the siege, the space was converted into a hall of reverence and worship... focused on a massive idol that was placed in front of an old passageway.  Many artifacts and personal items of the inhabitants still remain.

• 20 digging nodes
• Two collectible sets, and a handful of other valuable items
• ~20 new items to collect and trade with other players!

Masen Keep Cannons

• The interior cannons were once Fort Masen's last line of defense, which ultimately proved futile during the Siege.  The damaged remains were left as a testament to the Imperial Army's might, and have been long forgotten on the ledges and rafters that loom over the Commons.
•  6 digging nodes -- each node takes a large amount of time credits and stamina
• One collectible set

BUGFIXES:

    * Players who completed 'Opening the Gate' before November will need to speak with the Gatekeeper at his location in the Commons.  Their version of the digging permit was bugged and he will swap them.
    * A profile icon is available in the digsite -- it was previously in the digging loot table, but that proved to be problematic so it is now a stand-alone, hidden item in the area.
    * Several new NPCs were missing an NPC image, and this has been corrected since they went live.
    * (Thanks to Comit for helping with many of the bugs, some of which weren't so much bugs as they were me being dum )

There's not really a ton left to do in order to get this done... so I may work on this again over Christmas.  Until then, this should be plenty to occupy anyone who happens to come across it.

More on Fort Masen: http://www.swcity.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=SWC.FortMasen

SW City Interactive - The Keep of Fort Masen

I've completed a long-term project at Fort Masen in SW City, and have taken a short video to promote it.  You can view it below:

Learn more about SW City: http://www.swcity.net/www/landing.php
Learn more about SW City Interactive: http://www.interactive.swcity.net

Information about Fort Masen: http://www.swcity.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=SWC.FortMasen