Tonight was the night I was gonna get some serious sleepin' done. It's getting a little too late for anything but the normal 7 1/2, but I'll be brief, and jump into bed the second I plonk down that last period.

I see that people are responding well to the latest changes in Anarchy Online, and that's great! The new NPC multiple-choice dialogue system is finally on its way into the game, and although I personally ended up scripting only four or five of the characters (which have subsequently been rewritten by other people -- I'm not entirely sure how much of my text is left in there), I'm still really happy about the way it turned out. It's a lot more fun to converse with NPCs in this manner than to try and come up with the correct keywords -- more like an adventure-game than a, uh, guessing-game. And that's the way it should be.

Props to designer (and also musician) Bjørn Arve Lagim, who's worked his ass of to get this thing done right. Too bad I didn't have time to write more characters, 'cause I loves my dialogue (as players of TLJ know too well), but c'est la vie. There's a big & talented team of designers and writers on AO now, they're passionate and hard-working, and it's all theirs. They're running with the story, and all I'm doing is giving them feedback when they ask for it. They're doing a really good job.

In a few weeks, I'm off to Seattle, Washington for a bit, and that'll be fun -- I've never been that far north-and-west in the US, but I've always wanted to. I'm guessing there will be a lot of rain, but that's all right. Rain is good. More on that trip later.

Lots of questions and comments about my TLJ 2 postings these past few days, so thanks to all of y'all...and keep 'em coming! I'll be posting some or most of them in the days to come, together with my answers...or non-answers. I read all your e-mails, though I may not have the time to answer all of them, so keep writing. There wouldn't be a journal without you.

Last but not least, I'm finally getting somewhere on my long-delayed screenplay, currently entitled "The Dark Places". I had an epiphany of sorts earlier this week, whilst doing some research for another project, and I found just the inspiration I needed. I was heading in the right direction, but I really needed the nitty-gritty details in order to get out of the hole I'd dug for myself. At this pace, I'll be done with it before Christmas, and I'll post a bit more about it later; story, characters, themes...that sort of stuff. What's it for? It's something I'd like to put together, and I'll be showing (or shopping) it around, either to get funding or to secure representation. My main focus right now is games, and there are things happening on that front also, but this is certainly something that I want to keep on the back-burner until it's hot enough to move to the, uh, front-burner. So to speak.

Don't worry, though, I ain't about to abandon the games. Games is where I'm at. There's TLJ 2 to look forward to -- maybe -- and...something else. Always something else. But this may turn out to be a Big Something Else. Really. I don't kid. Hopefully. Keep all those fingers crossed, as usual. Nighty-night.  ¶ 00:27