The Cursed Land by Calister68 (original French version named "Les Terres Maudites")
Original French Version
Your hunt for a ferocious wolf has left your group exhausted and spirit broken. The wolf appears once more teasing you once again. The rest of the hunters in your group take chase into a strange mist. The mist almost seems alive. Do you follow them into the mist?
French to English version translated and edited by Decclan Macmanus.
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INSTALLATION:
- Extract the two zipped files, "The Cursed Land.mod" and "tm_hak.hak"
- Place the file "The Cursed land.mod" in your directory My documents/Nwn2/modules.
- Place the file "tm_hak.hak" in your directory My documents/Nwn2/hak.
Choose New Module and select The Cursed Land to start the module.
Download the HAK file here please...it is needed to the play the module.
Posted by Winwood at 2011-07-14 13:55:37 Voted 7.75 on 07/13/11
*** minor spoiler ***
No serious bugs encountered btw, but i think I found a minor one; The dryad was still standing under the ancient tree, asking me to kill the spider, after i had killed both the spider and her.
Posted by Winwood at 2011-07-13 12:15:04 Voted 7.75 on 07/13/11
Thanks for playing Cow King. Sorry you didn't finish due to lack of interest in low-level mods. Each player has their likes and dislikes about every mod made for the NWN2 community. Can't please everyone unfortunately. I myself was turned off by the lack of area design in the Maimed God's saga module although the story and scripting is great. His lack of ability to make a beautiful looking area kind of ruined it for me. To each his own I guess. Thanks for playing Calister68's module. _________________________ NWN Modules Journey Into Darkness Desert Madness (Dark Summoning) Souls of Time (A Dark Sequel)
Well I didn't finish this mod so I'm not gonna vote.
What turned me off... extremely limited PC dialogue options, typical brain melt "fetch me this item" main quest, uninteresting combat (low level, and it's just one or two mobs spawning and you kill them). Also it was a bit too linear for my taste especially with boring main quest.
I stopped at the wizard's tower. Area design was a pure 10 though.
As Decclan said, I mostly based my mod on the atmosphere. I am sorry that the part in the castle is not your cup of tea, but I think this should not stop you from continuing, especially since you're not far from the end!
Thank you for playing Callister68's mod. I agree with you on the shadows. I didn't care for that part either but since I didn't design it I wasn't about to change it. I didn't have any problems with the spectres though. Did you rest whenever your ability scores got to low? As I believe Callister68 was designing a mod that was purely atmospheric and mostly linear I don't think he was trying for a real Role-playing experience.
This is a great module, with atmosphere, nice cutscenes, a very somber story that is made darker and even more interesting with the use of carefully designed areas and a well done overland map. There was a small problem with a cutscene that didn't fire as it should, but I just tried it again and it worked perfectly. After that everything was great up to the arrival at the villain's keep...
Spoilers!
That's when it really disappointed me... spawning shadows that can lower your scores and cannot be hurt except by being herded to some points in the area (and that can slow you down too) is just too annoying for me... somehow I managed to go on only to find out that the other room was filled with irritating spectres... and that my henchmen had their strengths lowered to the point of being unable to run or fight... and with no restoration spells or potions...
I even tried again, but halfway through the main hall I had already lost any interest in the rest of the story and quit it. Perhaps if there was more role-playing involved and I could know my character's motivations, my companions backstory and things like that I might be interested to continue.
Spoilers end!
It is really a pity. But I wouldn't dream to give it a lower score because the final stage of the mod is not my cup of tea... I am certain some will find this the best part and even recommended solely based on that.
Unfortunately, since I won't finish it I will not vote... but I firmly recommend it to anyone... it is truly an excellent mod!
Posted by Rosie at 2010-08-21 23:47:33 Voted 9.00 on 08/21/10
Ok, so the back story with the villain does make sense! :0) Adjusted my vote upwards in that case. x
Posted by sirchet at 2010-08-21 18:25:32 Voted 9.25 on 08/21/10
DecclanMacmanus and Calister68,
Thank you for an exciting and intriguing adventure.
I can certainly appreciate the difficulty of translating an adventure, sometimes the slang just doesn't make sense when you're from a different culture.
I faced this with editing PORR, you've done a fantastic job here.
The only bug I found was with the person operating the pc, (he kept going the wrong direction heh heh)but with a little support from the adventure's production team the story moved forward flawlessly.
This is a somewhat dark, robust and nearly chilling tale I believe all serious CRPG gamers should experience.
Well done and thank you both for presenting this to the community. _________________________ Help is good when asked for,
Better when needed.
That is the beginning of a cutscene that your PC character is not a part of. Somehow the cutscene script fired incorrectly on your computer. As I or no one else has experienced that it is most likely unique to your game. If you load up from a save and try again it probably won't happen again. Email me under my profile page if you are still having the issue.
Robel,
I changed the gameplay hours to 4 as it is probably closer to 4 hours long. It depends on what you do as well. By not doing some side quests you can complete it in 3 hours easily. Your question really doesn't make sense to me. You can have all those module descriptions in a module that is only 1 hour long if you really think about it.
It seems I've found a bug... I cured the priest and went to talk to the gypsy... then, before I could go to the mayor, the game starts loading a new area and I end up in a small room with no way to get out... have I done anything wrong? I really liked the mod thus far, very atmospheric and beautifully done, and the translation is very good, after reading the description I got worried but there aren't many problems at all. If it was not for the bug I would definitely give it a high score.
By the way... I had to empty my override to play it, so there can be no override issues here.
Posted by buckwheezer at 2010-08-20 14:44:26 Voted 8.75 on 08/20/10
Excellent, Recommend to Anyone. Great story, well developed, and fun to play. No bugs. Roleplaying is "light" as limited interaction with NPCs; the author admits this so he achieved what he set out to do. The final sequence of combats are very tough given the very limited healing kits and potions. Thank you for this and I hope you will continue to produce similar work.
I just finished the game translated, and I must admit I am impressed by the work done. Some texts have remained in French, but everything else seems perfect - congratulations for this excellent work, Decclan. Unfortunately I can not vote, because it is partly my own work, but if I had to put a note, it would be a 9 or 10 without hesitation.
SPOILER ------------
I understand that the encounter with the vampire at the end seems incomprehensible to those who do not know the first two mods! Here's the story, summarized very briefly : in the second module, "le cristal de lien", the hero finds himself in the city of Nighthaven, where he must accomplish a long series of quests for the local militia. One of these quests will lead him on Hermit Island, where the population has been decimated by a vampire arrived on the island aboard a wrecked ship. After many battles, the hero is finally able to find the vampire, who manage to escape. The vampire, Karl von Bernstein, is the "master" you can find in this module. Humiliated by his defeat, the monster has sought over the years the way to revenge ...
Glad you enjoyed the module. 99% of the credit goes to Calister68 for making a great module. I believe this module was actually part of a trilogy that Calister68 created so the end refers to the first two modules slightly and that's why you were confused. I was too when I was translating it. Unfortunately I have no plans in translating the first two modules as this was more of an undertaking that I originally thought and I need to get back to working on my module The Wizard's Wishes.
That's the wrong gate. The north gate where you are is to the Castle. The Raven Hill gate is East of Geroll's farm. The Castle gate is opened later in the story by script not a key.
Posted by sirchet at 2010-08-19 17:43:46 Voted 9.25 on 08/21/10
I can't seem to get the gate to the hill, just before the bridge to open.
************************SPOILER ALERT***************************************
I've cured the priest in the church and the mayor gave me the key to go north to put the potion from the gypsy in the well, but the gate acts like I don't have the key.
I looked in th ts and the gate has no key listed in the keytag for the key assigned to the gate.
I'm sure I'm just missing something.
btw, a wonderful adventure so far. The atmosphere certainly fits the story. _________________________ Help is good when asked for,
Better when needed.
Btw this mod could use a character creator at the start where you can level and equip your char :(
Posted by Rosie at 2010-08-19 01:18:41 Voted 9.00 on 08/21/10
Thankyou both for your hard work. This really is a very atmospheric mod - Calister, you definitely have a gift for area design. I would also say that this mod took me longer than 3 hours - more like 4 or 5.
Good story, some nicely spooky bits and challenging fights, especially if you start a new character or play a caster. I really like the appearance of the ranger companion - he looks like a proper ranger! Bit more character development of him would be nice.
MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW:
I was a bit confused by the ending, since I didn't know my character had history with the villain. Maybe a bit of context at the beginning or something?
Not too much loot, but a reasonable amount. I was pleased to find a rapier +1 for my swashbuckler - a custom item would have been really nice (I always like to have something that reminds my characters of where they've been as they go through other campaigns)
Some nice quests - I liked looking for the brother's ring, and the Weaver Woods were very nice. I know I've said this already, but really some very pretty areas with just the right atmosphere.
The translation was good - found a few 'cadavres' and 'caisses' and descriptions in French, and yeah a few of the phrases seemed slightly off in English, but nothing important. I'm really glad you translated this - I'm not bad at French, but probably not good enough to make my way through an entire mod without a dictionary at my side :0)
All in all, I had a really nice time with this, a good low-level adventure in a setting I enjoy - many thanks again to you both. x
Wow cool, I'm gonna try this now. I was kinda worried when you mentioned google translate, but I see it's very well translated manually. My only gripe is that it's yet ANOTHER ravenblob module, I don't like ravenloft and every nwn2 horror mod is pretty much RAVENLOFT -_-
I'm still waiting for nwn2 zombie survival horror mod.
Thank you for your nice review, Decclan, although I'm not sure that this mod deserves such good notes! I started playing, and for now I must admit I am very impressed by the work of translation - nothing seems to have been forgotten! I imagine that some expressions have been giving you a hard time ... I can't wait to see the end !
There is a reason I decided to translate this module. I love modules that have a heavy atmosphere and I love the Ravenloft setting. Calister68 did an outstanding job on area design, cutscenes and the overall atmosphere in designing his module. Here is my review of the module.
Gameplay: 9
Although I did edit the final boss fight script (there was no way to resist a scripted killing blow event and I found myself dead 5 seconds after the fight started) I couldn't find any bugs with this module. All cutscenes and all scripts ran perfectly for me.
Storytelling: 9
I have a soft spot for Ravenloft modules and just the overall despair with that genre of modules. This module is mostly linear with a few side quests to distract you thrown in. The atmosphere of the module draws you into the story. The story weakens a little near the end but so did Misery Stone in my opinion.
Atmosphere: 10.00
Superb area design (some of the best work I've seen done in the toolset). The mood of the module is reflected greatly by the area design and lighting. Calister68 came up with a few cool design tips that I never thought of and I am definitely going to incorporate into my module.
Roleplaying: 8.00
This module is very light on roleplaying. You don't have many choices to make and the PC player seems to be in the conversations mostly just to move the story along. There are few options in some conversations that do change the outcome of a few situations but nothing that really changes major parts of the story. This is all understandable as the module by design is mostly a story driven module.
Action: 8.00
There are a few good fights but overall nothing to big as the level range of the module is from about 2 to 4. I would have like to have seen some scripted fights besides the final fight.
Polish: 9.50
This module is very polished in most areas including mood, atmosphere, area design, scripting, story design. It only lacks some polish in dialogue and action. Remember though that the module is translated and some of the dialogue may not flow as well in English as it may have in French.
Fun: 9.00
Any module that really draws me into the story and keeps my attention as well as makes me want to explore more is always fun in my book. Module creators that sacrifice so much of their time to bring us modules like these are the main reason I still play NWN2. _________________________ NWN Modules Journey Into Darkness Desert Madness (Dark Summoning) Souls of Time (A Dark Sequel)
Good...the module is now posted although the hak file link was not created to the original hak file. I had mentioned that to the web admins and I thought they were going to post it. I will paste a URL link to the hak page under the description section. _________________________ NWN Modules Journey Into Darkness Desert Madness (Dark Summoning) Souls of Time (A Dark Sequel)
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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