8 réponses à ce sujet

[Ted Anderson]

So here's the story. I'm an aspiring comics writer, blogger, and card-carrying librarian with an interest in videogames, especially those made by Obsidian. I had a very brief conversation with Chris Avellone at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, which inspired me to try and put together a NWN2 mod of my very own. Now, I've only just started playing around with the toolset, and I already have a few questions about the process of putting together a mod. Any help you can give me would be much appreciated—I'm sure at least some of these questions are going to be extremely dumb, but please save all pointing and laughing for the end of the tour.

1) Can you give the player control over both sides of a conversation?
This is a big part of the mod I'm planning, but I have no idea if it's even possible. Basically, I want to let the player determine the reactions of both of the main characters in the mod by choosing both characters' lines. So, for example, the player chooses what Khelgar says to Sand, and then chooses what Sand says in response. Is this possible? Is there a way to make it work?

2) Can you change a character's alignment or influence even if they're not in the party?
If you say, "Khelgar's an idiot," can you make it so you then lose X Influence with Khelgar, even if he's not in the party? Similarly, can you change his alignment from Lawful to Chaotic, or vice versa?

3) Is Influence one-way or two-way?
This is a weird question, and possibly the stupidest one of all. If Character A has X Influence with Character B, does Character B automatically have X Influence with Character A as well? Or can they be different numbers? For example, can Khelgar really like Sand (i.e. Sand has 50 Influence with Khelgar), but Sand really hate Khelgar (i.e. Khelgar has -50 Influence with Sand)?

4) Can you use copyrighted music in a mod without getting sued?
This is a simple one. Can I legally use mp3s from other sources as background music? Technically, this mod won't be made for commercial distribution or with any intention of profit—does that make a difference?

Again, thanks in advance for your help, and I hope these questions aren't too stupid. Based on the answers I get, I'll start putting together a design doc for my mod, hopefully within a week or so.

[Morbane]

Not too sure about #1

For #2 you can indeed change alignments in script - as well you can script reputations but afaik you have to be working in a mod that is part of a campaign.

#3 You can look deeper into reputations... I dont really use that aspect very much so far

#4 Hmm if your mod is distributed for free (which they all are) there should really be no problem afaik



Your questions are not dumb - good ones I think

[c i p h e r]

1) A conversation tree has NPC and PC nodes. Depending on what a PC selects, the NPC responds a certain way and the conversation progresses along that node in the tree. There are no "NPC" conversation choices - one is determined automatically - but I suppose you could write up a conversation that seems like there are.

2) Yes. Using the NWN2 scripting language.

3) Not sure, but if you are a programmer, you could always develop your own reputation system with the scripting language.

4) That's up to the copyright holder.

p.s. Would you have any interest in volunteering your time for projects other than your own?

Modifié par ç i p h é r, 02 septembre 2010 - 02:58 .

[diophant]

1) That's easy to fake. Leave the NPC nodes of the conversation empty, and the PC nodes alter between the PC and the NPC text. By using static cameras, you can even achieve that the camera is always focusing the correct speaker.



2) It's possible by scripting.



3) Reputation and influence are two different things. Reputation determines whether someone is considered to be an enemy, friend, or neutral (i.e. if he should attack or help him), and can be different in both directions. E.g., guards help commoners if they are attacked, but not vice versa. I'm not very experienced with influence, but I guess it's just one single value for each NPC in your party that says how much he likes the PC. But it is no problem at all to make your own system, with a two-way influence value for each pair of NPCs.



4) It depends on the copyright. If it is not explicitely allowed to distribute it for non-commercial use, don't do it.

[Ted Anderson]

Thanks for the help, guys! I'm starting to put together a basic design doc right now--I'll post it in the Modules subforum when it's ready.



çiphér, sure I'm willing to volunteer my time. However, like I said, I've got zero experience making environments, scripting, modeling...really, the only thing I can do is write. Which I'm more than happy to do! Where should I let people know I'm available to help with writing modules? Is there a 'volunteer' thread?

[dethia]

Ted Anderson wrote...

Thanks for the help, guys! I'm starting to put together a basic design doc right now--I'll post it in the Modules subforum when it's ready.

çiphér, sure I'm willing to volunteer my time. However, like I said, I've got zero experience making environments, scripting, modeling...really, the only thing I can do is write. Which I'm more than happy to do! Where should I let people know I'm available to help with writing modules? Is there a 'volunteer' thread?

Don't know about writing modules but you can write lore and quests if people have a need for that.  There isn't a volunteer thread sadly but people often request help so see if any of them can use your writing skills

[Shaughn78]

Influence: The OC influence only showed how the companions feel about the PC. YOu can create a system to track how companions feel about each other. In a week I will be releasing my campaign, I have created a party relationship system to track how companions feel about each other. I used a single number to track the relationship, but it could be changed to have a 2-way system. I have found that it works better to only use the system between certain companions. Depending how many companions it could become very cumbersome especially with a 2-way system. Feel free to pick apart the scripts I used and modify for your needs.

[dunniteowl]

Most of the Requests for Assistance and Help threads are in the Modules Forums where folks not only announce their upcoming titles soon to be released, but also starting up. There are new features of the forums here that also allow you to cast a wider net with the Projects, Forums and Groups links. I don't know enough about them to know how useful they are. I do suspect, though, that we probably all have to change some of our habits and explore what other features of these forums can work to our best advantage.

dunniteowl

[M. Rieder]

Before I started modding, I played a couple of modules made by the community and I feel like that helped me immensely.  It helped me see things that are possible beyond the original campaigns, and exposed me to a wide variety of stories and plots which helped me think about what kind of story I wanted to tell and how I wanted to present it.
One other thing that helped me was learning to script for NWN2.  It took about 1-2 weeks, but it was worth it.  When you know how to script, even at a very basic level, it opens up a lot of extra things you can do with the game and makes the story much better. Scripting is not necessary, but it is helpful.
Here are two links for scripting tutorials that I found helpful:


NWN2 Scripting

Scripting For Noobs

Best of luck!