334 réponses à ce sujet

[Hellfire_RWS]

The Fred wrote...

Yeah, even if we just used a project or group on this site, it would let us organise different things into different topics. Right now this is a large and quickly self-bloating thread - it's grown to four (almost five) pages in one day - and it'll quickly get out of hand. Being able to discuss things like compatability, mod-wide systems, the big T itself etc. separately would help.

I woudl be willing to make a forum for this in the RWS site if needed.

[Shallina]

If I was to do the 2 or 3 early lvl I would do something 100% different than what you have described and have the main char ending as a renowned adventured squirre at the end of the 2 or 3 early lvl.


As I'd see the module going on, you start as a squirre, and perform some mundane task for your sir adventurer and grow in power like that (lvl 6 or 7), And then something happens that makes you parts way with your "master adventurer" and force you on the T hunt.

Modifié par Shallina, 23 février 2011 - 03:37 .

[dunniteowl]

Just a few quick things (did I just say that?) and off I go...

First:  Scope Creep is one thing, but right now, it's not so much scope creep as, "Hey. what are the Scope of Features to be used in the first place?"

Where I have been trained in Creative Solutioneering, the first aspect is called Brainstorming.  In brainstorming there are no such things as "Bad Ideas" because the objective is to get out as many ideas as possible, irrespective of ease or difficulty, practicality or craziness.  You don't ****** in someone else's coffee cup, you just pitch in your own ideas.  If you like something you can concur, but if you don't like something at this point, standard ground rules indicate you say nothing.  (now this has nothing to do with whether or not I agree or disagree with the way it's implemented where I worked, that's just the base principle and for what it's worth, I deem it sound advice.)

So right now, we are not getting Scope Creep Fever, we are simply attempting to determine the initial scope of the idea in the first place.  Let's keep at that and do our best not to bog down with too much back and forth on individual ideas. (this only means we should note any major hurdles and then press forward.  Right now we're not solving anything, we're setting up our initial conditions.)

Second: I see this as a two pronged and possibly a two tiered project.  The first prong is to provide an overarching backdrop to a series of independant module areas designed by multiple contributors.  In this, I believe the areas of the Vilhon Reach are excellent. 

Firstly, they have never really been used in any large scale project, even in PnP terms as far as I am aware.  Some smaller offerings, yes, but nothing so grand as a "Pools of Radiance" or "NeverWinter Nights" scale.  Secondly, it is relatively untrammeled in general and it's distant location allows us to pretty much toss in whatever we wish as long as we don't overtly violate any canonical material; or run rampant over historical events and locales.  Lastly, the terrain provides a little bit of everything.  You got swamps, coastlands, mountains, hills, plains, forests, small hamlets, villages, towns and major cities, all spread out and all over the place.  Perfect.

The second prong is to have a reason to go to all these places beyond, "Because we're adventurers, it's what we do."  This means there has to be a driving reason to visit these locales each module area is going to be.  Now this DOES NOT mean it has to be directly related to the Tarrasque's rampage.  The rampage is the driving reason behind adventurers going out and exploring in the first place.  But, as with any well laid plan, it never survives contact with the enemy.  So the overarching background does not have to be impacted by, or have any impact on, individual contributions in this project.  It can, but it doesn't have to.  See?  Simple.

Now the first (potentially) tier of this project is to provide a slightly higher overall level adventure for players (I personally don't mind starting off at level one and working my way up, but, for some, maybe bringing in a seventh level character might make sense for purposes of "Character Continuity.")  Again, the Vilhon Reach's general isolation and distance from known areas (especially that god forsaken NeverWinter! jk) provides the ability to integrate completely new-to-the-area characters of higher level without having to go through all the troubles.  Aren't we at some point going to be sending out a "Call to All Adventurers and Would Be Saviors? "  So higher level character integration makes sense at some point in the game.  This could be where we introduce the Party System.

To me, then, the second tier would be to come up with a solid method to allow for "skipping" the initial low level characters phase and be able to jump right in with a character starting around 5th-8th level.  So I think the idea of creating a somewhat linear lower level entry point that gets starting characters to the Central Hub of Alaghon to accept missions and begin recruiting armies and such is not only a great idea, but also a great way to increase the overall playability of a module project of this nature.  (Consider this a Scope Feature of the Project.)

New players and older players (in terms of their characters) can now enjoy playing in it from their respective starting points.

Third: I am more than happy to provide my services as a background expert (such as that is) as well as a sort of story coordinator.  I will also attempt to provide a few module areas that, essentially, will require populating with encounters, triggers, and more detailed conversations (though I will also provide story ideas for the areas I do create.)  Additionally, I know my forte is writing.  It's what I am best at doing.

To that end, I will be happy to provide additional writing material for any and all who request it.  I think, most of you know me well enough by now also, that I would be pleased to 'bounce ideas' and sanity check things that others write or wish amplification to that end.

Fourth *(and Last):  The Tarrasque cannot truly be "slain" in the colloquial sense.  It's an immortal creature, but it does have to be taken down to -30 HPs and then you have to cast either a Full Wish or a Miracle upon it, in which you have to espouse a desire for the creature to "die."  So I hope that answers the question of how you kill an immortal creature and then it comes back some time later.

(PS: I have offered to provide forums at the Citadel for this Project (including private ones) as has Hellfire, but the BSN boards can do pretty much all we require as well to get this going.  We will absolutely have to have a Public venue and a Private venue to allow for (Public) progress reports, updates and screenshots as well as to allow (Private) discussions of features, technical issues, scripting, story coordination, etc to be done without providing a mass of Spoilerific information prior to release.)

best regards,
dunniteowl

[The Fred]

Chaos Wielder wrote...
The only potential worry is that the Tarrasque might need a custom spell(or two) for some of its abilities. I can probably speak with Kaedrin personally on this subject and have them added to the master hak so we avoid freezing anything. I would like this project to avoid any pitfalls like that.

Looking at the Tarrasque's stats, it doesn't seem to have any abilities you'd want it to be able to use, beyond perhaps Rush, Swallow Whole (I'm not sure we could/should do this anyway) and Frightful Presence (which already exists). Besides, it should be possible to script anything we want it to do - for example, using colour tags, you can "fake" the info messages players get (e.g. "Mr. T used Super Rampage") if need be. I've done this before and, though it's kludgy, it works.

Scope Creep)

As DNO said, there are multiple levels to this thing. I think we need a chain of main plot "things" (whether locations to go, things to do etc) even if it's just that you have to visit X number of dungeons, then the Tarrasque rampages somewhere or some other world event happens, which opens up the next leg of the story. However, we're also going to want unrelated side areas a la SoZ or LoWPM, to give people places to explore and have fun in a non-Tarrasque-slaying way. This also means people can do a little thing without having to worry massively about making it tie in, which probably makes things easier.

Structure of the Mod Outline)

This is how I think people have been looking at things.

1-Player arrives in Xorhun(squire), does work and then separated. This is linear, perhaps skippable, for low level adventuring.
2-Freedom. Go to capitol of region. Take quests, poke around areas. Perhaps assemble an army.
3-Find the pieces of the item requisite for defeating the Tarrasque. A confronation with the Emerald Enclace/villain.
4-Battle with the Tarrasque.

I'm not sure how structured the start needs to be. For example, you could be a squire, but are we going to use the SoZ Party Creation system here? If so, maybe you're just a band of mercenaries/soldiers/guards, something akin to squires but something it would make more sense for there to be four of, especially if one's a cleric, one's a rogue, and one's a favoured soul/monk/sacred fist. In other words, having a looser backstory might be more in keeping with the "open world", "story lite" theme, especially given some people like to make up histories for the chars.

Since we're going to need to hash out the details for the plot at some point or other, here's my suggestion:
 - Player(s) get(s) some short time to do some basic quests, get their feet wet so to speak, etc.
 - The Tarrasque rampage happens, stuff all starts kicking off.
 - Players aren't experienced enough to go fight but a sage asks them to fetch a book or some other form of information (this allows them to be working against the T, but without actually fighting it at a time when they'd surely die).
 - The heroes who did go to fight the T all die and fail, so the players have to step up.
 - Player(s) need(s) to fetch X item(s)/item parts/etc. being variously hindered by the Enclave and whatever minor other organisations people want to add.
 - Some sort of showdown with the crazy druids at some point, I expect.
 - Showdown with the big T.

Of course the details are really down to whoever makes each part, but I like the idea of some sort of quest which allows the PC(s) to get involved without getting killed (even if I do say so myself).

P.S. Sorry for writing so much again. ;-)

[The Fred]

If we do go with the "skipping the intro" bit, we needn't skip the main plot. We could have a very short linear "pre-plot" involving you getting some quests from some lord or whatever, which allows you to range a short way away and explore a couple of low level dungeons. After you've done the quest chain, and/or explored X places, etc. you hear news that the T has awoken, and the story proper starts. This would give people a chance to play their characters up from 1st level and get them kitted out. Possibly you could even have it so that they start with one and get to add more throughout the initial stage (I don't know how the SoZ Party Creation system works, though).

If you chose to skip, you go straight to the bit where you hear about the T. Perhaps you can still do the low-level dungeons, but maybe you don't get quest XP from them (e.g. a L1 player will get an NPC saying "go forth to yonder dungeon and fetch me the Spelunker of Discombobulation" whereas a player who skips this section gets the dungeon to explore, but not the quest). You don't get the early quests either, you just start off with another few thousand XP and some gold or whatever.

Now, to my mind, this idea sounds good, but like a fair bit of work, since you'd essentially be building a miniature prequel adventure in its own right (like the NWN1 Prologue, but probably bigger). You'd also need more testing to ensure that you're giving players who skip the right about of stuff. There're basically just a whole bunch of extra things to consider. However, if people are happy to do it, it could be pretty cool.

Modifié par The Fred, 23 février 2011 - 09:28 .

[Hellfire_RWS]

I wasn't ging to post this but heck, here goes.

my suggestion is a little bit of choice.

As the module progresses and the group gets closer to the goal of facing T., the opposition from the Emerald Enclave increases.  When the party is finally ready to go face him the Enclave emerges with a choice. Now that the players are strong enough to face and maybe even beat the T, emissaries from the enclave make a final bid for the T.s Life

The Enclave has an item in their possesion that will Attract / Repel the T and thereby direct it, allowing you to save populated areas by directing the T. into wilderness areas and letting it finish its feeding cycle, and avoid destroying the creature.  Here is the small twist.  If the players choose to save the T,  Then the origianl group  shows up to finish the job. It turns out they weren't  completely wiped out, and have been healing and recovering. They are now back to finish the job they started. The new enemy, The origianl adventures that were sent to stop the T.

Now I am no scripter, but a small branch at the very end shouldn't be to much of a headache, and will provide a choice for the player.


Im done babbling now. 

[The Fred]

That sound pretty good to me. People always like a choice, and this would make a bit of a change from the clear-cut evil vs good options. Of course, this would mean that the players would never get to battle the T. Perhaps, the other group of heroes destroys or damages the item/prevents the spell/whatever, inadvertantly allowing the T to keep on rampaging. So, the player has to defeat it after all, they just didn't have to fight the Enclave. A bit less option than the other idea, though.

[MokahTGS]

 For the record I have created the town of Centaur Bridge and could join the effort with an adventure + player watering hole if people would want.  The original area does use CC (RWS Bridges, Cliffs, and BCK) so I would suggest using those in the master hak.  Do I really need to suggest that?

Here are some screenies of the area:







Maybe some more shots to come soon...if I can dig them up.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

E.C.Patterson wrote...

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...
I appreciate the work he has done, but by modifying those scripts as he has I believe he has tied the hands of other modders.  I'll gladly look through his scripts again, but I don't think I am mistaken.

Regards

To add myown experience :

Trinity is Kaedrin compatible (but does not *include* it) AND has its own custom module scripts. Integration is pretty much a matter of adding Kaedrin's lines to your own versions and ensuring there are no conflicting 2das. Trinity was made Kaedrin compatible AFTER mod completion (quickly, with the help of Kaedrin granted) and there hasn't been any comment pointing to this causing any issues with the mod and its systems.

I'm glad to hear that there is a better option. Using non-standard module scripts isn't intuitive for me (I'm a  standard kind of guy), but if it works and results in something compatible both with and without Kaedrin's stuff then that is great.  This approach won't work with the OC and MotB Makeovers since they have to use the standard module script names, but I'm glad to hear it has worked for custom campaigns.  I haven't found the page on his site yet that explains this (my Google fu must be low today), but I can look at the other mods posted and test it with my King's Festival campaign (which ironically had non-standard module scripts until a few days ago when I renamed them to the standard names to achieve partial compatibility with Kaedrin's stuff). I am cautiously optimistic.

Regards

[nicethugbert]

Babble on Hellfire, I likes it!

I don't think it is important that the players fight the T.  It is enough to use it as bate.  But, I would not mind at all if there were an option to battle the T, or to go so far as to ****** of all the factions and have to battle them all at the same time as battling the T.  The T doesn't have to know or care about any of this.  The chaos may be fun.

An ending cinematic that recounts all this via highlights of each faction and milestone would be fun.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 24 février 2011 - 01:03 .

[Shaughn78]

Hellfire that is a really good idea. It could be expanded using the overland map, not only the original of heroes (who may make a good end battle) but all the factions that want the T dead keep attacking you. On the overland map you would be herding the T to a safe are (where the final battle with the original heroes would happen) while the variuos groups throughout the game you originally worked with against the T attack you. During the battles the T wonder back towards civilization, better food.

[MokahTGS]

 Ok, so I'm calling Centaur Bridge offically as strumpet territory.  This will be a small town area with standard small town amenities and 2 dungeons.  My prefex for all scripts and module specific stuff will be cenb_

I'll update with screenies as I go...are we going to have a development page for this monster of a mod?  In case anyone hadn't noticed...these forums suck.

BTW...Centaur Bridge Gallery

Modifié par MokahTGS, 24 février 2011 - 05:26 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

Emerald Enclave? Are you ripping that organization off from Islander?

[nicethugbert]

What if you ****** off a divine caster? Does he resurrect or reincarnate your fallen foes? Do they all ambush you while you fight the tarrasque? What if you ****** off a necromancer?

[dunniteowl]

No Eguintir, the Emerald Enclave is a Druidic "cult" of pretty iron minded bent. They are less True Neutral and more close to Lawful Neutral. They are fairly hard headed and draconian in their interpretation of "Protecting Nature." You don't want to cross this group -- ever.



And Mr. President, please, don't ****** off the "help." They might turn you into a Former Mr. President. You could wind up as a meat puppet for someone else's less savory plans for the Reach. Trust me, you don't want that. Support Your Local Caster.



dno

[Eguintir Eligard]

The emerald enclave is a group of aristocratic wizards in Islander. Looks like we have some copyright issues.

[WyrinDnjargo]

Chaos Wielder wrote...

 As far as spells for the Tarrasque goes, it will have a devour animation and a tail sweep animation which are apart from its normal attack routine. In my mind, these would be best served as custom spells rather than hooking them through his heartbeat, or whatever.

We are going to use the SOZ party system for certain. That's why I particularly like the idea of you being part of an entourage for a better hero or a Lord. This would give you an "in", and also allow some sort of setting which helps establish you in the region.

Glad to hear it about the Tarrasque animations. One fo the key threats from big opponents that is skipped over in the NWN games is the ability to swallow PCs. The Giant Toads in ToEE pulled this off really nicely, as it's one of the key weapons in a big monster's arsenal - especially the Tarrasque. Could some sort of swallowing systm be worked out - if PC is hit (may have to roll 1 in X to determine if it was hit with bite attack) then strength check to grapple and swallow? You could put a cower animation on the PC and keep it in place, but not immediately sure how you'd handle them cutting their way out...



Loving the Centaur Bridge stuff Mokah!

[manageri]

WyrinDnjargo wrote...

Glad to hear it about the Tarrasque animations. One fo the key threats from big opponents that is skipped over in the NWN games is the ability to swallow PCs. The Giant Toads in ToEE pulled this off really nicely, as it's one of the key weapons in a big monster's arsenal - especially the Tarrasque. Could some sort of swallowing systm be worked out - if PC is hit (may have to roll 1 in X to determine if it was hit with bite attack) then strength check to grapple and swallow? You could put a cower animation on the PC and keep it in place, but not immediately sure how you'd handle them cutting their way out...

Swallowing totally needs to be in. Since it's a one time boss fight and not some standard monster you could do it by teleporting the swallowed PC to another part of the map that represent's the stomach where they take damage and have to bash an object until they're freed.

[Hellfire_RWS]

Eguintir Eligard wrote...

The emerald enclave is a group of aristocratic wizards in Islander. Looks like we have some copyright issues.

Take it up with WotC, they are a Druid order from the Vilhon reach, sourcebook 9520

I still need to get around to playing your mod EE. I got to caught up on a PW.

[Hellfire_RWS]

MokahTGS wrote...

 Ok, so I'm calling Centaur Bridge offically as strumpet territory.  This will be a small town area with standard small town amenities and 2 dungeons.  My prefex for all scripts and module specific stuff will be cenb_

I'll update with screenies as I go...are we going to have a development page for this monster of a mod?  In case anyone hadn't noticed...these forums suck.

BTW...Centaur Bridge Gallery

The final hak isnt ready, is it going to be very hard for you to convert the over all that awsome work?

Modifié par Hellfire_RWS, 24 février 2011 - 12:34 .

[Shaughn78]

Swallow System: We could try something with supernatural paralysis and script hidden to remove the character. The cutting out could be done each round by a heart beat checking for swallowed characters and automatically runs their attempt to free themselves plus digestive damage. A enter script and the heartbeat could make sure swallowed characters don't appear during loads and whatnot until they are suppose to.

[Eguintir Eligard]

probably better to redownload islander now much great bugfixes

[WyrinDnjargo]

Shaughn78 wrote...

Swallow System: We could try something with supernatural paralysis and script hidden to remove the character. The cutting out could be done each round by a heart beat checking for swallowed characters and automatically runs their attempt to free themselves plus digestive damage. A enter script and the heartbeat could make sure swallowed characters don't appear during loads and whatnot until they are suppose to.

Yeah, I was thinking script hiden or changing appearance / applying custom vfx of a pulsating stomach. But porting to a hidden stomach region of the map may be simplest way to handle how a PC can do enough damage to break back out