16 réponses à ce sujet

[kamal_]

Yes, it's a mess, I'm copying and pasting. I will clean it up.

“Speed Building”
I am going to go over quickly building an adventure that follows a straightforward plot. There’s nothing fancy going on in this adventure, no custom spells, complicated scripting etc.

If you want to do make an adventure that requires very complicated things, I suggest completing something basic first so you can gain experience with the toolset, it can be a sidequest you had planned for the complicated adventure. Why the suggestion? First, you will be making lots of mistakes with your first adventure, and something basic will
allow you to work things out and learn to not make the mistakes in the first place. Second, you will get an idea of the time needed to make something grander and more complicated. You may discover you don’t want to spend that much time. Even what I will guide you through here will take you probably a few months to complete, the skeleton framework will come together pretty quickly, the building things out takes more time.If you want very complicated things like making your own custom classes or spells, and they critical to your adventure idea, you need to get those things running in a test area before you do anything else.

Here’s my example plot. I made it up in a few minutes.
Village suffering from raids from orcs. These orcs are led by a chief who is assisted by a drow. The drow was sent by a drow outpost to create a distraction for the village so the drow can investigate a remote temple ruin and recover an artifact. The drow wanted the village distracted because hunters from the village would have otherwise hunted near the
ruin, finding the drow. Drow sightings would have led the village to call more serious, higher level help. After defeating the drow at the temple, the player will return to the village to tell the mayor and collect a reward. Adventure ends.

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 11:23 .

[kamal_]

You should make an outline of your plot before you start with the toolset. This outline should include key locations, npcs, events, and items, ie those necessary to the main quest plot. It does not have to be super detailed. 

Village suffering from raids from orcs.
     Location: village, NPC’s: mayor    
     Location: forest on way to orc camp.  NPC’s: none 

These orcs are led by a chief who is assisted by a drow.
      Location: Orc Camp. NPC’s: Orc Chief, Drow “advisor”. Event: death of orc chief and drow advisor. Items: piece of evidence leading to drow outpost. 

The drow was sent by a drow outpost to create a distraction for the village.
     Location: Caves leading to Drow Outpost. NPC’s: none
     Location: Drow Outpost. NPC’s Drow leader. Event: death of drow leader. Items: note about the temple. 

The distraction was so the drow can investigate a remote temple ruin and recover an artifact.
     Location: hills leading to temple ruin. NPC’s: none    
     Location: Ruined Temple. NPC’s: all drow in area (they must be eliminated). Items: artifact drow were looking for. Event: death of all drow in area. 

After defeating the drow at the temple, the player will return to the village to tell the mayor and collect a reward. Adventure ends.

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:20 .

[kamal_]

So we’ve identified the basics of what we need.

Areas:
a village, a forest, an orc camp, a cave area, a drow outpost, a hill area, a ruined temple. We can simplify that further. The orc camp is going to be in the forest, and the drow outpost in a cave setting.

So we really need:
a village, 2 forests, two caves, a hill and a ruined temple.

NPC’s: the mayor, orc chief, drow advisor, drow outpost leader

items:
evidence connecting drow advisor to outpost, evidence leading to the temple, artifact. Notice I havn’t specified anything at this point, that’s because it doesn’t matter what these specifically are, only that they exist. I routinely name such items “placeholder x”. 

Make generic areas or import prefabs to fit your set of locations from the Vault and connect them. The generic areas can be completely empty placeholders, it doesn’t matter. Don’t add any optional areas right now, just things that are plot required. We want to get the main plot of the adventure up and running as quickly as we can. Name/rename the areas in the toolset window area list so you know what they are when you look at them in the area list of the toolset. I prefer descriptive names indicating what’s in the area. I use names like this: 

Example_village_exterior
Example_forest_to_orcs
Example_orc_camp
Example_caves_to_drow
Example_drow_outpost
Example_hills_to_temple
Example_temple

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:22 .

[kamal_]

Connect all the areas, do each transition in pairs (entry and exit) at once so you don’t forget and make a one way
transition. I personally use transitions to waypoints and keep a naming scheme based on the area names, this way I can click on one and know where it goes just by the name of the waypoint. So wp_drowcave_in and wp_drowcave_out. If I see wp_drowcave_in next to a door, I know the door should transition to wp_drowcave_out, I don’t have to open the other area to find out the name of the waypoint. 

Create your key items in the toolset. Place them ingame in the appropriate area if they are found ingame (as opposed to being given by an npc) Create your key npc’s in the toolset. They don’t have to be equipped unless they are going to be carrying a key item you identified. They don’t need anything else set up like abilities or anything. The only thing you’ll need to do at this step is take care of anything that happens on an npc death like a talk or a journal advancing. There are two ways you can do that. Either give them a custom OnDeath script, or use a trigger a player must cross before meeting the npc to set up the event.

I suggest giving the npc's descriptive tags, here’s some I might use:

Village_mayor
Village_smith
Village_innkeeper 

Place the key npc’s you’ve identified in your outline in their respective areas. Give them generic conversations  indicating the plot. I suggest naming the conversations with descriptive names like you did the areas.

Convo_Village_mayor
Convo_Village_smith
Convo_Village_innkeeper

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:23 .

[kamal_]

Why do I use descriptive names?

It makes things easier to work with for me when I am writing scripts or assigning scripts to conversation nodes. It also provides organization to them, I can tell at a glance that all conversations named Convo_Village_ belong to people in the village, so if later on I need to change something in a conversation it’s much easier for me to find in the toolset’s list of conversations. I don’t have to remember the innkeeper’s name (one common way I see of naming conversations is by the npc name or tag), just that I need to change something in the innkeeper’s conversation. 

Don’t bother with fancy conversations. At this point you only care about putting in the basics of the plot. Make sure you include any spots where the key npc gives an item needed for the plot, and sets any journals. Any npc’s that need to be killed by the player, set to 1 hit point. I like to do my conversations in reverse order, with the later npc lines
appearing at the top. This is because I use journal conditions to control which lines appear and prefer the “fallthrough” ordering. My conversation tree for an npc in this first pass will look like this: 

Mayor: “Quest Complete! Thank you!”  (happens when journal indicates quest is complete)
            “Do you have any news to report?”
                         Pc: “Yes”  (advances journal to completed state)
                                    Mayor: “Thank you! Take your reward.”
                                             Pc: “Thanks.”
                         Pc: “No”
            “Intro and quest assignment” (assigns journal)

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:25 .

[kamal_]

You’re now ready for some basic testing.

I still haven’t built any areas, or placed any enemies other than plot critical ones (no mobs). Conversations are basic skeletons. Start your module and work your way through the plotline you’ve established. Write down or take a screenshot of any bugs that occur. At this point we just want to make sure all the area transitions work, and the plot critical events occur. This is why we didn’t place any enemy mobs, and set the plot required enemies to 1hp, it speeds testing. Go fix any bugs you find until you are able to complete the main plot (preferably twice to make sure the first time wasn’t a fluke).

Congratulations!
Your adventure is complete. All the plot required areas, items, npc’s and events are ingame and work, even if many/most are just placeholders. It’s incredibly basic and not exactly ready for release, in fact most of the areas are empty and the village consists of one single person, the mayor. Now to flesh things out.

note: Fellow builder will say it's even faster to do all testing in a single area to minimize running around. This is true, but I think there's some feeling of accomplishment benefits for new builders doing it this way, that will encourage them to continue.

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:29 .

[kamal_]

Building out our adventure skeleton:

You’ve finished the framework of the adventure. All the plot required areas, items, npc’s and events are ingame, and you know they work. Where you go now is more about what you’d like to work on next. If you have some sidequests you were interested in implementing I’d recommend setting them up first following the same process. Remember, you can always add in more stuff later. 

Things you can do:
build up your empty areas, place mobs and equip plot enemies, write proper lines for your npcs, place traps and loot. You can add shops and an inn to your village, maybe some other caves connect off the caves leading to the drow, add an abandoned graveyard in the hills leading to the temple. Keep to the naming scheme for areas you set up and you will see the logical groups, making things easier to work with. It should be fairly obvious that the following area names are in two main groups: 

Example_villagename_exterior
Example_villagename_smith
Example_villagename_inn
Example_villagename_barn
Example_caves_center
Example_caves_north
Example_caves_south
Example_caves_drowoutpost

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:31 .

[kamal_]

Quickly building an area:

Things will go a lot faster if you use prefabs. You can download entire prebuilt areas from the Vault, or use prefab groups of placeables from the Vault to quickly build out your own areas. The toolset even includes some by default in the prefabs tab. Placeable prefabs are things like prebuilt tables for an inn, prebuilt evil altars for your dungeons, even
entire prebuilt rooms and caves of various sizes etc. There are several large groups of these on the Vault. You can make your own placeable groups as well, select a group of items, right click and select create group, give the group a name. Groups rotate as one, so they are easier to work with.

You can also export the group for use elsewhere, right click on the group and select export group, export it to your my
docs/nwn2/override folder. For some reason the toolset wants to export it to program files/nwn2/toolset/ whatever, but if you do that it’s not immediately available, use the my docs/nwn2/override folder and it will show up and be available without restarting the toolset. Prefab groups let you add large amounts of detail with a few clicks. I keep several hundred prefab groups in my override folder, both ones I’ve downloaded and ones I’ve made myself. You can right click on a group and break it up into its individual pieces as well, which is good for when you only want part of a group.

Placeable groups are your friend, and a key tool is quickly building. I’d like to take a second to encourage the
established builders reading this to release their areas and groups as prefabs.

Get placeable prefabs here: nwvault.ign.com/View.php

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:33 .

[kamal_]

ok, this is the last post.

Expanding a bit:

Lookat my sample conversation for the mayor. That’s a very common framework for npc questgivers, since many questgivers will have only a single quest. You can make a chain of quests from the same giver by changing the “Thank you! Take your reward.” line to also start the next quest. In that case your conversation will look something like this, repeating as long as you’d like to make the chain of quests. 

Mayor: “All my quests are complete! Thank you!”  (happens when journal indicates last quest in chain is complete)
              “Do you have any news to report on quest 2?” (quest 2 is incomplete)
                         Pc: “Yes”  (advances journal for quest 2 to completed state)
                                    Mayor: “Thank you! Take your reward.” 
                                        Pc: “Thanks.” 
                        Pc: “No” (does not advance quest, quest 2 remains incomplete) 
             “Do you have any news to report on quest 1?” (quest 1 is incomplete)
                         Pc: “Yes”  (advances journal for quest 1 to completed state)
                                Mayor: “Thank you! Take your reward. I have another quest, quest 2.” (assigns quest 2)                                         Pc: “Thanks.”
                         Pc: “No” (does not advance quest, quest 1 remains incomplete)
              “Intro and quest 1 assignment” (assigns journal for quest 1)

Modifié par kamal_, 21 octobre 2011 - 10:35 .

[kamal_]

If you'd like to see many common things in action, take a look at Kaldor Silverwand's Silverwand Sample Campaign. It was made for this purpose.
Silverwand Sample Campaign

[The Fred]

Sweet!

[kamal_]

Now if you really want to be as quick as possible, work the plot and any scripts or systems out via a testing area first. Don't bother with separate areas, put everyone in one area and next to each other, except those npc's which will wind up going hostile, you'd want to set them off aways from anyone else. Here is an image of the plot testing area I have set up for my Crimmor campaign. The chest right next to the start contains all items I would need to get to advance the plot. A testing area for the orc/drow example campaign I wrote about would have only the key npcs/items/scripts I identified.

/no spoilers in the shot, those are not the actual npc's or placeables from the campaign, I just pick at random so I don't have all identical creatures inhabiting my test area.

600x300http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-Vnyde2wBE/TqMH_XxbjoI/AAAAAAAABIM/mGGKbLCESns/s1600/testing.jpg[/img]

[Tchos]

Great tips! I wish I had thought of putting all the quest-related NPCs and items into a testing area. Would have saved me a lot of time in testing playthroughs!

[LeeMer47]

kamal_ wrote...

Now if you really want to be as quick as possible, work the plot and any scripts or systems out via a testing area first. Don't bother with separate areas, put everyone in one area and next to each other, except those npc's which will wind up going hostile, you'd want to set them off aways from anyone else. Here is an image of the plot testing area I have set up for my Crimmor campaign. The chest right next to the start contains all items I would need to get to advance the plot. A testing area for the orc/drow example campaign I wrote about would have only the key npcs/items/scripts I identified.

/no spoilers in the shot, those are not the actual npc's or placeables from the campaign, I just pick at random so I don't have all identical creatures inhabiting my test area.

I skimmed through your posts and didn't notice the word blueprints. Anything put into a testing area should have a blueprint. Otherwise it will have to be remade in the area it is going to be used in. So blueprint everything of importance!

[M. Rieder]

I prefer grass12 for my testing areas.... just sayin'....

[Shaun the Crazy One]

LeeMer47 wrote...
I skimmed through your posts and didn't notice the word blueprints. Anything put into a testing area should have a blueprint. Otherwise it will have to be remade in the area it is going to be used in. So blueprint everything of importance!

Actualy for a test area I think the best way is to not create blueprints until after.  Toy around with the placables in your test area and do a play test to make sure you have them like you want them.  Then right click each object and make it into blueprint.

btw, there where some very useful tips here.  Thank you for posting Kamal.