1056 réponses à ce sujet

[kevL]

yep. wiki says that any of the Restoration line removes "all magical, extraordinary, and supernatural effects that apply a penalty to ability scores" etc.

[Tchos]

Okay, sounds good.  Thanks, both of you.

[Tchos]

I set up the bard companion.  He's a gnome, but not like Grobnar.  I went back to the 2nd edition of D&D, which had more interesting and distinct gnomes, based more on gnome folklore, with the pointy red hats and curly-toed shoes, living in hollowed trees and in cavern kingdoms and such.  No red pointy hats in this game, though, alas, at least not that I've found.  But that's fine for this character, anyway.  On my wish list for the future would be more gnome faces, fanciful beards, and several styles of the pointy hats.  The Yeomen of the Greenwood clothing pack actually features a tunic that looks quite a bit like some of the outfits of the gnomes in the Complete Book of Gnomes and Halflings, but the rest seems to want making.

 

Next I set up the fighter, who's a dwarf.  Dwarves have kept their identity pretty well through the editions, I think, unlike the gnomes and halflings.  Halflings used to be much more hobbit-like in the oldest material, before they started trying to pretend they weren't hobbits and tried to make them into anything else.

 

I finished putting all of the text triggers in the cavern, both DM text and companion barks.  As I play some of the older RPGs in my collection, such as Pool of Radiance, The Magic Candle, and Dark Heart of Uukrul, I see that they did a lot of descriptive text like this, and I like it very much.  It adds a great deal to the experience.  I'm also playing Avernum: Escape From the Pit, which is a 2012 game which also has that sort of text.

 

Next I placed the text triggers and map pins in all of the lighthouse areas, then the forest, then in the ship's belowdecks, and finally the undersea areas.  I left it until now to decide whether I'd revisit the pearl quest in the second underwater area, and finally decided against it, because of the sheer complexity and importance of the conversation associated with the one who would offer it if I were to include it.  I think it's for the best, even though it results in one purely search/exploration-driven area with nothing else to interact with besides the one goal.

 

Just the companion conversations and interjections to finish now.

[Dann-J]

The Hatsplosion wizard hat might be more gnome-like without the brim.

[Tchos]

Yes, it could probably do for one variation.  I'd also want at least one where the point angled toward the front instead of the back, and another where it was better starched and didn't flop so much. 

[PJ156]

 

 

Just the companion conversations and interjections to finish now.

 

Beware the scope faeries, they are not your friend. I seem to remember you were at this stage once before 

 

PJ

[Tchos]

Well, I think the situation before was that I had only one conversation to finish for the quests, and I did finish that.  That scope creep is a killer, though, I agree.

[andysks]

If one looks at my journal, the introduction starts as: "With the release of my work coming closer..." And that was some year ago. Talk about scope creeps. But in my opinion, since we are all here because we love what we do there is no rush to finish. I mean, yes, there is the desire to get our work out there, but on the same time there are other modules released every now and then. So, whenever is out, is out. Polishing is the most confusing and time wasting work in my experience, because one simply feels like there is no progress at all. Until a point when he feels that there is no more to be done .

[Tchos]

My earlier estimates of how much longer it would take are a bit embarrassing, but after I had decided to make this a really polished piece with a lot of custom content instead of a quickie release, I didn't even want to give a time estimate at all, though I did give something when I was asked enough times.

 

Tsongo, what you're talking about is a creative process, which in writing can be called "discovery writing" as contrasted with "outlining".  I'm more of an outliner, myself, and this whole thing was outlined at the beginning, though I added a lot of side content as discovery writing.

[Tchos]

This may not be the best time for a diary entry, considering the IGN Vault has recently started redirecting all links to a wiki for the Neverwinter MMO, but I have some module work to report.

 

I found one more small miscellaneous thing to do in the module, which was to add custom token journal updates to the fishing quest, which was one of the earlier quests I did, before I started using custom tokens to display quest completion lists showing which parts had been completed.  It was the only quest which didn't provide that information, updating the journal only when all of the objectives were complete.  In the time since I wrote it, I've written several multipurpose quest scripting systems, one of which is perfect for this kind of quest, but I opted to simply add the necessary lines to the existing structure I had in place for this quest, rather than switch it to a different system.

 

I continued on with the companion talks, and fixed up the fighter's convo structure to match the rest of them -- a structure that works for all of the hiring, firing, waiting, etc.  By the time I understood how to use the roster and about things like campaign roster members and pre-loading everything, I had already done half of the companions using the method given in Kaldor Silverwand's sample campaigns.  It works fine, but it would have been easier to manage as many companions as I have if I had done it a bit differently.  I have 7 companions to choose from, of different classes, and varying alignments, though they're all compatible with a basically "good" party, which is all I can really justify for this plot.

 

I've opted to use the same reputation system with the individual companions as I developed for use with individual NPCs and whole factions.  It's similar to the influence system in the official campaigns, but more nuanced and purposely hidden.  Unlike what seems to be the standard method of gaining influence with one's companions via telling them whatever they want to hear, I instead improve your reputation with your companions by how much control and status you allow them in your party.  I don't want to go into the specifics of what I mean by that, because I'd rather people do things for roleplay reasons on a case-by-case basis, rather than, for instance, always choosing a paragon/renegade response as in Mass Effect in order to get some kind of advantage.  (That's not to say that the actual scripting mechanics are complicated or arcane, I just don't want to say what exactly causes the changes.)

 

The result of having a higher reputation with your companions is minimal here -- it unlocks a little extra dialogue (both when speaking directly to them, and in conversations with other NPCs), and changes the way the companions respond to your questions.  But I can envision using these scripts to open up companion-specific quests and other uses.

 

I haven't entirely decided whether I should remove companion question nodes (for their backgrounds and other chit-chat) once you've asked them, or if I should allow the player to revisit them in case they need a reminder of a companion's thoughts on something.  Some have spoken of the dangers of using the "Show Once" setting for a node, but the alternative of setting a separate local variable for each topic may be too cumbersome, and the low importance of these lines may warrant any risks for which "Show Once" might otherwise be avoided.  If I wanted to be a little more elaborate, I could write a script to better automate the "exhausting" of a topic, allowing you to ask the same question a few times before it disappears.  At any rate, since a topic may have new information as your reputation improves, new nodes would appear to replace the lost ones anyway, so it wouldn't matter so much if I just showed them once, so I'm leaning toward "Show Once".

 

I also adjusted the settings so that, like in the Gold Box games, once a hostile area is considered "cleared", you can rest there without worrying about random encounters.

[PJ156]

I haven't entirely decided whether I should remove companion question nodes (for their backgrounds and other chit-chat) once you've asked them, or if I should allow the player to revisit them in case they need a reminder of a companion's thoughts on something.  

 

I went with "show once" and a node that says "lets talk about something we spoke of before". Behind that is all the convo nodes with a local int to get them to appear in the update area. I think that is what you are referring to later in the text? I find that works well so far.

 

PJ

[Claudius33]

Looks like the Vault is back again.

 

I use show once in a companion conversation whenever influence / alignment shifts may result from a particular dialog node or because it does not make sense to keep it forever. But only and only if I can't manage the node condition through the journal.

 

Edit : I'm no redirected (because I must have somewhere the direct IP due to last year downtime, don't remember the file), the Vault is still on, but not visible through standard DNS access.

 

Edit 2 : I still have the Vault  IP address in the HOSTS file, the content is still there.

[Claudius33]

You are automatically redirected unless you have the IP address in your HOSTS file. I put it last year and kept it. I absolutely don't know what's going on and what IGN intends to do.

 

The HOSTS file is stored on C:\Windows\System32\drivers\Etc

 

Adding the line :

69.10.25.55 nwvault.ign.com

at the end of the file (it's a text file) does the trick. You may need admin rights (I don't remember).

[Tchos]

Yes, shortly after my post, I got access again through the hosts trick, and I'm taking the opportunity to continue my archive of other sections.  I have all of the modules, but not all of the original models and hakpacks containing original models.

 

If I go with the "let's talk about something we spoke of before" method, are you saying that you make the older topics appear under that heading only when a local variable is set for each of those topics?  It would be nice to have them there, but that's the sort of things I was hoping to avoid in case of a large number of topics to wrangle.  Still, if a local variable is involved, then I wouldn't need to use "show once", and just set it to appear on one side if the variable is 0, and on the other side if the variable is 1.

 

I agree it doesn't make sense to keep questions like this in the conversation forever, and it annoyed me when I'd talk to companions in the OC, and for instance I could still ask Neeshka, "Who's Leldon?" after we had met, talked to, and killed Leldon.  I kept coming back to check if they had anything new to say.

 

As for the Vault, what especially irks me is that they chose to redirect it to a wiki for the Neverwinter MMO, and not even a wiki related to NWN1 or NWN2.  Even with a backup on Rolo's Vault, what about all of those pages of comments?  Sometimes there was very useful feedback in the comments, even walkthroughs for tricky parts, or ways to get past bugs that were never fixed.  And after I played a module, sometimes I liked to read the comments for it and see what others said about it, like I was virtually joining in the conversations.

[Jezla]

I tried adding the IP address to my hosts file, and it won't let me save it (says it can't find the path?)  I opened it with notepad.

[Tchos]

Probably a problem with admin permissions.  I used a Firefox plugin called HostAdmin.

[Jezla]

Got it now, thanks!

[Claudius33]

@Tchos : you may have a look on Sarmates!'s companions and main NPC convos, in the campaign folder. Some nodes are conditioned by progresses (journal) and influence, small-talks are usually flagged 'show once' in order to avoid to carry a shitload of variables. They can also be conditioned by the journal (when a dialog only makes sense after a precise event).

 

As for the Vault, last year it lasted a couple of days. Let's have hope. I can't understand why they did that again, and again without any warning.

[Tchos]

I do have some hope, especially since I can still access it.

 

I usually use the journal for conditions in my conversations, since there's no state in the main quests that isn't accounted for by a journal state.  Though I suppose you could say that in most cases for me, the journal is the quest.  I initially used the fallthrough method, but now I instead have conditions checking the journal for every quest state.

 

For most NPCs, I use the a simple variation on the gc_talkto script to determine whether they should use their initial greeting or not, though I rewrote the script to return TRUE if you have talked to the NPC, rather than the opposite as in the original script.'

 

I'll take a look at Sarmates!

[Claudius33]

For NPCs when relevant, I just use a variable attached to the NPC, 'Spoken'. The variable is set to 1 after the first talk. I use it when I can't use the journal.

 

I may use 'show once' on a PC node when for instance the NPC gives information one time. The 'show once' PC node may be conditioned by the journal or by intermediate variables (attached to a NPC, or a placeable ...). For investigation type quests, I often use intermediate variables rather than the journal.

 

Hopefully IGN will remove the redirection. Thankfully, Rolo, Kamal, Pain and others have done an outstanding job preserving the content.

[PJ156]

 

 

If I go with the "let's talk about something we spoke of before" method, are you saying that you make the older topics appear under that heading only when a local variable is set for each of those topics?  It would be nice to have them there, but that's the sort of things I was hoping to avoid in case of a large number of topics to wrangle.  Still, if a local variable is involved, then I wouldn't need to use "show once", and just set it to appear on one side if the variable is 0, and on the other side if the variable is 1.

 

 

 

 

That's what I did yes. I used the once per module test and I have had no issues to date but you could use the variable you set on each line. Crossing of variables is not an issue due to naming convention but i gues you could end up with issues over a number of modules (Local ints are carried across modules within a campaign right?)

 

PJ

[Tchos]

For NPCs when relevant, I just use a variable attached to the NPC, 'Spoken'. The variable is set to 1 after the first talk. I use it when I can't use the journal.

 

The ga_talkto script is simply a script that sets a local variable "TalkedTo" on the NPC, and the corresponding gc_talkto script (or my gc_talked_to variant) checks that variable.  It's just a little faster than setting the variable manually, as I've also done.

 

That's what I did yes. I used the once per module test and I have had no issues to date but you could use the variable you set on each line. Crossing of variables is not an issue due to naming convention but i gues you could end up with issues over a number of modules (Local ints are carried across modules within a campaign right?)

 

Local variables are only accessible across modules if they're stored on the PC, or on an item the PC is carrying.  I think they're also accessible if they're stored on roster member companions, but I'm not sure if they'd need to be spawned into the new module before you can access them or not. 

 

Otherwise, something stored on an NPC will only be accessible in the currently loaded modules.  They'll still be there when you return to the module you left, of course, but if you need to access variables across modules, you can store them on the PC, or use the journal (which does the same thing, storing variables on the PC), or use a global variable if necessary.

[PJ156]

Thanks, mine are stored on the PC so that should be okay.

 

I did think they could carry over but doubted myself as I wrote my post.

 

My local supermarket has Fursty Ferret on 4 bottles for £5.00 so this ish the larsht coheeeerent posht of the evenin 

 

PJ