676 réponses à ce sujet

[andysks]

Hey Frosty. Thanks. I don't know, do mac users experience differences in playing? In any case, the morexthe testers tge better because there are so many possible ways some quests might go that I need all the help I can get in finding breaks and bugs...

[Eguintir Eligard]

Why people buy macs and try to play PC games is beyond me, but anything that goes wrong with them is not the fault or in your control as a module maker, it would be porting issues specific to NWN2.

[andysks]

Well, maybe buying a mac is for other reasons. This doesn't stop one from being a gamer. Me, I don't need a computer for my work, so I use it to play games, write some stuff on Word, compose some music on my free time and surf the internet. So, all these can do both mac and PC, except games. At least not easy on mac. So I have always used a PC just because of that. But if it is known that macs have problem with NWN2, I would like them to play my work as well. That's why a test would be useful. Maybe an easy workaround could be found in any problems, as Tsongo said. But of course this is something the user will have to do on his own, because I cannot remove the haks from the whole release in favor of the mac users, and I think they understand that as well. I guess we'll see when that time comes .

[Tchos]

I've tried to get mine to work for Karen, and tried many things, but she always reported it not working, even with a short hak name and with a no-hak version.  It could be that no resource can have a name longer than 32 characters, including scripts and blueprints, but I had too many of those to find and check within the game resources and test to make sure I didn't break anything to do that as a mere possibility.

[andysks]

andysks.. You'd have to make the hak free version for people with a mac because they haven't got a toolset so can't alter the module properties/requirements.

Tchos.. It could indeed be that anything with an extra long name gets rejected, good idea.

That eluded me. Thanks.

[ColorsFade]

I've tried to get mine to work for Karen, and tried many things, but she always reported it not working, even with a short hak name and with a no-hak version.  It could be that no resource can have a name longer than 32 characters, including scripts and blueprints, but I had too many of those to find and check within the game resources and test to make sure I didn't break anything to do that as a mere possibility.

 

If you look at the log files output by the game when it runs (here: C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Temp\NWN2\LOGS) you'll see various errors regarding filenames/resource names being too long, and being truncated because of it. 

 

It's possible one could use this log file as a reference for knowing which resources to shorten, and that might make the Mac issues go away. 

 

Probably worth a try just to know. 

[Tchos]

I tried it with a freshly scrubbed temp folder to ensure that only the current session was logged, and loaded my module.  I visited a few areas and started a few conversations and alt-tabbed out with the game still running to check, but the logs in that location said nothing about any truncations.  There were two log files created at the time of my starting the game, and the one with the word "error" in the filename was blank.  I exited the game and looked again, and there was no change.  Perhaps if Karen (or another Mac user) looks in her logs they might reveal some errors, but those would be located in some other place on the Mac.  I think Karen would have difficulty finding them, from what she's said before, but Kaldor may know.

[andysks]

Journal Update

 

The asylum area/quest seems like it's going really well. The whole setting has a feeling of a horror game. From the, how you find the quest, until what you see in there. I think some of my worst thoughts of what can happen to a person are shown in this quest. The first area is completely black, but uses sls placeables so that the player can light it on his own. But whenever a light turns on, there's something nearby that was hidden in the dark. A lot of blood, torture, experiments, abandonment, and generally depraved stuff going on in there .

 

In other areas, the prison is one I wanted to complete before I get this out to the beta testers, but I think I'm going to leave it be for now. The quest is generally thought for it, but the fact that you meet a companion in there puts a hold on it. This is because I chose to leave everything that deals with companions until the end. There are enough to get the beta testing through for now. Once I reach the end, then I will look again to all of them. Characters, conversations, how they appear and interact, as well as their quests.

This is because, say I have a cleric and a paladin created, and I'm building a conversation where I want my good companions to interact. OK, these two do, but when I go further and create a good aligned fighter for example, I don't want to be confused and go back to these conversations and add nodes because of that. I want to have them all before I proceed to such things. If I don't, this may result to the first 5 companions interacting only with each other and the next 5 not so much and so on.

 

For building companions in general, also key NPCs with depth, I found a website that will prove quite helpful. As a person whose mother tongue is not English, even if I can express myself quite good (I think), I still don't know many words or how a particular personality is called so that I can refer to it. This is the one:

 

http://rpg.ashami.com/

 

Also, a request. I would place my later stages of the campaign in outlands, and in the city of hopeless in particular. I never downloaded because these stages are still far away, and now the vault is gone. Anyone has the erf or another link to it? Because I doubt I can create a better area than that, that will give this miserable feeling of the city. At least as was shown in the pictures .

[Eguintir Eligard]

That link has some pretty creepy stuff in it. Just model personalities off of celebrities or people you know. Or combined a few people you know. Much more organic then some messed up article about what dice roll gives you x amount of libido.

[Tchos]

Yes, I have the area prefab G_Hopeless, with screenshots and info page.

[Tchos]

Try here.

[andysks]

That link has some pretty creepy stuff in it. Just model personalities off of celebrities or people you know. Or combined a few people you know. Much more organic then some messed up article about what dice roll gives you x amount of libido.

I will not use the roll technique. I'll just browse through to get what I want . More like, ahem, multirolling to get my stats up .

[andysks]

Thank you so much Tchos. I love that prefab!

[andysks]

Journal Update

 

I've been working on the campaign every day, and I remembered a conversation we had some pages ago on this thread, about when work on such projects really end. Well, even though it's pretty far away from completion, I found myself completely satisfied at how the prologue/Chapter 1/Chapter 2 are.

 

There are "minor" things that need to be done of course, but from my point of view, and after adding content and polishing these parts for the past year, there's nothing more to be done, or more correctly, nothing more to be thought. There are some incomplete areas, where everything is thought through and it just needs to be built. That's all.

 

The complete list of what needs to be done in order for the campaign to be given to the testers is:

Finish one conversation = complete a quest.

Finish a script, (with ColorsFade's help that is), that will make it impossible to travel to a certain spot if a companion is not in the party.

Finish the asylum area. Only top level is left.

Add some more ambiance to the docks area. Kamal's scripts will do that.

Finish a side quest. All thought, conversation left.

Finish a conversation.

Work on some loot.

Rework the intro screenshot scene.

Rework the intro video.

 

The last two are not necessary for beta testing, but once they are done the first two chapters with the prologue will be fully complete. As it is now, they are just placeholders.

 

It might look a lot, but that list used to be triple the size just a week ago. Maybe even more.

 

Further than that, there are some things I want to add, but not for now. These extras, will be done only at the end, and only if I feel like it at the moment. They are not needed 100%, but might add something to the whole atmosphere. Will see .

[andysks]

Journal Update

 

Long time no update, but some serious work has been done. I was just messing around with AIs and as KevL said, it is a trap. Once you start there's no going back. But I kept myself together and I think I have enough for now. ColorsFade helped me a lot, yet again. It was a hard thing for me, considering that I am not the best scripter around, but I just couldn't stand an 8 level wizard going melee after casting summon monster. Now they cast fireballs, buffs and every other thing I want them to cast.

 

One more thing I did, because I thought it will be extremely useful, especially as the campaign reaches higher levels, is that I set up an NPC called DM, who can be spawned from the console right next to me and give me help in order to test my work. He can give me items, companions, gold etc.

 

Other than that, I've finished the area I wanted, and now all that's left for beta testing the 3 first chapters (including the prologue), is 2 conversations and an encounter, maybe two. There are some things that need work, like polishing her and there but this can happen at any time, and it's not important for beta testing.

 

The only thing that I don't know if I will include in beta is companion interaction. However it goes. If I feel like it, then yes.

This needs a script that I wanted to write since a while now. I want the OnClientEnter of the hangout to check for variables based on quests completed, options we took and how we treated the companions, and then when we enter jump to a spot where the companion will initiate in conversation. This is heavily inspired by how the camp in DragonAge worked. That every time you entered, you could be jumped next to the companion who had something to say and he would be like "hey, about this man we killed, are you certain it was the right thing to do?" etc. I think that requires timers and globals to get set in the other quests. Then as we enter we check if the desired time passed, or if the global variable is set and we do it. I guess this will take a while to set up, and I don't know if I will do it for this beta, because first of all I need to figure out how .

 

Andy.

[Tchos]

It wouldn't require globals; you can just check the journal, assuming you have a stage in the journal where the party made the questionable kill.  If you need a timer, you can use my ga_ script to mark the time, and then check the time in the On Client Enter script where you have them start speaking.

[andysks]

The ga_set_timer I use already 3 or 4 situations, and I was planning to use it on this one as well. My guess, before I start writing this script is that it will require a bit of everything. Some journal entry checks, for when they are available, some timer checks, influence... if I ever include such a thing and maybe globals as well.

[Eguintir Eligard]

Test time?

[andysks]

Hi EE. You mean how much play time will be in the content I want tested at the moment?

[Eguintir Eligard]

Time to begin

[andysks]

Somewhere around the beginning of September or end of August. I have to test it first on my own, and I am certain some bugs will occur which I'll fix and then give it to you guys for further testing.

[Eguintir Eligard]

A true scientist always tests his experiments on himself first.

[andysks]

Let's hope they won't explode on my face .