676 réponses à ce sujet

[Tchos]

Select the placeable, and in its properties, change "Default Action Preference" to "Examine".

Also, in the Planescape cosmology, all D&D campaign settings exist as alternate material planes.  NWN2 acknowledges this with the character Startear in the OC, and Phineas the Sensate in SoZ.

Modifié par Tchos, 30 novembre 2013 - 09:55 .

[andysks]

Journal Entry

• Side Quests

Today I had a talk with my girlfriend, about side quests. She helps me sometimes with ideas, when I black out.
The thing is, I have numerous cities in this campaign.

1: The starting village. Is quite small, a couple of side quests did it.
2: The Capital: Quite a huge area. Main district, docks, outskirts, royal gardens, sewers.
3: Elven city: Smaller than the Capital, but still big to have a bounch of side quests.
4: Another human dock city, smaller than the capital, but second biggest in the area.
5: A village, merchant city in between them. I guess the situation will be like the starting village there.
6: Hopeless in the Outlands.

So, these need to be alive. Side quests. The main plot is quite serious let's say. But I prefer the side quests to have some humor in them, some conflict etc. It's not too easy to fill so many cities with quests, so the talk today was really productive.

• gtr_speak_node

Need to do something about this speak trigger. So inconsistent... it's unbelievable. Simple as that.

• Death System

The... talk with my girlfriend included another topic as well. Death System. I always wanted to alter the OC one, but wasn't certain on how exactly. Today some ideas came up, but I don't really know if it's possible to do this, or how. I hope some of you more experienced scripters will give me some hints regarding the possibility of this happening, if even, and how.

We thought that, everytime the PC or a companion dies, he loses some part of her life essence. This being a skill point, some xp, an ability point etc. I would like it with probability, sine it's not fun to lose STR points over and over again. After let's say, 15 deaths, it s permanent, and reload or resurrection is required.

Around the world, exist shrines. This means I have to go back and place them, but it's OK. These shrines call the entity that deals with this issue. He can give you the atributes back, in return for gold. Then the 15 deaths refresh, and life essence is given back.

The loses and payments, should scale with the level. Might lose 50 xp on level one, but -2 STR on level 25. I don't know yet how much. Needs some studying to be balanced.

This is a preliminary idea. Not all aspects are studied. As I said, I also don't know how possible this is.
Some feedback would be much appreciated .

[Tchos]

Well, I can think of two modules I've played that included death alternatives. In Dark Waters, if you die, a Grim Reaper appears and has a chat with you, and you come back to life. In Clyordes' Crystalmist Campaign, when you die, you respawn at a special shrine back in town. You could check to see how they did those. Particularly with the Grim Reaper conversation, those penalties you mention could be applied in a conversation like that.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

Make sure to focus on what's fun, otherwise the feature creep can kill your mod. If you want to do an elaborate death system, try to first plot out an interesting quest/side quest that makes good use of the system you have in mind. Then as you implement the quest, you can figure out which parts are fun or interesting, and which parts you don't need to bother with.

For example, why just have the death system be a bunch of fines and penalties for dying? Maybe some of those essences come with strings attached, and it might be worth dying to get rid of them. Maybe dying is the only way to meet certain spirits, or dying in certain areas/conditions can lead to interesting outcomes. Does anyone else die in the game world? Can you bargain over their lives?

Ultimately, you just have to make dying more interesting than hitting the reload save button.

[Morbane]

Lugaid of the Red Stripes wrote...

Make sure to focus on what's fun, otherwise the feature creep can kill your mod. If you want to do an elaborate death system, try to first plot out an interesting quest/side quest that makes good use of the system you have in mind. Then as you implement the quest, you can figure out which parts are fun or interesting, and which parts you don't need to bother with.

For example, why just have the death system be a bunch of fines and penalties for dying? Maybe some of those essences come with strings attached, and it might be worth dying to get rid of them. Maybe dying is the only way to meet certain spirits, or dying in certain areas/conditions can lead to interesting outcomes. Does anyone else die in the game world? Can you bargain over their lives?

Ultimately, you just have to make dying more interesting than hitting the reload save button.

Great ideas Lugaid!

Might borrow one of those 

[andysks]

Lugaid, it's all related to the main plot. I just don't want to spoil too much here . But in short words, the PC, the events of the main quest, and some events that happened some centuries ago, plus a couple of functions of the world like the Assassin Organization and the Slavers, and some religious groups are all connected somehow. And this all, has to do with death, immortality, after-death, godhood etc.

In the beginning I thought of another thing. When death occurs, the PC gets transfered to another plane an has to work his way out through a riddle, talk with some ancient being etc. However, this raised issues, since I cannot possibly count how many times one might die, and I would have to create some hundred lines or riddles.

The way I see it now is like that. The things I said before, paying, losing stats...
But, every 10th death or something, the visions will kick in.

The worth dying part... I don't know. I want to balance things out. I want the player to not die willingly, just to meet certain spirits. I just want them to feel like dieing shouldn't happen much. But if it does, it will also be rewarding after some deaths by meeting some spirits, or learning something extra on the main plot.
Of course, as I said, nothing is there just to be there. It's all related.

[ColorsFade]

In an old MUD I used to play, called Dragon Realms, you needed to earn "favors" from the gods in order to prevent permanent death. If you died, and had a favor available to you, then you could resurrect at a nearby temple (your gear would be buried in a grave that you would have to go find). There was often stat loss, etc.

The novel concept to me was the favor part. If you were running low on favors, or out of favors, you wanted to stop adventuring for a while and spend some time in your god's temple, doing things like cleaning, praying, etc., to ear back some favors. The tasks you needed to perform were always simple.

If I were doing a cleric-centered mod, like The Maimed God Saga, I would probably have implemented a favor system for death, just because it was so neat and novel to me.

However, as for the rest of it: the stat losses, etc... I'm personally not a big fan of that stuff anymore. Anything that makes death tedious and un-fun needs to be strongly considered and debated, and there really needs to be a purpose to it.

I want the player to not die willingly, just to meet certain spirits. I just want them to feel like dieing shouldn't happen much. But if it does, it will also be rewarding after some deaths by meeting some spirits, or learning something extra on the main plot.

If dying causes the player to see important plot NPC's and learn important plot elements, then dying becomes something the player needs and wants to do.

I'd think about handling that differently, by giving the player a different mechanism for passing into death other than dying by combat. Think about how MoTB handled the Shadow Realm. It was a voluntary choice for the player to cross over into that realm.

If it were me, I'd provided only a few, specific instances where the player can choose death via a conversation cut-scene. So they get to cross over into a different realm, essentially. It's not really death, like dying during combat and requiring a reload. If handled in this way you wouldn't have to mess with the default death system, but it would then be a very integral part of your game. And important part - and something every player could (and should) do to advance the story and plot without having to sacrifice their character.

[andysks]

There are only two reason really why I want to change the OC way. One is, that the OC is not really challenging. I want the PC to think of himself as a mortal, and not as some party that can take everything, because even if someone dies he'll come back in the end of combat.

The other one is because of the stuff I mentioned before, regarding the theme of the main plot.

You are right about the important information. I have at this moment some visions that come to the PC like that, and yes, death shouldn't have important info.

The penalties, will come back to the PC if he summons the guy at the shrines.

The favors you mentioned, could be implemented here as well. I guess something like the SoZ death system, but the token actually has a lot of meaning and lore behind it. Sorry, haven't played SoZ, I don't know if the token is handled really good as per the reason why it's working like that.
In any case, maybe you could gain token by doing favors for the temples, or buying them... it's also a possibility.

Modifié par andysks, 03 décembre 2013 - 02:09 .

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

If you really want to be sneaky about it, rig up the module on-client enter event to jump the PC to one of your death conversations. That way, there's no escaping death with a reload from save. Of course, then even your regular saves become brushes with death.

The main issue, though, is that players are focused on finishing a particular quest, solving a particular problem, when they get sidetrack by the death mechanism. Even a save from reload can be frustrating if the player has to wait too long or replay too much to get back to their problem they were working on.

I personally allowed liberal use of the respawn button to keep players in the game (just expended a medkit each time). Maybe you could do something similar, that a particular deity would grant the PC so many respawns before forcing a conversation. Or maybe you could manage it through the plot, with some quests having easy respawns because a spirit is helping you, but then the PC loses their favor and has to do something to win the help of another spirit. Or maybe each respawn incurs a debt that has to be repaid later on - or like you were thinking, costs the PC xp or ability bonuses, it's just that the toll isn't exacted until after the PC has finished that particular quest. It would interesting to go from being a spendthrift with a thousand lives to a miser scared of every dire rat, and then back again.

[andysks]

Colors: I also don't like penalties of any form. But if you think about it, when in BG first levels you had no resurrect, wasn't the fine on the temples a form of penalty? Or the main character dieing insta reload also a form of really harsh penalty? This system made me want to only play a fighter so that I can be a bit more tanky.

The way I thought it, the penalties will get back to you. You just won't have to run to a temple to get a resurrect, but instead get some xp penalty, which you'll pay to the shrine or temple to get back. If you die too many times without paying, then the only option will be reload until you pay to get your essences back. Something like that.

The penalties will not be game breaking in any way. Attribute penalties are out of the question, especially for low levels. And even in high levels the percentage will be quite low. I am thinking mostly xp. Maybe skill points as well.

Lugaid: I don't like the from of teleporting somewhere because when a player is in the middle of a quest, is not fun to have to go there again.
As for the debt, it is not a bad alternative. One question though because I want to see if I got it correct. The toll will be paid after some deaths... how do you get these penalties back? Do you have to find another guy, and after you paid your toll?

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

Well, the way I imagine it (and of course it needs to make sense in your particular gameworld) is that you have an 'overworld' that's more or less safe to walk around in, and then dungeons where most of the dying happens. In the overworld, maybe conveniently right outside entrances to the dungeons, you have your shrines with the spirits willing to grant you some sort of protection. If you negotiate protection before you enter the dungeon, then you get to respawn as much as you want, but the number of respawns is tallied up. When you exit the dungeon, the spirit might appear to you and demand some sort of gift/favor/sacrifice in return for all the respawns. Of course, you could just tell the spirit to go eff emself, and just walk about, but next time you want to enter a dungeon, you do so without the aid of the free respawns. Maybe the next dungeon has a different spirit willing to offer you protection, or maybe the spirit you're in debt to pulls a few strings and gets the next adventurer that comes along to try and assassinate you. Or maybe you need their aid in some other part of the plot, and they refuse to help you until your debt is paid. Or if you wait too long to pay them back, they just show up at some point and take your xp, gold, loot, or companions away from you.

[ColorsFade]

Penalties come in all forms, of course. In BG, when you don't have a resurrect, the penalty is that you have to reload. Well, that's pretty much a penalty in every game. It's standard, and it's acceptable. There is no other penalty - the player just has to start over and try again, attempting a different tactic or some such.

What I dislike is any form of penalty that makes your character weaker until some sort of fine/penance is performed. And the reason I dislike such things is because of logic. If your character died when they had no penalties to statistics, how is one to expect them to defeat the encounter a 2nd time now that they are weaker? It flies against logic. It's a penalty that doesn't make any sense. It's like saying, "Oh, so you can't bench press 185 lbs? Well, try again. Only this time, I'm going to make the weight 200lbs."

XP penalties... again, just seem counter intuitive to me. If the player failed to beat the encounter, they're not going to get the quest update and hence they're not going to get the XP. So now you're going to take away more of their XP? How does that solve the problem? And what happens if they lose so much they de-level? Now you have that issue to deal with...

I played a lot of MMORPG's, and I was a big proponent of harsh death penalties because it kept, to a certain degree, smart people from doing dumb things. It create some risk-aversion which seemed necessary to me.

But in a single player game, I find death penalties to be illogical. The person is playing by themselves; just let them reload and try again. The point of the death is that they failed the encounter. Let them reload and try a different tactic. Perhaps they failed because they didn't make full use of all their available spells and potions, or they forgot a crucial buff. But let them try again.

In your case, Andy, death seems less like a mechanism that needs to be penalized and more like an actual part of the story that needs to be told. And that is why I'd like long and hard about how to integrate it into your story in a way that doesn't involve the avatar actually dying during combat. Otherwise, you create a very difficult dilemma for the player: do I even try to defeat this encounter, or should I just die so I can see some important afterlife conversations and gain valuable information?

I look at it this way: the player should always want to do their very best to defeat an encounter. Anything that changes that is a flaw in the game mechanics.

[andysks]

I know what you mean, and regardless of what we discuss here I haven't made any progress on the matter because I am quite uncertain. Needs some thinking. I agree with the part about the " less like a mechanism that needs to be penalized and more like an actual part of the story that needs to be told." This gave me a very good push to the right direction I think. Still uncertain, but I'll figure it out .

The afterlife information though, I believe it shouldn't be too valuable. I was thinking something in the style of the Nameless One's visions. If on Planescape Torment you have low wisdom or intelligence I think (been a while, I don't remember), you cannot access some of these visions from your past. It doesn't really matter... it's only aesthetic. It gives more depth to the story.
So I was thinking convos like that. People of course will still be able to finish and understand everything, but if they die sometimes, they might learn something about their past etc.

Now, I couldn't possibly make convo lines for every time someone dies. Impossible. I could though, make it so that this "travel" will only happen in certain encounters. And maybe forget about the penalties.

May I ask, what kind of death system you will be using?

[ColorsFade]

andysks wrote...
May I ask, what kind of death system you will be using?

Same one as MotB. If your party wipes out, you have to reload. Otherwise, as long as one member is standing, everyone who fell during combat gets back up when the hosilities end, albiet with very low HP. 

At that point you need to heal or rest. So you're going to have to use some spells or potions. If you choose to rest, the Wandering Monster system comes into play if you're in a dangerous area; you still might get wiped out. 

I like this system because it doesn't overly penalize the player. If you wipe out you gotta reload. Otherwise, you can keep playing, but you're going to have to use resources to do so (spells, potions to heal up). 

Resurrection is still a decent spell to keep people upright during a long, intense battle, so it's not completely wasted in this system. But it's not the necessity it is in other games either. 

[andysks]

Journal Entry

• Death System

Still undecided as to if I will change it or keep it as it is. The way I see it now, it stays as it is, but if the PC dies from certain enemies he goes to a special place, without penalties, where he might lean some things. Kind of like the Nameless One's memories. Will see. Thank you people for the feedback, it's all under consideration.

• Chapter 1

Chapter 1 is now finished. After recreating the work that got lost, it's all here again. I did some more side quests, like finishing the Dryad one in a forest. Lilacs never fails me .

There are more things to go in at the moment, but are connected to further chapters, or areas that belong to other chapters/modules. So I decided to start testing this chapter, and begin work on Chapter 2. Then come back and connect them.

Last two days, most of the work I did was in the Elven City. It was actually a prefab, but there were so many things to fix, that I don't know if it qualifies for the term anymore.



There were so many trees... incredible ammount. Some flying as well. I had to texture it a bit more, and make it smaller for it was too big for my needs. The walkmesh was a mess, but fixed as well. You might say, why did you keep it if it was like that? I liked the elevated feeling. It is exactly what I had in mind, so some extra work didn't hurt.

I have added a sign right after the world map transition. It is inspired by the Co8 modpack for ToEE. ToEE had a sign in Homlet, but was buggy. They fixed it and put one more in Verbobonc. It simply asks you if you want to travel somewhere in the city faster, then jumps you there. There are 5 merchants. Blacksmith, Crafing, Ranger-Druid, Bard and General Magic. Very satisfied with the result so far. Some more work is needed, but will get there.

• Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is heavily connected to this one. In fact, it could be one chapter, but chose to make it seperate due to change of city and objective. It will be some hard work, since chapter 2 is connected with all chapters so far, and the next one. It introduces the second biggest city of the Empire, a big ammount of companions and their quests, as well as quests for companions from previous chapters, and end story lines for some fanctions like the Assassin organization. Of the last I am not completely certain, because I have to first check the level that a PC will reach. Ending a whole organization at low leel could seem ridiculous in my opinion.

• After this what?

The To Do list goes as far as the end of chapter 2. However, there is one more module to be done after that that is based on the pre-planetravel story state. Ichose to have one seperate module that has only some areas not heavily conected to the main story, and that the player can go whenever he pleases. Think of Watcher's Keep.
A couple of huge dungeons with their own side quest.

So, I do this as well... and then it's Outlands-Hopeless, Hades, Back to the material, Gehenna and Carceri.

The whole Outer Planes story line is really not well planned at the moment. Just frictions of it in my head. But there is time for that .

[OfficerDonNZ]

They changed the death system a bit in SoZ (about the only thing I liked about it) If one of the party got KO'd they'd 'bleed' and might 'die' or stabilise and recover if an enemy kept attacking them then they'd die. If that happened you've have to use a coin of life to raise them. If the entire party got wiped out it was a reload. And for the PC there's the go old gold and xp lose if you die.

In Lugaid of the Red Stripes mod, The Last of the Dana'an he altered the default death system a little so that when you respawned you had about half your HP and suffered a speed and attack penalty for about 30 seconds. This worked quite well as the PC was on their own 90 per cent of the time.

I'd stay away from losing stat or skill points and the like that would put me off the mod real quick. My thoughts or what they're worth.

[andysks]

Thoughts always worth . I think I heard enough to not inmplement any stat penalties. Maybe I'll go the MotB style, since I already use the wandering monster system. And maybe there will be specific locations and battles, where death might be more important. Like in Hades, right out of the Underworld or something. But for now that I am still building in material plane, maybe not .

Thanks for the suggestions and thoughts. Some will be considered for sure.

[andysks]

Journal Update

I have been trying the last days to add some things that will make the prologue feel a bit more professional. That is, I changed the world map system to something that allows encounters when travelling from location to location. Also many things added, some because I felt like it, and some because of notes from the beta testers. When I told them about the changes, they seemed to endorse them.

I had a tough couple of days trying to understand how groups work. Community helped me a lot once again. I find it very usefull that I understand how they work now, so I don't have to always rely on a boss death, but rather the whole group of enemies.

So, all in all, I didn't want to continue on work on chapter 2, until prologue and chapter 1 were polished and completely ready. I felt that if I start working on chapter 2, when the main plot is ready, it will be so overwhelming to go back and do all the fillings.

I had some trouble as well with finding quest ideas. I mean, ideas exist, but I couldn't figure out where to place them. Then  I thought of BG2, where more than half of the side quests belong to companions, or generally companion related.
So with this in mind, I decided it was time to add more of the planned companions. A Ranger and Bard are now added. Ranger quest is done, Bard will take one in the next days.

When I find things overwhelming, I stop writing dialogues, because that's where it can get a bit complicated. So I build areas, that I have on my ToDo list for later. I downloaded the NTB's Eroded Hills and Valleys. A secluded monastery is there, where the Monk quest will be.

Finally, I want to mentions two people that help me a lot through this task of building this campaign.
Without underestimating or undermining the help I get from others of course.
Tchos and ColorsFade treat me like a student when it comes to scripting .
I have to say, nothing would look as I imagined if it wasn't for some scripts they provided me.
ColorsFade is responsible for the MotB restying system guide. He also helped me set my companions, and the world map. Tchos has given me many scripts, including collection quests, ga_vfx, ga_earthquake and many more. These are just specific script helps I got, not including general talk about how the language works and so on.
These two are scripting related help. If I were to mention general help and contribution this thread would never end . But of course all names will be mentioned in the end. Some may have been already mentioned around here already.

Anywho... this post is more like a personal journal... my thoughts, rather than where exactly I am in the progress of my work. Because to be honest, I even don't know. I guess I am just happy if one cell from my excel spreadsheat ToDo list is erased each day. And when I say I don't know where I am, it's because the spreadsheet is a huge document, listing all 100 areas that exist so far, and objectives that need to be completed.
Given this fact, I just mark the ones that are done, and one day there will be nothing more to be done .

That's all for now. Until tomorrow!

[andysks]

Journal Entry

• Busy week

I am now at the end of polishing the prologue before I continue polishing the chapter 1.
I implemented some features I wasn't aware of, like the party chat... how easy is that? I never searched how to do it, because I always had the idea that it will require much work to include. Apparently not .

I also found the Foraging System from Wyrim at the vault. So I added some plants for gathering. I am quite a gatherer when I play games, and I really like this addition. I remember in Skyrim, there was not a single plant I left unharvested.

One more thing I didn't know, and thought it would take work to include, is the default action when clicking on a placeable, examine, turning it into an eye.

Also, I found DannJ's effect for cold breath, and since the first areas take place in snow, I had to use .

All easy things, that I was not aware how to do them. But I think that was enough! If I continue this way, I will never finish. I need to say stop, and not use some cool stuff that keep coming out from the CC people. Maybe way later.... but not now.

• The Complicated Area

Group deaths, ipoint speakers, scripthidden creatures and two armies facing each other. Boy that was tough. Almost 5 days, every day work to finish this quest.

I got it all figured out, with a lot of help from Tchos, on how groups work. EC's super include helped a lot here, since there are some 50 functions for groups. But it's all OK now.

• A group of creatures die
• A convo starts
• Another group gets spawned
• They die
• Another convo starts

This concluded the quest for the Ranger companion. He is met in the prologue, but his quest is planned for level 10ish. I just wanted to finish it though, so that there are no loose ends.

• Beta Testing

PJ said he will beta test the new features of the prologue one more time. That is good to hear for two reasons.
One is, that a test is always good.
And two, it feels like he liked it even a little bit, in order to play it again. Of course, he may be just kind .

I will also be doing some testing for ColorsFade, which makes me extremely happy. I've been waiting to see his work for really long time. Both play it, and see some of his cool scripting to open my eyes more on the matter.

In between the testing, I will continue on the polishing on Chapter 1. Not so much is needed. I am completely satisfied with the area designs, so maybe just some generic NPCs, a couple of side quests, dialogues and barks.

[andysks]

• tlk and 2da editing marathon

At least a marathon for my standards. I never felt comfortable changing files. I even think I will do something wrong if I change the compatibility mode on one of my programms. So imagine when I had to modify 2da tlk and what not.
I actually wanted to do it, because some packages I use, used a modified dialogue.tlk, which I don't want.
KevL said some time ago, that if I make a custom one, his spell descriptions will thank me. And I guess he is not the only one that has modified the dialogue.tlk for something generally important and not just the deities or some custom load hints.

So, I had to copy paste the deities of Greyhawk names and descriptions in my own tlk, then change the lines in the 2da. It was so time wasting... because the entries were here and there. Had to do a lot of  double checking the 2da to see which ones got overlooked. But I succeeded. Together with the custom hints 2da, today was an excausting day.
But the good thing is, I feel more comfortable now to edit all these files. I will have to do it again for some history feats... and judging from the number of columns I see on the wiki page, I am not really looking forward to the task.

[kevL]

^
i++


the knack, i think, is in knowing your backups. The game resources always serve as something to compare your changes against, when something might seem wrong or out of place. And, once you're happy with a custom file, back that up before further changes

[andysks]

Last week I had some personal problems, going through a rough patch. Moding and playing are of course second in line when it comes to such situations, so I haven't touched my work on the toolset for a while.
The situation resolves itself slowly, and I heal as time passes. Coming to the forums and posting on some threads keeps the desire to work alive, as well as opening the toolset yesterday to test the placeables from PJ's project.

In all this time, I never thought I will give up on the project. It is going to be finished. But sometimes people need a break, and also scale what is most important in life.

I think I will return to the project after the 24th, and I know I will do it with passion.
I also need to finish my beta testing for ColorsFade, and I'm sorry I stalled it but I hope he understands.

Andy.

[OfficerDonNZ]

Building a mod, like any hobby, if its giving you fits walk away and take a break

I had the some problem a few weeks back with a pair of loco body shells I'd been working on. Had to fight the urge to toss them across the garage. I just left them of the bench

[andysks]

It was not the mod that gave me the hard time, but some stuff in my personal life. But what you said is true. You need a break once in a while. The person who tutored me in the toolset when I first started, sirchet, said the same thing more than a year ago. "If it's not fun, leave it for a while".
However this was not the case now. I was just too... sad let's say to work on it.

[Tchos]

Sorry to hear about the rough patch. I've been through a few, too. I always liked the way they put it in the Ultima IV intro: "The latest in a series of personal crises seems insurmountable. You are being pulled apart in all directions."