84 réponses à ce sujet

[ChachiBobinks]

Thanks for the sympathy. It helps... a little.

I'm developing a deep dislike of terrain levels, though. Fortunately, this adventure has a limited number of them.

But a thought occurs to me. I've been writing all the follower NPCs, but it occurs to me that I don't have to be a creativity hog. This gaming group contains writers who have well developed characters, and I can code. If you've always wanted to write a follower NPC but you were daunted by technicalities, here's your chance.

Ohhhoho, tell me more.

[berelinde]

At the moment, I'm creating levels. That's a time-consuming process, and it's generally regarded as the limiting step in mod production. Once I've got my levels done, I'll test them to make sure that players don't fall through the world anywhere, and then the content happens.

 

The protagonist of any given mod is flexible. I'm not going to restrict origin stories, so it will have to make sense for everything from Dwarf commoner to Human noble to Dalish hunter. The mod will have 9 followers, 3 per class (which allows for an all-class party, should the player be into that kind of thing). I was going to write all 9, but it occurs to me that I might open it up to interested parties.

 

Basically, play the adventure. It will probably take longer for me to make into a mod than it will to play, if you believe that. As you play, think about whether you would like your character to become an NPC. If you do, we can talk. I'll explain how to write dialogue for multiple tones. Anyway, this isn't really relevant to the game. It's completely a side project. I feel guilty enough dwelling on it for as long as I have. PLay a little. If you like it, we can talk more later.

[ChachiBobinks]

At the moment, I'm creating levels. That's a time-consuming process, and it's generally regarded as the limiting step in mod production. Once I've got my levels done, I'll test them to make sure that players don't fall through the world anywhere, and then the content happens.

 

The protagonist of any given mod is flexible. I'm not going to restrict origin stories, so it will have to make sense for everything from Dwarf commoner to Human noble to Dalish hunter. The mod will have 9 followers, 3 per class (which allows for an all-class party, should the player be into that kind of thing). I was going to write all 9, but it occurs to me that I might open it up to interested parties.

 

Basically, play the adventure. It will probably take longer for me to make into a mod than it will to play, if you believe that. As you play, think about whether you would like your character to become an NPC. If you do, we can talk. I'll explain how to write dialogue for multiple tones. Anyway, this isn't really relevant to the game. It's completely a side project. I feel guilty enough dwelling on it for as long as I have. PLay a little. If you like it, we can talk more later.

 

Dude, I'd be up for helping you either way. My career goal is game writing and the only thing holding me back right now is the fact that I'm not technical enough to figure out the exact thing you're doing, lol. So keep in touch!!

[mysteriouspast]

Dude, I'd be up for helping you either way. My career goal is game writing and the only thing holding me back right now is the fact that I'm not technical enough to figure out the exact thing you're doing, lol. So keep in touch!!

 

This. Exactly.

[berelinde]

Well then! If there is interest, I may as well drop this here. I don't want anybody neglecting the roleplaying over this, but there is a lot of time between posts.

 

These are some of the character ideas I came up with. You'll notice that some of them are a lot more fleshed out than others. That's because these guys have been a part of the story since forever. That doesn't mean that I'd necessarily insist on writing them! (Except for Beldin. I won't give him up.) That just means that if I'm going to drop somebody from the cast, it isn't going to be Beldin, Eshara, Torvik, or Kathryn.

 

Believe it or not, it is possible to start work on any characters you want to write without actually playing through the adventure. Each character is going to need player-initiated conversation about their backstory, hopes, fears, etc. Think about the camp conversations of the Origins cast. The mod is short, so there wouldn't be a romance arc, exactly, but flirtation is certainly possible. Probably about four or five conversations should cover it.

 

When you write a mod conversation, you can't write it like banter between two characters with fixed personality and expect to go back later and write in alternate protagonist personalities. It is always - without exception - obvious that you have done so, because a branch introduced later winds up sounding like an afterthought. Because it is. You put all your good material in that one protagonist's lines (usually the sassy one) and there's nothing clever for the diplomatic or direct protagonists to say.

 

As if that isn't bad enough, there are strict character limits. NPC lines are limited to 200 characters (including spaces and punctuation). Protagonist lines are limited to 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation). That's probably one of the reasons DA2 went to paraphrases. It allowed Hawke to talk more. If there is emphasis <emp>Bolded Text</emp>, description <desc>Sighs.</desc>, action <act>Lie.</act> in the line, those tags are included in the character count.

 

Here is an example of acceptable dialogue. It's quest dialogue, not character development dialogue, but you get the idea. The letter before the number indicates the speaker. The number links the question with the answer, as it were.

[mysteriouspast]

I had an idea for Athrian... should I make a google doc like you did or just put the text in a PM?

[berelinde]

Make up a google doc. If we're going to do this as a team effort (which sounds great to me!), it will make communication easier.

[ChachiBobinks]

I'm ridiculously excited over this one. How many characters can we nab?

[berelinde]

However many you want. The only one I really want to do is Beldin because there's a hook in his backstory for a future adventure. Apart from that, have fun.

 

The mechanics will work a little differently than we're used to with DA games. The assumption is that the entire group is traveling together, but that the protagonist can choose teams as scouting parties. For some occasions, the entire party will be there.

[berelinde]

Because yes, an OOC thread is appropriate for OOC discussion, but if this is really going to be a thing, we should probably split it off.

[mysteriouspast]

How many conversation topics should we have? I have ideas for two that build on each other. Are there any story elements we might discuss?

 

Also, would Athrian respond well to flirtations from other races?

[berelinde]

I'd say about four conversation topics would be about right. Sequential is fine. You may want to make some of them available after certain game events happen, but telling you those now would spoil our PbP game.

 

At this point, he's your character, so only you can decide how he responds to other races. I had him down as being xenophobic and hostile to all non-Dalish as a foil for Eshara's fondness for outsiders and Falon's easygoing acceptance of just about everyone, but that may have changed. Basically, I didn't want all the Dalish elves to be "Yay, humans! Please make yourselves at home and solve all our problems for us!" I wanted there to be some tension.

 

With the facial scarring, he's probably going to be a bit suspicious of flirtation even from other Dalish, but that may have changed too. You haven't posted a link to your character concept, so I don't know what you have in mind.

[berelinde]

These are the head morphs I have for the cast. I wasn't able to capture Issala's because I've got Qunari Update installed and all the qunari look exactly the same, which sucks. But I suppose I can upload the toolset image. It's better than nothing. Keep in mind that these images may change! I just find that if I don't have some mental image of what the character looks like, I can't write them.

 

Spoiler tags to avoid mobile bandwidth issues.

Spoiler

Athrian

Beldin

Eshara

Falon

Issala

Kathryn

Keila

Lina

Torvik

[mysteriouspast]

I can't figure out what email address to share my doc with. I wrote one dialog to see what you think...

[berelinde]

Just set the Sharing settings on the doc for anyone with a link may view, then shoot me a link via PM.

[berelinde]

Just in case it isn't obvious, most of the characters posted above are bare minimum outlines, and could be changed upon a whim. Perhaps Lina is really a female Casteless dwarf out to prove her mettle on the surface. Perhaps Issala is a rogue, not a warrior (he's a Rivaini spy elephant!). Falon could be female, not male. Keila could be an elf, not human, or she could be male (Edwin Odeisseron, anyone?). Her arrogance might be nothing more than a veneer that hides her terror at being away from the Circle for the first time in her life. If Issala sounds daunting, think of him as a Tal-Vashoth version of Sigrun. He will joke quite cheerfully about being dead. Unlike Iron Bull, however (my character concept predates him by about 3 years, ever since I encountered Maraas), Issala isn't particularly given to excess. He experiences a more limited kind of hedonism. He is intrigued by romantic love, but he isn't culturally conditioned to express it sexually. He eventually figures it out, but not in this mod.

 

Physical traits (hair, skin or eye color  or complete face morph) are completely changeable. It takes very little time to make a morph, so don't feel locked in by my suggestions. There are only 3 characters with fixed appearances: Torvik, Kathryn, and Eshara. Everyone else can change. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to change Beldin's hair color to brown.

 

There are only 2 rules:

 

If you gender-swap one character, you must gender-swap a different character. I like the idea of a gender-balanced party, so if you're going to make Keila male, please make Falon female. If you decide to make Issala female, okay, but there isn't a female qunari model. I would have to use a human model and give her qunari skin.

 

There should be 3 Dalish elves in the party, and at least 1 who isn't human or elven.

 

I drew up a rough dialogue plan for Beldin yesterday. Perhaps posting it here might be a good idea.

 

Just so you know, the only characters who I know will be carried forward into A Bann Too Many are Beldin, Eshara, Issala, Kathryn, and Torvik. I have no objection to carrying the others forward, but they're going to need a lot more character development before I can picture why they would.

[ChachiBobinks]

Oh, phew. I've been trying to storm up these characters but I worry that I don't know enough lore to pull it off. The only lore I'm really good at is anything magi. I might grab one of them and keep the same attitude, but make them a mage? Or change up the one we've got?

[berelinde]

The mages are kinda fixed at 3. Solaas has Athrian, Eshara's personality is defined by the adventure (pretty much), and that leaves one mage. There's nothing that says that Keila's personality has to be the arrogant, imperious type, or that she has to be human, or female. Solaas' Athrian is nothing like the character I envisioned when I wrote out that dramatis personae 3 years ago (her version is much better!), so that should tell you how attached I am to preliminary concepts.

 

What kind of character do you want to write? Etienne? That would be fine, by the way, there's no duplication with other characters, and if there is another mage, he or she would have to be a Circle mage, but we should probably talk about some particulars before you get too far into it. Mostly, he shouldn't be quite so sexually naive. Perhaps his status as an enchanters' pet protected him, but the Ferelden Circle, especially, is pretty uninhibited when it comes to sexuality. Anders tells Emile "Everyone was kissing everyone!" If it was just Anders saying that, it would be easy enough to ignore, but even Wynne corroborates that impression. So, if you want to write him as being inexperienced, go ahead! He can be however you want him to be. But he should probably realize that he is the exception rather than the rule.

[ChachiBobinks]

Okay! Off to PM we go.

[berelinde]

The Vintiver village level is coming along. All buildings are in place and the outer fences are almost done. After this, all I have to do is do the surrounding terrain, paint in the gardens and dress the level, and place VFX.

 

Screenshot hidden because mobile devices.

Spoiler

[CuriousArtemis]

Wow, that looks really cool! How did you make that? Reminds me of this game I used to play when I was a kid, where you could build the land up or down, build houses, start wars with people, etc

[berelinde]

You can't start a war with the Dragon Age Toolset, but you can move land up or down, fill it with water, build houses, create face morphs, all kinds of stuff. And the morph-maker allows a lot of customization that the in-game CC does not. It's a lot of fun, actually... but when you're making a building, the pieces are small, and there is no such thing as a barn model, which annoys the hells out of me. Maybe one of these days, I'll put together a video of the different steps of mod-making, but I'd probably better wait until I actually finish one. The Cullen one is just about done, but I'm still waiting for some voiced lines from Lola.

[berelinde]

Here's a preliminary head morph for Etienne (taken in-game, so the lighting is real, not toolset). The level used for the starting area was Lothering, which has very yellow ambient lighting, as if it's forever sunset. If you'd like me to take shots using different level lighting, let me know. If there's anything you don't like about it, let me know, because I can make changes.

Spoiler

[mysteriouspast]

I made a beautiful one of Rael but for some reason I couldn't take a screenshot.   Any ideas about what could be wrong?

[berelinde]

Did you look in your Screenshots/User folder for the screenshot?

 

Were you thinking about using Rael in place of Lina? That would work well, by the way. I'm just asking. If so, and if you wanted me to use the face you created with the character creator, you would have to send me your save game folder so I could pick apart the saved game using PYGFF and get the sliders to make a head morph. Or you could just upload an image and I could try to create it from scratch.