Jump to content

Kelandon

Global Moderator
  • Posts

    10,261
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Kelandon

  1. Yeah, with a HLPM, you can know for sure that you're at the power level that the designer of the scenario wants you to be. Using the Character Editor, you could end up anywhere. Besides, a HLPM is far more powerful than the Character Editor. You can give custom items (as long as they don't have custom graphics), for example.
  2. The scripting language comes more from Geneforge than from the Avernums, I think. The Avernum Trilogy did not include any scripts with the game, whereas Geneforge did -- and you could tell by the complex behavior of characters in the game that they had custom scripts. In Avernum, ever character used the same program, something similar to basicnpc (except with less of a pathfinding algorithm). Towns didn't have their own scripts; they probably had the same nodes as in Exile. So basically, the Avernums worked very much like Exile in terms of their programming, and BoA works a lot more like Geneforge. These are just my surmises from having played all of these games and looked around in their included files, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works. If I'm not mistaken, there are a substantial (haven't counted, but substantial) number of calls that we have for BoA that aren't equivalent to nodes Jeff used in the Avernums.
  3. I was thinking about working on a general party maker that would work sort of along these lines. But the general apathy that this thread received convinced me that no one yet cares. Maybe later, when some more high level scenarios are out.
  4. Do you have the same complaints about the big-name designers? If I were making a readme, I would copy Alcritas's format, or TM's from his later scenarios, or Brett Bixler's, or if I had a big scenario, Stareye's. At the Gallows in particular has a good readme. Old scenarios or scenarios by lesser-known designers don't necessarily have good readmes, though. In the early days, I think it was more standard to have the intro text to the game say everything that needed to be said.
  5. Does this mean we'll have to wait until 2010 for BoG? Seriously, though, I think that statement above spells doom for a Geneforge engine-based scenario maker. Which means the question of what's next after GF3 is even more interesting now. Oh, and just a thought: the Blades games do last better than the others, don't they? I would imagine people are still buying BoE at rates that far outstrip E3 or E2.
  6. Quote: You have to make the underlying game worth it's salt too (or have it as part of a series, such as the A1-3 series, then Blades), or you'll never get anyone to make a bunch of scenarios. This is what worries me a tiny bit about Pygmalion. Still, most of the best BoE scenarios have nothing to do with the Exile setting.
  7. Once you get used to BoA, it's not hard. I had to remake by hand three towns from Avernum before I got a handle on how it works, but I say if you're going to be making it *for* BoA, make it *in* BoA. Besides, BoA gives you more choices. You can make different heights, for example.
  8. This may go without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Even as you keep your first scen small and simple, try one or two innovations. Khoth's wands in Babysitting were easily the best part, and the seeing chair was probably the second-best part. He had one fairly cool combat (with D and K), and one or two new monster scripts. That alone brought my rating of the scenario from a 3 (based on plot and town design alone) to almost a 7, before it came a little bit back down again because of other factors. The key is that Khoth's wands were not terribly complicated, but they were different and new and cool. Every first-time scenario designer should try to include a small number of things like these, whether items or creature/terrain scripts or sequences.
  9. Edit the town entrance (to set it to leading to a different town number) and then hit cancel instead of entering a number.
  10. ... and things that don't. A few things in the documentation say "Do this" or "Do that" but never explain what will happen if you do something else. I wanted to try a few of them and see if they worked. Some do, and some don't. This will probably become an article someday, but for now, it's just a few notes I thought I'd share with everyone. For now it's mostly graphical things, but I'll come back and try other things later. Giving custom graphics resource IDs outside the 500-599 range: works. I gave a custom monster graphic the ID 610 and then set the custom objects script to use graphic 610, and it worked fine. This may mean we can have a lot of custom graphics, not just 100. Limitations: In BoE, there was some sort of crashing problem with too many graphics, though; I didn't try loading up the file with over 100 graphics and seeing if it still worked. Also, certain graphics already use IDs outside this range. I will investigate this later to see which ones these are, so as not to give conflicting resources. For that matter, I will test what happens when you do give conflicting resources. Using a PC graphics sheet for an NPC: does not work. The Louvre has a lot of custom PC graphics sheet, but you can't cut and paste them and use them as NPCs. You have to make them smaller. And setting cr_small_or_large_template to 1 didn't help. Will try other values later, but I doubt this will matter. (I'm guessing they are intended for hacking into the BoA graphics files and pasting directly, which *does* work.) Using huge talking pics: does work. The docs say that these should be 64 by 64 or smaller, and that larger will work, but it's not recommended. There seems to be no problem with big ones, to a point. The height is limited to a little over 200, and I will test the width limitations later. Anything so large that it actually runs into the talking box is bad, though; it will move to the upper right-hand corner and cut off extra area. Using the whole rectangle for a custom creature: does not work. You have to use a roughly diamond-shaped thing, like with terrains, or else the creature will spill over into other spaces, which really doesn't look right at all. Having larger dialog pics than 400 by 400: does not work. It sticks them off to the side and cuts off the extra area. Having more than 3 dialog choices: does not work. It ignores something labeled, say, add_dialog_choice(4,"Blah") but does not give an error. More experiments later as I come up with things. Anyone else feel free to post strange things that you've tried that do or do not work. EDIT: noticed a typo
  11. Quote: Put a long list of testers, if necessary create new names What on Earth are you trying to say? Lie about your beta-testers? That's completely unnecessary and useless. Quote: Put a list of the known bug you didn't succeed to solve I would think you should just solve them. Jeff did something like this with the BoE engine, and some people hate him for it now. Only leave in bugs if they are inherent to the Blades engine and you can't do anything about them. Quote: Your scenario could be the first one a newbie try to play and that doesn't cost anything to copy/paste the standard instructions in your readme Not really. The tutorial will be the first scen that a newbie will try to play. I don't think there's been a documented instance of a newbie to a Blades system (either oE or oA) playing anything but VoDT next, especially since it is free as part of the demo. Don't copy and paste the standard instructions. That's pointless. The players can read the docs and play the tutorial. But if there are special tactics necessary for combat or special instructions of any kind for the scenario (Of Good and Evil has some, for example), then you should mention them. I think this is what Dragongirl was saying, so I'm just clarifying. I suppose it goes without saying that Read Mes should include acknowledgements and (if applicable) a link to the designer's web site. Alcritas's Read Mes are a pretty good model for any new designer. TM's scenarios sometimes require intensive, um, prep work -- see Corporeus -- and his Read Mes are pretty good about explaining what needs to be done, too, relating to Dragongirl's last post.
  12. Vent, the pollution in VoDT is pretty shallow. Pollution in the modern day is a complicated issue (being discussed starting around here in a thread in the General forum), and it doesn't boil down to, "For now it's okay, and we'll let future generations solve the problem when it's necessary." It is a matter of choices between alternatives that each have their disadvantages. Besides, even if that were the case, VoDT contains absolutely no explanation for the reasons that the mages didn't activate the anti-pollution mechanisms when they left. You're just guessing at their rationale, but VoDT doesn't even supply that. Quote: A quote, in a morale article, in a BoA forum, do not mention A Small Rebellion is very surprising. Too complicate? Despite some legitimacy in the complaint, the Creator has made it clear with his actions that he is not going to draw only from BoA examples, so you should probably quit objecting. ASR's ambiguous morality is one of the main reasons that people like it. It is an example of the success of the Creator's description above. Nephil's Gambit is probably more successful and more liked. Nephil's Gambit is therefore probably the better example. Articles need not mentioned *every* scenario that relates.
  13. Quote: In reference to Sauron, there are reasons behind his actions, if you really want to study the Silmarillion. As I recall, not having the book in front of me to check it, this came down to: he follows/worships Morgoth, who is some sort of fallen angel thing, so Morgoth is evil, so Sauron is evil. Besides, I think the point was that Sauron's motives are never explained in LotR itself, and it doesn't really matter. That doesn't make this point Quote: Don't paint your baddies big and black - try to see them as they see themselves. any less valid. I think that this sentence Quote: I firmly believe that as a designer and storyteller, you should never villify any point of view. should be rewritten. There are many layers to this. The narrator probably shouldn't directly condemn an entire ideology ("Peering through the darkness, you see a three-headed monster. By the way, capitalism is bad."), but ultimately, scenarios, just like any stories, can have a point. If a designer wants to point out the evils of capitalism (or communism or fascism or Christianity or Judaism or atheism or modernism or...), then the designer can do that. Generally, as a writing technique, you don't do that by saying it directly. You show results. You portray a laissez faire capitalist system that exploits its workers to the point of serious abuse, perhaps drawing from the first decade of the twentieth century for examples. You show a communist system that collectivizes agriculture and deals with resistance by mass slaughter, as Stalin did in the 1930's. People are not likely to believe you if you say that capitalism is bad, but if you show them examples of capitalism being bad, they may think your point has some validity. Scenarios very much can villify certain points of view. It's just that one-dimensional villains are terrible representatives of a point of view, because they don't really have anything to do with that point of view; they are one-dimensional. I'm guessing that this sentence just came out wrong, based on the rest of the article, but as it reads right now, I disagree with it.
  14. All in favor of telling the Creator and TM not to use each other's scenarios as example in their articles? This gets tiresome.
  15. void create_boat(short which_boat,short which_town,short loc_x,short loc_y,short others_property) - This call should be made in the state START_SCEN_STATE. Initializes boat which_boat (which can be from 0 to 29). Places the boat in town which_town in space {loc_x,loc_y}. If others_property is 0, the party can enter the boat. If 1, the boat must be set as party property by a script before the party can use it. Editor Appendices, under Scenario Initialization Calls It looks as though you can't place a boat outside. I haven't tried this call at all, so I don't know if it works outside the START_SCEN_STATE.
  16. Well, given the add_string and remove_string possibilities, along with as many as 8 boxes of text per node, with additional effects using codes available... no, not really. But then, I'm not writing an immersive-world-style scenario, so others' experiences with that genre may vary.
  17. Quote: It's actually a punishment for players who pick the wrong route. Well, that's okay, then. I've seen scenarios (in BoE, forget which offhand, it's been three years) that have invulnerable monsters in the way if you choose the wrong path. You can assume that people are saving at every critical juncture.
  18. Quote: So it's probably a Bad Thing™ Hey, what are you trying to say about TM? This is what we have so far, grouped roughly by degree of possibility: Calls: short get_energy(short which_char) void deduct_char_ap(short which_char, short amount) void set_year(short year) void crumble_terrain(short loc_x, short loc_y) void put_missile_animation(short source_x,short source_y,short dest_x,short dest_y) short approach_location(short which_char_or_group, short loc_x, short loc_y, short within_dist) void equip_item_in_slot(short which_char, short which_item, short which_slot) short has_item_of_variety(short which_variety, short take_item) short item_uses_in_slot(short which_char, short which_slot) void alter_item_uses_in_slot(short which_char, short which_slot, short amount) void cast_spell(short target_char,short mage_or_priest,short which_spell) short path_ok(short start_loc_x, short start_loc_y, short end_loc_x, short end_loc_y) short request_number() -- to get a numeric input void block_entry_special(short blocked_to_which_char_or_group, short do_blockage) void fade_to_black() void fade_from_black() void identify_item -- not sure how to set up the parameters for this one reset_floors(short do_reset) reset_terrains(short do reset) short get_pressed_key() Non-call things: "next/previous" buttons for creatures that cycle through all the placed creatures in town a predefined END_TALK state for NPCs customizable scenario icons custom character status icons support for custom sounds
  19. Purely for the purposes of testing the coding of a scenario that I'm working on ( ), I made a god-party-maker. It's a scenario that levels the party up to an extremely high level (about 100 or so), gives it god equipment and lots of cash, and then ends. I think this qualifies as a utility or something. Three questions: 1. Does anyone want it? 2. Does anyone think I should submit this to Spiderweb as a utility scenario? 3. As a related point, does anyone think I should submit my high level party maker to SW as a utility scenario? It's designed to make a party level 35-40, with documentation explaining how to change the scen to make the intended level higher or lower. I am unsure if any of this stuf would be useful to anyone other than me, so responses either way are welcome. EDIT: Gah, now that I think about it, this probably should go in the Editor forum. If a mod agrees with me, feel free to move it.
  20. I don't know if this was what spyderbytes was saying, so I may be repeating here, but if you write two nodes numbered 20, only the second one will do anything. The first one might as well not exist. The scripts load top-to-bottom, so that the second node of the same number writes over the first one.
  21. Small problem, spyderbytes: his text is too long to use DEP_ON_SDF. That displays text1 and text2 or text3 and text4, only two texts at a time. He's using three texts in the second response. (I don't know if you could just throw in that third text as text5 and it would print it, but the docs imply not.)
  22. Drakey\'s advice Your Fission Dragon is a bit much unless the party is supposed to be at least level 60. Playtest it yourself, and if you can't beat it, tone it down a bit. Splitters in particular are really tough monsters, and going with anything more powerful than a doomguard is only for really high level scenarios. ( My article on high level scenarios.) As for changing time, well, look in the Appendices under "The Passage of Time." The set_ticks_forward call is probably the one you want. EDIT: Also, the Lyceum\'s Designer\'s Forum has some articles you might want to check out. They are for BoE, but some of the principles remain the same.
  23. Usually I kind of agree with you, Vent, but not this time. It sounds like you just didn't understand the Creator's post, rather than that you actually disagree with him, at least in most cases. And the ones where you do (most notably 7), well, the idea is that after playing hundreds of these scenarios, and eventually we will play hundreds of these scenarios, head-banging gets irritating. Great designers still use it (Brett Bixler, the example that the Creator gave), but articles are not aimed at great designers. They are aimed at new designers.
  24. I AM TEH KRAZIE!!!!1111!!! Also, didn't Emulations use insanity to a fairly good effect? (I haven't played it, so I don't know, but I've read about it.)
×
×
  • Create New...