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Kelandon

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Posts posted by Kelandon

  1. There's combat in the Prologue, but it's totally linear, so the difficulty is not dependent on player choice and thus easier to control. I guess another option would be to add more combat to the Prologue, so the player does the initial level-gain in a linear fashion. It would take a little rewriting, but it could be done. I think that's a decision for a later day.

     

    I think the easy solution, for now, is to drop a fairly conspicuous hint to the player at the end of the Prologue, and then throw in a small warning when obtaining the hardest quest (just in case the player picks it up too soon).

  2. Doing some alpha testing this weekend. I started afresh, and I still love the Prologue. Chapter 1 is getting there, but there's still a lot that alpha testing revealed that is problematic. Some bugs, but more just details that I forgot to fill in at one point or another. Their absence is not conspicuous when you're looking at the scenario in the editor, but it's conspicuous when you're playing.

     

    Right now, I'm puzzling over whether I made the Chapter 1 combat too hard. I'm doing the quests in a different order than I did in my initial testing, and it's taking some reloading. If I do some of the dungeon, back out, sell loot and buy spells, and go back in, I can totally do it. But is it too much? I don't know.

     

    BoA has an issue that is common to a lot of RPGs, which is that you gain power quickly in the early going. A level 1 party is much, much weaker than a level 5 party, and you jump from level 1 to level 5 fast. So if you do the quests in one order vs. another, you can end up with a radically different party at different points. Which I guess suggests that I should make all of the early dungeons pretty easy, but it seems fairly tedious if I do that.

     

    I probably just have to keep an eye on this as I do further rounds of testing.

     

    EDIT: After further testing, yes, the sequence of quests is a bit of an issue. There's really one that you should do first and one that you should do last. I probably should make this obvious, though I guess not mandatory.

  3. 22 hours ago, Warrior Mage said:

    I have a suggestion for you: Try to include considerable amount of arrows and missiles in your scenario as it was unusual in your last two epics. I trained characters well in that area and I use them regularly. Who knows, some more people may be thinking like this. 

    I'm way ahead of you.

     

    EDIT: To be a little less flippant, as the other posts earlier in the thread say, Homeland involves a complete combat rebalance. Every monster has been modified in at least some way—often in very substantial ways. The level progression has been changed via new spells and abilities. Together with that, I've controlled what items are available in each chapter.

     

    One thing I'll be paying attention to during testing is whether I need to modify the items more deeply. Right now, I have special, magic items that are new, but a lot of the regular items are the same as what you find by default in the core files. It's possible I need to change that, though I think it's unlikely.

  4. Yeah, the reality is that while the coronavirus situation left some people with more time on their hands, it left me with less, at the same time as my side job picked up speed. So I've been able to work on this only a handful of times in the last few months. We've got a three-day weekend coming up, though, and I don't have anything scheduled. My hope is to spend most of the weekend on this and to make some real progress again for the first time in a while.

     

    And yeah, in terms of size, Homeland is 18-19 outdoor sections and, at this point, 100 towns. I don't expect to add many more, but I still need to fill in a lot of details in a lot of towns.

     

    I will say that for a scenario that draws its inspiration from the scandals and failures of the Trump Administration, waiting around a few months does tend to give me more material to work with.

  5. Have you read the documentation that comes with the editor? A lot of your questions are answered there. Here's the section from Chapter 1.6 on Editing the Outdoors:

    Quote

    There are three different sorts of encounters: Wandering Encounters, which are occasionally randomly placed on the wandering monster spawn points and hunt down the party. Special Encounters, which are spawned into existence by commands on the outdoor section script. And Preset Encounters, which are set to always be there when the party enters the given outdoor section, until you do something to make them disappear.

    You probably want to use a Preset Encounter and specify the Move Type (probably Move Type 1, which is "Doesn't move").

  6. 49 minutes ago, Warrior Mage said:

    begintownscript;
    body;
    beginstate INIT_STATE
        set_name(20, "Chief Guard");// ID 114
    break;
    message_dialog("Welcome to my town!", "");
    beginstate EXIT_STATE;
    break;
     

    What mistake is in this for this is not working at all!

    The mistake is that the message_dialog() call is not in any state. If it's not in a state, it never happens (and possibly breaks the script). Here's what you want:

    begintownscript;
    body;
    beginstate INIT_STATE
        set_name(20, "Chief Guard");// ID 114
    message_dialog("Welcome to my town!", "");
    break;
    beginstate EXIT_STATE;
    break;

    Note that this will show the message "Welcome to my town!" every time you enter the town. You need SDFs to make it happen only the first time.

  7. 6 hours ago, Warrior Mage said:

    I find it difficult at some places with a lot of confusion especially at those scripting examples which was not proper with why a code is being used, in what txt name and where we have to save it and use of those parantheses and numbers seems to be undefined at some places.

    I have to admit, I'm not sure what you're asking. Could you clarify? Maybe references to specific pages would help.

     

    You may also want to look at some specific scenarios to see what they did. For example, my High Level Party Maker was commented out pretty carefully so that people could read it and understand what I was doing.

  8. There are a bunch of resources for getting started, including the old BoA Cookbook, the Scenario Workshop, various articles I wrote, and probably other things I'm forgetting. You'll want the most recent 3D editor, which I think is in the forum header. If you have questions, ask away.

     

    Also, welcome the boards, and leave your sanity at the door! I almost never get to do the traditional greeting.

  9. You definitely need to update to the most recent version. It's likely that this error is caused by some missing code that was added in a later version. Also, I'd probably just restart the scenario; you're very early on and it'll take you just a few minutes to get back to that point.

     

    If that doesn't work, I can help. These unhandled exceptions are the bane of my existence because, as a Mac designer, I can't reproduce them. I need to know exactly what happens right before the crash. There are several steps in that part of the scene: 

     

    1) Legare says "O Goddess, let what you have ordained BE!"

    2) A bunch of the land changes

    3) A message starting "As you stare on in amazement," pops up.

    4) Legare says "DO NOT FEAR," etc.

    5) Another message pops up, starting "As the sliths"

    6) People disappear.

    7) You walk forward.

    8) You move to the Parted River.

     

    I need to know exactly when it crashes. For reference, an older version would crash at step 6).

  10. I was hoping to come back and say that everything through the end of Chapter 2 is done, but it's not happening as quickly as I'd hoped. What I'm doing now is creating all the stuff that didn't go right the first time—e.g., there was a space where I figured that I wanted something of general nature [x] to happen, but I couldn't come up with the details for [x], or I started to write [x] and it was bad, or whatever. I'm making progress, but I probably need another month or two.

     

    I'm also filling in minor details everywhere. For example, yesterday, I added area descriptions to every town in Chapters 1 and 2 that was missing them.

  11. 1 hour ago, NTJedi said:

    If Jeff Vogel wanted to keep his gamers playing his games and have his games literally evolve then he would be focused on providing an editor so the community could create new fun challenges.

    You know, he tried that a couple of times. The second time, it was a complete commercial flop and nearly destroyed the company. He's said he's not likely to do it again.

     

    1 hour ago, NTJedi said:

    The main reason I have seen developers not include multiplayer is because it's beyond their technical skills.

    That may very well be the reason that Jeff hasn't tried it. Jeff is a good writer. He's a passable coder, but he's not great. You don't play Spiderweb games for their advanced programming; you play them for their immersive storytelling.

  12. I'd definitely recommend starting with Avernum or Avadon. Both are very good. Avernum is more open-world exploration, whereas Avadon is much more linear. I'd say that the mood of Avadon is darker and, at least for me, the story was harder to follow at first.

     

    Geneforge is excellent but is in the process of being remade right now, so I'd recommend not starting there (though you could).

     

    Nethergate is also excellent but a good deal older.

     

    I didn't like Queen's Wish, but most people here did.

  13. I just wrote the ending. Like the ending of Chapter 3 (which is probably the most pivotal moment in the scenario), it's going to go through a few drafts before I'm happy with it. But holy moly, I wrote the ending.

     

    There is a ton of filling in to do. The scenario has 93 towns, many of which are only partially complete, and there are a few more to create. There is a lot of combat to put in, much of which is pretty elaborate scripted combat and will take a lot of work. But this is a major milestone. I've been designing frantically for the past couple of days because I knew I was close, and I finally got there.

  14. Yeah, I learned the dangers of overly long periods of no interaction while designing Bahssikava.

    Spoiler

    The first and second scenes have combat, and you walk around a bit, and there's some dialogue. The third scene is not much more than a cutscene, but you still walk around a bit and there's some dialogue. And so on. There's also a little bit between each scene — another character is going through the same visions, and you talk with him about what you're seeing — but that's basically just a cutscene.

     

    It's interactive within constraints. The sequence is completely linear and railroaded. You do stuff, but what you can do is really tightly constrained.

     

  15. I am losing my mind. I figured out how the second (and, by far, the longest) part of Chapter 5 can work, and it's... nuts.

    Spoiler

    It's based on everyone's favorite scene in the Wheel of Time: the Book 4 ter'angreal that reveals the history of the Aiel. Essentially, you live a bunch of historical scenes in reverse chronological order, tracing something back to its origins. There are five scenes, some involving combat, some involving puzzles, some little more than cut scenes, all building to the final puzzle: What does it all mean? What do you need to do to fix everything?

     

    I created the first and third scenes, skipped the second because I basically know how it will go but need to work on the details, and am in the middle of the fourth (which is kind of involved). I am hoping that this sequence creates a very strong sense of the uncanny in the player, because that's its effect on me. You live out some of the most important moments in the lives of some of the most important figures in my canon's history.

     

    In the first scene, you're Legare.

     

  16. Haven't had time, will respond later if I'm able.

     

    EDIT: Actually, heck with it, I'll do it now.

     

    The docs say: "A blow with a weapon does a number of dice of damage equal to the attacker’s strength plus the skill in the weapon plus the bonus." So an additional level of skill or an additional level of damage adds one die to the dice already used.

     

    The size of dice is determined by the item's inherent properties (strictly speaking, the it_damage_per_level characteristic). 

  17. Lots of progress over the Thanksgiving holiday. I created the core of most of the end of Chapter 4 and the beginning of Chapter 5. Chapter 5 has essentially three main sequences, and I created almost all of the first. The second is going to be long and quite tricky to plot out — I have a seed of an idea, but it could be great or terrible, and I have to really sketch it out before I can start putting it into the scenario — so I think I'm going to write up to the beginning of that part and then skip ahead to the third part, which I have pretty solidly under control. And that's pretty much it. I write the ending, and then I have to go back and fill in all the stuff that I've skipped (which includes fairly large chunks of Chapters 3 and 4).

     

    I'm at 84 towns now, and I still estimate that there will be around 100 by the time I'm done. Some of the early work that I did is still paying dividends; I haven't had to work on an outdoor section or figure out which items go in which shops because I designed all that at the beginning.

  18. 2 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

    This is just a thought, but have you considered compiling some of these posts into a text file that you could distribute with Homeland, something like a developer’s commentary?

    Something like that, yes.

    2 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

    Also, as I was about to post this, I think I just clocked the Iliointh reference. If it's what I think it is, that’s another nice touch ...

    Iliointh was mentioned a couple times in Exodus as the birthplace (well, hatchingplace) of Khalthas. The name is a slithification of Ilion/Ilium, the alternative name for Troy. Aeneas comes from Troy, and Khalthas's story is very, very loosely inspired by the classical epics.

  19. Continuing the work on the last few towns in Chapter 4. It's coming along, albeit slowly.

     

    I also spent a few hours today revising my name list. One of the facets of Homeland that makes it very different from my other scenarios is the huge number of friendly towns, which in turn means that there are tons of character names — far more than in Bahssikava or Exodus. By my count, there were 32 character names in Bahssikava, of which 4 were Jeff names (Legare, Sss-Thsss, Phaedra, and Machrone). There were 48 additional names in Exodus. There are already over 200 in Homeland, and there will probably be over 250 by the time I'm done.

     

    I'm making the names follow particular regional patterns so as to convey a little more sense of place as you move through the homeland. The Empire of Khalthas has four major regions: the region through which you travel during Exodus (which the sliths of the homeland call "Fathenaka Province"), the northern half of Khitaloss Province, the southern half, and Iliointh Province. Each region has a different set of endings for male and female names, and a general sound that they prefer. Northern names are fairly fluid, alternating between vowels and consonants, with female names ending in -a, -ia, or sometimes -ess, -ass, or -eth, and male names ending in -oss, or sometimes -en, -or, or -er. Typical examples are (female) Nehva or Dakhia and (male) Dokhoss or Orathoss. Southern names have strings of consonants, with female names ending in -a, -akh, -ash, or -eth, and male names ending in -[consonant]ss or -oss, or sometimes -yth or -en. Typical examples are (female) Sfessakh or Nazbash and (male) Narkhss or Venyth. Iliointh names tend to be very vowel-y and longer with a different (though overlapping) set of endings, so you get names like (female) Ageleath or Kiantha and (male) Luthkhinoss or Valenthianen. Each vowel is pronounced separately, so, for example, Ageleath is A-ge-le-ath. 

     

    There are also variations by socioeconomic class, where generally higher-class names are a little smoother (Northern female: Amarantess; Southern female: Ishmeneth) and lower-class names are a little rougher (Northern female: Thikhnia; Southern male: Ekhthss). Generally, consecutive consonants or consecutive vowels make the name rougher, especially where they are articulated in very different places (e.g., "Ishmeneth" is largely at the front of the mouth, but "Thikhnia" is all over the place).

     

    Because I'm using such an enormous number of names, my initial set of notes was really not up to what I needed, so today I went back and recompiled the list with name, character location, regional origin of the name (e.g., Iliointh), and a few other details. Really necessary work, though it doesn't actually show up in the editor or the scripts.

     

    Incidentally, the -as ending of Khalthas (and Talas) is archaic and no longer used anywhere. Also, as compared to Bahssikava, where nearly every character was male, there are almost exactly as many male and female characters in Homeland.

  20. 1 hour ago, Ess-Eschas said:

    This method should work from a logical standpoint, but unfortunately it's not that simple! The flag in cells 2 and 3 unlocks the door forever when the door script is called, even if you change the flag subsequently. Once a door is unlocked this way, it can't be locked again.

    Really? It's in the INIT_STATE, so it seems like it would check it every time you enter the town. Errrrr, or does the INIT_STATE for a terrain script not run each time you enter the town, as I thought it did?

     

    But, come to think of it, Bain is clearly trying to have the door become locked from within the same town, so my method wouldn't work anyway. So yeah, for that you'd need to do a slight modification on the door script to have it check the flag whenever you walk into the door, instead of whenever the INIT_STATE is run. (The problem, evidently, is that the i_am_locked variable gets dealt with in the INIT_STATE and doesn't check the relevant memory cells again in the BLOCK_MOVE_STATE.)

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