PoD person

Why I liked Canopy, actually.

Dahak, I shall quote you a piece of my article, I addressed that, actually: Quote: Firstly, despite my characters' importance to the story, and the other characters' preoccupation with them, I didn't feel like they were the center of the world. TM made Canopy seem, to me, like a living, breathing reality, with a dynamic existence beyond that of the party, and he did so by limiting me, not empowering me. My characters couldn't go everywhere or do everything, and their actions weren't the be-all and end-all of causality in the game world. These touches made Canopy more real for me than any amount of choices ever could have made Geneforge-land. And another: Quote: Although the end of Canopy was more passive than the first, say, three quarters, this did not bother me because the events in the cutscenes were both a culmination of the drama that the narrative had built up to that point, and evidence that a lot was going on around the party; again, the world of Canopy existed outside of the challenges that my party faced and the actions they took. It was a case study about Canopy and why I liked it, obviously. Thuryl, a scenario is a service beyond my present capabilities, unfortunately. I felt a need to point out what a designer has done well, and why I liked it, as opposed to calling the community pretentious and egotistical. Hence, my article. Kelandon, the story is the best part of your scenario, and it is developed in the cutscenes. That said, I'd like to be able to turn them off, just for when I have to reload from a save before a cutscene I've already seen.

I am of the opinion that I would rather have TM being egotistical than pandering to the player's egotism. Personally, I very much like TM's scenarios, especially their linearity. They don't feel like preaching or flimsily justified strings of interesting combats. Rather, they create a sense of the party's residence in a world bigger than itself and its experiences, caught up in a swirl of events of a similar scale. For instance, in EM, the party has its problems with the Aquos gem, etc., but there are problems that it cannot solve (i.e. Lyfan). In Canopy, there is no way to actually win, nor can you ever get to visit Ygdrassil. These touches, IMO, do more to give the player the impression that his party inhabits an actual world than an enormous collection of generic quests and scenery like A3. I think that this is a truer form of role-playing than giving the player complete control over everything and letting him visit everything within the scenario and solve every problem. In conclusion, keep up the good work, TM, and nice article.

Ah, well, that's what I thought. I'll just have to do a rather ugly workaround then.

that runs the "spell targetting" interface thingy and returns the character ID of the target? like, for instance, Code: short run_target_interface_thingy() I ask because I want to make a special ability (as in not an item, for which who_is_custom_item_target() will suffice) that will damage an enemy/enemies. I've scoured the appendix and not found one, but I'm not yet ready to give up.

You know, if talk amongst the community is any indication, a scenario connected only tangentially to the storylines of the games might be better received than a deliberate spinoff. Don't think you have to be completely perfect, as long as you're not writing any history. In conclusion, my advice to you: Make one up!

Look at the "basic dialog box calls" section in the editor docs appendix. If you are going to use add_dialog_str, then you must use run_dialog(0 or 1) to make the box come up, and you should use reset_dialog() before all the add_dialog_str calls to clear away all of your old dialog boxes. EDIT: Realized that perhaps I should explain that message_dialog is sort of like a quick and easy dialog box, with no choices for the player. Any dialog boxes you want to make more complicated (add/remove strings based on what has/hasn't happened, give the party more choices, have a message more than 510 characters long), you'll have to do manually with add_dialog_str and whatnot. See the appendix for details. Also realized that I'm a journeyman now!

I believe you set that in the "town details" thing in the editor. You type in the number of the sound you want. Look in the appendix to see which sounds are which.

text4 = "This scientist looks at you._They dont live here their next DOOR!_"; They don't live here; they're next door their - they're Just to save your beta testers the annoyance, should you finish.

I considered it briefly, but decided against it after remembering that my printer had declared itself low on black ink. I think I'm doomed to be continually clicking on adobe acrobat.

Either do what he said, or open up the "t0forttalrus.txt" file in the Valley of Dying Things folder. Look for the states that pertain to leaving the scenario (somewhere around 19, IIRC). When it is checking an SDF, that is to see whether the party won or not. Look in the editor docs appendix. The call you need should be in the "most important calls section."

The Vahnati would definitely take this contest, because of the aforementioned ability to rest, skill with magic, ability to create monsters and, most importantly by far, instant death nodes. Oh, and I can't speak for BoE, but in BoA instant death scripts (or actually, in this case, the immensely powerful erase_char and kill_char spells) cannot be affixed to swords or arrows. They could, however, be put in a scenario state to be called by any number of wand type items or creature scripts (which could hit 100% of the time, btw), which means that, really, if we're talking Avernum, any of the races could theoretically possess instant death scripts. However, the aforementioned races are the only ones demonstrating practical working knowledge of the theory. Really, this war would come down to who wins the arms race for incredibly powerful, multi-target wands of instantaneous death (or creature scripts). Until that point, though, the Vahnati would be winning.

Well, Jeff might actually have pity on you. From what I've heard other people say (seen typed by other people?), he is actually pretty understanding about that type of thing.

Your REAL problem is probably that you are missing a right quotation mark. Because of that, the right parenthese in question is read as part of the string and, therefore, NOT part of the code. Look for that.

All right, I have to ask. Is anyone else seeing this thread shifted, like, a whole page over to the right? It's really annoying, and really deserves a WTF?

Go to the TOWN that you want the party to start in, click on "Set starting location" in the start menu, and put one in town (There is both a town and an outdoor starting location. The outdoor one should be outside of the starting town) Hope I helped!

This is just a guess, but is run_animation_sound a call? I think it's play_sound, but I posted this without looking at the docs, so I'm not sure.

Uh, speaking of spelling, I've never heard of a "panal," GIFTSare2d2, you might want to fix that because it's your scenario and all.

Another call I would like to see is Code: short char_has_item_in_slot(short which_char, short_which_item, short_which_slot); You would also be able to put -1 for which item, in which case it would check for any item. This could sort of supercede char_has_item_of_class_equip, and that way you could check if a character has a weapon equipped, even if it came from another scenario.

What are your files named? In the BoA editor, you have to go into the "town" menu and select "town details." There, where it says "Town Script," pick a filename. Create a file by that name. Create another file by that name, and add "dlg" to the end. Then, make a Town Script in the first file (see the docs). After that, put your modified dialog stuff in the file with "dlg" on the end. Not that it is not ".dlg" but just "dlg" (it is still a .txt file). Hope this helped!

EDIT: Whoops, looking at the wrong Haiku...

Yeah, I learned C well before I learned BASIC, and I do believe that BASIC's syntax is positively awful. Everything in C is just so ... intuitive. Great language, that C.

I would like to see, well, not really calls, but just be able to define more stuff in custom objects scripts. I wish weapons and missile weapons could call scenario state when you attack with them. I also wish you could define custom fields and make custom sparkles and missile animations. That would allow designers to make much cooler items in their scenarios. EDIT: Custom PC graphics would be dandy as well.

Thanks a bunch for your help, but I know about the town stuff. I'm trying to get a group to follow the party around OUTDOORS.

I'm trying to make a sequence where the party will have to guide another group somewhere, and I have no idea which calls might be useful for that. Don't kill yourself looking for a solution, but off the top of your head, how might you create an outdoor group that would follow the party step for step?