Guardian of Eternity

Thanks... I still feel like an idiot, doing this stuff by looking at examples and then trying to modify them for my own purposes. But I guess it's better than nothing...

Dialogue script for my first self-scripted town. Keep getting error message: "Missing semicolon in line 67." I used Programmer's Notebook to jump to line 67, but there are no errors. I'd guess that the problem is more around command begintalknode 4 & 5, since those are commands that are new to me, which I've just tried this once. begintalkscript; variables; body; begintalknode 1; state = -1; personality = 0; nextstate = 2; question = "Captain Jenkins"; text1 = "Before you stands a tall, dashing man in military dress. He gazes out on the harsh desert. When you enter, he says, _Hello, adventurers. What do you want?_"; begintalknode 2; state = 2; personality = 0; nextstate = 3; question = "What is this place?"; text1 = "_This is Expoville. It's an experimental town, full of crazy stuff. Just look around. Crazy stuff. Yup. There it is._"; begintalknode 3; state = 3; personality = 0; nextstate = -1; question = "Oh, I see, then."; text1 = "Captain Jenkins continues to fix his intense gaze on you, waiting for you to do or say something. Even if it's leaving his building."; begintalknode 4; state = 2; personality = 0; nextstate = -1; question = "Do you have any quests that I can do?"; text1 = "_Yes. Go talk to the dog._"; action = toggle_quest(0,1); begintalknode 5; state = 2; personality = 0; nextstate = -1; condition = get_flag(0,1) == 1; question = "I talked to the dog."; text1 = "Good work! You get no experience, or gold."; text2 = "But you have programmed well, and I am printing a little message in the box below."; action = {toggle_quest(0,0); print_str("You completed your first quest!"); print_str("Good programming!"); } begintalknode 6; state = 10; personality = 1; nextstate = 11; question = "Starvin' Marvin"; text1 = "A ragged, crazy-looking man is hiding back here."; begintalknode 7; state = 11; personality = 1; nextstate = 12; question = "How did you get back here?"; text1 = "_How did *you* get back here?_"; begintalknode 8; state = 11; personality = 1; nextstate = 13; question = "Are you hungry?"; text1 = "_You bet!_"; begintalknode 9; state = 12; personality = 1; nextstate = -1; question = "Stare him down."; text1 = "Starvin' Marvin stares right back at you."; begintalknode 10; state = 13; personality = 1; nextstate = -1; question = "I don't have any food."; text1 = "Marvin looks dejected, and goes back to sitting on his sleeping pad, muttering to himself."; begintalknode 11; state = 20; personality = 2; question = "Dog"; text1 = "The dog looks at you."; action = {set_flag(0,1,1); play_sound(173); } begintalknode 12; state = 30; personality = 3; question = "Cow"; text1 = "The cow looks at you... and licks its lips!"; action = play_sound(172); A last note--unless you find something horribly wrong with my script, I'd rather bumble through this myself, to figure out all the optimizing points, et cetera. In other words, I'd appreciate it if nobody tried to completely re-script this for me.

Do my talknodes have to be consecutive, in my dialogue scripts? I just went to modify one of my towns, so that I can run my "Quest Giving" experiment, and I noticed that it's a pain to have to change all subsequent talknodes if I add in a piece of dialogue to a character. So, to reiterate my question, do my talknodes have to be consecutive (so long as my characters call the correct node to begin with, and all the *state* numbers in the dialogue are correct)? By the way, I am elated that I'm starting to really *pick up* this stuff, from the documentation and reading scripts from the provided Spiderweb scenarios.

Whoops... Sorry about that mistake, with the memory *cells.* I'm getting a handle on terminology, too.

Thanks again for the help. I'm getting this, little by little... I've just been reading up on the SDFs... rather important stuff, there. You mentioned that the memory states... 1 & 2, I think, comprise the SDF that's set upon the creature's demise... Incidentally, I don't need to set an SDF to be changed on the demise of *every* creature, do I? I'd expect that it's necessary for boss creatures, and perhaps friendly NPCS... But, hey, I'm the new guy, here, right?

Hah... all right, I'll once again show my extreme neophyte status, here, but I've been wondering what's with all the memory cell stuff. From the documentation, I've gathered that it's important in lots of stuff, and while I understand the idea of storing and retrieving intergers for running code, I wasn't exactly sure what each of the designations in the memory cells *stood for.* Thanks for the help. Recommended help sources are noted, too... I'll hunt around in those when I start my next run of experimental learning stuff.

I am completely new to Blades of Avernum. I never had Blades of Exile, although I have a tiny amount of experience with C+, and I've wrapped my head around some of the simpler ideas of Avernumscript. I'm working with the standard editor that I got from Spiderweb's site. I'm running a bunch of little tiny experiments editing the script for my experimental town, Expoville. My first question is about dialogue. I have a super-limited town script (t2expoville.txt), with all the basic states, and I have the town dialogue script (t2expovilledlg.txt) which *seems* in order. Since I've already defined the name of the one character inhabiting my town (in my town script), what else do I need to put in the main town script to get the dialogue to work? Apologies for being so generic. I suppose I ought to post my scripts... I'll do it after a reply or two.