Tips for a newbie?

[Commodore Redmark]

I'm thinking about trying my hand at this scenario designing thing, but having problems actually putting it together.

 

I got a story in mind, and I have been toying with the editor trying to learn how it all works. For the most part, I understand it.

 

I'm still working on scripting, it is what I'm having the most difficulty with. I feel it should be easier then this, but I guess I have never done anything like this before.

 

Is it hard for most people to get the scripting at first, or is just my stupidity getting in my way again?

[PoD person]

Take a look at the first chapters of a C programming book. The docs don't explain C (which is what AvernumScript is) logic well at all. Once you get that, it's just a matter of finding the calls you need in the appendices.

[Kelandon]

An article I wrote that might be helpful

 

The Cookbook

 

The home of the 3D Editor

 

My links page , where you can find various utilities

 

Most people find learning to script to be pretty hard at first, especially if they haven't had much programming experience. It gets much easier after a while, though.

[-silver-]

The preprovided basicnpc script is actually fairly flexible. I'd say if you start a small town and try to script a conversation or two and play with the memory cell functions of the basicnpc script, then go back and read the docs again, a lot more of it will make sense all of a sudden.

 

Well, that's how I learn, anyway: read docs (barely understand). Play with stuff (don't really get anything useful done). Read docs again (much better understanding). Fix stuff I played with earlier, try to expand. Read docs again... somewhere around the 5th repitition of the cycle the docs become more of a reference for obscura than anything else.

 

And, really, 95% of scenarios need a basic, friendly town of people you can buy stuff from and get quests from. Just setting that up is a great way to learn things.

 

Kel's articles are really good, too.

[Lilith]

I find that reading scripts from other people's scenarios and seeing how what goes on in the scenario corresponds to what's written in the script was the best way to familiarise myself with the scripting system. Before I'd written a line of code for my own scenario, I hung around the BoA forum for several months looking at common things that were going wrong with other people's scripts and how they fixed them, and I betatested two scenarios (both of which I fairly thoroughly poked around in the scripts of.)