Episode 54: Adventuring Forth!

Writing of module two continues alongside module one MP testing. I have covered quite a few various aspects over the last few weeks, from fixing of code to writing new material. It's been a mixed bag, which has helped move the overall project forward. Read on ...

General Improvements

While writing new material, readers of this blog will recall I have also been play-testing the MP environment. This is when I discovered area load times needed addressing, and some conversations required fixing. All these have now been done for both module one and two, and although not all areas are completed with the second module, I now have a target load time to work to. Furthermore, all conversations for the campaign now start as if from a SP environment and move to a MP conversation only as required; so no more interruptions for players in a MP environment unless expected.

Combat in a MP environment has also undergone some heavy testing, especially the TB-Combat system, which has been greatly improved to ensure queued actions are  no longer cleared on any broadcast commands. A few timings for combat starting shortly after arriving in an area have also been improved to avoid leaving a player in a black screen if using the auto-pause option.

The map fast-travel system has also had its overall speed capabilities quadrupled to allow me to ensure encumbered PCs can keep up with any doubled run rates of unencumbered ones. I did notice one or two side-effects of this system, which I am currently in the process of addressing. It seems any cutscene environment does not recognise the movement rate factor function, which means a PC in a cutscene can move very fast as a consequence. I am currently weighing up the pros and cons of the system with respect to this and subject to play testing may tweak the system some more prior release.

Once all the testing is done, module one v1.50E will be uploaded.

Module Two Specific

A side quest I started on a few weeks back took a slight turn in direction in the last few days, leading me to not only introduce a new monster, but another area too! Thankfully, I was able to find a version of the creature I had in mind on the Vault (not exactly as I first imagined, but it works well with the way the side-quest will work out now), and set about using a new crypt tileset to design the area I had in mind. Again, sorry about not going into spoiler details, but suffice to say, this is my current focus.

Previous to working on this area, I had continued to work on conversations for NPCs of a city the heroes will find themselves in, including eventual conversational links to the above side-quest. As I have stated in an earlier blog post, many of the way these side-quests work now is that they will (hopefully) appear as seamless objectives to cover as the players progress the main quest. It means conversations are more complicated to put together, especially when I am trying to avoid duplicated or superfluous conversation nodes, and am catering for a MP environment.

The Random Factor

Much of my latest coding (apart from addressing minor fixes in the campign files as a whole), is to try to introduce more random factors in a quest. I find this side of coding and gaming interesting for me not only as a builder, but as a player too. The kind of thing I mean is to introduce some quest elements that may slightly differ with each gameplay so even the builder does not know the answer, and makes it more interesting for me if I ever wanted to play my own module. I believe the elements I have already included in my first module are what encourage my wife to replay the module the many times she has done so already. Even the above quest has this kind of random element added to it ... or will have by the time it's finished.

The Murder Mystery

Much to my wife's delight, and hopefully to readers of this blog too, I have also included another murder mystery side quest that I started on a few weeks back. It is an extremely complicated piece of writing to get right, however, and so I am taking my time with it to ensure logical flow to be correct whichever way the player approaches the quest. This week's screenshot is with respect to that side-quest.

The bottom line is, I am continuing to write across a number of side-quests, and coding random elements in them to encourage replay.

The Captain Investigates A Murder Scene