Stolen Goods!

Crafting Tome Screenshots

As requested by Frank Perez, I am including a few more screenshots of the crafting tomes this week. The first couple of shots show the original tome, complete with contents guide. This shot is different from before, as I have altered the contents guide slightly. The second shot shows where I have used the contents guide to jump to the Armour section, which then shows the first few formulae that a crafter can use at lower levels. After that is another page showing the Boots section. This tome is now complete.

Screenshots:

This last screenshot shows the beginning pages for the second (and final?) crafting tome that gives details of formulae used with the greater essences: Brilliant and Pristine. Like the previous tome, the beginning gives some basic information and the later pages contain the formulae (which I still have to do for this tome). Note that the contents guide in the screenshot is not finalised as it is using the previous tomes contents guide as a template. For instance, the second guide will not contain the same appendices.

Looting Chests (Real Life System)

Readers of this blog may recall that I am working at trying to allow players to interact with the module in such a way that will induce a reasonable "real life" response where applicable. Complementing this idea, I have made any form of stealing (i.e. acquiring goods without permission of the owner) more difficult than it may be in previous games and such actions will have an affect on alignment of the party. Should a player play their PC this way, however, then they will most likely get to see the items they steal being written in red text. The text will (in most circumstances) remain red throughout the rest of the game as a clear indication of the fact that it is a stolen item. Such items may or may not be recognised by NPCs in the game, but almost certainly, only black market merchants will consider entertaining such items for purchase.

Weapons In Crafting

During my coding of the crafting system, I had to consider the affect of Dead Weapons: Weapons that can deteriorate over time if not maintained and Exotic Weapons: Weapons made from a material other than iron. Both have an impact on crafting and I have finished working the code for Dead Weapons, but I have to wait for a new function in patch v1.23 before I can finish the task for the Exotic ones. However, what I can say, even from what I have done to date, is that I am finding the crafting features I have implemented (especially for weapons) do now appear to be having an impact on how the game plays, which I hope players will find an interesting difference when playing this module.

Crafting Remains

I only have a few things left to implement before I can turn aside form crafting and return to quest writing again:

1) Write new code to determine how and when volatile essences will drop to allow players to craft with the greater essences. NB: I have decided that players will have to create all the brilliant and pristine essences from volatile ones. i.e. Creatures will not automatically drop brilliant or pristine essences, thereby making their acquisition much more of an achievement and advancement towards enchanting items than the norm.

2) Add the new SoZ creature parts to the monster drop possibilities. In this campaign, monster parts can be acquired directly from the creature itself rather than being bought at a shop. Whether I choose to have such ingredients accessible at a shop or not yet, I have not fully decided, but even if I do, their quantities will not be limitless.

3) Finish writing the second tome with all the formulae for creating items using the greater essences. This is a more laborious task and requires concentration to ensure the tome layout is comfortable on the eye. I expect at least another week's work here.

On the quest writing front, I have been inspired since sorting the crafting system out with a couple of quests that revolve around recipes, molds or general formulae. In this way, I hope the player will be gently, but decidedly involved with the system from an early stage of the game. As I have said before, it would pay the player to become involved if possible, but is not essential if they really want to bypass it altogether.

By the way, I fixed my second computer and can test multiplayer code once more. :)

Carry On Crafting!

What a week! I have finally finished the tome entitled, Enchanting Recipes of the Past and am at last seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of this quite long stage. This 70 page tome is clearly laid out and has a quick access contents guide to help every player manage their crafting needs. No longer will they have to rummage through many tomes just to find the one recipe to check if they meet the requirements. Set out by both category and level, the player will know if they are able to craft a given item in seconds, and easily spot what else they may be able to do as they increase in level.

What has slowed me down a bit has been the number of alterations (and some corrections) I have had to make to the 2da's along the way. It was simple enough to do, but just a bit boring. Along with adding all the TIMBERS and INGOTS to the COST column, I also did the following:

NX2_CRAFTING.2DA ALTERATIONS:

Recipe 11 - Capitalised Gold Necklace tag in 2da and added DIAMOND to recipe description.
Recipe 94 - Corrected Craft Alchemy to 3 to match description.
Recipe 100 - Corrected tag of item made to match 2da: nx2_r_w_bolt_poison
Recipe 110 - Still needs silver weapon adding. (Work In Progress.)
Recipe 116 - Added Silver Battleaxe recipe.
Recipe 122 - Still needs silver weapon adding. (Work In Progress.)
Recipe 128 - Still needs silver weapon adding. (Work In Progress.)
Recipe 146 - Added Silver Dagger recipe.

NX2_ENCHANTING.2DA ALTERATIONS:

Added sfx_conj_magic to sound for all Incantations.

Incantation 10 appears to be Profane Weapon. (Recipe Removed)
Incantation 11 appears to be Sacred Weapon. (Recipe Removed)
Incantation 24 - Made level required 6 as per recipe description.

CRAFTING.2DA LEVEL REQUIREMENT ALTERATIONS:

811 - Leather Armour 2
812 - Leather Armour Salamander 14
813 - Studded Leather 3
814 - Studded Leather Salamander 15
826 - Hide Armour 3
827 - Hide Armour Salamander 15
828 - Padded Armour 1

NB: Let me know of any other "errors" that would be worth knowing about!

Renaming Equipment

I have also been working with the code around the crafting of these items, including reworking the renaming facility that I originally had in place for just the weapon held in the right hand. Now, I have extended a fourth tab on the Main Menu that allows the player to rename any equipment that they can equip. One of the reasons for this, is because it is easy to make a mistake when finishing the crafting process and name the finished product with an error in it. This system allows the player to rename the item at any time. (See the screenshots.) UPDATE: I just discovered that there is a variable that can be set on the module that allows the smith hammer to be used on items to rename them. Checking the smith hammer script, you will see:

int bSmithHammerRenameItem = GetGlobalInt(CAMPAIGN_SWITCH_SMITH_HAMMER_RENAME_ITEM);


If this variable is set to true, then the hammer can be used to touch an item and the rename GUI text box appears. I am in two minds as to whether to include this option or not though, as it could be dangerous if a player was to rename an item that I have set script to check. It's ability to rename items is indiscriminate at the moment, but I may change it to check for items worn, like my own script currently does. This would then allow a player to rename items a couple of ways.

Enchanter's Satchel

As most players will probably know, the Enchanter's Satchel allows the PC to craft items in the field without the need to have access to a workbench. However, in the Althéa Campaign, this item requires the PC to use one more item in the process: Life Essences. Regular readers of this blog will know that the Life Essence will play a prominent part in the campaign and is an item that can be used in many ways and so it will be up to the player if they want to take advantage of crafting in the field using the Enchanter's Satchel and expending Life Essences. Alternatively, they can just wait until they have access to a magician's workbench where they can craft without any Life Essence requirements.


Mold Information

On the back of a previous post, I also took the trouble to rename all the molds to show at a glance what the minimum Craft Armour or Craft Weapon skill had to be to use them. E.g. Mold(CA1): Light Shield and Mold(CW2): Club, require a Craft Armour skill of 1 and a Craft Weapon skill of 2 respectively to create these items with the most basic of materials.

(*) ADDITION: I will also be adding a level indication for all newer (SoZ) recipes as an indicator of what minimum level is required to craft an item. The figure will either represent the lowest rank in the appropriate skill or the lowest caster level for the catalyst spell used in the recipe description. E.g. Recipe(8): Amulet of Health +2 means the lowest caster level is 8th level as a catalyst spell is used here. Recipe(8): Acid Flask means the lowest Craft Alchemy skill rank required is 8 points.

Another Craft Tome

I am now looking at writing at least one more book for crafting. This book will contain all the recipes that use the greater essences (brilliant and pristine) at a glance. Again, the idea is to take away the need for the player to rifle through various collected essences to find a recipe they wish to follow. Essence description will be made much simpler, and the prospective crafter will refer to the tome instead when wanting to see what is required for crafting with these essences. I had considered a possibility of a third tome that covered the new style recipes that come with the SoZ expansion, but due to the way they are gathered already (as if in their own tome), I decided against it. ADDITION: See the comment above regarding SoZ recipes under "Mold Information".

I am also going to make the usage of Enchantment Recipes single use only. Therefore, finding and collecting more than one of the same recipe (which can be done) will be beneficial rather than sit inside a tome alongside a duplicate that does nothing more than duplicate the same information. Making these recipes single use only feels more appropriate to me, especially as there are other ways to craft items available. UPDATE: I have decided to make the Creation Recipes single use only as well. As these recipes greatly reduce the requirements to create certain items at the cost of only a small amount of gold, I considered that these should be "consumable" during item creation as well.

Specialist Bags

Another section of items I have been setting up are specialist bags. Those who have played SoZ will probably be familiar with the concept already: Bags that are designed to hold certain items only and reject others. To this end, I have created two to date:

1) Treasures Bag: Gems and jewellery automatically go into this bag.
2) Crafting Satchel: Some may know this as the Bounty Bag, but I have renamed it as it will accept a number of other crafting ingredients as well now, like molds.

There may be times when an item is not automatically placed in the bags, such as when a piece of magic jewellery is made. Furthermore, I have made it so items can be removed from the bag again if need be. This may be obvious, but was not the case in practice.

Second Computer Dies

On a personal note, I had the frustrating experience of having my second computer fail on me yesterday. This is a pain, as I test all my multi-player code with this computer on the LAN. After checking around the prices (and discovering everything has gone up due to the exchange rate being so bad), I have decided to just to patch the computer up as cheaply as possible. Therefore, I ordered the following at a total price of just under £185 from ebuyer:

1) Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz Socket 775 1066MHz FSB 3MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
2) ASROCK P45DE P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
3) Crucial 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL6 Lifetime Warranty

Hopefully, I will have the energy to fix it when the parts turn up next week.

SoZ Crafting - Avoiding Trade Items

UPDATED (13th April): In the light of this forum post, I did some further experimentation with kinc_crafting (which I eventually found) and can now recommend the following structure for basic crafting. i.e. When not requiring TRADE ITEMS.

First of all locate kinc_crafting.NSS in the SoZ expansion campaign folder. Open this with a basic text editor (like notepad) and copy the script into the toolset as a new script and name it the same. i.e. kinc_crafting (without the NSS suffix). The only other file you require (to make this script compile correctly) is kinc_trade_constants, which can be located in the same way as described above for the previous script. Again, copy and paste the script into your own module, keeping the same name.

Open your kinc_crafting script and add the include line for the kinc_trade_constants file. i.e. Add the line #include "kinc_trade_constants" just below the other include files mentioned in the kinc_crafting script. Lastly, add the #include "kinc_crafting" include line inside your own On Module Activate script, which will also contain the modified script as mentioned in this blog post.

Using the kinc_crafting include file instead of the kinc_trade bypasses the check for TRADE GOODS. However, you may still like to replace these goods (as described in the original post below) so that the player still has to acquire ingredients similar to the original TRADE GOODS. If you do, simply carry out the instructions below, but now without the need to delete the COST_GOODS and COST_RARERES columns first.

ORIGINAL POST

I thought I would share a couple more things with fellow builders with respect to crafting using SoZ code. First of all, if you have tried opening the nx2_crafting.2da file, you will have probably found that it has errors that prevent it from opening in some 2da editing programs. For those interested, here is a FIXED FILE that you can download. This file is required for those who may wish to edit it to either add or change those recipes that are available in the game.

In particular, you may wish to remove any references to TRADE ITEMS required to craft items. These items appear under the COST_GOODS and COST_RARERES columns and refer to TIMBERS and INGOTS. For basic crafting, you will NOT want these columns to contain references to any items, but want to add items (replacing these trade goods) with specific ingredients to the COST_ITEMS column instead.

E.g. In rows 97 and 98, I have removed the GOOD_TIMBER reference from the COST_GOODS column and added specific tags representing the planks instead. (See screenshot.) Now, when the code checks for the items required to make the different types of poisonous arrows, it will not fail when checking for TRADE ITEMS (which we don't want in a basic crafting system), because they are no longer listed, but will require specific planks of wood instead. In our example, I have made the requirements a Zalantar Plank for mild poisonous arrows and a Shedderan Plank for poisonous arrows.

Continue to remove unwanted TRADE ITEMS from their respective columns and add appropriate planks of wood or ingots as required. In this way, you can keep all the recipes that can be found and make use of basic crafting items rather than have to rely on the TRADE system.

Just for your information, I have also discovered a number of errors with respect to items required for the crafting (in the 2da file), descriptions of such (in the recipe description), and even in the resulting item itself (item object). As an example, these two lines that supposedly make two different types of arrows, actually make an arrow with the same qualities! Of course, it is easy enough to add or alter the properties on the arrows and make a new campaign item (that will be created instead), which is what I have done. Just remember to ensure you have the name, resref and/or tag set exactly as the 2da file requires or the item will not be made.

In-Game Information

I am glad to say that I am nearing the end of creating the tome called, Enchanting Recipes Of The Past (see last blog entry). The tome contains over 50 pages of information, but thanks to the easy to use "Contents" system that works with my ReadBooks add-on, every crafting recipe is easy to locate and follow. I only have three sections left to do: Grenades, Venoms & Special. I also took the opportunity to update the ReadBook code to now close the "Contents" section automatically after closing the book. Therefore, this line in the conversation will be removed for all books contents displays now.

During its writing, I also worked at the modern SoZ system of crafting and checked out some of the code I had already altered. At first, I thought I had located a bug in my code, but after some debug tests worked out that I had just happened to come across a recipe (among the hundreds) that had two errors in it! What are the chances of that? The errors in question (for recipe 11) were:

1. The recipe neglected to tell me that a gem was involved. (I have now edited that in.)
2. The tag in the 2da file was lower case instead of uppercase. (Now corrected.)

The problem was that when the code went to check for the necklace required (written in the wrong case in the 2da file), it did not find it in my inventory and ended up giving me another necklace in its place! This went on every time I tried the recipe, which also means it is an exploit in the game itself.

Before finishing the tome, I also started to check the code behind the Molds that PCs can use to build weapons and armour. Again, I have tried to simplify the usage of these items by explaining the mechanics behind their use and giving extra information in the exotic materials descriptions where applicable to make the crafting easier for the player. To accompany this, I also added more in-game information for the player to help them recognise what they need to have in the way of skills to be able to craft items from molds in the first place. Check out the screenshot to see how the information is easily found from the player's unique Main Menu.

Like all things I am trying to set out for in this module, I am hoping to make the more specialised areas of game-play more accessible to the average player. From my own experience, I have found certain aspects of crafting rather complicated to use, and that it often took more time and trouble to do than it was worth. However, by making the value of crafted items more valuable to the PC (and player) and at the same time easier to understand, then I hope that crafting will take a more enjoyable and prominent place in the campaign than it would have done otherwise.

Crafting Revisited

After doing some work on a new area, I was once again inspired to return to sorting out the crafting system for the new era. I first looked at the system in February last year with these posts: The Art of Crafting and Crafting In The New Era. Then recently I took a closer look at the SoZ additions in the Custom Crafting With NWNX2 post. I know this means I have diverted from plot writing again, but the crafting system is an involved part of the mechanics that I need to get done so I can then use some of its concepts to start adding items to the world and thereby give added reason for PCs to explore.

Enchanting Recipes Of The Past

The Althéa Campaign makes use of all the current crafting systems available in the OC and expansions. However, I have tried to make the more awkward system (the OC for some people) easier to understand and use. To this end, a new tome (currently entitled "Enchanting Recipes Of The Past") has been added to help explain the differences between all the systems that are available to those players who will want to take up crafting. I hope that the rewritten combined system will encourage players to try it out, especially as crafting will be the sure-fast way of acquiring more useful items for the adventurer within the world of Althéa.

Over A Hundred Recipes!

The tome is more than a book simply explaining more about crafting. It will also contain every formula from every one of the 27 recipe books from the original NWN2 campaign! Their inclusion into one tome is explained in the tome itself and forms part of the back-story. As a consequence, however, the PC must have the tome carried somewhere in their party to be able to craft an item in its pages.

The above image shows only the start of the book, as I still need to write the many chapters that cover the formulas. However, the structure of the tome and its added contents guide will make locating an item formula (that a PC can actually do) much easier! Chapters still to be added include: Armour, Weapons, Bracers, Belts, Boots, Cloaks, Amulets, Rings, Grenades, Venoms & Special. Then, within each category, it will be clear what level the PC needs to be before any further requirements (ingredients) will be listed separately for the individual items. Note, however, each chapter begins with a brief explanation of basic requirements that will not be repeated in each item description, thereby removing much superfluous text that can often confuse the reader.

Quick Reference Appendices

The tome will also include appendices that will help the player know how to acquire the different essences (by naming which monster parts yield which essences) and a brief list of spells and gems, etc. that are needed to craft all the items in the tome. Hopefully, the tome will act as a one-stop quick reference guide to make crafting a lot more accessible to players than it is at the moment. As I said at the start, Althéa will also include the two crafting systems that come with the expansion packs. My hope is that this revamped version of the original will complement them well and help to make a complete and comprehensive system for Althéa.

Campaign Specific

As the economy and ecology of Althéa differs from the standards in the toolset (presumably set for Toril), I need to make campaign copies of every crafting item reflecting these aspects. I.e. Prices are a lot cheaper because gold is rarer and some descriptions mention locations that are not within the world of Althéa and therefore need updating. Furthermore, I have found that the original official craft dropping scripts don't work as I first expected, which means I am having to add code to ensure monster drops are working. Doing this and adding the text to the tome is a fair amount of work, but is something I hope to get done over the coming days (or weeks?).

Multi-Player Plot Item System

I have been concentrating on a couple of things this week. First, I have been giving some time to help beta-test Amraphael's Zork module. This is one of three modules I have been trying to spend some time with. The other two, which I have started (but only just) and need to do more with (if and when I get the time) are: Fate Of A City and Price of Honour. I am prioritising the Zork adventure for now, as I did say I would try to help with the testing.

The second thing I have been concentrating on this week turned out to be quite a difficult thing to do, but eventually I succeeded: Design a system to ensure plot items would remain in play in any/most combinations of a game. While this is more important for MP games, it also has some benefits for a SP game. E.g. If a player drops a companion or decides to leave them behind (and they happened to be carrying a plot item), then the item will automatically be given to the main PC. In a MP game, this process becomes somewhat more complicated, as we have to consider other players coming into or leaving the game, who also may or may not have companions and be carrying plot items. In this situation, if a player leaves and they were carrying plot items, then they are passed over to a player still on the server so that the game can continue if they need to. If the same player should return to a later saved game (and still has plot items on them), then they are removed in favour of the player who is currently running the module.

The whole procedure of trying to keep a database of plot items (stored as resrefs on the module that are preserved between game saves - storing objects failed to work), which could also be duplicated or even have tag-based scripting was quite a coding headache. However, after a few days of trial and error, I believe I have a solution. I even had to update the barter.xml code, because if a player cancelled bartering plot items, then the code that updated the plot state was not updated. It was a complicated affair with adding code to the On Mod Leave, On Area Enter, On Acquire, On Unacquire and some specific scripts that I use when handling companions. Now that the job is done, however, I can happily (hopefully) add plot items with alb_plot_ at the start of their resref and the code will take care of the rest. That's the plan at least, and the system is capable of checking 100 items per module as it currently stands, which should be ample. Remember, these are plot items and not just any item: Items that must be acquired and used to complete a quest.

Maybe I can get back to working on the story again now. ;)

Keeping The Faith!

This week I planned to spend some time making items that I am going to need for the quests involved at the start of the module. This should have been a reasonably straightforward task, but it was interrupted by a few things I discovered along the way:

1) A bug with opening books with a contents menu. (Now fixed.)
2) A bug when players switched PCs while reading a book. (Now fixed.)
3) A bug in the ambient system where NPCs would stop walking. (Now fixed.)
4) Players could change their god (not wanted) between levelling up. (See next.)

It's amazing how many things you can "suddenly discover" need dealing with when you are set on moving onto the next stage of building. The fact that a player can change the god they follow during a level up was something I did not know about and only came to light as I tested an XP award. This becomes a problem in the Althéa Campaign, because a PC is not supposed to be able to change their faith this way. Changing the god a PC follows is only meant to be possible if a PC finds and reads a holy book on a new faith. Once chosen, a PC then keeps their faith for the rest of the adventure ... unless there are some very unusual circumstances for such a change. In the end, I managed to fix this as well.

As far as making a start on the new areas where the early quests take place, I did take up Frank Perez's (Faithless) recommendation of Smorpheus' Toolset Visual Index DELUXE, which (from what I have managed to see so far), may go some way to helping me with the huge number of placeables that are available to choose from when trying to decorate an area. If I find I use it more and more, I intend to give some feedback for the author.

Painfully Slow

I tried my hand at doing an interior this week - and how painful it felt! It's not that I did not know how to do it, but that finding the placeables I wanted to use among all those available felt like a very laborious task. And then there were the options to change the different styles the actual tile sets could take in colour and design. The number of options and choices is absolutely marvelous, but having so many options did place my "wanting to do things to the nth degree" under a lot of strain. In the end, I decided that my patience was too lacking to spend too much time looking around at different objects, and decided to say "enough is enough" and kept the design a bit more basic than perhaps I could have done. It still has plenty to look at and do (I hope), but I hope that I can spend the time more productively elsewhere. After all, having nearly finished only one interior, I am not sure I can add much more than 0.5 % to the overall complete score. (I have decided to hold back screenshots until I have more material to choose from.)

World Map Poll Results

The World Map Poll came to a close this week and the results (from this small poll of 23) tend to suggest that most (11 at 47%) are happy with any of the map systems, with some added comments that suggest "as long as the system fits the style of the game". There were similarish results for the next two most popular results for those that definitely preferred the SoZ map system (7 at 30%) or were happy with the original mapping system (4 at 17%). And there was one person (representing 4%) who said they could live without any map altogether.

From this, I think I can be happy that the majority of people do like to have maps in their game, which makes the effort of doing such worthwhile. My only slight concern is for the 30% who really do prefer the new SoZ system, which (at the moment) my campaign is probably going to avoid using. However, as I believe I have mentioned before, I do have some other ideas on how I might be able to put the SoZ mapping system to use. Whether I can do this or not, only time will tell. Other than that, I will have to hope that the modified versions of the static maps I am using adds an interesting element for those gamers.

A Beginning ...

I think the bulk of the house decorating is behind us now, and I am slowly regaining energies to start looking at the campaign again. It's always hard getting back into a module after a break (as I am sure you will know), as one has to become familiar with all the different scripts and aspects again, so that you know where you were.

As it turns out, I think I was at the point where I could continue work on one of my side-quests. It happens to be the first side-quest, and in a sense is the first "plot" section I have written. I have the main story penciled in of course, but other than designing a couple of its areas (very roughly), even that part has not had any conversations done yet.

To mark this stage, I will add a percentage score in the left sidebar for the amount done for the two module sections: Mechanics and Plot. I did this with Soul Shaker and I know it helps players get a feel of how the work is proceeding. Mind you, please don't be put off by the figures, as I sometimes do larger chunks than at other times, so bear with me. ;) I will also add a new label, "Better The Demon", which is the current title for the module. This label will be used for posts that will contain more emphasis on plot writing. That's the theory anyway.

Patching A Module

After reading that Amraphael is close to releasing his Zork module for testing and enquiring about haks, I thought I would share this information again about my "Empty Hak" idea. It is a simple idea that allows builders to release haks of any size, and then continue to support their module with a much smaller manageable hak if need be. Not only that, but there is the added bonus that the hak allows the player to patch the module and continue playing within the same game without having to start again. Here is an edited copy of my original post that I made on the Bioware forums 13th July 2007.

THE PURPOSE: To allow players to simply update the module they are playing with latest fixes without having to start the module again.

THE CONCEPT: Use the hak facility to update code in a module that may require fixing.Using a hak to update code is possible because anything in a hak takes priority over the code that is within a module.

PREPARATION: The only real preparation for the builder is to have an "empty" hak (containing nothing apart from a readme.txt explaining what the hak is there for) that is separate from any other hak, which is associated with the module at build time, and that can easily be updated as patches are required. This hak MUST contain this readme file as the hak must contain a file to work.

PATCHING PROCEDURE: Should the builder have the need to change a script or a conversation, or even add items, then all they need to do, is have access to the "temp" folder within the modules directory while they make the alterations. Inside this temp directory are all the files that *can* be added to the hak to make alterations to original mod. For example, if you alter a script (and compile it), *before* saving the module, you can go to the temp directory (alter view by latest files updated) and notice the NCS and NSS files have been updated when last compiled. In this case, it is the NCS (compiled script) that we need to add to the hak that will take priority over the current one in the module. This could just have easily been a DLG (conversation) that had just been altered in some way.

CONSIDERATIONS: Sometimes, resolving the exact problem may not always be obvious, and the builder may have to use other scripts to help resolve the problem in the module. Here is an example of a problem I had with Soul Shaker that helps demonstrate the patching facility at work:

MODULE PROBLEM EXAMPLE

A situation was reported where someone could get themselves locked inside a room without the key to get out.

PATCHING PLAN OF ACTION: I had to find a way of doing the following:a) Check if the player was in this situation.b) Work out a way of adding the key to somewhere in the room if this was the case.

THE PATCH: This problem also required the need for a new item (the key), so in the toolset I built a new key blueprint (that would fit the door) and grabbed that from the temp folder (it was a UTI file). Then I did the following: There was a trigger in the room and so I altered its Onenter script to check if the player fell in the “patch required” category (did they need the key!). If they did, then the new script now created the new key on a nearby humanoid corpse placeable, which I located in the script with GetNearestObjectByTag, which was in the room.

THE PATCH AT WORK: So, I added the new UTI (key item) and NCS (trigger Onenter) files to the “unique” hak that I reserved for this purpose and uploaded it for people to use instead of the previously empty one. Now, when the module plays, it will refer to the scripts in the hak as priority over the “older” ones in the module and play out as explained above. NB: I imagine there may be *some* situations where there is no easy way to "disguise" a patch at work. In other words, if this room in the example above had no access to any nearby objects with scripts, then there may be no other solution than to add the "patch" as an alteration to the players OnEnter script if they meet the "patching" requirements and simply give them the item as they enter the game. Of course, if it is just a variable or other simple scripting process that needs fixing, then this should be very simple to do.

LATER PATCHES: Later patches simply continue to add to this hak as changes are made. I recommend you keep altered scripts in the newer module (even if you resolve the problem by simply changing the module - like placing a key in the room in the example above) because your altered scripts will then still be available for those who are playing an older version of the module and still *require* the altered code.

Designing - Closer To Home

Just a quick note to say that I have not been able to do much on the module this week, as the house has been in disarray as my wife (along with other family help) have been decorating the hall, landing and stairs. What was supposed to be a quick lick of paint and a bit of a tidy up appears to have turned into a full-blown saga! Not only that, but now the bathroom has been included and I know the lounge and dining-room have been scheduled to be done during my wife's next holiday. I have been helping out where I can, but my lack of energy as the day progresses (due to M.E.) slows me down somewhat and obviously leaves me in no condition to work on the module at all.

I have penciled in a few notes to come back to the mapping system and am pleased to see that the poll has already had eleven votes. From the results and comments so far, I have the impression that most players (nearly 55%) are happy with any of the OC map systems as long as the one used complements the module in some way. Nearly 28% of voters show interest in using the new SoZ system solely, but I am not sure whether this is a result of just player votes or includes some builders responses who have chosen this option as the version they have decided to use (if you see what I mean). And finally, over 18% of the voters (to date) appear to be saying the original map system is their preferred system. There are still 21 days left on the poll, so I will wait to see if any more votes swing the results.

It now looks like the decorating will take until the end of the week. Hopefully, I will be able to catch up with the module at the weekend. However, we now have carpets coming!

The World Map (POLL: Which Map System Do You Prefer?)

Last time I posted I thought I might be starting to write the first side-quest for the module. However, I was side-tracked when I decided I needed to finish working on my world map system and also after reading Wyrin's Blog and a post about his own world map. In particular, check out his great tutorial on tracing maps in the toolset.

Now, after giving the SoZ system a little thought, I am wondering if this system is going to be right for my own campaign. The problem is, my module has a unique calendar system (already implemented) that gives days and dates according to my own world setting. I want to be able to mark the passage of time as the player chooses to travel overland using the world map, and I am not sure how this is handled in the SoZ system. The passing of time also checks for food rations and updates the PCs vigour condition according to time, distance and supplies. In the last week, I have been successful in implementing this system using a modified version of the MotB world map, but wonder if it would be possible in the SoZ system?

World Map Poll

On the back of this, I wanted to do a poll (check side panel) to ask people their "mapping preference" and if they have a favourite system or not? I am not saying whether I can make any changes, but hearing peoples comments and opinions on the matter may help me coordinate my own system.

Working Template

Here is a screen shot of a working map system using a version of the MotB map system. (Click on image for a closer view.) Unfortunately, the compression makes the text harder to read, but you may be able to see that the bottom box (which is currently labelled "OTHER INFORMATION") has some of the extra information I coded for the travelling system.

You will notice that the text is currently in red to denote that the party has too few rations to meet the needs of the journey they are querying. The "TRAVEL TO SELECTED LOCATION" button is also disabled because of this. The system does allow the player to try the journey on fewer rations than normally required (by sharing food rations between the party), but the PCs vigour level will be penalised for the journey if they try it, based on how much rationing they had to do. The system also allows for the new Arcaene Spell: Create Food & Water to allow the PCs to be able to create rations magically during their journey.

This mapping system still supports the Map Within Maps system that I designed in the early days of development. The top icon in the above map links to a second world map that opens if clicked upon. And if this is done, the data of the last selection (even if made on the previous map) is still maintained on the second map until a new selection is made.

Other Map Considerations

In case it's not obvious, I like maps. To me, they are one of the core features of a good D&D adventure and the use of them adds a level of excitement (in my opinion). To this end, I have developed this system to allow the player to find maps that also open the world map (but disables travel). When opened, the map opens for all players in a multi-player game so that the group can discuss a route as if talking around the map.

There is also another use of this system, the details of which I am keeping quiet about for the time being, except to say it is part of something called the "Nexus System" and is something players will soon learn about when they start to play. On a last note: This system was rewritten by me to avoid using 2da files. Now, a builder only needs to add location descriptions and add travel day time entries to one script and the code does the rest.

Background Information: I also spent some time checking out two great SoZ Map Systems that use ships as well: Realms of Ultima: Overland Map Land and Sea Travel System by JasonNH and Sea of Stars Proof of Concept mod (WIP) by loudent2. If you are interested in mapping systems and want to involve ships as well, then these two are definitely worth a looking at. My personal favourite (as it stands at the moment) is the system by JasonNH. However, whether I will actually have the need to use either of these systems, it's too early to tell. Maybe in time ...

Gods, Altars & Holy Books

Let me start with some personal news ... snow! Yes, we had snow here this week and two of our house bunnies were out enjoying it for a while before they got cold and decided to come in again. Although, I think Honey (who lives upstairs) had the best idea and stayed in the warmth. Daisy (left), Bunny "Bud" (bottom left) and Honey (bottom right). All public albums found here.

As for myself, I have been finishing off playing Hellgate: London with my friend before the server closed at the end of January. We have now loaded up LOKI to play. After that, we intend to play Titan Quest and finally get around to SoZ, which should be fully patched by then (hopefully).


























Sacred Texts

The Althéa Campaign uses a system that tries to emulate PnP D&D rules as much as possible. One set of rules this includes is how clerics (and wizards) acquire their spells from day to day. For those that don't know, these two classes must carry their holy books (or spell books) to be able to study prayers (or spells) ahead of time. Without these texts, these two classes do not acquire their spells. To this end, I have coded the game to check if the PC carries their text or not. If they are without it, then the PC will lose all spells except orisons (or cantrips) after a rest period. This ensures the player takes good care of these texts for their PCs.

In the case of the cleric, the holy book must be of the same faith as the god they follow. For a wizard, I have designated that a single personal spell book is required. In both cases, the requirement is only one text, which takes up one inventory slot. Both classes start the game with the appropriate text, but if they should lose them during the course of their adventure, then they would need to replace it. For the cleric, it is a simple case of finding a replacement holy book of the god they serve. For a wizard, they would need to acquire an empty tome and personalise it to themselves. (Personalising a book is a simple one click process.)

It is the coding behind the holy books that I have been working on over the last week or two. I made the decision that I will be including all 22 of the Althéa human-worshipped gods, and that a human cleric MUST worship one of these gods only. If the cleric is non-human, then I have left the original chosen deity that the player chose for their PC at character build time (and that come with NWN2). If a PC joins the campaign with a human cleric whose deity is not one of those found in Althéa, then the deity will be changed to one of the common two found in the starting area for either good or evil alignments.

As alignments and a PC's good or evil standing play a part in the campaign, then I needed to make these decisions early on to ensure other alignment and good/evil based aspects of the game can be worked correctly. And having the unique Althéa gods in the campaign help give the campaign its unique flavour.

Party Alignment

I believe I have touched upon this before, but will mention it again now: The actions of any party member impact on the party as a whole. In other words, if a player causes one of their PCs to have an alignment shift towards evil, then all PCs in the party of the offending PC will also have the alignment shift. The idea is that the party are "of one mind" when it comes to their basic beliefs. A player can play their PCs as a good or evil alignment, but will not be able to play a mixed party of both good and evil PCs. This, in my opinion, constitutes a conflict of interest in the group and the party would not exist as such if this was the case.

Worldly Interaction

There will be occasions when a PC can interact with objects that may affect their alignment, such as altars. These are another object I have coded over the last week that can benefit the PCs of the correct alignment. Note: Altars will mostly be alignment (and not god) specific. Therefore, as long as the altar used is in agreement with the PCs alignment, then benefits can be gained. If not, alignment shifts will occur, possibly resulting in the cleric falling out of favour with their deity and losing their holy book until their alignment is restored.

Captured Spell Books

Also over the last week, I was drawn back again to fixing the Captured Spell Book system, which I discovered had developed a caching fault with the main caching function for all the spells in the game. After a day or so at messing around with the code, I managed to fix this and the spell books now function properly again (and I took the time and trouble to update them to work with the new spells from SoZ as well). These will be an important item in the Althéa Campaign, as wizards (and possibly others) will desire them as a source of new spells, and other classes would like the gold they can fetch in the right places. Writing a conversation to handle the offers made subject to the PCs knowledge was more involved than I first thought it was going to be, and I made a few more cost altering functions to cover this.

First Quest?

I believe I have reached a stage of coding where I can start putting some of these system ideas together and start working on the side-quest I outlined last year some time. That's the plan anyway. However, if I come across a situation where I need another "system" put in place first, then it will have to be put back again. The problem is always dependant upon how I want the quest to unravel, which in turn determines other "systems" that I may need to put in place first.

Custom Crafting With NWNX2

UPDATED (13th April): In the light of this forum post, I did some further experimentation with kinc_crafting (which I eventually found) and can now recommend the following structure for basic crafting. i.e. When not requiring TRADE ITEMS.

First of all locate kinc_crafting.NSS in the SoZ expansion campaign folder. Open this with a basic text editor (like notepad) and copy the script into the toolset as a new script and name it the same. i.e. kinc_crafting (without the NSS suffix). The only other file you require (to make this script compile correctly) is kinc_trade_constants, which can be located in the same way as described above for the previous script. Again, copy and paste the script into your own module, keeping the same name.

Open your kinc_crafting script and add the include line for the kinc_trade_constants file. i.e. Add the line #include "kinc_trade_constants" just below the other include files mentioned in the kinc_crafting script. Lastly, add the #include "kinc_crafting" include line inside your own On Module Activate script, which will also contain the modified script as mentioned below.

ORIGINAL POST

I have started to take a look at the new crafting system that comes with SoZ. For those that don't know, Obsidian released a tutorial on the subject that can be downloaded from the Vault here. However, what I have discovered (as well as a few others) is that the information it contains is inaccurate and not very helpful, especially with regards to include scripts.

After some time experimenting with the scripts, however, I did manage to discover which files do matter when it comes to the new crafting system and made a post at the forums explaining what I had found. I will now repeat that information here for those who might be considering doing something similar in the future.

The important include file that is wrongly named in the tutorial is kinc_trade and it is this include file that is required for the On Activate and On Acquire scripts when using recipes or incantations. However, this include file also makes reference to three other include files that the tutorial does not mention at all, which are: kinc_trade_constants, kinc_trade_crafting and kinc_trade_system. All four of these include files need to be copied across from the SoZ campaign directory to your own campaign directory if you wish your scripts to compile when using the code from the SoZ On Activate and On Acquire scripts.

The official On Acquire code, however, does not (as far as I can see) do much more than set a variable on every party member and force the item onto the Main PC independent of who picked up the recipe or incantation. This, in my opinion, is not how I want the game to work, and so I did not use the On Acquire code in the end and simply applied the variable (that was set in the On Acquire script) at the same time as the PC who activates the recipe or incantation. This then allows the recipe or incantation to stay on the PC who actually picked up the item.

Here is the edited part of the code I use in my On Activate script:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// SOZ CRAFTING SYSTEM (v1.21) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This code is used to support NX2's crafting system.

if(GetBaseItemType(oItem) == 145) //Recipes are itemtype 145
{
//object oPC = GetItemActivator();
string sTag = GetTag(oItem);
SetLocalInt(oPC, sTag, TRUE); // ADDED FROM ACQUIRED

int nRecipeIndex = Search2DA(NX2_CRAFTING_2DA, "RECIPE_TAG", sTag, 1);

if(CheckCanCraft(nRecipeIndex, oPC, NX2_CRAFTING_2DA) )
CraftItem(nRecipeIndex, oPC, NX2_CRAFTING_2DA);
}

if(GetBaseItemType(oItem) == 146) //Incantations are itemtype 146
{
//object oPC = GetItemActivator();
object oItemToEnchant = GetItemActivatedTarget();
if(GetObjectType(oItemToEnchant) == OBJECT_TYPE_ITEM)
{
string sTag = GetTag(oItem);
SetLocalInt(oPC, sTag, TRUE); // ADDED FROM ACQUIRED

int nIncantIndex = Search2DA(NX2_ENCHANTING_2DA, "INCANTATION_TAG", sTag, 1);

if( CheckCanEnchant(nIncantIndex, oItemToEnchant, oPC, NX2_ENCHANTING_2DA) )
EnchantItem(nIncantIndex, oItemToEnchant, oPC, NX2_ENCHANTING_2DA);
}
}

You do also have to copy the two 2da files across (as explained in the tutorial), but the builder must also be aware that the 2da files may not make reference to the same tag as the blueprints the toolset has available. E.g. I had to change the tag of an alchemy table to match the tag reference in the crafting 2da file. (By the way, the crafting 2da file does not open properly in the toolset, so it may need some careful attention if the builder intends to add more recipes as I do.)

For testing, I also copied across the recipe items into my override folder, so that I could reference them inside my own module. I did a quick test on a Perfected Acid Flask, and the crafting worked fine: It checked my party to see if I had someone who had a high enough skill, checked the amount of gold, and also checked if an alchemy bench was nearby. And although I have not tested an incantation yet (for enchanting), I expect it will work just fine as well, as it uses a similar format to the crafting system.

Now it should just be a case of me adding my own recipes and the new system should be up and running for my campaign.

Raising PCs & Selling Spell Books

Raising PCs

The code for raising PCs is now done ... but once again, there were a few more complications than I first thought there would be. Part of the problem is trying to make a system that is intuitive as possible and take into account all the combinations a player may encounter with the system.

In this case, if a PC dies, it can happen to either the Main PC or one of the PC's companions/party members. (Since SoZ, I will refer to "party members" as synonymous with "companions" from now on. When I mention one, I also mean the other.) In the case of a companion's death, a headstone appears and their equipment goes into its inventory (as I explained in my last post). In the case of the Main PC, however, no headstone is created as the player can still access the equipment (apart from that worn).

The player can take an object representing the fallen companion from the headstone, which has an estimated weight according to race and equipment on the companion at time of death. This weight figure does not change and carrying the body object only is the easiest way for a player to move the body (and all equipment) in one go. I have coded it so that if either the "original corpse" of the companion has a raise dead/resurrect spell cast on it or the "body object" has, then the companion is brought back to life with all the equipment that has been left on the headstone - and even equipped items will be re-equipped. However, if the player decides to take one or two items from the headstone prior to the raising, then these items will no longer be given back to the risen companion.

The other advantage of having a body object that can be carried by another PC, is that it can be taken to an NPC who can cast the spell if none of the player's PCs currently can. I have tested this and it works fine. I had a PC carry the weighty body to an NPC cleric, and after paying the cost of the Raise Dead spell (500 gp), the cleric cast the spell on the body object and the PC was raised. I decided not to use an altar for the target of the raising PC (see last post), but simply made it the closest dead PC to the cleric, with a dead Main PC taking priority over any companion body objects.

In the case of a Main PC body, they do not require a body object, as the Main PC corpse follows possessed companions whenever they change areas ... as if the body and equipment were being brought along anyway. The player has a slight advantage if the Main PC is the dead body, as I have not coded anything for the Main PC weight. I don't think this to be a major issue in this case though as there is the pay-off that they cannot access equipped items.

Selling Spell Books

I have been updating my Captured Spell Books hak over the last couple of days, as I have also been coding the wizard NPCs who will offer gold for any spell books with spells in them. This is not finished yet, but I have a working prototype that shows all is well. In fact, I had to spend more time updating this hak for the Vault than on my own module, as there were some other changes that I had missed since the release of SoZ.

Moving Forward

I am nearing the end of my systems for the campaign now. The idea is that with these core systems in place, I will be able to write the story and adventures around them, incorporating some of these ideas into the story as I go. How much they will be a focus of the adventure or just a flavouring, only time will tell. Here is a list of those systems I want to get done over the coming weeks/months before I can will feel comfortable about doing more story writing. I mention them here as much to remind myself as for information:

1) Finish the ambient system. (Environmental activity.)
2) World Veins. (Part of a mapping system.) (*)
3) Chameleon Puzzle Interface. (Using GUI instead of previous designs.) (*)
4) Finish off Holy Book system. (Clerics require Holy Books to study prayers.)
5) Develop crafting system from new SoZ code.
6) Finish off player introduction into new campaign. (*)

(*) Keeping details vague to prevent spoilers.

Any one of these could take time, or (hopefully) be a lot easier than I first think. On the other hand, I may consider taking a break from these and start that story I had in mind a few posts back. I did go to start it and got distracted by another system I needed. Doh!

Wii Have Been Occupied

Just before the New Year, my wife and I had the chance to have a go on a Wii machine ... and we were both surprised at just how entertaining the unit is. I really did not expect much from it, but having had a go at the Sports and the Fit packages, both my wife and I were hooked on the prospect of (possibly) being able to get a little fitter at the same time of being entertained. So, we went out and bought one, and for the past week have been entertaining ourselves with both of these packages, plus a couple of games: House of the Dead (2 & 3) and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I always enjoyed playing HotD at the arcades many years ago, and the Metroid Prime 3 is a very entertaining sci-fi adventure that is better than I thought it would be on a device of this type.

Anyway, now that the Wii unit has been in the house for more than a week, I hope to get back to the computer and continuing modding. Another reason I have been putting it off, is because the new 24" screen I bought had to go back because of a dead pixel and the replacement was also faulty. I am awaiting a 3rd unit now and so am having to resort to a smaller older screen, which is not as relaxing to use having been spoilt by the larger one for a week or two.

Dead Characters

Just before I had to send the screen back, I was coding the scripts to handle death of characters. What happens now, is when a character dies, a headstone appears at their body and all equipment goes into it, allowing a player to take any equipment they wish from the fallen character. This is not possible otherwise. The main problem had been when a character held a container with items inside. Coding it so the container would drop into the headstone with the items still in it was quite difficult, but I achieved it in the end by using a variable to leave a check if an item had already been moved to the headstone.

At the same time, a body item is also placed inside the headstone, allowing a player to take the body to a cleric to raise if they don't have the ability themselves. And this is the stage I am at ... I need to write the code and conversations if the player takes a body item back to a cleric. I will probably use an altar in the method, and have the player place the dead body item in the altar to allow a cleric to do the raising.

UPDATE: 12/01/09: Just to clarify the above. The headstone only appears for party PCs/companions and not the Main PC with which the player joins the game. If the Main PC dies, then the player has the normal death penalties and the opportunity to raise the dead PC with another character. If a raising is not possible by surviving PCs, then the player can still see and interact with the Main PC's equipment (even when dead) and the Main PC is always brought along by any surviving PCs who leave an area. In this case, an NPC cleric will be made to target any nearby corpses instead of those upon an altar.

Hopefully, I will have this done by the next blog and start to get writing again. Wii will have to wait and sii. ;)

Auto-Pause Combat (LB) Released For NWN2 Campaigns

UPDATE (06/01/09): This code has now been updated to work for all NWN2 official campaigns.

A reader to this blog read about my combat auto-pause facility that I have coded for my own module and asked if I could do something similar for SoZ. And so, this evening, I decided to take a look at my scripts and managed to put something together. It is not quite as refined as the one used in my own module, as I did not want to add a tlk file and had to rely on changing only one script within SoZ. However, after testing it, I have found it works fine and so uploaded it to the Vault. It is awaiting approval, but I hope other players (who like my group enjoy turn-based combat), will find it a useful addition. As soon as the Vault has approved its entry, I will add a link to it on my blog sidebar.

Hopefully, my friend and I will be able to make use of the code for our own SoZ gaming experience as well now. ;)

Combat Auto-Pause - SoZ can now be downloaded ....

14 FEB 2025: The site hosting the files no longer exists, and so I have made them available to Download from my Dropbox account. Please note, these are old files and I have not checked them for many years, and so use with care. They are NOT compatible with my own campaign, which uses a much more enhanced version of the system.

Mass

Mass ... Effect

I managed to order this game for under £10.00 a few weeks ago. I did not want to pay more than this because of the DRM software that limits usage. It still has not turned up yet, but I'm in no hurry. There is so much else to do.

Mass ... & Weight For Gold

I finally managed to get my system in place that means gold now weighs something and takes up a slot in the inventory, in the way of money pouches that carry 500 gold coins each and weigh 10 lb. If a PC carries less than 500 gold coins, then no pouches are created. I believe the system is flexible enough to work in a multi player environment as well, and allows a player to divide the weight of the gold among all his or her PCs. Furthermore, the money pouches that are created work dynamically, meaning the player does not need to do anything with regards to handing over gold. The testing is certainly more complicated than I first thought it would be, but I believe I have a working combination now.

Mass ... of Christ ("Christmass")

Readers may be surprised that my wife and I do not celebrate this time, or Easter for that matter. We are Christians, and it is because of this and through various points of study, that we came to the conclusion that these celebrations do not edify God. Furthermore, they have the potential to mislead others about their faith. Therefore, taken in the light of 1 Corinthians Chapter 8 verse 13, my wife and I do not take part in such. There are also some very good sermons to support this, including a sermon (in three parts) by Greg Price, which can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. (These link to multi-media pages.)

Now, even though we do not celebrate these particular times, I would like to make clear that my wife and I do celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of Christ every day of the year, and in this respect, dear reader, you have our warmest welcome and hope you are walking with us along the narrow path that leads to Him in glory. God Bless.

I Think I've Done It! (DLGPartySwap)

I believe I have done it! (See yesterday's post.) I was struggling with one last issue where the PCs of the party would keep swapping back to the main PC during any conversation. Then I had a sudden thought to check the Campaign Editor and voila! I discovered what DLGPartySwap now does. :) It does exactly what I hoped for and when FALSE, it stops the dialogue returning focus to the main PC. Once this was set, it solved all my remaining problems that I have tested to date. Although, I am quietly confident that by doing this I have resolved all my issues.

And so, the bottom line is, I believe I have managed to allow players to add a party at the start (or not, as is their choice) and still have all my systems work OK. Just to reiterate what I had to do to get this to work, in a basic outline was this:

1) Swap the original created PCs for copies with new Tags. (Unspawn originals.)
2) Edit 2da script and attach companion type scripts to them using SetCreatureScriptsToSet. (See Script below.)
3) Set DLGPartySwap to FALSE in the Campaign Editor section.

SoZ Party Function Incompatible (Now Fixed!)

After spending the last couple of hours trying to work out if I can include the new party function from SoZ to allow players to make a party prior playing my latest module, I have had to come to the conclusion that it is not going to be possible. :( UPDATE: See post dated 18/12/08.

It is easy enough to add the function and allow the player to create a party, but many of my scripts that then work with the "party" (which includes companions as the player finds them) do not work with the Althéa PC Menu, which is a critical part of my module and the way it plays. Part of the problem is any additional PCs created are difficult to work with as objects. In particular, if it is not the "main PC" (first created) that I wish to work with, I have used the Tag of the companion in many of the scripts to ascertain which character is being played. Unfortunately, I cannot alter the Tag to what I need for the additional PCs and so many aspects of my module fail because of this.

I had wondered if I can "copy" the additional PCs, retag them and use the copies in the form of "companion" style access rather than PCs, but I don't think this will work. (I don't think I can copy a player's creature objects.) I will look at this angle a little longer, but I have my doubts. UPDATE: I am able to copy the PC and give it a new Tag. I now think I need to work with the SetCreatureScriptsToSet function, as the PCs need to use companion scripts. I will look at this angle for a while longer and give an update if I solve my issues.

On a positive note, I believe I will still be able to use the new party conversation system alongside my own.

MODULE UPDATES

In other news, I am now at peace with myself regarding a "logical flow" issue for a side-quest I had in mind and so I hope to go ahead writing this soon. The story hook did not feel right to me at first and so I could not get started until I had it all working properly in my mind.

I have also done some more work to the Real Life System, which now checks if an NPC sees a PC trying to work with a chest that does not belong to them. A PC will not be able to work with any chest while an NPC can see them and they have not had permission to do so. Of course, the same system allows the PCs to "do away" with nearby NPCs if they are that way inclined, but there will be consequences to this kind of action in the form of other NPCs coming to the defence of the first if they do. On the back of this, attempting to pick locks on chests that do not belong to the PC will also now affect alignment for the whole party involved. So, a paladin will not be happy with an out of control thief in the same party.

100th Post - Winter Slow Down

This is my 100th post since starting this blog. Unfortunately, I do not have a great deal to say as I have been very run down again and not been up to using the toolset or anything really. :( More "coughing and sneezing" than "design and creation".

I did manage to code most of the Enhance Life section of the campaign, and as a consequence, I have decided that this ability will also be usable at any level rather than from 4th upwards. Of course, the player will have to discover how this is achieved first and so it may be they won't know how to make use of this until later levels anyway.

I did also manage to write down my first proper side-quest today. Without going into detail, I can say that it's a small mystery that will hopefully grab the imagination of a few detective type players. If I can write it as I hope, it could make an interesting little story itself.

As a side note, I have decided to sell off one of my 20" monitors and upgrade to a 24" one instead. That should arrive in the week, which may help to boost my enthusiasm to do more with the toolset. I also sold my existing printer and upgraded to an All-In-One. Sometimes, having a couple of new things like that help to give me enthusiasm to carry on through the low times. And even if they don't you can rest-assured that I will continue in the future, even if I take a bit of another break.

Auto-Pause Combat

This week I have been looking over some of the new things that come with "Storm of Zehir". This includes the new scripting command SetPause, which allowed me to add a simple bit of script that supports auto-pausing combat every 6 seconds - on a module heartbeat. As some may know, my group of players and I have a preference towards turn-based combat - probably because we stem from the "very" old school of PnP playing. And while auto-pausing every 6 seconds is not exactly turn-based combat in the sense we like to play, it is a welcomed compromise that allows the game to accurately pause every 6 seconds somewhere between a combat round. Rest assured though, this feature is fully toggable for those who want to keep their combats free from any such facility.

Sorry Feat - Cooldown

I have finally managed to get the "cooldown" feature to work with feats, many thanks to Kaedrin who helped me to pin down where my problem was. As it turned out, the issue was nothing to do with the actual information I was trying to add to the feat.2da file, but the fact that it was not always saving between my tests - and so settings I was making were simply not there! I required this feature for a "Althéa Feat" that allowed a player to say "Sorry" to a neutral that they may have attacked. It is part of the "Life System" where a player will be permitted to attack any creature they can see. However, on the off-chance an attack was made in error, then I needed a way to allow a player to prevent the neutral remaining hostile with them. This is where the "Sorry" feat comes into play. By clicking this option, any neutrals (now made hostile) will return to being non-hostile. However, I decided to give this feature a 30 second cooldown usage so that players could not exploit the situation by hitting every few seconds between saying sorry.

Party Conversations

My friend and I finished MotB the other day, with the cutscene conversation bug unfortunately, which was introduced with the SoZ add-on. So, we had to play the last section again with me pausing between lines so we could actually read the ending.

With that over, we started to play SoZ, and were pleasantly surprised at the way the new party conversations worked in a multi-player game. The ability to allow both players a chance to speak or ignore and do their own thing was a great joy. It did remind us more of good old traditional PnP style play where anybody in the group of players could join in.

So, coupled with my own party conversation code, this will be a welcome addition to the campaign and future adventures I intend to build.

Storm of Zehir

My first impressions of this game are very good. I already enjoy the facilities introduced as mentioned above, and I look forward to delving more into the "recipe collecting" system, which was an area I felt needed improving. To me, SoZ has been a big step towards actual gameplay with respects to the spirit of the game. While I can see this will compromise some companion interaction (that the players build themselves), I thoroughly welcome all the great advantages that the game brings instead.

So, even though I am not even off the first beach (we only just started the game), I give SoZ a high score already simply because of the feel it has given me and the added benefits I can already see. In fact, I would even go as far to say that SoZ is probably one of the biggest improvements to the NWN franchise since its release. Good stuff!

Actually, there is some bad stuff that I forgot to mention: There appears to be a bug with the AI since the update and I have heard there are one or two other issues with the latest add-on that require fixing. I have encountered the AI bug myself, in that NPCs do not appear to arm themselves properly and they like to run away from a target before they use ranged weapons. This is most annoying, but something I can fix if Obsidian do not fix it first - which I obviously hope will be the case.

Another Small Step Forward ...

At the end of last year I gave an outline of some of the ideas I had in mind for the Life Essence in this post. At the time I mentioned the following:

• 1st Level (All PCs) - Soul Protection. (The PC is protected against untimely death.)
• 2nd Level (Craft Skill PCs) - Maintain Equipment. (The PC with the crafting skills can also maintain their equipment if they are damaged.)
• 2nd Level (Wizard PCs) - Arcaene Lore. (PC can create "Arcaene Lore Scrolls" enabling powers similar to earlier Colour Magik.)
• 3rd Level (All PCs) - Empower Attributes. (PC can recover lost or increase attributes. Scaling cost per point.)
• 4th Level (All PCs) - Enhance Life. (PC can trade Life Essence for real experiences - Increase XP.)

Well, since then I have managed to code nearly all these aspects ... and a few more. In particular, Soul Protection was coded very early on when I coded the Death System. Readers who have been following the blog closely may already have an idea how this will work. If not, you will know all about it by the time it comes to play.

The Maintain Equipment is almost complete. There is one small change here to the original plan, however, and that is to allow PC's of any level maintain their equipment, as long as they have the appropriate crafting skill. More details of this will be given in the game and on the website, which I hope will be ready to upload at some point in the future, even if it has to coincide with the release of the module itself.

The Arcaene Lore code was established quite early on, but continues to be a work in progress. It has grown as an idea since its first conception and will, hopefully, continue to develop further as I get the time. One off-shoot of this system was the announcement at the time that most material components for spells would no longer be required. Well, I can now add that I have decided that the new era will not require any spell components for the standard spells. I will still have the player meet certain requirements for special case spells, but this will be made clear as part of an adventure.

Over the last few days I have been coding the system that handles the ability to Empower Attributes. I won't go into details about how this is done, as the astute player will learn more about this when they get the chance to play. What I can say, however, is the coding was a bit trickier than I first thought it was going to be. (Isn't it always!) My first idea of using XML code to do the job did not work out, and in the end I was left with two alternatives: The first involved allowing the player to increase attributes in a similar fashion to the equivalent Epic Feats that do a similar thing, or, alternatively, have attributes altered that would still be affected by what the PC had in the way of other attribute altering magik. The main difference is that the former would allow attributes to stack with magik items, where the latter would not.

In the end, I went with the latter, as it fitted in better with the idea I had in mind, and left the Epic Feats untouched as another goal for the player at later levels. As my idea was to allow the player a way to have more control over their PC's very soul, then having a system that was still affected in some way by other items made for a more interesting/tactical gaming experience. For example, when this method is discovered, the player will not only be able to raise some attributes, but also have the ability to lower some. If the PC who is doing the altering of their attributes finds and uses a magik item that duplicates the same attribute benefit, then they may chose to drop the said attribute and increase another instead (because the two benefits on the same attribute do not stack). There are costs involved of course, and there are other reasons why the player may chose to play this part of the game differently. After all, this particular method of increasing an attribute will not be tied to an object that could theoretically be lost at some time.

In the coming weeks, I hope to write the code for the last idea in the list: Enhance Life. I already know how to do this, and is fairly straight forward. And once this part has been done, the core ideas for the Life Essence (which should carry between each module) will be finished, leaving me more time to continue with the story itself.

Ranges

One other aspect I have been looking at today was to do with the range of vision, spells and weapons. I have always preferred to give both the player and monsters a bigger range with respect to all these aspects, as it can allow for some interesting long range combats, as well as help prevent the player's PC creeping forward to cast a spell or use a weapon, just because they are "not in range".

Having altered some of the figures in the ranges.2da, I have managed to improve the distance of vision, and I believe spells work better (I have only tested a couple), but I do not see a great improvement in ranged weapons, like bows.

I even tried altering some of the figures in the baseitems.2da, where it makes reference to minimum and maximum ranges of weapons and ammo, but even this did not appear to make any difference. So, if anybody has any other ideas, then please let me know. :)

Updated Games Menu

I just thought I would give an update on some of the additions I have made to the player's in-game options menu. There are two, and they both appear on the front menu option panel: Adding Map Pins and Renaming A Weapon.

Adding Map Pins

Adding Map Pins is as simple as pressing the Add Map Pin button. This will then add a map pin directly in-game, which also updates on the map (in the traditional manner) after the player exits and enters the area again. This can also be updated manually by the player selecting the Update Map Pins button, which becomes available when there are map pins to update. The third button, Edit Map Pin, selects the nearest pin to the player and allows them to edit the comment from another GUI that pops up. Again, this only becomes selectable when there is a map pin to edit. I have also taken care to ensure players can only edit their own map pins.

There is a small chance that Obsidian may add some code in a later patch that will replace the need for this menu option. However, as I have now finished it, I will leave it in place just in case.



Renaming A Weapon

The second new GUI option is the ability for a player to rename a weapon that they carry in their right hand, up to a maximum of 24 characters. I needed this function for the players as some weapons in the new era can deteriorate (Dead Weapons), meaning the player may wish to reflect this in the name of the weapon.

I have currently disabled the ability to write in numbers as part of the name, as this is not in keeping with the spirit of the campaign. In other words, there is no ability to write Longsword +4. Although, I suppose a player could call it Longsword Four if they really wanted to. However, I am trying to help players avoid naming a weapon to something that may mislead them in the future if their weapon deteriorates.

E.g. A weapon that is +4 enhanced and has 2d4 fire damage may have traditionally been called a Flametongue +4. However, if this weapon deteriorates with use, then it may lose the +4 enhancement or the flaming damage, and so it would be wiser to call it something along the lines of Flametongue only ... unless it loses its flaming damage as well over time.

UPDATE: Due to popular demand, I have allowed numbers to be used in the naming process. Just don't forget that the name may not reflect the ability of the weapon if it changes and you fail to notice. ;)

Map Pins Have A Future?

In the last post you may recall that I managed to work a system that enabled a player to use my own version of "map pins" within NWN2. As I built this system, I was in contact with Sunjammer via the Bioware forums (website added to the website links), who gave this response when I asked him about the possibility of using existing NWN code for map pins in NWN2:

"It isn't possible at this point. In NWN1 when you clicked on the map the client sent the information to the server so the map pin was displayed immediately. In NWN2 all we are doing is creating the underlying variables and there is no message being sent to the server that tells it to create the corresponding map pin ... until the client enters the new area. However I have it on good authority that a) the code still exists in NWN2 and b) it would be very easy to create a UI callback to send the appropriate message to the server. Consequently I'm submitting a feature request to Rob & Rich.Hopefully it can be included in v1.22 (v1.20 is SoZ, v1.21 is the "day 1" patch for SoZ, v1.22 will be the first normal patch after SoZ)."

So, basically, if Obsidian are able to make this UI callback available to us, then I guess the idea of including map pins for area maps will become available to us once again. And if they do, then it would be a great honour to say that it all started here, and thanks to Sunjammer, may become a salvaged system to replace the method I currently have in place. Here's hoping ...