The trouble with building a module with a good story is it's inevitable that you'll need at least a few conversations to help the story flow, and they can quickly grow out of hand if you start cross referencing them with lines that only appear if something has been heard elsewhere. Still, I like a good challenge, and while writing a conversation file can be time consuming, they are an important element to immersing the player in your tale.
Approximately half of Chapter One is a simple process of getting from "A" to "B", where "B" refers to a Town called "Oasis", and I am almost at the point where I should start populating the town. Part of the journey involves what some might call a dungeon crawl, so I wanted to break up the combat with another story element unfolding via a conversation. I'm pleased to say I'm having a bit of fun with this one. The story lent itself well to encountering a group of NPCs who would ultimately be hostile to the player, but I had a minor problem in that the group would overwhelm the player, and making the group smaller jarred with what I was trying to tell. It then occured to me that I could make at least one of the group turnable and fight on behalf of the player, so I set to work on a conversation where the group wrongly presumes that the player is someone they sent for.
It's been both challenging and fun to create. Challenging because the one conversation file deals with interactions from both the PC and up to four NPCs.
A problem I encountered with this is that if I assigned animations to an NPC and then changed which NPC was talking, the original NPC would continue to fire his animation until either a different one was assigned or the conversation ended. Another problem was that all the NPCs would face the player while their speech suggested that they should be facing one of the other NPCs. Fortunately I've managed to resolve this issue with some scripts that handle both animations and which way an NPC should be facing when speaking, and initial tests have left me smiling at the result. I've certainly come a long way since my first module created several years ago (Soul Keep). The fun has come from designing the conversation, as there are various routes depending on the success or failure of several bluffs or persuasions that the player can initiate. There's still a little way to go with it, but it's quite satisfying seeing it progress. Not only does it help embelish the story, but it's also a pleasant change to have a conversation that doesn't deal solely with a single NPC.
On the downside my 21 month old son woke up screaming last night, and no amount of comforting would settle him down. In the end I had to bring him downstairs and keep him entertained until 4 in the morning so my wife (being the main bread winner) could get some sleep. The result of this was that I had a terrible day today acheiving very little other than yawning.
Hopefully I'll make some more progress next week, after which I'll probably take a break and go back to World of Warcraft for a while, or maybe even Rome Total War...I love that game!
Bye for now. :)
Approximately half of Chapter One is a simple process of getting from "A" to "B", where "B" refers to a Town called "Oasis", and I am almost at the point where I should start populating the town. Part of the journey involves what some might call a dungeon crawl, so I wanted to break up the combat with another story element unfolding via a conversation. I'm pleased to say I'm having a bit of fun with this one. The story lent itself well to encountering a group of NPCs who would ultimately be hostile to the player, but I had a minor problem in that the group would overwhelm the player, and making the group smaller jarred with what I was trying to tell. It then occured to me that I could make at least one of the group turnable and fight on behalf of the player, so I set to work on a conversation where the group wrongly presumes that the player is someone they sent for.
It's been both challenging and fun to create. Challenging because the one conversation file deals with interactions from both the PC and up to four NPCs.
A problem I encountered with this is that if I assigned animations to an NPC and then changed which NPC was talking, the original NPC would continue to fire his animation until either a different one was assigned or the conversation ended. Another problem was that all the NPCs would face the player while their speech suggested that they should be facing one of the other NPCs. Fortunately I've managed to resolve this issue with some scripts that handle both animations and which way an NPC should be facing when speaking, and initial tests have left me smiling at the result. I've certainly come a long way since my first module created several years ago (Soul Keep). The fun has come from designing the conversation, as there are various routes depending on the success or failure of several bluffs or persuasions that the player can initiate. There's still a little way to go with it, but it's quite satisfying seeing it progress. Not only does it help embelish the story, but it's also a pleasant change to have a conversation that doesn't deal solely with a single NPC.On the downside my 21 month old son woke up screaming last night, and no amount of comforting would settle him down. In the end I had to bring him downstairs and keep him entertained until 4 in the morning so my wife (being the main bread winner) could get some sleep. The result of this was that I had a terrible day today acheiving very little other than yawning.
Hopefully I'll make some more progress next week, after which I'll probably take a break and go back to World of Warcraft for a while, or maybe even Rome Total War...I love that game!
Bye for now. :)
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