Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods [WIP Module and Recruiting] Of Doves and Demons

Why should I write all these systems myself? I don't have the time, skill, or desire to do all that. Larian has all the systems written and thoroughly tested, so why shouldn't I just use their code for myself? Obviously if I wrote everything, I'd understand it all much better, but I just can't spend me energy there. Scripting all my quests is going to take me long enough.

I could forgo the systems entirely I suppose, but I'd rather have it so if you attack someone, they warn you and then attack back. If you steal something, people berate you and then call guards. And if you give someone extra money, you can increase their attitude. The main campaign script does this all, so why reinvent the wheel?

I'm just trying to tell you that sorting through all of their code is a huge hassle and making it work in your own game will likely

1.)require heavy modification of their code
or
2.)require you to make sure your character parameters match theirs exactly throughout your game.

If you find a way to make it work - by all means please share.

I was only offering suggestions and I was offering my own help too in learning.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to dismiss you; I'm just frustrated I can't get what should be a default system to work. Thanks for the ideas, but I'm going to try to get the system to work and I'll post my results. You're right that going through their code is kind of overwhelming and a lot of it is difficult to grasp, but I actually don't think I have to modify their code all that much once I figure it out. Yes, I'd have to use certain parameters and databases that they use, but for the most part their categories seem logical and I might as well establish the organizational system with one I know already works. I managed to clear out the database errors and it builds successfully, so I'm not sure at this point why people don't respond when I attack.

One thing I don't get is why there's a note n the code apparently from 2001. Is this system really that old and what they used in their earlier games?

// DIRK 26/10/2001:
// a reputation change causes the following rule to "join" with all attitude/2 facts asserted
// This creates a performance dip. Hence, we spread the update of RepAttitude by updating only
// for the npcs in sight range. This means that from now on, we cannot trigger things anymore
// depending on an attitude change only, for npcs that are out of sight.

Another thing I don't get is the following code

PROC
SetWarningDialogToPlay((CHARACTER)_Player,_Npc)
AND
NOT SetWarningDialogToPlay_Done(_Player,_Npc)
THEN
NextDoRevengeDialogIsWarning(_Player,_Npc,"Default_Warning");

This suggests that when you attack someone for the first time, a warning dialog shows up. But I can't find the "Default_Warning" keyword file anywhere.

I'm excited to announce that The_Master_Rat has joined the team as scripter and critic. We are making good progress scripting the quests and dialogs for the starting town. But as all games require, we will need testers and readers to verify that the quests work right and make sense. We want to give players a lot of freedom, but that means that people may do things in different orders than we expect and have scripted for. So if you want to test, we'll probably have a fairly developed version within a couple weeks. Not polished by any means, but it will have a lot of the content.

This content so far is still mostly writing for now, but writing with lots of choices. Tough, detailed choices highly dependent on your character's development. Your talents, traits, attributes, and abilities all will represent you, not as mere statistics to min-max for combat, but as huge factors in how you will be able to roleplay your character. A lot like the Fallouts, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and the like. Here's a screenshot to give you an idea. It minorly spoils one of the quests, but hey, how else am I going to demonstrate this? There's also other ways to solve it (with different results) not shown here. The bottom dialog option is to donate 50 gold the charity which supports farmers (given that town you're in is a farming town and the armor on the wall was supposedly wielded by the founder, Sejin). In another quest, you can use high intelligence, pack mule, pet pal, politician, barter, and more to get someone to do what you want. Or you could just kill them dead, it's up to you.



Yes, there's some combat, but only a few encounters right now. Perhaps, however, there could be more if we had more members on the team. Specifically, we'd love someone to make Uldar, the underground city, or some wild lands surrounding Aeril, the starting town. Mipsy only has so much time, and pretty soon we're going to hit the point where our content, specifically combat, is bottlenecked by the space in the town.

Another scripter or writer would be great too! Really, anyone who is interested in doing quality work and shares our vision of a true role playing experience: PM me or post here. Here's another little screenshot, except no dialog because there can only be so many spoilers.



One last announcement: This mod is basically going to be designed with one player in mind, though it will still be perfectly playable with two. However, given the huge amount of text and dialog, players will have to have a similar love and speed of reading and be able to agree about how to approach situations. It's unlikely we'll implement the RPS model for making player decisions, though maybe we will if enough people would like to play this co-op. Players will just have to talk their decisions out instead of leaving it up to chance.

Nice update, congrats on teaming up and the best of luck to both of you. I look forward to playing it.

Cough. Should've taken better screenshots. Cough. Game meant to be viewed from isometric. Cough. Level designer not pleased. Cough.

Edit: Also is that a floating tree. F. Me.

That cough looks horrible Mipsy, you should check it out

Sounds great, I've just gotten into the game but I love it! Looking forward to whatever it comes to!

Are you still looking for people to help?
My modding skills are not at your level, but I can do the stuff you can be taught in a tutorial video.
But I'll be happy to test, help with quest and dialogs ect.

We're always looking for more people, send a PM to Baardvark!

@Daize, thanks for the interest. We've faaar missed our goal of "two weeks" for a release, but I knew that was way undercutting the time this would take. We may have an initial alpha release not toooo far from now, however. But I don't want to make many promises either because we still have a lot to do to get the first town finished. There's going to be around 10 detailed quests with a lot of writing, several books with even more writing, and a few combat scenarios. Some stuff is going to be dependent on time, since we have the day night cycle with functioning "days passed" code.

@MAHak, Rat sent you a message. We're certainly looking for more help and we (mostly Rat) can help you get scripting down and get a hang of the editor.

Hey Bardvark is this still a WIP? It sounds pretty good. I would kind of like ot give it a try, but I am pretty leery about modifying the game since it only just started working properly for me on the last patch at the end of January.

I hope it goes well, best of luck!

Thanks

It's still in progress, but progress has slowed down because of real life stuff and a bit of burnout. We've moved beyond the fun part of writing the basic content and doing basic implementation to having to really finish each quest and make sure everything is working. Not going to give an ETA because we'll probably miss it completely, but I really do want to finish at least the first town.

I'm in the same burnout phase myself. Things are in place, and it's time to test and tweak as well as finish up the main quest.

Whenever I get to a really complicated part of the game (multiple choices, paths coming together or multiple resolutions to a quest) I always stall when it comes to just sitting down and doing it.

I feel your pain - power through though!