May I suggest two idiots named George and John?  Might be breaking the 4th wall a bit though...

I thought it could be a fun side project for some of the people working on serious mods. I haven't seen many gag characters, and thought it could be fun.. I'm neck deep in serious stuff to do..

The idea behind the World Transition Project is community involvement. For the stage that I'll be entering shortly in the project I'll be needing a few novelty NPCs, so I'm putting up some adds for anyone that would like to toss a controbution into the mix.

If you have wanting to make a novelty non joinable NPC that needs a home let us know. Perodically I will be going around looking for simple NPCs from the comunity as a whole. With some of the more bizzare ones, I may even try to make it a competition.

At the moment, however, I'm looking for a few good village idiots.

For more information on the WTP, please visit our forum at http://forums.blackw...hp?showforum=55

http://forums.blackw...hp?showforum=55

I think kits are a good type of mod, but the best are the large add-ons that give you an entirely different game, that way you can play on and on without ever having to go out and buy a new game. I've been thinking about getting Icewind Dale 2 and PST for a long time now, but i just keep downloading mods instead.

I recently got IWD just for the maps, have to get the expansion now 'cus there's 20 moew maps in an official expansion that requires both.. I'm just map hoarding. I heard the ones for the TOSC maps were'nt worth the bother.. how pathetic is that buying games just for the maps.. worse yet I just found a utility that claims it can extract map 'tiles' and creature animations from NWN.. haven't tested it yet.

It's called an MMORPG...

Yup, and that's the general feel I'm shooting for.. I liked the side quests more than the actual plotline of the game. I could play small quests forever and not get bored.

Wow Zan' that was a mouthfull.

The point of the project is to cut out the bg2 storyline completely. No more Baalspawn!

It's going to be a TC. I have a lot of details to work out, but my first task is to map an entire world. Alot of it will be 'old areas' I plan on eventually utilizing every map in BG1, TOSC, BG2, TOB, PST, IWD, IWD expansion (?), HOW Trials free addon, IWD2, Some from completed mods, every town used in diablo2, menay areas from diablo2 as well for new dungeons and above ground areas, the town of tristram from diablo1, A full webpage of large structure models ((which I'm trying to get rendered) including cathedrals, towers and castles) which the artist has authorized me to use, and anything else I can find a home for.

The world map is so large that IETME cannot handle it. I will be having to manually set map icon coordinates..

It's an insanely large project.. It's about building a world for modders to use..

There will be a start, but I want to plot out the world first. Then I'll start filling in the characters, dungeons and encounters in my map zone.

There will be a middle - the character's life as an adventurer

there will not be chapters.

There will be an end - the point at which the character decides to finally retire.. because they've had enough adventure, has saved the world, has destroyed the world, has preserved a lasting balance within the world, has decided to settle down and raise a family..

Nothing forces a storyline to be linear. See chapter 2 in BG2.

Yeah, so out of the what.. 40 hours of play bioware let's you freestyle for 6? You missed the point. I'd rather play all 40 freestyle.

So how would the game actually end? Or would it not end at all?

In theory, it wouldn't have to end.. as long as there are more adventures to be had, and more modders to write new material.

For me, I am undecided between the large mods and the small mods. Just because TDD has a slew of bugs doesn't mean large mods suck. There are several small mods that are IMO worse than TDD, so it isn't always "The larger it gets the worse it gets".

Although DLTC is a massive mod, I have heard it is quite perfect and has a good public service when it comes to technical issues, and yet, it is still in that group of 'large modules'.

Big mods in general (I can speak for myself hehe) take a longer time to make, and have a greater chance of not seeing the light of the day (ie modder becomes tired of the project, etc.), while smaller mods have a better chance of making it through.

This is only my point of view from the crowd.

-Galactygon

I hate to agree with Gal', we never seem to agree on anything, and I hate breaking with tradition... but he makes a very valid point. There seems to be only one real way to do an all out total conversion, and that is to make a crapload of minimods with the intention of integrating them all together when they're done.

Nothing forces a storyline to be linear. See chapter 2 in BG2.

Yeah, so out of the what.. 40 hours of play bioware let's you freestyle for 6? You missed the point. I'd rather play all 40 freestyle.

The world map is so large that IETME cannot handle it. I will be having to manually set map icon coordinates..

Use DLTCEP then. Works fine and my worldmap is 3200 x 2432.  B)

Been having problems figguring out the interface, honestly.. too much stuff in one tool.

There seems to be only one real way to do an all out total conversion, and that is to make a crapload of minimods with the intention of integrating them all together when they're done.

I don't consider it a neccessity. You need competent teammembers above all else, rather than a team of 3000 writers as per Godspawn. Having a leader who works really really hard is a distinct bonus.

And it doesn't concern you that a mod developed in this way is going to be awfully disjointed as far as story/inter-quest connection goes?

Just how many worlds revolve around you? I write, it's what I do. I have never centered an entire world around one small group of characters.

The characters must interact with the world around them. The world evolves and changes as time passes. The role a person takes in the world is ultimately upto them. Life can pass them by, or they can seize it.

If a person went through life doing everything that was asked of them, they would not be living a life of their own. Why should a game be so linear? Life has no central plot.

You're like so many other poor misfortunate souls that think that a game must have a logical path, one rout to the next leading to a final outcome. Life is not so linear, nor do games that are meant to emulate life need to be so restrictive and linear.

The goals of an indivigual, the goals of a group, the goals of a king, and the goals of a nation never coincide.. In a troubled world there is always work to be dome for one that seeks to be a hero or a villan.

Imagine what would ever happen if a character was allowed to follow their own goals and aspirations, instead of following straight course designed by game programmers? Nomatter how far you branch off, you must always return to the course they have plotted for you.. What would happen if that was not the case?

SOT(semi-off topic) once i log in how do i get to your page thingy, when i click back i get logged out, so that doesn't work.

:edwin:

you do? that's weird.. I don't have that problem.. but then again I'm the only one that can get into the *@#&&^#*$& forum. I'm assume it wont be a problem when they get it opened properly.

oh, have you looked at the fort unity map yet? it's up now. to view the area north of it you have to goto the forum that only I can get to

Seems to work just fine

looks like a fun project

I sure hope so.. I've had this on the back burner for two years now..

There's so much talent in the modding community, and most of it is wasted on adding to a plotline that's gotten so incredibly old.. I'm scrambling trying to get as much of a start ready for a demo as humanly possible..

umm... are we talking Fallout walking on the map, that would be quick, but if we're talking little people walking around in proportion to that map area, well... Are we doing a Jesus impersonation, walking on water to the realm of the undead?

:edwin:

There is one world portals in each realm - it would be a smaller map representation.. which reminds me I forgot to post my realm guide.. oh well I'll do that sometime later... hey I found it.. each realm has a different color code.. unfortunately there are two shades of green.

Hmm I'll have to move those purple drow back where they belong.

hehe, i forgot to register over there, I hope Awake is still available...

What happened to the other page, the original one?

:edwin: <--almost forgot that

this map is friggin huge, i've been downloading it for 2-3 minutes now, and 3 minutes to go.

It's a 15meg mos file. It worked in my override folder.. hope you don't mind doublechecking it on your end.. then again an opinion on it would be nice too (beyond it's frigging huge)

im running the "special edition", so I can never be sure. it's the full size AOW map, with an additional subcontinent for the barbarian region.

it took me over an hour to upload it (I always have horribly slow connections here)

putting it on a disc to transfer to my other computer, i'll edit this post in about 5-10 minutes to tell you how it worked out.

Looks good, works nicely, actually, i would be proud to work on a mod that uses this map, it says i'm in the forest of tethir, which unfortunately i cannot confirm. You did a wonderful job on it, and once again, it is friggin huge. I don't think i saw everything on there, i'm going to go look at it again.

That is NICE!!

:edwin:

I obviously haven't done anything about the old icons/new icons, start locations and so forth.. The map took me a day to cut/paste/align.. and I had to do it twice. the actual city icons will be replacing the "?" to make it easier to tell where you can go/have been.

Tenatively I'm planning on making the players walk to their quest locations outside of the city.. but I also had a really odd idea earlier... let me elaborate.

remember all those old games that showed the characters walking on a worldmap to get from place to place.. don't think it'd cut it in this day and age tho'

I was planning on replacing TOB, but thought I'd get opinions first.

What do you mean by "replacing" is this that one mod you were working on, the Fort Unity thingy. Where is that at, i wanted to check on it, but forgot where


:edwin:

i voted tob, i really think i could go without that, as CamDawg said, there is no plot in tob.

I'm wating for them to make the blasted forum public over on blackwyrm.. I've been ready for 2 days now.. was supposed to go online today, but it didn't take for reasons unknown. my link image below should goto the page at least. I have a new version of the worldmap for download.. if you want a surprise downoad the mos file, it replaces TOBMAP72.MOS (the tob map file) I said it'd be huge.. 9meg zipped, but in my initial testing it works fine. will be trying to add maps to it in a day or two.. I have three that I'm working on it IETME.

If 10 is average, then we should be seeing NPC's with a value of 2 just as often as NPC's with a valu of 16, 17, 18...

Keep in mind there are more peasants than adventurers.. the average for adventurers would be higher in theory.

for all the people that think dual wielding katanas out there,, i just want to enlighten you about the fact that its much cooler to fight with the katana in one hand and its sheathe in one hand...
so.. my idea is to make sword and sheath set for dual weilders(maybe imbibed with the soul of a warrior and his lover or somthing to that affect)

if u wanna be uber that is... i prefer the classical 2 hand grip.. but anyway...

this is another lazy bastard saying "this is a good idea" and being to lazy to make it himself..
the ironic thing is that i, through suggesting this have jinxed anyone from thinking its a novel concept...

so i just ruined a good idea...  well i guess there are worse ways to spend time..

I'm about to rant, don't take it personally..


What in the heck is all this with people ging on about kitanas.. apparently nobody knows a thing about the weapon. If you're weilding a kitana as a weapon you could in theory use the sheath as a secondary weapon, however it's not intended to take a hit.

There's a good chance of damaging the sheath while using it in combat. not all all affective. The katana was often used wile fighting with a weapon in the off-hand. This predates the actual florentine fighting style which wasn't perfected until the introduction of the rapier and main gaughe(sp).

As for the Katana, traditionally it was NOT the only weapon. it would be accompanied by the other two asian blades of which the Katana was part of the set.

Katana (32 inch balde, Wakkashashi (22 inch blade), and Tanto (12 inch blade). the measurement's I'm not possitive of. depending on circumstances any of the tree would be used in unison. most often Wakashashi and Tanto.  

If you want to make a weapon set with a Katana, why not do it with a tanto and wakashahi?

You have better control using the Katana with 2 hands anyways.  The longest weapons I use paired are quite a bit shorter than a katana.

Still, it is a decent idea.  The only real problem is that a sheath is hollow and not normally designed to take a hit.  Still, if we're talking about magical items all realism goes out the window anyways, so why not?

The Katana's technically a hand and a half weapon like broadswords and bastardswords.. they can be used one handed or two handed.

The real problem with weilding Katana and another weapon is the length. You've hit the nail right on the head on this one Stonewolf.

Fighting with two weapons is a bit like boxing, brawling, or martial arts. You block with one hand (sword) while swinging with the other..  Smaller weapon lengths are much easier to deal with when managing a pair of weapons.

When you're using two swords, sword and dagger, wakasashi and tanto, rapier or  main gauch(sp), one weapon is essentially being used as a shield at all times. You can alternate which weapon is offencive and which is defensive. However one is for attacks, the other is to block. game rules can be argued here, but roleplaying games aren't big on introducing reality - when was the last time you did a shieldbash in a RPG game?

A shieldbash is essentially a maneuver in which the shield is used as a weapon to both push away an opponent, and throw them off balance (can do a bit of damage too.)

I have fought with sword and sheath, as well as fighting florentine. A shieldbash is much more effective than slapping someone with a sheath.. in ad&d terms a sheath would do no more than 1d3 damage, and that's if it were modified to hurt more. fighting in such a manner, it would be better to treat the magic sheath as a shield. if you attach with the sheath you'd be passing up the higher damaging attack of the katana.

It may look cool in the movies, but fighting with the sheath is ALMOST a complete waste of energy.. the only point to doing it at all is to piss off your opponent and make them look like a complete idiot. (bloch with the sword, dopeslap with the sheath.. it's a good way to make your opponent look like a fool, and mock them. It can anger them enough that they may make a critical misteak, but otherwise there's not point.

(Okay, so maybe I'm as much a purist as a realist)

Heh, if you can block with your sword and strike with your sheath, it doesn't sound like you need them to be making a critical error.  It sounds more like humiliating your opponent--not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately in games, enraged opponents tend to fight better..

Sheath-slap effects;

opponent gets -1 to hit modifier (cumulative max -5)
opponent get +1 damage modifier (cumulative max +5)
normal hit damage inflicted 1.
critical hit damage 1.  10% chance of stunning opponent for 1 round.

---------------

Hey Awake.. don't take this as ANOTHER project or I will slap you with a sheath. I have 5.

Also check out Vladp's tutorial's section..

http://www.vladp.net/nejmain.html

I used that when I was trying to introduce new anims.. There are two files involved with adding unused references into the game - not sure this is what you're referring to. Vladp should have a copy, and I may. he's got more experience than me in this area, and would be a good place to start. he doesn't spend much time on FW.. I'd reccoment following the link and talking with him.

When I got back here I went looking for the ids files, after a long break from modding. Vlad was where I got my help years ago, and once again he came through when I asked.. here's the link..

http://www.shsforums...?showtopic=9956

The shops all carying magic items always bothered the hell out of me. THat's why I was putting in a mage/smith guild into the mod I abandoned. I fealt the need to justify the abundance of magic items..


Ragnar; I was just thinking about it, and a  nethack type of straight up dungeon crawl where the character s can go to explore without it being plot related - just to get experience or because it's there might not be that bad an idea..

I tell, if you want, you what I'll make up graphics for about 20 maps that look alike except for one or two room, and different floor plans. And you can make your dungeon crawl .. I like that.

How about a pickpocket who basically robbed the PC and his/her party blind.

I suggested an idea like this quite some time ago in a different forum - I was considering writing one.. BUT it would just be irritating the way you have it described.

Think three different theives... if you catch him you get to kill him.

They would have to rob NPCs as well as the party.

One 'good' (cautious) theif, one 'bad' theif that will steal from everyone in range, and the third I never decided on.

Stealing items is iffy - what if you steal a quest item.

Leaving the map's no good unless you reloacte them to the next map and let the PCs chase them around the city.