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The Second adventure group


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#1 Biges

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 01:00 PM

Summary: Virtual second non-directly controlled group, where these for the time being no longer NPCs are put to adventure at their own.

Skills needed: Dialogs, scripting.

Hi,
I'd like to some experienced modder consider making mod, which would enable to direct NPCs instead to make second city group and do things accoriding to their alligement.
Illustration: I play good group, but I'm fed up with some NPCs complaining with this and that, e.g. Aerie thinking the travelling with me is not such fun as she was expecting, Nalia who wants to "helping less fortunate" instead of wandering tombs, Anomen with his comments by my group being "ill conceived", blah, blah, so I may kick them up to wait on a place or go to the inn or the circus, whatever. Instead, I'd tell them to go the Copper Coronet and join the second group and do less dangerous city quests on their own. The effect would be, they I'd just wait in the inn and gain experience and/or money, maybee according by their alligement:
good - little money, more experience
neutral - mix
evil - more money, less experience
Or maybee only a bit of exp. The player would have to choose the leader, which experience would (maybee) affect exp gained by others, maybee not. Of course, these good would not like to be directed by evil or even adventure with them.

That's all, you can image it yourselves :)


p.s.: Feel free to point me to any gramatical errors or keying mistakes ;)

#2 Seifer

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 02:38 PM

I'll go one better and point out how absurd an idea this is.

You're playing a roleplaying game and asking someone to help you lineate the posibilities by effectively ignoring NPC alignment.

The comments that 'annoy' you so, are the personalities of each of the characters, one of the most hailed parts of the game. If you want a party based hackfest, I'd suggest IceWind Dale II.

how come you always look so damn cool in every photo I see you in?!?


Speaking of modding, I listened to IER 3 yesterday, so you can have another quote for your signature: how come you sound so damn cool, as well as look it? It's unfair. Seriously.


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#3 Biges

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 05:45 PM

I don't recall saying anything like this. And furthermore, it seems, that the core of what I'm suggesting have gone past you.
Next time please ignore ideas you don't like instead of mocking others, OK? You just waste the space for sensible comments.

I'll go one better and point out how absurd an idea this is.

You're playing a roleplaying game and asking someone to help you lineate the posibilities by effectively ignoring NPC alignment.

The comments that 'annoy' you so, are the personalities of each of the characters, one of the most hailed parts of the game.  If you want a party based hackfest, I'd suggest IceWind Dale II.

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#4 Seifer

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 06:28 PM

This is a debating forum mate but lets take a look at what you've mentioned shall we. I'll be honest in that my original wording was somewhat loose. There is, to some extent a paradox in what you're suggesting. But lets take a look at your own words shall we?


First off: -

Hi,
I'd like to some experienced modder consider making mod, which would enable to direct NPCs instead to make second city group and do things accoriding to their alligement.


'Do things' is hardly an inspiring or articulated vision of what you want to achieve here is it? Which city? We happen to have a few in BGII. The rest of this passage is equally pointless.

Illustration: I play good group, but I'm fed up with some NPCs complaining with this and that, e.g. Aerie thinking the travelling with me is not such fun as she was expecting, Nalia who wants to "helping less fortunate" instead of wandering tombs, Anomen with his comments by my group being "ill conceived", blah, blah, so I may kick them up to wait on a place or go to the inn or the circus, whatever. Instead, I'd tell them to go the Copper Coronet and join the second group and do less dangerous city quests on their own. The effect would be, they I'd just wait in the inn and gain experience and/or money, maybee according by their alligement:
good - little money, more experience
neutral - mix
evil - more money, less experience
Or maybee only a bit of exp. The player would have to choose the leader, which experience would (maybee) affect exp gained by others, maybee not. Of course, these good would not like to be directed by evil or even adventure with them.

That's all, you can image it yourselves :)


Now,this is where we get some interesting contradictions. You play a good party but am fed up of people complaining. Why are you playing a roleplaying game then? If you've played any of the other infinity engine games you'll appreciate that inter protagonist banter is one of the better features of the game. Or I'd hope you do. Anomen, Nalia et al are only playing out the personalities assigned to them, something which appears to irk you.

Naturally, you're ignoring this as they're annoying you so you kick them out.

What justification would this second group have for existing aside from the fact you don't like them? What if this party had a dichotomy of characters such as Korgan,Anomen, Aerie and so on. You're proposal effectively has the potential to group together a bunch of people who hold views, beliefs and so on that are so diametrically opposed they'd slaughter each other. In that you're paying no attention to plausible outcomes from the wide range of motley crews that could be assembled from this idea.

But you can ignore that as they've already annoyed you by being themselves.

And as for going off and questing on thier own for experience and treasures and so on, this just reeks of everything being nice and convenient for you and you alone. If you're going to boot someone out of the party, at least have willingness to accept the consequences.

And I impress upon you the following things: -
1) We're here to debate ideas. Getting negative feedback is part of the process and you'd do well to accept the almost inevitable multitude of interpretations that'd come your way.
2) Watch the tone, I've been a moderator here for a long time and whilst I'll do my best to ensure comments, conversations and debates go on, I'm not going to indulge whimsical responses to what you may see as unsavoury feedback.

how come you always look so damn cool in every photo I see you in?!?


Speaking of modding, I listened to IER 3 yesterday, so you can have another quote for your signature: how come you sound so damn cool, as well as look it? It's unfair. Seriously.


Still a cyberjock, still hacking the matrix, still unsure of what that means.

TeamBG member - http://www.teambg.eu

#5 AnnabelleRose

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 06:38 PM

I truly doubt that when you kick someone out they would wait around and make money for you. Seems VERY far fetched at best.

Charname - "Go away, you are annoying. By the way, make me some money."
"Annoying" NPC - "Sure, no problem!"

Just not seeing that happen with as stong of personalities as the NPCs in BG2. Not to mention you do not eran XP by standing around in an inn, making money. You gain that by adventuring. Otherwise the lv20 drunks would pwn you when you were rude (like the kid who picks a fight with you in the Copper Coronet).

As for the rest, basically what Seifer said.

Edited by MajorTomSawyer, 26 March 2005 - 06:38 PM.

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#6 Hendryk

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Posted 26 March 2005 - 08:57 PM

Actually, I think you've got a bit too far off the original idea because of words like "annoying" from the original post. As I see it, Biges was suggesting something like a living world campaign from NWN where adventurers outside one's own party actually undertake adventures that the player party has ignored for the moment.

So the scenario might work like this. If the party avoids or turns down Nalia for a certain period of time, she'd become frantic and assemble her own party. Anomen, if not in the PC group, would certainly help her out and if Minsc, Aerie or even Yoshimo had been shed by the PC, they might go along. It'd be scripted so that, I guess, Nalia would wait x number of days and after that, if there were y number of other adventurers of the right classes and alignments, she (and they) would take off to try to recover the de'Arnise Keep without the PC. There'd be a chance they might fail and none of them return but also a chance for success (with perhaps one or two random casualties) with the survivors being appropriately more experienced and better equipped. It'd be pure hell to program but it's really a more logical idea than the current setup with "adventurers" waiting, zombie-like, all over the lot for the PC to return and animate their utterly passive existences with a little attention.

Edited by Hendryk, 26 March 2005 - 08:59 PM.

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#7 Seifer

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Posted 27 March 2005 - 03:58 AM

Actually, I think you've got a bit too far off the original idea because of words like "annoying" from the original post.  As I see it, Biges was suggesting something like a living world campaign from NWN where adventurers outside one's own party actually undertake adventures that the player party has ignored for the moment. 

So the scenario might work like this.  If the party avoids or turns down Nalia for a certain period of time, she'd become frantic and assemble her own party.  Anomen, if not in the PC group, would certainly help her out and if Minsc, Aerie or even Yoshimo had been shed by the PC, they might go along.  It'd be scripted so that, I guess, Nalia would wait x number of days and after that, if there were y number of other adventurers of the right classes and alignments, she (and they) would take off to try to recover the de'Arnise Keep without the PC.  There'd be a chance they might fail and none of them return but also a chance for success (with perhaps one or two random casualties) with the survivors being appropriately more experienced and better equipped.  It'd be pure hell to program but it's really a more logical idea than the current setup with "adventurers" waiting, zombie-like,  all over the lot for the PC to return and animate their utterly passive existences with a little attention.

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I'm not dismissing the idea out of hand but as we already know from the chapter introduction cutscenes, BGii isn't intended to be played dynamically. This alone,in my opinion means that Biges original suggestion is still nothing then a pipedream.

how come you always look so damn cool in every photo I see you in?!?


Speaking of modding, I listened to IER 3 yesterday, so you can have another quote for your signature: how come you sound so damn cool, as well as look it? It's unfair. Seriously.


Still a cyberjock, still hacking the matrix, still unsure of what that means.

TeamBG member - http://www.teambg.eu

#8 Archmage Silver

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Posted 27 March 2005 - 05:42 AM

Aye, if we were able to use several NPCs to do a second party, wouldn't it just make the game somewhat... loose? If I wanted to do Valygar's quest for my mage and have Nalia wait for that time, she would be gone if this suggested idea was used, aye? So, I just second what Seif said.

#9 Gabrielle

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Posted 27 March 2005 - 08:49 PM

Strange indeed.
For all of your BG modding needs: Chosen of Mystra.

This is The End.

#10 jastey

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Posted 28 March 2005 - 06:52 AM

Biges: I'm not sure I understood your idea right. Do you mean you want the NPCs to level up, but without having them in the party? Or even make their adventures level the PC up (plus gaining items and money) without the need to play through the quests?

How do you mean these quests would take place: Would the PC meet the NPCs of the second group from time to time, and they would talk about it, giving the PC money and items? Or did you think of something like cut-scenes, where the player could watch the NPC-group's activities? (Big difference in amount of coding work, as you can imagine...)

So the idea would be to have a party of more than 6 characters (in a way ;)), of which the "more than six" NPCs would go on their own. This is a new idea indeed. :) It would have to be coded in a way that the NPCs don't think they are "kicked out" of the party if directed to the second party, to prevent the problems mentioned earlier. Depending on what you would like to see (only "status reports" from the NPCs or being able to see the quests of the second group happening) it would be rather small or very big modding energy, but it's not impossible. :)

To all: I don't understand why you all make this idea bad bad bad. Biges didn't write that the NPCs would take over the quests that were offered to the PC (although in some cases it would make sense, see Nalia's quest). It could be coded in a way that the NPCs do other little, new quests, making it much more realistic that they would proceed and try to develop their abilities even if not on the PC's party instead of standing around hoping the PC will take them along again.

#11 Biges

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Posted 13 April 2009 - 04:52 AM

Hi!
jastey has recently send me a PM regarding this topic. Actually I forgot about even posting it :) But now I recall it.
I have not played the game for a very long time :-/

#12 Thanatos.

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Posted 13 April 2009 - 06:30 AM

Three years infact. *ahem* Necroposter! ^_^

#13 vilkacis

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Posted 13 April 2009 - 08:47 AM

Bumping a thread that's several years old just to say that you haven't played the game in a long time is kind of pointless.

Unless someone is actually going to work on a mod along these lines, I don't want to see any more activity in this thread.