175 replies to this topic

[Daulmakan]

ghostdog, on Nov 26 2008, 09:39 AM, said:

This is a good find indeed! It sure makes things more interesting

[Qwinn]

Nother minor fix:

You will now be able to tell the dabus in the Alley of Lingering Sighs about your discovery in a certain house before talking to the Alley. This restores a number of orphaned lines in the Alley's dialogue and an alternate journal entry, and in fact doing so in this order yields a better xp reward than dealing with the dabus after being instructed to do so.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Hehe, you're not the only one who thought of that door.

It's not a secret door, though I can see why you thought so. That door can always be waved over with the cursor to highlight it and produce the open-door icon... it just graphically looks like the wall it's a part of, so you could easily miss it. A real secret door can't be seen at all even if you wave the cursor over it, until it's detected.

scient is kindly working on the Tenement door now. The goal is that, unless you're a Xaositect who's been told where the door is by Tiresias, you'll never even know there's a door there. It won't just look like a wall (like the Brothel door) - it'll actually -be- a wall.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 26 November 2008 - 04:06 PM.

[scient]

I'm all done coding it. It checks to see if "KNOW_TIRESIAS" global is set to 2 and if it isn't the door never appears. If it is set to 2 from talking to Tiresias then it will act like it normally does showing up after a few seconds.

Edited by scient, 26 November 2008 - 07:26 PM.

[Qwinn]

*cheers!*

I feel very comfortable from looking at the way everything in place is coded and structured that that is the way it was designed to be, but they couldn't do that last part because of unexpected engine limitations.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Thanks for the kind words One correction though...

Quote

That door always made things too easy, and let's be frank- Most of the people who are interested in this project could already easily apply metagaming knowledge to discover it regardless of whatever is implemented if they wanted to. If you want to use it, you will know how. If not, don't. It's that simple.

Well, actually, unless they're willing to go chaotic enough to join the Xaositect faction, no, metagaming knowledge isn't going to help them anymore. The door simply will not appear unless you've been told where it is by Tiresias, and he will only tell you if you're a Xaositect.

People will still be able to get through without combat though, via pickpocketing the key off the mage. Which is a lot more satisfying and fun than just running to the other side of the Tenement, opening a door, and exiting, IMO.

And I am -very- comfortable that the secret door was originally intended for Xaositects only. Tiresias is the sole source of information about the door, and him telling you about it sets variables that aren't used anywhere in the vanilla game. Clearly there was a plan for those variables that was never implemented, there really isn't any other logical use for such a variable, and this use fits in perfectly well with both his dialogue and that of all the others (like Sybil the thief) who make it clear that the options of getting through the Tenement don't include that door for anyone else. I'm very glad that I discovered Tiresias's dialogue about it before going with the lock and trap thing, that wasn't an ideal solution but it was better than the status quo, IMO. The implementation we have now, I do consider ideal.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 27 November 2008 - 04:16 PM.

[Qwinn]

Yeah, I'm not unhappy that this fix does represent a perk for chaotic players, the perks of being lawful do greatly outweigh chaotic as the game stands, so if a bugfix leads towards giving chaotics some perks to help balance things a bit, that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I'd also fix a bug even if it meant even more perks towards lawful, of course, but thankfully that hasn't happened yet. And I'm happy that the hostility fix gives thieves somewhere to use their skills too, the game was sadly lacking in that respect. I'm going to keep an eye out and see if there was anywhere else in the game where a hostility fix would produce similar results.

And now for something completely different... I'm contemplating making constructs (Modron Maze) immune to fear effects (including plain old morale breaking). Everyone please feel free to chime in on this one.

The reasons for doing so:

1) In D&D, constructs are traditionally immune to fear.
2) They don't have anywhere to run anyway, so fleeing is effectively suicidal and makes the combat trivial. Any room in the modron maze is effectively "backed into a corner", where even things that -aren't- immune to fear would logically fight to the death.
3) Sometimes the constructs can get stuck behind a door when that happens, which is rather ugly.
4) Previously, horror could land even on high level constructs which would make the maze trivially easy. 2nd level spells shouldn't be able to do that. The engine fixes to horror will make it somewhat less potent (they will run away instead of just being paralyzed), but in a room that small it doesn't make much difference.
5) Several of the dialogues of the constructs implies that they're perfectly aware that they are doomed fighting you, but leap to the attack anyway, and that that is their sole purpose.

Any opposition or arguments against?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 27 November 2008 - 04:35 PM.

[Qwinn]

Nother minor restoration: An improper trigger attached to a question you could ask in Asonje's dialogue (he's a mortuary zombie) means that unless you asked the question at the first opportunity, you'd never get another chance. For most intents and purposes, this restores 2 longish dialogue lines and replies.

(Tonight I'm going through the dialogue files of all the zombies in the mortuary and making sure all the dialogue can be reached in game... talking to them after you get Stories Bones Tell is one of my favorite bits in the game

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 27 November 2008 - 07:26 PM.

[Qwinn]

Whole mess of little fixes in and around Lower Ward:

1 ) Patrolling Male harmonium guard had female guard's dialogue (not that you could tell gender, but whatever).
2 ) Both patrolling harmonium guards were incorrectly ignoring cries for help. No longer.
3 ) You could ask a customer in the open-air market about Lothar after the Lothar matter had already been resolved.
4 ) A single path out of five in identical responses/replies with Yi'minn would set the Know_Githyanki variable to true incorrectly.
5 ) Giltspur's customers were ignoring cries of help from each other and from Giltspur. Fixed.
6 ) Female Giltspur customers and all wandering townsfolk dialogue files were incorrectly weighted so that you'd never see their "We've talked to this person before" dialogue.
7 ) Asking Hamrys about the missing skull updated the Know_Lothar variable, despite Hamrys not mentioning Lothar. Fixed.
8 ) Asking Scofflaw Penn about the missing skull did not update the Know_Lothar variable, despite Penn mentioning Lothar. Fixed.
9 ) I give up trying to document these - about a dozen fixes relating to the same issues as 3, 7 and 8.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 30 November 2008 - 12:59 AM.

[Qwinn]

FINALLY nailed the *&($&#( bug in the Lower Ward (which probably 80% of players have encountered) that occurs when you talk to a Black Abishai in the Lower Ward with Morte or Annah in your party. The abishai invariably disappears mid conversation, replaced by a zombie who carries out the rest of his conversation.

Fixed. Phew.

Qwinn

[janjetina]

I'll just chime in to say thank you and show my support.

[Qwinn]

Thank you kindly

BTW, to anyone interested... you know that rather routine problem where you can't talk to one of your party members, and you have to reload or transit to another area to be able to talk to them again?

Hasn't happened to me even once in my test run so far, and it -should've- happened a dozen times by now at previous frequencies. I hereby blame the engine's method of producing banters for occasionally causing that problem, and it is installing my tweak pack's banter accelerator (which now includes scient's tweak to totally disable engine-banters) that has eliminated that problem.

Qwinn

[Daulmakan]

Becoming more enthused by the minute. Do you have an estimated time for v3 release?

[Qwinn]

When I finish this test run, basically. I can appreciate that it seems like I've been in the Lower Ward forever, heh, but really, I didn't spend that much time on it on my previous passes, so it needed some love (and I've found a hell of a lot that needed fixing). I -did- spend quite a bit of time during previous passes on most areas after it, though, so hopefully I'll get through the rest of it quite a bit faster.

I do promise that barring some massive unanticipated tragedy, I will release no later than, say, December 15th... that way, it'll be available for folks for the Christmas school holidays.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Nother fix:

There is a script clearly meant for Shaddeus and Raimon after they free you if you are imprisoned in the Warrens of Thought, but it wasn't getting set, so they attack you anyway. Setting it. Their behavior will make more sense now.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Okay, I know I promised this twice before, so I'm NOT going to promise this time. I'm just gonna say...

...the aggro in the Warrens of Thought -should- work properly now in all circumstances, not just if you are immediately taken to MAO. If you get thrown in prison, escape, and make your way to MAO, and for whatever reason he gives you passage, the rats in the warrens -should- go neutral now. Same if you get MAO to yield. I tested several scenarios, and they all seem to work.

And thank God that's over. I don't really care for the Warrens which is why it's taken me so long to get this right, but I hit it pretty hard tonight and hopefully won't ever have to visit them again. Still, that said, after release if someone -does- find a way to break it, do let me know, please.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 01 December 2008 - 06:54 AM.