18 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Well, it was grueling, and Sounds.d is now a whopping 221k of code (couldn't get INTERJECT to work properly for this, so it's a huge huge list of EXTEND_BOTTOM's), but the issue with Morte's flirts sometimes not kicking in right away is resolved. They occur at the end of, and as part of, the actual dialogue with the zombie females. One side-effect of this change is that the flirts are no longer random, they happen in a set order and will restart from the beginning when the last one is heard (there are 27 unique flirts). I don't think there was anything particularly awesome about their being random, though, so I'm not really considering it a negative.

Actually, right now it's working for all the female zombies in the Mortuary and the Dustman bar. I don't have it working yet for the female zombies in the Dead Nations because that dialogue is FAR FAR more complicated and will require a crapload of additional work, but I may get around to it. I may not have it work for every single possible state where you can say "Farewell", but I'll try to get it in on some of the most likely exits from conversation with them. (I never had the flirts working for Stale Mary, just doesn't seem appropriate with her.)

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 24 December 2009 - 02:13 AM.

[Markus Ramikin]

Great work, Qwinn!

However, were those flirts intended to be available with all zombies in the whole game? I thought it made sense that it only happened in the Mortuary. Morte and to an extent the NO were making fun while nobody was watching (in civilised surroundings someone might get shocked or disgusted), with zombies that were truly mindless and not self-aware like the Dead Nations (so they won't take exception, and you don't need dialogue in response). Also, since leaving the Mortuary Morte would take interest in real, alive women...

(And it's an excuse not to do more work, for you! )

EDIT: also, if you add it to more zombies, wont' that increase the repetition of the finite list of flirts?

So my recommendation, for whatever it's worth, is to stick with the Mortuary, that was fine .

Edited by Markus Ramikin, 24 December 2009 - 02:57 AM.

[Qwinn]

Oh well. Too late. It's in for the Dead Nations zombie wimmens too now. It's in for every female zombie in game, excepting Stale Mary, just as it was in UB v3.0.

I thought it made sense that it only happened in the Mortuary.

If it wasn't happening outside the mortuary in your last game, then that was a bug (but I'm pretty sure it did happen). No one's complained about that implementation so far, so I've made an effort to not change anything about it other than fixing the problem.

There's no way we can know the original intent for these flirts, but I really don't see Morte caring about other people's opinions in the Dustman Bar or in Dead Nations. There aren't any female zombies in more "civilized surroundings" than that.

EDIT: also, if you add it to more zombies, wont' that increase the repetition of the finite list of flirts?

There's 27 of 'em, congrats to someone who can remember the initial ones by the time he's talked to 26 more.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 24 December 2009 - 03:07 AM.

[Qwinn]

P.S. Sounds.d is now 304k, lol. Amazingly, there's no obvious increase in installation time.

Qwinn

[Markus Ramikin]

If it wasn't happening outside the mortuary in your last game, then that was a bug (but I'm pretty sure it did happen).

Oh, it probably did. I must have failed to stumble upon it because past the Mortuary I no longer talk to unnamed NPCs, with a few exceptions. Fine, ignore me. Glad you didn't put it on Stale Mary though, I agree it would have been wrong.

EDIT: also, if you add it to more zombies, wont' that increase the repetition of the finite list of flirts?

There's 27 of 'em, congrats to someone who can remember the initial ones by the time he's talked to 26 more.

Thank you, thank you *bows theatrically*. I don't do so well with written text, but I have a great memory for intonation.

[Qwinn]

Actually, as a correction, I didn't and still don't have flirts active on the Nameless Zombie in Dead Nations. Don't really think it would be appropriate on her either.

As for making it a random chance, hmm. I suppose I could make it every other conversation or something, but by your suggestion, it should still happen 100% of the time. That's cause there's significantly less than 27 female zombies in the game. There's 11 in the Mortuary, 3 in the Dustman Bar, and 3 that would be affected in the Dead Nations. 17 female zombies total. 27 flirts. Not a good ratio for seeing them all.

And note, it doesn't happen every time you talk to a zombie, just the deliciously cadaverous femme ones. (I know, I need help.) I think the fact that there's usually a lot more male than female zombies spaces the flirts out a fair amount. Dead Nations, for example, has 9 male zombies and 3 female zombies - not counting Stale Mary and Nameless Zombie, cause I'm not giving them flirts.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 24 December 2009 - 04:26 AM.

[Markus Ramikin]

Oh, cool. No repetition, then.

[Qwinn]

Hmmm, actually, its worse than that. Actually going through the Mortuary, there are only 9 female zombies there. My count of 11 was based on how many female zombie creature and dialogue files there are, but two aren't implemented anywhere. That made me wonder if there were unimplemented male zombie cres and dialogues, and yep... four of them.

None of their dialogues are particularly special... none have any Stories-Bones-Tell dialogue, for example, or bandages you can remove or anything like that.

Just to document them:

Unimplemented female zombies: ZF444, ZF916
Unimplemented male zombies: ZM1445, ZM1508, ZM199, ZM463.

The above is the name of their CRE files. If you want to see their dialogue file, the letter D + that cre name is the name of their dialogue file.

I'm pondering whether to restore them. The dialogues of two of them are just plain boring: DZF916: ("The female corpse stares at you with vacant eyes. The number "916" is carved into her forehead, and her lips have been stitched closed. The faint smell of formaldehyde emanates from her body.") and DZM463 ("The shambling corpse gazes at you with vacant eyes. The number "463" is carved into his forehead, and his lips have been stitched closed. The faint smell of formaldehyde emanates from the body."). Neither seems worth the trouble to restore.

The opening dialogue state for the remainder are a little more personalized. Here's their opening dialogue:

Spoiler

DZM1445: "The flesh of this corpse is heavily pocked, its ears, the tip of its nose and some of its fingers rotted away to nothing... the man was most likely the victim of some horrid disease. The number "1445" has been tattooed upon his forehead, and his lips are tightly sewn together."

DZM1508: "The forehead of this heavily muscled corpse is a mass of scar tissue, as if in life he had used his head to bludgeon opponents in battle. The number "1508" has been stitched across it in red thread, and his mouth is sewn shut with coarse black fiber. He smells faintly of embalming fluid."

DZM199: "This reanimated corpse carries with it the stench of charred meat and burning textiles. Fairly fresh scorch marks run the length of its right side; perhaps it stood too close to a fire and began to smolder. The number "199" has been etched onto its forehead and its lips are stitched together."

DZF444: "This female corpse is in terrible shape. What seem to be hundreds of tiny bites -- from rats, perhaps -- pock the tough, preservative-treated skin of the body. Judging from the puckered flesh around the wounds, they were most likely inflicted before the corpse was prepared. Her lips are sewn together, and the number "444" has been stained onto her face with dark blue ink."

Worth restoring? I'd probably put most of them on the left side of the first floor, as it seems pretty sparse. There aren't any unused scripts with walking routines available for them, so they'd just be RandomWalkers. A couple of the existing ones are just randomwalkers also.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Correction: There's an unused zombie female walking script on the third floor (0203fz1). Pretty tempted to give it to ZF444 and let her pace around up there. I mean, I have a CRE, a script (which also gives me a starting location) and a dialogue, so why not?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 26 December 2009 - 01:59 AM.

[Qwinn]

Wow, another correction, there are -five- unused zombie walking scripts on the second floor. So, yeah, if I wanted to restore them all, I'd have CRE's, dialogues and walking scripts for all of 'em.

Would restoring them add to the game experience, though? Or are there enough zombies in the mortuary as is?

EDIT: Actually, the unused female zombie script on the third floor was clearly meant to be attached to female zombie 1148. She's standing at one exact endpoint of the walking pattern, and never moves. Attaching it to her as a fix.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 26 December 2009 - 02:13 AM.

[ghostdog]

If it's not a big hassle then go for it.

[Qwinn]

Hmmm, just spotted that there's an error in the default script for the zombies on the third floor that could keep them hostile even after the Mortuary Alarm was supposed to be canceled.

EDIT: Hmmm. Has anyone noticed if, when you leave the mortuary and it is hostile, when you come back, some of the mortuary remains hostile? It's not supposed to, but I'm seeing bugs on both first and third floor that would prevent some of the creatures from going neutral again.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 26 December 2009 - 02:45 AM.

[Markus Ramikin]

Dunno. When I make a place hostile, once i'm done with it there's nothing to come back to. (That said, I only did that to the Mortuary once, unintentionally. Well it started unintentionally, then I started to enjoy myself. *cough*)

[Qwinn]

Okay, a few things:

1. I confirmed it: the mortuary is indeed supposed to stop being hostile if you leave and come back, but errors in the default scripts on the 1st and 3rd floors would keep some creatures hostile. This is a pretty major fix actually!

2. Those 5 unused walking scripts I thought I saw on the 2nd floor are useless, they are just exact duplicates of walking scripts that -are- attached to creatures there.

3. I gave zombie 1148 her proper walking script, as mentioned above.

Qwinn

EDIT: "Dunno. When I make a place hostile, once i'm done with it there's nothing to come back to." Actually, it looks like, given enough time, the Mortuary should respawn. Looks that way from the INI file anyway.

Edited by Qwinn, 26 December 2009 - 03:17 AM.

[Markus Ramikin]

It was a long time ago, so I may be remembering wrong. Or I didn't give it enough time. I didn't know about NPCs losing hostile status with time either until I read about it somewhere on this forum.

[Qwinn]

Well, it's not typical. Most creatures, once hostile, always hostile. The Mortuary's the only place that will go unhostile that I can think of off the top of my head.

At any rate: No, there's no unused walking scripts hanging around, so while I do have creature files and (very sparse) dialogues, I don't have any clues as to where to put them. This puts it just over the edge of "too much hassle to do while trying to get through testing". Maybe for v5.0 someday. In the meantime, you can highlight my spoilers up there to see what the missing zombie descriptions are

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 26 December 2009 - 12:55 PM.