250 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

Simply put: if anyone has any comments, questions, suggestions, concerns, anything about Darian and the project, post here, and I'll try to respond as quickly as I can.

[Kellen]

I know you said that you were using your own lore for Darian, but I had a question about age upon seeing the overview.

Due to what little lore there is Avariel age much quicker than other Elves.
Middle Age: 140 years
Old: 195 years
Venerable: 250 years
Maximum Age: +4d20 year

Is this another thing set up in your lore or just lack of knowledge?

you don't have a 17 wisdom by being oblivious

Teehee. Isn't it silly how he can be so perceptive about some things but completely miss that he's falling in love. How is it that people are so oblivious when it comes to that?

[Tempest]

Is this another thing set up in your lore or just lack of knowledge?

Partly lack of knowledge, partly lack of caring-I went ahead and removed Darian's age from the overview-I basically came up with that off the top of my head for no reason-Darian's specific age never comes up, though his elven lifespan will. Just call it a moment of idiocy on my part.

Teehee. Isn't it silly how he can be so perceptive about some things but completely miss that he's falling in love. How is it that people are so oblivious when it comes to that?

Oh, Darian is quite aware that he cares about Charname, and that he's falling in love with her. He's just really, really uncomfortable with the idea, especially since he just can't help the fact that he's either in love or close to it.

[Tempest]

Probably not-I'm focusing on getting Darian done for SoA first, so I can weed out bugs and whatnot before proceeding to ToB, as well as just to get a firm grasp on coding (Darian is my very first effort at creating a mod). I do have a very clear idea of how things are going to go for Darian in ToB (already have one of his at least four potential epilogues written out ), so the ToB portion will probably go pretty briskly. About the only thing in ToB that will be new will be creating the Master Wraith scene, which I already have planned out.

[Neferit]

BTW, you wrote he has his wings masked with magic. So are they only invisible or something-like-removed? (just imagined the situation with only invisibled wings - you would can go beside him and suddenly crash! you would get a hit from non-visible matter.)

[Tempest]

Eh, technically they're invisible, but not immaterial, though a few dialogues will make reference to his wings or even use them (in a few spots of action dialogue, which I have an aversion to, and am trying to keep to a minimum). I don't want them to be his defining "gimmick", really, and the whole "conceals wings via magic" was more to explain why you don't see any wings on him in the inventory screen and whatnot.

[berelinde]

As an added touch of realism, there, you could put non-removable wings in his cloak slot. I think it would be a nice touch, and it would allow you to add an element of realism and something else that might or might not be useful from a modding perspective.

Spoiler

If you wanted to give him any special abilities or bonuses that would not be available to ordinary elves, you could associate them with this item. Makes it easier to do the CRE.

[Tempest]

Nice idea, but I don't think so-there's no reason Darian can't wear a cloak. I'm adding his innate abilities by using Shadowkeeper to assign his base .chr file the abilities in question. Darian's wings really don't play much of a role-they're part of who he is, but they're not meant to be a real "feature". They'll be featured more in ToB, in all likelihood, in some of the flirts (both Darian and Charname initiated-I'm thinking about giving him a couple of bird-like mannerisms with his wings, such as affectionaly and somewhat unconciously enfolding Charname with his wings, and things of that nature). Even though they could potentially play a much greater role, I'm not that ambitious, and don't want to steal Charname's show.

[Zyraen]

You can have an SPL that causes a RandomFly() trigger on Darian. It might be surprising to see if he can fly. I've never tried it so i don't know if it will work.

[Tempest]

Sorry, but I'm deliberately keeping the wings from being a major part of the mod-I want Darian to be a character first, and a guy with wings somewhere much further down the line. I know Darian will be unique in being the only character in the party with a functioning pair of wings, but in and of themselves, the wings aren't going to be one of Darian's defining attributes as a character. Folks with a wing fetish will have to look elsewhere.

[Tempest]

An update for those interested: I've finished writing all the banters, and I'm going to be coding and proofreading them this week, then probably going to return to writing the romance.

[Ilmatar]

Sorry, but I'm deliberately keeping the wings from being a major part of the mod-I want Darian to be a character first, and a guy with wings somewhere much further down the line. I know Darian will be unique in being the only character in the party with a functioning pair of wings, but in and of themselves, the wings aren't going to be one of Darian's defining attributes as a character. Folks with a wing fetish will have to look elsewhere.

Still it would be fun to see references to the wings - it's not everyday life to the NPC's either. Like when Imoen would find out he is an avariel, she'd go, "OMG U HAS WINGS! CAN I SEE PLZ SQUEE" ?

But in any case, I'm very happy that you're taking this line with the wings, but still hoping you won't to discard them completely.

[Tempest]

Still it would be fun to see references to the wings - it's not everyday life to the NPC's either. Like when Imoen would find out he is an avariel, she'd go, "OMG U HAS WINGS! CAN I SEE PLZ SQUEE" ?

But in any case, I'm very happy that you're taking this line with the wings, but still hoping you won't to discard them completely.

Oh, they're far from discarded-Imoen actually does have a very fun little scene with Darian, and a few other characters will certainly talk about them (for example, Haer'Dalis initially mistakes his wings for evidence of a very strong celestial bloodline, plus the expected Aerie whining). And some of the ToB flirts I've sketched use them, too (a good example, and my personal favorite Darian-initiated flirt I've sketched so far has him unconsciously enfolding Charname with his wings as she stands near him). I just didn't want too get carried away with them.

Oh, and an unrelated update: I wrote a few banters that will refer to the bond growing between Darian and Charname after the final arc of the romance starts-Charname may or may not see where things are going with Darian (depending on her wisdom ), and Darian is extremely uncomfortable with where it's going, but at the same time is helpless to do anything about it, but some of the other characters will be able to see the bond forming, and react in ways appropriate to their personalities. Oh, and Darian does have a banter with Edwina now, as well.

[Tempest]

Minor progress update: Ended up rewriting a few banters today, when I felt the npc in question sounded a bit off, and I've finished coding the banters with a handful of npc's. Might go directly to writing Darian's npc-npc romance while I'm working on all his npc interactions, or at least sketch some things out about it, since there are some rather unusual aspects to it.

I want to get a firm grasp of how it's going to go before I announce whom the hapless Avariel may fall in love with, since there's the whole Charname-Aerie-Darian-Mystery Character mess to consider (such as: will Darian fall in love with the npc in question if Charname and Darian become friends, but miss the final arc?, and how it will impact the character's relationship with Aerie, and things of that nature). And yes, I am teasing y'all about it (talking about it, but refusing to say with whom, thus leading to, in all likelihood, rampant speculation).

But I will say this: Darian's relationship with this other character will take a backseat to his relationship with Charname, and will probably only trigger if Charname's male or otherwise incompatible, romances Anomen (or a mod character, when things get to the point where I start adding crossmod content), or otherwise kills the romance. The player gets first dibs on Darian.

Edited by Tempest, 02 April 2007 - 07:27 PM.

[Kaeloree]

Darian will obviously be having a romance with Korgan! ;P

I can't wait to find out who it is...

[Tempest]

Nah, it will be a relationship with a female member of the party (and no, it's not Edwina, either). I just don't really like to announce big developments until I've got a good grip on how it's going to go-the npc-npc romance here is still very much in the sketching phase, given that my main foci lately have been Darian's banters, and his romance with Charname. In all likelihood, it will be the final part of the mod I write.

[Kulyok]

Oooh, you might find yourself in trouble. If PC is male, he may well romance the said girl, and if PC is female, she might well romance Darian. And it might not look good if Darian moves from PC to another female in a blink of an eye(see Kelsey), or if the said girl moves from PC to Darian in a blink of an eye(see Jaheira). So, unless PC is a female half-orc...

Anyway, best of luck with it - I know I decided to cut my NPC-NPC romance in the end because of these factors, and I wonder how you will fare!

[Tempest]

For now, I'm not going to say anything more than I've already thought about and planned for those problems. If all goes well, I should be able to finish coding all of Darian's banters save for all his dialogues with Aerie today (Aerie will probably require a coding session all her own). Once I get all the banters coded, I'll return to writing the Darian-Charname romance.

One question I have regarding that, though, is how important is it to have options in lovetalks where you can be rude, mean, and otherwise terminate the relationship in the latter stages of the romance? I'm currently only writing in those kinds of options in the early stages, since for the most part, the only way to kill the romance is by being outright rude, hostile, or brushing him off when he tries to talk to you from his heart (apologizing for his behavior, for instance), and I tend to assume that if Charname wanted to kill the relationship, she would have done so early on. In terms of the romance and how to kill it, Darian isn't the most complicated individual in the world-there are no hidden hot buttons that Charname can accidentally press and cause Darian to abruptly terminate the relationship (this is something that really bothers me in other character romances-a romance-killing option you really couldn't have known would have that effect).

[Ilmatar]

I think it's important to give room for serious roleplaying, so you need to think of abusive, sadistic and selfish characters as well and what they might say. Of course the fact that Darian won't join the party if PC is evil sort of rules out the extremely mean responses.