87 replies to this topic

[Rathwellin the Bard]

That sucks. No promises, but I have started reading through the WeiDU documentation & web help docs. I am going to play around with it a bit and will let you know if this is something I feel that I can help with.

I?m aiming for getting some dialogue testing done on Thursday night this week too & should have a bunch of time this weekend.

[Gospel]

Yet another edities ;_;

Maybe I should just list it all when I actually start beta-testing :D

Yowwow :D

[Cuv]

Hang in there Gospel, we will get you something to test soon:)

Cuv

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Well things have worked out for this long US holiday weekend & I will have tons of time free & plan on spending a fair chunk of it testing.

What I'm planning on looking at so far:

1. Jarata evil dialgoues & RTWJarataInterest values.

2. Vidar dialogues.

3. Taking a different party through RTW, maybe two.

4. Will keep an eye out for any needed NPC interjections.

I've done a fair amount of reporting on Imoen, anything else needed from me there? Anything else needing to be looked at in this version?

[Cuv]

Anything else needing to be looked at in this version?

Actually, yes... I would like a list of all the areas where you can get away with resting please.

I have fixed the King Strohm tomb yesterday to have rest interrupted... but need to know which areas you can rest in. Start from the beginning and please try resting in all the areas. When you find an area where you were successful in resting, you can press Ctrl+M or Ctrl+X (which gives your X,Y coordinates.... but also the area name).

The plan is that rest should not be possible or 100% interruptable in all the areas except: Empty Storeroom in King Strohm area and the New Crypt accessed from ARRTW0 (new dungeon). I dont entirely agree with this notion of not allowing the party to rest, but we will see how that works out.

Cuv

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Will do.

[Gospel]

Hang in there Gospel, we will get you something to test soon:)

Cuv

Oh, sorry if that sounded complain-ish sir ;_;

I'm supa eager-meow to beta test, but I's can waits, sir ^_^

[Quitch]

I dont entirely agree with this notion of not allowing the party to rest, but we will see how that works out.

Cuv

It's an undead infested dungeon... how would you manage to get a full nights rest?

I'd say we should have low percentages rather than safe houses... though I suppose it's easier to balance safe houses, and what with the respawning...

Oh, and here is the 3.0 fix for Jarata's initial dialogue: http://www.3ddownloa...?file_id=161170 - Just extract it to RtW/D

All the dialogue for 3.0 is written, we're converting it now.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

I dont entirely agree with this notion of not allowing the party to rest, but we will see how that works out.

Cuv

It's an undead infested dungeon... how would you manage to get a full nights rest?

IMO it's not really that different from Brodhi's lair, the Asylum, the Underdark or any of hundreds of other places where it doesn't seem very logical that you could rest ... but in BG land you can.

Ditto for sleeping in armor, not having to worry about food & water, or any of a hundred other things that you worry about in PnP but not in BG.

The main thing I don't like about restricting sleeping too much is that it makes RtW that much more different than the rest of BG which doesn't do wonders for my suspension of disbelief and ability to immerse myself in the game.

IMO it also punishes the folks who do sleep a lot and base their strategies around that. I try to avoid resting too much, but I clearly remember the first time I played SoA and had to sleep twice in the Asylum and once in Brynnlaw afterwards. These days I try to sleep once before entering and really don't need to sleep again until after I finish the Asylum and the Sahuagin City, but that's mainly because I'm stingy with my spells and charged items, and I realize that not everyone plays that way. By making sleeping too hard you are going to heavily bias the mod towards those who are experienced and play the game a certain way.

I can live with it, but I'm not very comfortable with it.

[Gospel]

It's an undead infested dungeon... how would you manage to get a full nights rest?

Could's you close the doors in a room, then go's to sleepies? ?:)

Or do vampires know how to open them, in Return to Winspear? ?:D

Yowwow :D

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Evil Jarata Dialogues

Asked her for further terms, grabbed her, had knife at neck, disarmed her, took advantage of her, agreed to get down to business. - RTWJARATAINTEREST 2

Agreed to go right away - RTWJARATAINTEREST not present

Lie about Garren - RTWJARATAINTEREST not present

Refuse to go or give holy avenger - RTWJARATAINTEREST not present

Got to business, told her to get on with it, refused to go, but changed mind when she asked for holy avenger - RTWJARATAINTEREST -1

Agreed to go, wanted to kill something, agreed to create a lake of blood - RTWJARATAINTEREST 1

Begged her to kill me until she withdrew knife & then went - RTWJARATAINTEREST 3

Same as above but attacked & killed her - RTWJARATAINTEREST 3

Asked her for further terms, grabbed her, had knife at neck, disarmed her, threatened her, took advantage of her, got up to leave, agreed to go. - RTWJARATAINTEREST 2

>>>>

Overall impressions were that there was that there were a lot of good options. I liked the flavor. The two negatives are that the whole thing seems a bit wordy and I don't like how easily Jarata gets ahold of the PC. It would be nice if it is more difficult for her (or even impossible) depending on the PCs Int, Dex, Wisdom, THACO, or some such.

[Quitch]

IMO it also punishes the folks who do sleep a lot and base their strategies around that.

Hah! I care not a jot for people who cannot think of more than one strategy. Some people base their strategy around off screen cloud-killing... should we remove our AI to accomodate them?

If your strategy consists of unleashing every spell you have, then resting in the middle of a hostile dungeon, you damn well deserve punishment for being a dolt.

Words cannot begin to describe how little I care for the breaking of said strategy... said joke.

I try to avoid resting too much, but I clearly remember the first time I played SoA and had to sleep twice in the Asylum

I clearly remember that the Asylum was a fun challenge, right up until the point I realised I could rest any time, any place.

By making sleeping too hard you are going to heavily bias the mod towards those who are experienced and play the game a certain way.

And by allowing people to rest any time the quest is biased towards that style of play, or we take into account the other type and subsequently it becomes too easy for resters.

This mod is designed to be fairly challenging (balance is still something that needs sorting), but it is not going to reproduce the mistakes and idiotic parts of BG2, just to emulate the feel of how stupid it could be.

Otherwise we'll have stakes at the door, journals by your feet, swords of dragon slaying in chests, scrolls of protection from petrification with King Strohm...

BG2 was designed such because it had to appeal across the market. We don't need to make this quest a push over. If people cannot adapt and use their brains to work within the situation they find themselves, then they will die.

[Quitch]

The two negatives are that the whole thing seems a bit wordy

If you see anything specifically you regard as fat, let me know. This is the second longest dialogue in the mod. Dasypus has a dialogue that is rather longer, though more structured (when 3.0 comes out I'll be looking to see what can be trimmed). With Jarata you can see most of the dialogue since it's fairly freeform, hence it can go on for a while. Generally, the longer it runs for the more likley you'll have a high interest value.

and I don't like how easily Jarata gets ahold of the PC. It would be nice if it is more difficult for her (or even impossible) depending on the PCs Int, Dex, Wisdom, THACO, or some such.

What could happen is she goes for you, and if your dex is higher than hers (with a +1 surprise bonus for Jarata) then you get straight down to the knife at her throat). Being an assassin though, this kind of thing is her business.

The rape option will always fail though... Cuv has limits, and it saves me writing *another* mass NPC section. Hurrah!

There will also be a new way to disarm her later. Not sure if it'll make the next beta, but it was an interesting suggestion by Dyara a while back which I intend to implement.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Vaider Dialogue

I didn't like the opening three sentences. Cutting it down to one or two would help IMO. As written it seems a bit wordy & redundant. "Before you stands a deathly pale man radiating the dark energy that you have learned marks him as one of the undead. Obviously a vampire."

The next two blocks need to be combined. I didn't see why I needed to hit enter both times. So starting with "Something is different" and ending with "Yet is not fear of you, but some other..." needs to be one block. Also the last other needs four periods, not three.

Again the next two blocks need to be combined starting with "Some sort of sixth" and ending with "die in thisss place."

Combining these would make the whole flow better & would speed thing up.

I really really like response #6! LOL.

Also given that Minsc has a racial enemy of Vampires perhaps this would be a good point for him to give a belligerent interjection.

Overall I liked what I saw of the dialogue branches.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

IMO it also punishes the folks who do sleep a lot and base their strategies around that.

If your strategy consists of unleashing every spell you have, then resting in the middle of a hostile dungeon, you damn well deserve punishment for being a dolt.

Words cannot begin to describe how little I care for the breaking of said strategy... said joke.

Three notes. Some folks have fun dumping spells. You don't like it fine ... but by making RtW too sleep impossible all you will do is make it less fun for them.

Second folks who use NPC AI scripts like the uscrip from Sorcerer's page will blow lots of spells and items early & will need to rest more than the micro-managers. Again by limiting rest you bias against a way of playing.

Third I did do some spell dumping the first time around and it didn't help that much. Most of the monsters in RtW have such high resistances that spell dumping rarely managed to kill them.

I don't mind making sleep harder to come by, but if you make it too hard all you are going to do is annoy some innoncent players.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Noticed an odd little Vampire bug. In the very first vampire battle one of the vamps to the left turned into mist form but stayed hostile. I had Tashia follow him nailing him uselessly with the Crimson Dart (mostly to keep track of him). He tried to run back to the entrance, but when cornered he used domination on Tashia! He tried twice & actually had it work once.

[Quitch]

Three notes. Some folks have fun dumping spells. You don't like it fine ... but by making RtW too sleep impossible all you will do is make it less fun for them.

Some "folks" like powerful weapons everywhere, but we're not doing that either. Some people like their weapons scarce... we are doing that.

You can only please one end of the scale.

Second folks who use NPC AI scripts like the uscrip from Sorcerer's page will blow lots of spells and items early & will need to rest more than the micro-managers.

And? So if I load up a script with a style that doesn't work in this mod... that's the mods fault? What if the script likes to use sunray but we didn't include undead, we should chuck in a few to satisfy these people?

What a load of drivel.

Again by limiting rest you bias against a way of playing.

Sorry, but this is crap. No one who was *really* role-playing would rest in a vampire infested dungeon. We're biasing against a form of power-gaming. What next? A teary eyed story about how those off-screen cloud killers *really* need worse AI?

Hell, if I had *my* way, if you rest in the dangerous parts of the dungeon then you would never wake up!

Third I did do some spell dumping the first time around and it didn't help that much. Most of the monsters in RtW have such high resistances that spell dumping rarely managed to kill them.

I suspect such values will be brought down when the resting thing is all sorted.

I don't mind making sleep harder to come by, but if you make it too hard all you are going to do is annoy some innoncent players.

It can't be balanced until the AI is in place, and then we can balance properly... but not by allowing the player to be a bloody idiot.

[Quitch]

Noticed an odd little Vampire bug. In the very first vampire battle one of the vamps to the left turned into mist form but stayed hostile. I had Tashia follow him nailing him uselessly with the Crimson Dart (mostly to keep track of him). He tried to run back to the entrance, but when cornered he used domination on Tashia! He tried twice & actually had it work once.

I think we may have nailed this one earlier... but I can't remember for sure.

[Gospel]

Dwivel? *rolls on his back!* Dwivel.... *purrs upside down!* :D

Quitchy cat? :) *raises a paw* If one of the most importantish reasons for non resting is because of roleplaying-ness, why's was resting by magical means disabled, too? *brushes his teeth* :D

*spins* Me'sa fine with no resting, but it does seem spookies! :) *hugs a teddy bear* :D

Cat :)

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Well they do disable your ability to get to your pocket plane (buggy in this version but worked on in the next) & as I understand it they are reducing the odds of getting the "rest" option from the wish spell.