36 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Okay, got it. Here's where I still see fuzziness:

If you belong to just one faction, "Yes, I renounce" is obvious.
If you belong to just the Anarchists, "Lie to infiltrate" is obvious.

But if you belong to the Anarchists and another faction, then what options do we give? At that point I'm inclined to say you can ONLY admit to and renounce the non-Anarchist faction. What I dislike is that we can't really use the "Lie to infiltrate" line, even though that's what you're really doing, because it would lead the player to think you're not abandoning the non-Anarchist faction as well (especially since you can get away with this in the vanilla game).

So, if you're a Godsman and an Anarchist, the conversation would look exactly as if you were -just- a Godsman and abandoning just that faction. You'd remain an Anarchist, but nothing in the dialogue would suggest what happens to your belonging to them in either direction.

The exception is the Sensates, after I fix up the issue with "Join_Sensates" not being set, if you infiltrate the Sensates, then at the final step your response to Splinter will be: Accompany him to record your experience and pretend to learn the Sensory Touch. If you're really joining, it's just: and learn the Sensory Touch.

But in most other situations, if you belong to Anarchists and another faction, the point of your infiltrating will pretty much go unacknowledged in the dialogue.

I dunno how big an issue that really is, but it leaves me vaguely dissatisfied. I'd like it if the whole infiltration thing could be more openly acknowledged in your response even when you're just switching your infiltration from one to another faction, but the dialogue lines available to me to try to make that happen would be more confusing than what I've just described.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 07 July 2009 - 06:56 AM.

[nevill]

IE dialogues don't let you do "for" loops

Heh, I know. I was in a hurry while writing this and didn't wand it to look uglier than it already does. There is no 'for cycle', those are 4 separate replies with different checks like ~Global("Join_Dustmen", GLOBAL, 1)~, ~Global("Join_Sensates", GLOBAL, 1)~ etc.

Why doesn't turning Vaxis in get you in trouble when speaking that line does? My guess/justification would be that when you turn him in, he is immediately captured by the Dustmen and never has a chance to inform Scofflaw Penn of who did it.

In IE Games, NPC 'know' something the moment the variable is set. And there are tons of cases when NPC know things they are logically not supposed to. Whether Vaxis' case is a misprint or a logical flaw, it is a flaw nonetheless. I am not making things up when I say that criticizing Anarchist's ways and THEN turning Vaxis in results in you not being able to join them, am I?

At that point I'm inclined to say you can ONLY admit to and renounce the non-Anarchist faction. What I dislike is that we can't really use the "Lie to infiltrate" line, even though that's what you're really doing

There are two solutions.

As I already said, "if this does not look smooth enough, you can take out the part where you admit your Anarchist's membership". And that is what you feel you are inclined to do.

But you could further enhance this making it so that, if a player is 'two-timing', he is given 2 dialogue options (in STATE X): 'renounce the old faction' or 'lie to infiltrate'. First answer would lead to him renouncing *both* factions while the other would mean keeping his membership among the Anarchists.

P.S. Forget it. Looking at the whole infiltration line I realised what you meant. There is no (easy?) way out of this, unless you would want to make a subtle changes in the text. But you wouldn't, right?

Edited by nevill, 07 July 2009 - 08:37 AM.

[Qwinn]

In IE Games, NPC 'know' something the moment the variable is set. And there are tons of cases when NPC know things they are logically not supposed to. Whether Vaxis' case is a misprint or a logical flaw, it is a flaw nonetheless. I am not making things up when I say that criticizing Anarchist's ways and THEN turning Vaxis in results in you not being able to join them, am I?

You're not wrong about that, but I don't think it's necessarily a flaw. I can see where, after talking smack about Anarchists in front of Vaxis, he immediately goes off (as soon as you leave him) to leave a message for Scofflaw about it. He could do so in the time it takes you to run from him to Dhaal to turn him in. But telling Dhaal about Vaxis, Vaxis doesn't know to run away, or have a chance to say anything to Scofflaw about it before the Dustmen come down on him. It's plausible that way, anyway. I don't see a logical contradiction anywhere.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 07 July 2009 - 08:16 AM.

[nevill]

Oh, and furthermore, you *can* use the line about infiltration, even if it would not really change anything. Just for a better roleplay experience.

Oops, no, you can't. At least, not without editing the existing lines. Sorry about that.

Edited by nevill, 07 July 2009 - 08:28 AM.

[Qwinn]

Took a break to look over this a bit more.

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and add some dialogue lines to account for switching infiltrations. There's no point in fixing code that is assed only to make it become half-assed. Might as well fix it right. I think the situation warrants it.

Here's some notes for my own future reference that might interest you all.

It seems like no two factols handle switching factions in the same way (though the Sensates and Xaositects are pretty similar), which is a bit frustrating. The following is how they work before any fixes:

Keldor is the easiest to deal with in terms of this fix, since you -can't- join the Godsmen after joining the Anarchists. Keldor checks your faction both when starting his quest line, and when completing it. The checks at the beginning do not include a check for Anarchists at all. Actually taking the Godsman oath -does- check for Anarchist, though you can't be one at that point. At that point, Keldor is magically aware that you belong to a faction, though he does not know which one. Your responses in that case are of the vague "Okay, I renounce... my old faction" variety. Again note that the anarchist checks can never be true, but it's useful to look at in terms of intent.

Splinter has no quest line, so there's only the one check. He doesn't detect that you belong to a faction, but you are forced to admit it in order to become a Sensate, though in the case of Anarchists your response is of the vague "I will renounce... my old faction" variety.

Barking Wilder also has no quest line, so only one check. You are forced to admit old faction membership in the process of becoming a Chaosman. You basically come right out and admit you're an Anarchist to him, though you then get vague in your actual "Renounce" line if you're infiltrating. Which is kinda stupid.

Emoric is the worst of all, because the normal "You must renounce your old faction" state is orphaned in his dialogue. When you ask to become a Dustman, he magically detects if you are in any faction OTHER than Anarchist. If you're an anarchist, your request to join was an "Infiltrate" line, and if you pick that he doesn't seem to recognize that you are in a faction. If you're in any other faction, he tells you you'll have to renounce it but it never actually hits the state where you actually do so - that state is totally orphaned. I intend to restore that state. (Actually, you can Lie to him with a high enough charisma and evade having to renounce your old faction at the beginning of his questline, so that you can remain in your old faction for the time being - a cool option that's trivial if the Renounce state isn't restored). When it comes time to finally join the Dustmen, there is again no "renounce" state - you are quietly and automatically booted from your old faction when you state that you want to become a Dustman after you've finished his quests. I'll be adding states so that you have to actually agree to renounce your old faction in that situation too, in the same way Keldor's does.

Interestingly, Emoric's orphaned state does NOT allow you to truly renounce the Anarchists, you can only Infiltrate at that point. That would be some backup if I decide not to allow true renunciation of the Anarchists when joining the other factions, but for the time being I'm seeing if I can make that work.

Here are the 9 dialogue lines I'll be adding:

Sensates:

~Infiltrate the Sensates for the Anarchists: "I'm ready to join the Society of Sensation. I feel no more loyalty towards the Godsmen."~
~Infiltrate the Sensates for the Anarchists: "I'm ready to join the Society of Sensation. I feel no more loyalty towards the Dustmen."~
~Infiltrate the Sensates for the Anarchists: "I'm ready to join the Society of Sensation. I feel no more loyalty towards the Xaositects."~

Dustmen:

~Infiltrate the Dustmen for the Anarchists: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the beliefs of the Godsmen."~
~Infiltrate the Dustmen for the Anarchists: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the... uh, 'beliefs' of the Chaosmen."~
~Infiltrate the Dustmen for the Anarchists: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the beliefs of the Sensates."~

Xaositects:

~Infiltrate the Chaosmen for the Anarchists: "Join ready the Xaositects am I. Loyalty none faction old I have Sensates."~
~Infiltrate the Chaosmen for the Anarchists: "Join ready the Xaositects am I. Loyalty none faction old I have Godsmen."~
~Infiltrate the Chaosmen for the Anarchists: "Join ready the Xaositects am I. Loyalty none faction old I have Dustmen."~

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 08 July 2009 - 03:34 PM.

[Qwinn]

As I mentioned before, I was unsure as to whether to continue to allow a true renunciation of being an Anarchist when joining the other factions, or if Infiltrate should be the only option at that point. If I do allow it, that means I have to add yet another dialogue line, because that option does not exist for Dustmen... you can only infiltrate, you can't quit the anarchists in Emoric's orphaned "Renounce" dialogue state. No non-infiltrate dialogue line for quitting the anarchists that's appropriate to the Dustmen exists.

For now, I'm still going to try to make it work. So, the new dialogue line for that has to be:

~Renounce Faction: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the beliefs of my old faction."~

Choosing this option would boot you from the Anarchists and whatever other faction you had infiltrated as well.

Might as well use this as an example, then. If you tried to join the Dustmen when you were already an Anarchist infiltrating the Godsmen, you'd get:

1. Renounce Faction: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the beliefs of my old faction."
2. Infiltrate the Dustmen for the Anarchists: "If that is what must be, that is what must be. My mind must be true to itself, not to another. As of this moment, I forsake the beliefs of the Godsmen."

If I did that, would it be clear that the first option would mean no longer being either an Anarchist or a Godsman, and that you'd become a full fledged Dustman, while the second option means you'd no longer be a Godsman, you'd be an Anarchist/Dustman?

If I do decide that trying to make true anarchist renunciation only possible via Scofflaw/Corvus, then the only option trying to join the Dustmen as an Anarchist/Godsman would be #2.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 08 July 2009 - 03:52 PM.

[Qwinn]

Alright, I've decided, you can only renounce the Anarchists at Scofflaw or Corvus.

Here's the in-game reasoning behind that decision:

Say you're just a plain old Godsman, and you go to become a Sensate. You forsake being a Godsman at that point, verbally... but how does the rest of the world recognize that you're no longer in that faction? I'd say at that point it is implicit in your renunciation that you stop wearing whatever identification Godsmen generally do, and if you're joining a new one at that point you start wearing Sensate garb/marks. And if there's any public registrar where public factions are tracked, it is noted therein.

If you used to be a Godsman and you walk up to Keldor not wearing a Godsman insignia or worse, wearing Sensate insignia, he's going to know you've renounced the Godsmen, and his reaction will be appropriate to that.

Anarchists can't reasonably do this, because they are a secret faction that doesn't wear any identifying clothing or marks, and belonging to them isn't registered anywhere public. Plus, they don't mind if you join a secondary faction. So walking into Scofflaw Penn's shop wearing the mark of a Godsman or a Sensate isn't going to tell him anything. No one in the world knows if you were actually lying when you said "I renounce my old faction" to infiltrate your new faction or not. So. To -actually- leave the Anarchists, you have to do so in a way that at least the Anarchist world recognizes - by pissing off Scofflaw Penn, or turning stag on them via Corvus.

This is all my attempt to justify why I'm doing things this way in game, but the additional out-of-game reason is that it would take a lot of rewriting of a lot of dialogue lines to make it clear that a particular response means "renounce two factions at once".

Reasonable enough?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 09 July 2009 - 11:49 AM.

[HomiSite]

Sounds reasonable. It's often a strange thing in Computer RPGs how some NPCs get instant notice about what you might have done at the other ond of the world :-). I am a bit confused after your three last posts: Do you need translations and if so, of what?

Edited by HomiSite, 09 July 2009 - 01:08 PM.

[Qwinn]

Oh, yeah, I'll be needing translations, but for more than just those lines. Thanks for the offer, but let's wait till we're closer to release and I can actually give you everything I'll need translated all at once.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Alright, so, with that in mind, I do need to add 2 lines beyond the original 9 I mentioned up there.

~Infiltrate Sensates for the Anarchists: "I'm ready. I want to become a Sensate."~ This replaces: "I already belong to... another faction, but..."

~Infiltrate Chaosmen for the Anarchists: "So, what's the next step?"~ This replaces: "I'm already a member of the Anarchists, but..."

In both cases, you were being forced to at least partially admit to being an Anarchist, which should have an INT < 5 trigger as far as I'm concerned. This way, if you are -just- an anarchist (which is actually hard to become, since you start out already infiltrating a faction), you just pretend to be unaffiliated, which makes the most sense.

There's no need to do this for Emoric's dialogue, because between his working and orphaned dialogue, it already works that way with him.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Okay, finished implementing the faction infiltration overhaul.

Only change to anything I'd said up to this point is that, when you actually become a Dustman, the faction check and renounce there is still automatic. It'll boot you properly from any infiltrated faction in accordance with the new rules, and grant you the Dead Truce properly (which you don't get in a lot of situations in the vanilla game) but it's not going to take you to an official "renounce" state. It was just way too much work to do for too little gain.

A lot of nice little side fixes get worked in during the overhaul, like the Dead Truce thing I just mentioned, and the fact that the game and NPC's will now recognize you as a Sensate if you infiltrate the Sensates for the Anarchists.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 09 July 2009 - 08:29 PM.

[ghostdog]

Another fix that will make the PST experience even better. Great work as always.

[Zwolf]

Just gonna throw in my random guy opinion.

I don't see the trouble renouncing being an anarchist and still belonging to other factions. After all you're already infiltrated. Except if you consider by renouncing to be an anarchist the player accept his new faction as exclusive but I don't see it as inevitably the case.
Nevertheless I'm not sure being members of multiple factions outside the anarchists (which is supposed to be a secret one) plus one another make so much sense. Each faction would probably check their recruits history to be sure they are not already affiliated in a faction. Otherwise why the anarchists would be the only one to have the possibility to infiltrate other factions if not because their members are the only one not publicly known as so?

Approximate grammary expected here, was not simple to explain.

Edited by Zwolf, 17 July 2009 - 08:15 AM.

[Avenger_teambg]

I thought you can join 2 factions one normal, and anarchist optionally.
This is a special case, signed by a negative faction value.
I consider the faction field only. The plot variables are irrelevant.
You can click on the faction icon to toggle between anarchist/normal.

(Either i read this somewhere or i just dreamt it).

[edit]

What i wrote is how i thought it works, but i never been able to confirm it, and it seems it isn't true.

[edit]

Eh, when i almost gave up, i managed the clicking stuff.
But it seems it isn't a negative faction value.
It is the JOIN_ variables.

Is there some more information on the faction data? Like is there a 2da, or it is hardcoded which factions got an icon/join* variable?

Edited by Avenger_teambg, 04 August 2009 - 08:26 AM.

[Qwinn]

I thought you can join 2 factions one normal, and anarchist optionally.

This is what would make sense and fit the lore, but in the game you can actually infiltrate every faction as an anarchist, there are no checks against doing so (I can see why it didn't get finished, it's a real pain to code the checks for it). You can then leave the anarchists joining the last faction, and thus effectively become a -real- member of every other faction simultaneously without being an anarchist - so you'd be a "real" Dustman, Godsman, Sensate and Chaosman all at the same time. Don't ask me which symbol would appear on your character sheet if you did that, I have no idea. This is the mess I'm looking to fix.

This is a special case, signed by a negative faction value.

Not that I'm aware of. I've never seen the JOIN_Faction variables get set to a negative.

Here's the various variables that control what factions you belong to, and their potential values:

Join_Godsmen: 1-5: Various steps along the quest to join the Godsmen. 6: Joined the Godsmen. 7: Renounced the Godsmen.
Join_Dustmen: 1: Joined or infiltrated the Dustmen. 2: Renounced the Dustmen. 3: Didn't join and then renounce Dustmen, but told Emoric midquest that you weren't interested anymore, cuts you off permanently.
Join_Chaosmen: 1: Joined or infiltrated the Chaosmen. 2: Renounced the Chaosmen. 3: Factol of the Chaosmen.
Join_Sensates: 1: Joined or infiltrated the Sensates. (Note: This is post-v4.0-fix. Previously, infiltrating Sensates did not set it to 1, and no one recognized you as a Sensate). 2: Renounced the Sensates.
Join_Anarchists: 1: Joined the Anarchists. 2: Renounced the Anarchists, either by pissing Scofflaw Penn off in conversation, or with the Fixpack, turning Anarchists in to Harmonium Guard Corvus.

I believe all the stuff determining what symbol shows up on your character sheet is hardcoded in the engine, based on what the JOIN_ variables are set to, but the vast majority of faction-related stuff is controlled by SetGlobals and trigger checks within dialogues.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 04 August 2009 - 09:24 AM.

[Avenger_teambg]

I just set some JOIN* variables to 1, and i could see the icons.
All the icons, you can click on them, effectively changing to another type.

Edited by Avenger_teambg, 04 August 2009 - 09:33 AM.

[Qwinn]

You can cycle through them with clicking? Huh. That's pretty cool! I never realized.

I presume that only works if you belong to more than one, obviously. Cool way to let you see that you are both Whatever and an Anarchist, though, I thought it only displayed your non-anarchist symbol.

Qwinn