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Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 14 Aug 2010, 18:15
by Bertram
Hi Liana,

The quest is interesting and if there are no show stopper to it. I hope you'll be able to contact Wombat, so that he can manage the inclusion of it in the official world.

Best regards.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 17 Aug 2010, 14:59
by Wombat
First, it looks like a great quest and I appreciate the effort you put into creating it.

A few things I noticed on examination. I still haven't playtested it and won't until these changes are made:

- Your map can't use woodland tiles inside a cave. It will not be accepted like this.

-Here

Code: Select all

mes "[Insert Name]";
mes "\" say something\"";
next;
mes "[Insert Name]";
mes "\"say something else\"";
next;
ect. 
One name insertion is all that is needed. Reduce the number of "nexts" based on paragraphs of text. Players will click through a long NPC story instead of read it if it is too long (example Kfahr). Don't bore the players with your NPCs or they will tl;dr the text. It shouldn't be necessary for players to hunt through a boring text to find hints on what to do with a quest. I will still accept this quest if your NPCs are boring, but this is more of a hint that shrinking what your NPCs say to necessary things makes the quest more enjoyable and players will read what the NPC says.

- Sagatha won't be changed by poison_ivy. Poison_ivy will have to return to say otherwise, but it would be best to actually see what he is doing rather than get a promise of it before you put your eggs in this basket if you want this to be released before December. He has a Halloween quest on his plate as well, so part two will have to get discarded or another script writer found to do this part.

I'll review again once these changes are made.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 05:21
by Liana
Wombat wrote: - Your map can't use woodland tiles inside a cave. It will not be accepted like this.
Everyone that has did the quest liked it except poison_ivy and I don't understand why it won't be accepted like that. I've seen on several games that some npc/mobs lend their life force to strengthen trees inside a cave. And it is very boring that all the caves are exactly the same. Considering how this ends with sagatha being involved I thought it would be a nice touch and yet still logical if sagatha created the cave. Do you think sagatha wants a scary cave with bones all over the place and scorpions? And besides all of the rest of the caves have that, why not have a little something that is unique? At least one unique thing in the game at least? Because it is all so boring with the same tiles in every cave and the same tiles in every woodland..
Wombat wrote: -Here

Code: Select all

mes "[Insert Name]";
mes "\" say something\"";
next;
mes "[Insert Name]";
mes "\"say something else\"";
next;
ect. 
One name insertion is all that is needed.
At first I was only showing the name once per section of text (until there is a menu). And I was unsure if this is how it should be. So I looked at the other npc scripts in the game and every single one uses the exact same format that I used in my quest. So please explain why *mine* is wrong but the rest of the npc's are okay.
Wombat wrote: Reduce the number of "nexts" based on paragraphs of text. Players will click through a long NPC story instead of read it if it is too long (example Kfahr). Don't bore the players with your NPCs or they will tl;dr the text. It shouldn't be necessary for players to hunt through a boring text to find hints on what to do with a quest. I will still accept this quest if your NPCs are boring, but this is more of a hint that shrinking what your NPCs say to necessary things makes the quest more enjoyable and players will read what the NPC says.
I've really tried to keep it as short as possible and only give hints but due to the twist at the end of the quest I believe a proper story is in order for them to understand what is going on. And most people really enjoy the storylines of a quest, because tmw is not all about fight! fight! fight!.. there is more to tmw than that and part of what makes a good quest is the story. Once again I think your comment is the reason why tmw is all the same. Short boring dialogs. and same tile sets over and over again. Why not try something unique for once? The game will get more and more boring if identical stuff keeps getting added.

Maybe something you don't understand is that people enjoy reading it if it's not boring or if it's going some place. Kfahr's stories are boring stories that go on forever and have no real point to them. My quest on the other hand has an interesting storyline and that is what people find the opposite of boring when it comes to a quest. What your describing with the short dialogs is in fact a BORING quest.
Wombat wrote: - Sagatha won't be changed by poison_ivy. Poison_ivy will have to return to say otherwise, but it would be best to actually see what he is doing rather than get a promise of it before you put your eggs in this basket if you want this to be released before December. He has a Halloween quest on his plate as well, so part two will have to get discarded or another script writer found to do this part.
Maybe you misunderstand or didn't bother to read the rest of the posts on this thread or pay attention to what I explained in my pm's but changing sagatha is not really having anything to do with what I need done for part 2. poison_ivy posted a reply that he can write a reasonable sagatha npc. So I pm'd him and I'm still waiting for his responce. I don't know what you are trying to say about the eggs in a basket please explain to me.

Also release date is not an issue. I did this on my free time and don't expect it to be released by any specific date. It's a quest and can be added whenever you have some free time because I guess everyone is too busy with something.. I'm not sure what since I only ever see minor changes to the server.

And I'm not sure what you think part 2 is but sagatha is only about %1 of the quest and the rest of it is all finished. So why should it be discarded just because poison_ivy is doing something for halloween? big deal I don't care about release dates as I said. He can do it after halloween for all I care. Doesn't matter to me. I enjoy making this quest and I would be happy to see it on the server but most of all I just want to share my work for anyone who enjoys it and would like to use it.

As a suggestion please don't jump to conclusions and make decisions when you have no clue what is going on. Because even with your first pm asking for a "single file" for my quest, when clearly if you had even read the first post of this thread you would know that it's not some single txt file. I made the map, all of the npc's, everything. So please read at least the first post of the this thread so you know what is going on before you jump around here not making any sense and not bothering to learn anything because your "too busy".

Also another suggestion. Why not play test it first so you can actually see how it is rather than just skim through the scripts and "pretend" to know what is going on in the quest.

~Liana

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 05:33
by Wombat
I guess I have no idea what is going on. Make a patch and submit to git. I'll return to working on other things.
git://gitorious.org/tmwdata/mainline.git
git://gitorious.org/tmw-eathena-data/mainline.git
If you want to discuss this, please come to #tmw-content on irc.themanaworld.org

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 07:57
by Wombat
I have talked with Liana and we will review this further. It is a very good quest and it will probably get into the game in some form. Liana feels strongly about this quest as it is and I hope to see them tomorrow when we discuss it on IRC.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 20:22
by Wombat
We have discussed on IRC. Liana did not or could not make it. This is the decision:

- The quest dialog is both fun and interesting. We'd like to include it. We will not include it without changes.

- Variables must be reduced to an existing one (example not to be used: Sandra's "Scorp" variable) and use only one, if possible. I'd suggest using a variable from one of the higher level quests. Reason: Characters can only carry 96 permanent variables. The torches especially use too many variables and will have to be re-thought on how to do with only one variable.

- Forest tiles must be removed from the map. Reason: Incompatible tilesets are ugly and unappealing to attracting new artists and shouldn't be done. There is an exception and perhaps we will remove that exception so it isn't wielded as justification for avoiding the difficult task of drafting new tilesets for the game.

- Warps must only be warps, not scripts. Put script based warps as NPCs and add them to the _import.txt for the map.

- If Sagatha is on the map, she should say something. If it takes a while for poison_ivy to return, you should draft what Sagatha says, even if it is a simple dialog that goes with the storyline of the quest. If you'd rather wait for someone else before this happens, I will wait before this is added into the game. It very well could be some time before you are done doing these fixes, so if that seems reasonable, feel free to go for it.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 20:29
by Kage
Wombat wrote: - Warps must only be warps, not scripts. Put script based warps as NPCs and add them to the _import.txt for the map.
I disagree with this. Warps can be scripts if need be. For example the warps to the Candor cave are scripts because the warp option should not always be available. If something similar needs to be done we should also use scripted warps.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 18 Aug 2010, 20:30
by Wombat
I was talking about within _warps.txt. Sorry for the lack of clarification.

_warps.txt and other underscore "_" texts within an NPC directory are auto-generated. An NPC script may be used for a warp that uses quest variables or other things (levels, items, number of people within another map, etc.). An example is the npc "script" warp for the Fight cave.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 19 Aug 2010, 11:36
by Liana
Wombat wrote:- The quest dialog is both fun and interesting. We'd like to include it. We will not include it without changes.
Please make this more clear. You say it is fun and interesting and you want to include it. but then you say that you won't include it without changes. So please explain is it being included? or not being included? And if not please explain what changes your talking about because I can't change the dialog if I don't know what you want changed.
Wombat wrote:- Variables must be reduced to an existing one (example not to be used: Sandra's "Scorp" variable) and use only one, if possible. I'd suggest using a variable from one of the higher level quests. Reason: Characters can only carry 96 permanent variables. The torches especially use too many variables and will have to be re-thought on how to do with only one variable.
I could have just use an array instead. So is it okay if the quest uses instead only 3 variables? Is it few enough to be acceptable?
Wombat wrote:- Forest tiles must be removed from the map. Reason: Incompatible tilesets are ugly and unappealing to attracting new artists and shouldn't be done. There is an exception and perhaps we will remove that exception so it isn't wielded as justification for avoiding the difficult task of drafting new tilesets for the game.
Okay I'll remove it.
Wombat wrote:- Warps must only be warps, not scripts. Put script based warps as NPCs and add them to the _import.txt for the map.
I only did this for sake of readability and to lower the amount of files needed. Since there is only 3 of these script based warps I figured it would be more logical to put them into the _warp.txt file instead of junking up the npc directory with many unnecessary files. Do you really want me to create a separate file just for 3 scripts by themselves? That really seems not very logical and since they behave like warps (the only difference is they warp to different locations depending on quest progress), why would it not be best to keep them in _warps.txt?
Wombat wrote:- If Sagatha is on the map, she should say something. If it takes a while for poison_ivy to return, you should draft what Sagatha says, even if it is a simple dialog that goes with the storyline of the quest. If you'd rather wait for someone else before this happens, I will wait before this is added into the game. It very well could be some time before you are done doing these fixes, so if that seems reasonable, feel free to go for it.
I've said to you many times already that sagatha is in no way related to this quest. It's not imported if you can see in the _import.txt it is commented out. As I explained the only reason that file is there is because sagatha will be inside that cave when part 2 is released. I guess I'll just remove it to stop your confusion...

~Liana

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 19 Aug 2010, 12:41
by Wombat
What I'd like is for all the dialog from a single NPC to be located within its script and not another's. Orum's script and Waric's script should contain everything they say/do within their script. NPCs with short scripts on the same map can be included together. Separating them creates confusion.

I'll accept the script with 3 variables. There are a few other tricks, like bit masking, that could help.

You are correct about the warps and can add them by hand.

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 03 Sep 2010, 00:32
by Liana
Sorry to not make a response for so long I'm just busy with other things. I've made all of the changes except for the problem with variables. I thought I could use an array as a permanent variable but I guess not, and also I have a few suggestions to use bit masking but I'm not very skilled with bit masking and I don't really know how to do anything other than storing bool variables this way, or at least not more than 0-2 and the torches and barriers have possible 12 different colors.

So if someone can give any suggestions for the problem with the variables that will be appreciate. Theres basically 1 variable for the main quest progress then the problem is that there is 3 torches and 3 barriers.

Each barrier has variables for these values:
- barrier color (possible value 1-12, and cannot be 0)

Each torch has variables for these values:
- torch color (possible value 1-12, and cannot be 0)
- torch intensity (possible values 0-3, this is for each time the torches are colored wrong intensity is increase +1 and when it reaches 3, ie. they have 3 tries before it explodes, then it is reset back to 0)

For torch intensity I could probably make the quest a little more difficult and just allow 2 tries, this would allow to use bit masking for torch intensity variables, but that still leaves 6 more variables for the torch/barrier colors.

So please if someone can give advice or suggestions on what to do, thats the only problem I can't figure out how to fix. Thanks

~Liana

Re: [FND] Orum/Waric Quest Part One

Posted: 04 Sep 2010, 15:00
by Liana
Here is hopefully final update to the quest. Sorry to take so long to make the changes but I think it should meet standards now and it's been tested and works as expected. And thanks to Pjotr for help with bit masking.

Changes:
- Puzzle made a little bit harder, now have to unlock 3rd torch then work in reverse order to achieve final barrier color.
- Number of variables has been reduced to 3. (One for main quest, One for barriers, and one for torches).
- Trees and plants are removed from the cave. (Yes it is plain but still looks okay..).
- Minor bug fixes and dialog improvements.

Edit:
- I also forgot to note that the map has been changed from 025-3 to 009-4

Download:
- http://www.mediafire.com/?h4t59gmdw24qt96

Notes:
- I includes a readme in this one but I did it the same as I usually do, there is 2 folders, one for client data that includes the map, and one for server data that includes the npc scripts. The code examples for the items uses for the quest are includes in the readme file but they are just examples and will probably be modified when added to server.

Please post questions/comment if I need to fix anything else. Thanks
~Liana