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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 10-Jan-12, 16:30:04 | ||||
| Since I am around... QED update: Project QED is not dead. But on hold. The website I used for my screenshots has disappeared. I lost all my uploaded images there :-( They said they would come back -- months ago. Anyway, project QED is still on my hard drive. I will resume it when I find again the motivation. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 16-Sep-11, 22:11:17 | ||||
| QED update: Haha -- It is slowly gaining a shape. Many are the things I have to create, and many others are those to polish. But today I had my first interesting battle. There were: - Adude Bdude (me) Versus: - Skele Tonio (partner of Skele Tanya, sister of Skele Tin) - Ogre Chieftain (you met him already) I engaged them both in an almost epic melee fight. I needed to observe things closely and carefully, so I gave everyone much life. They had 300000 Health each. I had 1000000 Health -- at the end of the fight I was left with only 302393 Health. They could inflict me more damage than their combined HPs. Ideally I would have lost the fight. I survived because we all has the same weaponry (weapon types and differences are not yet estabilished) and because I had a Shield, they did not. Anyway, we had an interesting exchange of blows. It raged for almost 10 minutes, 3 attacks per round for each, an average of 900 attacks. You should have noticed how in NWN often a creature attacks another creature without actually moving. That is, damage is dealt, but the attacker stood seemingly idle. It is both a feature and a glitch of the Aurora engine. A "feature", because the engine willingly drops this or that animation when it detects that the actors are being late on the "schedule". At the end of each Combat Round every actor must have performed all of the attacks per round he has at disposal. Else the D&D rules are broken -- you understand. The feature morph into a "glitch" when the engine -for some oscure reason- drop more consecutive animations than it is really necessary, so making an actor stand still for 2 or 3 seconds while his opponent takes multiple damages out of nowhere. Which looks silly. Well, for some other oscure reason this feature/glitch has a MUCH reduced chance of occur in QED. Why? I have no idea. Out of the 900 attacks of above, _no_ animation was dropped. Not - even - one. This would be worth some investigation if I was not so busy with other aspects of QED. I have to double the number of attacks per round (to 6 each), in order to see the occasional drop in animations. And yet it is occasional, as opposd to the "frequent" of NWN. I wonder which of the many things I do (and not) is sparking this positive result. But enough on that. My combat system is far from complete. Most of it still exist only on the paper. Few parts of it are working, though the last 3 days were spent to adjust my technique to display the floating damage (I also prepared two alternate sets for Green and Blue colors), and I could not focus on combat as I scheduled. At the moment the Attack vs. Defense does work as planned. I have not invented anything so new, but it is an interesting subject all the same -- and worlds apart with the d20 system of NWN and D&D. Everyone possesses two traits: Attack and Defense (novel!) When you attack someone, it is your Attack vs. his Defense. If you match or exceed your target Defense, you always hit. Otherwise your chances to hit the target drop on a squared progression. Given a low enough Attack, they may drop to quasi-zero%, so making you unable to ever hit that target. However, the engine will interfere with the occasional Miss due to its internal d20 roll. When the roll is 1, you miss. That translates to a 1 out of 20 chances to miss -- or 5%. Which means that regardless of your QED Attack Rating you can only have MAX 95% chances to hit the target. If this was NWN2 I could fix that easily. But in NWN1 it is not possible. The Defense rating of a creature is given by the simple sum of all the partial Defense ratings provided by the worn equipment (and other assets). Such summatory gives the Total Defense rating. However, in QED you have to mind where you are being hit from, by whom, and with what. The area immediately surrounding your body is split into 4 quadrants, like slices of a pie-chart: - Front - Left - Right - Rear Imagine a circle centered on you. Then trace an X to cut the pizza in 4 parts. Each quadrant takes your Total Defense rating and scales it up or down accordingly to your worn equipment (and other assets). The new value obtained for a quadrant is your Effective Defense rating against Attacks coming from the directions covered by that quadrant. It takes more to explain than to calculate, really. At the moment... the Front quadrant provides 100% defense, the Left and Right quadrants provide 75% defense, and the Rear quadrant provides only 50% defense. As you can imagine, being attacked from the Rear makes you easy to hit, even by a weakling. If you wear a Shield, your Left quadrant raises to 90% defense, and your Rear quadrant raises to 60% defense. Using a Shield is always good for your Defense. However, it has the side-effect of lowering your number of attacks per round. Hm. But what are these percentages for? They are to scale (up or down) your Total Defense rating. Example: If your Total Defense is 300, it will be 300 (100%) in the Front quadrant, 225 (75%) in the Left and Right quadrants, and only 150 (50%) in the Rear quadrant. Things improve if you wear a Shield. Not only a Shield adds directly to your Total Defense, but it then raises the Effective Defense ratings for the Left and Rear quadrants. Imagine to have a Shield that provides 50 points of Defense. Your Total Defense goes up to 350 points. You will have 350 (100%) defense in the Front quadrant, then 315 (90%) defense in the Left quadrant, 262 (75%) defense in the Right quadrant, and 210 (60%) defense in the Rear quadrant. It is that simple. Of course I display the Effective Defense rating for each quadrant, so the Player does not have to busy him mind to calculate numbers. When I was in combat vs. Skele Tonio and Ogre Chieftain, I had a Shield -- they had none. Of the two, Ogre Chieftain had the higher Attack rating, but the lower Defense because he is so big and easy to hit. I could face only 1 of the 2 foes at a time, of course, and I chose to face Ogre Chieftain, thus locking him in my Front quadrant and reduce his chances to hit me. But Skele Tonio was free to maneuver around me... and guess where he positioned himself? At my Rear -of course- where my defense was the least. Skele Tonio would hit me quite often, despite his low Attack rating (relatively to my Total Defense). Occasionally I could maneuver to put Skele Tonio at my Left, but soon he would reattempt to glue at my back. Once Ogre Chieftain was dispatched (a bloody affair, let me tell you), I could face Skele Tonio -- and suddenly he was unable to hit me as often as when I was facing away from him. Hm. That, and the fact that when they were 2 on 1, both foes would benefit from a minor boost to their Attack rating. Yes. In QED the more foes are picking on you altogether, and the harder becomes for you to defend against any one of them. Do not think the lone hero is going to front-assault the enemy camp and live to recount the story. That is not going to happen. Given enough foes teaming vs. you, it is possible for them to double (or more) their Attack rating vs. you. This is also perfect to create creatures that hunt in packs. So long they make number, they pose a threat. As you start thinning their number, so the survivors chances to hit you drop more and more. However the formula I am using is a placeholder until I can gauge things properly. No point discussing it now. Health is consumed by wounds, and Mana is consumed by spells. They spontaneously regenerate all the time. Your equipment (and other assets) can influence their regen speed. However, the main way to affect their regeneration speed is minding what you do. In combat, the regeneration occurs once per second. Else, if moving around or doing anything other than nothing, the regeneration occurs every half second. Else, if Resting the regeneration occurs every 1/10th of second. If you are not even Resting it means you are truly doing nothing. Standing idle like a statue. In that case the regeneration occurs every 1/3rd of second. Everytime the regeneration occurs it is a random amount between 1 and a Maximum threshold dictated by your primary stats (the higher, the better). The formulas I adopt for this are still work in progress. No point to discuss them. Resting is visually the same Resting of NWN. You sit down, the Resting popup window with the progress bar appears... However in QED I am in control of every aspect of the character, and Resting is no longer a sure way to regain all lost Health. It is quite possible that you take a full Resting and you only recovered partial Health. Maybe another Resting cycle will be needed to get in full shape. But while Resting you are vulnerable. Your guard is down and your Total Defense rating drops to only 1/10. Any Archer spotting you in that moment would see in you an easy prey, because your armor is all that keeps you safe from the extreme damage dealt by arrows in QED. Without your super Defense ratings, arrows will make short work of your many HP. I am also thinking to make the Defense ratings halve down while the character is moving around (if not in combat). Moving means walking. I make sure that everyone walks. Nobody runs. Have you noticed that in NWN every playable race runs at the same speed, regardless of leg length? From the tall Half-Orc to the short Gnome, all players run at a speed of 2 meters per second. It is so precise that you can stop-watch them. Do you think you can cover a distance of 400 meters in 3 minutes and 20 seconds, carrying about 150 pounds of stuff? Knights in plate armor would ride warhorses for a reason... When footed, they would not risk to run. Too easy to fall face-ahead on the ground... where for some reason it is so difficult to defend oneself. Thus in QED everybody walks. This implies a cart of beneficial side-effects. First, pathfinding is not as CPU intensive as it is when running, because the less tile-edges you cross over N time, the easier you make it for the game (and your CPU). Second, the slower you move, the slower the rate at which old objects get pushed out of memory and new objects are brought into memory. Again, easy for game and CPU. Third, Areas take more time for you to "run" through from edge to edge. It also gives you more time to appreciate what features were put in the scenery, because nobody likes a flat landscape with nothing but "flat" to look at. Placeables in NWN also exist for Area-decoration purpose, you should know (make them "static" and you are set). Fourth, it allows me to force the 7 Playable races to walk at their "natural" speed -- the speed given by the length of their legs (ie: Humans are almost twice as fast as Gnomes). Fifth, there is hardly chance for a player to "outrun" an NPC pursuing him. That means that you should not pick fights you are not sure to end in your favor. Escape may often be not a viable option in QED. There is probably more, but I am too busy to think them at the moment. That is all for today. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 10-Sep-11, 15:17:06 | ||||
| ---------------[ Quod Erat Demonstrandum ]--------------- Behold! My long silence is now broken. Some QED posts ago I said that the floating number displaying a damage amount is one of the NWN-engine things unfakeable. Do you remember it? -- I lied. Unwillingly, of course. While thinking to elsestuff entirely, my flawless foxine subconscious struck me with a vision of the future. In the vision there was... Observe: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed07.jpg That is indeed what it appears to be :-) This was taken a split-moment later: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed08.jpg Same moment, but from another angle: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed09.jpg (is it enough to show it is no fake?) I only had to make it real -- which I did. Took me some time to prepare the required art. Hence my silence. Other than that, it was a walk in the park. The Font I used for the damage amount is the Sylfaen. Its numbers have superb readability -- agree? The fox crack-opens another shut door :-) My genius is peerless. My logic is flawless. My ego is boundless. My arrogance is unrivaled. I could teach the bioware devs a cart of things. But on second thought I better not. My foxine aura would molecularize them long before I could even spot the white of their eyes. Cruel fate. They are condemned to live in their ignorance. On a positive note they are too stupid to realize that. Ahh the amazing perfection of Nature. Even this fox is second to that. But no problem: everything else is third to _me_ -- haha Now back on the QED subject of today. Have you noticed? Damage is greater than 10000. I did explain that 10000 damage per hit was the limit past which unrecoverable bugs occur -- dooming the current game session. That is no longer true. In a sense. Well, it still is true. I just do not let it happen. Fox for a reason, you know ;-) I can now output whatever damage amount I wish. Currently I have room for up to 10 digits. That makes 9999999999 max damage in a single hit. But such amount outbounds the 32-bits storage. NWScript can not handle it -- haha. Fear not, I make use of all those digits nonetheless. Hm. Yes, the above makes _two_ shut doors unshut in a day. Did I say already that my greatness is unmeasureable? Maybe another time I will post my self-flatterings. Could fill a book with them. Now I have to go back to the AI and the Jobs system. More QED in the next days. -fox ------------------------------------------------------------ Change of subject: NOVA, On 27th Aug 2011 in this thread I did ask you a question. Perhaps you have not seen it. But that same question was asked in the past too -- twice. You never answered it. This time I would appreciate a response. If you do not answer in 7 days, I will assume it is a No. And the question shall not be asked again. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 01-Sep-11, 15:58:19 | ||||
| QED update: My experiments are giving results. So far good ones. The IFF aura problem is no longer a problem. I have developed a way to turn those auras and the information they give away to my advantage. It was so simple... why I did not think it before? As always, Simplicity is Bliss. With one less worry on my mind, I have started to worry about the monsters mind, their AI... or AS, as I dub mine. The idea of Jobs does work. O if it works. You would not believe it. But I am here to tell anyway :-) Jobs are elementary tasks. Or Actions. The Jobs Queue can much like resemble the very Action Queue innate of NWN. But there are fundamental differences. The main one is that if you wipe out the Actions Queue, the creature will forever forget what she was gong to do, what she did before it, and what she was asked to do after it, if anything at all. The Jobs Queue instead is kept in a memory that I handle. If you pause or halt the Jobs Queue, the Jobs are not forgotten and the creature may resume her chores from any point in the Jobs Queue, because scripts have full control on it. Jobs can even be modified on the fly to adapt them to a new situation developing. Jobs can be removed, or inserted in between other Jobs... et cetera. As I said: full control. The other big difference is that Jobs not necessarily are Actions. Actions are things a game Object can do. My Jobs can be more "abstract" than that. For example I have made Jobs to enable Branching. There is a Conditional job that evaluates a given situation and outputs a boolean (True or False) value. Based on the boolean outcome, the Job then decides which other Job in the Queue is to be executed next. Talking of an if() conditional instruction here. But it is a Job, not a script instruction. Admittedly, this makes the Jobs Queue a little like a scripting language INSIDE a scripting language (nwscript), because the Branching to a specific Job based on a True/False outcome is exactly like Jumping to a specific memory address based on a True/False outcome. It is what programs do all the time (in case you do not know). Boolean Logic is at the heart of all programming, in fact. But fear not. My goal is not a scripting language. While branching is needed, I will keep its usefulness at a minimum. My first worker NPC was a Skeleton Warrior. I will make sure to include him in the credits for the invaluable aid :-) This skeleton had a Jobs Queue that would activate as my PC was perceived by him, and deactivate as my PC was no longer perceived (for example, became invisible). Upon my perception the skeleton would start a patrol route, back and forth from Point A to Point B, endlessly. Reaching either Point the skeleton would turn to face a specific direction, then pause a couple seconds, then resume the patrol. Also, while at Point B the skeleton would roll a number against a given percentage chance I specified. If the roll succeeded the skeleton would move to a Point C, in between Points A and B, and from there move to within 10 meters of his own SpawnLocation. Once there he would resume the route, going back to Point A, et cetera, et cetera, endless. Not too Epic in scope, maybe, but all this was done with a Queue of less than 20 Jobs. And the actual AI routines needed NO customization aside the requests to Begin or End the execution of the queued Jobs. Now... maybe the most perceptive of you have sensed something wicked in all this. The one question that should have sparked is: << Is not your Patrol Route thing, coupled with the Random Roll thing, perfectly doable with the standard script Action commands? >> << Why should anybody waste time with your Jobs? >> Hm. Okay those are two questions -- no problem. If you program a creature's doings (her Behaviors) using the standard nwscript instructions you hardcode the thing into your script. If you want to change that in future, you will have to open the Toolset, then the Script Editor, then modify and recompile the script. All this while your Module is NOT playing, of course. My Jobs instead can be modified at runtime. No compilation or recompilation needed. Jobs may even be assigned from a creature to another creature as you play. Which is my goal in this whole affair. Remember the speech I made about Leader and Followers? The Leader shouts orders, the Followers obey. Re-read that as: the Leader distributes Job Queues, the Followers work them out. And you have it: a self-programmable AI. I write the code to enable the self-programming, and the creatures will do the rest once in game. Hm. I think I have shed enough foxine radiance on the world for today. Got some mundane matters to attend to, now. Read you next time. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 29-Aug-11, 17:21:01 | ||||
| QED update: The IFF aura problem is another one I can not win against. Those auras root at the core of the game, and the only way to shut them off completely is to alter the EXE. This calls for a change of plans. As I have to keep those auras around, I have to think of a way to turn them to my advantage. I may have a good idea already. But it needs testing. And to test it I have to write a custom AI for QED. Not a real drawback. I was going to do so in any case because the gameplay I have in mind is so different from that of NWN and D&D. This IFF problem merely augmented the priority of "Custom AI" in my ToDo list. By the way, it will not be AI. I will dub it AS -- Artificial Smartivity. Fits flawlessly. Programs are only as smart as they are programmed to be. Thus, by definition, there can be no trace of Intelligence. Right now I ignore if I can do all I plan to. It would sit all in the script layer so I do not see why I should find barriers. But you never know with this game. Anyway, utoping that I can... QED creatures will form groups. Much like in ROM2. Groups will have Leader and Followers. The Leader sends orders, the Followers carry them out. Group will be predefined by the module builder. Missing such predefinition, the creatures in game will autonomously group and elect a Leader. If the Leader is killed, the next-best-Follower in the group becomes the new Leader. Until only 1 Follower is left, Leader of himself. I want the AS to be based on Jobs. Creatures will internally keep a list of Jobs they plan to carry out in sequence. Jobs would be elementary actions, such as MoveToThere, AttackThis, HealThat, WaitForHim, et cetera. It is fundamentally different from the approach used by the NWN generic AI. The AI controlled creatures do not plan on what to do. They just do it. And nobody coordinates them, but everyone thinks as if he is fighting alone. On top of that, the AI creatures have no "memory" of what they were set out to do. Every 6 seconds they will be called to take a new decision, or just continue the one action they are busy with at the moment. This gets worse in case the creatures are hastened. A state of Haste halves the memory duration to 3 seconds. That is why the NWN generic AI will never enact tactics, let alone elaborate a strategy and coordinate a group to carry it out. But if I can base my AS on Jobs, then I can have all sorts of group behaviors, and extend the "memory" of planned actions to whatever I need. That is the simple premise that will allow for strategies. -----------------------------------------------[ BEGIN ]----- Example: There is a group of assorted creatures in a camp. A Player Archer approaches and kills 1 creature from very far. Nobody has seen the Archer, but all can see their dead comrade. Everybody approaches the cadaver to understand what happened. They know an Archer is around. The arrow reveals that :-) But they do not know where the Archer is. Yet they may guess the direction from which the Arrow came. (Open... For this reason the wise Player Archer will not shoot two long-range arrows from the same place. He will move around to stay undetected -- and live another shot. ... closed) If they do, the Leader may send out 1 or 2 Followers to investigate the likely location from which the arrow was shot. At the same time, the Leader might order to a couple stealth capable Followers to scout around unseen, in search of the Archer which has probably moved after the shot. And in case the Archer is located, the orders could be to either attack him, or get back "home" to inform the Leader of the foe's location. Meanwhile the Leader may ask the magicians to prepare for battle, by casting something in advance (buffs, summons, werebunnies, lethal carrots, et cetera). -------------------------------------------------[ END ]----- Sounds too good to be true, I know. The Jobs system I am engineering will allow for this. And hopefully more. Today we have enough CPU speed to handle this kind of "load". The rest will be done by the module builder. If he places down creatures with eterogeneous capabilities, the AS will have enough options to make clever use of them. The NWN generic AI is nowhere near this level of complexity. Yet it is a scary mass of scripts to wade through if one wants to mod anything of it. My AS risks to grow scarier than that. I want to avoid it. Thus I will start on it from scratch -- blank scripts. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 27-Aug-11, 01:58:20 | ||||
| Hello NOVA. I can teach you how to script for NWN. And yes, over the internet. The syntax is easy to grasp once you are explained those two or three tiny details that may spark confusion otherwise. And the NWN API (Application Programming Interface) is also quite easy to learn -- especially thanks to the Lexicon. Really the Lexicon is all you need in this regard, but I can still add to it with some bits of unmentioned knowledge. Then to understand in what ways a script can be used is also rather easy. Scripts have multiple points of insertion in NWN. Alas, the amount of these points is nowhere near the optimal. But it is what everyone (me too) makes-do with. You will also see that 2DA_file edits can enable a lot of changes. Some of these changes may not be achievable otherwise (scripting alone can not do everything), so 2DA editing is something every scripter learns about. Once you get accustomed with the above, you can script on your own. And realize how easy it is to do many interesting things that you believe so difficult. By the way, the Warmth thing of Torr is piece of cake. Hm. And the Kingdoms_have_a_Proprietor thing is also not difficult. Worky and lengthy yes. But conceptually easy. What say you. Do you want to try? -fox ------------------------------------------------------------ Change of subject: Back to QED. These last days I have been silent because I spent time to gather ideas for a new gameplay. QED is going in that direction. If I can "satisfy" several requisites I can truly re-shape NWN into a game that is neither NWN nor D&D. Anyway, so far very much is in a foggy state. To invent new rules of play is a lot harder task than I had anticipated. Oh well, material for my brain to chew on. To think that I already have what seems to be a big set of rules... But many more are required to define the remaining aspects, and they stay indefinite until I can "tick" more QED entries on my ToDo list. Hm. The stuff I can showcase with a still screenshot is diminishing rapidly -- many things would require an animation but I am not going to capture a movie and upload it to youtube. My internet is not for free and I do not grow coins on a tree. Regardless, one of the entries to QED is pausing me badly. I wanted to eliminate the visual differences between Friend, Neutral and Hostile. When you press Tab, every object and creature in view highlights with a colored aura. Green for friends, Blue for Neutrals, Red for Hostiles. This is I.F.F. (Is Friend or Foe) recognition. I wanted to eliminate the IFF, to make the player unable to tell who_is_what to him. But looks like those auras are hardcoded. They come from a list of preprogrammed visual effects. The little documentation I found on this list is that it holds those visual effects that are supposed to affect a 3D model (such as a creature) but without using a 3D model of their own. Yet I know those auras _are_ 3D. Their geometric nature is easily revealed by close observation of the glow. Thus somewhere there must be 3D I can tamper with to kick away those auras. I will ask on the forums. Some skilled 3D artist must know something about it. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 27-Aug-11, 01:12:10 | ||||
| ---------------[ Quod Erat Demonstrandum ]--------------- Proof of concept: To limit the inventory size -- Locking a page. Observe: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed05.jpg -- Left image: A normal inventory page. Free for use, as always. -- Right image: An inventory page which can not be used. That red grid is in truth an Item. A big item the size of a page (10x6 grid slots). Cheap, effective, undefeatable. In a word: flawless! Hm. Now that I take a better look, the red hue is too cheeky. Almost distracting. I will darken it some. Anyway... Let us admit it: this was a stroke of genius. (yet another, might I add) The ultimate anti pack-rat :-) When a new Player Character is created, you stuff five of these red grids into his inventory, thus shrinking its capacity to 1/6th. For the RPG-ers, this collaterally makes for a great excuse to force a Player to buy expensive "bags" to extend their inventory capacity. Each bag "bought" frees up a new inventory page by removing one red grid (which is otherwise impossible to ditch). Of course, of course :-) The red grid does not necessarily have to be red. Does not have to be a grid. It does not even have to be translucent. I choose the red color because it is commonly associated to the concept of Forbidden. I choose the Grid pattern so the player would quickly associate the concepts of Forbidden and Grid. Then I added the hue to enforce the concept that the whole inventory page is being affected. But in the end it is only a colored picture. Could portrait anything. And in case a Player gets annoyed at the thought of having to keep such "grids" to block his inventory, we may adopt a different picture. Preferrably something we know he likes. For example: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed06.jpg Haha -- Maybe the yuk was excessive. More QED in the next days. -fox |
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Author: NOVA (KINGKOTA666 [at] HOTMAIL [dot] COM) | |||
| Date: 22-Aug-11, 23:40:52 | ||||
| I suppose I should have included some of those scripting additions to whett your appetite and get your creative curiosity piqued. 1. In addition to HUNGER and FATIGUE, they have added one more 'heartbeat' monitored character feature called WARMTH. I say 'heartbeat' but in Torr I believe it is really an onmodload script which updates all these values and then re-runs itself on a delay (every 6 seconds I think). At any rate, when you enter either cold or hot climates (ie module areas that are intended to be hot or cold), your WARMTH value goes either up or down (or does nothing if it is a heat neutral area). Once your WARMTH reaches an extreme (either negative for cold or positive for hot), you begin to take thermal exposure damage (cold for cold, fire for hot). The amount of damage you take each heartbeat depends on your current WARMTH value. Removing yourself from exposure to warm or cold climates gradually returns your WARMTH value towards zero. Obviously, exposing yourself to the opposite climate would also rapidly return you toward zero. Proximity to a campfire will warm you for instance. At any rate, WARMTH is an excellent feature that simulates prolonged exposure to thermal extremes. You can of course mitigate the effects by wearing gear which absorbs thermal damage (cold or fire). But continued exposure to the elements will eventually build your WARMTH value to such an extreme that even your protections are overwhelmed and you start taking damage anyway. It's an absolutely awesome new feature. 2. Each of the World of Torr Kingdoms can now be 'purchased' by an in-game player much like other property already can (such as workshops, towers, or just regular farmhouses). But unlike the normal properties which just deduct regular property taxes from your prepaid account (whether you are online or not), this lordship property has regular costs deducted from your prepaid account as well, but it also can add in a portion of the payments from the other player-citizen property taxes. If more players want to own property in YOUR kingdom, you get more money toward subsidizing your own expenses because you are drawing more payments from their property taxes. Once you purchase a kingdom (the cost is VERY high), you become that kingdom's KING (or Queen). You get to set diplomatic policies for how each kingdom reacts to each of the other kingdoms. Kingdoms at war with each other, for instance, will attack on site (they are rated as HOSTILE) any citizen of an opposing kingdom. You become a citizen of a kingdom by owning a piece of property within that kingdom (you can renounce your citizenship by getting rid of your property). You can only own one piece of property at a time and none of your prepaid property taxes are ever refunded if you renounce ownership. As I noted above, a portion of your property taxes goes to your player king/queen (if somebody has purchased this position). As citizens of a kingdom, you are not totally powerless. Much like the way the LAW system was scripted into Torr where the players can testify at another player's public trial and these 'votes' will sway the judge's ultimate punishment decision, the citizens of any kingdom can vote (at a newly added kingdom Censor NPC) to kick an unpopular king/queen out of office. Once dethroned in such a fashion (it's like running out of prepaid funds to pay your property taxes), you lose ownership of that kingdom and the office is up for purchase again. Anyone who does not already own another property somewhere in the world can now purchase this kingdom. The current diplomatic relations between all the kingdoms is stored in a persistent database and is instantly viewable by any player in the game via their Players' Handbook inventory item. You wouldn't want to inadvertantly waltz into a kingdom with whom your king has declared war afterall (you'd be attacked on site by all the kingdom guards). The scripting required to achieve these two features boggles my mind but demonstrates the awesome potential if you just know how to script. -NOVA |
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Author: NOVA (KINGKOTA666 [at] HOTMAIL [dot] COM) | |||
| Date: 22-Aug-11, 22:39:11 | ||||
| I wish you would latch onto the theorum that even an idiot like me can learn to script in NWN and then set out to QED that!!! I realize it is monumentally difficult to teach these things via the internet (much less through forum postings or email) and made all the more difficult by my severe lack of basic scripting comprehension. But I could REALLY REALLY REALLY use your expert tutelage with the World of Torr module. There's a version out there on the GameSpy ROLEPLAY channel that really kicks butt (sadly the module itself has not been released for public consumption). It has some neat new features I'd love to emulate/duplicate but I have NO clue how to even begin. Help me Obi-wan (gray fox), you're my only hope. -NOVA |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 20-Aug-11, 12:49:07 | ||||
| ---------------[ Quod Erat Demonstrandum ]--------------- Proof of concept: Taking full control of damage dealt. Observe: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed04.jpg In this shot our brave Guinea Pig (the toughest Gnome ever to walk Area 001) volunteers to test some serious weapon damage. But before we continue: !!! Kids, do NOT try this at home !!! These guys are trained and prepared professionals, they do it all day long, and an E.R. squad is kept ready (only a few feet off screen) in case of accidents. Still, their moms get worried sick and do not approve. Anyway... I left open a couple windows to prove that this is no fake. Notice the Character Sheet. It states that Guinea Pig has only 1 Hit Point out of 1 Hit Points maximum. Then also notice the DM Chooser window. No need to tell, it is a DM window. Therein as well, creature Guinea Pig is recognized to have 1 HP out of 1 HP maximum. I may be the best modder in the world (I am), but there is no way to fool the DM Chooser window. That thing sees the true state of everything. In other words Guinea Pig is only a sneeze away from death. Yet in combat VS. the towering Ogre Chieftain he is being hit and suffering no less than 10000 (ten thousands) damage points. To further support this claim, notice the console message being displayed. Do not mind the Divine damage type. I chose it because of its garish yellow. Also notice the actual 10000 floating number raising from the body of Guinea Pig. That display is another unfakeable. The very engine is in control of it, and the only way to provoke its appearance is to inflict actual damage. Which I do -- 10000. Yet Guinea Pig stands! I know, I know: << Maybe he is Immortal? >> He is not :-) Look again into the DM Chooser window. If a creature is made Immortal, it is clearly told so. See the Skeleton in the list? That Skeleton is indeed Immortal. I made him so for other QED purposes. But Guinea Pig is a regular 1 HP Gnome. For this demo I chose a damage of 10000 because it is the maximum amount that can be dealt in 1 hit. Trying to deal 10001 or more damage can result in a strange and unrecoverable bug, wherein the struck creature appears to suffer only 1 damage point (the engine will display that much with the blue floating number), yet her HP suddenly turn negative, the creature enters in a Dead state... But the Dead creature continues to stand on her feet. If that creature is a Player Character, the player may even click on the ground to issue move commands, and the creature will move as requested. The inventory panel may be brought up as well, but no item may be interacted with. No other attempt to interact with the game world will succeed as well. And finally, the creature disappears from the creature list into the DM Chooser window. Really a lot of bugs at once, all because more than 10000 damage was dealt. Apparently this 10000 threshold has to do with the maximum HP that can be set, via Toolset, for a creature. Which is in fact 10000. At any rate, in this QED I demonstrated how it is possible to inflict real damage regardless of the actual expendable HP amount of the target -- and without killing the target. In fact a Gnome with 1 HP suffers 10000 damage, and lives. It takes but a tiny stretch of the imagination to understand that it is possible to simulate any life amount. Next time I could give Guinea Pig one million of HP. Or a thousand billions, why not? More QED in the next days. -fox |
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Author: bbKing (arsnova30 [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 20-Aug-11, 01:43:43 | ||||
| Well fox, I appreciate a lot your explaining of your QED project. Name is very suitable it seems to me. And I can imagine it will be exciting and maybe even rewarding on a personal level to be able to unlock doors that were meant to be shut. :) Ofcourse you can always ask me whatever you're wondering about my personal life. But, although I have really nothing to hide, it's very unlikely that I would answer on a public forum, not even on this one LOL. I'm sure you'll understand. However, since ROM2 is over as far as I'm concerned, I've played NWN and after that the online game of Guild Wars. Now I'm playing Dragon Age 2, which I like very much. I love making my own characters and the dialogues are often hilariously funny. Besides the gaming part of my life, I'm doing quite well. I hope you do the same. I've checked this forum on a regular basis without feeling the need to respond. Mostly because I don't have the technical game skills that you and some others have. Anyways, with great interest I'll follow your adventure into the "forbidden" world of NWN. Not so much because I understand what you're doing, but more because I like you as a person, a person with a mission. :) Cheers!! |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 19-Aug-11, 19:42:22 | ||||
| Hello back, bbKing :-) Much time passed since last we spoke (or, read?). I wondered what happened to you. But maybe it was a private matter, so I did not ask. But here you are. Do you fare good? Yes? ------------------------------------------------------------ What is QED, you ask. It is many things altogether. But perhaps the answer you can best understand is: QED is the codename given to my current NWN project. It is too early to explain where QED is going. It does not even have a proper project name. But it began with my curiosity to discover how deep I could mod NWN. QED project was born as a proof of concept. Actually they were many micro-projects bent to take on the demonstration of single, independent, concepts. One day, a month ago or so, I fused them together (for my own modding comfort, really) -- and that is when I have seen the whole under a different light. Haha -- Struck on the way to Damascus! In truth, at some point I thought to make a ROM2 clone out of it. But that ship is sank and mourned. A different goal motivates me now. Surely you remember me saying something of the sort: << NWN is a sealed box >> And for the most part it is the Truth. (Open... Some say that the hardcodings were purposedly inserted, by BioWare, under contract with Atari and Wizards of the Coast, to prevent modders from "steering" the NWN platform in any direction that could lead any_far from the D&D gameplay. In short, NWN must only play D&D. - Sounds like a conspiracy, but I find it 100% believable. Development of NWN first, advertizing and distribution of it worldwide then, and maintenance of active support of the product for years after the initial release. These things do cost _many_ millions of real dollars. And someone has put them all on the table in advance. People can end your life for much less. Do not be surprised if a bunch of programmers spend whole months brainstorming about how best to seal any possible "backdoor" to ensure that NWN stays D&D. - Well I am testing those doors. Are they really shut all that well? ... closed) Working on Fox Spells gave me much insight of NWN. I gathered deep knowledge on many aspects of the game, some of which "less known" or commonly dismissed as "leading nowhere interesting". I learned that often the least interesting aspects of NWN can open a passage to the unsuspected -- if one gets curious and starts digging with determination. QED is meant to demonstrate that NWN can play something other than NWN -- or D&D, for that matters. My little demo with the Journal interface speaks volumes for those who can perceive what sits beyond the facade. There is more to it than a different text and some color. Material for a future QED post, maybe. For now I conceal my aces well up the sleeve. Project QED is not fully formed in my mind yet. Kind of odd. I have a goal. And I have plot the general path to walk to reach it. But parts of the road are shrouded in a mist as we speak. Before I can give a "shape" to everything, I must find out more about the things on my ToDo list. << What can I do, and what can I not? >> Then, out of the doable, I will select what best suits my goal, put everything together, and give QED a proper name. -fox |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 19-Aug-11, 19:37:33 | ||||
| ---------------[ Quod Erat Demonstrandum ]--------------- Proof of concept: Implementation of a "fighting stance" switch. Here is a composite image of 4 screenshots. Observe: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed02.jpg -- Top-Left image: A Halfling character wields a Two-Handed weapon, a Halberd. Nothing out of ordinary, aside the fact that Halflings normally can not equip a weapon this big ;-) -- Top-Right image: The same Halfling wields the same Halberd. This time using only one hand. In this shot he is about to hit the opposing Ogre Chieftain. -- Bottom-Left image: The Halfling hits the Ogre Chieftain. The animation being played (the thrust) proves that this Two-Handed weapon is being genuinely held with one hand. -- Bottom-Right image: With the left arm unemployed, the Halfling realizes that he is free to equip a Shield. And so he does :-) (let us not comment _where_ he then stings the Ogre at) Anyway... I wanted to see how far I could go in bending Weapons dataand behavior to my Will. Not only I had a Small Halfling equip a Large Weapon (a difference of 2 or more in Category Size normally renders a weapon inaccessible), but I was also able to make the character equip Two-handed weapons as if they are One-Hand weapons. In fact, a character wielding a Two-handed weapon can choose anytime to switch fighting stance and wield the weapon with the sole right hand, so leaving the left arm free to equip a Shield. He can return anytime to wield the weapon with both hands. The switching is not instantaneous. And it counts as an Action (to speak in D&D terms), though not in the _strict_ sense of the term. It is tricky to explain. I guess what matters the most is that the combat is not disrupted by the stance switching. There is no long pause between the issuing of the command and the actual change in character stance. The events stay fluid :-) Hm. By the way, I could also do so that a Shield can be equipped while wielding a Two-Handed weapon with both hands. No need to tell, this is normally impossible in NWN. But look here: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed03.jpg While further innovative of the already innovative (I bless this game with foxine intervention, mind my ego), I believe it borders the excessive. It does not even look right. So I choose to not support it. In any case, who would want to equip a bulky shield and encumber the arm needed to handle a weapon in combat? It would be tactical suicide -- My logic is flawless. Now for the technical side: To switch the fighting stance requires a fair bit of modding -- and to ensure that everything works in the best way (that is, to prevent screwups), it requires even more changes. In short, this is not really portable to a pre-existing module. Ehh, such is the way of all good things. Just like a homelette -- you must break eggs to cook one. More QED in the next days. -fox |
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Author: bbKing (arsnova30 [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 19-Aug-11, 01:00:25 | ||||
| Hey fox! QED looks cool but what exactly is it you want to demonstrate? You puzzle me LOL And please, in a language that a simple mind like me can understand. Otherwise ask your English teacher to help you out :) |
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Author: the.gray.fox (the [dot] gray [dot] fox [at] hotmail [dot] com) | |||
| Date: 18-Aug-11, 16:12:42 | ||||
| ---------------[ Quod Erat Demonstrandum ]--------------- Observe: http://usera.ImageCave.com/Fox/QED/qed01.jpg Sorry it is a compressed JPG with reduced quality. The in-game thing looks times better. Anyway... This proves several concepts at once about the NWN Journal interface: 1) Font characters can have ANY shape. 2) Font characters can be polychrome. 3) Two charsets can coexist into the same Font resource. 4) the.gray.fox rules and anyone knows it, as is clearly stated in the picture, which came to be on its own -- paw on heart, it is not my doing. One more that can not be appreciated in a still shot: 5) the Journal interface can self-update several times per second without slowing down the game. The number 303 in the shot did begin counting from 0, exactly 30.3 seconds before the screenshot was taken. The update frequency was set at 1/10th of a second. Hm. The update speed could be much faster, really. But there seems to be a limit, bound to the CPU speed. For example, doubling the frequency (to 1/20th of a second) made the update lag behind by ~55 updates every 180 real-time seconds. That is, 3600 updates issued, 3545 updates displayed. That makes a ~1.53% loss ratio. Apparently small, if over a period of 10 minutes it would amount to 15.3% loss -- Not small at all. But if I keep the frequency to a more manageable 1/10th of a second, the game seems to be able to go on endlessly without dropping a single update. Monitoring a period of 2 hours real-time, 72000 updates were issued and 72000 updates were displayed. Likely the 1/10th frequency is well below the threshold past which the drops begin -- Marvelous news for the fox. I plan to refine the font in the shot. That one is only a day's work -- Below my standards. I want Gold alphanumerics, Light Blue numerics, and some punctuation signs that I plan to use as separators should be a third color that stands out (maybe Silver, or Green. Or a cute Pink-Red?). I would also slightly reduce its width, so to stuff more characters per row. More QED in the next days. -fox |
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