Saturday, March 15, 2008

This turned into a project!

Back in 2003 I was in Afghanistan. I'd like to say I was doing heroic things or whatever, but the truth is I was a generator mechanic who got sent to a communications section. They had a few generators, but technically they were owned by the civilian contractors so I wasn't responsible for, more appropriately allowed to do, any work on them. So I was doing the physical labor of the communications, which really boiled down to running internet cable, while everyone else did the thinking man's work.

But I liked that job. I've always been good at doing work.

Anyway, one of the key points I picked up is this old saying, "The lazy man is the smart man, because he only wants to do thngs once." Matter of fact, we had this bulletin board where the boss of the shop used to put up these inspirational messages. I'm a bit dubious on the effects of those messages; I always thought inspiration is kind of for women because your feeling or whatever shouldn't be stopping you from doing your job. That said, I liked that message (didn't inspire me, though, I swear!) because I'm the type of guy that likes to do things right the first time.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with anything at this point. Well, the first step in your understanding is to look at these screens:

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That's the Inn I was working on, and it turned into quite a project where I had to go back and redo things many times until it was right. Of course, that didn't require any fancy pants words on paper to motivate me to do it. Anyway, I modified my random spawning system to check if there is a creature at the spawn point, and choose a new spawn point if so to randomly fill the area with a variety of NPCs. Some sit in chairs, others stand, some dance on the dance floor, some are waitresses. It's more crowded at night than during the day. They all have several animation cycles they go through randomly depending on what they're doing. The band sings songs where I took lyrics from recognizable songs and changed them into parodies.

So it's a cool area if you ask me, which you didn't but I need something to talk about, right?

On a completely different note, the Module of the Year contest is going on now. Personally, I'm abstaining as my mod is on the list and I don't really hinge what I consider a success or failure by winning awards. However, as this award represents what you all, the players, think about the modules made for NWN2, this is the award I respect.

Alright, I don't have anything else to talk about right now.


-edit-

Almost forgot:

Since I'm spending a lot more time than originally intended on the city itself, how important is a theft system for pick pockets? There is currently nothing, and would be a bit of a project, probably like a week's worth of work, to do something reasonable in that regard. But as a player you'll be in that city for hours doing various quests and what have you, so how important is a realistic pick pocket system? Keep in mind it'll add quite a bit of overhead! Is it worth it?

11 comments:

Josh said...

Dude, that is a very nice tavern. Very classy and nice Day/Night AI you have going in there. I haven't even begun to use those yet, as I haven't really populated any civilizations yet.

Might I suggest a minor adjustment? The tavern walls are kind of bland (default colors/texture). The texture is appropriate, but you could probably use a Gold color on one of the Colors (I forget which one right off hand. I think Color3) and it'll bring out a pattern out of the wall you normally don't see. I think it would be fitting, considering the classiness. I'm not sure changing the texture would suffice unless you used the Crypt tileset and went extremely high class with one of those textures.

Theft system really isn't all that complicated. I made one for TN, though you can't really use it until Chapter II (when you get into the city). And it's really up to you. You'll find that if you open up that can of worms, players might break something, so you should take that into consideration before implementing (i.e. stealing a central NPC - what happens?)

Birger said...

That looks like a very large and interesting Inn. :D I'd really like to pay it a visit sometime. ;D

By the way Dirtywick, I have added a link to your blog on my own and if you'd be so kind, perhaps you could do the same for me?

Good luck in your work! :)

dirtywick said...

Hey Josh, if you want I can send you my ambient scripts. I figured out a way to clean them up a little bit, but for now that would create more work than it would solve but easier to implement in a new area.

And actually, the walls are light blue with gold trim. I didn't put in the little N.O. Saints symbols though, however the upper level has those on the walls. I agree though, the rest of the interior textures don't really fit for something nice. I almost went with the Estate, but I've kind of been overusing that.

Yeah I think I'll save the pickpocket system for a future project, or keep it really simple if not. Early results show it's not very popular anyway.

Berra, I got you ;)

Anonymous said...

Amazing Inn. The details are fantastic! :)

Josh said...

Oh yea, I see it now. Hard to see in the second and third shots, which were the ones I based it off of.

And sure, I could use your system if you wanted to loan it to me. Would save me time for something that's already been done. I'll be sure to credit you for that too in my docs.

Ernie Noa said...

Wow. Nice tavern. Great screen shots.

Jclef said...

I've always like your interior design. The AI scripting sounds great as well.

For the pick pocketing system, I would probably dig "something" - wouldn't have to be too complicated though. I'd be interested to see what you'd come up with. You seem quite comfortable with scripting!

Zach Holbrook said...

Agreed, this is a great interior. Very busy-looking; it makes me feel like I'll need to some extra work if I want Iriaebor's inn to feel realistic!

Pickpocketing: What did you have in mind? I'll probably do the same thing I did in H&C with Bron's Daughter--make all pickpocketing dialog-based. This gets around a lot of logistics problems and also gives every theft a personal touch. Of course it's more conversation to write, though.

dirtywick said...

josh,

Shoot me an e-mail and I'll attatch the scripts and some thoughts about how to make it universal. It kind of got cobbled together so there may be some tweaking needed. Realistically I could set it up to be generic enough were you'd just need to insert some varaibles...eh nevermind, this should all be in the email I'll send you haha

Thanks everyone for the compliments on the area.

jclef, yeah I'm extremely confident with scripting. If I was going to do a pick pocket system, I'd do it "right" though.

maerduin, I should have played yours with a rogue! That's one way to do it, for sure.

I'm still thinking about how I'd want to do it, but the early polling and comments I've gotten so far there doesn't seem to be much demand for it anyway. Heh, then again, sounds like a challenge to change everyone's mind too!

Anonymous said...

Honestly, I dunno how "important" it is, but I think it would definitely be "cool".

dirtywick said...

Hmmm, very cool? Somewhat cool? Not very cool? Being cool is for wimps?

:D