IA v6 Final

[the bigg]

Damn, scrap that - it's the Elemental Golem created in the Underdark. Other E.G.s don't have that.

[Saros]

mini-WoT

Yep, I enjoyed the Bioware topics too, especially because your ass got closed out of it BWL policy reaching Bioware? BW and BW. Hehe.

 

Good that you're enjoying helping online. Just don't neglect your family, man. Or is someone else the boss over there?

 

I will very soon (today OR tomorrow) post a link to downloading IA 6.0 on Bioware forum.

 

Damn, scrap that - it's the Elemental Golem created in the Underdark. Other E.G.s don't have that.

 

Edit. Big thanks to you. I will now obviously scratch my recent game and will start a new one, where I will create a Berserker + custom Sorcerer. The serker will dual to a mage AFTER obtaining the SI scroll from Pai-Na, while the sorcerer will probably help a little and then will stay on the team with an almost permanent grey icon (will be resurrected only when need be). The sorcerer probably will be the key element of defeating Pai-Na and her spiders with the new Monster Summoning spell.

[the bigg]

Edit. Big thanks to you. I will now obviously scratch my recent game and will start a new one, where I will create a Berserker + custom Sorcerer. The serker will dual to a mage AFTER obtaining the SI scroll from Pai-Na, while the sorcerer will probably help a little and then will stay on the team with an almost permanent grey icon (will be resurrected only when need be). The sorcerer probably will be the key element of defeating Pai-Na and her spiders with the new Monster Summoning spell.

In many places, it checks that the number of alive party members is 5 or 6. There's no telling if you'll miss on crucial items like Scrolls of Elaborations or Manuals of Permanency.

[cmorgan]

OK, now I have seen an idea that is an interesting one, if it were used in a more player-friendly implementation. While the idea of "bands" of difficulty level is as old as the first implementations of Rogue and text adventures, the idea of opening and closing specific options based on party class and experience level could be a useful idea for a modder looking for roleplaying options. Usually, folks create an encounter and then add different outcomes or different pathways for solving based on party composition or experience or classes present (well, not usually all in the same encounter, but I like to push ideas farther than is sane or practical). Setting up a series of different encounters that open up only during the time that a party has a specific band of experience, or a certain number within their party - heck, the InPartyAllowDead() combined with a check for the number with CD_STATE_NOTVALID might be a cool way to have a "Bring Out Your Dead" encounter. Wandering the streets, Player1 gets clobbered by one of the ambushes/muggings - and if the encounter goes badly, you could trigger an encounter with monks and clerics showing up to heal the party (or fight them if not aligned correctly). An evil thing to do if the party is primarily NG and the folks who show up to "help" turn out to be servants of Cyric... thus a set of alternate encounters designed around the number of party members completely incapacitated and their levels. A roleplaying opportunity for a "Remember the Alamo" moment? (Several Mass Effect quests come to mind on this one).

 

I know this is diametrically opposite the usage described here (in this case to control the parameters of the encounter so that if the party is deemed too high a level for the encounter to be very very difficult), but turning this idea on ts head could benefit other mods. I have played with this in dialog, but .bcs initiation/closing of sections of content to provide alternate enconters could give folks slightly different content each playthrough. It is unlikely that a player looking for a new fun run on a standard modded (especially a BGT BigWorld run) would get to exactly the same status at the same time every playthrough.

[Saros]

I know this is diametrically opposite the usage described here (in this case to control the parameters of the encounter so that if the party is deemed too high a level for the encounter to be very very difficult), but turning this idea on ts head could benefit other mods.

 

 

That's great. I'm glad that this discussion is actually giving new ideas for other mod implementations.

 

In many places, it checks that the number of alive party members is 5 or 6. There's no telling if you'll miss on crucial items like Manuals of Elaborations or Scrolls of Permanency.

 

I am fully aware of that. However, the items you listed aren't that crucial, since there are enough of those scattered around (already found several of them in their IA 5.0 locations, so I doubt they are under check). Probably other items would fall in that category, more importantly some new and powerful scrolls, or maybe parts of important solo-weapons like Crom Faeyr. So point taken. Will actually make a 5-person party (will leave sixth slot open for random NPC quests). From those 5 persons, 3 would stay almost permanently dead, and the fourth will also follow soon. The party will be PC Berserker, a custom sorc, and 3 custom clerics (because of Champion's strength buff, which will be very important, provided that PC won't have access to Critical Strike HLA). Still, keeping clerics alive isn't the easiest thing to do will risk it anyway. At least with the exploit, xp and money won't be trouble. It will be much more time consuming though.

[the bigg]

OK, now I have seen an idea that is an interesting one, if it were used in a more player-friendly implementation. While the idea of "bands" of difficulty level is as old as the first implementations of Rogue and text adventures, the idea of opening and closing specific options based on party class and experience level could be a useful idea for a modder looking for roleplaying options.

While the idea is good in theory, in practice it drastically increases the amount of work you need to do per amount of content. Professional studios have trouble coping with that much work (see: how buggy sandbox games are, relative to linear ones), never mind the effect it can have on individual modders.

 

Example: let's say that imagining, fleshing out, coding, debugging and releasing a 30-minutes quest takes you 5 hours (I think that's a realistic figure). Now, let's say you wish to offer four paths, one for each of the super-classes. The player will have access to the same 30 minutes of content (I'm not counting multiple play throughs and/or explicitly reloading to try different paths), while you spent 15 hours making the four paths, and then need to spend 10 hours dealing with the edge cases (figuring out what to do with multiclasses, then finding out the hard way ranger/clerics aren't detected by CLERIC_ALL, then remembering about monks, then making the fighter path available to Clerics of Tempus and Swashbucklers, etc.).

 

Now, my hat's off if you can pull off a mod with 10 different paths to the same quest. However, it's easier to make an high-quality linear quest than a buggy branching one (nevermind one that works in all cases and is interesting to play though).

[Guest!]

Now, my hat's off if you can pull off a mod with 10 different paths to the same quest.

That's one of the reasons why I love Fallout and Fallout 2.

[cmorgan]

While the idea is good in theory, in practice it drastically increases the amount of work you need to do per amount of content. Professional studios have trouble coping with that much work (see: how buggy sandbox games are, relative to linear ones), never mind the effect it can have on individual modders.

I agree. I got your point about sandbox vs linear - Morrowind is fun, but glitchy, because there are so many ways of approaching everything that inevitably you will run into something that does not quite add up. The modding work to player time on the quest would be abbysmally poor, unless you can type like a fiend and have enough playtesters to be able to cover all the possible combinations - I think this is why noone has really published a mod that uses this idea. My bet is that it was suggested and abandoned as an idea way back-in-the-day, on just this basis.

 

Example: let's say that imagining, fleshing out, coding, debugging and releasing a 30-minutes quest takes you 5 hours (I think that's a realistic figure).

Heh. For you, maybe... for me, I take forever to type the thing in, and I am teh slow - so make that significantly longer!

Now, my hat's off if you can pull off a mod with 10 different paths to the same quest. However, it's easier to make an high-quality linear quest than a buggy branching one (nevermind one that works in all cases and is interesting to play though).

I think you are right. Just to have some fun, though, I might try a variation - one simple encounter that varies, kind of like a targetted Random Encounter, with unique triggers, all mutually exclusive. (Or not. The idea is fun, but if I don't stop exploring ideas and start closing down, my own NPC will never get finished. But the idea is very interesting.)

[Ardanis]

Saros:

 

- all stores, creatures etc. lose their Scroll(s) of SI (as far as I can tell), unless noted below.

- The pirate coordinator gets one if CHARNAME isn't a fighter/mage/*.

- Pai'na loses it if you are a fighter/mage/*.

- Elemental golems drop one if you aren't going solo.

- One of the altars in Bodhi's tomb gets one after you kill her in CH6 (even if you are solo and/or a F/M).

 

In general, there's a huge number of checks that prevent parties of 1~4 from getting a number of items. In places, checks are made on the number of Alive party members, so you can't use Solo in a Party to work around those restrictions.

I cannae believe this! You, the one who once said you wouldn't do something bugtest-related with NEJ because it would mean illegally downloading a copy of a game you didn't own, now have publically admits not just using ut also disasslembling a pirated copy of IA! Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bigg, how low have you fallen...

 

:yet another WoT:

I'll give it a shot, since I already have a street enhancing component half-finished.

 

Now, my hat's off if you can pull off a mod with 10 different paths to the same quest. However, it's easier to make an high-quality linear quest than a buggy branching one (nevermind one that works in all cases and is interesting to play though).

Not exactly. Two completely different paths are more than enough, if you split each into several pieces and then enable a dozen of different combinations.

[Saros]

I cannae believe this! You, the one who once said you wouldn't do something bugtest-related with NEJ because it would mean illegally downloading a copy of a game you didn't own, now have publically admits not just using ut also disasslembling a pirated copy of IA! Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bigg, how low have you fallen...

 

I think I am to blame in this case, since the bigg was only trying to help me. I would've lost maybe weeks before figuring even half of that (or maybe never would've figured it). And you talk of 2 different things. Downloading a pirate copy of a game you don't own is something illegal. Downloading a copy of a mod whose author has no legal right whatsoever to require payment for it may be immoral (according to one's judgment - I don't consider it immoral for example), but not illegal.

 

Also, the bigg made quite a big favor to all IA players discovering that. For example, now we all know it's very unhealthy for an IA 6.0. game if the protagonist is a fighter/mage dual or multiclass. And also that all battles should've replayed until 5 party members survive, so that no special loot is lost.

 

Edit: Again, big thanks to the bigg! Just did the Pai-na fight with a 17 lvl berserker and a 12 lvl sorcerer. The Spell Immunity scroll was inside. Splendid! Just have to refine the pai-na tactic....strange things happening inside like my sorc being held after consuming a Potion of Freedom...

[isleepwithfucking goats]

I think Sikret is slowly dying inside when he sees Saros solo progress bypassing all the ANTI-SAROS triggers

 

Quadruple facepalm Sikret. You delayed IAv6 over a year for nothing :/

[Saros]

I think Sikret is slowly dying inside when he sees Saros solo progress bypassing all the ANTI-SAROS triggers

 

Quadruple facepalm Sikret. You delayed IAv6 over a year for nothing :/

 

I can't say I will bypass all of those they are numerous, and most of them are hidden. But at least, I will get pretty far ahead in the game devising no-reload tactics...currently again, boring work is ahead of me. Polished the Berserker + Sorcerer fights to the location of the Spell Immunity scroll. Had to use a Freedom potion so that the sorc wasn't held by the web. Minotaurs from Monster Summoning IV (for the spider fights) and ImprHaste (for the actual Pai-Na fight) were essential if difficulty is insane noreload, which meant sorcerer lvl 13. At least now I have improved hasted minotaurs, and they'll help to raise PC's xp:) It feels satisfying managing to bypass a blockade created especially vs my playing style and I couldn't've done it without the bigg and geh4th.

 

Edit: I have new favourite pets, the Noble Salamanders called via the Monster Summoning V (lvl 7 spell). Those come under permanent (Improved?) haste, so they don't need to be hasted unlike their lesser brethren the Minotaurs. Also, their combat capabilities are better than the minotaurs showed, and their weapons have also been tweaked to have a chance per hit to inflict some fire damage (don't know the exact value of the damage or chance per hit though).

[temujin]

temujin rather makes me laugh (he isn't annoying, his comedian behaviour is more funny and pathetic than insulting), and I'm sure it's no different for Sikret/Baronius (if they're reading these topics here)

 

Really?

 

 

More pathetic than a forty-three year old man registering with multiple aliases on forums just to fellate himself?

 

More pathetic than said forty-three year old who openly denied bugs (in fact, even going as far as to suggest they're "features"), only to silently fix them later in subsequent versions?

 

More pathetic than said forty-three year old who blatantly steals a modding tool (which was meant to be free) only to make money out of it, and then has the audacity to talk about "common courtesy," ethics and morals?

 

 

More pathetic than a Hungarian street kebab vendor-turned-modder who blatantly stole and hosted numerous mods without permission?

 

More pathetic than said street kebab vendor-turned-modder who detoured Paypal donations meant for someone else using deceptive marketing?

 

More pathetic than said street kebab vendor-turned-modder who fakes server outages to extort a quick buck?

 

 

That is a very strange definition of pathetic you have there, Fraudonius

[temujin]

Anyway, Baro, I've been pondering this for a while and I've come to an important conclusion...

 

Since it's easy to make money based on the fruits of someone else's labor, I too want to do the same. I've come to accept your way of swindling is the way to success.

 

I WANT TO JOIN YOU.

 

For my part, I did promote & advertise Improved Anvil on these forums for a few years now (negative publicity is still publicity), and I'm sure many of your newer customers had their interest piqued because of what I said about IA.

 

Perhaps our good friends Saros and geh4th may also be interested?

 

 

So here is my proposition:

 

 

For every sale of Improved Anvil (i.e. $30), we split the revenue as follows:

 

 

You (Baronius) - 65%

 

Sikret - 25%

 

geh4th - 3%

 

Saros - 2%

 

me (temujin) - 5%

 

 

I concede you deserve the lion's share of the profits (after all, you are the ultimate overmind of coming up with insane ideas of making money from doing absolutely nothing). And 65 percent is a lot of money; I'm being *very* reasonable with my numbers.

 

Sikky, of course, deserves something for coming up with, and repainting and redesigning those rakshasas using tungsten carbide armor, titanium-plated golems, salamanders coated in liquid mithril, illithids wearing bullet-proof vests made from molten adamantine, etc... and of course his polygonal super-intelligent AI as well as his brand new unique idea of item randomization.

 

geh4th has been a loyal tester who's offered various suggestions for improving the mod, so he deserves a little something.

 

saros is the only one who is not only a faithful player, but also faithful tester for a long time, so let's give him something for uncovering some of the bugs.

 

In my defense, it's obvious you wouldn't have had this many customers without me. We all know that, so my 5% isn't too unreasonable I hope. I promise I *will* expand the Improved Anvil fanbase tenfold within the next year if all goes according to plan.

 

If we all work together, Baro, everybody wins. (except for the naive fools we swindle )

 

 

If our business model succeeds, who knows, we may even expand into neighbouring gaming communities (NWN, dragon age, etc) - creating, polishing and improving anvils customized for those other games, and swindle our way to stardom.

 

I know this conversation should've been in a PM, but I'd rather this be a conference call since I'm curious if geh4th, saros (or others who are involved in the development of IA) have alternate propositions.

 

 

So what do you say?

[Guest!]

his polygonal super-intelligent AI

This bit has always puzzled me. I'm not modding-savvy, so I'm asking: does "polygonal scripting system" actually MEAN something? What's different from "normal" scripting?