Should I include a hint request as a PID option?

[BigRob]

For certain LTs, you could try to make some alternate start points, so that the LT can occur in more than one location. I've done this for Aklon, where certain resting LTs start in a slightly different way depending on whether or not you're sleeping at an inn or in the wilderness.

 

I'm not sure if this has been exactly suggested, but you might also consider a way for Gavin to drop hints on his own. I'm not sure how easy it would be to code, but perhaps he could drop one of those hint lines, like "We've been sleeping on the cold ground for so long, I wish we could make a stop at an inn", after the timer for the conditional lovetalk has expired. Then it's not player initiated and it's like he's passing comment at random. You could even do it by displaying text strings, rather than full-blown conversation.

 

You could have it on it's own timer, so that he mentions it at double or triple the normal LT time, to keep the hint dropping nice and subtle. You might also want to put a few meaningless comments on the same timer ("What a beautiful day it is today", "By Lathander, these slums are a disgrace"), like repeatable mini-banters, to further cover it up.

[berelinde]

I'm not sure if this has been exactly suggested, but you might also consider a way for Gavin to drop hints on his own. I'm not sure how easy it would be to code, but perhaps he could drop one of those hint lines, like "We've been sleeping on the cold ground for so long, I wish we could make a stop at an inn", after the timer for the conditional lovetalk has expired. Then it's not player initiated and it's like he's passing comment at random. You could even do it by displaying text strings, rather than full-blown conversation.

 

That's what I decided to do in the end. When the timer expires, he'll drop a hint. There are three places he'd need to use this: camping out, at an inn, and outside in a town. Of these, the only one that gives me grief is the camping out one, because there's the added condition that it has to happen during daylight, because it involves him drawing. He's a human, so he can't very well draw by infravision. He isn't frivolous enough to say that he wants to force the party to halt just so he can get out his sketchbook. Oh, well. I guess getting out into the wilderness for a few days is going to have to do it.

[Riviera]

I'm not sure if this has been exactly suggested, but you might also consider a way for Gavin to drop hints on his own. I'm not sure how easy it would be to code, but perhaps he could drop one of those hint lines, like "We've been sleeping on the cold ground for so long, I wish we could make a stop at an inn", after the timer for the conditional lovetalk has expired. Then it's not player initiated and it's like he's passing comment at random. You could even do it by displaying text strings, rather than full-blown conversation.

 

That's what I decided to do in the end. When the timer expires, he'll drop a hint. There are three places he'd need to use this: camping out, at an inn, and outside in a town. Of these, the only one that gives me grief is the camping out one, because there's the added condition that it has to happen during daylight, because it involves him drawing. He's a human, so he can't very well draw by infravision. He isn't frivolous enough to say that he wants to force the party to halt just so he can get out his sketchbook. Oh, well. I guess getting out into the wilderness for a few days is going to have to do it.

 

 

Hmmm. Perhaps the LT can be fiddled with so he draws by candlelight if the LT fires at night?

 

Of course, that depends on what he is drawing.

[berelinde]

Maybe. He doesn't actually say what light source he's using, but he does complain that he's got no way to caputre the color. In the darkness, whether by candlelight, or by firelight, the color would be too washed out for his human eyes to see, but that doesn't matter much.

 

It would be a shame to lose the time of day reference in the waking talk that follows, though. 'Course, I'll probably just leave it alone. I'm tempted to just stop tweaking the dialogue, let out version 1.1, and move on to BG2. I can't fuss with this forever.

 

I think what I'll do for now is just leave the script alone, with the hint. If everybody is still missing the LT, I'll think about losing the time of day check. I don't want to loose the simple continuity of drawing by daylight unless it is unavoidable.