What are your top mod building tips?

[Legacy_Primalrose]

               I'd love to know how your approach building and the important things you've learnt while building etc.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Planning - As in; having a decent story to tell

Planning - As in; keeping size of areas 16x16 or smaller.  (Yes, you can make them bigger, but take a moment, create a single area that is say 32x32, and go "play" by putting your start location in one corner, and having some sort of target in the opposite corner, and see how long it takes you to RUN to that target.  Most players won't bother with completing large area mods as it typically takes too long to get anywhere to do anything.

Planning - As in; reading up, learning, from the Custom Content Guide, read and learn from the various tutorials available on the vault.

Planning - As in; Tell the story you STARTED to tell.  Don't get too side tracked by "oh, that's a neat idea" type of bloat.  Many a mod has never been completed due to having too many changes along the path.  Keep to your original story.  Tell that story.  If you don't have a specific need for a Dragon's Cave in your story, don't put one in just because it looks cool.

Planning - As in; Write your story first.  Literally, write it down, or type it up somewhere, it will help you to flesh things out.

Of course, all of the above assumes you wish to tell a story, and not just create a bunch of hack-n-slash encounters.  For general hack-n-slash, no planning is necessary, just slap it together, at least that has been the evidence provided by the hack-n-slash modules I have seen.

P.S.  Did I mention Planning?  I am sure I did, but it seems that lots of folks forget that.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:34 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_werelynx]

               My tips(although my building career only took few days after which I learned I had something in the override that corrupted the module) would be:
- don't forget bags of holding if the shops are too far away from dungeon/forest etc.
- go for CEP, it gives plenty of stuff to play with.
- same encounter over and over again is kinda boring, even for HnSlashers. If possible make your own encounters, don't stick to the ones provided by the Bioware. Use CEP creatures.
- provide henchman, the minimum is tank(fighter etc.) so non melee classes can play. If possible give some personality, more henchmen, maybe even romances. Remember to allow all henchmen in the party not just two or one of player's choice (if it's not against the plot).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               If you just have started building, then I highly suggest to look into my unofficial patch. Its especially usefull for builders who just started. I mean it contains many spell fixes and brings new features but those with already established module will not take advantage of all of those as anything you have in module/haks will override patch files.

some more tips:
- go for custom haks whether with cep2 or without but im not a big cep2 fan to be honest
- instead of nerfing strongest try improving the weakests
- you should really change at least these spells: Heal, Harm, True Seeing they are by default very imbalanced and I suggest to change them per 3.5 rules (Heal 10hp/caster lvl max 150 undead will save for half, Harm 10dmg/caster lvl max 150 will save for half, true seeing of combo uv+see invis maybe some spot bonus like 15ranks)
- make sure you know for whom you want to build your module and then listen to them, some builders building only for their fun but I believe that builder should build the module for its players
               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               My Tip, is pseudo-Caching when scripting.

If you are loading settings, or data from a database, on occassions such as spell casts etc.

Make it so that the first time the event fires, it downloads the data from the database, but then stores it on the module, and then subsequent times, it reads the data from the module as a local var instead.

I use this in my PW, a verbal spell system, that is dependant on mySQL queries for locating the spell phrases, and then cache-ing them on the module, to reduce the need for future database calls.

Also - When building, always consider the night and day visuals of an area, listen to both music sets, and view with the fog and area colors on.
If using Interior - Torch Lit only - then make sure you view it in-game with the CEP2.3 lighting placeables - if you intend on using them.

Try to configure the fog, in such a way, that the edge of the area is obscured, when it should be going on into infinity.

Nothing more ghastly, than standing on a cliff, looking out across the sea, and then seeing the edge of the map - use Fog to obscure such things.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Quillmaster]

               Give your scripts a naming convention so you can find them easily when you want to re-use them.  My scripts always start with a "Q", usually followed by 3 letters that denote the type of script, then something a little more descriptive.  So, for example, scripts that give things to the player might be labelled thus:

Q_giv_10gold
Q_giv_ringinvis

Scripts that fire on enter might be:

Q_oe_poison
Q_oe_slamdoor

Whereas scripts that check for things such as items on a player might be:

Q_chk_ringinvis
Q_chk_10gold
Q_chk_easybluff

Sticking to a naming convention will save you bags of time in the long run, and it also helps if you put something descriptive in the script header for the less obvious script names.


Also, try to make everything logical.  Even magical worlds need a rational explanation for the existence of something.  Game immersion can improve ten fold if you pay attention to such details.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_jmlzemaggo]

               A good journal.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Baldecaran]

               Some of my tips:
- Everything Bannor Bloodfist said, plus also add ***Planning***.
- I also strongly echo Quillmaster's suggestion for naming conventions - in the end it will save you a lot of time and headaches.
- I found it very helpful to change all the standard creature scripts to fire user-defined events, and then for custom creatures I generally add a specific handler for these, so that goblins run away when damaged, guards call to each other when they spot an intruder, ghosts emanate ghostly smoke, etc.

Things I wish I had done:
- Better naming conventions
- Remake (nearly) all standard placeables in the custom palette, giving them your own scripts for OnOpen, OnDamage, etc. Even if the scripts are blank, you can go back later and add cool stuff like people complaining if you bang on a doorway.

For inspiration/ideas:
- Play other modules (I wish I had more time for that), watch movies and read books, especially ones with a lot of mystery. Make up alternate interpretations/endings and then adapt them to your module.
- Experiment with tilesets and placeables. So many ideas suggest themselves just from the look of something.
- When writing conversations, give the NPC a personality and let the conversation write itself. This is the single most valuable source for ideas - let your world tell you its story.