MagicalMaster wrote...
I gave OEWTP a good faith effort...but your mod is broken.
Sorry to hear that and thanks for your patience... I know, testing alphas and betas can be frustrating at times
I cannot find the native camp and gave up after an hour. I initially established a search grid - went 3 km east of the post and went north 7 km. Then east 1 km and back south to the road. Then east 1 km and north 7 km. Then east 1 km and back south to the road.
Feeling quite frustrated, I went back to the post to examine
the mushroom. Following the instructions on it, I went north 3 km, then
east 1 km, south 1 km, east 1 km, north 3 km, east 1 km, south 3 km. Nothing.
Hmm... I completed the module from start to end 4 times with no major problem. And in my experience, finding the native camp is easy (finding the "land of Ka" is harder but i have done it without cheating 2 times) but as i am the designer, i supose i am biased...
I suspect we have here a problem understanding the coords system. If you used Thomas hints on the native camp it's completely impossible to have a camp 7 km north (when he says 3 km or more north, it means really that the camp is at 3, 4 or 5 km north max. The camp can't be at more than Y= +5 north by design). Ok, i will explain how it works, perhaps this will clarify the matter... After all, this is an alpha test module ;-) But i will put more precise help in next module iteration.
<Spoilers ahead>
The module is generated dynamicly (if you know about RDG9F or infinite dungeons, this works on the same principle). In fact the "native camp" and the "land of ka" position are randomly calculated at every new game start. and the system fills the land between these and the Trading Post with the needed number of forest areas reusing a limited set of forest areas. The problem and interest is that the forest is virtually unlimited (in fact there is a limit, but it's big) as the only fixed positions are: trade post, native camp, land of Ka. The player can be lost easily, obviously, too easily... It is why i was planning a "autocompas item", but i will need more time to script this, sorry.
The "Trading post" serves as an anchor and is ALWAYS at position X = 0 and Y = 0. One area deplacement counts for 1 km in the X or Y axis.
Departing from the Trading post, if we go WEST, we decrement X coordinate. The first area WEST of T.P. is at pos X = -1, Y = 0 and so on. If we continue the walk WEST, the 69th "forest road" area will be at X = -69, Y = 0. Being there, now we go EAST one area, we enter "forest road" X = -68, Y = 0 and the signpost reads "T.P. direction East, distance: 68 km". If starting from the Trading P. we go EAST, we increment X and will enter "forest road" area X = +1 Y = 0. Note that you can't have negative Y. When you reach the road or the T.P. you reach always an Y = 0 area. But Y can go positive to big numbers.
In the v.050 and v.055 game: the "native camp" random generator creates coords in a boundary from:
[X = -2 to X = +2 including X =0] AND [Y from Y = +2 to Y = +5]. So you have 20 coords possibilities.
The "Land of Ka" is created in the boundary [X =-3 to X =+3 including X = 0] AND [Y = +7 to Y = +9]. 21 possibilities.
<Spoiler End>
I did notice an oddity twice while searching - I went into an area transition and a new area loaded. Then immediately a SECOND new area loaded without me doing anything. That might have been me finding the camp and then getting teleported out for some reason or something.
But...yeah, nothing.
Hmm... This is not intended behaviour, probably a bug (not sure i parse multiple clicks on the area transitions).
Other notes I took while playing...
- Quite a few typos - if you intend to polish it, should look at those
- Not fond of the choice at the beginning - primarily because you don't get enough information about it. Should tell people about the discount and money received BEFORE they have to choose
- Why does the explored area on the map keep resetting? Extremely annoying because the whole idea of areas in NWN is already a game limitation - resetting the map drives this point home and makes it even worse
- Since apparently you were trying to set areas up as actually being "realistic," I decided to see how far west I could go along the road. Except the first few areas seemed awfully similar. So I dropped a potion bottle next to a signpost. Imagine my surprise when I ran across the same potion bottle further "west" of where I dropped it. And then when I went east of the trading post, I found the same bottle. If you want to try to make exploration realistic and actually have areas that correspond to each other, you can't do things like that. It ruins it.
- Need to give creatures either Improved Unarmed Strike or Creature Weapons so they don't give Attacks of Opportunity when meleeing
- Yes, typos where expected (english is not my native language). Will spellcheck the convs in next version.
- I understand your opinion on the info for the discount and room but not the money received (it's clear before the choice that you get 4000 if you sell, and you have a possibility to abort at the last moment if you change mind). And for me, the story goes as this... Eroud is trying to play dirty to buy the shares and he don't want to give all the good info bits to Sigismund nephew or niece.
- For the "explored map area resetting" it was a poor attempt to hide the fact i was reusing the same areas again and again and again
'> I will try to find something better...
- See "spoiler details" for why the areas seemed awfully similar (in a sense, i am happy that the mod could trick you, this is a good sign). In the future, i intend to implement a random placeable system to introduce more variety in every new area.
- I was aware of the problem, but because of the creation time constraints, the module doesn't yet destroy abandoned items when you exit an area.
- Good idea. For now the animal/creature system is very minimal, but i will try to improve it.
Many thanks for your input, that's very helpful.
CG
PS: Did you play the 0.5 version? (because this version has a bug on Thomas "native camp hints", when he must say "North", an empty string appears (my fault, a token problem) but that's corrected on the 0.55.
Modifié par CaveGnome, 11 avril 2013 - 12:59 .
