Monotony, yeah, the main City is crafted, but he didn't use the city doors for areas that could be bought or rented, which would have added incentive. though I guess the thrust is to get players to build their own houses using the Domain system built into the module, so...
There really should have been more hand-crafted areas. I also find a lack of focus for the player, since there is all dynamic content and no story. It would have been nice to start the player out with a common goal, like building up the city you start in, or it's defenses, etc. Or just finding and selling it resources. With no common goal, or at least a common authority present, it's confusing and leads to diffusion of the player experience, leaving it all up to them. Which means you either WANT to build your own Domain, and see if you can reach that 99 henchmen cap, and become the world leader, or you're just piddling around beating rocks for resources.
I've been to about 1/10th of the first worlds surface (can't afford a ship, airship, starship yet, or even just a ticket to space), but can't find the shop keeper who sells Talents, which I need to not get lost on the surface (Rangers and Druid get this Talent for free, but I'm a dwarven fighter). I can map out the coordinates with pen and paper, but it's tedious to explore when you're not sure where you are. And that means I need to find a new area in order to the use the web map to find my coordinates.
"But does it respawn the same creatures when you return to a particular node? Does it remember the state of that creature? Level it up? Kill it? Etc."
It seems to remember everything that occurs during that particular server run. Note that I mentioned that it restarts the server every few hours, so this cleans up the mess left behind when PCs do stuff. It also makes persistent those creatures that have been created for a quest (there's fetch or kill quests randomly generated by a Plotgiver NPC in each town or city). So on restart entering the location of the creature spawns it again with a handy *<name> so you know which creature you must kill or retrieve.
So if I return to an area I will still see the objects and bodies from my battle earlier. At least until the server autoresets.
I don't know enough to alter his systems, as I'm a newb scripter just learning. I'd like to use his systems to create a dynamic module where the player starts as part of something, I'm starting with a simple "build an outpost" goal. Where the players and NPCs clear out a safe area and patrol, while looking for resources with which to build their outpost, it's buildings, etc. Find the mine for metals for crafting better weapons and armor. Find a quarry or use stone from the mine to build the walls and buildings. Find good forested areas for lumber for building, etc...
I'm leaning towards limitng the healing per day based on sleeping arraangements, so building the barracks helps your N/PC followers heal a few more hitpoints per night instead of a tent. Or less if on the ground without shelter.
The question is, I'll probably need to swap out the area as the outpost is built, at least for walls in the tileset. The building can use placeables, though then you have other issues with NPCs.
I also have a problem where I want gates to be repairable, and most of the gate doors don't have an Anim_Close? animation, so they stay invisible to the PCs while they are within 6-8 tiles of the gate object.
I also want to avoid using the save game feature of NWN, as I've heard of long term stability issues after many saves. I'd like to save everything persistently in a DB and be able to alter the module as I build, opening new areas for players to explore. Each new area would be scripted to initiate creature spawn when entered, then the DB keeps track of them from there.
This also makes it easier to fix the module, since I'm not sure how swapping out the module file affects saves. I believe it does nothing to affect those reas already used by the player.
New creatures would "enter" the module from outside; an Ogre and his goblin troops come down from the mountains, or an enemy faction sending scouting or raiding parties to hamper or destroy your development of a stronghold in the area (module). Or even reinforcements from your sponsoring kingdom, though likely you'll need resources or gold to hire them, such as random wandering heroes, guards, or mercenaries. Anyway, working with NPC Activities 6.2 (Deva: 6.1, then PKBusby developed 6.2 in actingFenora) jjst for the creature creation and behaviors. Mainly wandering around the module so far, and I'm trying to develope rules for generating new creature groups, and capping the number of groups in the module at any given time.
For playbalance it will likely be low level and low magic (for equipment), maybe E6 D20 system if I can manage it in NWN.
-Qlippoth
Modifié par QlippothVI, 16 septembre 2011 - 06:11 .
