To all Module Builders here at Ironworks

[Dreamer128]

Philip: I like your market idea. But the winter tile set doesn't really have any good market stands. Getting our hands on some web space might be usefull if we want to exchange files. I think its best if we assign each structure to one person.

True_Moose: I like your 'trinket idea'. Perhaps we could add this to the Inn, rather then the blacksmith.

Larry: We'll be in need of a load of custom items and clothing. Don't worry about your lack of scripting experience. Scripts are easy to come by, finding creative people is a lot harder.

Chewbacca: Perhaps we'll be able to use your keep as a part of the storyline. Or make it a 'Dm only' area.


I think we should add good, neutral and evil dialogue options. If we examine the Rural winter tile set we'll notice that Bioware put in many city buildings, such as the temple, city barracks, etc. Since I feel we should start with the village, we should start working on a more detailed plan.

- The city gates.
Two leading to different types of quest area's, one through which the PC can enter at the beginning of the module.
NPC's take up alot of space, so I recommend there is a huge snow storm hitting the village when the player characters first arrive. That way, only the city guards will be found on the streets.

- General housing.
It is my experience that a good module feels 'alive'. As if it is actually populated by living people. Therefore, we should provide some housing for normal NPC's. We could ask normal interiors, or just place a speakstring on the door, saying something like 'there is nothing of interest inside'. If we are going for a village, some farms will be enough. If we are going for the large town approach, we should add some more housing.
-Temple of Oghma. Contains a Cleric with the necessary healing spells. And since it is a temple of Oghma, it should have a small library as well (I created a load of D&D books for a previous mod - so this shouldn't be a problem).

-Militia Barracks.
Should have at the very least a small jail, which is useful in multiplayer. We could also place a script on town NPC's that will teleport PC's to jail as soon as they attack a neutral character. We should also add a small number of sleeping and training guards. Training guards shouldn't be very hard to make. We'll create two factions, say; Trainee 1 and Trainee 2 that are hostile to each other, but not to any of the other factions. Just as the other NPC's, these guards should be made 'immortal' or 'plot'.

-Blacksmith.
As Legolas suggested, we could make items of different quality. For instance; a rusted sword could be a normal long sword with a -1 attack penalty. Magical weapons should be nearly impossible to come by. To prevent players from bringing extremely powerful magical items into our mod, we could strip them of everything upon entering. Not all players may like this however.
We could also make sure that anyone who rests outdoors without proper clothing, takes a few points of cold damage upon waking up. This will probably be a scripting nightmare though, and should be saved 'till the end. It would be cool though, if someone could come up with a script for our smith. To make him hammer at his/her anvil when someone walks in, or something like that.

-The Inn.
The Inn should be packed with more then Quest giving NPC's. For instance.. what to think of a travelling part with inspiring songs and tales of different lands. A merchant from the sword coast with exotic items and some locals who can give you some background information.
Perhaps we should write a script for the waitress that will make her launch certain speakstrings as she passes her waypoints.
Example:
NPC1: Two Elven Firebrandy's.
Waitress: Coming right up.
-Walks to the next waypoint
NPC2: Where is me ale, woman?
Waitress: Wait ye're turn!

We shouldn't add too many NPC's to our Inn, because this will hinder performance on slower CPU's.
The NPC's that will be present should be seated (the script for that is quite simple) and naturally the chairs should be usable by the PC's as well.

-The Tailor.
It might be a good idea to provide a merchant for various types of clothing. We should probably include cold resistance on most of them. Other ability bonuses could for instance be a hide bonus for dark clothing or a persuade bonus for the more expensive outfits.

-The Graveyard.
An ancient mausoleum will make an excellent quest area.

If everyone agrees with the above set-up, we can start distributing the tasks.

Area Designer
Village exterior [Free]
Inn [Free]
Tailor [+custom clothing] [Free]
Interior for normal housing [Free]
Interior for at least two barns [Free]
Blacksmith [+custom items] [Free]
Militia Barracks [+NPC Guards] [Free]

I'm willing to do any of the above, with a personal preference for the village exterior. I also have the right scripts for the militia barracks, though I'm sure I'm not the only one. Who will volunteer for what?

On another note. We need to pick a name for the village to put in front of our area names. Example:

Waterdeep: The Purple Crown Inn
Waterdeep: Lord Harlows House

Does anyone have any inspirational names for our town? I didn't get further then Tradebridge or Frostgate, and I'm sure we can do better then that

[ 08-17-2003, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

[Legolas]

I'm just named what areas I'm going to build along the lines of "LE: Large House (rich)" for now to show who made the area, what the area is for and what it looks like...
You are right in that we'll need a name eventually, perhaps someone else has a good idea or something comes up during the development.

The speakstring is a good idea, 1) because you do not need to build as many interiors and 2) because you'll always have some spare doors and can build a home behind them when one is needed.

For the items I wouldn't think adding cold resistance is a good idea, as that is the protection against magical colds in NWN. The effects of regular cold weather should be handled in scripts rather than by giving special abilities.
The hide bonus is a good idea, but keep in mind that abilities have an effect on the cost of an item. A +1 hide bonus alone increases the cost by 14 gp. Penalties, on the other hand, cost nothing extra or less. We could either decide to add penalties to brightly coloured and ugly clothes instead, or be more generous with gold throughout the mod, and increase the prices of all items to accomodate this.

Finally, task division. I've already made a single-story home interior, quite richly decorated and spacious enough to run around in for a bit. Perhaps we could station a mayor and his family there, or a nobleman, or a wizard (it has a spaceous study and many books).
Then there's a smaller home, for someone not nearly as wealthy, with a ground floor and a small underground storage area. Perhaps this one could be connected to other storage areas with tunnels, somewhat like you had in Gullykin but without the constantly respawning kobold commandos [img]smile.gif[/img]
The tunnels could have been used for anything in the past, as escape route, for smuggling, for hiding fugitives or stolen treasure, to bring in fresh supplies during winters when it was impossible to travel outside, to steal the neighbours' wines, you name it. Possibly with a connection to lower levels of the mausoleum.

I'm willing to make other areas as well, but would prefer to work on quests, possibly dialogue, and scripting instead.

[philip]

Originally posted by Dreamer128: Philip: I like your market idea. But the winter tile set doesn't really have any good market stands. Getting our hands on some web space might be usefull if we want to exchange files. I think its best if we assign each structure to one person.

I heard of combining tilesets, while this is a bit harder and will probably end with a larger hackpack, it's possible to either extract the market tiles and make placeables of them or model entirely new stands (as I see it now I could create one market stand placeable easy and I guess in about 1-2 hours and still make it look good) Also if I create custom ones I can easily make it look fitting in the winter tileset

Larry: We'll be in need of a load of custom items and clothing. Don't worry about your lack of scripting experience. Scripts are easy to come by, finding creative people is a lot harder.

I'm a bit against searching scripts all the time. Like the drow script you mentioned, it should be ok and work, but I think some extra testing and perhaps looking at it from our scripters might be a good idea.
For the rest, it's probably much easier to write scripts ourselves (maybe have the people who can and want to script do some work for others on request. Requests would be worked out already and perhaps changed if it's not possible, like I need a script for a waitress who walks to WP with the tag, says this and walks to another waypoint called x). Searching for scripts that fit the situation takes lots of time, and since we want to be 100% sure none of our work messes up others, we need to change all variables and stuff to fit our naming convention.

I think we should add good, neutral and evil dialogue options. If we examine the Rural winter tile set we'll notice that Bioware put in many city buildings, such as the temple, city barracks, etc. Since I feel we should start with the village, we should start working on a more detailed plan.

good neutral and evil options would collide in some point with the main storyline as it is now. Or we must come up with a very good idea why evil characters wouldn't just say, "screw the vilage, I'm going to help those drows"

- The city gates. Two leading to different types of quest area's, one through which the PC can enter at the beginning of the module. NPC's take up alot of space, so I recommend there is a huge snow storm hitting the village when the player characters first arrive. That way, only the city guards will be found on the streets.

Maybe a script which knocks down PCs (perhaps the guards as well if they walk in the streets) if they fail their STR check against the wind?

- General housing. It is my experience that a good module feels 'alive'. As if it is actually populated by living people. Therefore, we should provide some housing for normal NPC's. We could ask normal interiors, or just place a speakstring on the door, saying something like 'there is nothing of interest inside'. If we are going for a village, some farms will be enough. If we are going for the large town approach, we should add some more housing.

As I look at the other buildings we need, this looks like quite a large village. We could start with just normal housing and have a farm area outside of the city gates and walls (the farmers hide in the city when times are bad, sort of like the middle ages)

-Militia Barracks. Should have at the very least a small jail, which is useful in multiplayer. We could also place a script on town NPC's that will teleport PC's to jail as soon as they attack a neutral character. We should also add a small number of sleeping and training guards. Training guards shouldn't be very hard to make. We'll create two factions, say; Trainee 1 and Trainee 2 that are hostile to each other, but not to any of the other factions. Just as the other NPC's, these guards should be made 'immortal' or 'plot'.

What's the extra usefulness of a jail in mp? Of course it's needed (just as in sp for flavour), but should we think about certain scripting needed later. Training guards aren't hard at all.
I think the random attacking NPC is a bit over the top and quite hard to make, maybe it's easier to have something like bar fights. Though both the NPC attacking and bar fights take up a lot of RAM it might even be better to exclude both of them since the impact of the persons being sent to jail is zero and it would probably not even be clear that and why the NPCs dissappear to jail (with guards arresting them it takes too much RAM for recommended specs as I know from own experience)

-Blacksmith. As Legolas suggested, we could make items of different quality. For instance; a rusted sword could be a normal long sword with a -1 attack penalty. Magical weapons should be nearly impossible to come by. To prevent players from bringing extremely powerful magical items into our mod, we could strip them of everything upon entering. Not all players may like this however.

As we make the mod players shouldn't complain. We're not doing anything so earth-shocking and we clearly state that it's for level 1 characters, those have the standard equipment, stripping that isn't bad. BTW I have an item strip already so we don't need it anymore (it also gives some new clothing and stuff if needed)

We could also make sure that anyone who rests outdoors without proper clothing, takes a few points of cold damage upon waking up. This will probably be a scripting nightmare though, and should be saved 'till the end. It would be cool though, if someone could come up with a script for our smith. To make him hammer at his/her anvil when someone walks in, or something like that.

both scripts are easy and i think i could write both in 10-15 minutes with visual effects and sounds for the smithy.

-The Inn. The Inn should be packed with more then Quest giving NPC's. For instance.. what to think of a travelling part with inspiring songs and tales of different lands. A merchant from the sword coast with exotic items and some locals who can give you some background information. Perhaps we should write a script for the waitress that will make her launch certain speakstrings as she passes her waypoints. Example: NPC1: Two Elven Firebrandy's. Waitress: Coming right up. -Walks to the next waypoint NPC2: Where is me ale, woman? Waitress: Wait ye're turn!

shouldn't we first wait with putting in general merchants and NPCs that only are there for flavour as creating scripts with all the general things is really annoying, time consuming, harder and with less chance of catching bugs (own experience again). Things like the smith in the smithy and the waitress in the inn are okay but like the bard with stories and stuff can wait till the end.

If everyone agrees with the above set-up, we can start distributing the tasks. Area Designer Village exterior [Free] Inn [Free] Tailor [+custom clothing] [Free] Interior for normal housing [Free] Interior for at least two barns [Free] Blacksmith [+custom items] [Free] Militia Barracks [+NPC Guards] [Free]

agree. Depending on what others want I'd like to do the tailor, barracks or the blacksmith, with the tailor favourite (Though I'll do any of the above if there are troubles with dividing the tasks)

Does anyone have any inspirational names for our town? I didn't get further then Tradebridge or Frostgate, and I'm sure we can do better then that

Let me think of that a bit longer [img]smile.gif[/img]

Also if everyone who writes scripts puts the first two letters of his forum name here in front of the name and any variables in it

I also like to volunteer as placeable builder if we really need anything (to practice and kill the time till I know what I can make I'll try a winter market stand right now) and as scripter, so that if someone doesn't know how to do anything he can send it to me and I'll see what I can do (going to write that cold damage with sleeping as well now [img]smile.gif[/img] )

For the online space I think lycos is best (if everybody agrees, cause you'll need a ftp program, i use smartftp, when you're going to upload larger files than 2 mb iirc). I can also make a site we can edit so we can see if someone else is already updating the module.

If everybody builds his content in a general module, export and import it in the module it works the fastest

First area that has to be done before other areas is the exterior. If it's not finished before someone else has his part done, do we think of something new to do or let him wait

I guess we also need a IM to communicate easier, I have AIM, MSN and ICQ, I don't care what it'll be so plz vote

forgot what I wanted to say last. Going to do something else maybe I 'll remember then

[philip]

Originally posted by Legolas: I'm willing to make other areas as well, but would prefer to work on quests, possibly dialogue, and scripting instead.

But first we need the areas. however everyone can write and think of quests already.

[True_Moose]

Alright, I'm totally up to doing the blacksmith. I'd see 3 or 4 levels of weapon
Rusty: -1 to hit, -1 to damage, 2% chance on hit of disintegrating
Dull: -1 to damage
Fine: Normal to hit, damage
Masterwork: +1 to hit, +1 to damage
A couple of things:
=>I don't know how to do the disintegrating chance via script: it'd be fairly simple, so if someone could do it quickly for me, that'd be great
=>Maybe we could have the various stores stock up on a single day (caravan day), or get new merchandise on that day?

[philip]

Originally posted by True_Moose: =>I don't know how to do the disintegrating chance via script: it'd be fairly simple, so if someone could do it quickly for me, that'd be great =>Maybe we could have the various stores stock up on a single day (caravan day), or get new merchandise on that day?

The way I'd do disintegrating the weapon is put an extra few lines in the OnDamage script of a creature,to check if the weapon was rusty, and if it was calculate the chance and destroy the weapon if needed (maybe with a speakstring to tell the PC what happened). Does anyone have a better idea or can I write the script for that? also rusty weapons have a poison bonus in p&p d&d. do we do that as well (with a very low bonus or leave it. then it might be better to name the weapon to something like bad quality, as it might confuse p&p players)

second point, would be nice for reality but in-game it would mean limited items to merchants (even the normal easy-to-get and needed items). This might not seem much of a problem but what about PC running around with NO weapons or armor. If it's to be implemented we'd do it in a few shops or with rare items (Though this could end in PK'ing for rare items)

I did the cold script and it's working now. As soon as the areas are made I can put the script and objects needed in it, and adjust the script when new outside areas are added.

Last thing is, as I read some like to do different stuff more than others, scripting, areas, items, it might be good that if we have the basic going we divide the tasks in scripting, building, quests (everything included). That way people who are better at scripting have more time to do scripting, and people who can do less script-writing have more time for the other things. This way it's also easier to keep track of what everyone is doing/needing as requests will go from the person who needs it to the one who can create it.

[philip]

This is what we have now (nothing final yet, just to make it easier)

Area Designer
Village exterior [Dreamer128]
Inn [Free]
Tailor [+custom clothing] [philip]
Interior for normal housing [Free] (Legolas has some don't know if he's
doing more)
Interior for at least two barns [Free]
Blacksmith [+custom items] [True-moose]
Militia Barracks [+NPC Guards] [Free]

Are we going to make a Bioware guild? it's easier as we have an own forum there so we can do all different things in different threads.

Is it ok if I make a new lycos account for this mod?

[Dreamer128]

I'm ok with starting a Bioware guild. But we'll need the Bioware I.D's of at least 5 people. I'm registered as Velkyn17. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Chewbacca]

I'll take the Barracks, though I also volunteer for the exterior if you don't want too, Dreamer128.

My BioWare forums handle is Dawn_Walker

Send me a invite or post the guild link here so we can join up.

BTW- A guild only needs five members to be listed publicly, I started a guild a while back with the idea of opening up my project to others for help and I am still the only member.

Also I ve been thinking about the keep I made, It is big enough for a plot, maybe something like "The haunted keep", or perhaps something similar to Nalia's quest in BG 2. Anyway, food for thought whe nwe get to quest/plot designs.

I would be interested in doing class specific quests as well. Also a bandit plot came to mind, this being a caravan type village and all. This would include the option to join the Bandits either covertly as a spy, or to actually join them to do rouge work.

I've been suffering from terrible writers block and just brainstorming about this IW project has got my creative juices flowing like they havent for a month. Much kudos for that! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Chewbacca]

The NW vault does have a portfolio system to track files, We could upload our stuff there and make a portfolio to keep track of it all.