We could do with a programmer

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Hello For those who don't know, me, Bikerdude, and Jdude have been working on a mission. As part of the planning process I decided on a way to flesh out the gameplay to make up for short comings that the engine has in accommodating large and complex areas. Conversational dialogue, which could add life to npcs and create a more immersive experience where the thief can try other tactics in order to get what he wants when he's given an opportunity. Think of it as another opportunity to incorporate interesting and fun puzzles into a mission.

 

One of the forum members, 'Dumpkin' has created a nice little conversation system where further conversation on a subject or even an event can be triggered. It has a few design flaws, but he's done a very nice job so I just want to make sure he's credited. The main problem as he's mentioned is that the mouse wheel which was used to cycle through dialogue options has been reconfigured with the 1.03 release so another method will have to be designed, and unfortunately Dumpkin cannot continue with it.

 

I'd like to trial this with our mission, if all works well, we can use it and maybe other people can benefit from it as well.

 

For anyone interested in helping us create a unique and immersive mechanic to help make our mission fun and interesting but also perhaps to improve the immersive of future missions to come, please show your interest.

[greebo]

How are you planning on shipping these code changes to players? If you were thinking about packaging a custom gamex86.dll, I can only (strongly!) advise against that, as this would cancel out all future TDM code updates for your FM (also think about Linux gamers). Unless you're fine with your FM being compatible to a specific TDM version for all upcoming times, any code changes need to go into the mod itself - provided they are versatile enough to be justified as that.

 

If it's just a matter of custom script events, then it's probably more "portable". If relying on map scripts is not possible for some reason or another, TDM's code needs to be expanded to support your plans.

 

Long story short: C++ code changes need to be coordinated with the mod. In general make sure that mod updates won't break your mission.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Hello Greebo, yes I believe it is a custom script

Edited December 27, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Berny]

WOW! That's a fantastic idea!!! Really, this would really add more life into the world.

 

It would be a great gameplay feature

 

 

[Komag]

I also REALLY like the idea of an easy to implement conversation system

[STiFU]

Should be doable with some gui scripting I guess, as I already said in the original thread about this topic. Have a look at the computers in vanilla D3. You have a mousepointer to choose options and clicks can affect the gui itself as well as induce actions in the surrounding world. So all we gotta do is attach such a gui to an AI somehow. That being said, I don't know anything about gui scripting.

[Serpentine]

You could hide/unhide a GUI entity nearby, might be able to do a pop-up menu interface rather than the 'on entity' interaction that doom3 does with computers etc. In any case scripting it to read in xdata with the decision tree(s) would be pretty nifty, might even be able to extend the GUI interface to do that then.

 

Not that I have any clue about the exact stuff

[Sotha]

What you need is a ingame gui-scripting specialist. I've only done briefing guis, so I do not know how to do this.

 

Some (somewhat old) inspiration from a game I'm playing at present:

[rebb]

Some (somewhat old) inspiration from a game I'm playing at present:

 

You seem to be in a retro gaming bout lately - i get those too from time to time .

[Shadowhide]

good idea ! I never seen phrase choosing in T 1/2/3 fm's

 

If you can realize it,I will respect Dark Mod missions

Edited December 27, 2010 by Shadowhide

[7upMan]

good idea ! I never seen phrase choosing in T 1/2/3 fm's

 

If you can realize it,I will respect Dark Mod missions

 

 

...which is very important to us TDM players. Thank you, Shadowhide, I really hope that one day TDM will stand up to your incredible mapping skills and your critical expert view. Thank you.

[Tels]

Is there a demo mission of your current system, as well as a clear description of what is missing? I have written a few custom script objects before, and I know how to add support for C++ events, too, so these things are not impossible for me.

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Script_object

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Yes and it's dumpkin work haha like I said i want to make sure dumpkin is appreciated for the current state of the scripts. I just came up with the idea.

 

Download

 

Oh and btw, I think you guys are going to like this test, Dumpkins got a sense of humor XD

Edited December 28, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Dumpkin wanted me to provide a diagram he thought might help in explaining how the conversation system works:

 

 

Since the update there seems to be some new problems:

 

-The conversation trigger was to frob the NPC, and that no longer works, it seems to now only be based on a proximity to the NPC

-Once the NPC's alert number goes up the NPC ignores the player which is not at all wanted.

-The player scrolls through his weapons when selecting options and begins to attack if the select button (left mouse button) is pressed for too long.

 

Apart from that it seems to work fairly well.

 

so these things are not impossible for me

 

So Tels, does that mean we can count on you? You wouldn't regret it I'm sure.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Guys we still need a programmer to script this. What's happening? there was quite a bit of interest but no one willing to help.