Diadem of Maunstraut

[Hguols]

Actually, the Dark Guide of Maunstraut is supposed to be a consumable item - that's the only way I could get the icon based map to display.  (sort of like how the Phantom Rod only works displaying hidden doors as a consumable item)

I have a few Always On events, with a start condition of Dark Guide = 1 in the inventory, which puts it to the next leaf.  (Control Active Leaf - Leaf 01)
The start conditions for Leaf 01 are basically:
Dark Guide = 0
Change Character Parameter (Item Dark Guide Set to 1)
Control Active Leaf (to leaf 00)

The information in the parameter editor takes care of the actual map displaying...  The information in the paragraph above just makes sure you get a map after you consume it.  

I'm betting an Always On got nixed, whether by me or you....
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Eidolon repeatedly asking for 5,000 Gold is definitely an error on my part.  I could of swore that he went to the shop after paying him, but something isn't right somewhere - for you at least.

For your remix, mixing things up and balancing a few things to your liking would certainly be enough for me.  I tell you what wouldn't be enough is just "remixing" a few maps.

I'd prefer you do a little and actually finish the project, than try to pull off something grand, get burnt out, and never complete it.  ^_^
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Metal is a subgenre of Rock?  
*clears throat*
*glares*

...You didn't have to put it that way.  ^_^  I guess I would have put it as "My music wouldn't exist if they would have got it right the first time.", but that's not quite right either.

Many of the extreme metal genres utilize different elements than rock music; mainly in themes and song structure.  The only thing extreme metal has in common with rock anymore is the musician and instrument lineup.  

....the rest I'd say is vastly different.

Probably why (if I had to choose) I'd take a Rachmaninoff or Chopin over Marilyn Manson or Disturbed.  I like paragraphs of music, with bridges - none of this verse chorus, verse chorus poppycock.  >_<

GAH!  Enough of that music rant!  How'd that happen!?  You tricked me!
*gets out a pair of headphones*

[Holy_Diver]

For the record, changing paddfg6 in the ini doesn't seem to work. Perhaps you got the spelling wrong? I also set my resolution to a custom setting while I was in there, so I know the ini changes took.


PS: I think the odds of my doing anything to cause the Dark Guide to want to disappear are extremely slim. It could very well be another SoM bug however (it is very buggy afterall)

[Holy_Diver]

Could I get access to the private "Side Projects" forum to talk about remixing/appending to DoM?

I dunno if Tom would prefer to be completely surprised by changes, or would mind offering some input. I have some ideas I think would work well, but I would like some feedback, and without spoiling the "side-project" for future players by gabbing about all the additions/changes in these forums

[Holy_Diver]

I tried SoM on last night... it's a little addictive in it's quaint simplicity. I already added onto the first map of DoM a bit. I would post a screen of the new area, but no upload feature on the bbs

I don't intend to add a lot map wise for the first work over. But I want to spruce up the beginning to a large degree...

For now I added a small courtyard with a large door gateway going in, and a similar but doorless gateway going out. This is sort of the campground for an outpost for the mission to save Maunstraut or whatever

There is a small cellar like bunker with beds and stuff. The player now has a squire that stays there more or less. I plan on letting the squire have a shop that sells everything for 0 and buys everything for 0. Think storage. Also in the courtyard is the tomb of Sonellian, who is being billed as the previous savior of Maunstraut (same sort of situation) ...Nothing was found of him but his armor however, which is buried there. And it has now been unearthed for this mission (this sort of ties in to the new ending I've planned)

You begin on a path where you meet many npcs who wish you well. Once you go through the final gate however it is locked behind you (this whole area is quarantined... due to the impending darkness and all)

Your beginning equipment is heavy knight armor. Standard stuff more or less. But once inside you can talk to the squire and dawn Sonellian's armor if you wish (including the charm... I will probably change the look of some of the pieces as well)

There will also be an old NPC who knows something of local lore who can Truth Mirror stuff like Sonellian's armor pieces and standard stuff for you. The other Truth Mirror NPC will be gone (or more likely moved to the base camp)

The stuff you find once inside however will only be knowledgeable to many specialized truth mirror NPCs scattered around (assuming that works like the shops)

I also moved the Forgotten Blade pond just outside this courtyard to the side. It will no longer be drain-able. But hopefully you can get it with a rebirth event. It will be more powerful, and I think maybe no other Moonlight like weapons will appear (some Truth Mirror NPC might remember something about the sword)


I have a few more game turning point things to add, but just to give you an idea of what sort of things I'm up to~



PS: Once I started working with SoM I noticed how all the outside barriers are cut off not very high off the ground at all, and very sharply. It's a bit sad really. It's not hard to notice either, thought I guess I only just did. I think it would be more noticeable with a further draw distance.

[dmpdesign]

Very cool ideas so far.

I have some questions for you and possibly some answers.

-For starters I like the whole 'not setting off on a quest with no gear' idea since it is more realistic.  I like how you incorporated a way to make it reasonable.

-The banker may be a difficult thing to pull off depending on what you are going to give him in stock for the $0 cost.  I really wish that SOM understood that when you sell a shop keeper an item he should have at least one of it in his inventory to sell back..but it doesn't.  

-The 'Assess' function that you assign to an NPC does not limit the choices of items they can and cannot reveal to you (I am pretty sure, but I will double check tonight).  In other words, having experts scattered about to tell you about certain items can't be done via the assess feature, however you could give an item no description in the items editor, and instead create events on the special npc's that can do an IF/END IF style event that will prompt you to inquire about specific items you may have that they may know about.  If you need help with this let me know, its pretty easy though.

-The rebirth event is doable for the sword, see my earlier post on how to handle the revive function upon player death.  Again if you need help let me know and I will write you the specific event code for it.

-If you are creating outside areas, you can help create the illusion of higher barriers by setting ground pieces behind your first row of wall map pieces and raising them up 5.5 units from the corresponding wall pieces.  (The outside set is 5.5m high).  You can place them all the way from -20 to +20 so the walls can be quite large.  Alternatively you can download my cliffside set from the main site and utilize it to build massive 11m and 22m high walls.

[Holy_Diver]

I'm expecting at least half of my hopes to be dashed, but hell that's what I'll remake SoM for. DoM being the first major game, warrants attention I think (as long as I'm given permission to fuck with it)


First off, about half the objects don't show up with the DoM archive Tom uploaded. I'm guessing this is because I'm expected to download them myself?? I've downloaded everything from From's site, and utilized them correctly I think (again I think) ...except for all the individual npc/enemy files. At this point I'm guessing they're not included in the patches, in which case I'd very much like the option to download them all in one archive so arranged that they can be merged with the existing datatree in one copy over operation

Same goes for what I think are some fan generated files, from what I can gather from John's website add-ons.

If I'm going to apply translations at some point, I really gotta beg to have all of that in one archive as well!!


I also checked out the expanded tools devkit. A lot of it looked interesting. At the least I can see re-skinning NPCs and monsters, but not object/etcetera for some reason. Though apparently you can generate those from X files?? And there is something maybe there for Map blocks.


I'm not hyper enthusiastic about messing with this business, but it does have a cult aspect to it, however spartan the tools are.


I actually think there is enough there though, that if we can develop our own tools, we could actually make the core executibles quite functional (if not super efficient. Theoretically we could eventually bypass all the tools I guess, and still have something that will pass thru the runtime's bullshit detector


Remake or not, there is something to be said for still having something run (however constrained) on the old way-back machine.


I just don't get why the expanded tools are so hit and miss. Some classes of objects, get this, others get that, with no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.

[Holy_Diver]

Oh and another thing I don't get... my map is seamless, but around certain spots on the ground I always insta-die when testing the map. I don't fall thru or anything, just die instantly. I do this on a super fly graphics machine, and on the machine I have to run SoM on (to get the graphics to work in the map editor) which can barely run the games at 640x480 rez.

Also about placing map squares behind map squares for height... would there not be an obvious seam?? Because all the boader pieces are cut half way (obviously)

PS: To be honest, I'd just like high jet black cliffs so that you can hide other parts of your map from being seen over the tops of your outside pieces!   ooo(but even that might not blend right against the fog, depending on the operation used)

[dmpdesign]

Don't write off any hopes just yet, usually in SOM where there is a will there is a way.

As far as your objects, if you download the installer I have posted in the SOM forum, and use the batch file in there it will load everything into your SOM directory that is available on John's site.  This will get many of the items and objects youre not seeing, however Tom still had a few in his database that I didn't (and still don't) have...but the number is far fewer than if you were to just install SOM from a disk rather than my files.  Try that for starters.  Maybe Tom can weigh in on this, but last we spoke I was under the impression he didn't think he had any custom graphics...so who knows?

The toolkits are most definitely half-assed.  They give some nice functionality but were really left incomplete.

As far as developing and organizing our own tools/custom addons etc, that was one of the points of this site, to try to centralize everything everyone works on so it can be shared and not conflict with files that others are making...to make a database of object IDs for the items/models/maps etc so we don't have to overwrite each other all the time.

I am not sure why you are insta-dieing on certain map pieces UNLESS you are missing the .mhm files for certain parts.  Again I recommend using the files I have posted http://www.swordofmoonlight.com/SOMTools/SOMInstaller.zip to make sure all your map pieces have the proper collission data.  (keep in mind to move all your current files to another directory just in case there is any issues).

As far as high jet black cliffs...download my cliff side set (main page download section) and give those a try...they arent completely black but if you raise them they can be up to 22m high (4 times the height of the standard ground pieces) and are relatively dark in color, so if they are far beyond the background they will look pretty dark.  

Please keep the dialogue coming, this is getting my juices flowing for continuing the tutorial section I started on Monday!

[Holy_Diver]

Well after monkeying with From's patches, I can't get into the actual game anymore. Some bug with som_db.exe

I will try your setup next I guess. I know that DoM does use a number of add-ons available on John's site but not available on From's site. It is dumb the way From chose to number all the files rather than give them proper names.

I'm pretty burned out with it for now. I better get back to working on slightly more practical problems. I gave it an honest shot, but kinda ended on a sour note so far.

We definitely need tutorials (and not necessarily of the basic kind) given the general obfuscation of SoM.  

On the plus side, all those extra tools should make cracking the formats relatively easy.

I'm sure I could turn out some quick and easy applets, but MFC etcetera I really am no good for. I do have an old one executable project I could probably jerry rig into a temporary all in one tool in short order (in the same vain as the add-on tools that is)

[Holy_Diver]

I will also add (just for the fun of it) that though I will let the player start with Sonellian armor and stuff, I plan on pushing SoM to it's limits in terms of smartness. I will do everything I can to make the player play carefully. I'm going to really force them to change up equipment to deal elemental/melee damage. I will also be changing the Sonellian armor around a great deal, and I have a number of interesting ideas that if half of them work half as well as I'd like will really mix up the gameplay.

So many ideas they can't fit into this thread. I just can't decide whether to address them all in one thread, or each in their own (generally more helpful for future browsing)

For instance, I'm going to take away all elemental attributes from the Sonellian set I think, and instead put a ton of elemental attributes into Sonellian's ring. So if the play wants them they have to take off the charm. The ring will probably also drain MP. So for taking on the elements they player can either play smart and use the elemental gear, or use the ring which will be good all around but not as good as a max elemental armor set for a given element.

I'd really like for the player to get a constant HP/MP regen independent of their equipment and based on their body/mind stats. But if not, I'll just make sure regenerative equipment is plentiful some how.

PS: Also about changing equip... I realize it's probably out of the question, but I'd love to somehow force the player to not be able to carry too many heavy things around (ie. add inventory to weight or limit the number of big items in tow somehow)