Llyranor

A!

A!

Enough lies and innuendo. Doritos.

A it is!

Please stop spamming this thread and talk about the Doritos I ate today.

In their simplest form, here's how local variables work. The integer of any variable by default is 0. In a script, put if(GetLocalInt(GetFirstPC(),"variablename")==0) { //insert script SetLocalInt(GetFirstPC() "variablename",1); } Let's examine this. This script only launches if "variablename" on the PC is 0. Then it launches the script, and sets it to 1. The use of the variable here is that it only fires once. Like I said, this is the simplest script, but it's a good start in understanding how variables work. Look up tutorials.

You need to learn variables if you want half-decent modding.

I'm really happy for Finland. Really, I am. Really.

Haha, like I said, that sounds like it'd be the backdrop for some pretty cool gameplay opportunities. Like you said yourself, "Then again, my idea was never to earn the Nobel Prize for Literature. At its core, it's not about the story, it's about how the players' choices will affect the story - that's what I want to matter." As Nick mentioned, the first story idea we came up with had many more fantasy elements. We were pondering how to apply nonlinear principles to the main plot. Basically, you started off, naked, in the middle of a marketplace. A crowd was gathered around you. Your first task was to avoid guards who were coming and would arrest you for exhibitionism. Eventually, you would get caught, and one of the guards would recognize you. "Wait, you look familiar." "Aren't you the new recruit?" This then put you into the role of a soldier (we like this as a backdrop for our mod). Take the job, or face the charges of desertion. We played around with parallel planes and you actually being an enemy spy in the other plane who was sent to the same city to meet up with some spymaster here. Something happens, and you end up in another plane, where the cities and nations are the same. In this plane, your parallel ego, who looks exactly like you, finds you unconscious. He's a soldier planning to desert. So, he steals your clothes, and throws you naked in the middle of the marketplace. Come morning, people gather around you. Basically, the deserter figured that doing this would ensure your getting caught, so that he could leave the city more easily. Storywise, we eventually came to the conclusion that we played too much on plot twists and fantasy gimmicks. The bottomline is, we didn't like it enough. Gameplay-wise, though, it would have been quite nice, given how you have multiple allegiances and missions. 1) You're a soldier, so you have quite a full plate already. Lots of things going on and such. 2) You're an enemy spy, but from the *other* plane. The spymaster you were supposed to meet (which you'll investigate in your free time as a soldier) turned out to have died 10 yrs ago in this plane. Also, having this dual-layered storyline would have been nice in terms of meeting friends from the other plane. Eg. a spy gets caught, whom you recognize as a friend from the other plane. 3) Investigation what the crap happened. Why does no one recognize you? Why are you suddenly a soldier? Why were you naked in the marketplace? This would start off as you looked for clues by visiting familiar places of the city and asking familiar people (bear in mind you were new to the city anyway, but you did go to a few places). Also, eventually, you would meet a beggar wearing your old clothes, and you'd have to track down where you got it from (eventually leading to a 'wait, you gave these to me'). The problem, of course, is that too much backstory is included. We'd have to play a lot with chronology, going back in time before the marketplace incident, so that the player could understand the protagonist's spy role, and where he's been in the city before the incident, etc. This could have been done, but - in the end - we made the story too complicated for its own good, to the point where it lost its focus, and we realized we did too much. We were just adding layers and layers of superficial complexity. When we were considering adding time-travelling lizards to explain some of the fantasy components (not as a stab to any particular company, of course but just because time-travelling lizards are awesome), we realized we were going too far. What I'm working on now is much less ambitious storywise. Basically, you're a soldier (again), and the main storyline consists mostly of your day-to-day jobs. I figure the life of a story could be well adapted into a RPG. You're not just doing irrelevant sidequests, you're doing your job, and it feels more natural. Going on patrol, sent to do investigations, night guard duty, etc. Furthermore, you're doing it with collegues, and that leads to lots of possible interesting interaction. We're not using typical Western fantasy influences anymore. Rather, we're basing it on Wuxia (martial chivalry --> think Crouching Tiger). Storyline is being worked on. My design focus now is much more on choice-based gameplay, instead of relatively linear storytelling.

Yeah, but in a public forum, I can't freely point out that your story sucks. I have to be politically correct.

Yeah, there's definitely potential for good gameplay opportunities in there. I can see the similarities to PST as someone pointed out, but that of course is not a bad thing. Oh, and don't feel obliged to post your stuff, I just spilled it all because we're NOT using that idea anymore.

That's a great idea. We could subtly sneak in cyborgs and necrophilia and it'd be an instant hit.

It was all my idea. He was doing scut.

Yes. And then the choice will be soiled and eroded. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hehe, about the shades of the protagonist and stuff, me and Nick were playing around a somewhat similar (but not so much, or at all, really) concept a while back. Basically, the PC's background was irrelevant. His hidden past had no part in the story, we didn't care. What mattered was what happened in the story. After some big traumatic incident (not head trauma, just some big life-changing phenomenon or whatever), the PC starts hearing voices. At first it's very vague, very subtle, very rare. Simple things. 'Don't trust her.' 'Don't open this door.' The player can easily make his decisions, base on his instincts or clues or whatever, but the design made it so that, at least initially, the voice was right most of the time. We were trying to create a bond of trust with the voice. Gradually, this would intensity, the voice would appear more often, at more important decision crossroads. Eventually, more voices would appear, they would talk to each other, to you, form personalities. You'd have a whole cast of characters in your head. The setting of the game was based on a war. You were a soldier, sent out to fight some war between opposing colonies. Due to internal strife, though, your government would collapse. The main forces would pull back to the mainland, leaving you and other soldiers stranded on enemy land. You would have to, perhaps, make your way back to your homeland. Taking advantage of the collapsed government, the empire which had the other colony allied with another superpower to invade your mainland. The next scenario would be you defending it. Basically, we were making a situation where everyone was against you. Lots of oppression, war isn't pretty, etc. The voices would be encouraging that feeling. After some other big battle or something, you find yourself lucky and surprised to be alive, most everyone around you is dead, etc. The voices encourage 'you have escape unscathed. Now, you must go to location x. There, everything will be clearer.' So you go there, looks cryptic, wow. 'You are the Chosen One. You must stop this war.' Our plan was that the proposed ways to stop the war would in fact be unbeneficial to it. Assassinating world leaders, etc. We were messing around with ideas. If you were playing a good char, your plans to save the world would in fact lead to its destruction, or the impression of such. If you weren't, then you were all for world destruction. Or such was your impression. Ultimately, everything you did or planned to do were actually insignificant and futile. You get caught, put on trial. You get evaluated for everything you've done, every action, every decision. Did you follow the voices all along, or resist them from the beginning? Wait, were you committing atrocious acts because you felt like it, or because you trusted the voices? Do you get judged a cold-blooded criminal, or do you end up in the psych ward? Essentially, yeah, we just wanted to make the PC go through the process of early-onset psychosis. In the fantasy setting where voices and Chosen Ones are overused, we thought this would be the ideal setting to fit this in without making it too obvious. Especially because the setting accommodated it, we thought people would more easily 'get in the role' and listen to the voice. 'Makes sense to my character', perhaps. If we helped *one* person understand a little more the issue of mental health, then we would already have won. 'Why do people listen to voices? I wouldn't!' 'People who are crazy are just making it up!' Of course, the main goal was to provide good gameplay. With the concept of voices, we would emphasize the importance of decision-making. 'Attack her while her back is turned, she is planning to ambush you', for example. Do I *trust* this voice? Do I take the risk? Am I potentially harming an innocent? Heh.

Yes, but if he becomes the Chosen One, must he choose?

That would be hot, like you.

Are you quoting yourself? That's low, man. That's low. Some people try to earn their post count. You shame us all.

He meant C.

A!

And yet you kept playing it. Publishers dream of customers like you! :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's exactly it. Bethesda burnt me bad, man. Bad!

I played Morrowind for around 100 hrs. For all intents and purposes, I got my money's worth. But, looking back, I don't recall having any fun out of it. I was just talking to the next NPC or walking to the next town because it was 'something else to do', not because there was a compelling reason to do so. I can't say anything good about the gameplay, really. The combat system is pretty much the least enjoyable one I've ever played. The NPCs were horrible, writing was pointless. Sidequests were just repetitions of each other. I don't recall ever been compelled to finish one because it was interesting, only that it had to do it because it was another quest to do. I see no appeal in 'roleplaying' by myself when the game provides no reason to do so. Basically, I wasted 100 hrs exploring a bland empty world doing repetitive task. It was almost automation. Basically, the saddest part is that I played it for 100 hrs. Maybe I was enthralled by the music, who knows? All I know is that it's not going to happen again. Never again.

Because it had zero redeeming factor to me. I can't find a *single* good thing to say about it except I like the main theme music.

Yes, Morrowind.

Morrowind

You mean, banstick time.