Saturday, April 30, 2011

Toolset open again

I finally started opening up the toolset the other day after having it closed for the better part of two months. This work was done before I closed the toolset a while back. Right now I'm working on filling in the main plot. Since I had initially made Crimmor a smaller concept module I had to expand the plot.

Initially it was just a "find and get the item" plot, without explaining why you would want it. A fairly straightforward plot designed to drive something that was just a proof of the gameplay concepts. 
Developing the reasoning behind things and expanding the plot proved a challenge.

As an urban module, many of the traditional villains one might find in an adventure were out. No orc tribes, drow, dragons etc. No imposing temples of evil dominating the landscape either. With the player being an employee of the Shadow Thieves, I wanted to play up the intrigue that the Shadow Thieves are known for, but of course couldn't use a thieves guild as an enemy, since the Shadow Thieves already run things and you work for them.

Don't worry, I found some things. ;-)





Monday, March 21, 2011

RL the game

After 10 years of co-op, my game of RL is going back to single player. :-(

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Crimmor: Hidden Weaponry

I put a stop to writing, area and quest design until I got some lower level systems things done and troubleshot. It's still building the module, but doing the under the hood things that go on behind the scenes.

Hidden weapons: If you played Assassin's Creed you'll know what I mean. The player has instant access to a weapon that the npc's do not see, like the Assassin's Creed pc had the daggers that popped out.

In the first picture you can see the hidden weapon system in action. Our intrepid thief has picked up a hidden weapon, equipped and been caught pickpocketing. The weapon is visible to the player, but the npc simply does not "see" the weapon. Our player only takes the standard reputation penalty of -20, as if he was unarmed.

Then he picks up a spear, equips it, and tries again. Caught this time, the npc can "see" the weapon, and so thinks they are getting mugged. As a result, the player takes the -20 rep penalty for pickpocketing, and an extra -20 for using a weapon! What about dual wielding? The system catches that too. It doesn't identify two visible weapons as more threatening than one (I don't think it should), but if you have a hidden weapon in your main hand, and a visible one in the left, the npc sees the weapon in the left hand. So no tricking the system.

In addition to the custom hidden weaponry, some weapon types are always considered to be hidden, as they are designed to be hidden on the body for surprise use anyway, or unanticipated weapons. So darts and shuriken are "hidden", and unarmed and torches also qualify since they are unexpected.

The same weapon detection code is going to run when you talk to npc's. They will not be friendly if you're pointing a weapon they can see at them, in fact you will lose a few points of reputation with them, Crimmor is civilized!

The system relies on detecting substrings of weapon tags and item types, and comparing the substring with the predefined prefix for the tags for all hidden weaponry then comparing the weapon type for the weapon types that are "hideable by definition" like shuriken. So for me, the code detects if the tag begins "sh_hidden_", the remainder of the tag does not matter.

I had to get this code down and set, as substring detection forms the basis not only of weapon detection, but several other system things I'm putting in place such as clothing with hidden pockets.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Crimmor: From Proof to Depth

As I developed Shadow Thief Crimmor I began to like it more and more as a setting. The main city area took on more and more flavor and developed a personality of it's own, a large city, gritty and urban. Climb up on the roofs and look around and it feels bigger than Neverwinter, city as far as you can see. 

One of the things I needed to do to get the proper rogue feel was get the city lights to turn on at night and off during the day, and give our rogue a penalty to hide if he was standing in the light. This meant scripting the lights.

I also wanted to put in disguises. Which meant customizing some npc perception scripts. If you're not disguised, they're hostile. Wear your disguise, and people will assume you're one of them.

The I needed to make pickpocketing interesting. So I added in Vendalus' PRR system. No more trying to pick the lock with the merchant standing right there, at least not without potential consequences.

Then I got ahold of the lockpicking minigame from RWS. Makes roguery so much more interesting. Then I added Uncle FB's npc control system to get my npc's keeping daily schedules.

With all the things needing to go in to make a proper rogue module from a gameplay perspective, and liking the city more and more, I decided to make Crimmor a more proper module, and have added the second goal of bringing the city of Crimmor alive.

Shadow Thief: Crimmor as a proof of concept version was complete and releasable several weeks ago. It had generically named cities and just used place and npc names from the prefabs I'd picked. 

Now it has custom npc perception scripting with npc's that will refuse to talk to you if they can see a weapon equipped, a customized weapon equipping system that adds a delay to equipping and switching weapons unless you use custom weaponry for advantage. If you're caught pickpocketing, there's a worse penalty if you have a weapon visible because the npc thinks you're mugging them. Hidden weaponry that you can have equipped but npc's will ignore because they can't see it (think of Altair's wrist daggers from Assassin's Creed). Customized scripted buying and selling from the stores. Custom "pseudo" feats and PRC's. And things like lead lined clothing with hidden pockets, so you can hide stuff on yourself and not have it magically detected.

Another word on pseudo feats and PRC's. These are gotten by getting special training doing other special things. They don't take feat/class slots but provide feat/classlike benefits and come with pre-requisites like normal feats/PRC's. 

The Hidden Theurge PRC lets you cast hostile spells on npc's during conversation without them realizing via skillcheck. The Master of Masks can craft a number of masks (obviously) giving her different bonuses allowing her to take on aspects of different classes, and can be immune to alignment detection. The Merchant Intimidation pseudo feat allows you to use Intimidate instead of Appraise for shop pricing.

This is turning into a very interesting module.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Crimmor's filled to the lip with goblin bashers.

PC: "Crimmor's filled to the lip with goblin bashers. Heard any bone boxes rattlin'?"

NPC: "Some flesh tinker on about a Talisman. But really, any prime score turns up, the Cowled Wizards are going to make it their ken. And you know the flash tellers get what they want."
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NPC: "Two guardswords at the Alandor Gate is new. Don't know the score yet, might even be culls. Give 'em an oration on account a more beneficial arrangement. Here be some yellow tin ta make amends."
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NPC: "Been havin' a disputed point recently. A cove and his mot that I puzzled are Harpers came to Crimmor. Been givin' me tha skip when I drag 'em lookin' fer their dive. Puzzle their dive and lead 'em out. Keep it smooth, no need ta have a chat with 'em."
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Ah the joys of thieves cant, Planar cant, and a good old thesaurus.