Serpent Isle...After the banes

[Nickisaacson]

Has anyone tried to resurrect the massacred NPCs using the Hourglass of Fate?

[Gotcha!]

I'm sure people have tried, but it's impossible.
The Monks can only resurrect possible party members, excluding Boydon.

Would be nice if it were possible. I find the whole 'everybody's dead' thing a real downer.

[Knight Captain]

This is due to the way they are killed off. There's more than one way to kill an NPC, and the game uses the a "final" type of kill.

[Gotcha!]

@KC: That doesn't matter. In Serpent Isle, any NPC you kill is gone for good.
The Hourglass won't work, taking any bodies to Monk Isle and talking to monks also doesn't work.

[minnosid]

What`s wrong, you had cheat play too?

Kill Shaminno homo, Iolo joker, Dupre lizaad with fixed Blacksword, then originally ressurectable by hourglass of fate.

[Nickisaacson]

Thanks for the info. I tried it over the weekend and, like you said, no dice.

This could be a good addition to a mod, at least to have the monks say that they will resurrect all the people for that warm fuzzy before the Avatar goes to the end game, rather than leaving serpent isle in the post-apocalyptic state that the banes created.

[Nickisaacson]

Just had another thought regarding the idea of mass-resurrection, what about a side quest to find a magic scroll of "Reverse Armageddon" (or some other fancy name) that would resurrect all the NPCs that were killed by the banes. Obviously this would have to be spawned after the banes were killed, otherwise someone would find and use it early, resulting in nothing.

(Or just the conversation with the Monks to get them to restore the world right before the end of the game.)

Either way.

[Dominus]

When you plant the silver seed xenka says something to that regard afair

[Gotcha!]

KC is actually working on such a mod.

Anyway, I can tell you that the devs never had this permanent mass death in mind. I don't remember the exact story though; I think they killed everyone off to save time (EA was breathing down their necks). Dead people don't need dialogue.

Whatever the case, EA did not give them the time to complete the game.

Perhaps KC or someone else can tell a more complete story.

[Knight Captain]

Much like the original SI team, I've fallen into a combination of scope creep and underestimation of coding resources.

The larger Origin vs EA story: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/14/4
The SI plot cut story: http://ultimacodex.com/interviews/bill-armintrout-si20/

The planned plot was basically that the three Banes would conquer the three Towns, and you would have to dislodge each. Each Bane would be captured within the Black Sword, and you could even talk with them.

Anti-Dupre - Monitor, would change everyone into their respective totem animal.
Anti-Shamino - Moonshade, as MageLord. Crime would be allowable with certificates.
Mad Iolo - Fawn, would drive the people completely insane to the best of his ability.

I have the total slaughter removed, replaced with functions to update the schedule of virtually every living NPC.

Someone posted they were a professional writer, and offered to help, and in my haste I turned him down. I regret that!

[Nickisaacson]

KC,

Your mod sounds promising. When do you see a release becoming available for alpha and/or beta testing?

[Knight Captain]

It's not even close to Alpha. But if you like I could package it up sometime soon so you can see some of the bits.

[Knight Captain]

One of the things I need to do is repackage the new shapes, so the order they appear in ES matches the relevant dead body shapes. I think I've missed some, and I know I am missing at least one new Goblin shape from checking my official Conquests New Artwork thread.

One of the problems I have is that some pieces of data are stored in binary forms (rather than readable text). So for example if I allow the barrier shape to block both X and Y I cannot check my codebase to verify that easily. Another example is the in-hand offsets (where a sword swings from, relative to the NPC) is not stored in the shape itself but elsewhere. So if I edit from an existing shape, I cannot just copy the settings for it. It makes parts of the process cumbersome.

I do need help with map editing and face colorization. Testing of course, too, would be awesome.

[Nickisaacson]

KC,

I don't get a lot of free time, otherwise i would definitely be a tester for your mod. And i'm a noob when i comes to coding.

I think a new thread for your mod would bring some people together that could help you with the testing and polishing, if you needed it.

[Knight Captain]

Neither do I have much time. And I'm in a new job that requires my coding powers.

[Gotcha!]

I'm sure people will jump for the opportunity when you share your beta one day. I for one will be happy to test it.