Exult Forum

i have a question

your "Feudal Lands"

are you basing it on any existing Ultima world? or is this something off to the side and completely of your creation?

in terms of backstory, i mean

It is from Ultima I.

that would be the Lands of the Feudal Lords, not simply Feudal Lands, which is why i'm asking

and if it was the Feudal Lords lands there would be the style issues as its rather established that those lands ar of an asian-istic descent

Estabilished where? Ultima 1 didn't have the technical capabilities to display that in game (whether graphically or in terms of dialog) and there is nothing in the manual. And AFAIK, nothing of the sort was mentioned in later games.



Oh, you must be mentioning the latest addition to "Ultima" Online. I don't think Wizardry Dragon is taking that very seriously, but I can't speak for him. I know I wouldn't

I just noticed one thing: you are not planning to do anything with the Lands of the Dark Unknown (you know, the *fourth* land from U1)?

I refer to the Lands of the Feudal Lords yes. It's inhabitants simply call it the Feudal Lands (titles become distorted over time. After all, IRL Britain used to be Britannia ^_~ )

As well, it's explained in many the history section of an Ultima Manual, I believe. The land after U3 (I believe it was after Exodus?) was sundered into four parts: Britannia, The Lands of Danger and Despair (Serpent Isle), The Lands of the Feudal Lands (which I am referring to), and The Lands of the Dark Unknown.

Marzo - I have a few ideas about what I could do with it, but Im trying to limit the scope of the project for now ^_~

~ Wizardry Dragon

Ultima 6 had Utomo the islander

waere one or two NPCs of the same descent in 5 as well i think.. dont quote me on that tho... my memory of 5 is a bit fuzzy

the UO expansion built on that. and quite well, i'd say..

The Samurai Empire? *convulses away from Crysta as if she were wearing a Fellowship medallion*

Lets just say "Ultima" Online and I don't get along.

One explanation of how the worlds were sundered is that there are some sort of magical barrier was put into place, and this is the explanation I'm going with because it makes sense to me. After all, even the greatest magic can be overcome. Utomo could be one of those people that did; somehow, and the Serpent Pillars could be another manner of transversing that barrier.

~ Wizardry Dragon

well the reason i asked is because following the general history would mean there would need to be a mass of tiles more asian in appearance.. i wanted to know before i just randomly started working on such a thing for no reason

yes i know the UO expansion wasnt really all too good... however, they captured the land itself well even if the rest was substandard (especially the art T.T)

Crysta - if I need it, I'll request it. Personally I like to leave Utomo's aura of mystery intact, so as of now at least, no asian style stuff is needed.

Right now my biggest needs are in the 'battlefield miscellania' and 'mugshot' departments.

~ Wizardry Dragon

understood ^_^

so.. in the meantime and aside from the blackrock walls, is there anything else you'd like to have?

As I said I have need for miscellanious things that say 'battlefeild'. Would be nice to have some more selection for broken stuff. Overturned tables and chairs for houses that have been ransacked would be nice also.

~ Wizardry Dragon

I do not mean to detract from your efforts - the whole idea sounds quite wonderful - but if you'd like a bit of help with dialogue, I can proof-read/edit in my spare time.

I realise it is still a draft but, for instance, the above screenshot might sound a bit better as: "The winged gargoyles are intelligent and have some skill with magic. They were trading with us on relatively peaceful terms until they joined the invasion."

Though naturally I don't know about this invasion, and if that is what you meant

I wish you good luck all the same!

Michel - Im trying to reflect a mideval mode of speech, not a modern one ^_~

~ Wizardry Dragon

Well, yes, that is what I was talking about 'Magically competent' sounds to me like a contemporary creation - even if it is taken from some other source which purports to be 'mediaeval'. Unfortunately, the vast majority of games that attempt that sort of faux-Elizabethan speech really do not manage it well (Ultima included).

Anyway, carry on

Hehe. Well, Im also trying to have the highly intelligent people speak in a somewhat intelligent way relative to the 'commoners' ^_~ And given that Lord Perth is INT 30 ... well one would think he's somewhat intelligent

~ Wizardry Dragon

Crysta - also, I need a sprite for Lord Perth's sister who rules Virtue's Hold with him, Im thinking the female fighter sprite meets the robes and crown of Perth's sprite. Little harder than the previous one, I know ^_~ Let me know if you manage it though, that would be very cool.

~ Wizardry Dragon

what about the typical blue noble lady sprite with armor mixed in somehow?

However you want to manage, I just want the colour scheme to match is the important thing, and then make the lady's headpiece look more like a crown, I suppose then. (Something that says, hey lookit me, I rule a castle! XD )

~Wizardry Dragon

I really shouldve mentioned it earlier, but it just occured to me, part of the reason I said the female fighter is because the NPC has black hair.

Sorry bout that >_<

~ Wizardry Dragon

its alright, i havent started yet

black hair, gotcha

Hehe, well it wouldntve been a *huge* thing, but its good I didn't go and cause any trouble ^^;;

Anyways, working away at the crafting script ... taking longer than I thought to iron out bugs, so probably wont have screenshots of it till tomorrow at least. It keeps making 100 arrows even if you have less materials, and I made the stupid error of making the usecode convo let you select numbers out of range as far as the game is concerned (the biggest quantity you can have in one pile is 100, whereas I had the max as 255)

Just a bunch of little things like that. But a *bunch* of them. I'm never programming without coffee again.

~ Wizardry Dragon

I love that custom magic sword on the shrine of valor above.

And what's been hinted at and shown as epic battles. I really love that kind of thing too. Just imagine standing in the middle of the hoard and casting mass death.......

Also when crafting, should it be making custom swords instead of normal swords? I always thought it should.

And I like that recolour of lord british way up there as well. Looks like santa.

Santa in full plate, yo

Custom swords will be available by certain smiths which will create a custom sword for you. Any normal sword or weapon you can forge.

As for the custom sword for Valor, its the embodiment of Valor from the Keyring Mod ^_^

~ Wizardry Dragon

Addendum: although, I like the shape enough I might just turn it into an equipable with some modifications ^_~

~ Wizardry Dragon

Nice. Because that sword would look good as an equipped item.

Also, has anyone done anything about the sword in the stone? C'mon, I want to yank that sucker out.

something that kinda bugged me in ultima 7 is how much overkill there was in the weaponry department. with a little exploring, one quickly finds way more than enough fancy magic weaponry for an 8-person party, let alone the vast amount of regular weaponry one comes across. all of the weapon dealers in the land end up being pointless, charging hundreds of gold coins for things you can obtain for free in triplicate, fairly easily at that.

the reason i'm blabbering about this is that although weapon forging would be really cool to have implemented, it would be, just like the weapon merchants, rather pointless gamewise beyond the factor of wow, look how cool it is that i can make stuff. it'd be nice if something could be done to begin to fix up the balance on weaponry and armour a bit, such that one might have some reason to buy it or craft it. i have a few ideas - of course it's far easier to generate ideas than try to implement them:

- reduce frequency of weapon and armour drops on randomly spawned enemies. well, problem there is, the items weren't just "drops" in ultima 7, they were actually what the npc had equipped in battle, which is a pretty cool detail. so maybe have 80-90% of their equipment be severely damaged from battle once they die, and not wearable (or not advisable to wear) but sellable to npc's as scrap, or potentially useful as ingredients to make new stuff out of.

- perhaps have more incentive to use different weapons for different battles, thus justifying possession of more than 1 weapon per character? but this would likely require so much modification to the game as to be laughable.

- this kinda ties in with the point immediately previous and might be similarly laughable, but i always thought it would be nice if different weaponry in ultima 7 was more comparable, but just functioned differently. several weapons such as maces and flails were generally pointless to use because they were weak compared to swords and halberds (which, as i said, were in significant abundance...) seems to me a flail should be somewhat comparable to a sword, but operate significantly different in battle. ultima 7's combat system is not exactly its strongest point though, so such differences would probably be hard to implement and impossible to notice.

- add weapon and armour wear, similar to ultima underworld 1. i think this would be really nifty, but i suppose a lot of people might just find it infinitely frustrating. (could tie in to my first suggestion though.)

- levels of quality for weaponry? sure, i found a sword in a dungeon, but it was poorly made. i can make a better one myself, and this master blacksmith over here can make an even better one than that... instead of all non-enchanted swords just being generic swords with the exact same properties.

- this is not directly related to what i was talking about, but it would be nice if selling items back to npc's, as was present in serpent isle, was added to black gate.

ah! as long as i'm up late posting ridiculous ideas:

what if the gypsies actually moved around from town to town like they did in ultima 6? or if not them (since the dialogue explains that they have been staying put for a while), at least some bards wandering around to different taverns in brittania. i have no idea how well the scheduling mechanisms of ultima 7 would handle such a thing, but i couldn't help but mention it.

A question about the moongates, if you please:

>> The moongates will now follow the cycle of Sosaria's moons (circa U4)
>> Moongates will function properly once the Ether is restored.

The tetrahedron generator caused the damaged ether, but it was the sphere generator which caused the moongates to malfunction. So why would restoring ether fix the moongates?

Crowley - 'Restoring the ether' was my way non-spoiler way of putting it.

Olorin - those are more things to bring to the Exult team than a modder, IMHO.

~ Wizardry Dragon

Re: Wanderign Bards: it is possible to do them right now, with clever placement of eggs to execute Usecode. The best bet would be to add usecode eggs in the cities (or even better, the places in the city) where the bard might be; the eggs would teleport the bard to the city and set his schedule to be in the city according to whatever rules you specify. Good places to place the eggs would be the local inn and pub (housing and food).

Well, it bleeds into something I requested a long time ago, having conditonally-spawning eggs (eggs that only execute if a certain flag or usecode script is set).

~ Wizardry Dragon

Screenshot screenshot screenshots ... everyone luvs them.



The quest to reclaim the Shrine of Valor is mostly complete in The Feudal Lands. Just trying to make the gargoyle and demon eggs stop spawning once they shrine has been reclaimed.

~ Wizardry Dragon

This can be done by searching all nearby eggs and deleting them; or, if you would like to reactivate later them under certain conditions, use the UCC script command 'setegg' to do it (it takes two parameters: criteria and distance).

It suddenly occurs to me that Crysta might be telling me to do my own graphics in the future XD

Could you be a bit more specific Marzo? Im not quite understanding what yo mean.

~ Wizardry Dragon

Sure. What part do you wish me to clarify?

Im just not quite grasping what you mean ... maybe an example would help?

To specify on my part, I have the Shrine in the city, with a token amount of guards, and then the streets around it are crawling with gargoyles. So I need to get all the gargoyle eggs to disable without stopping the guard ones.

Also, is there a way to edit the properties of eggs via usecode?

~ Wizardry Dragon

In that case, I think it would (almost) be better to create the gargoyles with Usecode eggs, using UI_create_new_object2(shapenum, position) intrinsic; that way, you could check to see if the shrine has been liberated. An example (formatting certainly screwed up):

eggCreateGargoyle 0xD01 ()
{
if (gflags[LIBERATED_SHRINE_OF_VALOR]
{
//The shrine has been liberated; delete egg
remove_item();
abort;

//As an alternative, the eggs can be 'disabled'
//in the following way:
//script item setegg 7, 0;
//the command is 'setegg criteria, distance;'
//Criteria 7 is external
}

//Get egg's position:
var pos = get_object_position()

//Get number of gargoyles to generate:
const int MIN_GARGOYLE_COUNT = 1;
const int MAX_GARGOYLE_COUNT = 5;
var rand = UI_die_roll(MIN_GARGOYLE_COUNT, MAX_GARGOYLE_COUNT);

//Position offsets for the created gargoyles:
var offset_X = [0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3];
var offset_Y = [0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3];

//Loop variables:
var i = 1;
var j = 1;

//The destination position for the gargoyle:
var new_pos = pos;

while (rand>0)
{
//Re-center position on egg:
new_pos = pos;

//Reset counters:
i = 1;
j = 1;

//Find a free spot:
while (i < 8)
{
while (j < 8)
{
new_pos = [pos[X] + offset_X,
pos[Y] + offset_Y,
pos[Z]];
if (UI_is_not_blocked(new_pos, SHAPE_WINGLESS_GARGOYLE, FRAME_ANY))
break;
}
}

//Create gargoyle (WITH equipment) and place
//in destination coords.:
UI_create_new_object2(SHAPE_WINGLESS_GARGOYLE, new_pos;)

//Decrement counter:
rand = rand - 1;
}
}

no, not saying any such thing XD

was just asking about all of that earlier because i really wanted to know just what i'd have to do

seriously, I enjoy doing stuff like this

The phorum codes screwed a little bit the above code; replace
[pos[X] + offset_X,
pos[Y] + offset_Y,
pos[Z]]

by

[pos[X] + offset_X[ i ],
pos[Y] + offset_Y[ j ],
pos[Z]]

Also, I forgot to increment i and j in the above piece; you can add those by yourself.

how is this, by the way?

not finished obviously, just want to know if I SHOULD finish

Crysta - I was thinking that when looking at the mugshot I did for Maihanna in the screenshot above.

And that looks great thusfar Crysta ^_^

Marzo - thanks a ton! ^_^

~ Wizardry Dragon

Marzo - I keep getting this error trying to compile with your Gargoyle egg:

npcs/gargoyles.uc:71: 'UI_create_new_object2' not declared

~ Wizardry Dragon

Well shiz, now Exult freezes whenever it goes to create the gargoyles.

x_x;;

~ Wizardry Dragon

And before you ask, I made sure to add the increment. No endless loop

~ Wizardry Dragon

And now no creating at all. Oi.

Okay, these are eggs with the Cached In condition, probablity 25.

The script is as follows:

/*
* This source file contains usecode for the Feudal Lands.

* Specifically, this is the conversation for the egg-spawned Gargoyles.
*

* Author: Peter Dodge
* Last Modified: 2006-02-01
*/

eggCreateGargoyle 0xD01 ()
{
if (gflags[LIBERATED_SHRINE_OF_VALOR])
{
//The shrine has been liberated; delete egg
//remove_item();
//abort;

//As an alternative, the eggs can be 'disabled'
//in the following way:
script item setegg 7, 0;
//the command is 'setegg criteria, distance;'
//Criteria 7 is external
abort;
}

//Get egg's position:
var pos = get_object_position();

//Get number of gargoyles to generate:
const int MIN_GARGOYLE_COUNT = 1;
const int MAX_GARGOYLE_COUNT = 5;
var rand = UI_die_roll(MIN_GARGOYLE_COUNT, MAX_GARGOYLE_COUNT);

//Position offsets for the created gargoyles:
var offset_X = [0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3];
var offset_Y = [0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3];

//Loop variables:
var i = 1;
var j = 1;

//The destination position for the gargoyle:
var new_pos = pos;

while (rand>0)
{
//Re-center position on egg:
new_pos = pos;

//Reset counters:
i = 1;
j = 1;

//Find a free spot:
while (i < 8)
{
while (j < 8)
{
new_pos = [pos[X] + offset_X[ i ],
pos[Y] + offset_Y[ j ],
pos[Z]];

if (UI_is_not_blocked(new_pos, 883, FRAME_ANY)) // 883 = shape num for gargoyle
break;
j = j + 1;
}
i = i + 1;
}

//Create gargoyle (WITH equipment) and place
//in destination coords.:
UI_create_new_object(883, new_pos); // 883 = shape num for gargoyle

//Decrement counter:
rand = rand - 1;
}
}

npcs/gargoyles.uc:71: 'UI_create_new_object2' not declared

Oh, right darnit. It is because it is SI only. I'll add it to BG too. And I just realized that the gargoyles will not be hostile; for now, put this instead of what is above:

//Create gargoyle (WITHOUT equipment) and place
//in destination coords.:
var gargoyle = UI_create_new_object(883); // 883 = shape num for gargoyle
gargoyle->set_alignment(2);
gargoyle->set_schedule_type(IN_COMBAT);
UI_update_last_created(new_pos);


The gargoyles will be created without equipment. Not that standard gargoyles have any equipment in BG, anyway...

And in what may becoming a new mantra, the freezing doesn't happen for me...

It did beforehand because I forgot to reload the Usecode with the increments added. I had made the changes to the code but hadn't reloaded it x_x

~ Wizardry Dragon

Okay, so now it works, my only peeve with it is that they all get generated in a line... dont suppose theres a way to stagger them without having them end up stacking?

Also, a little more complicated AFAIK, I want the to be guards that spawn, but if theyre killed, theyre not respawned (if you will) until the next patrol (every 6 hours or 2 schedule clicks). I don't even know where to start with that, or if its even possible.

Thanks for the help thusfar ^_^
~ Wizardry Dragon