@Alquerian -
Quote: "Cash, you really don't give yourself enough credit when others compliment you, so knock it off and quit pretending to be modest."
My wife says that I'm the most modest arrogant person she's ever met
Really though, I always love the compliments, but the truth is that a WIP doesn't matter one bit until it's finished, so I do feel a bit weird about them. There are so many finished games that don't get much attention. Once GH is finished I'll act better.
Quote: "The video was amazing. It transformed your game."
I guess I'm too close to the game to have seen it, but I'm REALLY glad that you feel this way. All of the work has really paid off. I really want each part of the game to transform it. Hopefully when I reintroduce magic everyone will feel the same way about it.
@Benjamin -
Quote: "Looks very smart! It's great how you manage to improve the quality every time in certain areas, some people just make things a certain way and can never see how to improve upon it. "
Thanks! I'm sure glad that you think so, especially since it's so hard to make out the details from that tiny video. It turned out
almost how I envisioned. I actually wanted the icons to unfold from the enter above the NPCs head out in both directions. That proved to be mathematically monstrous, so I settled for their current behavior.
Trying to improve an existing system is probably the hardest thing in a project like this. I wish I'd planned a little better in the beginning. Honestly, I was so eager to make a WIP post that I neglected a few areas. But, this is my baby, and I want every single area to be just right.
That dwarf was acting pretty rude. I thought I'd fixed that problem. It's very easy to fix, so in the next video he won't do that.
Quote: "I've noticed you make NPCs give extra information when you ask the same question twice."
Yeah, this is really the weakness of the system right now. That, and I don't parse the speech into a paragraph. I'm going to change it so that the question changes, even though it's the same topic. Also, I'll add the paragraph format so that more information can be stated at once.
@Gil Galvanti -
Yeah, chasing the button is a bit annoying sometimes. I stop the character while they're talking, but not before you start. I didn't want the player to be able to freeze characters needlessly. However, I think I'll change it and just make any other event cause the NPC to break free. They already do if they acquire an attack target, so it won't be hard to change that behavior.
Quote: "How are you doing the water?"
I'm using plains. The texture, however, is not being scrolled, it's an actual texture animation. Scrolling doesn't look nearly as good as a real animation. The water is plains (which sadly, you can see at times). They are tiles, and you can have any number of groups of tiles on the map. The ocean is one set. Each river, pond, swamp, waterfall, etc. is another set. Every set can be rotated, can oscillate, and a few other things. I'm also using a uniform gloss shader on the tiles.
A better method, as dark coder has recommended, would be to use low res meshes for each body of water. They would look better than plains, and I could actually deform the water. I'm not sure if I'm going to go that route, my main interest is having a method of creating water that's not too hard for end users using the RPG Editor.
Quote: "For the dialogue, how are you doing it, if you don't mind me asking?"
Well, I do mind. Just kidding
I saw the conversation system that you're working on in your game. That's a perfectly good system. I just wanted something that felt a little more dynamic in GH, as it would fit in with the rest of the game better. First, I predefine all of the talk icons. Each character has a speech script. Each script defines the topics of conversation, along with game flags that are tied into the speech system. Each speech script also has a section which defines which topics are open and which ones are closed. The system will iterate through all topics and display only the icons that are open. A topic can open or close another one. Once the speech occurs, game flags can be set. Also, speech might be closed if it is dependent upon a game flag.
That probably doesn't make much sense. It's a pretty complicated system, to be quite honest. Even if I posted the code it wouldn't do much good, because you'd have to adapt your entire program to match GH's UDT structure, which would be a nightmare (it's a nightmare every time I make a mini project like I did!). It feels like a watch with lots of tiny gears, you mess with one the whole watch explodes.
I highly recommend creating sub systems as a separate project, making sure that the code is directly portable to your main project. I copied only the code that was necessary.
If you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
I'm glad that you like GH so far
@Bizar Guy -
Oh yeah, Cage Complex! He's French, and the French seem to have magical powers when it comes to game development. He joined around the same time that I did. We released our first DBP games around the same time. I was so proud of Pong y2k, but it felt like a big wheel of old moldy cheese compared to his puzzle game.
Too bad he took off. I wish he'd stayed on with DBP for his personal, casual projects. One time he said that he was tired of entering competitions because he always won. I didn't even think it an arrogant comment, just tired and true.
Quote: "It's really cool that he actually is able to say more than just about the quest.
"
Yeah, I think that's really important. Otherwise, characters won't have a personality. If you don't have personalities, you can't really have a story.
I'll make all plot essential conversation easy to access. However, I'm going to add several layers of extra stuff, just in case a player wants to explore the characters more. I always love the feeling that you've discovered something that other people haven't.
Quote: "And I can say that this is easily the best dbpro rpg I've seen."
Thank you
That just made my day.
It's actually pretty fun to play already, hopefully everyone agrees when they get their hands on it!!
Awesome video, crazy that he made that in DBP
@The Full Metal Coder Roxas -
Quote: "Cash Ur conversation system is great!"
Thanks!! That's just what I was hoping for
Most topics of conversation will repeat the first phrase if you keep talking. Some won't, like asking his name. That topic closes afterward. But, why would you keep asking someones name?
Like I told Benjamin, one of the current weaknesses of the system is that the question doesn't change, even though the answer reflects a different question on the same topic. When he says
"They're heavily armed.", the PC should really have asked a different question. I'll add that ability.
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Steins of warm piss all around!!
Thanks guys, your interest is a real motivation.
Come see the WIP!
