I'm seriously considering making a spiritual successor.

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Or, all of that and a bag of chips, all in one place: http://www.thothie.com/msc_dev4/lorez_JAN2015.rar

Wow! There's some really good stuff in here. Especially this document on the dragons...

However, I hope you're going to rework the blasphemy that makes up the last ~ 50% of Thorandurils journals. Like the part about Lanethan not being an apostle until after the age of blood (kinda ruins all the dramatic moments, like the retreat of the apostles after Malgoriand beats all three them in open combat and kills Idemark. or Lanethans' soul fusing with Idemarks' during his fated journey to the soul well.)
I do, however, like the way pathos has been sidelined, who I've always seen as a somewhat redundant character in the lore.

 

[Thothie]

In this variation, Lanethan and Idemark become Apostles of Felewyn, at the beginning of the Age of Blood, and end up a combined Apostle of Pathos(+) at the end as you describe, otherwise proceeding in the tragic fashion with which we're all familiar. Actually not entirely my own re-rigging, unlike Kurgoth.

Pathos still does his "wtf!?" return bit, but I dun think I got that far in that revision of Thoranduril's Journal. Kinda shifted his base function from redundant balance god, to unifier/ascendency/buddha'esque sun god, which Dan seemed to think was a good idea. Still some toes being stepped on between Urdual and Pathos, but not quite as bad as it was.

 

[Vomika7]

I have a few ideas for holes in the lore if you dont find it imposing.
how did man elf and dwarf come to be? it doesn't explain that at all.

 

[Thothie]

But all the books and accounts agree that it was that at this time the gods created the Enlightened Beings we see today, each modeling their creation after their own ideals. As we all know, Felewyn created the elves, long lived and disciplined, Urdual created the dwarves, sturdy and stable, and Torkalath created the humans, ambitious and ever reaching.

What isn't well known, is exactly how these first creations took shape. I myself have conflicting information on the subject. Some beings I have communed with have told me there were single, but paired, paragons created, while others describe whole tribes, numbering tens of thousands, all appearing at the same time. Some describe our ancestors being forged from dirt and mud, others say that they were manifested from the very air, and still others describe us being born from beasts of the previous age - not all at once, but slowly molded, over time and over many generations. Whatever the case was, we're still in pre-history, and given that those who observed all this had no written word at the time, muddled and conflicting, sometimes, such history must be. This is also, probably not coincidentally, one of the areas where nearly all the dominant religious texts of today tend to conflict with one another.

Leaving that aside, eventually, there were tribes and civilizations... And eventually, these three civilizations came into contact... And there was war.

Bloody war, on a scale unimagined among mortals, up until, and possibly including, The Age of Blood.

So, if you wanna have some fun, come up with three+ different religious text-style explanations.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I have a few ideas for holes in the lore if you dont find it imposing.
how did man elf and dwarf come to be? it doesn't explain that at all.

I actually don't see any problem with vagueness like this, especially early on in the lore.

 

[Thothie]

I have a few ideas for holes in the lore if you dont find it imposing.
how did man elf and dwarf come to be? it doesn't explain that at all.

I actually don't see any problem with vagueness like this, especially early on in the lore.

Well, while it's not a problem at the player level, it is a bit of a problem at the NPC level, for their little societies. It's one of those questions that children are gonna nag you about, so ya gotta have a creation story, thus most sets of lore tend to have one - being core to cultural identity and all. I figure it's fine, however, if different cultures in the same world have differing creation stories.

Not even certain about how dwarves or orcs reproduce for that matter - only covered that for goblins. Dunno if we need a book of unlawful carnal knowledge for MSC though.

 

[Vomika7]

I have a few ideas for holes in the lore if you dont find it imposing.
how did man elf and dwarf come to be? it doesn't explain that at all.

I actually don't see any problem with vagueness like this, especially early on in the lore.

I feel a sort of religious belief between the races would be a solid foundation for any conflict between npc's, most stuff in the lore seems like "just because" so the more we define the solidarity of the story the more convincing and consistent content we can design.

also, i had the idea of dwarves believing they were descended from stone, just wanted some feedback before I delve too deep lol.

 

[Thothie]

Origin stories may divvy up along racial lines - may also be more than one among the same race, however, as they've all been around long enough to develop pockets of cultural isolation and sectarianism. The elves and the humans may suffer from this more than the dwarves, although, oddly, for opposite reasons - humans are fairly multi-denominational, while the elves will either kill or banish their own for worshipping the wrong god. Dwarven apostates are a bit rare, but from the one mention there is of one, it seems most venture to the surface for their calling, rather than prothestalitise among their own.

Personally, I like the Elder Scrolls approach to lore - where the lore is told from many different perspectives, and thus you have the option for accounts to conflict (indeed, in some cases, they should directly conflict). This lets writers have more creative options open to them, when they want to tweak the lore or add additional stories to flesh it out, in addition to slightly less pressure to conform.

also, i had the idea of dwarves believing they were descended from stone, just wanted some feedback before I delve too deep lol.

Chiseled from the stone by all-father Urdual, I assume. Works well enough. If you mean they are actually regularly born from the stone to this day (with some vague homage to Gimli's joke), that would at least save us making female dwarf models. Could also turn into some sort of "Defend the Heartstone" quest.

 

[Vomika7]

This pleases me, what is the general consensus on astrology? like assigning a particular sign(aspect perks) to a character when starting out?

 

[Thothie]

Ya know, there aren't a lot of specifics about that.

Much like The Elder Scrolls, one would think the MS creation story would preclude stars (more so, the Loreldians being so much more universally omnipotent than the Aedra.) Nonetheless, stars do get mentioned from time to time - including a once a decade Festival of Stars, celebrated among the elves. However, there's no mention as to what stars actually are, the meaning behind them, nor, unlike Elder Scrolls, of constellations.

While, due to the nature of the War of Fate, stars probably can't be hosts to other worlds, they could represent former Loreldians, or serve some utilitarian function among the Triad: watch portals, weave of magic related, Fate severing, or what not. Even if it's a case of "no one really knows, save maybe the gods, and they ain't said" there really should be some explanations among the mortal natives.

What sign you were born under, however, won't be a thing, if we keep going down the lore path we've been poking at with regards to the origins of the player's characters themselves. The idea being, that in order to prevent repeats of the messes some of the previous Apostles have caused, that the players are essentially part of a new potential Apostle vetting process, and have had their memories wiped, as part of the ritual of taking up the Adventurer's mantel. I'm still worried it'd mess with some RP'ers, but part of the idea was to let parts of the player's past lives come back to haunt them, via quest paths based on build choices, where they must unravel the, somewhat personalized, forbidden mystery.

 

[Vomika7]

That's actually quite a unique take on the players objectives, i love it.
as for the past lives idea, would it be a randomly generated timeline for every character?

 

[Thothie]

Well, the idea would be that it'd pick from maybe 1-3 scenarios based on each possible build (for a total of maybe 12-18 quest lines)... Title, darkness contamination, skill layout, etc. Maybe something really bleak, or heart breaking, or dark, or maybe just people trying to fool you. In any case, tis one of those conceptual stage things that's gotta long ways to manifest to any degree, and still in the debate phase to boot, tbh.

 

[Vomika7]

hm, that seems really difficult to flesh out, i do agree that I'm tired of the cookie cutter backstory of rpg's nowadays though.
ive been giving the dwarves a little attention,
trying to sort out what looks cool in a dwarven stronghold.

 

[Thothie]

Ya should hook up with Oyster, he's putting up so many underworld maps that if I ever get around to making a new world map, it'll have to be two layers deep somehow. IIRC you can model a bit, I'm sure he can use some trim and décor.

 

[ShadowGrrl]

It's good to see actual progress being made on something like this, well done.

I'm sort of working towards a similar goal... MSC is one of my all time favorite games. I love the whole idea of an RPG that you can play by yourself or jump onto a server with a few friends and work together to clear a dungeon with the character you have saved on your own computer, no online only, no MMO-strings attached. The only thing that comes close is Diablo II, but that obviously doesn't have the first person RPG feel that MSC has.

So anyway, I've been learning Unreal Engine 4 for a few months now and have been slowly working towards my goal of a MSC-like game, it's not a fully fledged work in progress project or anything yet, but all work I'm doing while learning is towards my goal.

I'm not looking to collaborate on the project or anything, but I just want to show people what I have done myself in UE4 and maybe get some feedback from the MS community.

So these are the posts I've made showcase my work, you'll probably notice the MSC influence in my work:
http://misstoxia.com/unreal-engine-4-adventures-part-1/
http://misstoxia.com/unreal-engine-4-adventures-part-2/
http://misstoxia.com/unreal-engine-4-adventures-part-3/

And here is a webm I uploaded just tonight that shows off a bit of everything I've done so far, including combat (22mb):
http://misstoxia.com/spider2.webm

 

[linksword916]

I'm sort of working towards a similar goal...

Now that looks really great. Chasing distance seems a bit short though. Maybe make it follow for double the distance if you had hurt it? And it loses interest in the regular distance if you haven't.

 

[ShadowGrrl]

I'm sort of working towards a similar goal...

Now that looks really great. Chasing distance seems a bit short though. Maybe make it follow for double the distance if you had hurt it? And it loses interest in the regular distance if you haven't.

Thanks so much! Since then I've made a ton of progress on my prototype. My most recent addition is a working inventory system, but I have also worked on a bunch of other stuff before this too.

This webm showcases the inventory system, a bunch of items and weapons, attack and idle animations and some other stuff.
http://misstoxia.com/wordpress/wp-conte ... 1080p.webm

You can see my development posts here if you're interested in keeping up with it:
http://misstoxia.com/category/game-deve ... -engine-4/

I hope Xeropace doesn't mind me hijacking his thread like this. ;p

 

[Recy]

I haven't read the 13 pages of this thread, so I'll ask - did the OP of this thread stick around?

Is the test_Scripts dir in the current version of msc the most up to date? Or do you have a newer one (newer than the rar you posted on page 1), Thothie?

Quick edit:
Don't seem to be able to create characters in LAN - makes it hard to test things. Any clues?

 

[MS:C community]

If you have ms_dev_mode set to "1" (which is required to test custom scripts) you can't edit characters and therefore can't create new ones either.
So create a char when ms_dev_mode is set to "0", quit the game, change to "1", start the game again.

Also be sure to use:
ms_serverchar "3"
sv_lan "0"

 

[Thothie]

I haven't read the 13 pages of this thread, so I'll ask - did the OP of this thread stick around?

Is the test_Scripts dir in the current version of msc the most up to date? Or do you have a newer one (newer than the rar you posted on page 1), Thothie?

Quick edit:
Don't seem to be able to create characters in LAN - makes it hard to test things. Any clues?

The current msc/test_scripts folder should be considerably more up to date and extensive that than the one linked on page one here.

And yeah, like Community said, make characters outside of dev mode. Nothing saves in dev mode.

Also, do not hesitate to ask questions - especially stupid ones. I'm always eager to train would-be scripters.

 

[Recy]

I've had a quick read through some of the base scripts, hopefully I can clarify a few things without having to study them extensively P)?

In the context of the base_npc_attack_new script, when we're in the hunt loop, we're assuming the desired result is combat (unless target is lost)? I.E for HUNT_AGRO 0 (e.g. boar), we're only in Hunt when attacked? Or is hunt only looped for monsters that are actively hunting, so a boar does not hunt?

In game_heardsound in the same file, the flow for a sound equalling danger is always to flee?

What do we have in this language? Do I see some method overriding in there?

Curious, is there a monster using base_monster_new (I didn't go through them all)? I see monsters using the old base_monsster >> base_npc_attack are defining npc_spawn in each top script? Assuming ones using _new can rely on the default behaviour present in the _new version?

 

[Thothie]

In the context of the base_npc_attack_new script, when we're in the hunt loop, we're assuming the desired result is combat (unless target is lost)? I.E for HUNT_AGRO 0 (e.g. boar), we're only in Hunt when attacked? Or is hunt only looped for monsters that are actively hunting, so a boar does not hunt?

Better way to do that is to set setvard NPC_NO_AGRO 1 (or use the add param set_no_agro), but the hunt cycle is always active for all mobs, just the frequency changes based on whether or not they've found a valid target, and monsters set not to agro consider all targets invalid until attacked.

To save on overhead, critters run the hunt cycle (npcatk_hunt) every 3 seconds when idle, every 0.1 seconds when their target is a player, and every 1.5 seconds when the target is an NPC. (Unless flagged to be more aggressive with NPC's via NPC_FIGHTS_NPCS or they are of the hguard race, in which case they'll treat hostile NPCs as if they were players - though I think only the newer AI has that function.)

In game_heardsound in the same file, the flow for a sound equalling danger is always to flee?
What do we have in this language? Do I see some method overriding in there?

If a monster "hears" a danger sound created by a non-ally using the special function "emitsound", the default action is to flee its origin for 3 seconds. This isn't a standard sound, however, only a few hazards actually create it (such as fire wall). Under both AI models, the mob will also check the properties of the script emitting the danger alert, and will not, for instance, flee from a volcano or fire wall, if they are immune to fire.

The behavior can be overridden in a number of ways:
• Both AI's run a verification called npcatk_check_if_scared_of <emitter_id> - if I_WILL_FLEE is set to 0 in this event, the danger flee will abort.
• setvard CAN_HEAR 0 will make the monster deaf to all sounds.
• Monsters will ignore sounds while the AI is suspended (via callevent npcatk_suspend_ai, or setvard SUSPEND_AI 1).
• a "{ [override] game_heardsound" tag can be used to abort all other instances of the event within the script, though this isn't generally recommended, as it'll kill all hearing functionality, save that which you define in your new top script. ([override] is a brute-force thing ya generally want to avoid.)

Should probably move game_heardsound to base_monster_shared, now that I think of it, but it'd require some re-writing.

Curious, is there a monster using base_monster_new (I didn't go through them all)? I see monsters using the old base_monsster >> base_npc_attack are defining npc_spawn in each top script? Assuming ones using _new can rely on the default behaviour present in the _new version?

The same events often appear in multiple scripts, in which case each instance is run on any script containing the events, from the top most to the bottom.

Most monsters are using base_monster_new (the newer AI) at this point. It's a bit smarter and has a few more functions and more dynamic adjustability. There's a few minor issues with convention compatibility between the two AI's remaining, but not many. The biggest one is that the new AI stores the current target in NPCATK_TARGET and is defined as "unset" when there's no valid target, while the old one uses HUNT_LASTTARGET and is defined as "¯NONE¯" when not validated. However, when either AI has a valid target, it is copied to both these variables for compatibility. As such, $get(NPCATK_TARGET,isalive) or $get(HUNT_LASTTARGET,isalive) works for either AI (returning 0 if not valid, regardless).

 

[Recy]

Comprehensive, thank you. I'll keep reading for now and hopefully have the time to try somethig over the weekend.

I admire your commenting, it puts my code to shame.

 

[Xeropace]

Apolgies for the resurrection post.

Also apologies for disappearing.

I was still very green when I made this topic. Somewhat in denial of my lack of capabilities and jumped the gun on posting here and showing you guys.

It's been an even longer time now and I really have no clue on the state of MS:C, MS:S and any other projects going on. I've since started leading software projects and have become a very experienced software engineer.

I also have no idea who is still around in terms of programmers and content creators.

I still think about this game would love to see a resurgence. Is there anyway I can actually help?

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

@WHITE-LION