Bring Life to the game!

It saddens me to see that PoG, a great game that shows us you don't need thousands of polygons to have fun, is being ignored by the general public.
It also saddens me that there are virtualy no plug-ins that do not involve "grand" (save the queens daughter, save the kingdom, uncover ancient legends, conquere the world and bla bla) ideas and shemes.
Also virtually no plug-in has yet turned Belgrum into a place fit to be called a city.
So here is my idea: **A Community Plug-in **
Since I'm a donkey with coding and don't have the full version of coldstone, I could help by slavishly writting the speech text and things like that.

Here is my idea for the Plug-in:

Expansion of Berglum: Adds 2 more squares to the south westish(more west) of Berglum that shows us the "poor quarters". In this part of Berglum people sleep on the streets and the buildings are a general slum. Orphans wonder around begging for money. There is a fat rich man(Vortek skin) that runs "Homeless Shelter" that abuses his state funding by giving homeless gruel once a day and a place to sleep on the floor. In these two zones there are shabby street vendors that sell items such as:

Booze - Increases your dexterity and adds regeneration. Also damages every random amount of time and decreases strength by the 10. Adds a big chance to miss when attacking.

Steet Magic - A enchanted object that has one use. If used it has a 50% chance to burn all units around the caster for an amount of damage porportional to the amount of money spent(different quality items) and a 50% chance to damage the caster for the damage normaly dealt to an individual unit around the caster.

Dodgy Potions - Normal potions, just REALLY CHEAP and with a 50% chance of failing.

These two squares will come into being later in the story.
Just oustide Berglum a little wedged into the forest is an orphanage, the person who runs it is someone who has spent all his money building a shack with a garden and the orphanage itself only has 4 or 5 children.
If you talk to him he will tell you of his struggle. You will be given the option to donate money to the orphanage.

--- Quest starts here---
Quest requirements: must have enlisted the Berglum army to join the Decimus

Quest:
Every so often (say every 100 gold donated) a child is added to the orphanage untill the city is empty of orphans. Once that happens the fat man who runs the homeless shelter will storm in and demand a fee for taking away his orphans. The orphanage dood will try to argue but will be rebuked. As you step in to help the fat man screams about shemes to destroy his enterprise and run away saying that the treason would not go unpunished.
After this the orphanage dood (lets say he is called him "Otto") will ask you to be so kind and find somebody willing to bring his orphanage into a better state. Preferably somebody wishing to travell to Berglum in the first place so that he is not hindered.
Who could this possibly be? Maybe the wielder of the Runic sword? After you have defeated him and talk to him another time (after the fat man came of course) you will offer to repair his wagon (which is missing pieces you must find) if he is willing to help renovate an orphanage in Berglum. He will agree and once you have the pieces and you both will be moved to the Berglum entrance, where he will begin repairing and adding stuff (gate, bigger house, fence) to the orphanage(of course, you don't see the progress).
In the meantime (or after the dwarf has moved to the orphanage with a bunch of supplies) the fat man will come with Fuego, the guard captain. He will shout and scream about robbery and treason. The guard captain recognizes you and asks you what this is all about. You tell him your story and the fat man is kicked back into his homeless shelter.
Fuego then tells you to go back to Decimus and deliver a letter containing certain details on how he wishes to turn some of the poor quarter residents into soldiers and send them to the barricade. After you have delivered the letter, Decimus will tell you to tell Fuego to go ahead, as it cannot hurt to have extra soldiers.

Once you come back to Berglum the renovations of the Orphanage are all done, and the dwarf is strolling around outside admiring his work. If you talk to Fuego he will tell you the attempt to train the poor was a failure, as the poor did not find the idea of fighting 10 meter high monsters very attractive. If you then talk to "Otto" he will seem sad, if you ask him why that is so, he will tell you that bandits have been stealing from his orphanage. You immediatly demand to know where they are so that you can vanquish them!
But sadly he doesn't know, all he knows is that they came out of the trees near a place where our friend the dwarf cut down some trees. If you go there you find a secret path that leads to a clearing filled with rather basic thieves that ALL drop quest specific bread loaves. Once you have all 20 loaves bring them to "Otto" and he will be very happy indeed. He will then ask you to go to a Mage living near Heldan to beg him to enchant the orphanage to prevent things like this from ever happening again. The mage will agree if you fetch him a street magican to be his apprentice. This is easier said than done, the magicans are all suspicious little rats that think you want to kill them. They challenge you and you have to knock them out. Once 10 black robed men have been defeated a little boy with burning red eyes asks you why you did such a thing. You (can)tell him that you are searching for an apprentice for the rich mage.
He tells you he has some strange powers and he demonstrates this by setting the last knocked out mage on fire.
The magican screams in agony and dies. You are shocked by the boys power and his callousness, yet you agree to lead him the the Mage so that he can be educated.
With one look at the boy the mage agrees to enchant the orphanage. While passing you he slips you a note. It says "the boy must be destroyed, he is a danger to all" on the bottom he has scribbled a single word: "Reotz (?)". You figure you must check this out in the learning tree!

In the learning tree it tells you that a "Reotz" (or any other word) is a human reincarnate of fire. This Burning Mages once fought against all other orders, fuled by fires appetite for destruction. Sadly the names of the Orders of Water, Wind, Earth and Spirit have long been lost, though it should be noted that Fire and Earth often fought together, each hoping to gain their ultimate desire. For Fire it was the destruction of the World, and for Earth complete knowledge of Mother Gaias workings.

This information completely shocks you, you must go to Oroba! (the order of seasons guy)
at the mere mention of the word "Reotz" Oroba cries out! He explains to you that the order of Seasons was Wind, and Crystal Spirit. He fleetingly mentions a doubt about the identity of the Mage that needed a pupil, how would he know the name?
Oroba rises with his old bones weary, and teleports both of you infront of the Mages house. The boy and mage are sitting infront of each other, the Mage obviously dying. Oroba immediatly beginns muttering some magical non-sense and both caster scream as their flows of power are undoubtedly cut off. An illusion surrounding the Mages face slips and you gaze into the most deep, questioning yet knowning blue eyes you have ever seen. The Mage, certainly from the order of Water, falls to the ground and you grab the child... (falling maybe in animation, grabbing in text)
next you wake up outside the Berglum Prison (in the poor quarters) Oroba stands there with the Water Mage. If you talk to them, the Water guy tells you he will soon go back to the Waters from which he was born, while Oroba urges you to continue with the quest to save the Kingdom, he is only resting. As you walk back, through the ONLY alley that leads to the first poor quarter (you are in the second), you are ambushed by the fat man and some magicans. The fat man screams that there you are, the traitor who killed one of their companions! you must fight and kill(or knock out) all of them. Then the fat man looks at you shocked, before he swears never to return to this wretched city and running off. If you go back to the Water guy and Oroba they will both be gone.
If you go back to the orphanage you will see "Otto" standing outside the magically enchanted gate, that, if you tried to enter before it asked you for a password. He will apologize for not letting you in since he did not know you where in the city. You recieve the password and your reward is:

No Money(its an orphanage)
A Class specific Spell(or skill for swordsman)
Access to a house full of magical mini-games! YAY!
You can listen to the stories of the poor children
A room, where there is a safe in which you can store items
A donation room where you can get rid of cash that you dont want (donating doesnt give children anymore!)
a vendor that sells the items no longer avaivable in the slums (you killed the mages remember?)
some other stuff!

thats pretty much my idea
no need to help if you don't want to
helping will bring back alot of the former glory of Garendall! (im sure)
if you don't help i cant write it myself, I only can download the demo version of coldstone and am incredibly bad at coding
I will do the menial work! (writting texts and names and whatever you want)

Ummm anybody want to make it? (its Community! )

This post has been edited by AnyOne : 11 May 2006 - 07:35 PM

Some of your ideas have merit and could easily be done in a plugin. Some others, however, won't work too well. It is very difficult to use a character who is already present in the game. Let me cite just one example. General Decimus will always be standing in front of his tent saying whatever he says when your quests for him are complete. You cannot add dialogue to the original character with a plugin. You would have to find a way to remove Gen. D. from the map (not easy) and replace him with a new General look-alike who can speak the dialogue you want to add.

You will notice that all the existing plugins introduce new characters and leave the characters who appear in the game untouched. You could, for instance, meet the General in some other square and have him say whatever you want, but then when you go back to the square where he occurs in the game, the original General would have no "knowledge" of what the look-alike General said.

NPCs cannot talk to each other. Therefore, having the fat man with the homeless shelter talk to the "dude" at the orphanage doesn't work. How do you intercede if no confrontation is taking place?

To look up something new in the learning tree, you would need to set up a new station. You cannot add items to the tree's library with a plugin.

Knowledge of coding is not necessary to use Coldstone. That's the beauty of it. Essentially, all you do to make a plugin is add elements (trees, caves, NPCs with dialogue, items, new maps, etc.) but it is much harder to remove things from the game. To learn to use Coldstone, start small, test, experiment, and ask your questions on the CS forum. You will find many there who are happy to help.

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It is very difficult to use a character who is already present in the game.

! I thought that because the devolpers left so many "Unfinished stories" it would be an encouragement to expand the story with plugins ;(

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NPCs cannot talk to each other. Therefore, having the fat man with the homeless shelter talk to the "dude" at the orphanage doesn't work. How do you intercede if no confrontation is taking place?

What i ment would be a cinematic moving up the "discussion" place. Normal dialogues will be used, just that isn't directed at you. For example instead of something like this: "You must go there and do that" SomeBody says. It would be: SomeOne: "You must go there and do that" SomeBody: "Why should I?" SomeOne: Because I said so."

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Knowledge of coding is not necessary to use Coldstone. That's the beauty of it.

.... so how limited is the demo version? could I do (most) of what I described alone?

@anyone, on May 12 2006, 02:49 PM, said in Community Plug-in?:

I thought that because the devolpers left so many "Unfinished stories" it would be an encouragement to expand the story with plugins

It is an encouragement. You just have to be inventive in how you do it. To go back to Gen. D., you can certainly use him in other squares from the one he normally frequents. Just bear in mind that he will also appear in the square just south of Fantrima, and won't know what you've been talking about elsewhere.

You also can get around the dialogue problems with a little creativity. A line of tiles near two NPCs triggers a dialogue box. I call this line of tiles a tripline, and the box has something like this:

"As you approach, you hear two men in an arguement. You see it's the fat man and Otto as you get closer.
'Send those kids back to the homeless shelter where they belong' you hear the fat man scream.
'No, I won't.' Otto yells back, 'You'll just steal from them and not give them the care they need.'
The fat man turns purple and says in a menacing tone, 'I'll have the authorities on your neck by sunset!'
At this point you step in to break up the fight." etc. ......

@anyone, on May 12 2006, 02:49 PM, said in Community Plug-in?:

so how limited is the demo version? could I do (most) of what I described alone?

I don't remember what the exact limits are (I think it's 40 events) and there may be limits on how many new items, etc. can be in the plugin, BUT you can build almost all of the plugin you have outlined by making small sections which are separate plugins. You later piece these together with simple cut and paste from one plugin to another when you have a registered copy. Or someone else, who has the full version of Coldstone can do the splicing for you into one complete unit.

Plugin One might be just the two maps you want to add to Berglum. Plugin Two could be the confrontation between the fat man and Otto. And so forth...... Maps take time to build. So do new items particularly when you have a random chance of the item behaving one way or another. Might as well get started on some of this now. Just as an example, Damsels in Distress took about seven months for me to construct, and it was basically done in small segments while I kept the overall outline of the plugin in mind.

Good idea!
I think I'll try to get started then