Now, my knowledge of coldstone is limited, but I've really been diving into it the past few days and I consider myself to know a good chunk of the program... I've even taken out a request because I remembered how to fake it.

Listed in order of how much I'd like to see them in coldstone:

1. Add multiple levels of access (sea, walls, land, etc.) and make it so certain things can ignore certain levels of access. Such as a ship can go on sea but not on land, a winged monster can fly over gaps and ridges but not through walls, my writer's character can go in water but not over gaps, etc. That way, not only will total freedom in world traveling become a reality, but a lot more monster ideas will become possible.

2. make a game able to store a saved location (or hopefully more than one?) for long periods of time. Such as, being able to recall like in ultima online. I find the save location event incredibly useful, and it would be far more so if it weren't so limited...

3. Make access a choice in conditional events. Example: If access is equal to 1 (which I'm using for land), play an animation of the airship landing, then change to player. If access is greater than 1 (sea, mountains, deserts), then play the animation of the airship crashing, game over.

4. Make gender a factor in coldstone. Add && tag values for he/she, his/hers, him/her, etc. and add event items for gender. It would also be nice to have gender be a conditional event choice.

If you're Dee, thanks for reading this! If you're Andrew..... ..... ... ...Hi! If you're anyone else, please don't ask me what I'm talking about in this thread. I'd be happy to help you with your questions and problems in another thread.

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windowzsifortehfargots

1. That's something in my wish list.

2. Perhaps you don't understand the "save location" correctly? It is supposed to work as a stack. When you save it, it push the current location parameters in the list. You can call it multiple times and it will save all the locations. When you call the "Restore location", it "pops" the last one from the list. This location stack is also saved in the save game file. Please check the section on this action in the user manual.

3)Good point.

4)Why don't you make it yourself? Ask the player to select it, store it in a global variable and then, access the variable with tag values such as &&gb;_Gender or directly with conditional actions.

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Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers

Global variable.... I just checked that out, thanks!

yeah, I deleted two of my requests before posting after I checked coldstone — but I missed that last one!

What I mean about the location thing is, imagine I make a random event that saves location, takes you to another map, makes you fight some monsters, and loads location. I have yet to try it out though. This would be random encounters in a world map. If you're taken to another map, would that put another location on the stack?

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windowzsifortehfargots

you could always save where your character is in some variables and then put him back in the same place later.

I thought of one more thing:

More magic elements. Or for my case, at least add magic as a defence stat ň_ó

One thing I don't like is the amount of control one has over the magic system. Also, if we could tie in extra effects to elemental damage, that would be terrific. Such as, being blasted with a ball of ice that slows you down, the amount you slow down dependant on how much damage you take.

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windowzsifortehfargots

As long as we're at it, I would love to have more control over combat as well. "Death" and "hit" custom animations would be nice, as well as a "hit success" event link.

more detail in (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum48/HTML/000851.html")this post.(/url)

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jwalton
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(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

(This message has been edited by jwalton (edited 01-22-2002).)

I was curious about the multiple access thing as well for water... but wouldn't this work as a work-around?

- have a limited number of 'access' tiles (docks or some such) to your water areas and have an event at each of these that swaps the player image back and forth from ground icon to boat type icon? So when the PC walks off the end of a dock (if they have a flag set that they own a boat for instance) then the event swaps their icon for a boat and they can sail around... and vice-versa?

seems to me that would work... would just require a line of inaccesable tiles along the coastline or such.

- zupa

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How about the ability to create additional NPC and player animations that are used when a certain event is called (like a limit break from FF7)?

Or a party/ally system?

Or a greater number of events?

Or the option for turn based combat?

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Victory favors neither
the righteous nor the
wicked. It favors the
prepared.

Quote

Originally posted by Zupa:
**I was curious about the multiple access thing as well for water... but wouldn't this work as a work-around?

- have a limited number of 'access' tiles (docks or some such) to your water areas and have an event at each of these that swaps the player image back and forth from ground icon to boat type icon? So when the PC walks off the end of a dock (if they have a flag set that they own a boat for instance) then the event swaps their icon for a boat and they can sail around... and vice-versa?

seems to me that would work... would just require a line of inaccesable tiles along the coastline or such.

- zupa

**

Seems simple enough. Place any transit device, in fact (boat, subway, aircraft, horse) on the other side of a narrow slot in the access barrier. Make it an NPC that doesn't wander (much). Now, block the player's passage with an event trigger that changes the player's icon and deletes the NPC. Thus, the character could approuch an animated, reactive horse tethered near a gatehouse, say, then ride off through the gate (as, in this case, a mounted-character icon).

It doesn't solve the aircraft problem, tho. The aim would be to have some creature able to fly over the barriers while the player and others can not.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

I'm not sure of flying/walking critter interaction, but for the PC flying, one possible trick, if all else fails, is to simply have two maps, one ground-based, one air-based. They'd resemble each other in terms of background, but you can now vary obstacles/enemies/NPC interactions, what have you. (I sort of doubt that you'd be battling the exact same critters, or trying to contact the farmer walking about on the ground) An 'airport' would serve as the door tween the two maps, which doesn't necessairly have to be indoors or small (Landing strip, field, whatnot.) This also allows for some nice cheating, in the good way. The arial map could be of a zoomed out scale (e.g, objects that take 5 units on ground appear as one in the air), speeding up travel, glancing over unncessary details and letting city names be part of the background. Hope this helps.

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My Wish List:

As said on the 1st message, 3..

3. Make access a choice in conditional events. Example: If access is equal to 1 (which I'm using for land), play an animation of the airship landing, then change to player. If access is greater than 1 (sea, mountains, deserts), then play the animation of the airship crashing, game over

This is really a MUST. I am going crazy with the conditional actions, please Dee more than a feature this must be treated as a bug

Change NPC Parameters on an event instead on spawning new ones. It should not be very difficult to implement imho.

Animations for NPC and Players for for hit, exploded, and dead. Players wants to see corpses lying around instead of dissapearing.

Give objetcs to NPC? Can we give items to NPC? I haven't found a do this.

Weather effects: Rain, Snow / Day/Dusk/Night

I have a ton of more feedback if you like.

Amando

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Quote

Originally posted by Amando:
**My Wish List:

As said on the 1st message, 3..

3. Make access a choice in conditional events. Example: If access is equal to 1 (which I'm using for land), play an animation of the airship landing, then change to player. If access is greater than 1 (sea, mountains, deserts), then play the animation of the airship crashing, game over

This is really a MUST. I am going crazy with the conditional actions, please Dee more than a feature this must be treated as a bug

Change NPC Parameters on an event instead on spawning new ones. It should not be very difficult to implement imho.

Animations for NPC and Players for for hit, exploded, and dead. Players wants to see corpses lying around instead of dissapearing.

Give objetcs to NPC? Can we give items to NPC? I haven't found a do this.

Weather effects: Rain, Snow / Day/Dusk/Night

I have a ton of more feedback if you like.

Amando

**

Just worked a little on some death animation ideas. They all fall down on a fairly simple game engine problem; there is no way of putting in a variable refering to current coordinates of the NPC.

At least it is trivial to change the player animation. I even see how to do a "Power Pete" style one-button switch of weapon and associated picture.

Oh...a bug indeed; the ground displayed in the Map Editor is not the same as the final compiled game. It shifts by one tile NW, I think (haven't set up a way to measure more accurately).

Weather effects can be done with stamps and events. I've been playing with shadows, myself.

I second two items from your wish list; conditional access by entity, not by tile event, and a way to retrieve coordinates of NPC and player at any moment.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Quote

They all fall down on a fairly simple game engine problem; there is no way of putting in a variable refering to current coordinates of the NPC.

actually, according to the manual, you could use the &&ActualX; - &&ActualY; Tag Value. In fact, the manual defines this tag value as "The map coordinates of the active NPC (ex.: if you use these in an event linked to a NPC death, these will represent its map coordinates)."

So its supposedly possible, BUT, whenever i have tried this (with an NPC death event), i get an error about using a non-integer value or something (possible bug?). Anybody have a clue about how to use this Tag Value?

Quote

Animations for NPC and Players for for hit, exploded, and dead. Players wants to see corpses lying around instead of dissapearing.

YES! I totally agree. If we were able to modify this type of stuff, combat would be way more interesting.

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jwalton
......................................
(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by jwalton:
**YES! I totally agree. If we were able to modify this type of stuff, combat would be way more interesting.

**

That does seem to be the problem. ActualX,Y (and PlayerX.Y) are interesting but useless...I have yet to find anywhere within the game where these values can be used -- not as a stamp or tile change, not as a spawn NPC, not as a teleport. What are we missing? Why were they provided if they can't be used? (I suspect they are only intended for conditional; aka "is the NPC currently within the elevator?")

This one change...allowing global variables to be used for coordinate entry for all actions with coordinates, would add an impressive amount of functionality to the engine, and as well address many of the wish-list problems others have given. Imagine. Not just death animations. Not just localized spell effects. But even conditional tile access! (Event; cast "desolid" on self. Action; set access for tile at PlayerX,Y).

We should start a poll or something.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Quote

ActualX,Y (and PlayerX.Y) are interesting but useless...I have yet to find anywhere within the game where these values can be used

same here

Quote

(I suspect they are only intended for conditional; aka "is the NPC currently within the elevator?")

hmm....
i dont know about that, personally, I think its either a bug, or we are missing something important about thier use (syntax..?). since the manual actually gives this example:
"(ex.: if you use these in an event linked to a NPC death, these will represent its map coordinates)"

I think somewhere else in the manual, it is mentioned that you can use this to have an NPC drop items at the NPC location when it dies....

anyway, it seems that they are supposed to work, and its a bug, or we are doing something wrong....
glances hopefully in the direction of the 'devs

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jwalton
......................................
(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

NPC allies.... (a second copy of each AI type taht attacks monsters instead of the player and is attacked by monsters). Other than that, I haven't messed with CS enough to see what it needs, and what I think it needs now but can actually be pulled off with existing features (example: I'm almost done working out how to make a side scroller of sorts, based on the SNES game Dragon View)

Also, anything Madman requests, I second. He seems to have a lot of good ideas.

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(This message has been edited by Catfish_Man (edited 01-23-2002).)

Quote

Originally posted by jwalton:
**hmm....
i dont know about that, personally, I think its either a bug, or we are missing something important about thier use (syntax..?). since the manual actually gives this example:
"(ex.: if you use these in an event linked to a NPC death, these will represent its map coordinates)"

I think somewhere else in the manual, it is mentioned that you can use this to have an NPC drop items at the NPC location when it dies....

anyway, it seems that they are supposed to work, and its a bug, or we are doing something wrong....
glances hopefully in the direction of the 'devs

**

Unfortunately, as I read that statment in the manual (given the context), what it is saying is that &&ActualX;, Y is a call that returns the location of the NPC that just died. If, that is, you called it within an event linked from the NPC death (sorry that isn't clear...really need a screen shot to show some of these buttons). I have yet to find a way of using the value (for anything other than comparisons.

Given that other statement about placing items, tho, I hold out hope there is some arcane phrasing that actually works...

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

page 42:

Quote

Launch Item:
Launch specific or random items on the current map at the given coordinates. You can also use this
action type to launch a specific amount of gold. All the edit fields of this dialog are compatible with
tag values (see the “Tag values” section below). You can choose to launch an item on the current
map at specific coordinates or you can launch it at the actual coordinates. The default value of
the actual coordinates is equal to the player’s position on the current map. However, if the action is
called within an event linked to an NPC (linked to its death for example – see the NPC editor section),
these coordinates will be equal to the NPC’s position on the map. The same principle is true for an
event linked to an item that calls a launch item action (like a chest). If you launch gold pieces (if you
specify a number greater than 0), it will use the gold picture specified in the game options “Misc”
panel.

I interpret that to mean that if you call an event linked to a NPC, then you can use tag values to launch an item at the exact location of the NPC. (in this case, NPC dies, chest appears in place of NPC). It specifically points out that the edits work with tag values.

I am not saying Tag Values work. I am saying the manual claims they work. Which means we are looking at a bug.

am I wrong?

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jwalton
......................................
(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by jwalton:
**page 42:

I interpret that to mean that if you call an event linked to a NPC, then you can use tag values to launch an item at the exact location of the NPC. (in this case, NPC dies, chest appears in place of NPC). It specifically points out that the edits work with tag values.

I am not saying Tag Values work. I am saying the manual claims they work. Which means we are looking at a bug.

am I wrong?

**

Again, the manual is not as clear as it could be. The ability to launch an item at an NPC's death location is peculiar to the "launch item" action, and the radio button for "actual location" occurs there and only there. Which is to say....1) nothing here explicitly states that && values may be used in coordinates, and, 2) only items can be sent to a dynamic location.

Incidently, the piles of gold that appear in the demo use none of this; they use a built-in game code. The animation is selected via the edit options (last page). Which does suggest a work-around for death animation; replace the gold animation. Two problems; the NPC still insists on fading at death (ah, but NPC control, triggered at death, could work to delete the NPC without a fade). And the dead body will vanish after increasing the character's gold (okay, so maybe you buried the body after searching it and taking it's purse)...

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

This problem intrigues me... I must make it work... Yes. Yes I will... more from me when I do, unless someone else figures it out first... Can't you drop an item at death and have it be the corpse? I'm not sure how animations would work with this, but-- Well, I'll play with it.

->Day<-