Before you flame me, know this: Yes, I KNOW that you can't make multiplayer games with Coldstone! What I mean by this question is... how can you make allies? It mentions non-hostile Npc's in the manual - just make them have zero hit points (stamina, I know, toMAto toMAHto). Is 'ally' just an artificial intelligence type? I ask this because I want to make parties of multiple charas, and I don't know Coldstone's limits on this.

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In this version, you can't have npc's as allies. You can have them as neutrals, but not allies.

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The word politics is derived from the words poly, meaning many, and tics, referring to blood sucking parasytes.

Well, now, that depends on what you mean by "ally"...
But if you want a creature who can fight with you against a foe the same
way that the foe is fighting you, no luck.

I plan on having a friendly npc follow me around in my adventures who will
step in and fight on my behalf at certain times... but I'm doing it using scripted
events, not a standard fight. This npc will be set to always try to reach me, but with
a slightly slower speed than me. In the initialization event for each map the program will check a global and then pop the npc in to my location if I currently have the npc. The npc will jump in and fight for me using scripted events... perhaps when I use an item, a dialog will come up, an event will take place that will "attack" the evil npc.

The functionality you are talking about is DEFINITLY #1 on mine (and others?) requested features for upcoming Coldstone features! I mean, what's a roleplaying game without a party?

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You could make allies, but it would take an incredible long and complicate script for each character. Basically, you'd have to set hundreds of variable, find a way for the ally to locate an enemy, set their "try to reach" mode to track that enemy, change the animation, use about 2 dozen variables to determine damage, hits, etc. I thought it through and I think you could make it work...but would you want to? I don't.

I am doing a game with multiple characters, but you only play as and control one at a time. I may have the other characters follow when they would be present. All their stats are stored in the variables. I'm also routing the current leveling system for one of my own design, because I wan't the stats to reach high numbers (ala Final Fantasy in numbers) and have more control over leveling, if anyone has suggestions on this I'd appreciate it.

My current side project is a system in which you jump to a new screen when encountering an enemy. Then the battles are turn based, with a party. Its possible, but I have to completely ditch the current battle system and create a new one with reams of "code" (we need a good word for what you do in coldstone, cause its not really coding or programing), I'm just plugging it into the defaul game for right now to test it. I know how to do a lot of the stats stuff, but I need some help with random monsters and stuff. Any ideas?

Oh, and if you plan to use an item, have it cast a spell. There's more stuff you can do with a spell.

You I've gotten this working. Right now, I'm trying to go from a final fantasy type system to saga frontier type system. Email me if you need some help.

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The word politics is derived from the words poly, meaning many, and tics, referring to blood sucking parasytes.

How about just making a player character animation with 2 or more characters in it? you can have them move in formation and then have a animation to one of the player and his allies walking in a line. when the formation reaches a bridge or something, add a tile event switching the player animation tofrom formation to line, then on the other side make it switch back (use a global variable to see wich kind).

You'd still need a override battle system, but I've already thought up multiple ways of doing that, and a lot of other people are working in that direction too..

if you are doing a 'final copyrightinfringementsuit' kind of game, you'll probably have cut scenes leadign to battle locations, where battles are fought trough dialog choices..

piece of cake really

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if you are doing a 'final copyrightinfringementsuit' kind of game, you'll probably have cut scenes leadign to battle locations, where battles are fought trough dialog choices..

piece of cake really

**

Using the battle system isn't copyrightinfringment, a large number of games use similar or identical systems. Using their names, plots, or magic systems might.

The multiple characters in a single animation would work, although it would look really clunky without being able to add transition animations. With the current animation limits, when you turned, the characters would seem to jump. You could solve this by using your own keys for control, ie. I = north J = west etc.

So can anyone think of a way to do an atb?

How about a turn based battle system where you move the characters a certain distance on their turn, then the attack or cast spells based on range.

using some of those hacks you could do it:

playerx=playerx+1.
(turn players animation to white/transparent)
add npc ad playerx-1
npc is an animation that has the char walking to the new square.
change the chars graphic to (standing right i believe for this code)
delete the npc.

any idea how you could change the interact button by doing it through custom events?

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The word politics is derived from the words poly, meaning many, and tics, referring to blood sucking parasytes.

Check for an engine call, I'm too tired to think of anything else.

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Originally posted by thebeagle:
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I plan on having a friendly npc follow me around in my adventures who will
step in and fight on my behalf at certain times... but I'm doing it using scripted
events, not a standard fight. This npc will be set to always try to reach me, but with
a slightly slower speed than me. In the initialization event for each map the program will check a global and then pop the npc in to my location if I currently have the npc. The npc will jump in and fight for me using scripted events... perhaps when I use an item, a dialog will come up, an event will take place that will "attack" the evil npc.

**

You could change the player icon to the NPC icon, and replace the player icon with the NPC ones. Not too hard...

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Quote

Originally posted by the Necromicon:
**You could change the player icon to the NPC icon, and replace the player icon with the NPC ones. Not too hard...

**

The "NPC set to follow" was what I was going to do when I was briefly tempted to do a quick run-off of a Don Quixote game. The NPC would be Sancho, of course. Or two guys with coconuts (for you Monty Python fans).

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Originally posted by the Necromicon:
**You could change the player icon to the NPC icon, and replace the player icon with the NPC ones. Not too hard...

**

OOoo. Now THAT is clever. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks... I'm not sure how I'll implement it, but that's a great technique.

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