Please can you hurry up and unlock the hirelings thingy in the next update ? cuz i need them so much not just for hirelings (people on players team) but things like complicated spells and stuff

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Hi its me again

Well, you're going to be waiting for a while. It's a shame, though, really.

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"Then you do believe that we are real. You think us capable of not forgiving you. Who would forgive you more readily than your dream?"
"No," the Unbeliever said. "Dreams never forgive."
-Stephen Donaldson,
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

:frown:
nuts

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Hi its me again

Yeah... everyone is simmering that Beenox didn't take the extra 15 minutes to implement allies into the interface. Hopefully they'll have an extra 15 minutes once The VATZ is done... :rolleyes:

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If passion rules reason, how can you allow only reason to rule you?
— Cafall

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Hopefully they'll have an extra 15 minutes once The VATZ is done...

That's that 3D engine, right?

There may be a bunch of things not in Coldstone that I'd want, but if I can have allies/NPCs fighting each other I'd have everything I'd want.

How is that VATZ thing coming anyway?

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Someone give me a funny signature! PLEASE!

Well, as for The VATZ, you can check yourself right here (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com/game_vatz.html")http://www.beenox.com/game_vatz.html(/url)

I have an idea about how to do allies, but not much of a substitute. Hostile npc's cannot fight the pretend ally using my method.

First you create an NPC with, for example, 10 health. That would make it, technically, hostile, but if it can't hurt the player, then who cares?
Set the dexterity on the NPC absurdly high, so the player hurt him. Also set him to an offensive caster and make him try to reach the player. You will also need to create a number of spells for the NPC. Set them to damage, with the target being "allies," and the spell type being offensive.
Now, the NPC should follow the player, and try to cast offensive spells, but they won't hurt the player, but the hostiles recieving damage. Now, if I'm correct, as long as your buddy has enough mana, he won't bother trying to attack the player, but I could be wrong.

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Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

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Originally posted by spitfire:
**snip
**

Had that same idea myself several weeks ago. The main problems are 1. The 'ally' will attack all hostile NPC's at once, including itself. 2. When no true enemies are in sight, the 'ally' will cast its spells constantly, killing itself very foolishly.

You can get around the kill itself in both parts by giving it high resistance to an elemental type used in all of its attacks. The other limitations (attack all at once, casting with enemies) can't be removed nearly as easily, if at all. Sorry to ruin this for you, but StarkBledfast and I tested it earlier, and this was what we determined.

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"Then you do believe that we are real. You think us capable of not forgiving you. Who would forgive you more readily than your dream?"
"No," the Unbeliever said. "Dreams never forgive."
-Stephen Donaldson,
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

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Originally posted by Celchu:
**Had that same idea myself several weeks ago. The main problems are 1. The 'ally' will attack all hostile NPC's at once, including itself. 2. When no true enemies are in sight, the 'ally' will cast its spells constantly, killing itself very foolishly.

**

1. Like you said, high resistance...
2. Add a few healing spells (with the target set to caster). The animations would look weird though...

Well, Coldstone was not made (yet, hopefully) for allies. And the points you made are good. If you are desparate for allies (which I'm not, btw) then its possible, but a poor substitute.

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Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

(This message has been edited by spitfire (edited 08-03-2002).)

As to what Sum1 was saying at the beginning, if you desperately needed two NPCs fighting eachother, you could make some animations to place at points. That could make for a very interesting war front.

50B3R K3NNy

VATZ Looks so awesome! I can't wait for it to come out! Sorry if this seems like spam, but I'd like Beenox Members to see this and let them know it looks AWESOME!

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Be carefree like the
bunny; nibble on grass,
prance through fields.

(This message has been edited by PinkFluffyBunny (edited 08-11-2002).)

A method that I am using is a Guard who accompanies the player to the end of a hallway filled with monsters.

First, make him slower so he doesn't outrun the PC. Then, make it so he runs to a speceific cell. Once he reaches there, play the animation of him attacking, then use spell wizard to cast a spell on all the enemies. Then, set it to delete him once he reaches the cell, and place another one with a different location. This is a very clunky method and sometimes doesn't work all to well.

Another one is to have a passive character who has try to reach player and will do the same thing with spells.

Hope that helps.

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Originally posted by smodis:
**Another one is to have a passive character who has try to reach player and will do the same thing with spells.
**

Passive (Stamina=0, right?) NPC's will never use spells.

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Consider. If passion rules our reasoning, and we are ruled by logic, we are all simply unwitting slaves to emotion, pretending to be greater than what we truly are.

My idea:

1. Fill a castle with a hundred defenders spread over various points.
2. Give the player directions to go through a spesific path to get inside the castle and get to some goal I haven't yet thought of—though leaving any other path open as an option.
   3)Have a bunch of friendly soldiers provide cover for the path that the player was directed to take.

If the player follows the directions or the battle goes well, the player will have a greater chance of survival. But if the player is too slow, makes a wrong turn, or simply decides to go the wrong way, he or she will need to face far more enemies, likely dieing. And in the game I have planned, I intend for death to end the adventure.

Oh, and on the point of graphics; coldstone can make scenes looking as good—no, better than baldur's gate, if used by a graphics artist with skill enough to make proper use of a fully-3D environment. Sure, it'll kick ass once I learn (url="http://"http://www.aliaswavefront.com")Maya(/url) to have a fully-3D environment, but unless it's got all of the technical details I've heard rumors of for coldstone, as well as the ability to compile for both mac and windows, I'm sticking with coldstone.

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Originally posted by smodis:
First, make him slower so he doesn't outrun the PC. Then, make it so he runs to a speceific cell. Once he reaches there, play the animation of him attacking, then use spell wizard to cast a spell on all the enemies. Then, set it to delete him once he reaches the cell, and place another one with a different location. This is a very clunky method and sometimes doesn't work all to well.

This would work, assuming you utilize the "Target reached" event to fire the spell.

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Another one is to have a passive character who has try to reach player and will do the same thing with spells.

This one will not work. If the NPC is set to stamina 0 (thus he is non-aggressive) then he will not cast spells. Ever. Regardless of his attack type. And if you set him to a positive stamina then he is automatically an enemy of the player. In this scenario he will either try to attack the player, or if you set him as a defensive caster then he will cast spells only that affect allies(which in this case would be enemies of the player). Again if you give him spells that are offensive in nature but targets allies then this NPC will cast spells targetting the enemies. However he will cast repeatedly until he runs out of magic points or until he kills himself(with his own spells). So this isn't a really good option.

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"But soon, soon, soon... the world will be a better place, with meadows and bunnies and fiber optics in every home..."
- Tom Dowdy, Apple Computer
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I think I know why CGE didnt make hirelings. Hirelings kill stuff, right? When something is destoyed, the player gets experiance, right? Well, If a hireling kills a creature, the player would get the experiance. So in your game, the player will walk around and let the hireling kill stuff and the hireling will risk its life just to get the player experiance. So it would take more than 15 minutes for beenox to make, and your game will take longer to create. But, If you see a hireling kill something, your player will know methods, and should still get the experiance. That last sentence was me looking at the situation at a different point of view. Hope I didnt barge in or something. And I hope I helped! ~~Chrios

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That's a really bad reason... Coldstone isn't some game, that beenox wants to have fairness and challenges in. It's a game creator and it's up to the users to decide what their games should be like.

And besides, I really doubt that anyone would make a game where you just sit back and let everything play itself out to victory. I certainly don't intend to. But being able to have people on your side is vital to most of my plans, as it looks really stupid when you go up against an entire army and win.

Also, I am reminded of Avernum 2, where you had to navigate deep into enemy territory while avoiding certain points where there were large battalions of enemy soldiers. Rather than having any chance at passing them, you simply died without a fight if you got close enough.

On the other hand, there was this one point where you had to infiltrate a large enemy base, and you had a large force of allies helping you gain enterance. That's the kind of thing that I'd like to do.

Most other games simply make you a virtualally invincible hero that takes on entire armies and wins singlehandedly. That's not what I want. Also, coldstone can't do parties. Most people will want parties.

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Quote

Originally posted by smodis:
First, make him slower so he doesn't outrun the PC. Then, make it so he runs to a speceific cell. Once he reaches there, play the animation of him attacking, then use spell wizard to cast a spell on all the enemies. Then, set it to delete him once he reaches the cell, and place another one with a different location. This is a very clunky method and sometimes doesn't work all to well.

Originally replied to by Stark Bledfast: **
This would work, assuming you utilize the "Target reached" event to fire the spell.**

On further reflection I don't believe this will work. The reason being is that there is no way, to my knowledge, to a link an event to a spell. Ie, there is no "cast" event object, so you couldn't have the "Target reached" event fire off a spell. The only 2 spell event objects that Coldstone currently has are "Spell Selection" which allows a player to choose a spell to learn, and "Spell Wizard" which adds a spell to the player's spell book. But there is no object that will cast a spell to my knowledge.

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"But soon, soon, soon... the world will be a better place, with meadows and bunnies and fiber optics in every home..."
- Tom Dowdy, Apple Computer
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"I really doubt that anyone would make a game where you just sit back and let everything play itself out to victory." Well, thats what would happen, Sage Aro. And you did back me up! Beenox probably thought that too! And, you forgot about the experiance part!(That was my reason, the experiance) ~Chrios

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sigh

I assume your being sarcastic. If people want to, then let them. Who cares? I for one do not want to. But I DO want there to be a difference between charging in alone, and having two dozen people behind you. Doing so would add a lot more non-linearity to my games.

Look back on other games you've played. In most cases, it didn't matter what you did in a major batle, as long as you won every encounter that you were supposed to win. Everything would be all right in the end, anyway.

What I want is for people to have to make choices and use their judgement in a battle. To have the wrong choice lead to a much harder battle, the loss of a close friend, or some kind of different outcome. In most games of the past, all you had to do to ensure the one outcome other than a 'game over' was to kill everything that crossed your path.

I think that's stupid, and if I see an RPG maker that offers that sooner than I see it in coldstone, then I'm not going to use coldstone. and most RPG makers won't compile for Mac OS. This system is the core of all of my plans, plots, and ideas. People who make the game get to consider what is cheating and what is not.

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And, you forgot about the experiance part!(That was my reason, the experiance) ~Chrios

Ah yes, that's right. As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see a checkbox that would determine whether or not experience gained by an ally would go to the player. Doing so would make sense for parties and such, but not doing so would make more sense for when you just had allies on your side.

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(This message has been edited by Sage Aro (edited 08-20-2002).)

"I'd like to see a checkbox that would determine whether or not experience gained by an ally would go to the player. Doing so would make sense for parties and such, but not doing so would make more sense for when you just had allies on your side."
I completely agree Sage Aro.(Glad to have that cleared up.) I mean, everyone has to have more than one person to defeat a city of giant undead warriors that rose out of the ground by the evil Warlock of Doom summonning them. So PLEEEEASSSEEE coldstone can you make a checkbox and parties and allies and followers,ect.? Please? ~Chrios

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