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I see. But providing that doing so would not crash the original games, why not let the unslotted items stay where they are?

 

Even if that is not possible, you must realise that at some point many points of compatibility will probably have to be ditched, for GemRB to reach its full potential. People will not just want to play the original games on linux, you can mostly do this already with wine.

 

The real prize is in eventually being able to improve upon the infinity engine, is it not?

 

Personally, I dream of ditching the stupid paper doll and slotted inventory screen altogether. In every IE game I see it more frequently than the actual game world screen.... Whatever is wrong with just having it as a list, like with pen and paper DnD? You only need it to tell you what a character has, not play tetris with potions and scrolls and wands just so you can use them on the quick item bar.

 

Anyway, I have many thoughts on this and I am trying to look into it.

 

-chiv

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It would be cool if variables could be used as tokens in strings.

 

For example,

 

My profession is <"ProfessionValue","GLOBAL">.

 

And the global variable "ProfessionValue" would reference a string value.

 

Or have tokens reference strings through dialogues rather than values, so that conditions could be set up for what string appears.

 

-Galactygon

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Hi everyone!

 

I'm french and I don't speak english very well but I want to say that I love you for what you are trying to do! You are the proud knights of internet! (or something like that...) ^^

 

I just wanted to know if you were planning to create an editor (as for NWN, if you can see what I mean) when gemrb is done (even if it is a few years, I can be patient since I live without BG for many years :)) to create some additionnal content more easily, or if it will be possible to other people to create it.

 

I know that some editors exist, but I think that it would be cleaner and more powerful to have an editor which is compatible / complementary with GemRB. It would also be interesting to have one tool instead of a plethora of little ones, which could work under windows as well as under linux or Mac OS.

 

I hope that you will understand me. Thank You!

Romain

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DLTCEP and NI are single tools that work on most filetypes.

NI is written in java, so it works on any machine right now.

DLTCEP will need to be ported and rewritten as it is a windows application.

So, if i ever write something like that, it'll look like DLTCEP :)

 

By the way, both of these editors are open sourced, DLTCEP is on sourceforge.

So, one shouldn't wait for me to port it :)

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Some idea I thought of months ago would be attaching script blocks to Extension Headers and Feature Blocks in spells, items, and effects in a similar way as dialogues.

 

For example, you could have certain effects of a spell applied if the target has a certain state, or has a certain INT score. Or have certain item abilities appear if the character is a certain class or has certain stats, while still enabling the item to be worn by other classes.

 

-Galactygon

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In other words you want conditional effects like the IDS targeting opcode #177, but with other stats?

 

Actually, i already implemented this :(

It is using the mechanism for spell protections introduced in iwd (and iwd2).

In iwd this is responsible for stuff like blind people are immune to umber hulk gaze.

It is an ugly, hardcoded piece of code in iwd, but i made it slightly smarter.

Check out splprot.2da in gemrb's iwd override folder.

 

From the documentation (not in CVS yet):

 

Description: This table implements spell resistances based on a simple condition of the target's stats.

One row defines a certain 'semi-hardcoded' condition. For iwd/iwd2 these conditions were hardcoded into the engine.

 

Columns -

STAT - the name or number of the stat

VALUE - a value which has to match the stat

RELATION - a symbol for the comparation to be performed

COMMENT - unused by GemRB, it is just a reminder

 

Rows - spell immunity conditions

 

An example:

3 RESISTFIRE 100 4 fire_resistance>=100

4 RESISTFIRE 100 2 fire_resistance<100

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In other words you want conditional effects like the IDS targeting opcode #177, but with other stats?

 

Almost. Except other conditions could be used (not just states). For example, a spell effect could happen only when a global is set to a certain value (so it's plot specidic), or if a certain door was opened.

 

Actually, i already implemented this :(

...

 

It would be nice to combine both, so there would be an alternative to scripting.

 

-Galactygon

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This may already be implemented, but it would be nice to have an effect that would allow spell dice rolls to be weighted (higher, lower, median) or just outright forced to be maximum or minimum. I don't believe there is such an effect in BG2: ToB.

 

Another nice one, would be an effect that allows the spell level to be modified. This could take percentages or intergers. Again, I don't see this in BG2:ToB

 

A third one, would be modifying the power level, similar to the spell level modifier. Another thing I haven't found in BG2:ToB.

 

Customizable Select spell that lets you add additional entries via script in-game. This would allow one to build a specific spell on the fly based on all sorts of globals/locals, and scripting values.

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The spell level modifier exists in the IE, at least in theory.

I will implement it as it was intended.

 

In the IWD branch, there is a damage modifier, which is almost the same as you wanted. It won't adjust the dice rolls, but adds a percentage value to the damage, depending on the type.

 

I'm not sure about the power level. I think the engine never uses Power, it always uses Caster Level.

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A power level of 0 is what dispel is set to, along with a lot of other effects if you want to bypass any sort of "protected against spells level 5 and below". Most of the time the casting level and power level are the same, but other times they aren't. I thought it was the power level that really determined what the spell's effectiveness was, whereas the caster level just determines what extended header is used.

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A power level of 0 is what dispel is set to, along with a lot of other effects if you want to bypass any sort of "protected against spells level 5 and below". Most of the time the casting level and power level are the same, but other times they aren't. I thought it was the power level that really determined what the spell's effectiveness was, whereas the caster level just determines what extended header is used.

Yep, this was what i thought too.

But as i peek inside the engine, i saw nothing about power.

It could be that spell level protection uses power, i didn't check that.

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"Power" is the level of the effect. Used for spell level protection (Immunity to spell level). *Spell* level is usually equivalent to power (except where you have reason to bypass immunities by level). I don't believe the actual spell level value is really used for anything (nothing pertaining to spellcasting and effects at least). 0 isn't a special value (nor is any other number); there just isn't anything that provides protection from Power 0 effects, so it always bypasses.

 

Caster level determines the ability chosen (which is the sole determiner of effectiveness), and I believe they also have it work for dispel (but it could be power or a combination; don't much care). (Dispel probably also checks the parent resref so it can remove every effect from a particular spell or item.) I don't think there's much use for it outside this. Caster level has no relevance for spell level immunity.

 

I don't think there's any reason to have a power mod; as you noted, CASTERLEVELMOD (MAGE and CLERIC) will (finally!) be made to actually do what they say, which may be what Caedwyr was asking for. ;)

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I just thought at something which could be of interest : make gemrb modular.

 

I mean :

permits in one game to have more than one dialog.tlk (and perhaps chitin.key, but I'm not sure this would be possible)

 

This could be something like this :

one folder per mod, in which we put a dialog.tlk and the new resources (tiles, areas, kits...)

 

a file which lists the mods available and whether they are activated or not.

 

an in-game menu (at character creation ? ) where people would select the mods they want to play.

 

This would also permit to install mods which are not compatible against each other.

 

When multiplayer is handled, this would allow the server of the game to upload the files needed to play the mods it has.

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Yes, this would be fun, if possible.

And for simple NPC mods that are little more than dialogs, it is possible.

But recently mods became very complex. They started to modify projectiles, for example. Or the song list. These couldn't be modded.

 

The solution would be to offer resref based referencing instead of lists.

 

Then there is the save game problem, how do i reference these additional dialog.tlk's?

What if one host has mode .tlk's, installed a new mod, removed an old mod?

There would be great confusion.

 

The solution would be to pack these tlks with the saved game, as the original engine does it with the custom strings (tot/toh files). The save files would grow bigger.

 

 

'When multiplayer is handled' : well, right now there isn't even an idea when (or how) multiplayer will be implemented.

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