Gavin's progress

[Gorilym]

Wow, to say that you are fast would be an understatement. Have you considered getting Gavin a (sub)forum somewhere? For one thing, it'd be an appropriate place to put up screenshots etc.

[berelinde]

I'd like to, but he isn't done yet. I was thinking about looking into it when he's out of private alpha. It's one thing for an established modder, but it's another for someone who is learning as they go. Heck, I'm still giddy over getting the installation to work!

[Wounded_Lion]

The mod is fairly customizable. I've set it up so that the PID, Tutu waking speeds, romance, and romance timer (choice of 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes) can all be installed separately. When I've got the flirts done, that will be separate, too.

 

Wow. That's impressive. I think that Gavin might be the only NPC mod (soon-to-be) available to offer a variable romance timer (I've never heard of that feature). I like. I might have to study your work when you release the mod to learn a thing or two.

 

All in all, the mod sounds veeery cool.

 

- D

[berelinde]

Thanks for the complement, Wounded Lion, but I can't take credit for the romance timer. BG1 NPC has one, and I got the idea and the example from that. I felt it would be nice for someone who uses both to have them be as compatible as possible. The tp2 just uses a forced subcomponent to install a different version of the romance.baf. The versions differ from each other by exactly one line, RealSetGlobal("B!GavinLovetalkTimer","GLOBAL",XXXX).

[Menelanna]

hey, have been watching this mod and it looks really promising. can't wait till you are finished with it so i can play it! but a small question. will Gavin have romance conflicts with the other men? I would like to know. well, keep up the great work.

[berelinde]

Gavin will have conflicts, but only to a point. There will be no duels, nor anything nearly as spectacular as what Domi, Kulyok and Jastey put together for the BG1 NPC Project. For one thing, it's already been done. For another, I just don't have the skill.

 

All four romanceable males in BG1 are of average or better intelligence, so they are bound to notice the attention of any competition. They will exchange words over the course of the romance. The heat of those words depends on the men involved, and their personalities and values. I've been fortunate enough to have input from all three BG1 male-NPC romance writers, and they have each contributed some valuable commentary.

 

But besides all that, Gavin is a fairly nonagressive guy. There is only one NPC in all of BG1 that will provoke a violent reaction, and he isn't in the party. We'll save that one for a surprise

 

 

Edit: Gavin will be recruitable earlier than Xan or Coran. For those that want to have everyone on the same lovetalk, Gavin has a few pre-commitment LTs with special conditions, like camping outside during the daytime or staying at an inn. You can delay those to give the others a chance to catch up. There's a guide in the package.

[Wounded_Lion]

...Gavin is a fairly nonagressive guy.

 

But what will he do when his competition is aggressive? Will he calmly step aside, or will he fight for CHARNAME?

 

- D

[berelinde]

Tee hee! I'm sure I would have noticed if a fight were going to break out.

 

I don't write AI, pacifist or otherwise, so if a player wants to cause one gentleman to attack another, or if a player who is also a modder wants to stir something up, they will have to either click the sword icon or insert the appropriate code on their own.

[berelinde]

*Lots* of bug-squashing to do. Lots and lots and lots.

 

The concurrency counter I set up did not work the way I thought it would. Well, it did for a while, but then it took off exponentially, because I put it in the wrong spot. Needs work, but I think I know how to fix it.

 

And my PIDs are messed up. They worked great for non-friend NPC, friendship, early romance, later pre-commitment romance, and committed romance, but they got really messed up for terminated romance. But again, I think I know what's wrong.

 

And I came up with about 6 more interjections that should have been in there the whole time.

 

There were about 15 more bugs that I caught and was able to change via console in game, but I've still got a long way to go.

[cmorgan]

Take heart, berelide -- those aren't delays or "bugs". Each one of these puppies is not just a learning experience,; each one of these things you fix is multiple posts down the road that you don't have to go re-investigate!!!

[berelinde]

To tell the truth, the in-game bug fixing was kind of fun. I felt a bit like Dr. Frankenstein: change *this* and then *that* happens. It was satisfying to pause the game, open up the BAF or the D, find the relevant text, and then go "Oh, yeah. That's what's going on." And then be able to make everything all right with a score of characters after "CLUAConsole:".

 

What was *not* fun was the eight hours it took to finally figure out a nice, simple solution to the concurrency counter problem. But it would have had to happen sooner or later.

[berelinde]

And it took a lot longer to find the right timing setting for the longer script required by the concurrency counter, but it all works.

 

Music is edited and integrated, and working in game. I was surprised how easy it was to add music. I must have done something wrong. If you're curious, it's a traditional piece called "The Pearl," as performed by a long-defunct Scottish folk band called Silly Wizard. I should probalby look into permissions, but I'll save that for another day.

 

So now, I'm at the point where friendtalks, lovetalks, and interjections are progeressing as they should. PID is up and running as it should, and all I need to do is troubleshoot the string-fixer and close a global that causes an interjection to repeat. Brief explanation: Gavin really only has something to say in one given situation where the reaction roll is very high. The variable doesn't close, so it repeats for PID, for other interjections, whatever. All I need to do is add a state to close that variable if the conditions for closing it otherwise are not met.

 

I'm taking the time to do this now, because adding extra LTs are no big deal. The important part is getting them to work and the variable to advance in the first place.

 

Everyone has their strong suit. For me, learning to write the code is harder than writing the dialog.

[EiriktheScald]

How many hours of playtesting do you estimate for your alpha?

[berelinde]

That depends how many more bugs are lying in wait

 

At present, I've still got a lot of writing to do. Now that I've got an alpha I can playtest, I can play a bit, fix the bugs, play a bit more, fix a few more, that kind of thing. I'm not at the point where I can guarantee that it won't break anybody's game.

 

And then there's the question of the 20 remaining LTs. They've got place-holder messages that come up in game like ~LT 26 would happen now if it were written. Subject: (second post-Bhaal) forgiveness~

 

How many more hours is your mod going to take?

[EiriktheScald]

Just wanted to get an idea of what I was getting myself into.

 

"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."

J.R.R. Tolkien