6.02?

It won't be long, but the 6.0.2 that does come out (before too long) won't contain any additional NC, just bugfixes and tweaks.

I'm working on some NC stuff having to do with Scarlet Brotherhood expansion and retribution, but it will appear in a later release. It still needs a lot of work.

Some of the majot tweaks in 6.0.2 will be:

• All generally good and lawful aligned NPCs will object to the attack/killing of other generally good and lawful aligned NPCs. This means that they will separate from your party, make an angry statement, and attack you.
  
  Generally, LG, NG, CG, and LN NPCs will do this. Generally, LG, NG, CG, LN, and TN NPCs will be the beneficiaries. This means that Elmo won't like it if you attack Armario the cabinet maker, but he won't mind if you attack Wat. Wonnilon (true neutral) won't mind if you attack Armario, but others will mind if you attack him. And Turuko won't mind if you attack anybody. And so on. Some NPCs may even object to you attacking certain animals, like sheep and farm dogs.
  
  
• Paladins will fall for killing most any undeserving soul in Verbobonc.
  
  
• Disinterested NPCs will flee combat situations more effectively.

This in addition to the already announced reversions of the Moathouse chests et al and other things.

p.s. - Another significant thing: all NPCs who have dying scripts (e.g., dying sets a flag that makes other NPCs flip out, like Meleny's dad), now have resurrection scripts, so if they are brought back to life, you won't see NPCs complaining about them being dead while they're standing there. There were quite a few instances of this (although Meleny had already been fixed). Pretty much everybody who gives a damn should know just who's living and who's dead now.

 

Good questions ...

New content: probably not done with that. Aside from the new SB stuff, we have plans for more Hextor material. All this is due in part to feedback indicating that more fleshing out of these plotlines would be good. As for new new content, we still have to add in War of the Golden Skull. Other stuff may come as inspiration and time/availability dictates, which could mean anytime or never.

One thing we've been wondering about is oversaturation. The NC is in theory supposed to basically cover leveling from 11 (or thereabouts - wherever you'd finish vanilla) to 20. If we keep adding more stuff, eventually there will be more XP to be had than levels to gain. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing though ... so you stop leveling eventually as you continue adventuring, big deal. :shrug:

v7: very likely not on track for the first half of 2011, as we haven't even started working on that project yet. Most likely there will be a 6.5, which would contain the SB and Hextor expansion stuff and maybe dolio's spell fixes overhaul, then maybe a stable v7 of that later, then maybe a 7.5 that conatins WotGS beta, then a stable v8 of that later, etc. Don't really know yet.

Major quest/storyline: I suppose right now you could consider the fate of the rule of Verbobonc as that, although it's not exactly 'epic.' The nature of ad hominum mods tends to lend itself more to a sort of mixing bowl of abstract adventures, as you suggest. That may actually be best, as stopping 'teh evil of teh temple' is supposed to be your main goal in ToEE. Once again, we don't really know. We'll have to see what happens.

 

Since this seems to be sort of an update thread ...

Also in 6.0.2: Burne and Otis will have 'assistants' to do their bartering for them. This will relieve them of the burden of having to be adventurers and merchants at the same time (which then required all sorts of complex scripting to activate/deactivate one or the other, since there were actually two mobs of each - one to barter and another to adventure*).

Because of this, we also inadvertantly fixed the bug where Burne refreshed his inventory only once, which should make gazra happy.

Burne's assistant will sell scrolls in the floor below the main hall in the castle. Otis' assistant will sell arms and armor inside the smithy in Nulb. Their inventories will be identical to what Burne's and Otis' were.

This will also allow both Burne and Otis to have separate day/night standpoints instead of tirelessly burning the midnight oil outside or in the main hall. Burne will go upstairs at night with Rufus and Pishella, and Otis will go into the smithy.

Note that these assistants are different from the respective apprentices, Pishella and Sammy.

*Turns out that both mobs seemed to be active at the same time anyway. It was just generally not noticeable because they were standing in exactly the same places. Meh ... rather than trying to fix that, just adding assistants to do the bartering solves all those problems and does away with a bunch of scary code.

 

Am I correct in assuming that Mother Screng no longer sells from her shop inventory if she's been in and out of the party? If so, she should probably get an assistant too.

Are there any other combo merchant/adventurer NPCs that I'm missing?

 

Update:

Having a hell of a time with some of these really basic updates - getting the good NPCs to do what they're supposed to regarding interventions, etc. Also added an assistant to do Mother Screng's bartering but she doesn't want to refresh her inventory, even though she's using the exact same script as the others, blah-blah-blah ... and trying to get Otis to bang on his anvil now like a proper blacksmith would but he prefers to worship it instead, etc. Sometimes this engine is so goofy that it's just funny.

Anyway, we're getting closer ...

 

Update:

The above trials have been overcome and we're unofficially shooting for next Tuesday, 4/26, for release. Yay!

Also coming to 6.0.2: capital upgrades to Verbobonc! After 6.0.1, they tore down the old old arena and put up a new old arena that is significantly larger (actual size) and thus looks that much more impressive. They had to blow out some of the old buildings in the south to do this. Plus, there's a refurbished 'town square' area up by the city hall that features a circular glass underlit floor (that glows blue at night!) where the landing point/arrival point on the map is. It's more befitting Verbobonc's 'big stuff' image in the area ... looks sweet. :mrhappy: I'll see about posting some pics later.

(I wanted to put the Verbobonc code of arms symbol on there, but it's really hard to turn a 2D image onto its side so that it appears quasi-3D in a 2D isometric view. :scratchhe Oh well.)