I post this here mainly as a notice to other modders that I'll be reworking the entire Hommlet labor camp/castle construction site scenario almost from the ground up. This will include changes to Jayfie, the laborer cook, and the generic peasant laborers. It may also include a new minor NPC. At this point I don't expect that the changes made will carry over to any other quest lines or scenarios. The Plan Part 1 - already implemented and to be released with the portraits/outfits overhaul Make it so the laborers are actually working at the castle construction site. Ever notice how no work is ever done at the castle construction site? The laborers normally just stand around at the site all day, and only when they get back to the camp at night do they suddenly start moving around - ceaselessly patrolling the area for no good reason, as it were. :blank: Well no more! There's a new foreman in town who's going to shape these guys up. That's right - newly animated laborers will be hammering away on all sorts of things at the construction site, and their foreman will supervise, like foremen do. (This - concept and execution - is of course almost directly ripped off from Ted and KotB, so he actually deserves the credit. And between Ted's tutorials and the amazing World Builder tools from Agetian, it was pretty much just a matter of filling in the blanks. I wish more of you would crack open WB and give it a drive, btw. Thanks to Ag, it's incredibly easy to carry concept to execution in just a few short mouse clicks. Seriously, if I can do this stuff, anybody can.) Part 2 - in progress Overhaul Burne's labor camp spy quest structure. No more "I'm a new laborer from Verbobonc, tell me what you know about the altered shipments at once!" As befits a real-world scenario, this endeavor will become much more complicated than it is now. People are just not so easily had. (Try walking up to a modern day construction crew sometime and watch how they react to see what I mean.) Will add new quests inside the main quest, mainly dependant upon your approach to the situation. Part 3 - in progress Overhaul Jayfie. Ah yes, Jayfie. That generic-seeming laborer amongst a crowd of other generic citizens in the generic village of Hommlet. Well, it's time for him to get an infusion of personaility. Ever notice how there are no assholes in Hommlet? Ever notice how there are no assholes in the entire game, only generically sinsiter fellows with generically devious but simple agendas? The real world is full of assholes, and Jayfie is going to become one in ToEE. This should be fun, and hopefully it will demonstrate the potential for attributing character and identity to ToEE's NPCs. I think we've settled for less in this area for far too long, or at least taken for granted that the vanilla NPCs have to be vanilla flavored. The plain fact is that they were poorly written and uninspired for the most part, and they're largely the reason why so many people look at the Hommlet chapter of the game as pure drudgery. This mod is a ways off yet, but it shouldn't be too long, provided that the portraits thing doesn't become monolithic and swallow up some other ideas I've had as well. Rest assured, as some ESL site once said about KotB: "the mod team works at present with high pressure!"
Sounds neat. I've always thought Jayfie had potential for a more elaborate plot. (plus, he had a semi-exploit that allowed you to blow his cover while not making him run away - though just letting him get away in the first place also seemed odd to me) Finally, may I ask you to integrate the changes I've made to the laborers' dialogue and py files? They're fairly minor as far as I can recall (relating to clues about the traders' whereabouts, and proper negative-rep reactions)
One of the things I was considering was making the generic peasant laborers 'unselectable' NPCs - e.g. you can't click on them to talk. This would help avoid that repeat dialogue effect that gets so tiring, as well as limit some of the possibilities for other stuff I have planned. Would it be possible to have just the cook and/or foreman (the proposed new NPC, who would have dialogue) provide that trader tip info?
Isn't there a gipsy that sells the non-magical tatoos? And don't forget the dog: as somebody said, ToEE wouldn't have sense without him
By 'laborers' I was referring to the labor camp residents in general. Looking at the files, it seems that only Yvy and the cook actually tip you off. As for the laborers, instead of muting them completely, you could replace actual dialogue with descriptive text - something along the lines of [you make some small talk with this simple laborer, but ultimately glean no useful information from it].
i like it... I always thought that it was just something to fill up an area... you could also set a trigger for them to attack if certain conditions were met... it would add variety to the game also.
Yup, i like it too. Hommlet map it's too cool to be that poor developed. A evil subplot/quest to make the castle won't be finished?
Gaear, you've probably already thought of this, but as well as the hammering model, a workman with a big Kobort-style hammer and an attack animation might make for an effective pile driver.
Err, sorry, i wasn't clear. It was a suggestion to add a small quest/subplot. I've seen one of the endings has an image of the half built castle, i thought that you could interfere with the construction, but it's a good aligned ending, so it must be the contrary. So, for evil parties, it would be logical to have the castle unfinished. Burne's assassination? Support to Jayfie? Poisoning the food of the cook (since you're going to mess with Jayfie and cook dlgs)? Something like that could lead to interesting situations. If you have Burne or Rufus in your party, Jayfie won't talk, but what if you have Pishella, the not so widely known apprentice? Lareth could have a part on that, and if pleased he could not betray you in the tower... i'm just brainstorming
