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[MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:31 pm
by cromcrom
Hi all, I am in the starting block to redo, improve and expand The Lost Continent.

I can do everythings by myself, as I mostly did, but I am looking for a writer to write me some good backround/Lore/quests. I will code it.

Setting would be survival open ended semi realistic world, loads of randomness, loads of custom systems and skills (take a look at TLC for grimrock 1 if you want an Idea of the kind of systems I would add.)

I would like a "Discovery of the new World" setting, with forts, tribes, ancient cities, and so on. I am looking for a dark secret for the continent, the party will have to discover and fix in order to save the settlers of an ongoing menace.

Any ideas welcome.

Of course: I don't know yet what specific systems will be present in log 2, nor the Scripting possibilities. This list is assuming the Scripting possibilities will be the same or better than Log1.
However, I am pretty confident, because most stuff below already existed in TLC.

Cheers.

Planned features:
Exhaustion system: would reduce party speed or halt it altogether, and reduce attack speeds and damages of weapons.
Specific attacks: I am really not sure about this one. I will try to add choice of attacks for weapons
Wound system: Light, major, grievous wounds would reduce the PC attributes, with some little chance of permanent effects.
Disease system: Same here, PC having some symptoms the player would have to identify and treat.
Gathering system: various Tools quality, various skills quality.
Crafting system: basically, the system will allow the player to craft randomly generated items.
Items wearability: it will decrease with time, to the point that the item will be unusable.
Lockpickable doors and chests.

Randomization:
Craft results will be random, and possibly, some items stats.
Loot of course will be random
Skill results will be random: critical failure, failure, success, critical success.
Monster spawn will be random. Not all of it, but mostly in the wilderness.

Lairs:
There will be some lairs (small dungeons). It will be possible to clean them, but they will repopulate given time, possibly with other kind of critters.

Quests:
I will try to add quests. It was very difficult to code this for me in LoG1, due to the lack of possible interactions with critters. We will see.



Skills:
Specific skill experience (from using the skill) and global experience (from adventuring) will help buy skill levels.

Skills will come in 4 levels: unskilled; novice; compagnon; Master (and maybe legendary for some skills).
A master will unlock a specially powerfull effect for its skills (like only level to gather special components...)

Teachers:
Teachers will provide teachings and lessons in skills.
Without teachings, a player will gain XPs VERY SLOWLY in skills. With the proper teachings, XP gain will be much faster.
Lessons will give an instant boost to Skill XPs.
Both will require money, the higher the level, the more the money.


Planned skills list:
Gathering skills:
Butcher: gather internal parts (meat, glands...) from killing animals.
Skinner: Gather external parts (fur, fangs...) from killing animals.
Scavenger: gather more stuff breaking down items.
Looter: gather more stuff when killing ennemies.
Miner: Gather more minerals/gems from veins.
Wood cutter: gather more and better quality woods from logs and trees.
Herbalist: Gather more herbs and seeds from wild herbs.
Farmer: more chance to properly grow plants from wild seeds.
Bee Keeper: Gather honey from wild hive. Install wild hive in apiary, to gather more honey. Honey will be used in sweet recipes. Sweet recipes will give bonus to energy regeneration.


Crafting skills:
WeaponSmith: craft mineral weapons
ArmorSmith: craft mineral armors
Tinkerer: craft all manners of Tools (crafting Tools, gathering Tools, lockpicks, torchs...)
Alchemist: brew potions and chemical mixtures (black powder)
Cook: cook various meals
Ebenist: craft wooden weapons (arrows, bows, staves...)
Leatherworker: craft leather armors and weapons.
Tailor: craft cloth armors and items (bandages, cloaks...)
Jeweller: crafts jewels, necklaces, rings, cuts gems...
Imbuer: places gems in items to make them more powerfull
Scroller: write down magic scrolls.

Interaction skills:
Literacy: increase XP gained from reading books
Hunter: bonus damage to animals (not sure about this one)
Tracker: allows to identify and spaw animals from tracks
Trapper: allows to set up traps.
Scout: greater chance to avoid dangerous terrains.
Prospector: identifies unidentified veins.
Medic: increase effect of bandages, allows to identify diseases.
Surgeon: better chance to heal major wounds.
Athletism: increase stamina regeneration before exhaustion.
Meditation: increase mana regeneration
camper: recover more/rest longer from resting.
LockPicker: better use of lockpicks.

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:51 pm
by leewroy
Greetings!

I always had the idea to create a mod on my own, but I lack time and mainly skills to do it. So, I have two twisted ideas about things you could do in a module. One of them is more about puzzles, not a thing that I created, but based on a good old game that seems to be unknown by most of the people here; the other is not a puzzle but can give a lot of trouble to solve, unless you're the incarnation of luck ;)

If you're interested about my ideas, just let me know and I´ll sent a PM. :D

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:34 pm
by cromcrom
I sent you a PM :-)

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:36 am
by tangletail
You might want to distribute that work load, man. I'd be happy to help with the scripting and some 3D assets.

Experienced Programmer.

Blah with modeling however...

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:26 am
by cromcrom
My main fun is Scripting, but I would really take some Scripting lessons, because I am a self taught coder. I scripted all of The Lost Continent by myself (and it was indeed a lot of work), so I have the codes (and I think I realeased some of them as open source, maybe on nexus...), I will have to adapt them to the new grimrock Scripting tho, and see what can be improved.
First few days will be used to acknowledge the system, then Scripting. I will probably miss some 3D assets (I had a hard time adding items back in the time, so some "leather straps" models were more looking like "leather shoes" ^^, although I managed to properly add the 2D pictures).
Depending on how things goes, I might ask you some whole systems, like specific random disease. I thought about symptoms appearing, along with some effects. The player would have to give the proper médicine to administer to the character. Wrong médicine would make the case worst (for the challenge of it)

Exemple: Marsh fever: Coughing for a few hours, high fever then. Effects are a loss of Int every hours or so, for 3d6 hours. Recovery would be 1 Int per day, until complete. Wrong médicine would be +1d6 Int loss. 0 Int and the player would become utterly mad and die out of boiling brain (yummy ;) )
Cure could be honey + marsh plant.
Médicine skill would be needed to know what disease it is, and administer the proper cure to full effect. 1 Médicine Check every 3 hours for example.
Could come complete with coughing sound ^^

Jeesh, this sounds fun to code, I might keep it for myself after all ^^

I am more looking for a dungeon designer or background writer for now. I will keep in touch with you, but you might want to offer your help to a total novice in coding, I know there are some.

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:02 pm
by thomson
I think you started this thread in a wrong sub-forum. If I understood AH intention, developer, work in progress, ideas etc., should be discussed in Grimrock 2 -> Mod Creation. The sub-forum you created this thread in (Grimrock 2 -> Custom Dungeons) is for finished mods that are sufficiently mature, so people un-interested in modding/development process can just download and play.

Anyway, I remember playing TLC a very long time ago. It was promising, but I remember that the crafting was extremely tedious at the beginning.

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:40 pm
by antti
thomson wrote:I think you started this thread in a wrong sub-forum. If I understood AH intention, developer, work in progress, ideas etc., should be discussed in Grimrock 2 -> Mod Creation. The sub-forum you created this thread in (Grimrock 2 -> Custom Dungeons) is for finished mods that are sufficiently mature, so people un-interested in modding/development process can just download and play.
That's true, this is intended as a resource for people who are looking for something to play. I think WIP mods are fine here as long as they are in a playable state. I'll move the thread to the other forum. :)

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 1:03 pm
by Drakkan
Hi, some of the features sounds really fantastic and would be perfect addition to other modders and other dungeon use. Keeping finger crossed, hope you will manage to script all you want to do and that you will also share with other less script talented people :)

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 1:37 pm
by cromcrom
Sorry about the wrong forum :-(

Yes, the basic system was pretty tedious, but I improved it so that it would craft multiple objects with multiple components, nad make things easier. The "buttons" system was also tedious, but hopefully, LOG2 will provide more customization Tools for UI.

@Drakkhan, I already scripted many features and skills for TLC, actually. However, I will try to keep sharing in mind when coding, to make my codes clear, because I am a very messy coder. I make my scripts "open source", like I did for The Lost Continent for LOG1.

Re: [MOD] [WIP] The Lost Continent

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:46 am
by tangletail
cromcrom wrote:My main fun is Scripting, but I would really take some Scripting lessons, because I am a self taught coder. I scripted all of The Lost Continent by myself (and it was indeed a lot of work), so I have the codes (and I think I realeased some of them as open source, maybe on nexus...), I will have to adapt them to the new grimrock Scripting tho, and see what can be improved.
First few days will be used to acknowledge the system, then Scripting. I will probably miss some 3D assets (I had a hard time adding items back in the time, so some "leather straps" models were more looking like "leather shoes" ^^, although I managed to properly add the 2D pictures).
Depending on how things goes, I might ask you some whole systems, like specific random disease. I thought about symptoms appearing, along with some effects. The player would have to give the proper médicine to administer to the character. Wrong médicine would make the case worst (for the challenge of it)

Exemple: Marsh fever: Coughing for a few hours, high fever then. Effects are a loss of Int every hours or so, for 3d6 hours. Recovery would be 1 Int per day, until complete. Wrong médicine would be +1d6 Int loss. 0 Int and the player would become utterly mad and die out of boiling brain (yummy ;) )
Cure could be honey + marsh plant.
Médicine skill would be needed to know what disease it is, and administer the proper cure to full effect. 1 Médicine Check every 3 hours for example.
Could come complete with coughing sound ^^

Jeesh, this sounds fun to code, I might keep it for myself after all ^^

I am more looking for a dungeon designer or background writer for now. I will keep in touch with you, but you might want to offer your help to a total novice in coding, I know there are some.

*raises hand* Experienced Dungeon Master of Dungeon and Dragons, and Pathfinder.


Anyways, from the looks of things. If it's going to be reducing your main stats perday, you might want there to be an actual risk behind such problems too. If this disease effects a fighter, the player probably won't care if the fighter is actually getting dumber.

This is where you should probably look into the mechanics of rogue likes and Text based RPs. There are plenty of skills and boons, that your character can randomly pick up without ever leveling up. Such as, a fighter with a high intelligence could actually make it work for him. He's able to exploit weaknesses in his foes body, and further increase his critical threat range.

The other part of it, is if any of the main stats [Vitality, Strength, Intelligence, Dex, Wisdom] reaches zero, then a nasty effect happens.

If Vitality hit's zero. The character dies immediately. His heart stops because his body is no longer able to continue regular functions.
if Strength reaches zero. The character becomes helpless. Unable to lift his own limbs without a large amount of effort on his end.
If dexterity reaches zero. The character's body locks up completely. He becomes helpless.
if Wisdom reaches 1. The character goes insane. reality plays tricks on him.
If Wisdom reaches zero. The character is comatose. He's stuck in an endless nightmare. He's helpless.
If Intelligence is 1. Character becomes feral. No longer has control over himself.
If intelligence is zero. Character dies. All brain functions have ceased.


Helpless characters in Text RPs or DnD games are either executed, or have some bad events happen to them. In this case, due to limited editing of scripts and engine, extra damage. Slows party movement. Character is unable to act.


This is not to make the game harder. This is actually so the player doesn't exploit weaknesses in the system (ignore a stat a character doesn't need) and forces him to consider his actions.


EDIT

Derp... my tired brain missed the 0 int thing. Well good to see that you thought of that @_@





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