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Yeah... Definitely didn't get any work, implementation wise, done today...

I did do some story design however, and I feel a lot more comfortable with some changes I need to make. While it started out pretty small, it ballooned into something a lot bigger. What I am happy about is that I now get to incorporate more people from my earlier games into this revised draft, and that is a good thing for existing fans. The biggest aspect of the change will be new dialogues I need to write. I will also need to re-balance the mid-scale battle I was talking about earlier in the week. These new people I am incorporating will also need their own custom tactics. In the end, I think it is definitely worth it. I always want to throw as much story as I can the player's way.

Well, that's it for me tonight. I'm still trying to get on a better schedule for this new job. I can't wait to get into the swing of things...

Till tomorrow...

Well, I originally was going to do some cutscenes today, but then realized I wanted to change an aspect of the story, and decided not to rush it. So, I went back to work on porting the Bonds of Battle system over.

The last time I left off, I was adding some new local creature variables that the system uses. Unfortunately, you cannot just dynamically set local variables anymore, rather, they need to be defined in a 2DA first. So, I just extended the existing var_creatures with my own var_creatures_roe, and added in the appropriate variables. It was easy enough.

Once I got that working, I started looking at trying to see if I could get the BOB aquisition confirmation pop up sooner. As I stated the first time I talked about this implementation, the confirmation would take a few seconds to pop up. I was catching the EVENT_TYPE_DEATH event on each enemy, and running the corresponding script. Well, after some research, I discovered that EVENT_TYPE_DYING was the event I wanted. It's fired the instant the enemy is killed. So, I just switched things to this new event, and everything is working as expected.

Another thing I started to think about was how to present information about systems like this, in game. In my earlier games, I used an item called the "Rose of Eternity Manual", which would start a dialog with the PC. This time around, to keep things integrated into the existing system, I'll make use of the codex, assuming I can add my own (wouldn't see why not). So, the first time you receive a Bonds of Battle point with a party member, I'll add a codex entry. While I'm at it, I need to strip out all the existing codex entries that just don't make sense in my game, or are superfluous. For instance, anyone playing my game will have already played Dragon Age, and therefore, doesn't need a codex entry telling them how to handle locked objects.

Well, it's my fiance's birthday weekend blowout, and we're off to the bar!

Till tomorrow...

I seriously forgot how special weekends were until... well... I started my new job... It's like the best feeling in the world! I'm just glad to be able to relax, do a little development, and in general, forget about work.

What I'm working on in particular at the moment is a mid-scale battle. Now, a lot of people have complained about how the AI works in Dragon Age, and for the most part, I understand. Luckily, most of the issues can be worked around with smart game design. Here are 2 things I try to avoid when designing encounters:

• Placing enemies too far away from the action. This does a few things. It gets around the weird AI where far away enemies don't join in on a fight, even though they should. It also stops players from "pulling" enemies, and makes them have to deal with them all at once. Now obviously, I'm not going to spawn them right on top of you. I've played around with the distance as well as perception ranges to get things just perfect.
  
  
• This next one has been a pet peeve of mine for years. I absolutely HATE fighting enemies that swarm me as soon as I open a door, while in a slim hallway. It just frustrates the hell out of me. So now what do I do? I can just pull my party back, and the enemy will just chase me into the hallway where I have a chance. Or, I could just fight one enemy at a time in the doorway, while I'm getting destroyed by arrows shot by people I cannot even see. I guess that technically, this isn't a design flaw, and that it could be done on purpose. Not with my games though...

So anyway, I've fought this battle at least 20 times now, on different difficulty settings, just to get things right. I have just the right amount of enemies so that it looks like a mid-scale fight, number wise, but nothing too difficult. They're placed at the right places so that they all actually take part in the battle at the same time. One thing I'm toying with is giving XP to the player even if someone else not in the party kills an enemy, as long as the player had damage the enemy. I know how annoying it is to see random guard kill the enemy you were working over, and stealing your XP! :)

Once I do a few more tests, I can begin to work on the cutscene that precedes the fight. I need a general idea of how many enemies to show in the cutscene, which is why it has to wait until the end. Once that is done, I will need to do one more final cutscene for the intro, which is going to involved some VO: Mine! This should be fun...

Till tomorrow...

Ah, level design. The bane of my existince used to be dialogue writing. I got over that. Next, it was building believable towns. I'm still not over that :) Now, it looks like it is level design. You've all heard the stories, or experienced it yourseleves, I'm sure. The story goes something like this: When NWN came out, building areas was really easy, because of the tile based system. When NWN2 came out and moved away from this, all of a sudden, a major barrier between modders and the mods they wanted to make was created. Lucky for me, all the work I did in NWN2 was scripting related, and never had to deal with it. Or, perhaps it was unlucky of me...

I knew going in I was going to have to deal with it at some point, but I just kept pushing it aside, making up excuses to script some new system or something like that. Eventually, when I had to get around to it, there was definitely a high learning curve. Good thing I found Qkrch's Video Tutorials. That got me off to a good start, and I was at least able to make something decent looking.

Then came the lighting. Anyone who has messed with level design has run into this. I would create areas that looked great, but then when I loaded them up in game, everything was black. Or, the PC was black. Or, the shadows were screwed up. Or, the sun wasn't shining. Always something! I rant and rave now, but honestly, just dealing with this for a few days allowed me to understand all the kinks in the system, and get it working the way I want. Lighting isn't so much of an issue anymore.

The last obstacle however is something less technical, and more artistic. Making levels look good! I know what looks good when I see it, but doing it myself is another thing. I think it's just the attention to the details. Using different textures for grass, adding vegetation, props, sound effects, etc. As with everything else, this will take some time. I may try to bring in a level designer to take existing levels and spruce them up later on during development.

But first things first. I need to finish the opening sequence!

Till tomorrow...

****Immediately contradicts himself and gets ready for some Modern Warfare 2!*****

Man, I really, really need a laptop. Halfway through the development of The Coming, and for all of the development of Cry The Beloved, I had a laptop to use while on the train commuting to work. That's roughly 3 to 3 1/2 hours of development time (depending on if I get an express train or not). Good times!

That old laptop is broken, and wouldn't be good enough to run Dragon Age anyway. Now, all I can do is try to sleep on the train. When I get home, I'm so exhausted, that I don't really want to do much. Plus, the Australian Open is on at the moment, and since they're like 16 hours or so ahead of me, the matches I tape aren't watched until like a day later. So, I'm constantly trying to stay caught up. Luckily, it's at the tail end of the tournament where there are only a few matches per day now, instead of like 30!

In the meantime, I will keep listening to music and designing stuff. I pretty much have the themes for at least 6 members of the cast. While people already know music is really big to me, having specific themes for particular people is just as big. Again, something I just got used to from the Final Fantasy series. Now, selecting music themes for cast members is a little different than picking music for other parts of the game. Usually, a regular piece of music I use goes with the particular situation. With cast member themes, it's something universal that can be used anywhere. Plus, it just has to fit their personality. Because of this, it tends to take a bit longer. In my older games, I had theme songs for Aramus, Clopon, Challseus, Auden, Raina, Kira, Lord Montolio, Aloia, Castias... Well, you get the idea. Damn near 90% of the people get their own theme, and I will be doing the same thing this time around.

Ultimately, the hope is that many hours into the game, when you hear a piece of music, your first thought will be of the appropriate cast member. Even cast members from the first games that you haven't seen in the new game yet...

Till tomorrow...

It's been a slow week for me. Since I just started a new job last Tuesday, I'm still slowly getting back into the swing of things. Of course, while not developing, I am always designing stuff n my head, coming up with new abilities, thinking of new scenarios, etc.

One thing that I've specifically been thinking about is Dual Stories. Now, I haven't done this since The Coming, for obvious reasons. The Coming was more of a prelude to things. I didn't want to waste too much time doing too much. 2 short stories was relatively easy. Once I knew the project was going to be accepted after a successful release, I put all of my weight behind developing one story for Cry The Beloved. There was only so much that could be done! The thing people have to realize is that this game was always supposed to have a large ensemble cast of heros, not just one. The Dual Stories are supposed to supplement this. Final Fantasy 6 really handled this well. Locke Cole was always my hero of the game, while Terra Branford was the hero for others. Good times.

Anyway, I've been listening to some particular music for the past few days, and it's really getting my creative juices flowing. I've always had a general idea of how certain things were going to work in this particular scenario, but this music has really helped me flesh these ideas out. I admit, I already had thoughts of dropping this particular Dual Story, because as with Cry The Beloved, I just don't think I'll have the time. That said, I'm confident it'll get done some day, so I will continue to develop it further. At the very least, it will be referenced a lot in my next game. As current development on the main story continues, I will get a better feeling on how feasible it will be to get something else in. Another idea I had was after I release the first game, I may be able to knock out this little Dual Story. It'll give people something to do while they wait for the next game. We'll see...

Till tomorrow...

So far, so good. I ported my old bob_manager from NWN, into my new roe_sys_bob_h (just to keep up with naming conventions). Of course, there were a lot of things to clean up, mostly references to objects and functions that doesn't exist in Dragon Age. Still, I was able to get something up in running. As expected, the BOB points are awarded as long as the circumstance is correct.

The one thing that is sort of annoying me is the confirmation of the points. As I stated yesterday, since there is no log, I was going to display something very briefly over the party member's head when you gain points with them. For now, I have this, in usual Rose of Eternity format:

***BONDS OF BATTLE***
Gained with Challseus

The thing that is really annoying me is that the death event for a creature seems to be processed a second or so after they have been killed in battle. So, it's a little weird to see it pop up on a delay. I've also been tinkering with how long to keep it on the screen. Right now, it's set at 1.5 seconds, though that could obviously change. Finally, I may add in an option (not sure how it would be accessed) so the player can turn off these messages. I haven't tested it out in mid-large scale battles yet, so I don't know how annoying it will be for it to keep popping up.

Tomorrow, I will continue making my changes. A lot of it is hard coded at the moment, but the final version will be making use of some new local variables. Anyone familiar with the DA toolset knows that you can't just dynamically set local variables. They must be defined beforehand. Not a big deal to me, but I was just lazy, and thus I didn't take the time to define them.

Once I finish this up, I will go back to putting the final touches on the intro sequences.

Till tomorrow...

So, the Distinctive Development (DD) system originally came about because of all the custom abilities/systems that were added to The Coming & Cry The Beloved. Since said abilities/systems were never truly integrated into the existing DnD system, I needed a way to upgrade them.

As of now, I am currently thinking of using the existing skills GUI for these. So, say for instance, we take the leveling up of Bonds of Battle - Point Accumulation Rate. Here's how it currently looks for The Coming & Cry The Beloved:

Point Accumulation Rate (Default - 2 Points Per Kill)

• 3 Points Per Kill | 4 DD Points
• 4 Points Per Kill | 7 DD Points
• 5 Points Per Kill | 10 DD Points

Now if I put this in the skills GUI, it would just be a single row, with 4 upgrades, with appropriate level requirements. At this point, you wouldn't be using DD points. It would just be normal skill points. This kinda makes Distinctive Development superfluous, and well, that's okay.

Makes sense to stick them there anyway, because I will definitely be getting rid of some of the core skills. As of now, I know I will definitely be getting rid of Combat Tactics. No way I'm going to make people actually waste skill points in that. They'll just be given a high amount of tactics slot off the bat. I guess I'll have to leave Combat Training, since that is used to determine if someone can use certain tactics. Don't see a need for Poison Making, Survival, or Trap-Making either. As for the others, we'll just have to wait and see. But it won't be like Dragon Age where all are available for every party member. Heh, maybe I will come up with my own custom ones as well...

That's about it for Distinctive Development.

**************************************************************************************

Just wanted to give a quick update on Bonds of Battle. Talking about it in my last journal update has really gotten me excited about it, so I'm just going to go ahead and start implementing it right now. I already have a include script from NWN, bob_manager, that I'll just need to port over. From there, I'll start cleaning it up accordingly, and hopefully, in the next 3-4 hours, I'll have something working.

I'll report back tomorrow with the results, and other things on on my mind.

Till tomorrow...

Ah, Bonds of Battle (BOB) . Definitely one of my favorite custom systems. The original inspriration came from one of my favorite games of all time, Shining Force 3 for the Sega Saturn. As an aside, I was actually able to meet the fabled CEO of Sega at that time, Bernie Stolar last year, when he became the CEO of my last company. Many blame him for the end of the Saturn, but I praise him for ushering in the Dreamcast as fast as he did. Definitely one of the best console launches of all time. Anyway, I don't exactly remember how it was implemented in that game, but I know that the longer 2 allies stood next to each other while fighting, the stronger they got. If I remember correctly, a little sword icon would appear over the head of 2 warriors, for instance. There was nothing really fancy about it, but it was cool, nonetheless.

Now, I haven't actually done too much implementation for this system yet, as I am still making some design decisions. For instance, I'm not sure how I am going to show the player that they gained one. In NWN, there was a combat log, so putting it there would suffice. With no combat log, the only thing to do would be to display some floating text very briefly... Something like 1 second, perhaps. I don't want to clog up the screen with too much stuff.

Then, there is the issue of how to let the player know how many BOB points they have accumulated. In NWN, I used the dialog of the party members for a lot of things, such as the setting of Last Resorts as well as reporting how many points they had. With so many of my systems using the default Dragon Age GUI, it sort of pains me to have to go back to the dialog system.

I am also thinking about changing the amount you receive per kill. Before, it started at 2 points, and could be raised up to 5. I may lower the initial value to 1, because I want the progression to be slowed down. I definitely feel like certain abilities mean so much more if it takes a little bit longer to get them. You know, that sense of achievement thing.

Finally, as stated yesterday in my talk about Unison Abilities, I may change up the type of abilities you receicve after hitting each BOB tier. Just a thought, anyway...

Till tomorrow...

Much like Last Resorts, the Unison Ability System will be undergoing a change as well. I want to preface everything by saying that I was extremely pleased how I was able to implement things last time around. Those that played my earlier games know that there were two types of them. One was activated, usually through an item/gem. The other was timed, meaning you had to actually time the abilities between the 2-3 party members taking part in the ability.

The timed ones were by far my favorites ones to implement, as well as to actually use in game. To be honest, the reason for most activated ones was really due to the lack of control over party members. Since this obviously won't be issue this time around, I expect to have a lot more timed ones.

All of that said, even with timed ones back then, there were some hiccups. For instance, with Whirlwind Heal, the only way you could get that off (explicitly) was by using the henchman Heal Me button, and hoping like hell that Clopon would stop what she was doing to heal you. Only then could you try to pull off a whirlwind attack to activate the ability. Now, since you can control the healing of your party members, this is a non-issue.

I also want to point something about before I forget. Dragon Age already has a combo system of sorts, but I don't want new players to get this confused with my system. The Dragon Age one sticks to spell combos, while mine combine spells AND talents. I also feel that Unison Abilities are more integral to the game, as you will definitely have to make use of them to survive. And of course, your enemies will be using them as well.

Another thing I want to expand on is how many people can participate in these abilities. Of the existing six, five of them had 2 participants, while one had 3. I definitely want to have more abilities utilizing 3 people, and I already have some really cool ideas for 4+ participants!

So far, I have only implemented Sym Link, and that was more of a test than anything else. I can confirm that it will be making a comeback, albeit in a slightly different form. I need to balanace it a little more, so I am thinking the magic using participant will incur some negative effects as long as the ability is activated. I've been kicking around the idea of anytime the melee participant gets damaged, the magic using participant takes some of that damage. As always, nothing is set in stone, but I will definitely be taking a close look at all the old ones.

I also think I will start implementing a new timed one that will have 2 melee participants, combining some existings Dragon Age talents. It's been bubbling in my brain for the past 2 weeks. It'll also be a little prototype, so I can develop the standard way of implementing timed abilities in Dragon Age. I might be able to re-use some of the existing spell combo code, or at least get ideas from it.

Finally, I need to really start thinking about how these abilities are earned. The aquisition will probably be story related, but I have also started thinking that perhaps they could be linked to the Bonds of Battle system, something you may get as you go up in tiers. So much to think about!

All in all, I am very excited about the changes to this system, and think it will add to the already dynamic combat system of Dragon Age.

Till tomorrow...

For as long as I have been a software engineer (2004), I have been telling co-workers that I am not a programmer. I am a game designer, dammit! My point really is that while I program to pay the bills, I hope to design games for a living at some point. All of that said, when it comes down to implementing a new system, whether it be Last Resorts, Unison Abilities, or Bonds of Battle, I get giddy like a little school girl :) This is when the programmer I am trying so hard to suppress come out.

The first month or so I spent with the toolset (including during the BETA phase), I spent all of my time on scripting, and more specifically, custom systems. I was looking at it as a sort of prototyping phase, and the first thing I wanted to see was how well I could integrate custom abilities into the existing Dragon Age system. Looking back on it, I really don't like how I approached the use of some of the custom abilities in my earlier games. For Aramus' Illuminate, you had to use the activated ability of his Sword of Galladoran to make it work . For Leaping Slash, you had to use the activated ability of the Leaping Boots. If I could do it over again, I would make them feats. When you would equip said item, the feat would be added, and when unequipped, the feat would be removed. Same thing with Sym Link. I actually gave the player a gem or something like that, that had an activated item ability on it. This DEFINITELY should have been a feat. Oh well, you live and learn.

This time around, all new abilities will be integrated into Dragon Age's existing ability interface. It actually was pretty easy to get new abilities to show up in the talent/spell GUI. I will need new icons for said abilities, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I still have some things to figure out, such as how to display them. For instance, do I show them on the interface, but make it so they aren't selectable when the player levels up? Do I just make them hidden, and show them only when the player actually gains access to them, like how specializations (i.e. Templar) work? I'm leaning towards the latter, but don't really have to make that decision at the moment.

With regards to the Last Resort system, things have changed for the better. In The Coming & Cry The Beloved, you were never really had too much control over it's use. For instance, if you used Illuminate when your HP's were beloe say, 25%, then it would automatically unleash Galladoran Illumination. There was nothing you could do about it. So, let's say you had less than 25% health, and you knew you weren't going to die, but still wanted to use Illuminate. You would end up using the Last Resort version, and depending on how you spent your DD Points, you might have had to wait up until 10 minutes until you could use it again. Now, I will actually have 2 different abilities for each. In essence, the Last Resort won't have to be tied to a lesser ability. So no more wasting of the Last Resort. I would have loved if the Last Resort icon wasn't active unless your HP's were below a set %, but unfortunately, all of that is handled at the engine level. All I can do is pop up some text saying something along the lines of "Your HP's must be below 20%" if the player tries to use it too early. Again, nothing is set in stone, and I may find a more elegant solution.

One thing that I am excited about is Last Resorts for party members. You obviously couldn't directly control party members in my earlier games, since it was NWN1. All you could do was set a flag on the party member to have them use it when their health dropped below the specific %, or to do nothing. This time around, you will be able to explicity activate them. Even better, they can even integrate into the tactics system that Dragon Age uses. So like any other tactics condition, you can set something like:

When HP's < 30% ----------------------- Use Ability (Stramadonian Fire)

It'll all be up to the player, and that is something I really like.

Likewise, with enemies, the integration of Last Resorts is being handled through the tactics system. In NWN1, I had a script like so for any enemy that could use Last Resorts. This particular one is for Castias' on-damaged script event:

**********************************************************************

/*
* BRC (c) Copyright 1994-2010
*
* This script will run certain functionality
* for Castias when he is damaged.
*
* Revision history:
*
* 12-Feb-06 LB Created.
*/

#include "util"
#include "last_resort"

void main() {

//only perform last resort attack if below 25% health, and only once
if (getPercentageHP(OBJECT_SELF) <= 25.0 &&
GetLocalInt(OBJECT_SELF, "last_resort") == 0) {
performHolyHealing();
PlaySound("vs_chant_evoc_hm");
}

//execute default script
ExecuteScript("roe_npc_damage", OBJECT_SELF);
}

**********************************************************************

This just essentially checks to see if he has used the ability, and if his health is below 25%. If so, then he uses Holy Healing. No more of this. I just need to create a custom package, with custom tactics, set it on the enemy, and I'm good. Very clean.

So as you can see, I have definitely put a lot of effort into streamlining this particular system. I'm not even going into the actual abilities I am creating, because well, that would be giving away too much!

Till tomorrow...

I touched on this briefly yesterday, and decided that I would expand on it today. Music has always been one of the most imporatant things to me with regards to games, RPG's in particular. I have played many a bad RPG, because the music was great. Nothing is better than entering an area in an RPG, and just sitting there for like 10 minutes, listening to the music. There are certainly many games that have great music, but at the same time, there are many games that just don't put as much emphasis on it. Then again, I've heard of people who don't even listen to the game music when they play... I guess you can't make everyone happy!

With my next game, as I said yesterday, I have about 40 tracks picked out so far. What's interesting this time around is how much of the music is by a small number of artists. With my last games, while I did have 69 pieces of custom music, the artist range was great. This time around, I have focused on a much smaller subset of artist. What this does is give the game's music a better cohesive feel, in my opinion.

One artist that I can reveal is Nobuo Uematsu. Okay, this isn't really a surprise, as I have already used his music in earlier games. But, the particular music that I am using from him is some of his lesser known stuff which I think really fits the mood of the game. And plus, I brainstormed certain story aspects of the game while listening to said music, so it's hard for me to picture it any other way. At the moment, he has 7 confirmed tracks.

Another group I am heavily using were discovered unexpectedly. I was listening to a particular new age music playlist on Pandora, and one of their songs popped up. I fell in love with it immediately, started searching for more of their music, and found out they had like 6 albums out. This particular music as a whole has a real organic feel to it, and really captures the mood I want to the user to experience. I've already confirmed 9 songs, but there are like another 4-5 which I am still thinking about. All of these songs also take place in the 2nd half of the game.

With regards to integrating the music into the game, well, that's another story. So far, I haven't figured how to get music into the game the right way. I opened this thread a few weeks ago, and got closer than I was before. Essentially, I was able to create new music events with my custom music, and make it so the game sees them as sound objects. However, when setting the music for areas in it's properties section, I cannot make the game see it as music, without overriding all the core music. While this isn't neccessarily a bad thing since I won't be using any core music, I still want to do things as elegant as possible.

So what I have done is hacked things up, and laid down all my custom music as sound objects. Then I created my own music header file, roe_sys_music_h, and added the following function:

**********************************************************************

/**
* This function will switch from one track to another.
* TODO: This currently uses sound objects for music. Once
* the proper way to import music is discovered, get rid of this function.
*/
void SwitchMusic(string sOld, string sNew)
{
ActivateSoundByTag(sOld, FALSE);
ActivateSoundByTag(sNew, TRUE);
}

**********************************************************************

The function is self-explanatory, and extremely hacky, but it gets the job done. As a side note, I love how TODO: comes up as a warning while compiling. If my previous programming experience means anything, I'll probably forget to get rid of this (who actually goes back to their TODO's!) :)

Anyway, I could wrap this functionality, and actually keep the currently playing music as a variable on the area, and thus only have to worry about the new song I want to switch to. But, I'm not going to put any more effort into something I don't expect to be using in the next few weeks.

Well, that's it for tonight. Still getting adjusted to actually getting up to commute to the city everyday, sigh...

Till tomorrow...