A review of the RP game progression experience and small tweak suggestions

All right, update, hopefully final before alpha test build out:

A single bug or strange interaction kept this thing from being out days ago. Since it was so strange I ended up rewriting and rearranging quite a bit of stuff with connor and the VV quest (still works the same, except the solutions aren't so mutually exclusive, and only the diplomatic one gets the village built up. You can still get neither, only guns, only diplomatic or both).

The bug was not mine, it was this: Joe triggers molerat_origin_info, which sets GVAR_VAULT_VILLAGE_FLAGS to 1. I tried to use this as a diplomatic trigger for McClure dialogue about the village (as it allready does via the Brain, so why not?). So I made it simply trigger at Joe, trigger options at McClure, which triggers options with Connar - which should give you set_molerat_origin_amulet. All of this is in the original code, except I made it the diplomatic path for McClure for lack of a separate GVAR for that.*

The problem is that set_molerat_origin_amulet DOESNT_BLOODY_WORK! Instead of setting GVAR_VAULT_VILLAGE_FLAGS to 2, it sets it to 3, and "if (molerat_origin_amulet)" doesn't trigger at any point at all. I've tried manually jacking G_V_V_F to 2 and nothing happened.

So when phobos turns up and we figure out what's going on there I think we will finally be done with everything (except the brain, which is half done, but I've been stuck with this thing for days).

Oh, and while trying to even find what he hell was wrong all the time I fiddled with connor quite a bit, and some with stark (relevant bits). The following stuff, most of it noted as problems by the comments in the original script has also been fixed (and I hope the rewrites get accepted):

- If you ask stark about slavery being the main reason and then back out of the quest, and he goes on a raid, the molerats are now killed (used to be only villagers gone, discovered it by checking everything VERY throughly)

- If you got the stuff from Harry and talked to Stark about his real intentions causing him to raid right away, it would also leave the "deliver the guns" quest to remain permanently active (also problem with original script)

- Turning Harry in now sets the correct variable (it used to set the quest variable finishing the quest, which I kept in as an option for anyone who wants to cross the quest out after delivering the guns without going the diplomatic route. But since it also didn't set the correct variable, it could've made editing or trying to bugfix the thing more confusing).

- Connars initial dialogue now properly redirects after the first time (I also rewrote/edited the initial dialogue quite a bit without removing any of the meaning, as it was quite sparse. Right now it lacks most of the old "evil" options, but I put in so much effort into making the damned questline work without hickups that I'll release the build and only add the "screw yourself up irevocably by being an obvious moron" options back in later).

And those are just the ones I both remember and am sure I wasn't the one to cause them.

And now I need to fix the McClure thing (also has comments about "//Check this place"). And that should be it, Connar still needs a tweak in his new main dialogue node, the code is a bit messy to look at in places, but I've used the high speech (original content) alternate diplomacy route to skip places where molerat_origin_amulet was supposed to get you through, and everything works, sometimes even better than it used to.

The dialogue could use a bit of tuning here and there, but that part is actually easy. Anyway, hopefully last textwall here, fingers crossed we solve that McClure thing.


*(which means I just added a non-speech path, molerat_origin_amulet lets you get SERVANT_TIME_EXTENDED with McClure, which then gives you a high speech check at Connor for immediate diplomatic win or if failed you can still do it via Brain, pretty much same as it used to be, except there's now more ways to extend the quest than just speech, and I could use SERVANT_TIME_EXTENDED as part of the Diplomatic path which doesn't interfear with gun delivery. This was inspired by Killap's (?) comment in the source about "adding something else to McClure besides the speech check", so it technically wasn't even my idea.
 
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I just read the whole thread (including text walls), and I fully support the latest versions of lujo's proposed changes. Glad to see that Killa' P is giving them serious consideration for RP inclusion.

As I see it, such changes are a necessary part of restoration. Content restoration isn't just about adding maps, characters, or questlines; it's about restoring them in context, so that they work well as part of the whole game. KillaP's hesitancy is prudent, of course; changes that break the game are worse than no changes at all. But the proposed changes sound like they have been reasoned out thoroughly and are worthy of playtesting to confirm their viability.


This thread is a great example of effective communal collaboration. People with fresh ideas and energy offer well-reasoned proposals, do some proof-of-concept coding (or in this case, even better: collaborate on the coding), test out their changes with others, and generally do most of the legwork for the proposal, freeing the main project leader to focus on ensuring that the changes are effective and consistent with their overall vision for the project. The project leader gets maximal benefit for minimal additional burnout. This we know is especially important for the RP, if we want to keep Killa' P from having an aneurysm.

Nice work, @lujo, and @phobos2077. And @killap. :-)

-m
 
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I share memetics' viewpoint.

I don't have much of an issue with the way lujo is proposing the changes, and it honestly feels like it would fit with the RP. But it's ultimately Killap's decision, and I would trust his opinion over mine considering not only his experience, but also with how near perfect Fallout 2 is with the RP.

I've been on with lujo's changes since day 1. I was the first person to comment... and honestly I thought it was all talk. But it's been a few months and he's really putting the work in! I hope to see this come to life, I think it's an excellent addition to the flow of the game.
 
Thanks for the support guys, and here's the first alpha build of this thing, finally:

gameflowfixes alpha 1, download link:

https://yadi.sk/d/6jTs17zcWy7mR

INSTRUCTIONS:

- not sure about mod compatibility, but it should work with vanilla RP.
- make bakup copy of "data" folder
- extract "data" folder from _gameflow_fixes.zip to game folder, overwriting files
- review scripts changes in !SRC folder in archive (for those intereted in that sort of thing)


- And here are the savegames for those who just want to help bugfix and playtest and review style nad such:

https://yadi.sk/d/NZeQGFKTWy7vv

(they come with instructions kinda)



- And a special treat for all you scripters out there, phobos has knocked this togather while I was chasing bugs:

http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?178390-FO2-Engine-Tweaks&p=4021522#post4021522


And here's a link to our public repository, so changes we made to the original RP can be easily reviewed:

https://bitbucket.org/phobos2077/fo2_rp/branches

It turns out there were quite a few, but I'll go to any lenghts to clean stuff up to get this accepted. And most of them could be for the better (and if not adjustments will be made).
 
No feedback at all? :( Did I not advertize it enough? Is it that terrible?

What could i do to entice anyone at all to at least try the save games out? :)
 
My opinion is that everyone's been busy on summer vacations :D
As for me, I'm still afraid to spoil my game too much :) You need someone who played the game recently enough to feel the difference. OR, you could just polish/test it more yourself and wrap it up as a stand-alone mod :)
 
As much as I like it, I don't have the time to do a proper bug test run at the moment.

I bet if you prepackaged it as phobos suggested, you might get a bit more traffic. Start a new thread even (if that's allowed by the mods - it is a different subject I think).
 
Okay, I have some time this weekend. I just downloaded your mod. I'll begin playing soon.

Is there a list of changes?
 
Oh, here you go:

- A dialogue option with Vic after you recruit him which puts Slaver camp on the map
- Some dialogue with Slavers if you go there with Vic

- Some changes to the dialogue with the bartender in VC
- Some changes to the dialogue with the information centre guy which puts Abbey on your map

- After you've scouted Gecko, Stark the seargent gives you "scout BH" mission

- Changes to how the VV questline works. Everything is still essentially the same but:

- The quest now unlocks after the Gecko scouting
- Delivering the guns doesn't necessarilly end the quest
- It's about the grenades now and not guns
- A lot of small changes to the dialogues involved, but too many to list, just get involved with it (it unlocks after you scout Gecko). Harry has been virtually untouched, Old Joe only lets you find a key piece of info if you miss it for the first time. The only ones changed significnatly (in dialogue structure rather than content, tbh) are Stark, McClure and Connar in the village.
 
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I have yet to get around to testing your mod, lujo. But I will do so as soon as I get some free time. I've been with you since day 1 on your updates, and really think you have a mind for what FO2 could be. That was made even more clear when Killap chimed in.
 
^ Ty, I'll probably be rounding up some random bugfixes and stuff because phobos decided to include the gameflow fixes into his economy and rebalance mod so anyone playing that would also be able to test them (and well, if they get into RP they'll kinda be core). While playtesting his mod for the newest release we sorta ran into bugs with other stuff so some of that migh get included. And I got to test them a bit, too.

Plus, now there's a russian translation (for all 3 localizations) for them because of this, which should make implementing them into the RP easier :)
 
Lujo,

I'm going to give it a quick run this weekend. Are there any particular places I should be aware of for bug testing. (spoilers don't bother me much).

Thanks.
 
Well, a few typo bugs have been fixed in the meanwhile but I'm not sure if I applied them. If you notice any, deffinitely post or pm.

You can find everything I did easily. If you can raise a 1000 gold and a bit of speech and buy Vic from Metzger, just ask him how he was captured, save game and go to the Slaver Camp and tell Metzger sent you. Then keep going along towards VC and once you're there talk to the Bartender at "the Tap" in VC about booze, and talk to the information center guy. The talk to Stark, do Gecko scouting, and return. Then pick up the BH scouting, save game and start the Vault Village quest. BH scouting is just that, a scouting like Gecko and NCR, you can see if it's working after you do VV, and you can try out different stuff with VV, there's a million ways to solve it with varying degrees of closure (I made it so you can deliver the guns and still do the diplomatic part). Since I left the original speech check with McClure if you get there with 80% speech it's probably going to be really really easy to solve, but I tuned up other variations.

Not sure if I adjusted the XP low enough, though. Anyway, play around with the various scenarios, you'll be pointed to various players, I mainly rewrote Connar in the Village and tweaked Seargeant Stark and McClure a bit.

And that's all pretty much.
 
Thank you. I've ran into the same hurdles with phobo's economy mod. For some reason I can't save my game. I really wish you could install just the bounty hunting quests from his mod, as that's all I really care about. I prefer Magnus' weapon mod over YAMM or GLOVz fix anyway. So I'm probably going to remove the economy mod, since it never really works for me with any outside tweaks (it's just not friendly that way), and just use your mod on top of the RP and Magnus' Weapons Redone.

But, the game has bored me for this weekend, so maybe some other time. It's a shame there seem to be only 4-5 people playing Fallout 2 anymore... especially considering the potential it has.
 
Ah, well, strange about that...

And, well, sure, post them over your regular stuff, they should work, but I'm not sure I even could force myself to play any version over Economy & Rebalance under any circumstances. If that wasn't made, franky, I'm not sure I'd ever convince myself that the time investment to learn or do modding was worth it. It's not nearly perfect, but it's miles ahead of anything else that I know of. I did give a lot of feedback on it though, but I don't feel biased really, I'm not in fact a big Fallout 2 fan and view the game as a bit of a puzzle and archeological/design puzzle - "how to make this incomplete incoherent bloated hackjob of a terrible cash-in on the sucess of a decent little game work as if the guys who made it actually did a proffesional job and had a few more months to finish it and talked to each other while they were making it". So I do my best to be objective about stuff related to it and all about it XD

That's kind of my approach to fallout 2 - "let's see if I can figure out a way in which in a parallel universe where things happen with reason and logic, many of the people working on it won't be fired on the spot as they try to sell it as an actually fully developed game. But still the one they were contracted to make, and it was playtested.".

So I'm not exactly easy to please when it comes to modifications, because I don't even hold the source material in high esteem. However, I'm very much pro to the idea that stuff should be as faithful to the original design, that's basically the challenge - trying to figure out what should've been done if there wasn't executive meddling, half-assedness, incompetence, lack of playtesting, lack of understanding of how what they've created works (on part of the guys who made it, I don't judge modders harshly, modders don't get paid or shape cannon).

And I've played F2 enough times that I was incredibly bored with it (it was one of the few replayable turn based isometric RPGs whenever I wanted to play a bit of that) and really surprised when E&R pulled me back in and gave me the idea that Fallout 2 maybe wasn't so hopelessly unfixable as it seemed so I finally did some stuff. RP has been a big deal for me back in the day too.
 
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Yes, the Economy mod seems to make it an amazing experience... but I can't seem to get it to function with any of my own small modifications. (if I so much as alter ammo stacks, for example, I can't save the game or do anything).
 
J_Fred said:
Yes, the Economy mod seems to make it an amazing experience... but I can't seem to get it to function with any of my own small modifications. (if I so much as alter ammo stacks, for example, I can't save the game or do anything).
Click to expand...

Well, phobos built it on cubiks ammo mod, he altered the stacks, did everything and I've managed to apply miria and a few other things (plus everything is customisable AFAIK). I'm not sure it needs any tinkering at all tbh, but I'm kinda sure you can tinker with it...

What exactly are you trying to do?
 
Change HP and XP of a few critters. It seems to be working okay for now. I'm liking it so far. I have a plethora of weapons, and they are worthless! lol.
 
lujo said:
Well, a few typo bugs have been fixed in the meanwhile but I'm not sure if I applied them. If you notice any, deffinitely post or pm.

You can find everything I did easily. If you can raise a 1000 gold and a bit of speech and buy Vic from Metzger, just ask him how he was captured, save game and go to the Slaver Camp and tell Metzger sent you. Then keep going along towards VC and once you're there talk to the Bartender at "the Tap" in VC about booze, and talk to the information center guy. The talk to Stark, do Gecko scouting, and return. Then pick up the BH scouting, save game and start the Vault Village quest. BH scouting is just that, a scouting like Gecko and NCR, you can see if it's working after you do VV, and you can try out different stuff with VV, there's a million ways to solve it with varying degrees of closure (I made it so you can deliver the guns and still do the diplomatic part). Since I left the original speech check with McClure if you get there with 80% speech it's probably going to be really really easy to solve, but I tuned up other variations.

Not sure if I adjusted the XP low enough, though. Anyway, play around with the various scenarios, you'll be pointed to various players, I mainly rewrote Connar in the Village and tweaked Seargeant Stark and McClure a bit.

And that's all pretty much.
Click to expand...

The Vic dialogue worked just fine, no issues and I didn't notice any typos or glaring grammatical errors. The Stark quest worked quite well and gave me a reason to go to Broken Hills - other than getting a Super Mutant with a minigun as a companion. I ran through the VV quest as I always have, though I couldn't just go straight to The Brain, I had to talk to Mcclure first (which makes sense - good call on that change!). I also talked to the Vault City Librarian to find the Abbey, instead of having to stumble upon it or Father Tully.

I don't think an 80% is too low of a requirement. If you were to alter anything, I would keep it under 100.


All of this to say - excellent changes! I found the overall flow to be very intuitive, and I think it works well within the purity of Killap's RP.


I'm glad I got to see this plan pan out, lujo. I've been on board since day one!
 
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