Shadows of the NIght

Winnings: $571

Attentive readers will notice I had another loss: for the second time I had clawed back what I lost, only to lose it again immediately. Frankly I'm sick of it. The system is officially on hiatus for retooling, and my hard-earned is instead going to pay off the credit card, which I dare say is far more sensible anyway.

I am back on nightshifts for a couple days. U know, being back into ToEE for 4.1.0 has really given me a taste for the ol' girl... hmmm lemme rephrase that. I feel quite inspired to add new stuff, where previously I was basically over it and just going through the motions for contractual obligation (wanting rather to focus solely on KotB). Not only am I doing the Moathouse respawn, but thanks to a healthier understanding of some of the flags, I am really hanging to do the Thrommel changes too that I put on hold a while back, and once we know where things stand, I wanna knock over Endarire's npc once and for all :) And as u all doubtless know, I have a taste for getting the repeating crossbows functioning in some form - fine weapons they are! Damn fine! Interesting the various feats that are mentioned in the game, I wonder what others work on some level. Improved shield bash is there (though how we could associate it with a shield-weapon is beyond me), and so is weapon proficiency for gauntlets (would be nice to get that happening for the boxing gloves). Well, it will all have to wait for Brad, because even if I was inlined to try to hack new feats in (and I don't for one moment claim I could, even the easy ones) to hack the .dll when Brad is giving it such an overhaul would be ridiculous. If I am not mistaken, Brad is not just hacking bits and pieces here and there, he is completely decompiling and recompiling it to add various new stuff (Moebius didn't go that far - he hacked in new stuff over existing but non-active stuff if I am not mistaken, so the file stayed the same size etc) so anything I or anyone else did would of course clash with Brad's efforts.

Speaking of flags - seems like centuries I have been promising a flags tutorial. Well thanks to some diligent work by Cerulean, I am more informed, and since I HAVE to do a few flags to get the respawn to work properly, I will have no excuse for not tutorialising as I go.

Where does that leave KotB? Well, tonight here at work I hacked up a chunk of the Invensource with some randomly determined outfits: a random Farmer Garb set, Villager Garb set, Wizard Robe set, Mystic set and Noble Set (the last 2 being rather small). These can be attached to various ancilliary characters, such as Guild merchants showing up during the course of things, or folks like the stablehands etc. This way, when they spawn in each new game, they will have different clothes. Of course this assumes a script spawning - a lot of characters in the game will be script-spawned rather than modded so that there can be a random element introduced into their locations: for instance, i will spawn all the spiders in the spider forest (other than big mamma) from a spawner at the entrance: thus they can be put in very different positions. This will increase the replayability of the game - people won't know exactly what monsters will turn up where. Also, adding a spawner means if u clean out the Spider forest (for instance), it will be a peice of cake to have the game respawn the place later.

Not only will this mean NPCs will dress different and be in slightly different places from game to game, subtly helping in the feeling that something 'different' is going on, but having these sets all ready to go mean that using the 'load inventory' button in ToEEWB will allow people making mobs to have readymade clothes/boots/funny hat/money all ready to go, make things easier for people getting started and faster for me when I add stuff.

Thats the theory, anyway ;-)

Here's some Invensource entries, for no good reason. I also did a few shop inventories, the sorta deadly dull stuff that is ideal for nightshifts. Note these are atm completely untested.

{39}{Inner Gate Guard Chain Shield Sword HandAxe: 100,6453 100,6463 100,6473 100,6020 100,6021 100,6018 100,4802 100,4806 silver,2-12}
{40}{Inner Gate Guard Chain Longbow Sword: 100,6453 100,6463 100,6020 100,6021 100,4087 100,4043 100,5004 silver,2-12 gold,2-5}
{41}{Inner Gate Guard Scale Polearm: 100,6463 100,6020 100,6021 100,4043 100,4412 100,6805 copper,5-12}
{42}{Barkeep: 100,6180 100,6023 100,6076 100,4118 silver,40 gold,27 gems,60}
{43}{Peasant Farmer Garb: (6123,6142,6143,6144,6145,6146) 100,6011 (6025,6028,6034,6037,6235,6236,6237,6238,6283,6038) 25,6180 copper,5-12 silver,4-10}
{44}{Peasant Villager Garb: (6147,6148,6149,6150) (6025,6028,6034,6037,6235,6236,6237,6238,6283,6038) 100,6023 25,6185 copper,3-32 silver,40-80}
{45}{Peasant Monk Garb: (6203,6204,6205,6206,6207,6208) (6025,6028,6034,6037,6235,6236,6237,6238,6283,6038) 100,6045 copper,27-51 silver,3-33 gold,1-6}
{46}{Generic Desk with cash: silver,12-37 gold,4-19 platinum,1-11}
{47}{unused thus far}
{48}{Wizard Robed Figure: 100,6202 100,6283 (6109,6112,6081,6130,6329,6331,6332,6333) 10,6183 10,6184 10,6181 10,6192 10,6197 copper,1-20 silver,1-13 gold,21-36 platinum,1-11}
{49}{Guildmaster: 100,6021 100,6093 100,6182 100,6084 100,6090 100,4079 100,6202 gold,2-12}
{50}{Noble Garbed Figure: 100,6202 (6151,6016,6218,6159) 10,6082 10,6183 10,6184 10,6181 10,6192 10,6197 copper,14-38 silver,3-17 gold,9-15}
{51}{Mystic Garbed Figure: 100,6456 (6211,6212,6213) 10,6183 10,6184 10,6181 10,6192 10,6197 silver,3-27 gold,3-11}