The Arena of Heroes Mod (Beta)

Discussion in 'General Modification' started by Morpheus, Feb 13, 2005.

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  1. Morpheus

    Morpheus Mindflayer Veteran

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    Here's the second version of my "Arena of Heroes Mod". In its current state, it contains only two of three challenges the player will eventually have to face.

    ATTENTION: This mod is based on Livonya's earlier Kids/Traps/Quest mod. The Arena of Heroes mod is NOT COMPATIBLE with Livonya's current Beta Mod 1.5.

    I will try to make this mod compatible with Livonya's Beta Mod. Once I'm finished, you will be able to find the Book of Heroes - which teleports you to the Arena - in the chest that appears next to Brother Smyth at a certain point in the story.

    If you just want to give the Arena a quick try, you can also get the Book of Heroes by typing "give 11050" in the console. Then drag the book onto the "Use" button and you're in for a surprise. ;)

    Unzip the files dlg.zip, mes.zip, rules.zip and scr.zip into your Temple of Elemental Evil/data folder (overwriting any files already there). Unzip ToEE.zip into your Temple of Elemental Evil/modules folder.

    The mod is still in a very early stage, so there's plenty of stuff to improve. I would be grateful for any suggestions. Please post your ideas!

    IMPORTANT: After you have copied the mod files into their respective directories, you should delete all those files with weird names in the folder Temple of Elemental Evil\modules\ToEE\maps before you start the game. These files are some sort of cache for map information.
     

    Attached Files:

    • ToEE.zip
      File size:
      779 bytes
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      68
    • dlg.zip
      File size:
      10.6 KB
      Views:
      48
    • mes.zip
      File size:
      32.8 KB
      Views:
      45
    • rules.zip
      File size:
      87.7 KB
      Views:
      47
    • scr.zip
      File size:
      2.3 KB
      Views:
      49
    Last edited: May 8, 2005
  2. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Morpheus -

    Looking forward to trying this and getting further into Livonya's stuff when I've got a spare moment . . . hopefully this weekend.

    Gaear
     
  3. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Pretty friggin' sweet

    Hats off, Morpheus. Your Arena of Heroes mod was very well done.

    I've got to hand it to you guys (you, Livonya, zhuge), you've all got excellent writing and dialog skills. Whenever I try out a player mod I always expect to see either bad grammar and spelling or lifeless strings of text or both, but your stuff here is excellent. I'm sure that this combination of good new content and an intriguing new map will take a lot of fans off guard (pleasantly so), and combined with Livonya's material, will be enough to fundamentaly change this game . . . in other words, it's not just the same ToEE anymore, and that's all the more reason to (re)play it now. Bravo!

    Questions:

    I used the "give" shortcut to try it out; will the book only be available to parties of sufficient skill to handle the challenges?

    Comments:

    Seemless transitions to the arena both visually and audibly - great job.

    Good job as well on the return aspect. If you leave the arena without accepting the challenges and decide to go back, the Master acknowledges that you've already been there. Little details I know, but everything contributes to the immersiveness of the experience.

    Suggestions:

    Perhaps the whole mood of the arena and the Master could be a bit more sinister.

    As I think of it, you're recent post in Livonya's Kids thread in which you describe a horde of skeletons emerging from the earth (including spellcasters!) might fit the bill nicely. Maybe the Master could prove to be more of a foreboding character as the challenges progress . . . or maybe in the end he could become the skeletal mage leading the undead party . . .

    Again, excellent job.

    Gaear
     
  4. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    A few good things!

    Hey I added some stuff you might wanna check out, ask the blacksmith about Masterwork composite bows, also fixed a few things in craft wonderous items, and craft rods (crafting a few more staves but you need craft rod for the creation console and the craft staff feat). I'm stumped about the bonus to perform for the instruments though.

    Sorry I screwed up the sickle but it works now
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 1, 2005
  5. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    Roman arena?

    On the skele's in the arena theme, how about equipping them with roman short swords, shields, and (can skele's even wear) plumed helms? arm some with tridents and nets (rope of entanglement?), I think there were about 4-5 different "types" of gladiator in the roman empire, I can't remember the others off the top of my head, when I get my 2nd ed sourcebook back I can report back on this one if this is the way you wanna go with this one.
     
  6. Morpheus

    Morpheus Mindflayer Veteran

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    I was kinda busy lately, but I'll definitely check out your modifications sometime this week, Allyx. Let's see if we can get them into the next Co8 mod pack.
     
  7. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    Its nothing fancy, just a touch more dialogue for the blacksmith with links to items already coded into the protos for the bows and sickle, until someone discovers how to add craft staff and craft rings into the radial menu, they'll have to be put into another craft menu, but you can change the craft feat required to make them, you just need both feats for now.

    For my next trick, i'm gonna tackle forge rings and the robes of the arch magi!

    Compllong bows were uncraftable *fixed*

    Got rings? I do!
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 3, 2005
  8. Morpheus

    Morpheus Mindflayer Veteran

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    I integrated most of your stuff into my files, Allyx. I changed one thing, though. You converted all the comp bows to masterwork ones, but I wanted to keep the original versions and thus added new proto IDs for the masterwork composite bows. I adapted the blacksmith dialogue accordingly.

    Does anyone know what's up with the Ring of Animal Summoning? Everytime I use it, it summons a different animal. Dogs, bears, giant lizards etc. ... I don't know if there's a system behind this, so I changed its long description to: "A ring of animal summoning allows the user to cast Summon Nature's Ally I once per day, summoning a randomly selected animal that stays with the party until killed."
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2005
  9. ordinaryjones

    ordinaryjones Established Member

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    I'm not sure if it's been changed due to patching but summon wands and scrolls used to always summon whatever creature you had last summoned with the spell in the radial menu. If I remember correctly the wand or scroll was useless unless you had already cast the spell.
     
  10. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    I thought you would, but most of the times i've tried adding new lines in the protos the game won't load! So i'll leave that to you morpheus.
     
  11. Kalshane

    Kalshane Local Rules Geek

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    I have the same problem. Everytime I use Phalzyr's protos editor to edit the protos.tab it won't load the game and I have to restore my back up. It used to work, I don't know what the problem is now. I do notice the file size tends to be radically different after I edit (and it's different each time).
     
  12. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    Morpheus, you should change the names for the composite bows, the +number in the name counts against the craft magic arms and armor, "Comp bow (str +3)", becomes uncraftable, Comp bow (str 12, 14, or 16) works fine though.
     
  13. Morpheus

    Morpheus Mindflayer Veteran

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    Ah, okay, I'll change that. Thanks!
     
  14. Morpheus

    Morpheus Mindflayer Veteran

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    The book will only be available to parties who have completed Brother Smyth's quests, which involve killing a Hill Giant and unlocking a rather difficult chest, so the Arena shouldn't be accessible to complete newbies.
    Since the party can teleport back to "their world" in between the challenges, they can rest, buff up etc. before tackling the next one.

    Thanks for your praise, by the way. :)
     
  15. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    Yes!!!!!!!!!!

    I got the robes of the archmagi done! and I think they're pretty sweet!
    Everything except granting the spell penetration feat anyway.

    I can't tell at the moment if the prerequisites to craft them are right, I somehow lost the bit that tells you in the game which things you need, instead I got the discription and I'm somehow able to craft things I can afford but know I don't have the prerequistes for!

    I'm gonna clean out and re-install tomorrow, hope that fixes it.....nope didn't work. Perhaps a fresh set of eyes will shed some light on the subject.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 8, 2005
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