Making a tome

[zhuge]

I've been interested in adding books and tomes to the game to bring out the flavor of the world of Greyhawk, a world where matters are not so distinctly black and white as the Forgotten Realms but shades of grey in between.

First of all, we'll need to know how things work.

Basically in protos.tab, 2 extra new entries will need to be added.
Now don't be alarmed, we just need to copy over some stuff from ready made examples like Lareth's diary or Romag's diary.


The first entry will be in the written category:
Insert a new line, say {11008} and follow the fields from {11004}{Romag's diary} except of course for ided.
You'll have to modify Col269 (san_use) so that it calls the right .py file (we'll be adding py00269testtome_book.py and py00270testtome_critter.py later) so this field should be changed to 269 0 0 0 0.
This field was previously 234 0 0 0 0 which called py00234romagdiary_book.py

This basically represents the actual item itself (book or note or whatever), though we don't exactly have much choice of models to choose from.


The second entry will be in NPC category:
Insert a new line, say {14452} and copy the fields from {14427}{Romag's Diary} except of course for ided.
For now we'll leave Col277 (san_dialog) as 233 0 0 0 0. The first number refers to the dlg file which is in this case:
00233romagdiary_critter.dlg
This second entry represents an "invisible creature" that you will be holding the conversation with, to simulate reading the book. Just make sure the proper flags are all copied over so that there will be no additional interaction with it:
OF_SEE_THROUGH
OF_SHOOT_THROUGH
OF_DONTDRAW
OF_CLICK_THROUGH
OF_INVULNERABLE
OF_NO_BLOCK

Next, we'll insert the needed entries into description.mes, for example:
{11008}{Test tome}
{14452}{Test tome}


Now, we'll have to tackle the .py files. Again we can rely on
py00233romagdiary_critter.py and py00234romagdiary_book.py
as template for our new py files:
py00269testtome_book.py and py00270testtome_critter.py

In py00234romagdiary_book.py, we'll need to alter line:
npc = game.obj_create( 14427, loc )
to:
npc = game.obj_create( 14452, loc )

Now this new book py script will call the new object {14452} in protos.tab. Save the py file as py00269testtome_book.py

For py00233romagdiary_critter.py, I made no modifications and saved straight as py00270testtome_critter.py


Because we left Col277 (san_dialog) for our {14452}{Test tome} unchanged, we will be getting the Romag diary "conversation".
Tested it and it works.

To enable entirely new content, a new dlg should be made and Col277 should point to this new dlg file.

[zhuge]

Ok, so the next step is to get some actual stuff to put into a tome.
We can then insert the tome(s) into the game via a dialogue mod.

I would like to put in some info/history of the surrounding areas/places (Kron Hills, Gnarley Forest, Verbobonc, Dyvers, Free City of Greyhawk, Furyondy, Veluna, Celene, The Wild Coast and maybe the Lands of Iuz as well). Some accounts of the Battle of Emridy Meadows would also be nice.
There are some good compiled timelines and events during this period which are available for free on the Internet.

Lord_Spike also posted some nice backgrounds for places at the fan fiction section at Atari:
http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums...s=&forumid=308
including The Shield Lands, Verbobonc & Dyvers, The Arch-Clericy of Veluna, The Horned Society, The Bandit Kingdoms, ToEE Backstory, Excerpt from A Guide to the World of Greyhawk

So the big question now is: Who's gonna look for the stuff and who's gonna do the coding...

[zhuge]

Never mind, I've done the digging. Someone just confirm with me if the references below are ok. No major conflicts with canon or other stuff. We should not include any events which happen after the ToEE adventure (which is supposed to be set in CY579(?))
Oh and I think we should acknowledge whatever source we are using (with/without slight modifications) so that the original author gets proper credit. Probably put it in the changelog. Any thoughts? Any potential problems?

Greyhawk general timeline and history:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~monax002/Coun...1/history.html
http://www.afn.org/~afn09454/greyhaw...hronology.html

Furyondy:
http://www.furyondy.com/history.html
http://www.living-greyhawk.com/furyondy.htm

Celene:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~monax002/Coun...de/celene.html

Verbobonc:
http://www.dracheninsel.de/insel/add.../verbobonc.htm
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bennettg/history.html
http://www.google.com.my/search?q=ca...erbobonc&hl=en

Dyvers:
http://www.dracheninsel.de/insel/add...awk/dyvers.htm
http://dyvers.living-greyhawk.com/

Gnarley Forest:
http://tirannon.tky.hut.fi/~doomeye/add/g116.html


For those doing dialogue mods, I suggest doing some reading about the world. It'll show when you actually make those mods and you'll get more ideas too. And we can always get one of them Greyhawk fanatics over at the main Wizards boards to settle any niggling questions.

[AlanC9]

Most of those look fine to me. Note that the "current" information given is for several years after ToEE, so be careful.

Looks like nobody rescued poor Prince T. after all.

[zhuge]

Thanks Alan. I'll probably put one tome on the timeline/history and maybe 2 or 3 about the surroundings areas.