posted 18 November 2004 04:12 AM EDT (US)
I've noticed that many potential scenario designers (and some known scenario designers) have been working on RPG scenarios, or are wondering on how to do certain 'difficult' trigger-tricks when it comes to RPGs. I've worked for almost a year on my Sp scenario The following guide will introduce the trigger 'system' I used to create several aspects of my upcoming RPG. I will also explaine several aspects on map design to help you create a large world in a seemingly 'small' 512 X 512 map (the normal max.). Special Trigger Systems: - (I'll keep updating with other trigger systems later on) I will also explain several 'less-difficult' aspects, for the beginners, like: - And, finally, I will explain on how you should divide the map and how it should be designed. - This one isn't particularily difficult, but it does come as a challenge to new designers. The basic idea of this trigger system is to make the player's unit 'eat', die if he doesn't, and get tired, (and lose some of his 'experience' should he do so). ^ The trigger above removes 5 food every 15 seconds. You can change the stats if you like, ofcourse. Now your player is eating his food. Make sure to give the player an adequate amount of STARTING food by going to Now you need to find a way to feed the player. Let's say he needs to buy ^ The above gives you 500 food for 25 gold if you click the granary. The trigger will This basically explains the Hunger system. You can distribute many granaries around the map and use the same triggers (using copy triggers, but be sure to rename the triggers you copy) to make them give food for 25 gold. Stats can be changed, ofcourse (for example, 10 gold for 100 food). - Stamina represents the maximum distance a character can move before he or she gets tired. To represent stamina, I chose wood. Basically, for every To recharge stamina, I chose the 'Manor'. Basically, the character selects this manor, which is abandonned, and gets to sleep in it, recharging his stamina by 500. To make this a little more challenging, I made it so the character can only use the manor ONCE and must search for another to continue. * Don't forget to loop the trigger. ^ The trigger above ^ That's about it. However, you can add your own 'cool' stuff to it. For example, you can convert the player to 'player 2' for around 10 seconds, then re-convert him to 'player 1' to give the impression of 'sleeping'. This is slightly more difficult. Basically, you want to give the player total freedom to choose his/her character's gender (male or female), Race (ex: Dwarf or Human), Name (ex: Marius) or Class (ex: Ranged or Melee). This will require a series of somewhat complicated triggers but once you start you sort of- move with the flow I haven't included This should be at the start of the scenario. - The first thing you want to do is create one unit for Player 1 and surround him by cliff so he can't move. Place him anywhere on the map, but preferably somewhere you don't plan on using for the scenario itself. You can delete him after the player chooses his character. The next thing to do is to create a small, tiny space and surround it by water. I've included a screenshot from birthright though I've blacked out the characters so you can't see them. Don't want to reveal anything Let's take this as an example- you want two races, - The following will explain the first thing you should do, which is to allow the character to decide his race (in this case, human or dwarf). Remember to create In the following example, let us assume that typing ^ As you can see with the above, by typing 150, the player kept the Human Units and destroyed the dwarven one. You will also need to By doing the above, you've gotten rid of all the races except the one the player wants to play with. There, you've successfully selected your race! Now, its on to gender(male or female) selection! - Now that you have your race selected, it is time to select the gender. You now have 4 units left (in this example, you may want to include more, depending on how many 'classes' you've included (ex: I chose melee and ranged, but you may want to include 'Wizard'). Let us assume that typing Make sure you also include instructions by dialogue after race selection so that player knows how to select gender as well. The above selected the male characters. You had to delete ALL female for every single race because this way, its faster- otherwise, if you want to do it the hard way, you'll have to create double the amount of triggers you really need. And there you have it. Gender selection is done! Now, on to the final two steps- Class and Name selection! At this point, only a few characters are left. You will either have two female or male humans, or two female or male dwarves. Now the only thing left to do is to allow the character to decide whether he wants (according to this example) to select the Ranged or Melee class. It is important to note that while the trigger states that you are converting ALL the units you originally placed, they won't all be converted since you destroyed them through the previous trigger selection. Let us asume that 55 will select Melee and 33 will select ranged. You will need to And there you have it. Class is selected and now the character can see his or her selection - For name selection, you will need to pick out the names yourself and present them to the player. The player will then choose the name he likes best. Unfortunately, there is now ay to have the player actually select any name he or she wants. I will show you the system for Remember to give the player instructions on name selection. Maybe even during a cinematic- sort of like the opening scene of The above selected the name Marius for the character. Remember, rename all characters, even female ones with a male name and vice versa. And there you have it. The character is totally customized. Just introduce the character to the game and let him/her roam around completing all the cool missions you created! - Map Design is the key to any successful scenario. Without a good map, you can kiss a good rating good bye. Its the first thing anyone notices- its The key to good map design is to concentrate on a specific area. Make a sort of 'perimiter', surround it by a forest or mountains or walls, and just start designing. Keep adding this and that and before you know it, it will start looking amazing. Once you're done with that area, move on. Here are a couple of screenshots from Birthright- And here, is a screenshot of the entire map. This will give you an idea on how I laid out the map. You should do this espiacally when creating a massive RPG- designate certain points of the map for certain cities, areas, etc.. You'll find that it'll make the map design task much, much easier. I photoshopped it by the way. Don't want to reveal anything ----------------------------------------------------------- Well, this should be enough to get you started. I'll keep updating this thread with more trigger systems so keep checking When doing all the above triggers make it on a blank scenario and Enjoy and please comment! [This message has been edited by Gaurdian_112 (edited 11-18-2004 @ 04:15 AM).]
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