WARNING to all potential/current plug-in developers

If you name ANYTHING (NPCs, Maps, Locations, Pictures etc.) the same as an original thing in PoG, it automatically replaces them, regardless of where you are. That is why the Goblins are harder in DiD, RD called them Goblin.cnp, the same name as the original, so they were all replaced. Savvi?

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Vast__
QUOTE "All games die eventually except for Starcraft which will live forever..."
Long Live Ares, Starcraft, Uplink and Cythera!

(This message has been edited by Agent_Vast (edited 01-21-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Agent_Vast:
**If you name ANYTHING (NPCs, Maps, Locations, Pictures etc.) the same as an original thing in PoG, it automatically replaces them, regardless of where you are. That is why the Goblins are harder in DiD, RD called them Goblin.cnp, the same as the original, so they were all replaced. Savvi?

**

But since the source code for PoG is not available, you do not necessarily know what the true names of NPCs, Maps, Locations, Pictures etc. are. Since this topic is not about how to play PoG, it would be better on the Coldstone forum where plugin and game development is discussed.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

Replaces who with what? Be more specific anyway.

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Nobody's perfect. Well... there was this one guy, but we killed him.

If any plugin has an event, an NCP, item, map, anything with the same name as in PoG, the plugin file overrides the PoG file. Similarly, if two plugins have a file with the same name, one will override the other. Most plugin makers know this. It is due to the way Coldstone and the Mac OS system work. Back the in the days of Glider PRO, it was a common trick to hack your houses with graphics that had the same resource ID as the ones in the game. Still applies to Coldstone, but becuase you don't get the names of all the files by opening the Data001.dat file in ResEdit, this is more annyoing than useful.

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Somebody set up us the spam!!!
-OctoberFost

Well, if the goblins name was "goblin", I could only imagine what they named the kobold file...I mean, it seems to me like common sense here.

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Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordian.
"You're dumb." -Rawzer to whitedevil, whitedevil2, Ory 'hara, and poger825.
What doesn't kill you just leaves you writhing in pain and agony.

Except I rather suspect that any number of file names are either misspelled or in French... this is PoG we're talking about, after all. ("Filter of Healing", anyone?)

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (attributed)

Quote

Originally posted by SlaVitiCkus:
**Well, if the goblins name was "goblin", I could only imagine what they named the kobold file...I mean, it seems to me like common sense here.

**

The problem is more complex than you seem to think. When you want to put a goblin in a map for a plugin, the NPCs in the game folder are not available. Therefore, you have to create an NPC of your own to be able to place one. This new creation works if the name is unique but causes trouble if the name is the same. The pictures folder contains a sub folder for npc_goblin, so is the name "npc_goblin.cnp" or "goblin.cnp"?

I did not know when I wrote the plugin that the plugin would replace all the goblins in the game. I only expected to add some. And there were several types of goblins being added: goblins, evil_goblins, goblin_buddies, new_goblins, etc. None of my testers reported any problems and I did not pick up on this myself. If a player is at level 4 or higher when the plugin is activated, there is hardly any noticable difference between a "real" goblin and a DiD goblin.

Things I have learned since writing the plugin: If you want to add kobolds to your plugin you have to create a kobold and place it in your NPC folder. Then you can add it to your maps and/or PoG maps. Once you have done that, you can go back and remove the kobold from the plugin NPC folder and if you named your NPC correctly the game folder will put a kobold where you want it. If you didn't name it the same, no NPCs appear and I think the game crashes.

There are 81 different entries in the DiD NPC folder. The only one that had a conflict with the PoG NPCs was "goblin.cnp" and there would not have been any problem if I had named it "runt.cnp" or something similar.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
There are 81 different entries in the DiD NPC folder.
(/B)

81? No...
I don't believe that.

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Vast__
QUOTE "All games die eventually except for Starcraft which will live forever..."
Long Live Ares, Starcraft, Uplink and Cythera!

Quote

Originally posted by Agent_Vast:
**81? No...
I don't believe that.

**

I counted them before posting. There are, of necessity, six Aigburrs (one walks in circles, one walks east to spot A, one walks west to spot B, etc.), seven Princess Jadyns (standing still tied to tree, follow hero, enter Gidolan Keep, wait near Fungus if hero loses her, etc.), several levels of trolls, several types of Goblins, the cast for the fishing contest, the residents of Upper Berglum, the Woodsman, a few Chazwits, Chickens, Ice Imps, Icemen, Vorkts, readable signs, the Runner, Loogor's dogs - benign, Loogor's dogs - vicious, several Ratznests, three Jimmies, Joyanna, the Recycle Bin, etc.

Every time you want an NPC to do something different (e.g. Chazwit enters his house or Ratznest retreats to his private quarters) you have to create a new NPC to do that and replace the one who was just standing there. The signs you can read are all NPCs as in "Twin Oaks Lodge" "Goblin Ghetto" and so on. That is why they show up as blue dots with the awareness skill. The wooden arrow signs are merely stamps because they have no dialogue box.

Now, if you want more statistics, Damsels in Distress has 217 events several of which have entries that number in the thousands. There are 467 unique items in the plugin. The pictures folder has 624 entries. Of those pictures, 72 were required to make the Ice Cave, the Red Guy uses 128 pictures, and Harold has only 48.

Perhaps that will give some idea of what goes into a plugin like this one. 😄 ~RD

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

:eek:
Any chance of the Source code? 🙂 Please?

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Vast__
QUOTE "All games die eventually except for Starcraft which will live forever..."
Long Live Ares, Starcraft, Uplink and Cythera!
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202-27.html")See my infamous death in the blue mshroom pub!(/url)

(quote)Originally posted by Agent_Vast:
**Any chance of the Source code?:)

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)
**

Quote

Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
But since the source code for PoG is not available, you do not necessarily know what the true names of NPCs, Maps, Locations, Pictures etc. are.

Why can't Ambrosia just create a list of all events/ NPCs, etc. and briefly explain what they do? It wouldn't have to be fancy, just something like:

goblin.cnp- A standard goblin
dcyclops.cnp- A Dernath cyclops
sign123.cnp- The sign one screen north of Fantrima

PoG doesn't need to be open-source, it just needs to have documentation for what all the events/ NPCs/ Places/ etc. are named. After all, EVN is not open source, but we can edit the missions and such. Sure, it works a bit differently than Coldstone, but the concept is the same. If you know what everything is and what everything does, then you can edit the in-game aspects.
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Motion is impossible:
If an archer fired an arrow at a target, it would have to travel halfway before reaching the target. To reach that distance, the arrow would first need to travel halfway. To reach that distance, the arrow would first need to travel halfway. To reach that distance, the arrow would first need to travel halfway. To reach that distance, the arrow would first need to travel halfway. To reach that distance, the arrow would first need to travel halfway...

(This message has been edited by Thunderforge (edited 02-07-2004).)

Maybe this is something that Carm would be willing to do for us while she is working with the source code for PoG. Thanks, Thunderforge, I will send her an email about this.

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My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Thunderforge:
(b)Why can't Ambrosia just create a list of all events/ NPCs, etc. and briefly explain what they do? It wouldn't have to be fancy, just something like:

goblin.cnp- A standard goblin
dcyclops.cnp- A Dernath cyclops
sign123.cnp- The sign one screen north of Fantrima(b)

This can be done automatically from Coldstone. Well. You can have a list like this one:

::EXPORTTABLE = GLOBALS

gb_Guard 1
gb_Guard 2
gb_CHEESEHAMMER

::EXPORTTABLE = Locations:Defs

Load game.clo
Magic Cheese.clo
Place 1.clo

::EXPORTTABLE = Events:Defs

3rd access + stamp.cet
4th access + stamp.cet
4th Guardian.cet

::EXPORTTABLE = Items

Ball.cit
Ball2.cit
Ball3.cit

::EXPORTTABLE = NPCs

Cheese Man.cnp
GVH.cnp
Inn Man.cnp
Kryten.cnp

This (shortened) list is from my game.
You just choose the Plugins tab in the Game Options and choose Export Plugin Tables: Global Variables, Locations etc.

Maybe we could ask Carm or anyone else to do that when they re-compile PoG (if they do).

(This message has been edited by Kryten (edited 01-28-2004).)

AV's eyes grow wide and he smiles an evil smile.
Replacing kobolds with guardians...
Hmm.

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Vast__
QUOTE "All games die eventually except for Starcraft which will live forever..."
Long Live Ares, Starcraft, Uplink and Cythera!
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202-27.html")See my infamous death in the Blue Mushroom Pub!(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Thunderforge:
Why can't Ambrosia just create a list of all events/ NPCs, etc. and briefly explain what they do? It wouldn't have to be fancy, just something like:

I asked Dee a long, long time ago about this, and he said that the info could certainly be made available.

Unfortunately it has yet to materialize.

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Heh. You never know with Beenox. It's been a long time since the OS X bug.

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Vast__
QUOTE "All games die eventually except for Starcraft which will live forever..."
Long Live Ares, Starcraft, Uplink and Cythera!
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202-27.html")See my infamous death in the Blue Mushroom Pub!(/url)