PoG Task list: How to add new quests

There is actually no direct way of adding new quests to the actual task list of PoG. Not because Coldstone can't do it or the plugin system doesn't support it, simply because PoG wasn't designed for that. The plugin system became supported only later during the PoG development so some things should have been planned better from the start to be supported by the plugin system. When the task list is displayed in PoG, the event first delete all current tasks and then, depending on the state of some global variables, add the corresponding tasks. This technique has a lot of advantage like being easier to manage to be sure that the task list is always up to date.

BUT , there is still hope... read below.

Add something to the player inventory such as a official scroll or a book that the player can't be drop or sell. When the player uses this book, it calls an event that clear the task list and then add your own tasks (see task list control action) depending on the state of your global variables. Then, it displays the task list using an engine call action. You could also add a keyboard shortcut that would let you directly access this item (i.e. launch the event linked to the item "Use" action). This way, every plugin can propose his own task list without fear of conflicts. Also, by dynamically re-creating the task list everytime, you won't have to worry about your tasks being saved in the save game file or not (which could lead to strange thing if the player decide to remove the plugin from its plugin folder and still have a quest pending in his task list).

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Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers

(This message has been edited by Dee (edited 02-04-2002).)

I suppose this "flawed planning" would also be the cause of third-party classes not affecting the character's stats?
Is some sort of fix possible?

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The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason ŃWizard's Sixth Rule, Faith of the Fallen.
ŃCafall

Thanks for the information Dee. I as well as several others have been banging my
head against the wall trying to figure the task list out. And while the kludge isn't
perfect, it is frankly better than I had feared. Individual task lists for each plugin
might work alright, but I do fear the person that has several plugins loaded and has to
remember multiple key codes in order to look at their quest lists, not to mention take
the time to pull up each on individually or worse, have to open up their inventory and
click on each on individually.

Anyhow I'm semi-confused on how POG's quest list is actually done. Are you saying that
POG has a hardcoded task list? Ie, instead of how Coldstone does it through storing
the list on the character which stays fixed until added to or deleted from, that POG
instead uses a hardcoded "Here are the quest definitions, if the globals flag that the
quest is active then trigger its entry."

Ie, is the POG quest code something like this:

if (gb_&&mission1; == TRUE) print_to_questlog(mission1text);
if (gb_&&mission2; == TRUE) print_to_questlog(mission2text);
yadda yadda yadda.

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Dee, I would like a question answered: How do you make races/classes change the character's stats? It won't work. I've tried to do it and I've asked on other topics, like (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum48/HTML/000995.html")this one,(/url) but no one has answered. Can you tell me?

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The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason ŃWizard's Sixth Rule, Faith of the Fallen.
ŃCafall

Quote

Originally posted by Stark Bledfast:
**Anyhow I'm semi-confused on how POG's quest list is actually done. Are you saying that
POG has a hardcoded task list? Ie, instead of how Coldstone does it through storing
the list on the character which stays fixed until added to or deleted from, that POG
instead uses a hardcoded "Here are the quest definitions, if the globals flag that the
quest is active then trigger its entry."
**

No, it's all done within Coldstone. However, when the player gets a quest, we aren't adding a new task, we are setting a global variable to a specific value. When the player wants to see his task list, PoG fires an event that do:

(1) Task list control: Delete all tasks
(2) Condition: Check for state of quest variable gb_questX
|--> variable < 10, quest not finished
|->Task list control: Add this task
(3) Repeat step 2 for all the quest variables
(4) Engine call: display task list

This allow us to easily add different task for the same quest. We know that if the quest variable gb_questX is greater than 0 (the quest has begun) but below 10, the quest is in progression. We could want to be more precise than just stating if the quest is in progress or not in the task list. If the quest variable is equal to 1 we could say:

"Emilius the druid asked you to find his stolen book."

if it's equal to 2 (the player progressed in his quest, but we know that the quest isn't finished):

"It appears that the book of Emilius could have been stolen by a gang of thiefs from the southern territories."

Hope this answer your question,

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Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers

Quote

Originally posted by Cafall:
**Dee, I would like a question answered: How do you make races/classes change the character's stats? It won't work. I've tried to do it and I've asked on other topics, like this one, but no one has answered. Can you tell me?
**

I just answered this question on a more visible topic at: (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/postdisplay.cgi?forum=Forum48&topic;=001031")http://www.ambrosias...48&topic=001031(/url)

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Dee Brown
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url) (check our new web site!)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/")Coldstone Game Engine(/url) / (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/")Pillars of Garendall(/url) developers