howto create new quests

[neighborlee]

hi there..

I have made a complex above and below world map ( not done yet sorry wont release till its perfect ), but while im done with art and editor parts , im now onto questing..I added a new character to game, but I have honestly little clue ( I did try but not quite figure the dain thing out ha-ha ) how to 'add' quest dialogue etc. to it and tell quest editor which character is receiving the diagloue etc...Ive seen a few tuts , but honestly IMO its way m ore work than I want to deal with after the editor and arts management were so darn easy.

nwn makes ALL this so incredibly easy, that honestly im a bit dismayed by th is complexity, but I want to finish this at least

cheers
nl

[PinkFrog]

Yup, ok.

Atm the wiki-site is down. Generally this is where you learn how to make a quest. Its well written and not so hard to understand, really.

Its not easy to post all about creating quests here, though.

But you ask about dialogs. They come together with the npc. (there's an entry "static dialog" which refers to the dialog-dbr. In the dialog-dbr are the entries for the text-tags and the mp3's) No need for a quest to be able to talk to people.

Anyway. Lets hope the wiki will be online soon.

[neighborlee]

Originally Posted by PinkFrog

Yup, ok.

Atm the wiki-site is down. Generally this is where you learn how to make a quest. Its well written and not so hard to understand, really.

Its not easy to post all about creating quests here, though.

But you ask about dialogs. They come together with the npc. (there's an entry "static dialog" which refers to the dialog-dbr. In the dialog-dbr are the entries for the text-tags and the mp3's) No need for a quest to be able to talk to people.

Anyway. Lets hope the wiki will be online soon.

ok I found t he PDF document, which while huge and involved helped with most things just fine,- but atm I stilll have no idea h ow to actually edit the 'text' part so the 'copied' quest file is populated with my own dialogue.

I shall keep looking of course..

thx
nl

[PinkFrog]

??

Ok, lets go through the "chain"

It all starts in the modstring.txt.

There you can write lines like:
tagmynpc01_talk01=Hello, welcome to my mod.
tagmynpc01_talk02=I'm here to give you directions... (or whatever)

The part before the = is your tag. Take this tag and put it in a dialog.dbr. You can import any dialog.dbr from the database and fill the different references to the texttags.

Example:

Now save the dialog.dbr whereever you want. Just remember where

Build the mod. Now open a npc who will say the words. The npc static dialog is where the dialog.dbr is set.

Example:

If you put the npc in the world, the npc will have the yellow diamond above his head and "talk".

Now about the quest. To give the npc the exclamation-mark he needs to be "illuminated" as questgiver via a quest.
So, start the quest-editor, load your mod. Make a new quest-file. Start a new trigger-step. Start a new condition. Select ongamelevelload. Start a new action. Select illuminate npc as primary. Now in this action you can select your npc. This will give the npc the exclamation-mark.
Now you can either make a side- or a mainquest out of it. But this is all going too far here i think.

Anyway, i how i was able to help :|

*** Update ***

In case you havent added quests sofar. Before anything works, you must save the quest into the workingfolder/yourmod/source/quests/ Then open up the artmanager and autocreate asset the questfile. build. Copy the content of the custommaps-folder to your games installation-folder. Then open the leveleditor. Load your mod. In the overview-window select the menu-step quests. Add your new quest. Save.
Open artmanager again and build.

Now it should work

well, that was very short. More a todo-list than an explanation. Please dont hesitate to ask about the details you need more info...

[neighborlee]

Originally Posted by PinkFrog

??



*** Update ***

In case you havent added quests sofar. Before anything works, you must save the quest into the workingfolder/yourmod/source/quests/ Then open up the artmanager and autocreate asset the questfile. build. Copy the content of the custommaps-folder to your games installation-folder. Then open the leveleditor. Load your mod. In the overview-window select the menu-step quests. Add your new quest. Save.
Open artmanager again and build.

Now it should work

well, that was very short. More a todo-list than an explanation. Please dont hesitate to ask about the details you need more info...

I will 'try', but no guarantees I may throw my hands up and go back ( giving up on my hard work on this m od so far, but hey it might be a 'casualty of war' that is yet to be seen ) in a fit of despair and disgust as to all this insane complexity of steps,,but having said that your more than kind to take the time to explain it so I do appreciate that for sure.

OMGOSH but that many steps is just insane ,- those poor develelopers if they had to go through all that, I hope they got paid alot of money

I take it there are no easier tools with which to do any of th is..the nwn editor has SUCH an easy wizard for making conversation..you add a NPC to your world and click it and goto conversation and start having at it , it could not be eaSier. Maybe titan quests way is more flexible I dont know yet im not sure I want to hastle through so many steps but anyway having to go back and forth like this to me seems just insane ..did I already say that ? <wink>

thank you .
nl

[PinkFrog]

i truly believe that it just sounds irritating right now. (especially after i explaned it) If you made it once or twice its truly easy.

Anyway, as i said before: if you just want to have a npc with a dialog, you dont need a quest. Just a npc, the dialog-file and the tags in the modstring. Thats not complicated in my eyes

Don't give up!

[neighborlee]

Originally Posted by PinkFrog

i truly believe that it just sounds irritating right now. (especially after i explaned it) If you made it once or twice its truly easy.

Anyway, as i said before: if you just want to have a npc with a dialog, you dont need a quest. Just a npc, the dialog-file and the tags in the modstring. Thats not complicated in my eyes

Don't give up!

as yes sorry if I sounded frustrated,,I guess I was <G>...but anyway yes the mod'ds I make are every bit as immersive as the original games are at least that is my goal..I have been partially spoiled by the nwn editor I guess, but as you say its getting used to doing something a different way too...I guesss somehow I missed the 'working directory' part so that may explain why im not getting the exclamation mark over NPC head, so ill look into that..

btw , what is this 'physical appearance' id stuff, I thought we just copied over a NPC from resources, along with dialogue and that was that..appearance id ?? ( this is what I mean re: complexity , that or i've confused something, which would not be a 'first' heh )

thx
nl

[neighborlee]

Originally Posted by PinkFrog

??

*** Update ***

In case you havent added quests sofar. Before anything works, you must save the quest into the workingfolder/yourmod/source/quests/ Then open up the artmanager and autocreate asset the questfile. build. Copy the content of the custommaps-folder to your games installation-folder. Then open the leveleditor. Load your mod. In the overview-window select the menu-step quests. Add your new quest. Save.
Open artmanager again and build.

Now it should work

well, that was very short. More a todo-list than an explanation. Please dont hesitate to ask about the details you need more info...

are you sure about : Copy the content of the custommaps-folder to your games installation-folder. ?.the pdf document said nothing about this, that or I totally missed it ( it is a HUGE document afterall heh )

anyway the entire custommaps folder or just whats directly inside it and 'where' in my install dir do I put it ?

thx
nl

[PinkFrog]

Yes, i am sure.

And no, its not mentioned in the pdf, sadly enough. the new level-editor (by the way, i keep assuming you have the immortal-throne-tools? we need to make that clear) looks for the self-created content in a new way, and they havent updated the pdf accordingly.
So, you need to create a folder in your games path: custommaps. In this folder you put the same mod-folder that is in the custommaps for modding (not the working but the one that is created through the "build"-command)

By the way... did you load the "old" database into your artmanager? Under options there is a field "additional browse directories" Here should be the path to titanquest. Now the artmanager finds the old stuff as well.

[neighborlee]

Originally Posted by PinkFrog

Yes, i am sure.

And no, its not mentioned in the pdf, sadly enough. the new level-editor (by the way, i keep assuming you have the immortal-throne-tools? we need to make that clear) looks for the self-created content in a new way, and they havent updated the pdf accordingly.
So, you need to create a folder in your games path: custommaps. In this folder you put the same mod-folder that is in the custommaps for modding (not the working but the one that is created through the "build"-command)

By the way... did you load the "old" database into your artmanager? Under options there is a field "additional browse directories" Here should be the path to titanquest. Now the artmanager finds the old stuff as well.

No, I dont have immortal throne tools does that help with regular titan quest mods ?? ( or does it even work with old toolset and btw is new toolset here somewhere or do I need to buy exp. pack to get it ? ) ...and what do you mean OLD database..I only have the one that came with my game.

I think part of confusion on my part is im not used to having to import items and copy DIR's like this so sorry about that

feel free to just use this thread from now on for all correspondence...

EDIT EDIT: I also wonder what is easiest way to get my own mp3's into the game for NPCs and whatever else..im not sure which sound DIR to import :: EDIT EDIT EDIT: fixed

I am still unable to get the exclamation mark over the NPC head when PC goes into game ... I got it 'selected' in terrain editor in the layout module and saved it,,then went int art manager and did a complete build so Idont see why its not seeing this..I have this for 'filename' under quest editor> myquest: filename:

C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\Working\CustomMaps\TitanBusters\source\Quest s\welcome.qst

also:

In case you havent added quests sofar. Before anything works, you must save the quest into the workingfolder/yourmod/source/quests/ Then open up the artmanager and autocreate asset the questfile. build. Copy the content of the custommaps-folder to your games installation-folder. Then open the leveleditor. Load your mod. In the overview-window select the menu-step quests. Add your new quest. Save.
Open artmanager again and build.

^^^ If I do that precisely I get art manager crashing on me..then I reload it and build again and I get this:

Compiling assets...
Done.
Compiling database...
Opened C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters\database/TitanBusters.arz for reading
Closed C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters\database/TitanBusters.arz
Done.
Deleting unassociated resources...
Opened C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters\database/TitanBusters.arz for reading
Closed C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters\database/TitanBusters.arz
Deleting empty resource directories...
Removing unassociated files from archive audiomine.arc.
Failed to open archive file C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters/resources/audiomine.arc.
Removing unassociated files from archive Maps.arc.
Failed to open archive file C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters/resources/Maps.arc.
Removing unassociated files from archive quests.arc.
Failed to open archive file C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters/resources/quests.arc.
Removing unassociated files from archive Text.arc.
Failed to open archive file C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters/resources/Text.arc.
Removing unassociated files from archive TextMine.arc.
Failed to open archive file C:\Documents and Settings\neighborlee\My Documents\My Games\Titan Quest\CustomMaps/TitanBusters/resources/TextMine.arc.
Build time 0:00

sorry for lengthy post but wanted to give you all the info to see what might be going on..

thx
nl