Author Topic: Thoughts so far...  (Read 6732 times)

Offline NiGHTMARE

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Thoughts so far...
« on: December 30, 2004, 07:15:07 AM »
This list will periodically be updated :)

Mae'Var / Renal

- For the first Mae'Var quest (steal the statuette / ring), how about an alternative to stealing the item? The Lathanderites might be persuaded to give you the statuette simply on the grounds it would help an innocent in need, whilst the Tallassians would probably demand serious cash.  Or perhaps they'd be willing to let it go if you got the statuette for them (with the same steal/tell your sob story solution).

- I'd think some of the NPCs would have something to say when you tell Mae'Var you wish to betray Renal, particularly Yoshimo and Edwin.

- Slight problem: the Baldurdash text update "corrects" references of the Night Knives to Night Masks, which creates some inconsistency with the Quest Pack.

- If you speak to Renal before planting the evidence against him and have the evidence against Mae'Var in your possession, the only option is to give him said evidence against Mae'Var.  An extra "sorry, we don't have it yet" reply would seem appropriate ;).

- Hmm, perhaps provision could be for if you agree to plant the forged letter implicating Renal, but "accidentally" plant the real letter implicating Mae'Var instead.

- Renal seems one to inspire far more loyalty in his men than Mae'Var... yet no-one in the main Shadow Thief guild bats an eyelid once you tell Mae'Var you've planted the evidence against him, whilst Mae'Var's entire guild attacks the party after you present the evidence to Renal.  I'd suggest only the basement level assassins and priest of Cyric turning hostile - that way you can even open up some intrigue with Mae'var's replacement (as long as that isn't the player, of course).

- If you agreed to do it, Mae'Var asks you if you've planted the letter near Renal even after you've told Renal you'll kill Mae'Var and have just wiped out half his guild... ;D

- If you're after more Shadow Thief quest ideas, perhaps something involving the various priests in the group? There's a great deal of animosity between Cyric and Mask, so stirring up some trouble between Shadow Thief followers of the two gods shouldn't be very difficult...


Edwin / Rayic

- How about the option to report Edwin's desire to kill Rayic Gethras to one of the Cowlies in the Government District (Corneil and Togerias)? For that matter there are a few other things they'd probably be interested in knowing about, such as the woman selling magic scrolls in the Adventurer's Mart...

- I would be nice if you could tell Mae'Var about Edwin's treachery (i.e. revealing the location of the documents).  Of course you'd have to provide for players who'd already told Rayic they'd bring Edwin to him; "Erm, I'm afraid Edwin fell afoul of someone else before we could bring him to you.  In fact, I'm sure you probably heard the screams all the way over here... Here's your ring back, anyway."

- After you take Edwin to Rayic and the former is killed, when you talk to Rayic he says "Edwin? What's going on here?! You will suffer my wrath for this intrusion." - that doesn't seem quite right, somehow ;).

EDIT: I think I see the problem here - you need to add !Dead("Edwin") to the condtions for the two "Edwin? What's going on here?!" dialogues, since all the existing condtions for these dialogues are true after Edwin dies (Rayic can still see Edwin even though he's dead, and the "D0Rayic" global no longers = 1)

- Random thought: maybe have Rayic waiting with a bunch of his buddies, and they cart him off to Spellhold instead of killing him.  Then you can encounter him later in the game, in a rather deranged state (perhaps his ever present monologue has finally developed into a completely seperate personality of its own? :P)


Xzar / Harpers

- "What Harpers? What are you talking about?" - I've always wanted to have an alternative option for smart/boastful characters here, who already guessed or wanted Xzar to think they'd guessed that the people in the building were Harpers.

- If only you could tell Xzar what it is the Harpers want you to do to gain admittance to their building ("they want me to deal with the minions of some mage called Prebek, don't suppose you know him do you?")...

- The dialogue with Meronia seems a little rushed.  I think she (and the others) should express more suprise at you revealing your task, and at least pretend to question your motives a bit.  At the moment, Jaheira's advise against taking the completely honest course of action seems rather unjustified.

- Amazingly, I agree with Kish about pretty much everything else related to this component :P.


The Fallen Paladins

- If you side with the smugglers during the fight, I've always thought it would be nice if Rindus would at least mouth a few words of thanks before vanishing forever.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2004, 07:32:30 AM by NiGHTMARE »
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Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Thoughts so far...
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2004, 03:28:46 PM »
- I would be nice if you could tell Mae'Var about Edwin's treachery (i.e. revealing the location of the documents).

   :D  never thought you'd stoop to emotional(or more?) blackmail...
the lord of murder shall perish, yadda yadda yadda.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Thoughts so far...
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2005, 09:44:25 AM »
Thanks for all the reports. Just to let you know, I am working through stuff that gets posted, rather than ignoring it. Anything I don't specifically address when I post can be assumed fixed/added.

Quote
- For the first Mae'Var quest (steal the statuette / ring), how about an alternative to stealing the item? The Lathanderites might be persuaded to give you the statuette simply on the grounds it would help an innocent in need, whilst the Tallassians would probably demand serious cash.  Or perhaps they'd be willing to let it go if you got the statuette for them (with the same steal/tell your sob story solution).
This is a good idea, yes. I'll do it at some point, but I'm rushing to get bugs fixed and release a version less embarassing than v1 right now, so I'll stow it for future reference. :)

Quote
- I'd think some of the NPCs would have something to say when you tell Mae'Var you wish to betray Renal, particularly Yoshimo and Edwin.
Edwin should already be saying something, although maybe it doesn't work properly (I wouldn't be surprised). Will check. And yeh, other NPC interjects.

Quote
- Slight problem: the Baldurdash text update "corrects" references of the Night Knives to Night Masks, which creates some inconsistency with the Quest Pack.
I now STRING_SET all existing references to "Night Masks".

Quote
- Hmm, perhaps provision could be for if you agree to plant the forged letter implicating Renal, but "accidentally" plant the real letter implicating Mae'Var instead.
Good idea. What happens if you plant both though?

Quote
- Renal seems one to inspire far more loyalty in his men than Mae'Var... yet no-one in the main Shadow Thief guild bats an eyelid once you tell Mae'Var you've planted the evidence against him, whilst Mae'Var's entire guild attacks the party after you present the evidence to Renal.  I'd suggest only the basement level assassins and priest of Cyric turning hostile - that way you can even open up some intrigue with Mae'var's replacement (as long as that isn't the player, of course).
There'll be a very minor revenge attack for betraying Renal at some point, if it works. Unlike Mae'Var though, you're not ordered to wipe out the whole guild, and there's nobody in charge to order Renal's men to attack you.

Quote
- If you're after more Shadow Thief quest ideas, perhaps something involving the various priests in the group? There's a great deal of animosity between Cyric and Mask, so stirring up some trouble between Shadow Thief followers of the two gods shouldn't be very difficult...
Noted, thanks, but I won't be doing anything with it for this version I don't expect.

Quote
- I would be nice if you could tell Mae'Var about Edwin's treachery (i.e. revealing the location of the documents).  Of course you'd have to provide for players who'd already told Rayic they'd bring Edwin to him; "Erm, I'm afraid Edwin fell afoul of someone else before we could bring him to you.  In fact, I'm sure you probably heard the screams all the way over here... Here's your ring back, anyway."
Good idea, will implement.

Quote
- After you take Edwin to Rayic and the former is killed, when you talk to Rayic he says "Edwin? What's going on here?! You will suffer my wrath for this intrusion." - that doesn't seem quite right, somehow ;).
I think this is fixed. Hopefully.

Quote
- Random thought: maybe have Rayic waiting with a bunch of his buddies, and they cart him off to Spellhold instead of killing him.  Then you can encounter him later in the game, in a rather deranged state (perhaps his ever present monologue has finally developed into a completely seperate personality of its own? :P)
Although I do like the split personalities idea, I prefer to say that Edwin's uncooperative and powerful enough for Rayic to just kill him outright instead of stunning him and carting him off. And presumably there's a bit of personal vendetta fuelling the emotions here too.

Quote
- If only you could tell Xzar what it is the Harpers want you to do to gain admittance to their building ("they want me to deal with the minions of some mage called Prebek, don't suppose you know him do you?")...
It does sorta spoil the whole ironic twist, but yeh, it'd nice for a good-ish character to say "I don't want to kill anybody". I don't really know what an alternative solution would be, though.

Quote
- The dialogue with Meronia seems a little rushed.  I think she (and the others) should express more suprise at you revealing your task, and at least pretend to question your motives a bit.  At the moment, Jaheira's advise against taking the completely honest course of action seems rather unjustified.
Looking back, this dialogue is pretty shit, yeh. Will make an effort to fix it.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2005, 09:46:40 AM by SimDing0™ »

Offline NiGHTMARE

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Re: Thoughts so far...
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2005, 02:33:10 PM »
Edwin should already be saying something, although maybe it doesn't work properly (I wouldn't be surprised). Will check. And yeh, other NPC interjects.
Well I had him in the party and there was no interjection from him.  I've just started a new game, so I'll be sure to check it out when I get there again. 

Speaking of which, this time I decided to install every single mod involving story alterations to the Shadow Thieves I could think of (namely Tortured Souls, Chloe, Rogue Re-balancing and Improved Thief Stronghold), so I can look for any compatability problems.  I've started a new game with a thief PC, and I'll let you know how it goes once I get to the thief quests.

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Good idea. What happens if you plant both though?
Heh, hadn't thought of that.  The simplest solution would probably be to have Mae'Var turn hostile after talking to him, then get a stern telling off by Renal (the presence of two documents caused them to hire an expert scribe to study them, or something).  Perhaps less of a reward than normal would be in order as well.

Quote
It does sorta spoil the whole ironic twist, but yeh, it'd nice for a good-ish character to say "I don't want to kill anybody". I don't really know what an alternative solution would be, though.
Well, the question is how the Harpers are supposed to know you actually did what they asked.  If they've just got someone watching the entrance to the building, perhaps Xzar could provide you with a teleportation scroll which takes his cronies elsewhere.  Or they simply give you some item, ala the Shadow Thief whom Mae'Var wants dead.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2005, 08:07:29 PM by NiGHTMARE »
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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Thoughts so far...
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2005, 09:51:58 AM »
Speaking of which, this time I decided to install every single mod involving story alterations to the Shadow Thieves I could think of (namely Tortured Souls, Chloe, Rogue Re-balancing and Improved Thief Stronghold), so I can look for any compatability problems.  I've started a new game with a thief PC, and I'll let you know how it goes once I get to the thief quests.
Oh, I get the feeling this is going to be messy. :)

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Heh, hadn't thought of that.  The simplest solution would probably be to have Mae'Var turn hostile after talking to him, then get a stern telling off by Renal (the presence of two documents caused them to hire an expert scribe to study them, or something).  Perhaps less of a reward than normal would be in order as well.
Right, yeh, I'll do it that way.

Quote
Well, the question is how the Harpers are supposed to know you actually did what they asked.  If they've just got someone watching the entrance to the building, perhaps Xzar could provide you with a teleportation scroll which takes his cronies elsewhere.  Or they simply give you some item, ala the Shadow Thief whom Mae'Var wants dead.
There are quite a few places where you don't actually really prove you've done what you say. I always tended to assume that you picked up some proof that never showed up in the inventory. But then, yeh, there are the other places where people actually ask you to bring evidence. So... huh.

Offline NiGHTMARE

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Re: Thoughts so far...
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2005, 01:01:10 PM »
After Xzar kills Lucette and you agree to retrieve the real Montaron, the end of the description for his body still reads "taking the bird that became his demise".
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