Making a new dialogue fo ar NPC

[ServantofAuril]

Greetings all,


After playing with NWN custom content and the like, I decided to try my hand at a custom mod for some of my favorite IE games.  Turns out that me being used to such user friendly toolsets offered by NWN has kind of spoiled me.

I've downloaded every tool used to mod IE games including WeiDU and still have been having difficulty with making a brand new conversation work for an NPC.  I used both Near Infinity and DLTCEP for this and though I managed to familiarize myself with the DLG editor in them, when I went into the game my NPC did not once respond even though I had assigned the dialogue to them via DLTCEP.  A quick test showed me that when I switched the dialogue with one from the game I'm trying to mod (IWD) that the NPC did respond.  Now would this have anything to do with me putting the DLG files in the OVERRIDE folder?  According to quite a few tutorials I have been reading it was suggested to do that for testing purposes.

If anyone could help me with this it would be great. 

Thanks.


-BMW


 

[jcompton]

I used both Near Infinity and DLTCEP for this and though I managed to familiarize myself with the DLG editor in them

That was largely a waste of time.

when I went into the game my NPC did not once respond even though I had assigned the dialogue to them via DLTCEP.  A quick test showed me that when I switched the dialogue with one from the game I'm trying to mod (IWD) that the NPC did respond.  Now would this have anything to do with me putting the DLG files in the OVERRIDE folder?  According to quite a few tutorials I have been reading it was suggested to do that for testing purposes.

Any new files you create will inevitable end up in override (or, somewhat less likely, in a BIFF file, but it's really not worth doing so in 99% of cases.)

Presuming you actually did create a DLG file, populated its strings, and placed the DLG in the override, the most likely cause of "no talking" was that there were no valid state triggers (such as True(), always a safe one for getting your feet wet since it should always work.)

However, I exhort you to learn how to use WeiDU for dialogue creation. Not only is it vastly superior to the graphical editors, but then you can share your source code and get it corrected, rather than trying to describe how you made the DLG file in a graphical editor, which usually doesn't end well.

[ServantofAuril]

Hmm, okay.  Makes sense I guess.  Though I guess I am having trouble with how do you make a dialog TRUE()?  I know in NWN it was simply a matter of choosing a conditional from the handy Script Wizard in the toolset and then knowing what you needed to make a condition (having NPC talk once with NumTalkedTo var, etc) but how do you do this without the use of the modding tools I mentioned, if they are a "waste of time"?

Also when I was looking through the WeiDU help doc, I realized how much it is similar to scripting.  I would like to create a working dialog, without one bit of scripting, but is there a more easier way?


Thanks

-BMW

[jcompton]

Hmm, okay.  Makes sense I guess.  Though I guess I am having trouble with how do you make a dialog TRUE()?  I know in NWN it was simply a matter of choosing a conditional from the handy Script Wizard in the toolset and then knowing what you needed to make a condition (having NPC talk once with NumTalkedTo var, etc) but how do you do this without the use of the modding tools I mentioned, if they are a "waste of time"?

NI and DLTCEP are useful for many things. Creating dialogue just isn't one of them.

Also when I was looking through the WeiDU help doc, I realized how much it is similar to scripting.  I would like to create a working dialog, without one bit of scripting, but is there a more easier way?

Not if you enjoy having people install your mod.

I suggest you read the beginner WeiDU tutorials at http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,55.0.html and http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,52.0.html .

[ServantofAuril]

Hey, you were right to suggest those links, jcompton!  I think I finally have a grasp on this WeiDU thing now.  Those tutorials are very straightforward and I highly recommend them to anyone who was in my position with creating dialogs.  Thanks for helping yet another noobie stumbling in the dark. 



-BMW