Keyring mod, II

[marzo]

Do I have to start a new game?

Yes.

Is there a way to integrate the mod in with my current characters?

I am not entirely sure what you mean, but the answer is most likely "no".

how do I continue my game with the mod?

You can't.

[Viking]

About the keyring mod:

Adding the cleanup of Lock Lake is a great touch, however: It ends up contradicting the UWII manual, in which it is said that Nastassia is heading the cleanup of said lake.

[Andrea B Previtera]

I take the chance to highlight another unfinished quest that could be added to the Keyring Mod. The Iskander issue - it was discussed back in 2003 ( http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8630#p8630 ) and 2006 ( http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=28623#p28623 )

Maybe finally those poor girls, Eiko and Amanda, can return to a decent daily schedule (as opposed to: 0-24 -Wander in a dark tunnel)

[MeddlingMonk]

Along those lines, it'd be nice (not to mention virtuous) for the Avatar to tell the poor, lost monk the way out of the dungeon. After all, that's what happens with the lost mage.

[marzo]

Iskander is added to the to-do list; Brother Wayne was already on it (Hm. was his first name Bruce, by any chance?), and so is Weston and the Rankin fix.

As for the Lock Lake cleanup: maybe after Miranda's bill is signed, there could be a town gathering in Cove where Natassia spearheads the effort to clear the lake? Then, do what I always planned but kept postponing and have the Cove NPCs do the cleanup at certain parts of the day.

[Viking]

That might be one idea. Although judging by the Underworld II manual it seems that the cleanup probably didn't start until after the destruction of the Black Gate.

[TDI]

So now we need to start modding Underworld II to conform with the Ultima VII modding.

[Viking]

LoL

[Andrea B Previtera]

My two eurocents:
What should be added to the game? What should be modded?

I'd stick with things
A) that are clearly unfinished, not intentionally left suspended
B) of which the completion "how the original u7 team would have done it" is clearly identifiable

For example:
"NPC X says he will take the red sword. The red sword is a nearby room, but he never takes it"

As opposed to:
"NPC X says he will take that funnily colored sword. There are various strange swords all over the nearby room"

The Iskander quest is... well, border line, actually. Both Eiko and Amanda clearly state they will make return to their home in... (can't rememeber the town). Are there two spare houses there? That would be a good hint of what was going to happen. What about their schedules once they're back? What about their dialogue? Both should be kept to the simplest options, since actually we don't know what was planned for them - we can just guess those would have been their houses.

[Viking]

One more thing - according to Hacki's Nitpicks site (http://hacki.bootstrike.com/english/nitpicks_u7.htm) Nastassia's portrait in U7, is very similar to Katrina's in U6 - would it be possible to swap Katrina's current portrait for Nastassia's?

[Soule]

The Keyring Mod was excellent!
I just finished the quests in the mod and I loved it. The mod has rekindled my interest in Ultima 7 again. No doubt Ultima 7 is truly one of the most interative game worlds in the world.

Thanks Marzo!

Only problem now is I am thristing for more quests! More mods! More mods!

I really wish there could be another game based on this engine.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Another proposal that wouldn't add much, if not a bit of additional freedom:

ability to resurrect corpses that weren't left by the death of an active NPC. (ie., bodies of dead unnamed adventurers scattered here and there in some dungeons).

Such corpses could be resurrected to NPCS with random and average stats, no speech, no portrait and a 24/24 loiter schedule etc. (maybe... a "Join" option?). Also, this should apply to "fresh" bodies only, not skeletons, mummified, or charred corpses.

Finally: why not being able to resurrect creatures too? "Ok we took the meat out of this deer, now let's be virtuous and bring it back to life"

[marzo]

ability to resurrect corpses that weren't left by the death of an active NPC.

That would be more of a change for Exult, not to the mod; it *could* be done for the mod, but it could lose relevant information. It could also be abused (resurrect, kill, resurrect, kill...) for XP.

"Ok we took the meat out of this deer, now let's be virtuous and bring it back to life"

"Huh, avatar... given that half of that deer is in our packs, not to mention all the blood, bones and innards we had to dispose of to get the clean meat... Don't you think it would be *cruel* to bring it back to life? It would just suffer through a miserable and very short life..." :-p

[Andrea B Previtera]

Well, abusing the resurrect-rekill would be a lot more expensive than simply abusing monster respawning! Reagents, mana... plus, you must already be of quite a high level to cast resurrection, such a high level that usually nothing can kill you anymore as you're probably also extremely well equipped by then.

As for the other problem, I though that most of the remove-body-insert-npc was done by usecode, not the engine itself. What kind of information would be lost?

[Viking]

Does anyone know if there is any unused usecode in the game for any of the mentioned changes (ie making Brother Wayne return to Empath Abbey, making Eiko and Amanda return to Trinsic(?), etc)?

[Dominus]

Hmm, I don't think there is much unused usecode in BG.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Otherwise it would be called UNusecode.
Erm.
Sorry.

[Viking]

That's what I thought as well (that there weren't much in the terms of unused usecode in Black Gate). But maybe Marzo or others with access to tools for going through the usecode can shed more lite on any unused snippets of usecode in Black Gate?

[marzo]

I don't know if there is any; but proving that would probably be a difficult task. Functions can be divided in the following categories:

1) Those that are called from eggs, patrol schedule, double-clicking NPCs/items, from other usecode functions or from usecode scripts/arrays. These are easy to mark. Some care should be taken, for example because an usecode egg could be "disabled" but be hatched by other means (such as an usecode function or a button egg).

2) Functions that we know to be called by the game in certain known conditions. Examples are spells, items being destroyed, Hook being killed and sleep arrows in SI.

3) Functions that are be called in conditions we don't know. Worst part is that some functions might be in this category without us knowing it because no one knows it is called.

4) Functions not called at all.

I haven't checked if there are any functions in BG which could fall in categories (3) and (4); it should be relatively simple to see if there are any, but dividing them between these categories would be harder.

But even if there are no functions in categories (3) and (4), this doesn't mean that there isn't unused usecode -- for example, a function called by an egg may have a portion reserved for a quality that no egg in the game has, while another function could have code for a condition impossible to be fulfilled. That latter example actually happens in BG ("Yum, garlic" comes to mind); I must admit, though, that both of these examples could actually be checked by automated tools (which do not exist yet).

All in all, a difficult task to do.

[Viking]

Yes, the "Yum, garlic" was mentioned in some other thread. I've also heard some claims that there are some unused usecode references to Serpent Isle?

[Dominus]

Serpent Isle is a whole different story, there IS unusecode
A lot of conversations that never get triggered after the banes get free, since the storyline was shortened and nearly all NPCs killed, instad of them hanging around. There are threads about this here. You might find them...

[Viking]

I am fully aware of that..
What I meant was that there was a rumour some years ago, on another forum, that Black Gate had some references in-game to Serpent Isle, but that these references were cut out before release, but was still available in Black Gate's Usecode.

[Dominus]

Ah, ok, I misread.

[Feanor's Curse]

The website is down for quite some time now, can the mod be found/downloaded anywhere else?

[MeddlingMonk]

http://lfs.lfhost.com/seventowers/

[Feanor's Curse]

Thanks!

[SepiaAndDust]

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As for the Lock Lake cleanup: maybe after Miranda's bill is signed, there could be a town gathering in Cove where Natassia spearheads the effort to clear the lake? Then, do what I always planned but kept postponing and have the Cove NPCs do the cleanup at certain parts of the day.
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I can just see crazy old Rudyom wandering out for his shift, wondering where all the pretty shiny trash went, and magicking it all back.

[bobthecowboy]

I can just see crazy old Rudyom wandering out for his shift, wondering where all the pretty shiny trash went, and magicking it all back.
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This would be amazingly hilarious, and truly Ultima.

[Wizardry Dragon]

I couldn't find the old TFL thread; perhaps someone can find it and give it a bump; if so, I would appreciate it. That said...

I am really sorry that I haven't been able to keep as on the ball about TFL ... or at least as on the ball in a way you guys could see ... for a long time now. I can't make any promises about an update schedule, however there will be a few changes evident in the coming days ... probably on Friday when I actually get a day off work:

A) The TFL site, back at http://lfs.lfhost.com/u7feudallands after the expiry of the previous domain name, will be completely overhaulled. The forums got completely overrun with spambots, and the top page needs updated anyways. I plan to turn it into a wordpress-powered page simply because it's something that's easy for me to maintain and I have a heavy workload at my current job - which is why I haven't been online.

B) A massive commit will be happening sometime soon. Massive I suppose is relative - and I will likely do it in a few parts - but I want to at the very least dump all my current edits into the repository so people can see how far I've gotten.

C) I'll be looking for a few people to do some U7-themed art to fill some holes in things I need for the Feudal Lands in the mod.

D) I will also be releasing some music done by some great friends of mine over at All Media Studios, which will be used in the mod, soon. Want to make sure that all the legalities there are sorted first.

If someone digs up the TFL thread I'll post a little more, I don't want to derail this thread overmuch.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

[Wizardry Dragon]

Update:

Check out http://lfs.lfhost.com/u7tfl Shorter domain. Wordpress install. I need to theme it up, but it'll suffice for now. Those that want to contribute or even just discuss the mod can feel free to register there. Any Exult team member that wants posting privs there can feel free to poke me here and I'd be happy to. Also, I'm going to 'cheat' at doing a discussion forum by having a mini-area where anyone can comment, or perhaps a sub-blog or something. Anywho, I felt productive tonight, so there you go.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

[Wizardry Dragon]

Also a small clarification: Anyone should be able to comment, but people who want to be able to write posts to the main page for whatever reason need me to give them that permission. I will be keeping that to the TFL team, and the Exult guys, if they want it.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

[marzo]

Welcome back; I will see if I can dig the TFL thread once I fix the problems I am having accessing the Phorum.

[marzo]

Hm. You would be better off starting a new thread; the old one was closed because it was a spam magnet.