SI again

[Philipp]

Hi all,

I just finished another SI playthrough and have some thoughts to share:

1. In the temple of balance where you are supposed to drop the chaos and order cubes there’s a plaque with a typo (reads “place here the cubes of both _choas_ and order”). Maybe we could get it fixed in the next sifixes? Just asking; thanks.

2. SI is great regardless of its plot holes etc. There was this discussion (http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=339022#p339022) recently about implementing those parts of the original plot that got cancelled by EA’s Game Destruction Department. To attract potential writers, maybe using Lua instead of ucc would lower the threshold. Could anybody with knowledge of exult internals comment on this whether it would be feasible or not?[1]

3. Close to the end I noticed that SI induces a certain feeling that I know only from very few excellent games: it makes you curious about the continuation of the story and keeps you convinced that Something Really Awesome will follow soon. Too bad there never was a sequel to U7/pt.I/II. Back then would have sold my grandmother just to get my hands on it …

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[1] There’s a reason for why this could work: because you don’t need any graphic or audio material, it’s all in there already. This is the biggest hurdle that most large-scale modding efforts will face sooner or later, but with SI it doesn’t exist. So what needs to be done could be achieved by using the existing material as building blocks for composing stuff that fills the gap. (Oh yes, I’m merely judging from the parts of of the story that got cut out (http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Cut_Materi ... rpent_Isle): if I’m mistaken here I would really like to know why.) And as there’s more Lua coders out there than ucc-hackers, chances are that some of them would eventually join forces and complete SI.

[Sergorn]

Now I'm not all that familiar with creating content with Exult, but considering the Keyring Mod of U7, modified actual geographical content, added new quests and NPCs... I figure it should definitly be doable to modify SI to recreate the cut content of the game.

Figure it would probably "just" require a lot of work to create it all and make it work properly.

-Sergorn

[Philipp]

Hi Sergorn, of course I’m aware of the existing mods. But have you actually tried usecode c? If not, get an impression at Marzo Jr.’s page: http://www.seventowers.org/downloads.php?section=1 .

I didn’t say it wasn’t possible, I just asked whether scripting could be made more convenient -- and what could be more convenient than having the dialog, flags and everything available at runtime by means of Lua functions? For now I just stay an admirer of everybody who actually mastered ucc…

[Dominus]

Well, changing from ucc to lua, or actually converting lua to ucc would need a willing developer... You're better of learning ucc... At least way faster

[Philipp]

@Dominus, who said I was talking about myself? I guess I’ll have to wait, then.

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Another important aspect that came into my mind while playing SI:

4. The “interactive” music triggered by fights, triumphs and flights gets annoying very soon. The sound engine will switch tunes even for encounters with small critters that fall after a single hit, which is constantly breaking the atmosphere. It is not even ashamed of interrupting the Banes’ Theme, one of the greatest masterpieces of game background music ever done. Some time into the game I usually switch off the music in favor of fm radio, turning it on again only for atmospherically dense moments like the White Dragon Castle. Could there be an opt-out button in the menu that would cause exult to ignore battle songs unless there’s no background tune playing anymore? (Btw the fight music disease used to affect other games as well. Has there ever been a cure for it?)

[agentorangeguy]

the original SI came you could click "A" i thinka nd it would toggle audio on and off, which was useful when the combat theme would continuously loop much to my annoyance. There actually was a music egg that would "turn off" any music when you passed, to give you the sense of music being played nearby (such as the Blue Boar automatons). Does that also exist in BG with exult? I've been looking for it but havne't found it yet.. what wuold the number be?