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Topic: Karvon's Multiplayer Campaign - OOC (Read 369 times) |
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karvon
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With NWCon 6 coming up this weekend, I'm going to take the weekend off; we'll resume our story the following weekend.
Karvon
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Gulfwulf
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Just a head's up: my CPU got fried last weekend, but I ordered a new one yesterday (small town, nobody carries anything as fast as I need). Newegg said it'd be 2-3 days, so I should have it by Thursday, Friday at the latest. As far as I know, the hard drive is still okay and as long as everything goes smoothly and I get the new CPU in time, we'll be here. Otherwise we won't. I'll post an update after I get it and get it installed.
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Dave O
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ok -- thought I'd try to spell out the sequence of events that led to the disappearance of over 16K gold (18,523 gold by my recollection).
Val had been saving his gold to buy a better weapon (sadly hammers seem to be quite rare in this mod -- and they are VERY expensive to purchase). He had accumulated ~16.5K (15.5k of it had been converted to trade gems).
The +1 dwarven hammer at the shop was 23K+ so, out of reach, but Val opted to purchase the Ogre Gauntlets for 5K+.
After this, Val was 2 coins short of purchasing a 500 coin trade gem, so sold his helmet to make up the difference -- this left him with 11,500 in trade gems and 23 coins.
Darick wanted to purchase the Rogue armor and asked if anyone had 17K gold -- Val replied that he had 11.5K.
Darick dropped a sack containing 20 300 coin bags and asked Val to purchase the armor.
At this point, Val SHOULD have had 17.5 K and the Armor was 16,253 gold (or thereabouts); so, there should have been no problem.
Val started off by converting the 300 coin bags to coins (20 of them takes A VERY LONG TIME), then the 500 coin trade gem and finally 10 of the 1K trade gems which should have resulted in 16.5K coins to buy the armor.
In the midst of all this, Sam opened a barter window and offered VAL a 1K trade gem, which Val accepted -- but this interrupted the conversion of the gold bags and trade gems that was on-going. (Note: the 1K trade gem + the original 17,523 coins Val had, is where I'm getting the 18,523 coins -- pretty sure of that number).
After all the "things" got converted, Val was dismayed to see that he only had 16,023 coins available (2500 had been "lost" at that point).
So, unable to purchase the armor and not wanting to coins to convert back to 300 coin bags; Val decided to "drop" all the coins where they could be used by any who could make up the difference.
But -- upon dropping the coins, there was no bag (although there was a 500 coin trade gem that I think Val accidentally "dropped" while trying to convert it). It was either picked up or disappeared soon after that.
Bottom line -- Val "had" 18,523 gold in inventory before this started and now has 0. If another did not pick it up, then it "disappeared".
On that note -- these 300 coin bags have proven to be nothing but frustrating for me (and several others I suspect). While I appreciate the desire to give bulk and weight to gold -- the script that is used is far too cumbersome to provide a workable solution. Having to convert 10's of thousands of coins is just a nightmare and absolutely spoils the game.
I was serious when I stated that Val will not mess with these gold bags ever again -- too much hassle and no fun. I will just use the things that I can pick up along the way.
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| « Last Edit: on: Oct 10, 2010, 2:39PM » |
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Dave O
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I was trying to think of a possible "better" way to handle the gold encumbrance issue (I actually DO like that idea -- just not the way it is done).
The "problem" with the current script is the "conversion" of bags/gems to coins -- just takes too much time and too many clicks.
Perhaps the script could be altered to remove that part of it? In other words it would work something like this:
When a PC accumulated over 300 coins a "gold bag" weight 5.5# (or whatever) would be added to the inventory, BUT the coins would still be available as coins.
As coins were gained and spent, the script would simply add/subtract 5.5# gold bags to and from inventory to match the 1 gold bag for every 300 coins in inventory -- no need to actually convert anything -- does that make sense?
The one exception that I can think of occurs if there is not enough space in the inventory to hold the gold bag -- in this case, the 300 coins would need to be removed from the gold count and "dropped" -- perhaps with a short text message stating that your inventory is full.
Oh, and would probably need to set the plot flag on them while in inventory to keep them from being "sold" (and then automatically replaced by the script).
I have not looked at the actual script to see how "simple" any changes would be -- but I think this "should" work and would simplify the whole system:
1) The PC would "know" how much gold they had (as it would be correctly displayed);
2) There would be no need to convert things, as the coins would readily available at all times; and
3) Gold would still have encumbrance and bulk.
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| « Last Edit: on: Oct 10, 2010, 6:45AM » |
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Gulfwulf
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The gold probably disappeared when it was put on the ground then. As for the scripts, it could probably be done, but you can't edit a mod and have those changes reflected in a saved game unless you edit the saved game - the engine stores a copy of the mod in the saved game and uses that for each subsequent save. For any changes to take place, we would have to start over. Personally, I'm sick of the gold bags and wouldn't mind them not being there.
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Dave O
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ugh ... point taken on this being a mod and not a PW -- forgot about that aspect.
But, this particular script seems to be used in everything Karvon does -- and I'm seeking a better solution. I'm am certain that the original scripter had their reasons for actually doing the conversions (why else do it?) -- I'm just not seeing it though.
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karvon
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I'm not the orginal author of this coin script. I merely edited it a little and added a standard set of trade goods to match what I preferred in my campaigns. I actually extended the original time in the heartbeat script to allow for more time between conversions, it was a lot worse before. I can extend this further as it has been a noticeable problem of late.
I've used the script for about five years in my campaigns and never run into the disappearing items bug before. I'm not sure if that's something I can fix - with my rather basic scripting skills. The best option is to simply not accept barters if you're in the middle of converting goods.
The problem with having only one item to represent your total gold would be calculating it's weight. An item's weight is defined in the tool set. I'm not certain you could modify weight on the fly, though you might be able to do it with a local variable. I'll take a look at the scripts though and see how viable this might be.
There are at least a couple of similar kinds of scripts around; CRAP has a coinage systeme in it. I never liked the other coinage system scripts I've had experience with as I never could easily know how much money I had, and all of them were buggier than this one.
All that being said, I prefer bags of gold as it's a simple way to reflect the space and weight used to carry a large number of coins. It makes encumberance a bit more realistic and gives an additional incentive for non warriors to invest in ST.
Karvon
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Mirgalen
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Karvon have you seen the gold system used by MSpanke in his modules (e.g. the living island serie)?
He is "just" adding and removing stones in the inventory based the number of gold coins we have. No conversion to bags required. If you spend/drop gold stones are removed. Pick some more and stones are added. That could achieve the same result (stones like bags still take place in your inventory) but buying a 16K armor would require a single click.
This may not work in pure FR settings but I have seen "paper gold" or letter of credit in modules (may be it was Shinto by the george) that could be something else.
Sam got himself a bunch of gems (Conan style) which is also a way to handle excess of gold.
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