Solved Build 14 Beta 4 Master Plan

[Pieter Boelen]

I got confused by this:

For example, to play as Hornblower you must know to select him, change the starting date and choose a different ship.

I'd prefer to play as Hornblower by selecting the "Chronicles of Horatio Hornblower" storyline.

My point is that you can choose Hornblower for the Free Play storyline as well. You can do so now too.

So we'd have Jack Aubrey, Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower all as British commissioned officers in the late time periods - not much difference apart from the different faces if it's free-play.

The Nelson ship progression applies to the Revolutions time period while the Aubrey ship progression applies to the Napoleonic time period. Hornblower has his own ship progression as well.
So it does make a difference during gameplay too.

Rather than another British Napoleonic character, perhaps create an officer from one of the other nations? Maybe borrow one of Horatio Hornblower's adversaries and make him playable.

At the moment England has a full set of appropriate ship progressions with promotion officers for each time period with an extra set for Hornblower.
The other nations have got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than the single promotion reward ship that was there for Privateer before as well.
I have been asking and begging someone to take the England set and adapt it for the other nations too, because at the moment it is once again "England overkill" and all other nations get skimped over.
That is the purpose of this thread: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/naval-privateer-promotion-steps.24749
So far, no takers. But I totally DO DO DO want to have other nation naval officers to be available!

No more fake than other pre-generated free-play characters. But at the moment there's next to nothing to do in Early Explorers apart from the Devlin storyline. What might be nice, as a long-term goal if not an immediate task, is a pre-generated famous character for more than one nation in each period.

Devlin does have some sidequests and once we're through with my current project, Devlin will have ALL sidequests. So it will at least have something to do in addition to regular free play in a game world that is really quite different from the other time periods.

As for the famous character idea you mention, that plays into this feature wish by @Bartolomeu o Portugues: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/large-ships-for-rival-pirates.24490/
I agree that would be cool and should definitely make Free Play much more interesting.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It sounds like it will be possible to select Nelson and then go sailing in the Early Explorers time period. Not good. I prefer a character for each time period.

The Early Explorers time period was all Spanish and Portagee as I recall, with the English being state sponsored pirates preying on their caravels and naos. The main characters should emphatically NOT be English.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It sounds like it will be possible to select Nelson and then go sailing in the Early Explorers time period. Not good. I prefer a character for each time period.

What I am hoping to accomplish is to automatically select the Napoleonic time period as soon as you choose the Nelson character model.
However, you could then afterwards override the default setting until you have Nelson in Early Explorers.
I see no reason to prevent that. Doesn't make logical nor historical sense, but if the player wants to, then why not?
At least because the default setting isn't like that, players aren't encouraged to "do it wrong".

In the end, you will always have the choice to select ANY combination just like is the case now.

 

[Grey Roger]

It sounds like it will be possible to select Nelson and then go sailing in the Early Explorers time period. Not good. I prefer a character for each time period.

The Early Explorers time period was all Spanish and Portagee as I recall, with the English being state sponsored pirates preying on their caravels and naos. The main characters should emphatically NOT be English.

This is supposed to be a game about pirates - why should the playable characters not be English? As for state-sponsored piracy, isn't that basically what Letters of Marque are for?

Besides, the English may have been stealing gold from the Spanish, but the original owners of the gold presumably did not give it willingly to the Spanish!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

This is supposed to be a game about pirates - why should the playable characters not be English? As for state-sponsored piracy, isn't that basically what Letters of Marque are for?

Besides, the English may have been stealing gold from the Spanish, but the original owners of the gold presumably did not give it willingly to the Spanish!

Trudat! There were no good guys, They were all bad guys. My issue is that POTC is being changed into an English only game. I will not play that.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My issue is that POTC is being changed into an English only game. I will not play that.

Changed by whom? While that is certainly easy (because apparently nobody gives a crap about making non-English content), I most definitely am opposed to that!
The main England-focused element right now is that the Commissioned functionality doesn't properly work for the other nations yet.
And I really do wonder who I have to beg to do the work for that because it is NOT hard, but I really, really don't want to have to do everything by myself.

When I am done merging the starting choices, there will probably no longer be a specific "Nelson" storyline because there will be no need for it anymore.
Just the Hornblower one is enough as actual English storyline. Other storylines can be customized to be English, but that is up to the player.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Today I had a bit of an idea and I might just go ahead and work on that somewhere this week:

Basically by removing multiple free play storylines, only one will remain.
That one would retain all starting options, but you would need to know in advance what options to select to trigger them.
For example, to play as Hornblower you must know to select him, change the starting date and choose a different ship.
This will get only more complicated when the other starting scenarios are added to the same storyline.

So here's my thought: There are several "named" characters available in Select Storyline, which are defined as such in initModels.c .
How about linking those models not just to a name, but allow them to have pre-defined professions, ship and starting date as well?
Then basically you can select different pre-defined scenarios by choosing a character, but you would still be able to override its default settings.

Players could also easily create their own, which would show up in the "name characters list" without cluttering up the actual storylines selection.
And all of that without requiring separate storylines; everything can be added to the same one and, in fact,
would work on multiple of the pre-written storylines except those with locked scenarios like Woodes Rogers and Bartolomeu.

So how do you guys like that idea? And any additional suggestions to build on this further?

^ This is basically completely working now. You can just add lines like the storyline definitions into initModels.c and those will override the current settings unless there is a "lock" in place.
So if you choose Davy Jones, you'll automatically get the Flying Dutchman and turn pirate.
Of course you still maintain the right to override those model-linked settings so the player can do what he/she wants.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The model-dependent storyline options as I suggested yesterday have now been added in here:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817

Please try it and give your comments and suggestions.
Since there are now several pre-programmed characters, we don't need separate Storylines for them anymore.
Jack Aubrey and Jean Lafitte even made their return.

 

[FrozenHeart]

Pieter, I think you doing a great job. But there is few thing have to remember.
As per main quest @Jack Sparrow storyline still not finished yet(as i played before). @Woodes Rogers have a bug or something that stopped me for playing further with it. @Hornblower can be extended, storyline finished all sudden.
I must say those are excellent storyline and I had enjoyed them. But when you going to draw a separator between complete storyline with incomplete, then you have to keep them on mind.
I think there was a lot of advertisement with @Devlin storyline, which is start and then ends in few moments and story goes to full free playing mode. Almost same as @Jack Aubrey and some others as you say. When anyone goes to create a character for free play then it must be free play from beginning unlike @Devlin or @Jack Aubrey. Where story starts and then vanished. I dont want to hurt anyone, these are my personal thinking.

 

[Jack Rackham]

@Woodes Rogers have a bug or something that stopped me for playing further with it.

@FrozenHeart please tell me where/what/when.

 

[Grey Roger]

Has the "Devlin" storyline changed? I thought it was based on what passes for a plot in "Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales", which admittedly is pitiful compared to the awesome stories in Build 14, but which should continue for longer than a few moments.

It certainly used to be possible to complete "Woodes Rogers" because I did it. "Hornblower" can be extended when someone who knows how to write quests and who has both the time and interest chooses to do so. "Jack Aubrey" never had a story to start with, other than a few lines in the questbook explaining what you're doing on Eleuthera; it was free-play right from the beginning, which is why it can be absorbed into the One Big Free-Play.

 

[FrozenHeart]

@Jack, when the character is trying to give signal with a flag. I tried many times but it crashed and one day I got runtime error for abnormal shutdown. Its not a bug as @Grey say. If he finished it then mine obviously had some problem(may be for my old type pc). Although I did enjoyed it.

 

[Jack Rackham]

The crash at the flagpole is a well-known problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Pieter added a quicksave just before that to enable new attempts.

If it's hopeless you can set cheatmode to on :storyteller shows up in the start cabin.
Start new game.
Talk to him and choose "To the Blue Cavern: REVENGE."

 

[FrozenHeart]

After run time error I did uninstall the game. Downloading WIP. Then will try again. Thanks Jack.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As per main quest @Jack Sparrow storyline still not finished yet(as i played before).

It is completed up to the end of Curse of the Black Pearl. There is also a little bit of pre-DMC stuff there but that is where progress ended.
I wouldn't consider it unfinished, but I do have the wish that one day the story of the other films can be added as well.

@Woodes Rogers have a bug or something that stopped me for playing further with it.

That one is finished for now. The flag hoisting is indeed a known inconsistent issue that I was unable to completely fix.
But it is possible to get past that. If there are any other issues, please let us know so that they can be tackled too.

@Hornblower can be extended, storyline finished all sudden.

You'd be welcome to post specific changes required here:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/hornblower-storyline-changes-required.24869/
From what I understand, there are still some "loose ends" when the story finishes, so when I am done with my large quest reworks,
I want to extend the story at least a little bit to tie up the loose ends and give you command of HMS Atropos.
That is where regular Commissioned Navy Officer free play mode takes. At the moment that functionality is already there, but the in-story logic is missing.

I think there was a lot of advertisement with @Devlin storyline, which is start and then ends in few moments and story goes to full free playing mode.

I'm really not sure what to do with Devlin; it started telling a story, but was abandoned. There is some fun stuff with PA! community members, but that never led anywhere.
Perhaps we should just drop it altogether since I doubt anyone is going to write a huge multi-branched quests, which is what it was intended to lead to.

When anyone goes to create a character for free play then it must be free play from beginning unlike [...] @Jack Aubrey. Where story starts and then vanished.

As mentioned by others, indeed Jack Aubrey never did have a story. Actually, as per the Beta 3.5 at least when you play as Aubrey you will get the correct officers and ships upon promotion.
Aubrey was removed altogether in Beta 3.5 and is, as per yesterday, available again as a model-based preset that you can choose in any storyline where the player model isn't locked.
So you do have the option to play the Standard or Assassin storylines as Aubrey, which doesn't necessarily make sense but that is up to the player....

I do not mind a free play story having a pre-written opening scene. In fact, I prefer that over just dropping you in a location "just because".
But indeed the stories should have an end to them. Even the Hornblower one, which is quite an extensive storyline, should transfer to free play once the story finishes.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Making some good progress on this stuff again as per this post:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/sidequests-for-additional-storylines.20555/page-8#post-505074

1. Get ALL sidequests working properly in the Nelson storyline without having any sidequest code in its actual storyline folder (apart from both_reaction.c)
^ Mostly done, but testing still in progress.

2. Move this both_reaction.c code to the general PROGRAM\QUESTS folder so that this now works in ALL storylines
^ Just did this. Looks to be working.

3. Ensure that same-name quest cases that exist in the storyline folder that preference over the shared file
^ Order of preference is now: quests_common.c, storyline-specific quests_reaction.c, storyline-specific both_reaction.c and quests_side.c
So storyline stuff takes precedence over shared sidequest code.

4. Figure out which sidequests may interfere with which storylines and/or which ones may already be there in modified form
^ Has to be done through testing. The most likely suspects in Assassin and Bartolomeu are already adjusted.
Jack Sparrow will be a tough one because a lot of sidequests were already included in modified fashion, but I can't quite remember what's what.

5. Disable those sidequests specifically per storyline or enable them only AFTER the main quest has completed
^ For later, after testing.

6. Merge all Free Play scenarios together into one single Free Play with Changing Nation Relations ON storyline, e.g. Nelson+BFF+LaCroix+Devlin
^ This will be my project for tomorrow.

7. Rewrite sidequests to prevent bugs, e.g. unreliable Vigila Mendez and Artois Voysey quest loop
^ Later....

8. Rewrite/expand main quests, e.g. add a short extention to Hornblower to explain the Atropos, tie up loose ends and remove quest officers as appropriate
^ Later....

 

[Jack Rackham]

This is really a huge commitment to merge and clean up the game.
Guess it will be easier to add new sidequests later...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This is really a huge commitment to merge and clean up the game.

Definitely! I'm trying to get things in the state I figure we should have done it in the first place.

Guess it will be easier to add new sidequests later...

Adding sidequests is easy enough even now.
Basically the only difference is that now we can add them in the MAIN game folder instead of putting them in each storyline one separately.

Actually, the mod-added sidequests are relatively easy to work with. But the original game stuff is just sooo confusing.
It's not like all quests are grouped together or anything; you've got part of quest A, then part of quest B, then quest A again. And that many times over
Just to make things simple. I don't know what stuff is "main quest" and what is "side quest". But slowly but surely, we are finding out.

It is also again obvious that the game was definitely unfinished. I've found all sorts of code that I'm pretty sure went unused.
Unfortunately nothing anymore that we can readily put to use.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think I managed to combine BBF + Nelson + La Croix in one Free Play storyline opening.
Jack Aubrey and Jean Lafitte even made a return to some extent.

BBF now starts as "Rebel", which puts your OWN nation against you.
If you start as PIRATE Rebel, then EVERYONE except the pirates hate you.
If you start as PERSONAL_NATION Rebel, then only England hates you (need *some* sort of default value ).

"Agent" at the moment triggers the old Jean Lafitte start, which puts you in Puerto Rico which is supposed to be hostile to you.
At the moment this is hard-coded, so I still have to adapt it so it'll send you to a random hostile town instead to fit with @Grey Roger's earlier suggestion.

Since BBF doesn't start as "Naval Officer" anymore, "Commissioned" is removed again and "Naval Officer" takes over that purpose.

The "Gambler" type triggers La Croix, but that definitely requires some further looking into.

Basically, ALL scenarios start you in your captain's cabin.
Most feature the tutorial, though Agent, Gambler and Naval Officer skip that to send you towards the pre-written opening scenes for those.

It is far from perfect yet, but it's a start.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

This sounds good so far as I prefer the "Gambler" and La Croix is probably my favorite storyline, but what needs further looking at?