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WIP The Curse of the Aztec Gold - Ideas, Suggestions

Andouce

Sailor Apprentice
Storm Modder
Hey everyone,

Decided to make a topic to discuss potential changes or even suggestions to the Curse effects on the Aztec Gold. I think the Current system is perfectly reasonable except for a couple things:

Current changes I think should be made:

> If the cursed coins appear on a random ship as loot in their chests lying around on decks, You should NOT receive the curse effects unless you physically remove it from the chest. In my current storyline I looted a Portuguese ship and I found a cursed coin in a chest on deck, even though I avoided it and did not take it, it still appeared in my inventory, which I feel it should not, and I am cursed.

>Possibly add, as suggested by Lewis, an encounter of some sort where cursed pirates appear to re-take the coin(s) from you. Maybe add an option to return without any consequences. This could be either used in the scenario that the coins were removed from Isla De Muerta and the option to return them willingly only if you stumbled upon it unintentionally like it did? :p

>Not sure if there is a way you can actually find where the island is in game, have never been in this situation before but if not add some where you can go/someone you can find who does know?
 
Well you could ofcourse just give the gold coint to someone you don't like :p. It could actually be a powerfull tool (altough that would be hard to script). If you place the coin on board of a ship you don't like chances should be the ship is attacked by the cursed pirates so you are rid of it.
Maybe I could add it as option for bandits. To just give them the gold coin, normally it would satisfy a bandit if you give him something like that. And you are rid of it again. That shouldn't be to hard to code. And it could just pop a questbook message when you find the gold coin so you know what to do with it.
I believe the getting attacked by cursed pirates is somewhere in a sidequest already so I should be able to copy that so it shouldn't be that hard.
 
Hmmn. If there was a way to rid of it apart from the whole island thing it'd be pretty cool. But then at the same time wouldn't that mean that there would be one less coin to return to the Main Chest on the island. How would you track that bandit down if you ever had to get that coin to put back in the main chest haha :p

I just want an option if it appears as random loot on ship chests to be able to leave it and let it sink with the ship rather than it be forcibly added to your inventory upon opening the chest and therefore cursing you :p Although again that would maybe cause issues if it was one from the island Chest :O
 
I don't know how the island quest is made. I should look into that. I guess they are just randomly generated so also if you "destroy" 1 then it should still work because a new one is generated. Else for example it could also be you shoot a ship to davy jones locker which happens to have a coin on board.
 
Well by sink I meant if you boarded and looted a random chest and it had a coin in it, it should be left there if you don't take it instead of being forcibly put in your inventory and if you decide to sink that ship after the transfer screen and all then it should go down with the ship.

The random generation replacement of the coin would make sense for that scenario I guess :)
 
Just so you know, I think Pieter coded this so that you can ONLY be freed of the curse by returning the coin(s) to the chest on Isla de Muerte, just like the first PotC film.
So even if you give the coin to someone else, they will become cursed but you will also remain cursed unless you put it in the chest.

I did originally suggest the idea of cursed pirates trying to reclaim the coin from you, but Pieter didn't have the time to implement it.
So I would still like to see that done if possible. :onya

What you describe of the coin being forced into your inventory, even if you don't take it from a chest, does sound a bit mean. I do agree that should probably be changed.
 
Yea thanks Armada, That last sentence was what i was meaning. The system is fine as it is and i like it being tied to the movie. Just the coin forcibly being put in inventory after opening random ship loot chest even if you don't move it there i hope could be changed. Also the idea of cursed pirate attacks or improvements on the current system would be nice. But again i can understand the time that would be needed and code etc. Would be nice indeed if someone could touch it up even more :D
 
I like this so I will probally make it my little side project and maybe expand on it some more.
I like the idea what you can actually do with a gold coin :p.

Armada do you know where the curse is triggered (in which file)?
 
Took a quick peak at the code.
In NK.c it says at row 1613
Code:
    if(CheckCharacterItem(chr,"cursedcoin") && GetCursedCoinCount()>0)

I think if I add a variable here (for example a quest.cursed or something like that) to also check it should prevent the curse from happening if you find a coin. You can just do with them what you want.
Then I need to find out which container is the stone chest of cortex. If you take a coin from there the varaible should be triggered so you are cursed.
And I need to see if I can set random cursed pirates to appear. But I think I can also do it in this function. It checks if you should be shown cursed. If I copy this so it will spawn cursed pirates if you do have coins I think I can fix it all relatively easy. ofcourse thats the theory.
Should pirates be spawned just on random or should you for example only get attacked once a night and should it be depended on your level? So the higher you are the more pirates they send after you? Also I think it should be depended on how many coins you have. Say you have 20 coins then you should probally be invaded by an army of cursed pirates.

Problem is, cursed pirates can't die, so how to get away from them .... what should be "the trick" to get rid of them?
Probally the first time they attack you only 1 should attack and he should give up at a certain moment and then you need to figure out what to do the next time and it gives you for example a month to find out before they attack again etc.

You could ofcourse also just choose to give them the coin and hope they wont kill you.
 
Set the Isla de Muerta level to 0 in the storyline files.
Jack Sparrow and Hornblower are already set up to not have the automatic curse from random coins.
Only reason for that was because otherwise that whole elaborate feature would be hidden and people wouldn't know.
A curse from a single coin is not very evil and is intended as easter egg, along with the cursed albatros.

Random pirate atack to help you get rid of it would be welcome though.
 
Will try to expand on it soon :).
 
Also, I have marked all relevant sections of code with a "Cursed Coins" comment, so you should be able to find exactly how it works.

If it can be made so that randomly found coins do not automatically transfer into your inventory, that would be welcome.
However, if you DO take them, I'd like the curse to take effect same as it does now.

Either that or allow that cursed pirate encounter to get rid of it yourself.

I didn't go for 100% immortality at night because while the films do suggest that, I don't think it would make for very exciting gameplay.
Especially not if you can do it to your entire crew, which you can.

I wished I could provide some more information, but I'm afraid that has to wait until I return in about a week.
 
I agree with you there Pieter. That's exactly what I would like to see changed and even improved upon. Make it so the coins are not automatically added to your inventory but if you do take it then of course you should be cursed :)

It would be nice to have encounters of cursed pirates to try and get them back or even in general as you always here rumours of "Ghost ships" which would play nicely alongside that. I have done a side quest with Davy Jones (Very well done), just thought its a shame that you cannot encounter cursed pirate ships etc. Think it'd be cool to battle with them.
 
I've taken a look at the code and I think I can make it work.

I understand why you want the curse to take effect. Else probally nobody would notice.
I think the problem atm is there isn't really a downside.
It does affect your crew and morale a bit but besides that it doesn't do much.
I think for example doing these things while cursed makes it more interesting:
- immortal at night (maybe always, I'm nog sure about that)
- but experience gain is lowered for example 50% or even disabled
- every kill you make while being immortal makes your fame go down
- if you have the curse for more then 2 months (for example) slowly your luck and defense start to degrade, while your melee and accuracy start to increase (because you dont need to defend)
- after 5 months (for example) your experience start to decrease so slowly your level starts to decrease to.

This would mean you could go on as a cursed pirate and even be a good fighter. But eventually nobody would talk to you anymore and your level goes down which makes sure you can't do certain things.
This would reflect what the curse does in the movies. At first it looks wonderfull but eventually they notice they can't be happy anymore.

Problem is, when you are cursed you don't want to give the coin away. But maybe you could still encounter cursed pirates who ask you to join them so you can help them recover all the coins? Altough I have to look into that.
For now you really need to return all the coins right? I think I saw something like that in the code.
 
At the present moment you have to return all the 882 coins to the chest , yes. I think the way it works is, when a coin does randomly spawn on a ship as loot when you have boarded her and looked in a chest and it is there, it deducts a coin from the chest with the other coins. Therefore when you get there it only has 881 coins and when you put it back the curse is removed. (At least that's what happened to my character :p)

I like the ideas you have there. Would totally agree to the cursed pirates attacks and makes sense for them to be able to join your crew or something if you are already cursed. I suppose the level deduction and stats etc would make it that bit more interesting for those who play as Cursed Pirates or so.
 
it works a bit like that indeed.
When I got the sidequests tranfered I will see what I can do with this. Till then I'm open for sugestions.
I still also think i would be interesting to not have the curse and have a coin cause you have to fight off undead pirates ... which is kinda hard :p. And you could be chased by ghost ships.
But I do agree with pieter we should have something to showcase the curse also. And not many people will probally got to the stone chest by itself to take things from it unless we let some quests go there or something like that ....
 
Interesting thoughts here.

I think as a simple first update, it would to do just not automatically add that coin into your inventory when you find it.
However, once you DO take one, everything should go back to working the way it does now and you can't get rid of it except at Isla de Muerta.

And if you open the chest at Isla de Muerta before lifting the curse, you should automatically get cursed.
Just consider it a "cannot resist, mate" type event. :cheeky

Not 100% film-accurate, because in "reality" the curse doesn't take effect unless you take it from the chest on Isla de Muerta.
But making it work would make the curse so hidden nobody would ever notice it unless they wanted to trigger it. :facepalm
 
Then there was the one guy who went to Isla Del Muerte and cleaned out the chest and sold all the coins.

Then later he wanted to get uncursed.........
 
Not 100% film-accurate, because in "reality" the curse doesn't take effect unless you take it from the chest on Isla de Muerta.
But making it work would make the curse so hidden nobody would ever notice it unless they wanted to trigger it. :facepalm
:aarI'm having a thought here:p..yes, I somehow like the idea for the game to be film accurate about the aztec curse.

And with that, a lot of rumors should be triggered among selected town folks in random islands for the curse to be known or familiarized? Maybe some only knows that there's a lot of gold in this island & some just talks about the curse so it all ties up.
Maybe some random sailors or former captains can be placed among taverns?:pirate07: :rumgone
Information can be sold or just pure charismatic sales talk(free) - if the player chooses the right words to say .:cheeky :shrug



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"So the heathen gods placed upon the gold...a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."
Hector Barbossa
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