We need another female storyline

[Peter Blood]

POTC build is currently lacking a storyline with a female character as default (besides Beatrice Sharpe), but I think it should have another one. I wonder if CtP is interested? Just a thought.

 

[Thagarr]

I agree Peter, there are far to few female story lines in these games. That's one of the things I liked about AOP, but Starforce pretty well killed that one.

Perhaps though, it would be best to hold off on doing anything this major until after we get Build 14 final, and get it transfered over to CoAS. Otherwise whoever does it will end up doing a lot of work twice, just my opinion mate.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't think we need another one just yet; I think we need to actually finish the Beatrice one first.
There's a start only, but nothing else.

 

[Peter Blood]

Has anyone asked CtP if she is interested?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

She isn't actively here in the first place.

 

[Peter Blood]

That's to bad. I'm sure she would be interested if she were still active.

 

[Captain Maggee]

Well maybe, but maybe not

I dont try and predict what people would do without asking them first just in case

 

[CatalinaThePirate]

I'm actually here, trying to get myself "up to speed"... :gday Hi everyone!

I would not mind trying to put together something for a female storyline, however I really want to finish off my Sneaky Trader mod - my main intention for him was to be a quest-giver - sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one, depending on a lot of factors (luck, skill, chance, experience, choice). I had some good plans for the scoundrel, and some funny situations. The unpredictability of his offerings would be the spice of the whole thing. If he offers to sell you a nice schooner for a small price, do you take him up on the offer, only to find a leaky rowboat where he told you the ship was moored? Will his map pieces lead to wealth untold, or just some rusty old iron nails?

I did kinda clean up the end of the original game after you sink the BP - where you have a choice of taking on ol' what's'ername (Danielle, LOL!) or not. Recently I was attempting to play through the game to see if it was still working all right or if anyone had modded it further - Did not get that far (had just picked up Fred Bob and finished off that quest, ha, that was fun to put together), so... I had been thinking that what I did should be modified so that you reverse the genders - if you start as a female captain, then instead of Danielle, you meet "Daniel" and most of the dialog could be the same. (it's such a natural course, maybe someone has probably already done that?) (I always play as Hawk)

There are many ways of taking a female storyline. Speaking from a strictly historical standpoint there were usually very few females on ships in those days - and either they were wives of the captains (such as the trader's "Hen Frigate") or they were disguised as men to either accompany their husband or lover, some went to sea to bolster their husband's business, some like Grace O'Malley were doing "salvage" work to feed and support her husband's clan, OR in the case I like the best, they were out there because they had lost their man and lost their income and had no other choice but to go to sea and seek adventure and fortune. Some were soldiers, and good at what they did - in the disguise of a man.

I haven't played Age of Pirates so please don't shoot me! I don't know what the Beatrice storyline is (I have been sadly out of touch)... BUT... I was thinking that a female storyline could follow the latter idea (and please note this is coming off of a rough "persona" I personally use and have used for YEARS at our local RenFaire) - she is Spanish (or whatever), and married to a mariner - who ends up being betrayed and killed by his own countrymen. She wants revenge, and so disguises herself as a man, gets onboard a ship that is rumored to be run by a horribly strict martinet of a Captain, and leads the crew to mutiny. They vote her Captain and steal the ship - and away they go to prey on their own country's ships in retaliation for the cruelties they've all suffered. They seek sanctuary in a rival country's port, plead for their lives, and get sent on tasks a'la the good ol' bad ol' Gov. Silehard to earn their new country's trust...

Ah it's a thought. Might be fun, too! I don't mind if someone was to take the idea and run with it.

It's no big thing - not like we're going to be worried about how to divy up all the gold we're going to be making from all of this.

:

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I never really played AoP either, but from what I understand,
the Beatrice storyline in there doesn't even remotely resemble anything historically accurate.

The Beatrice storyline we've got in the Build 14 Beta 1 modpack is completely different, but still has no bearing on historical life.
It was made to have a female character, but also to have a lot of our PA! Modders as characters in there and put a fair amount of silly fun in there.
That storyline is very much unfinished and there's only really an opening and nothing else.

The Blaze Devlin storyline in Build 14 Beta 1 is exactly the same as the Beatrice one, just with the characters swapped
and the gender-specific dialog changed. That's similar to your idea for replacing Nathaniel Hawk with Danielle Greene
in a playable alternate to the Standard storyline.

We still have the intention to provide a "Customize Character" interface as part of the New Game>Select Storyline options.
This will allow you to play any storyline as any character, so any storyline COULD be a female one.
However, to do this properly, we'd also need to code in to have all address texts be automatically gender-specific
and swap the gender of any potential love interests, including the governors' daughters and nieces.

Captain Maggee has been doing some fixing work to the end of the Standard storyline, but I don't think he touched any of your code.
However, I also recall that he mentioned that on his last test, it didn't quite work anymore.
On my last test it did, but then that was a LOT of years ago. The one person who would know properly is Talisman,
who has been doing a very serious and good job of testing all Storylines and sidequests and writing walkthroughs and finding fixes.

The Sneaky Trader always struck me as a very fun idea and I would love to finally see him in the game.
I think all your thoughts should be quite doable; it'd just be a matter of figuring out which buttons to press.

 

[Thagarr]

The Beatrice storyline we've got in the Build 14 Beta 1 modpack is completely different, but still has no bearing on historical life.
It was made to have a female character, but also to have a lot of our PA! Modders as characters in there and put a fair amount of silly fun in there.
That storyline is very much unfinished and there's only really an opening and nothing else.

The Blaze Devlin storyline in Build 14 Beta 1 is exactly the same as the Beatrice one, just with the characters swapped
and the gender-specific dialog changed. That's similar to your idea for replacing Nathaniel Hawk with Danielle Greene
in a playable alternate to the Standard storyline.

Late last year when we were working on the manuals, I ran into this unfinished story line, and actually had some thoughts on trying to come up with something for it. I figured since no one was working on it, maybe I could give it a go and see if I really had learned anything by putting those tutorials together.

This was also about the time you developed the steam ship Pieter, and one of my ideas was to have the story culminate with this great new fangled invention! But I wasn't sure if you may have already had plans for it or not, then the news that we were getting the source code hit, and I shelved the ideas in the back of my mind hoping to someday revisit it as part of the revamped 2.8 project.

I think this story line definitely has potential, and what better way to start off our next mod than with actual characters from our modding community! Unfortunately, at the time I didn't write down what I was thinking, so I would have to back and reread the partial dialog files to jog my memory a bit. I really have no idea if I have the ability to take something like this on, but I guess there is really only one way to find out!

The reason I bring this up is because of Catalina's post above about her Sneaky Trader mod, I remember when this was first mentioned back a few years ago and I was really looking forward to it myself. With the start of the story that is already there, I think the Sneaky Trader would make for a whole bunch of unpredictable plot twists and turns for this quest. The main player character would never be sure if they should just put a pistol ball between his eyes ...or keep him alive long enough to the get the next real bit of story plot! I know it's probably a little premature to bring up things for Storm 2.8 being as we haven't even decided for sure how we are going to do it, I'm just throwing the idea out there to see if it might make sense to anyone besides me. :?

Cat, I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to hijack your mod even before it's finished, or push you into doing something that you just don't have time for, or even want to mess with. What I am trying clumsily to suggest is that if you could tolerate my ineptitude, perhaps we could work on these two projects together and see if we could come up with something of a playable and fun story line! If you don't have time or just plain don't want to mess with it, that's fine, I'm not convinced I have anywhere near the skills to even attempt this anyway. Just thought I would throw it out there and see if you were interested.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think the quest code in CoAS is pretty much the same as in PotC, so any quests written for Storm 2.0 should be quite portable to Storm 2.8.
In other words, this shouldn't be a reason to not start work on it!

Putting the steamships to use in a storyline would be really cool.
If they go in the Devlin storylines, we definitly need to change the starting date though.
Right now, these are the only storylines taking place in "Early Explorers", which is definitly too early for steamers.
UNLESS we REALLY don't care about sense in this particular case.

There already is a LOT of actual characters from our modding team in another, more finished storyline,
namely the Jack Sparrow one. You'll encounter us when you folow the Sir Christopher Mings path instead of the Billy Brock one.

 

[CatalinaThePirate]

Captain Maggee has been doing some fixing work to the end of the Standard storyline, but I don't think he touched any of your code. However, I also recall that he mentioned that on his last test, it didn't quite work anymore.

:? Uh oh...

On my last test it did, but then that was a LOT of years ago. The one person who would know properly is Talisman, who has been doing a very serious and good job of testing all Storylines and sidequests and writing walkthroughs and finding fixes.

Okay, I hope I can help - since I've been away so long I'm not sure if picking this up again will be like riding a bicycle, or what is more likely for me, like remembering how to play a card game I haven't played in a long time. I tend to forget stuff like that. I most sincerely hope it's the FORMER, and that I'll be able to ride that bicycle with NO HANDS!!!

The Sneaky Trader always struck me as a very fun idea and I would love to finally see him in the game.
I think all your thoughts should be quite doable; it'd just be a matter of figuring out which buttons to press.

Ha, yes, that's always been the problem all along. : I know it can be done, but the tricky part will be to make it work within the luck/skill &tc parameters so that the triggering of an event can be measured by how high you rate in those skills... I never got into that part of the code, I was always better at cause/effect code, like, you reach a certain point on a path and suddenly the entire Spanish army is running at you from across a rickety bridge, whooHOOOO! :

The reason I bring this up is because of Catalina's post above about her Sneaky Trader mod, I remember when this was first mentioned back a few years ago and I was really looking forward to it myself. With the start of the story that is already there, I think the Sneaky Trader would make for a whole bunch of unpredictable plot twists and turns for this quest. The main player character would never be sure if they should just put a pistol ball between his eyes ...or keep him alive long enough to the get the next real bit of story plot! I know it's probably a little premature to bring up things for Storm 2.8 being as we haven't even decided for sure how we are going to do it, I'm just throwing the idea out there to see if it might make sense to anyone besides me. :?

Yes, that's rather the way I wanted to run the Sneaky Trader - you can easily get exasperated with him - and even if you DO put a pistol ball between his eyes (OMG what a great idea!!!), he keeps coming back - my original idea was for him to slowly deteriorate - starting out with a slightly patched coat and a small scar on his face, to the coat getting more rumpled, patched, threadbare and grubby, fresh wounds, that kind of thing - imagine him like the fabled Tinker of early British lore - he travels around from place to place mending or filling holes in pots... And other things... Getting husbands irate and making the wives REALLY HAPPY, and himself being quite undaunted at being so beat up and reviled by the men because he ALWAYS makes it with the ladies... A real rogue, and he'll keep changing his name so he might say to you, Who? Oh, you must mean my cousin Nick... No, that's not me, I've never had a ship for sale... Nope, not me.

Cat, I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to hijack your mod even before it's finished, or push you into doing something that you just don't have time for, or even want to mess with. What I am trying clumsily to suggest is that if you could tolerate my ineptitude, perhaps we could work on these two projects together and see if we could come up with something of a playable and fun story line! If you don't have time or just plain don't want to mess with it, that's fine, I'm not convinced I have anywhere near the skills to even attempt this anyway. Just thought I would throw it out there and see if you were interested.

No worries Thagarr! I would welcome some help, and if it can fix up Beatrice's storyline it will be all more to the good. I also love the idea of having some of our "characters" here at PA! in the game. I had a blast with putting Fred Bob into the game, haha. So yeah it sounds like fun.

Not sure if I'm ready for this kind of thing, but I am willing to give it a try. Who knows, we may BOTH learn something!

 

[Thagarr]

Good points Pieter, I hadn't even though about the timeline. Although in this case, I am not sure it matters all that much. I have a feeling by the end of this quest the player will have forgotten what century they are in anyway! :

No worries Thagarr! I would welcome some help

Encouraging me can be a dangerous thing!

I love your description of him, sounds like the perfect scoundrel! He should be a lot of fun to flesh out and bring to life! We will need to come up with an equally annoying name ...or several! :

I'll go back through and re-read the start of the quest and see if I can jog my memory and come up with something to expand the basic plot. :mm

 

[CatalinaThePirate]

@Thagarr: We should probably take this to a different section and make a new topic on it to start fresh. Not sure where to put the topic tho, is this for CoAS or PotC?

Here's an example of some dialogue I worked up for the Sneaky Trader:

Dialog.Text = "Arrr, matey! " + Npchar.name + " " + NPchar.lastname + " here, well met, well met indeed! I've got what you need, great items at great prices. D'ye need a " + LinkRandPhrase("lockpick?", "prybar?", "compass to point yer way t'treasure?") + " Happen I have everythin' ye need, right here, best quality, and satisfaction guaranteed.";
Link.l1 = "God's teeth man, you're a sight! All right, let me have a look.";
Link.l1.go = "Items";
Link.l2 = "No thanks, I'm not in the mood to be cheated out of my hard-earned money by some sneakthief.";
Link.l2.go = "Pitch";
NPC_Meeting = "1";
NextDiag.TempNode = "Second Time";
break;

case "Second Time":
Dialog.Text = "Ah, you again, matey, it's " + Npchar.name + " " + NPchar.lastname + ", lookin' out for yer every need! Watch out for the patrols now. What ye be wantin' this time, a " + LinkRandPhrase("plot o'land on which t'retire?", "fine piece o'prettyness t'give t'yer sweetheart?", "map? A map that'll show ye riches ye've never seen before?") + " Happen I have everythin' ye need, right here, best quality, and as always, yer satisfaction is guaranteed.";
Link.l1 = "YOU! I know this stuff is all stolen or illegal! ...But let me have a look.";
Link.l1.go = "Items";
Link.l2 = "My, but you certainly get around! Hey, didn't you have a different name last time?";
Link.l2.go = "Cousin";
break;

case "Cousin":
Dialog.Text = "Aye, ye've met me cousin, then, have ye? Well I've got better goods than he, come have a look then, eh?";
link.l1 = "All right, what do you have?";
link.l1.go = "Items";
link.l2 = "Not for me, not this time, no thank you, don't want to be cheated, good bye.";
link.l2.go = "Pitch";
break;

case "Pitch":
Dialog.Text = LinkRandPhrase("Arrr, matey, ye've got me all wrong. Come on, have a look! Satisfaction guaranteed!", "Don' take on like that, matey, ye'll have the guards on us fer sure! Come on, have a look! Satisfaction guaranteed!", "Hush, don' say nothin, I'll give ye half off whatever ye chooses. Come on, have a look! Satisfaction guaranteed!");
Link.l1 = "Oh sure. Like I believe that. ...Ummm, show me what you have.";
Link.l1.go = "Items";
Link.l2 = "Not today, thanks. You look like you got keelhauled by your last 'satisfied' customer.";
Link.l2.go = "Pitch2";
break;

case "Pitch2":
Dialog.Text = "Keelhauled? Me? Nay, 'twas an angry father with a grudge and a blade, ambushed me as I was sneakin' out a window. I has a way with the pretty ladies, matey. They all loves ol' " + Npchar.name + ", they does. Now what's yer choice, mate, a " + LinkRandPhrase("pistol? A better pistol ye'll never find.", "sword? Th' most incredibly fine sword ye'll ever see in these islands?", "ship? Happen I've got th' finest corvette in all th' archipelago, moored in a secret cove not far from here. Ye should 'ave a look, matey, she's a beauty!");
Link.l1 = Npchar.name + ", umm, that was your name this time, right? I think your bargains get grander by the moment. All right, what do you have?";
Link.l1.go = "Items";
Link.l2 = "I said NO, now leave me alone!";
Link.l2.go = "Bugger";
break;

case "Bugger":
Dialog.Text = "Eeeeew, actin' all lordly with me then, are ye? Bugger off, ye toff! See if I gives ye a good deal next time!";
Link.l1 = RandSwear() + " I can't believe I'm saying this, but let me see what you have then!";
Link.l1.go = "Items";
Link.l2 = LinkRandPhrase("So say you, you gleeking dewberry? You'd better run fast, because you're going to give me some satisfaction as I beat you to within an inch of your miserable life!", "So say you? You're a liar and a thief, and your items are either stolen, or worthless. I think I'm going to report you to the guards.", "That's it, you're for the gallows, you sneakthief! Come with me.");
Link.l2.go = "exit_runaway";
break;

case "exit_runaway":
Dialog.Text = "Whoops, gotta go!";
Link.l1 = "HEY! " + RandSwear();
Link.l1.go = "exit_runaway2";
LAi_SetActorType(characterFromID("Sneaky Trader"));
LAi_ActorRunToLocation(NPchar, "reload", "reload3", "none", "", "", "", 15.0);

I always loved the idea of him saying, "Whoops, gotta go!" and running off while you're standing there wondering if he's picked your pocket... :

I built him on the PotC "Searcher" model and gave him a pencil-thin mustache and a dueling scar. Later the nose would be broken and another scar on the other cheek. Later still he'd have an eyepatch. : He was supposed to be like Stan from Monkey Island, the perfect example of a shyster slick salesman selling improbable items at bargain basement prices, and always one step ahead of the law or an angry husband or father. :

I found pix, but for some odd reason my server is not cooperating with me tonight so I can't post them. :?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You can just reuse your old thread, no? I found it here: http://forum.piratesahoy.net//topic/4778-sneaky-trader-mod-help-please

My recommendation would be to do the work for PotC, because that's the game we're familiar with.
We've got several quest coders here these days, and they'd all be able to help you.
Nobody has done any quest-work for CoAS yet at all and I reckon it should be possible to move it over,
together with the rest of our storyline and quest mods when the time comes.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Oh... do you still have your original files? I think you uploaded them once and I might still have them on my external HD.
I hope I do... :?

 

[Thagarr]

Absolutely brilliant dialog Cat! Having him run away would be classic! I definitely think we should work on getting the ST in the build first. I had a look back at your original thread(Thanks Pieter, I couldn't find it! ) great stuff! I especially like the idea of buying a deed to a brothel! That would open up a lot of interesting possibility, like perhaps finding out later that the Madam owning it had no knowledge her place was for sale, or the building that said deed describes is in actuality, the governors mansion! :

One of the new mods I helped work on for CoAS was a way to get actual readable(2 page) books into the game using the map viewing system. Firebat, Darhymn and Pieter did all of the coding work, I mostly helped with the graphics and text. If we could get something similar to work with The Build, this would be perfect for showing an official brothel deed, or any number of various other nefarious documents! But that is something we could fiddle with later.

It looks like you had quite a bit of work done on him already, and actually had him showing up in game. If I understood correctly, you were hung up on getting items to only show up at the ST stand and not at other traders, and the rarity and prices, although from what I read part of that may have been solved. Are these the areas we need to concentrate on, or did I miss something?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We DO have viewable maps in the PotC Build Mod;
we could use that for readable books/documents also, similar to what DarmHymn did for CoAS.

 

[CatalinaThePirate]

Heh, great! I DO still have my original files, Pieter, and wow, I didn't recall a lot of that. I'll have to go read that thread, so yeah, let's put the rest of this in there so other modders can find it. I think I've tracked down my trouble with the pictures not posting - some files got corrupted. I'm going to have to go through that whole folder (it's on a different server) because I'm afraid a lot of that stuff got zapped and will no longer display. I hope nothing got lost that is not already backed up. :? I'm usually pretty anal about keeping backups, so most likely I still have it all - it's just a matter of finding it as my FILING SYSTEM leaves a lot to be desired (I need a SECRETARY!!!). k

Thagarr, yeah, I did get him into the game and somewhat working - I was in the process of trying to isolate his sale items from the rest of the merchant items so they would be his alone. He'd run away and fade away, which was just hilarious. :

Also I'd really like to see a rotating selection of skins for this guy - so you never quite know if you're talking to the same guy, because with one he'll have two scars, another will have no scars, but a black eye and some cuts about his face, another might have an eyepatch, &tc... If you question him he will just say, Oh you must have met my cousin. HE has (and then ST can break into some outrageously ridiculous story about the exploits of his cousin) but that's not me, no sir, I'm (whatever nom du jour). What can I get for you? &tc... But same unusual coat (like Stan's from MI) - just more beat up and patched, and same slick routine - only it should vary widely and have a LOT of twists and turns.

You see this can branch out and be added to so that it becomes like a web - you will never know what will happen or which way you should go, but whatever you pick... It's sure to be an adventure. :

 

[Peter Blood]

Maybe you could make a storyline based on your namesake. Also, maybe we should make the devlin storyline more like aop and have a quest where you must capture a town from each nationality.