Cossacks in the Caribbean?

[Javrimir]

The persons name is ok. But I would definitely change the ships name. Babushka is too stereotypical and unpersonal.
I will change it into "Jekaterina" or "Pravda" (truth) or "Svoboda" (freedom)

 

[Grey Roger]

"Pravda" has possible real-world political associations, being the name of the USSR newspaper. The other two wouldn't be a problem. (I quite liked "Babushka". It's a relatively recognisable word for non-Russian speaking players and translates to "grandmother", which seems appropriate for the elderly-looking polacca. I can just imagine our hero taking one look at the ship, laughing and calling it "Grandmother". )

 

[Javrimir]

Hm... it's unfortunately crashing. And when I was choosing in free play, the characters portrait wasnt visible (same as by Elisabeth Swan by the way).

 

[Grey Roger]

Strange. Did you follow my instructions? (Copy the whole lot straight into the top level game installation folder. For example, my game is installed in "C:\Games\Pirates of the Caribbean", so that's where I copy the "PROGRAM" and "RESOURCE" folders from the zip file.) You should then get a message from Windows asking if you want to merge "PROGRAM".

In any case, use this new zip file. I'd forgotten that a couple of things are conditional on the character's name and so they won't work with the new name defined in "initModels.c". They won't cause the game to crash; all that will happen is that you don't get the shashka and the custom ship's log, you get the default swept-hilt rapier and normal ship's log because the custom bit is looking for the wrong name. This is now fixed.

Or just call him Taras Bulba!

The problem with giving me evil ideas like that is that I may use them.


I'm rather pleased with how I did that because it has potentially useful implications for any future free-play characters. "PROGRAM\DIALOGS\Malcolm Hatcher_dialog.h" no longer contains any mention of "Malcolm" - they're all replaced by placeholder "#sname#". That's set in "Malcolm Hatcher_dialog.c" just before the switch to specific dialog cases, which means it's always set thus:

PreProcessor_Add("name", GetMyName(NPChar));

So you'll always call Malcolm Hatcher by whatever name he's been given. Meanwhile, in "StartStoryline.c":

     case PLAYER_TYPE_SWORD_MASTER:
       if (GetMySimpleName(PChar) == "Bohdan Aleskeevich Voronov" && iNation == PERSONAL_NATION)
       {
         ch.name = TranslateString("","Taras");
         ch.lastname = TranslateString("","Bulba");
         SetModelfromArray(ch, GetModelIndex("mongol"));
       }
     break;

If any more swordmasters are customised like this, the simple 'if' block can be replaced by a 'switch' with cases for each one. The upshot is that Malcolm Hatcher can be customised to suit a specific free-play character and will provide his normal tutorial, and the tutorial dialog will call him by the correct name.

@Javrimir: if you can think of a more suitable name for this person, I can easily change it. So can you - edit "PROGRAM\Storyline\FreePlay\StartStoryline.c", find "Taras" and "Bulba", replace them with whatever you like.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Strange. Did you follow my instructions?

Maybe a compatibility issue with the newer ZIP archives?

The problem with giving me evil ideas like that is that I may use them.

I'm rather pleased with how I did that because it has potentially useful implications for any future free-play characters. "PROGRAM\DIALOGS\Malcolm Hatcher_dialog.h" no longer contains any mention of "Malcolm" - they're all replaced by placeholder "#sname#". That's set in "Malcolm Hatcher_dialog.c" just before the switch to specific dialog cases

That's cool, that is! Nice.

 

[Grey Roger]

Maybe a compatibility issue with the newer ZIP archives?

Shouldn't be. There's nothing which is different in style from what's already in the FreePlay "storyline", so unless the new ZIP has broken FreePlay entirely, the new Cossack character ought to work. It's easy enough to check, anyway, provided someone who has all the newest stuff has about 5 minutes to spare. Copy the contents from the ZIP in post 64 into place, start a FreePlay game, look through the "Specific" characters for "Bohdan Aleskeevich Voronov", then start the game. If it gets as far as Taras Bulba doing his Malcolm Hatcher impersonation (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it ) then it's working and anything else which goes wrong is going to go wrong with any FreePlay game.

Hm... it's unfortunately crashing. And when I was choosing in free play, the characters portrait wasnt visible (same as by Elisabeth Swan by the way).

That bit about Elizabeth Swann is worrying, because she should already have been working for some time.

@Javrimir: try again, and if the game crashes, please post the files "compile.log" and "error.log" which you'll find in the top level of the game installation folder. You don't need to convert the files, just use the "Upload a file" button on the forum.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If it gets as far as Taras Bulba doing his Malcolm Hatcher impersonation (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it ) then it's working

That bit about Elizabeth Swann is worrying, because she should already have been working for some time.

And as far as I am aware, she DOES work even in the 28 July 2016 version....

 

[Javrimir]

Now it's working! Very nice, thank you!

First of all I should choose for which country I should work... I guess I will serve the spainards... or I will capture the colonies for myself

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm just glad it's working for you now. What you do with the character is, of course, up to you, though looking at the Wikipedia article on Stenka Rasin (they spell his name "Razin"), he doesn't seem to have been the sort to pledge loyalty to a single nation.

The character is set in 1681, just into the "Golden Age of Piracy" period but not in the time of the War of the League of Augsburg, which means standard alliances will apply. England, Portugal and Holland are allied; France and Spain are allied; and the two blocs are at war with each other. And the pirates are hostile to all of them. You could pick one of the blocs, get letters of marque from all the allied nations, then attack ships belonging to the opposite group. Or you could join the pirates and attack everything in sight - I suspect Rasin would approve of that!