Discussion The Archipelago's Mysteries (Nathanial Hawk)

[Pieter Boelen]

Of course PotC: The Game hardly fitted into the PotC films either. With the mod, it does now fit in much better.

I like Khael Roa beng Cozumel, because at least it is real. That also means it should be a Maya Temple (the Inca were in Peru, no?).
"Defeating the ghost ship once and for all" as part of Nathaniel's story does not make much sense, because that ship is the Black Pearl and its "defeat" is covered by the first PotC film.

Because the "Flying Dutchman" in the PotC films is captained by Davy Jones, we gave Hendrick Vanderdecken a different purpose.
By our logic, he cannot have been captain of the Dutchman as he already sold her to Jones "a long time ago".

The "Flying Heart"/"Caleuche" is free to be used, of course, but that would have to be a different ship altogether.

An alternate idea would be this one: Standard Storyline De-filmization | PiratesAhoy!
That means removing PotC film content from the existing Nathaniel Hawk quest altogether.
If that is done, it could also be adapted to fit into the story established by SD:TEHO.

I don't see a real need to do that, but I don't object to it either.

 

[Grey Roger]

The standard storyline still has next to nothing to do with the films, apart from a few names. The method of defeating the Black Pearl still owes nothing to the films, and thanks to the mod, most people probably now end up capturing rather than destroying her. (And also Sovereign of the Seas, though starting a storyline by giving the player that monster is probably not a good idea. ) "Hoist The Colours" is the film-related storyline.

It probably would indeed have been Maya rather than Inca in the area of Mexico which is near Cozumel. (And I'm going to change text in "Ardent" appropriately. The "Inca Temple" quest is soon going to be the "Maya Temple" quest. )

Personally I'd prefer to leave "Tales of a Sea Hawk" as it is. It's the original quest. It's the fundamental part of the history of the game which has remained more or less consistent throughout, and it would be nice to keep it that way. The only reason for de-filmizing it entirely is if Disney decide to object to their intellectual property being used and use lawyers to do that objecting, in which case never mind "Tales of a Sea Hawk", good luck de-filmizing "Hoist The Colours"!

Nathaniel Hawk certainly did sink the Flying Dutchman. At least, he did when I was playing him.

Meanwhile, back to "The Archipelago's Mysteries", and I still recommend disregarding SD:TEHO entirely. In fact, I imagine this storyline will be a more consistent follow-on to "Tales of a Sea Hawk" than SD:TEHO is!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The standard storyline still has next to nothing to do with the films, apart from a few names.

And now character models and the Black Pearl ship model. More cameos than anything else and definitely nothing substantial.

The method of defeating the Black Pearl still owes nothing to the films

That's why the video at the end shows the skeletons repairing her again, I imagine, so that she can be again afloat at the beginning of the first film.

As this is a game, I imagine "capturing the Black Pearl" is the non-canonical "alternate" version.
There are plenty of those in the Hoist the Colours storyline too.

Personally I'd prefer to leave "Tales of a Sea Hawk" as it is. It's the original quest. It's the fundamental part of the history of the game which has remained more or less consistent throughout, and it would be nice to keep it that way.

I'm also perfectly fine with keeping it as-is. Unless someone wants to do the work to change it and thinks it to be REALLY important.
But I don't think anyone would want that.

The only reason for de-filmizing it entirely is if Disney decide to object to their intellectual property being used and use lawyers to do that objecting, in which case never mind "Tales of a Sea Hawk", good luck de-filmizing "Hoist The Colours"!

Yes, let's not go there, shall we....?

Nathaniel Hawk certainly did sink the Flying Dutchman. At least, he did when I was playing him.

I remember that!

But since that isn't an intentional part of the storyline, I'd consider that a "non-canonical alternate". Which is perfectly fine, just doesn't need to be referenced in any future quests.

Meanwhile, back to "The Archipelago's Mysteries", and I still recommend disregarding SD:TEHO entirely. In fact, I imagine this storyline will be a more consistent follow-on to "Tales of a Sea Hawk" than SD:TEHO is!

That's probably best. Though the use of the "name for the orb" could in theory be used, just as a tip of the hat to TEHO.

 

[fjx]

You might have a point, Pieter. Maybe SD:TEHO developers simply changed all that stuff because they wanted to de-filmize Nathaniel's story.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe SD:TEHO developers simply changed all that stuff because they wanted to de-filmize Nathaniel's story.

Maybe. And then they included a VERY film-accurate model of the Flying Dutchman!

(And apparently for some strange reason have OUR Black Pearl files somewhere in their game folder too. )

 

[TommyM]

Quick question, are there any files besides the ones in storyline folder I should be concerned about?

Meaning, any other files that needs a rewrite. Asking because I'm not planning on remoduling any sort of island or ships etc.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

In general, no there aren't. Except perhaps some dialogs that are shared between storylines. But that doesn't need to be a concern.

 

[Grey Roger]

Quick question, are there any files besides the ones in storyline folder I should be concerned about?

Meaning, any other files that needs a rewrite. Asking because I'm not planning on remoduling any sort of island or ships etc.

No, unless you're planning on creating your own ship or character models then everything ought to be able to go into your storyline folders. There are two of these:
PROGRAM\Storyline\<insert storyline name> - contains character definitions, dialogs, quest item definitions, quest control files, and possibly location files
RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline\<insert storyline name> - contains a file of descriptions of quest items plus QUESTBOOK which contains all your questbook texts.

Where there are a dialog file in the main game folders and another file with the same name in the storyline folders, the storyline one takes priority. So, for example, if you want to do things with the governor of Port Royale, you can copy his dialog files into your storyline folder, modify them to your heart's content, then the modifications will appear if you talk to him while playing your storyline but not if you play any other. This can be useful during development - if you make a mistake and his dialog doesn't work properly, it doesn't foul up general gameplay. When you're happy that he's behaving as he should, you can copy the files back into the main game folders. (There has already been at least one case where it was very useful for a storyline to keep its own version of someone's dialog files. The "Peter Blood" side quests are modified versions of a couple of incidents in the "Bartolomeu o Portugues" storyline. You need to talk to a certain tavern keeper, and what you say to him depends on whether you're playing the side quest or the storyline - much easier when the storyline has its own version of his dialog files!)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Where there are a dialog file in the main game folders and another file with the same name in the storyline folders, the storyline one takes priority. So, for example, if you want to do things with the governor of Port Royale, you can copy his dialog files into your storyline folder, modify them to your heart's content, then the modifications will appear if you talk to him while playing your storyline but not if you play any other. This can be useful during development - if you make a mistake and his dialog doesn't work properly, it doesn't foul up general gameplay. When you're happy that he's behaving as he should, you can copy the files back into the main game folders. (There has already been at least one case where it was very useful for a storyline to keep its own version of someone's dialog files. The "Peter Blood" side quests are modified versions of a couple of incidents in the "Bartolomeu o Portugues" storyline. You need to talk to a certain tavern keeper, and what you say to him depends on whether you're playing the side quest or the storyline - much easier when the storyline has its own version of his dialog files!)

Extra note there: When I changed the sidequests to be available in ALL storylines, I put a lot of storyline dialogs back into the main folder.
I also hate, hate, hate having multiple copies of identical files as sooner or later it becomes a pain to keep such files up-to-date. (And it is usually me who gets to pay the price for that.)
So if you make small additions to general files, please put them in the main folders as much as possible.

If you make a copy of a general dialog file, make sure you really need to do that.
Note that it is possible to use only the .h file in the storyline folder and keep the .c file in the main folder.
That allows you to override certain lines of dialog while keeping the original functionality shared.

This is mainly to keep the amount of double code to a minimum.

 

[TommyM]

RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline\

Forgot to transfer the files to my phone and I'm at duty for the next week, so I won't be near my computer either. Would you mind uploading here both of the storyline folders:

• RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline
• PROGRAM\Storyline

It will be much appreciated

 

[Grey Roger]

Those folders currently contain everyone else's storylines. You don't need to download them if you're writing your storyline on a different PC; just create "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\Storyline\The Archipelagos Mysteries" and "PROGRAM\Storyline\The Archipelagos Mysteries", then merge their contents with the existing folders when you get back to your game PC.

You can download my whole "Ardent" storyline (or at least, as much of it as I've finished) here:
http://piratesahoy.bowengames.com/potc/Grey Roger/ardent.zip
That may give you some idea of how to set up your own storyline files. You'll notice that, among other things, there's "PROGRAM\Storyline\Ardent" - my sub-folder in the "Storyline" main folder. As outlined above, you'll be creating your own sub-folder.

 

[TommyM]

Thats great but I have started it based on the "standard" storyline already. So if you could send me it that would be awesome.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed appending this to the existing Standard storyline would make the most sense, I think.

 

[TommyM]

Indeed appending this to the existing Standard storyline would make the most sense, I think.

It does, since I'v finished it a couple of times already it makes much more sense in the codding. Can anticipate what the codes do "out in the field".

For the matter in hand. Peiter, can you upload for me the storyline from both folders please.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Remind me tomorrow. I'm staying from my computer today.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Here.

 

[TommyM]

What is the main difference between the two files quest_reaction and both_reaction?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There is different stuff in it.
For the Standard storyline there isn't any clear logic on what goes where.
The tutorial and some PotC film stuff is in the "both" file.

For other storylines, we tried to put main quests in "quests" and side stuff in "both".

 

[TommyM]

So what you trying to say here? It doesn't matter which file I choose to rewrite the code it will still work? I didn't understood the difference between the two. And you are right, the file doesn't make sense and it has zero organization in it but I do manage to find the things I need. Just not sure how to activate it.

For instance, I took the quest code about Gordon Carpenter to make the story starts while I'm sitting in a tavern anx making a conversation with an NPC I made, but how to initiate it? Thats a problem.

        case "talk_about_ruby1":
            DoQuestReloadToLocation("Falaise_De_Fleur_tavern", "sit", "sit4", "_");
            ChangeCharacterAddressGroup(CharacterFromID("Gordon Carpenter"), "Falaise_De_Fleur_tavern", "sit", "sit8");
            LAi_SetActorType(PChar);
            LAi_ActorSetSitMode(PChar);
            LAi_SetActorType(CharacterFromID("Gordon Carpenter"));
            LAi_ActorSetSitMode(CharacterFromID("Gordon Carpenter"));
        break;

        case "talk_about_ruby2":
            Lai_ActorWaitDialog(PChar, CharacterFromID("Gordon Carpenter"));
            LAi_ActorDialog(CharacterFromID("Gordon Carpenter"), PChar, "", 1.0, 1.0);
        break;

• What is the meaning "LAi_Actor"
• What line am I supposed to write so the conversation takes place the minute the story loads?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So what you trying to say here? It doesn't matter which file I choose to rewrite the code it will still work?

Basically.

What is the meaning "LAi_Actor"

If a character is "Actor Type", then you can give that character commands for quest reasons.

What line am I supposed to write so the conversation takes place the minute the story loads?

What do you mean with "the minute the story loads"?
Can't be when you start the storyline, because you are extending at the end.

Some common ways of starting quests are:

1. SetEnterLocationQuest to execute the specified quest case to be triggered as soon as you enter the specified location:

    case "plusinfo":
       ChangeCharacterAddressGroup(CharacterFromID("Roxanne Lalliere"), "Guadeloupe_Port", "goto", "goto8");
       SetEnterLocationQuest("Guadeloupe_Port", "plusinfo_2", 0);
       break;

     case "plusinfo_2":
       LAi_SetActorType(characterFromID("Roxanne Lalliere"));
       LAi_ActorFollow(characterFromID("Roxanne Lalliere"), PChar, "plusinfo_3", 1.5);
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Roxanne Lalliere")].dialog.currentnode = "begin_44";
       break;

2. "Win Conditions" that can be all sorts of things and not necessarily location-based:

    case "directjail":
       AddQuestRecord("Santiago", "4");
       PChar.quest.santiago = "jail";
       Pchar.quest.Santiago.win_condition.l1 = "location";
       Pchar.quest.Santiago.win_condition.l1.location = "Guadeloupe_Port";
       PChar.quest.Santiago.win_condition = "anyinfo";
       break;

     case "anyinfo":
       PChar.quest.santiago = "jail_2";
       LAi_SetActorType(characterFromID("Roxanne Lalliere"));
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Roxanne Lalliere")].dialog.currentnode = "begin_43";
       LAi_ActorDialog(characterFromID("Roxanne Lalliere"), pchar, "", 0.0, 1.0);
       ChangeCharacterAddressGroup(CharacterFromID("Etienne Dupuis"), "PaP_Guardhouse", "reload", "reload1");
       break;

3. Get the player to start the quest himself by starting a dialog and using the correct dialog options that lead to the quest.