[WIP] Thirst, a Dragon Age mod focused on C&C

[Surf Solar]

Puzzles/Enviromental interactions are nice, as long as they aren't too big or tedious (Icewind Dale II's Ice Temple - I'm looking at you), so I prefer them rather small inbetween combat or the "storyfag" encounters to break up the pacing a bit. Just remember to keep them small, because players tend to get annoyed by such huge puzzles.

I myself don't really like HUGE dungeons, I rather prefer a greater number, but with not a great length. This also results in the non-combat options to be more straight to the point (which would help you aswell, I think). Ofcourse no "Choose dialogue option=win the dungeon", but I think you get what I mean. Place only few combat encounters, but make them worthwhile and memorable.

 

[sea]

Well, the current dungeon I have set up is basically like this. At this point there isn't much changing it because the layout is more or less set and the context can't change (it's a bandit/criminal hideout), but I can try integrating feedback into the future designs.

Upon arrival, player is greeted by a door guard, with the following options:

1. Player can bribe the guard if he/she has enough money
2. Persuade to let past
3. Intimidate the guard
4. If a previous quest was solved one way, pass unhindered (1-4 all have the same outcome - no combat, player can just walk to the end)
5. Stealth past (guards will attack if they detect the player, and relies on the player being solo)
6. Fight everyone in the dungeon (standard Dragon Age kill 'em all choice, with a few interesting encounters, namely traps, archers, war dogs, etc.)

In between there are a couple of minor things... for instance, a locked door that can either be picked, or opened with the key (stolen or taken from a guard's body). There's also some narrative build-up found in a few notes scattered around.

Once the player reaches the end, there's another speech encounter. The potential outcomes are:

1. Difficult boss fight (two waves, one with regular goons and another against the boss + monsters, it's actually a lot more challenging than I expected)
2. Player persuades the bad guy to let him/her go (player will have to return later on, but can continue for now and gains XP for finishing the quest)
3. If player has uncovered a plot point from another branch of the main quest, he/she can destroy the boss without a fight

The real downside with the current setup is that if the player fails persuasion (possible because the check is fairly difficult, even for a persuasion-oriented character), there's combat, which may be basically impossible for the player if he/she doesn't have party members (I have no mandatory ones). The other option may well not be available either, though it does avoid the issue of a no-win scenario, if the player reloads a save and returns later. Since the objective is to talk to a particular character, I can't really let the player bypass that, either. Last, if the stealth option is taken, the player doesn't really have a choice at the end other than fighting (almost impossible solo) or talking (may not be possible).

I guess I'd just like to know if there are any tweaks you think can be made to this existing scenario, or at least get an idea for how you feel about being forced into combat if you fail a check (especially as persuasion attempts are fixed pass/fail rather than percentages).

 

[Grunker]

1. I like combat in this engine. RTwP-wise, it's the closest we have to the IE games, which I considered excellent. I like my storyfag games to feature a great deal of combat. For me, however, the most important thing isn't the amount of it, but that there's an idea behind every encounter. You can have 10,000 encounters for my sake as long as they all have a purpose. A few ground-rules:

a) The more "unique/named" mobs the better. And by named I don't just mean give them a random name - I mean assign special abilities and/or gear to them. "Darkspawn" or "spider" is fine, because we expect these mobs to fill out the time between special encounters (though even spider-encounters or whatever should have some thought behind them), but don't make DA:O's mistake of having to many mobs that are just "mage" or "templar". Baldur's Gate was very good in this regard.

b) Treasure in DA:O were fucking ridiculous. The tier-system sucks because you can safely discard any item not of the tier of your current item or above. Gear-choices are supposed to me about more than that (ex. "do I want the mace that is save-or-stun or the sword that gives +2 to this stat and have this special ability). Which gear to use should most often be a choice (i.e. there is no "right" way to do it) not a problem (i.e. weapon a is clearly better than weapon b).

c) Make sure you don't have too little combat. I say this because you call it a story-fag mod, but as you say yourself, DA:O's engine loans itself best to combat when it comes to gameplay. I suspect spending more than half your time in dialogue will fast become boring unless you actually did produce PS:T+ level dialogue.

2) Puzzles are cute, but don't waste too much time on them... Ultimately they are just distractions like mini-games.

3) Lengthy and involved in my mind. "[Persuade] I will now avoid combat" sucks. PS:T was excellent at presenting you with logical "dialogue-puzzles" in which you had to talk your way out of stuff. Just remember that people who used skill-points for conversation-skills should have an easier time doing this than others. Or others shouldn't be able to at all.

4) Non-linear, definetely!

 

[sea]

1. I like combat in this engine. RTwP-wise, it's the closest we have to the IE games, which I considered excellent. I like my storyfag games to feature a great deal of combat. For me, however, the most important thing isn't the amount of it, but that there's an idea behind every encounter. You can have 10,000 encounters for my sake as long as they all have a purpose. A few ground-rules:

There is no filler combat. The closest I have are a few woodland creatures that attack the player in the very first map. Everything else is highly contextual, and/or can be avoided.

a) The more "unique/named" mobs the better. And by named I don't just mean give them a random name - I mean assign special abilities and/or gear to them. "Darkspawn" or "spider" is fine, because we expect these mobs to fill out the time between special encounters (though even spider-encounters or whatever should have some thought behind them), but don't make DA:O's mistake of having to many mobs that are just "mage" or "templar". Baldur's Gate was very good in this regard.

I have plenty of these. A lot of my encounters thus far are standard thugs and other human enemies, due to the fact that there's no place for anything else in the parts of the mod I've been working on, but that is something I have nice plans for. I like to use "special" creatures where appropriate, i.e. surprise the player with a boss after defeating some minor ones, and I'm definitely going to be using a lot of the more interesting stuff for particular encounters, like enemies with the Arcane Warrior spec, golems, etc.

b) Treasure in DA:O were fucking ridiculous. The tier-system sucks because you can safely discard any item not of the tier of your current item or above. Gear-choices are supposed to me about more than that (ex. "do I want the mace that is save-or-stun or the sword that gives +2 to this stat and have this special ability). Which gear to use should most often be a choice (i.e. there is no "right" way to do it) not a problem (i.e. weapon a is clearly better than weapon b).

I have custom items and unique rewards for quests, but the scaling is basically hard-coded and isn't going to go away, at least without me rewriting the treasure system from scratch. I do try to get around this by offering amulets, money, etc. rather than weapons, because at least in those cases the scaling isn't there and the player has more choice. But really, the big reward is experience, not items, and about 80-90% of all XP comes from solving quests.

c) Make sure you don't have too little combat. I say this because you call it a story-fag mod, but as you say yourself, DA:O's engine loans itself best to combat when it comes to gameplay. I suspect spending more than half your time in dialogue will fast become boring unless you actually did produce PS:T+ level dialogue.

It's not so much "storyfag" as it is just heavily focused on giving players a variety of choices and outcomes in the story. The style of writing and the structure are very BioWare-like. Imagine Dragon Age with way more skill checks, no filler, more significant consequences, etc. and you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. I am not Chris Avellone, so I cannot offer compelling metaphysical shit, but I can at the very least provide characters with clear motivations, goals and a consistent game world for the player.

3) Lengthy and involved in my mind. "[Persuade] I will now avoid combat" sucks. PS:T was excellent at presenting you with logical "dialogue-puzzles" in which you had to talk your way out of stuff. Just remember that people who used skill-points for conversation-skills should have an easier time doing this than others. Or others shouldn't be able to at all.

The big problem with doing those is that using the dialogue system for scripting is a pain. You can do things like "dialogue score" to determine an outcome but it's very annoying to set up (one such example in the main campaign occurs when the players come across a haunted camp, and depending on what you say, your party members have greater/lesser chances of falling asleep). There's also the hard issue of handling dialogue... I want to avoid looped conversations and statement as much as possible.

One thing I'm looking at for dialogue is including a few cases where you have to not only persuade someone but say the right things as well... think Arronax at the end of Arcanum, where your skills have some impact (if I recall correctly) but you can still mess things up by saying illogical things. I don't know how often I can implement this stuff, due to the needs of the story, but I'll try to have at least a couple of these in the future.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, everyone, it's been very helpful!

 

[Grunker]

I'm just free-wheeling and wish-listing by the way, sea, I'm sure I'll like the end result

like to use "special" creatures where appropriate, i.e. surprise the player with a boss after defeating some minor ones, and I'm definitely going to be using a lot of the more interesting stuff for particular encounters, like enemies with the Arcane Warrior spec, golems, etc.

I know this is probably not what you meant, but please God don't fall into the trap of becoming formulaic. One of the absolute worst things of modern gaming (and that includes Dragon Age which I liked a great deal) is how after one quest you know the structure of all others by heart. Fight trash > trash > mini-boss > trash > trash > trash > big boss. Going into a dungeon in DA:O you know exactly what to expect. Compare this to Baldur's Gate where the only thing you can be certain of is that there will probably be a big boss at the end; everything else is up for grabs!

 

[sea]

I know this is probably not what you meant, but please God don't fall into the trap of becoming formulaic. One of the absolute worst things of modern gaming (and that includes Dragon Age which I liked a great deal) is how after one quest you know the structure of all others by heart. Fight trash > trash > mini-boss > trash > trash > trash > big boss. Going into a dungeon in DA:O you know exactly what to expect. Compare this to Baldur's Gate where the only thing you can be certain of is that there will probably be a big boss at the end; everything else is up for grabs!

That was one of the things that the different dungeon types was supposed to get around. Pacing is something that takes some tweaking, because you have to have forward-moving gameplay in a dungeon without feeling too directed, and you need enough things between combat to break up the action... even if it's just a couple of characters to talk to, or a scripted sequence, it adds a lot. That said, I'm staying away from trash mobs, as I said, and I only really use them where appropriate. I don't want to fall into the issue Baldur's Gate has of too many ridiculous enemies in unlikely places (giant spiders inside a house for some reason!) but there are definitely a few surprises.

I've been working on a side-quest containing one of the aforementioned "dialogue battles." I used some very simple structure and scripting, where the player can make three arguments and then provide justifications, only 1-2 of which are correct. To "win" the argument, the player must have provided 2/3 arguments that appeal to the NPC. I've tried to set it up so that if the player fails one response, he/she will have a fairly good idea of why, and what options to choose for the others. Additionally, the player can use other quest experiences or characters met to provide justification, giving a bit of a reward for exploring the game world. Still working on figuring out skill checks without them being an insta-win button, though. The closest parallel for it I can think of is some of the public speaking done in Arcanum, in terms of finding statements that appeal to that particular NPC.

This one conversation is fairly short, more of an experiment for later attempts, but I think the structure works well and is easy to set up. Despite there being a total of only 12 main dialogue options, the conversation is over 1500 words, so it's still a big time investment, meaning I'll probably only do a couple more of them.

 

[sea]

Today was pretty productive. Spent most of it building a crypt for the game's second major dungeon. It's about 50% complete (need to fix map bugs, lighting tweaks, props, several more rooms to do) but I'm liking the result so far.

I fully admit to looking at the campaign maps for inspiration on lighting and atmosphere, but I do think the end result is pretty good either way.

 

[Stasgard]

Screenshot one looks like it could have been pulled straight out of DA:O, which is I guess understandable considering shared assets and all. But the second and third screenshots (of the same room?) are incredibly pretty. Keep it up.

 

[sea]

Thanks! I've started experimenting with colour curves and other settings in the hopes that the results improve a bit, as well, but I can't get them working at all. In the meantime, at least tweaked atmosphere settings help.

 

[sea]

Latest addition: working city map!

It was a bitch to get working but I think the results are pretty nice, and it lends a sense of space to what is otherwise a (relatively) small city. Plus now I can add locations to the map that might not fit into the rest of the locations otherwise.

 

[Zed]

that's pretty damn nice.

 

[sea]

Work as slowed as I've been playing Kingdoms of Amalur heavily for the last few days in order to review it. However, I've still got a little bit of work done in the meantime.

The Council District, the fourth and final major area of the city, has been the one thing I've been putting off for a while now. I'm in the process of rectifying that:

Right now it's only about 50% complete and still looking pretty sparse. Trying to play with the atmosphere settings to get something what I want... can't really get things quite right at the moment, as they look simultaneously overcast and bright.

 

[Grunker]

Wow, that's really pretty.

 

[Zed]

Is it possible to import static artwork as portraits instead of dragon age's default ones? Imagine how much better the interface would look from just that detail.

 

[sea]

I don't think so. It's possible to specify custom portraits somehow (see the ones in the main campaign) but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. No image files, however. I agree that would be pretty sweet.

 

[sea]

Aanndd the completed version:

Mostly just did the back end of it, fixed up the vegetation and redid some of the texture work. Of course, now I have to actually put gameplay content in it.

 

[Grunker]

It looks really, really good at least.

 

[sea]

Work has been going a little slow lately as I've been working on music projects and covering Kingdoms of Amalur for GameBanshee. However, I have made a bit of progress in the last week or so.

Most importantly I've fleshed out most of one of the major quest arcs. There is some gameplay C&C involved relating to early-game encounters, and one quest in particular has a couple of drastically different outcomes depending on a series of choices made during it, which filter into later quests and open up new options there as well. I can't say it's on the level of Fallout 2 or anything like that, but definitely a step above what Dragon Age itself offers most of the time - and more importantly there is no padding or filler.

A lot of my early ideas are starting to converge, which is nice to see. Certain characters with histories and conflicts that I had envisioned from the start, but had to drop for one reason or another, are being worked back in in more plot-relevant ways. The downside of this is that I do have mandatory party members for some quests, but they can be kicked out later on if you don't want them for whatever reason (though really, it's intended to be played with a full party). I'm also finding new uses for a lot of locations that I previously built for other reasons - I have a lfair number of evels so it's nice that I can fit them in.

I'm getting closer to the point where I'll consider releasing a public alpha test - it wouldn't be content complete (I expect only 1/3 of the main quest arcs would be 100% done), but it would finally let everyone see what I've been working on and hopefully let me stamp out any outstanding bugs, plot holes, poor dialogue, etc.

 

[sea]

Quick update:

Things are still going slow, mostly because I've been busy with a few other things lately. I've started up work more heavily lately and have made some additions over the last few days.

1. Mini-quests/encounters - although I stayed away from these due to their irrelevance to the story, I changed my mind because they offer some interesting scenarios I can't do otherwise, or help flesh out the game world. For instance, you might come across a poor mother whose child tries to pick your pocket - fail a couple skill checks and you might never know, while if you do catch the kid, you'll have to decide whether to hold the mother responsible, or even be a jerk and extort her. So far I have one per major location/city district, though I may add more (I don't want things to get too busy, i.e. encounter every 30 feet).
2. Environment descriptions and examinable objects. I realize that while 3D graphics means this stuff isn't necessary, I found that adding text popups when you near a location, or when you click on an object, can help sell a setting, and can communicate things visuals can't, like temperature and smell. They also aid gameplay, and I use a few to give hints ("You suddenly feel very vulnerable. You might want to stock up on supplies before moving forward.") or to highlight other critical characters and objects in the environment. Despite it only taking about an hour to make all of these, I think they add a lot.

At this point I am strongly considering releasing a public demo in order to get feedback and thoughts on gameplay, bugs, etc. Not sure where I'd host it, as the BioWare Social site only allows 100 MB uploads and Thirst is well above that, but I'll figure something out.

 

[hiver]

1. I wonder why options in these things just always need to be so... dry. Why only two options that seem so final? And whether being an asshole will ever have any "realistic" consequences anywhere?
Better less well designed encounters then just a lot of them.

2. Go for it. Great stuff to have.

 

[sea]

1. Well, it depends on the scenario. Some of them involve a particular item, so in the end it's - you get the item, or you don't, even if the means are different. However, some involve slightly longer-term consequences, like if you intimidate someone, they might send hired goons after you. There's more of this in the main quest than in the minor encounters, though.

2. I just hope I don't add too many of them. It already feels like a lot, and the environments aren't massive so sometimes it means stumbling across a few in the span of a few minutes - might be a bit much. Still, this can easily be changed if necessary.

Honestly, in terms of C&C I'm still working stuff out. On the one hand, there is a fairly set path through things. On the other, there are definitely a few details that can and will change (especially towards the late game). Designing it as a linear experience and working the C&C in is the best thing for my sanity, but it means at this point I still don't have everything worked out.

 

[felipepepe]

Very good-looking. Seeing stuff like this makes you hate how shitty level designs in games have become. They could go for huge, open enviroments, but instead stick to corridors and obvious ambushs marked by chest-high walls crates & ruins creating obvious "battle-zones"...

 

[hiver]

1. Well, it depends on the scenario. Some of them involve a particular item, so in the end it's - you get the item, or you don't, even if the means are different. However, some involve slightly longer-term consequences, like if you intimidate someone, they might send hired goons after you. There's more of this in the main quest than in the minor encounters, though.

2. I just hope I don't add too many of them. It already feels like a lot, and the environments aren't massive so sometimes it means stumbling across a few in the span of a few minutes - might be a bit much. Still, this can easily be changed if necessary.

Honestly, in terms of C&C I'm still working stuff out. On the one hand, there is a fairly set path through things. On the other, there are definitely a few details that can and will change (especially towards the late game). Designing it as a linear experience and working the C&C in is the best thing for my sanity, but it means at this point I still don't have everything worked out.

Yeah thats all good... i was just generally wandering why its so necessary that such little sidequests always have those two choices of being a goody two shoes or a total asshole... you know?
Like going to extremes is really what people do all the time.

I would throw in something less radical.
Like just for example... you just let the kid go, maybe with a advice about probably ending up dead if he runs into wrong kind of people... or a word or two, nothing too big, maybe even give him a few coins.
And later on you see him pickpocketing someone else and dont say a word... and maybe later on he comes by and drops some note or some thing he stole from somewhere else that maybe be useful to some quest of yours, or he overhear someone or found some hideout of guys youre looking for... something like that.

Or maybe you just scare him and prevent him ending up dead later on,... or pick him up and drop him to the police and some other stuff happens... and so on...

 

[commie]

Hope you finish this: one can never have too much Dragon Age.

 

[sea]

It's been a while! I've been doing some work lately, mostly fixing bugs and dialogue stuff, as well as adding small bits of content here or there. Unfortunately, other things have cut into my time lately, but I've had enough time to clean things up and (finally) release a demo/beta.

Download link:

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8650324_65259700_95596

(if it's not live yet, give it a bit - my poor connection isn't so fast at uploading)

Let me be completely clear - this is incomplete. The story cannot be finished and most of the dungeons and late-game stuff is inaccessible/missing. A lot of main quests and a few side quests are finished, and the early sections (before you enter the city) are pretty much done. There is incomplete content and broken quests that I have not finished. There are choices, but consequences are not always clear because many only show up later on. There are probably bugs. Some of the writing is extremely rough and needs overhauling (especially later on).

I'm very interested in collecting feedback, whether that's regarding the gameplay, story, writing, bugs, mistakes, typos, anything. I have had very little playtesting by others, so I hope that this will be a great way to refine things further. Truth be told, I don't know if I will ever finish this, so I wanted to get at least something out.

Last, I created Thirst using Dragon Age: Origins + Awakening with the 1.05 patch. I can't guarantee that other mods, the official DLC, etc. won't cause problems, nor can I guarantee it won't break your existing game/saves/whatever, so back up anything important just in case. If it doesn't work for any reason, let me know.

Installation instructions:

1) Navigate to your Dragon Age install directory (by default "C:\Program Files\Dragon Age")

2) Locate "daupdater.exe" in the "bin_ship" directory

3) Run "daupdater.exe", press "SELECT DAZIPs" and select Thirst.dazip

4) Click "Install Selected" and wait for the program to finish installing

5) Run Dragon Age: Origins and click the "Other Campaigns" option

6) Select "Thirst" and play!

If you are having problems installing, you can copy-paste the files into the Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns directory manually (directory should be AddIns\Thirst). DAZIP files can be opened with any archive tool, such as 7zip or WinRAR.

List of known issues:

- Bloody Competition quest is broken/out of date/otherwise messed up and needs to be redone, possibly from scratch.
- Encounter in the Temple District (NPC who asks you to be a bodyguard for him) does not proceed correctly.
- You can ask Osryn about Samwise's license before getting the Licensing Issues quest from Samwise, if you speak to him twice.
- Don't Shoot the Messenger quest is categorized incorrectly in the journal.
- Bloodblade questline is the only one out of the three Chasing Leads quests that can be completed (kind of, anyway); Captain Percival and Mildrar questlines have about 2-3 quests each so far, and will be heavily revised/improved
- Some NPC dialogue might not continue properly - hit Esc key if it won't advance on its own.
- A single line by Samwise upon completing Trader's Trouble quest requires you press "continue" twice (checking multiple conditions, not sure how to do this more elegantly since the dialogue system only allows 1 condition per line).
- Some minimaps are missing or unfinished.