This article provides ways to get around Blades of Exile's somewhat touchy code for making NPCs appear and disappear. >Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 10:25:52 -0700 (PDT) >From: Marcy Kulic >To: spidweb@spidweb.com >Subject: Making NPCs appear/disappear >This might be something for the articles page. Others may find it useful. > >In my small scenario, I had based a pretty large chunk of plot around making >some NPCs appear/disappear via a Major Event. When I began testing the >scenario though, they wouldn't appear/disappear as expected. After some >rooting around the Spider Web site I came across this: > > >>I'm having a problem with making NPCs appear in towns after the player has >>completed certain tasks. I place the NPCs in a town and set them to only >>appear when a major event has occurred. When the player completes a certain >>task related to the NPC, I use a Major Event Has Occurred node to set the >>corresponding major event code. This should cause the NPC to appear. >> >>However, whenever I do whatever is necessary to trigger the Major Event >>node, and go back to the town where the NPC is supposed to appear, the NPC >>is not there. I have to go outside and type '>' to reset the town before >>the NPC will appear. Interestingly enough, if I don't visit the town where >>the NPCs are supposed to appear before triggering the Major Event special, >>they appear normally. > >This is correct. The town gets saved, and the NPC doesn't appear until the >town gets reset (when the party visits 4 other towns or dungeon levels). >This is an unforseen result of the way the engine worked out, and, alas, >all I can recommend is not having the major NPCs not work this way unless >you have enough towns or dungeon levels for the party to visit to make sure >the town the character is in resets. Sorry about that. > > >There is a workaround for this. You can do this either to the town where the >NPCs are supposed to appear/disappear, or the town where the Major Event >occurred. It is best to use the one that is least visited as there are two >noticable effects to the BoE player. > >The workaround: Create 3 identical copies of your town. At all exits, have a >series of forced staircases that send you through the original town, then >copy1, copy2 and copy3. At all entrances have a reverse series of forced >staircases that send you through copy3, then copy2, copy1 and finally into >the original town. This means that the player will have gone through 4 >towns, so your original town will be reset and the NPCs will >appear/disappear as needed. Don't forget to set you outside town entry to >copy3, not to the original town. > >Some caveats: > >-If your Major Event occurs outside you will need to put 4 copies on your >original town, because the town where the Major Event occurs is the fourth >visited town, the one that causes the reset. >-The duplicates are much easier to handle on a town with limited entrances. >I have mine on a cave with only one entrance, and I narrowed the entrance to >2 squares wide so I only had to create 2 stairways in each direction. If you >use an open town, you will have to create an entire hollow square of >stairways in each direction. You can't copy the stairways either, because >each one needs a unique destination point to make the transition between the >towns smooth. >-For a town with 3 duplicates you need 5 unobstructed spaces at every edge >of town, to have enough room to place all the stairways correctly. For a >town with four duplicates you need 6 unostructed spaces. By unobstructed I >mean no specials, no doors that need to opened, etc. Walking through things >like an open portcullis is fine. This is the stairway system I use: > > __________________________________________________ > | Entry | | copy3 | copy2 | copy1 | | > | Square | | -> | -> | -> | | > | | | copy2 | copy1 | town | | > | _________________________________________________ > | | copy2 | copy1 | town | | | > | Entry | -> | -> | -> | | | > | Square | copy3 | copy2 | copy1 | | | > ___________________________________________________ > >This ensures that the party can not get to the interior of copy1, copy2 or >copy3. > >-There are two ways the player can tell something is up. The first is that >instead of receiving the message "Moved: East" they will get "Now entering: >town2". The second is if they have a map up. Each change of town causes a >flash, and if they have fully mapped the original town, they will see the >map change to the incompletely mapped town1, town2 and town3. I have played >through it several times and it isn't that conspicuous. As a result of this, >try and make the duplicated town someplace that isn't visited often; a >one-shot dungeon is perfect. > >Other problems: > >After doing all this correctly I got my new NPC to appear, but the old one >wouldn't disappear, despite everything being set correctly. I wound up >having to use the if-then node on a stuff done flag set by the Major Event >coupled with the Destroy Monster node upon town entry. > >Major Events are numbered 0-9. My Major Event was originally event 0, but in >the Event Code box under Advanced Monster Editing, 0 means not tied to an >event. > >Many thanks to Ivan who helped me refine the multiple town idea and >suggested the Destroy Monster node workaround to the problem of the >non-disappearing NPC. > >PS to Spiderweb only: If you post this, please change my email address to >nospam@space1999.net. Thanks!