Starting without char generation?

Hi guys.

The Mill here, new to the forum and also fairly new to modding Arcanum, but certainly not a stranger to this great game. After playing through Arcanum for the... what? Eleventh time or so? I finally started creating my own mod. I'm still trying to get the hang of things and I ran into hopefully a small snag...

My mod starts with the player waking up with complete memory loss as the sole survivor of a major battle. Alone and without cash or items. The whole mod is then based on the fact that he's a male orc... I would therefore like to start Arcanum and the mod without that "annoying" character generation. Does anyone know if that's possible?

"Plan B" would be to include instructions with the mod, something like "You have to select orc blah blah blah", but I'd like to not that's a bad way of distributing the mod... :-(

I have searched the fora for a solution but to no avail. I hope I'm not starting a new thread by putting some major feet in different mouths, but I'm hoping any of you guys has a solution...

Fingers crossed
/ The Mill

 

An Orc, eh? They aren't really playable, and are missing some vital coding, so I wouldn't recommend using them as a PC race. Well, assuming you meant Half-Orc...

The character generation menu is a part of the user interface and cannot be hidden.

There are several workarounds, though.
1. You can set the starting location of your mod to a small map/room with a "game master" type character. It would check the PC's race and gender and tell the player if their character is 'wrong'. If it isn't, the PC would get instantly teleported to the real starting location.
2. This can be further simplified, e.g. you can just put a tile script at the starting location that checks the PC and immediately ends the game with a "you have a wrong character" slide, if the conditions aren't met.

 

Hi Drog.

Let me start by saying it's really nice to finally "meet" you! You've done sterling work with - among lots of other things - the unofficial patch and hires mods. I've used different versions of the unofficial patch for a long time! And I really like the approach you're taking on the unofficial patch: Just bugfixing, nothing else.

As for my mod idea: Yeah, I meant half-orc. It seems that orcs are mostly for NPCs in the game, and even though it would be fun to play one it's too hard work to add all the stuff needed. Although it WOULD be fun ti be able the play a pure-bred orc...

The "game master" idea seems very doable. It's not as neat as skipping the char generation altogether, but a decent "Plan B". Do you know if there's a way of taking away all the items and coins for a new char by script?

The major game idea is that the PC wakes up with amnesia after his clan was ambushed by unknown attackers. Everyone is dead and has already been buried - save for a few who died "hidden away" and can be looted. That's why I'd like to take away everything - the PC has been searched and "Left 4 dead". As the mod unfolds is seems that the neighbouring clans are involved in the ambush, together with humans and gnomes. In the (only) town in the mod the PC is thrown out of every shop since he's a half-orc and is more or less forced to join the thieves guild. he will also have to choose: Give away the thieves guild to the police in order to join the "normal" society, or advance in the guild and continue being hated by everyone else due to his race...

It will not be a long mod and I don't even know if I will finish it - but atm I'm writing the conversation with an orc shaman and it's really fun.

Regz
/ Martin

 

It is. But hard. You will need to edit almost all prototypes. Actually I had the same quastion 1 or 2 years ego. I tryied to use scirpt what stats at the begginig of the game and destroy all player items. I made a loop from 1 till 1000000, and in this loop was instruction to destroy item with internal nuber n, where n=n+1 in every step. Then I noticed, or someone told me, that actually only a few prototypes have their unique internal nuber...

I am sure, that there is no script what let you destroy items via prototype number...

But some how if you will find that script, or you will find out how to destroy all items in inventory of player let me know.

I had to change my story line because of this problem, so you will propobly need to do too.

 

Hmmmm... Sounds difficult.

Since I'm gonna use the "Game Master" approach from the answer above (Starting point with a Game Master NPC that has dialogs and tests that quits the game if the player is of - for instance - the wrong race) I'm thinking the GM can be used for this too.

Is there a way of scripting a test of wether the PC has items worn or wielded? Or in the inventory? I'm guessing a good test would be if carried weight is equal to 0...

Otherwise I will have to rewrite my story, and I'd really like to keep it the way it is right now...

Regz
/ The Mill

 

Since the game isn't designed to do what you're trying to do, a workaround seems like your best bet.

My suggestion is to create a save-game that starts the character as a half-orc with no points assigned and no equipment. Call it Start_Game or some such.
When a player starts the game normally transport them to a room with no doors or windows, just a GM who says, "The proper way to start this module is to use the save game Start_Game."

Then add a dialog option, that teleports you back to the start area from him. Finally, just before distribution, remove that line from the dialog. Hmm...that doesn't allow for backgrounds though, which could potentially be a concern(though you were going to try to skip char gen altogether, so maybe it's no big deal).

EDIT: another option, more work:
go through all the backgrounds and set starting gold to 0. then you just need to remove the fine suit.

 

Actually I done somethig like this. I edited backgrounds, and I put to all of them amor what have internal nuber and delete all other items. Then in script I only had to destroy this armor with internal nuber (if some men starts with armor, do not have fine siut with no internal nuber, and my armow was Barbarian armor or something like it. It has internal nuber ). I was so happy... that my charakter started with nothing. But, there is a problem of that solution. I can't get to inside charachters creating by game developers, I can only took all items from player created characters.

 

Sigh. :/

It seems I will have to rethink my mod to allow a "normal" start, with any PC race and a normal startup inventory. Oh, well. Lucky I caught it this early...

 

You can perhaps keep the half-orc character as an NPC that joins the player? That way you could probably keep most of the story. The player could stumble upon the previously mentioned ambush site and find the half-orc unconsious.

 

Hmmmm... Or possibly having the any-race-PC stumble upon the ambush site, only to find a half-dead orc that with his dying breath asks the PC to find out who has ambushed them...

Is that too similar to a blimb-crash and a dying gnome/dwarf...

Regz
/ The Mill