Adding dusty dunes to AWIP....

Could you possibly add this to AWIP. It could be set up so that after you are done with the area Payne says "Quite an adventure old chap, thanks for the company, but I must be off now." He then walks off and you don't see him till later in the game.

I suppose you would have to put something in place so you couldn't actually go there with Payne in your party if you haven't saved him in the first place.

Plus you would be able to bring back a throwing apprentice as a follower. I'm sure lots of people would appreciate that.

 

The good news: The concept is possible; the dialogs for Payne in the mod and Arcanum would need some careful rescriping to allow for the time you first meet Payne and whether he had been or is a follower. There's a few other things that would need attention for a decent merging, but they're small actually.

The bad news: I am not enamored enough with Dusty Dunes to want to go through the effort of adding it. Even with adding a pair of useful followers, the available adventures in the mod just.... don't do much for me.

And... There was a time I considered adding it - just north of the Mysterious Bridge, but that's as far as it ever went.

 

I agree that the module lacks severely, but the addition of the throwing apprentice would be enough to warrant adding it.... :wink:

BTW who is the 2nd follower? It can't be Payne because he would have to leave the party before you returned to Arcanum.

OMG, do you get the dog as a follower? Two dogs in the party would be freaking awesome.

 

And the second follower would not be the dog.

 

I think Dusty Dunes is supposed to be somewhere between Tarant and Ashbury. Adding it to the world map would mean re-creating the actual town of Dusty Dunes somewhere, and possibly Miasmire swamp as well. It's true that the dialogs and scripts are usually 90% of the work in a mod, and I think there are some good ones here, but lots are awful. The shopkeepers, bartender and pub patrons could all easily be replaced with standard Arcanum scripts, but the whole well/dog/lost kid part would definitely have to go, for basically every reason possible short of actually crashing your game when you do it.

I always liked Miasmire swamp - I thought it was one of Dusty Dunes' few real redeeming feature, besides the 4-way conversation, which is rare in the Arcanum mod. If it were added, it could be much longer, and its loot/NPCs could be much improved. And, Franklin Payne's getting the emeralds part could be filled in with a real quest and dialog.

However, rroyo's right as to why Dusty Dunes can't really be added. Having two Franklin Paynes just wouldn't work. It would be a real monster to fix, to have the quest only work when the real Franklin Payne hasn't appeared yet, and explaining why, when talking to Payne in Black Root, the PC hasn't 'met' him. Replacing Payne in Dusty Dunes with someone else would also pretty much defeat the purpose of Dusty Dunes, as well.

 

Well one could always do a "Deux Ex Machina" and have Payne lose his memory somehow.

Or at least make some sort of trigger where the Dusty Dunes location would only be available under certain conditions from the "main game" regarding Payne. Perhaps a dialog option that says something like:

"Sir, I could never stand the company of such a boisterous liar and his fabricated stories."

to which Payne replies:

"My word...always a doubter...but fear not, I'll make a believer out of you yet old boy."

At which point he leaves and won't be found in Black Root again.

From this point, the Dusty Dunes location would become available and then then that can play through as usual.

The dialogue above could be something that is triggerable at any point if you happen to take Payne on as a follower in themain game, sort of like the option to release Gar from servitude.

After Dusty Dunes, Payne and whomever else could become available.


Just an idea...

 

Yes, that does make sense. There would be some difficulty in adding dialog to the real Payne in Black Root, however, as the rest of his dialog has voice-over.

 

Well I'm sure that in that case somebody here could "lend" their voice for the job.

 

Or just leave the dialog "voiseless"