MM7 new modding

[vladimir-maestro]

wow! looks awesome!

[Kaltenberg]

Thanks Maestro, it's a great honor! I will try to make a mod worthy of its predecessors. And for Bowerbank too!
I have some ideas, and I would like to ask people on this. It's about rewriting spells. It is certain that need something to counter OP spells and strengthen very weak ones. I also thought of a few extras to add, some of the strongest spells would involve different conditions. Currently have this in my head:

Raise Dead - Unconscious
Ressurrection - Paralyzed
Enslave, Soul Drinker - Cursed
Palalyze - Asleep
Toxic Cloud - Poison
Pain Reflection - Disease

My goal would be to add some color to the game and make it more interesting/exciting by having the most powerful spells come at a serious cost. But maybe it would be counterproductive and I'd just be screwing the players with it. So, what are your opinions?

[unknownone]

Really nice progress! Congratulations!

[Phobos]

Your work is amazing! I can't wait to try it out. The tunnel, the pyramid and vori in general look so inspiring!

About those spells, I think it could be annoying as a player to have some of those unwanted side effects. Raise dead and resurrection having side effects for the revived character makes sense, though, and seems like a suitable 'punishment' for letting your character die. I think weak and/or unconscious fits a bit better than paralysed.

[Kaltenberg]

Thanks very much! I'm making good progress with the improvements, and even though I don't always post, the work is continuously going on.
The "costs and penalties" for spells may be a bit exaggerated, you may be right. And other feedback tends to indicate this, I will think about it carefully, but probably delete most of it.
I'll put up some more pictures of the pyramid while I'm at here, it's the final state. I also played with the lights (and the corpses) a bit.







The final version was way over the size limit of the game (12670/7000 outlines, and that's including the RemoveLimit script of course), but luckily that's not a problem. Once it's split into rooms, it handles this without any problems, I'll have to write a few more events for it, but apart from that now it's a playable dungeon. It will take you about 3-5 hours of pure play time, I mean in real time, of course this will be highly team dependent. I've divided it into 105 separate rooms/corridor sections that can be explored individually, so it's not a '5 minute dungeon' like there are quite a few in MM7-8.

I'm currently rewriting the game mechanics. There'll be a lot of new stuff in it too, here's a preview for example (thanks to Tomsod, I haven't really delved into programming myself at this level, I'm just solving the simpler scripts, mainly following Grayface's documentation):

[Prince_of_Thieves]

Hi there!
Wanted to ask you, how the project is going? It looked so awesome, and you have done such a big part of the job, it would be very sad if you gave up!

[Kaltenberg]

Hi!

The project hasn't stopped; in fact, I'm making better progress than I thought. Just lazy about posting updates. Thanks for your interest!
Here's what's happened so far:

- New Dungeons: I've completed 6 out of 10 new dungeons (including the two biggest ones). They're fully playable, and I just need to write the quests for them.

- New Quests: so far there are 20 new ones, each with a unique story. I tried to give NPCs proper motivations — why they want the party to go somewhere, why it's beneficial for the npc, why it's worth it for the party etc. Most quests are complex and involve multiple NPCs. I can't give a final number yet, but I think there will be about twice as many quests when I'm done with the mod.

- New Maps: I've completed 1 out of 2 new maps related to Vori. The castle area map is almost finished, and the terrain, models, and concept for the other one are done. Now, I just need to fill it with life, scripts, quests.

- Original Maps: All original exterior locations have been modified to some extent. New objects have appeared in many places (e.g., the Harmondale wall being shot at from the goblin fortress with cannon, which also has a quest). These objects are strategically placed, such as boats to travel between the islands in Tularean and Tatalia. Each new addition either connects to a quest or serves a useful function (e.g., ship/stable schedules, or something particularly useful in Tatalia, but players will discover on their own).

- New Gameplay: a lot in the gameplay is changed, including the physical/dark/light resistance for characters, shield blocks, and skill adjustments. Most of this is done, but there's still a lot of testing needed.

- Other Addons: I've rewritten almost all text files, incorporated stories into the lore, and made various other changes. And started to run out of space; for instance, `npcdata.txt` can't insert new NPCs above the 500th place, and I had to expand `monster.txt` to accommodate more entries. Fortunately, Tomsod helps solve serious issues like these.

At a rough estimate, the project is about 70% done. If everything goes well, the mod will be extremely long.

[Phobos]

Great to hear from you! Sounds like you're making great progress developing this mod. I can't wait to experience all this when the time is right. The scale of this project is impressive.

[Kaltenberg]

Thanks! Yes, now I might be getting to the stage where I'm getting to know every little bug/stupidity of the development. I mean, it takes amazing little details to generate some bug that is very hard to track down, especially when I import models/rooms into the game, and it can take weeks to solve them, and in the end it turns out to be a few clicks.
But now I (maybe) have to mess with less of that, and yeah, that really speeds things up.

[Kaltenberg]

I will upload a short video about what to expect. It is the 8th dungeon in a row, which will be located in Vori. The video contains SPOILER, so only watch it if you want to deprive yourself of the thrill of exploration later.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RL_xOm ... drive_link

In second glance, the sound is crackly, and the look is much nicer in real play, but you still get the feel.
The dungeon is far from finished, only this central hall is taking shape. The lighting, torches and other accessories are only temporary, and I've put them in place just for the sake of the video. There are many more corridors leading from here that will be built after this, but I think I've finished the hardest part and I'm happy with the result. Come to think of it, this dungeon part already includes my 2-3 years of blender / 2D texturing experience.
If all goes well, maybe by the end of summer you guys will be killing opponents right here. Although this is a very optimistic estimate, and I'm having a very slow period right now, as far as development is concerned. But the point is that I'm approaching the final mod.

[Kaltenberg]

Another new and useful development (made by Tomsod), can be hunted for. And some new items.

[Kaltenberg]

Evolution of dungeon 8. This is the umpteenth room, but I can see the end.

[reeeload]

A lot of wood. Im getting MM9 vibes looking at this room.

[Kaltenberg]

Yes, really. This is the concept here, and elsewhere it's icy, for example. I always try to come up with something that doesn't exist, at least in this version.

[Kaltenberg]

I’ve reached another milestone. The 8th dungeon is complete (but it still needs to be populated and have quests written for it). With this, the second Vori map is also starting to take shape and is expanding with treasure-hunting locations. I’ve gathered a few pictures of it, but I think this will be the last batch of new locations pics I’ll share—for now, I’ll focus on smaller updates instead. At this point, it’s roughly a 50-50 split between maps/dungeons I’ve already shown parts of and those no one has seen yet. Gotta leave something for new discoveries.

1. So, this is how the great hall turned out in the end. Plus whatever else comes to mind later and I suddenly decide to add.



2. It turned out to be a cozy little kitchen.



3. Weapon cabinets and a corridor where you can sneak around.



4. There are also brighter areas, this one is situated higher up.



5. Another nice hall. This one is more interesting because of the stairs and the texturing, I think it turned out pretty well.



6. A treasury from one angle. The shading is the most interesting part here, and there will be plenty of treasure inside—just make sure you can loot it all.



7. Treasury from the other angle.



8. Finally, the big boss's hall from behind the thicket. There are still a few sections I haven’t included in the pictures, like the prison, foyer, corridors, storage, but I think the atmosphere comes through with these.

[Kaltenberg]

Dungeon 8 is also playable. Since the game doesn't draw all outlines on the minimap if the dungeon is too big or too detailed (e.g. 14109 instead of max 7000 outlines), I came up with the idea to draw it myself. This is the 2nd one like this, and there could easily be a few more, although it's a rather lengthy job. But at least I can write extra quests to get them, since you won't be able to pick these up at every general shops.

[Phobos]

Outstanding work! I didn't watch the video because of the spoiler warning, but the images of your work are inspiring. Any idea when you might be releasing this to the public?

[Kaltenberg]

Thanks!
I think I mentioned somewhere that I'm aiming for the end or beginning of the summer to finish, I don't know now, but I added that this is a very optimistic estimate. Especially since my next semester is going to be pretty busy.
For sure, the mod is evolving, getting prettier and more polished all the time and I'll get it right sooner or later.