[Kaimetsu]

Originally posted by HalcyonSeven
It isn't hard to make an NPC do this: "If its between 6-8am and sunny, I should be at the cafe eating breakfast, if it's rainy I should stay in my house". You can even take it a step farther and throw some randomness into it all: "If it's noon and sunny I should either go to the park, visit a friend, or go shopping".

Isn't hard? That depends. You could make the NPC instantly warp to wherever he wants to be, and then it would indeed be easy. On the other hand, you might want the NPC to walk between destinations. Then it gets more complicated. Some sort of pathfinding is necessary (unless you want to hardcode everything, which you do not), and that can be tricky, especially when you throw interfering players into the mix.

Another favorite is the pointless interactive "doohickies" simply roaming around the world. Clocks telling the time, streetlights that turn on at night by a NPC walking along with a torch, ambient sound effects that actually have a source, wildlife that intelligently sleeps, eats, and roams without the need other than to simply make the "world" a more magical place.

Two thumbs up. I've often extolled the benefits of such things and appreciated them in other games.

1a.) For any good scripters out there, is my idea of "active" NPCs possible? More specifically, can I have a guy that moves around even when no players are present (server-side) and can move between different boards? I've noticed many NPCs doing this in Kingdoms, and I hope I am right.

Yes, NPCs can move around of their own accord, irrespective of any player's actions.

1b.) Also, how are things like global flags or global variables handled? Can I have a set of information solely for the server's manipulation of an NPC without crowding the player's flags?

Each NPC has its own list of variables and strings. Nothing needs to go in the player's strings, or be stored globally.

2.) When is the level editor for the "new" verson 3 coming out? The pseudo-3D landscape if very important to our world and being able to play with this is important to me.

From my understanding of Stefan's progress, I think it will be relatively soon (sometime in July, certainly).

3.) Does the new terrain generate itself by deforming specific "nodes" as it were, setting an angle of a slope with points, or do you use a heightmap grayscale image where the lighter the pixel, the higher the terrain? I know Tribes 2's engine used heightmaps, and I've done some work with them in Cinema 4D.

I'm not sure about the internal storage system. The world is made up of tiles, and the designer can use the editor to change the height of any vertex. I'm not sure how multiple tiles are changed at once - I'm a scripter, not a level guy.

4.)Here's one for those who aren't involved with Graal much and just like posting in the forums: "Do you like Ice Cream, if so, what flavor?"

I had some pear ice cream a few years ago. Unexpectedly delicious.

5.) Would it ever be possible for me to get a local server set up test out our game?

Unfortunately not.