Project Arcterus -- Thesis and Ice Cream

[Kaimetsu]

Originally posted by HalcyonSeven
If at all possible, I would like to have the NPC's walk/travel to their destinations. I think this would be possible if I can get the movement distances memorized, and just cut and paste little routines to walk x amount left, walk y amount up, pause for z amount of time, etc.

You could do it that way, but there are possible problems to being so static:

1) What if a player is standing in the way? Walk around or through?
2) What if the NPC finds a monster in its path? Do they ignore one another?
3) What if you want to change the behaviour of the NPC or the layout of the town? Respecifying the nodes would take a long time.

As for possible paths for NPCs to follow, I'm intrigued at the idea. Maybe I could just fill the town with "hotspots" at corners, obstacles, etc. NPCs could be free to move at their own wills, and move around players if they happen to be blocked

Yes, dynamic pathfinding is usually the best approach

how can you make an NPC test for the location of another NPC?

That depends on the type of NPC. Usually I would expect townsfolk of this type to be database NPCs, which means that accessing their information is a simple matter:

NPC Code:

---

with(getnpc(NPCName)){

 (now 'x' and 'y' refer to the coords of the NPC specified in the line above)

}

---

Also, can I make my tileset larger than 2048 pixels wide? Will the properties just wrap around or will I just have major corruption?

The whole tileset cannot exceed that limit, but that's not usually a problem. You can specify different tilesets for different areas, so you usually have enough space.

6.) Is there any problem if I happen to use some of Kingdom's characters/graphics/NPCs for a test? Will Stephen or Unixmad get upset at me even if it is just temporary?

Probably not, if the material isn't made available to the public.

7.) Somewhat in realation to 6, but is there anyway to have the nice GUI in Kingdoms and statistics for my own purposes? I have no intention of simply ripping them off, but I have no idea how to properly do something like they have already done so well.

You could take the graphics, but the script will have to be recreated. It's not as complicated as it looks

8.) In even more relation to 6, is there any way I can take a look at the code for devices in Kingdoms like the Bows, and most importantly, the enemies and their health bars. I don't plan on stealing the code, I just want to see the best was to do something, then write my own according to my own specifications.

Unlikely, but maybe. You'd need to talk to Stefan.

9.) Will the new level editor have the ability to modify such things as the statistics for players like in Kingdoms? Classic-style fighting just isn't in depth enough, and having HP, MP, etc. is what I really want. Can I do this now?

Sure you can. Such information is usually stored in strings, and the level editor has full provision for such things.