A More Complex Set of NPCs
In the last sections you learned all the fields and how to make a basic NPC. In this section we will use the information from the last sections to create some more unique NPCs for our dragon station zone There is not a lot of new information here we will be using the DIL functions from the previous section and adding some flags to the NPCs to make them act different.
Magic Casting NPC
The basic dragon we made in the the Section called Building your first NPC looks like a real dragon but it is a bit boring when you fight a dragon and don't get toasted by an acid or fire spell or two. In the Section called DIL functions for NPCs the 'combat_magic' function was described. This is the function you use to make all NPCs cast magic while in combat. With that in mind, let's take a look at how we can make our dragon a bit more interesting.
Well let's see, a black dragon is supposed to have the ability to either cast fire breath or acid breath depending on who you talk to. Once you learn DIL you could even make fire breath be a skill not a spell but for now we will stick with what we know. I like the acts of the acid breath spell so we will use that as the spell of choice. The NPC as we defined it before hasn't changed so the following would be the entire dragon with the combat magic function.
bldragon
title "a black dragon"
descr "A big ugly black dragon is clawing the ground here."
names {"big ugly black dragon","ugly black dragon","big black dragon",
"black dragon","dragon"}
extra {}
"The black dragons scales glitter like black granite that has been
polished for years by water. He has a large neck and huge bat like
wings. His eyes watch you as you stand before him. One claw seems to
be
tapping slightly on the ground as if the dragon is waiting for
something."
extra {"eye","eyes"}
"The dragons eyes seem to follow you no matter where you go in the room
nothing seems to escape the dragons attention."
extra {"claws","claw"}
"The claw is big black and it looks very deadly. It seems like the
dragon has two sets of 4 large claws and 2 sets of 4 smaller claws
which
to say means the claws are about the size of short swords and long
swords."
extra {"scales","scale"}
"It's a scale! Haven't you ever seen a dragon before!"
extra {"bat wings","wings"}
"The dragon sees you looking and flaps his wings creating one heck of a
wind blast."
race RACE_DRAGON_BLACK
sex SEX_MALE
height 625
weight 1250
level 70
NATURAL_DEF (WPN_CLAW, ARM_PLATE)
alignment -900
MSET_ABILITY(20,12,12,12,12,12,20,0)
MSET_WEAPON(10,10,10,5,30,5)
MSET_SPELL(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,30)
//Combat Magic added.
dilcopy combat_mag@function("acid breath", "", 25, 2);
end
|
That is all there is to it. If you are wondering where I got the 'acid breath' part of the DIL copy all the spells names are in the spells.def or you can just pick a spell by what you would type if you wanted to cast it yourself in the game. Now if this still looks like a lot to do to make a dragon the dragon above could have been created with exactly the same information by using the composed.h and the 'M_DRAGON_BLACK_OLD' macro. If we use the macro the dragon would look like this
bldragon
title "a black dragon"
descr "A big ugly black dragon is clawing the ground here."
names {"big ugly black dragon","ugly black dragon","big black dragon",
"black dragon","dragon"}
extra {}
"The black dragons scales glitter like black granite that has been
polished for years by water. He has a large neck and huge bat like
wings. His eyes watch you as you stand before him. One claw seems to
be
tapping slightly on the ground as if the dragon is waiting for
something."
extra {"eye","eyes"}
"The dragons eyes seem to follow you no matter where you go in the room
nothing seems to escape the dragons attention."
extra {"claws","claw"}
"The claw is big black and it looks very deadly. It seems like the
dragon has two sets of 4 large claws and 2 sets of 4 smaller claws
which
to say means the claws are about the size of short swords and long
swords."
extra {"scales","scale"}
"It's a scale! Haven't you ever seen a dragon before!"
extra {"bat wings","wings"}
"The dragon sees you looking and flaps his wings creating one heck of a
wind blast."
M_DRAGON_BLACK_OLD(SEX_MALE)
end |
As you can see with the second way the dragon was a lot easier to make because we let the macro set all the other values we just described the NPC and set the macro.
A wandering janitor
Our space station is nice but we wouldn't want a lot of people coming to visit if we didn't have a janitor to walk around cleaning up. Dragons most likely wouldn't be low life enough to be Janitors so I think we will leave that up to a hobgoblin. The following would be the definition of a hobgoblin wandering Janitor.
janitor
names {"ugly janitor", "janitor", "hobgoblin"}
title "an ugly janitor"
descr "an ugly janitor is walking around, cleaning up."
extra{}
"This ugly green thing looks more goblin than hobgoblin but he seems
intent on cleaning everything around him."
race RACE_HOBGOBLIN
level 6
sex SEX_MALE
height 130 /* cm */
weight 120 /* Pounds */
// he is sort of good for cleaning so much
alignment 900
NATURAL_DEF(WPN_FIST, ARM_LEATHER)
MSET_ABILITY(10,10,10,23,15,22,10,0) \
MSET_WEAPON(10,10,10,10,10,10) /* Average in everything, any wpn */
MSET_SPELL(4,2,2,2,2,2,2,6,6,6,6) /* Resistances */
//give him some money
money 5 IRON_PIECE
dilcopy janitors@function(15);
// only want him cleaning the station
dilcopy wander_zones@function("dragonst", 20, 1, 1);
end
|
Like with the dragon if we wanted to create this NPC easier we would use the hobgoblin defines in composed.h so we don't have to fill out all the information. If we did this it would simply look as follows:
janitor
names {"ugly janitor", "janitor", "hobgoblin"}
title "an ugly janitor"
descr "an ugly janitor is walking around, cleaning up."
extra{}
"This ugly green thing looks more goblin than hobgoblin but he seems
intent
on cleaning everything around him."
M_AVG_HOBGOBLIN(6, SEX_MALE)
// he is sort of good for cleaning so much
alignment 900
//give him some money
money 5 IRON_PIECE
dilcopy janitors@function(15);
// only want him cleaning the station
dilcopy wander_zones@function("dragonst", 20, 1, 1);
end
|
As you can see you can combine the DIL functions you learned in the Section called DIL functions for NPCs to make your NPC do more than one thing.
Creating a teacher
Setting up teachers on VME is more complex and requires stricter formatting than most things in the game. The reason for this is we use a form of functions called special. In the future guilds will be in DIL like everything else but for now the teachers that are released with the VME are base code. Even though teachers are base code, you can still adjust many things. And you don't have to use the teachers included in VME you could code your own in DIL but many find it easier to use these.
Guild teacher definitions are actually less complex than people think they are. There really are no big, mysterious secrets. The key is simply to understand the numbers and how the balance is achieved. (From here on in, GTD will refer to "guild teacher definition", and "entity" will refer to the ability/spell/skill/weapon being offered by the GTD.)
 | Using TAB characters in GTDs is a very bad idea! It will have extremely adverse effects, including causing the mud to crash. |
To use the teacher special functions, you need to use a field not described anywhere else in the NPC descriptions. The field is called a 'special'. The reason the 'special' field was not included in the field descriptions is because it is being removed from the VME as soon as banks and teachers have been replaced by DIL there will be no more special functions. For now however we need to use them for the for mentioned purposes. The format for a special function is as follows:
For teachers the function definition is 'SFUN_TEACH_INIT' and the arguments include who can join, what the acts of the teacher are, and what the teacher teaches.
In the first part of a SFUN_TEACH_INIT definition, there are several pieces of important information which allow the mud to know what you are trying to provide to players. The entire set of arguments are enclosed in double quotes. So a teacher with nothing at all in it would look like this:
After the opening double quote ("), the first thing necessary is the text formatting code '&l', which tells the compiler to ignore the standard text formatting protocols for the rest of the string or until the '&f' code is given.
Immediately following the '&l' code, with no spaces at all, the type of entity the function will teach is defined. It is one of the following types:
abilities
spells
skills
weapons
The first two lines of the SFUN_TEACH_INIT looks like this:
| The '0;' is the end of field marker that will be used through out the teacher fields |
The next set of arguments to the teacher function is the acts the teacher will use when a person is trying to train. There are seven acts total and they are as follows:
Teacher acts
- Line 1
This line is displayed when the player makes a mistake in typing the name of an entity, whether or not it is actually offered at the teacher.
- Line 2
This line is similar to the first, but is usually evident of attempting to practice an entity not offered at this particular teacher.
- Line 3
This is the act displayed when the player has insufficient funds to practice the desired entity.
- Line 4
This is displayed when the player has not got enough ability or skill practice points to learn the desired entity.
- Line 5
Simply put, the player has exceeded the teacher's expertise in the offered entity and must go elsewhere to learn more, if at all possible.
- Line 6
This line is displayed when the player is either wearing magical, stat-modifying equipment or is affected by spells/skills which modify stats.
- Line 7
This line is what is shown when your armour affects you using special functions in base code. This is rare and may never be seen. In the future when the teachers are made in DIL this act may not be necessary.
Now we can add the acts to our example it would look as follows:
special SFUN_TEACH_INIT "&labilities;0; $1n tells you, 'I have never heard of such an ability.'; $1n tells you, 'I do not know how to teach this ability.'; $1n tells you, 'You haven't got %s for me.'; $1n tells you, 'You haven't got %d ability points.'; $1n tells you, 'I can not teach you any more.'; $1n tells you, 'You must be unaffected by magic, else I can't teach you.'; $1n tells you, 'Remove all equipment, please.'; |
| $1n is the substitution variable for the teacher's title (see the DIL document for more details). %s is the amount of money the teacher requires to teach the entity in question. %d is the amount of ability or skill practice points required to practice the given entity. The standard GTD termination character, a semicolon (;) ends each act |
about the actual GTDs, or the lines that actually define what the teachers teach and everything to do about how expensive and how high they teach it. A GTD is a single line, composed of several fields. The data contained in these fields determines how a particular entity is practiced.
Here is an example of a GTD:
Note that it has a lot of white space in it. It is really not necessary, as the field terminators are the semicolons. This means that you could just as easily write:
When making teachers most people prefer to put the white space in to make it easier to read and find errors. A larger example would look as follows:
0; 100; scan ; 9; 9000; 7; 0; 0; 90; consider ; 4; 4000; 5; 10; 0; 0; 100; appraisal ; 9; 4000; 5; 0; 0; 100; fleeing ; 9; 9000; 6; 12; 0; |
Each part of the GTD separated by a semicolon is called a field. The following is the fields and their definitions.
- Field 1
Field 1 is the guild level. It is simply the level at which one is allowed to practice the particular entity in the guild. A level of 0 indicates that one can practice it from the beginning.
- Field 2
This is the maximum percentage one is allowed to practice the particular entity. It can be anywhere from 1 to 200. For abilities, it should be in increments of 2 (or divisible by 2), and for spells, skills, or weapons, in increments of 5 (or divisible by 5). This means that the effective minimum depends on whether the entity is an ability or a spell, skill or weapon.
Therefore, the minimums for abilities is 2, and the minimum for spells, skills or weapons is 5. Anything less will be automatically practiced to the effective minimum. This also means that putting an odd number for abilities will result in the player practicing an additional point, and for spells, skills or weapons, practicing up to the nearest 5.
For example: Percentage maximum for an ability is set for 95%. Player practices the ability, which then becomes 96%. Player then decides to practice a weapon skill. It is set to 77% maximum. After practicing, the player has 80% in the weapon. It is better to simply make the ability 96% and the weapon 80% maximum instead.
- Field 3
Name of Entity
- Field 4
This is the practice cost minimum in Old gold pieces. Anything less than 10 here will simply be translated as 1 iron piece. Anything other than a number divisible by 10 is rounded up to the nearest iron piece.
- Field 5
This is the practice cost maximum in old gold pieces. It is generally defined as being 1000 times what Field 4 is defined as:
The reason for this is because there is a scale related to the current practice percentage of the entity. The practice minimum is what the entity costs when it is at 0%, and the practice maximum is what it costs to practice it to maximum percentage.
It is not necessary to multiply the minimum by 1000 to define the maximum. It can be any number, as long as the maximum exceeds the minimum. Failure to do so will result in the mud crashing. It is unknown what will happen if the fields have 0 entered in them. I warn that it could be rather unpredictable.
Setting the maximum too high will only serve to dissuade players from practicing and indeed even playing. This is not to say you cannot make a truly powerful entity very expensive. Just make sure that the entity is worth the cost.
- Field 6
This is the only necessary practice points field. It allows one to use their skill or ability practice points to increase their character's powers. This number is generally determined by the desire of the builder to make the entity easier or harder to practice, based upon the logical consideration of how this class would learn/use the entity.
For instance, a Fighter class would find practicing "fist" to be exceedingly easy, so they may only need 4 points to practice this skill, but on the other hand, a Mage class would not have such an experience so it may cost them 15 points to practice.
Don't go overboard, making this field an outrageous number will mean that no one is likely to practice the entity, mainly because of lack of points. However, like in the cost fields, it can be made expensive to reflect the power of the entity.
- Field 7 - X
You can repeat field 6 as many times as you want the player to be able to practice in one level so you can set a point cost each time. This is so each time they practice at a level you can make it more expensive.
An example of this would look as follows:
This example has consider being practiced at guild level 0 up to 90%, costing 4 old gold pieces minimum, 4000 old gold pieces maximum, 5 practice points for the first practice per level and 10 for the second.
For 15 points a level, the player can practice consider twice. It is actually quite nice to be able to do this, and generally easier entities take advantage of this more often.
Each additional field is followed by a semicolon
- Field X
This is the termination field for the GTD. It tells the compiler that the GTD is finished. In fact, if you set a practice point field to 0, it would consider that Field X, and end the GTD.
Every GTD line must have an end of field marker!
When we refer to old gold pieces they represent the VME money system as follows:
Table 14. Old to new money conversions.
| Old gold piece | New money |
|---|---|
| 10 | 1 Iron Piece (IP) |
| 80 | 1 copper piece (CP) |
| 640 | 1 silver piece (SP) |
| 5120 | 1 gold piece (GP) |
| 40960 | 1 platinum piece (PP) |
Of course, to finish up the entire SFUN_TEACH_INIT, you must include a closing double quotation mark ("). Failure to do so will cause no end of problems for you.
A finished teacher of ability function would look like this:
special SFUN_TEACH_INIT "&labilities;0; $1n tells you, 'I have never heard of such an ability.'; $1n tells you, 'I do not know how to teach this ability.'; $1n tells you, 'You haven't got %s for me.'; $1n tells you, 'You haven't got %d ability points.'; $1n tells you, 'I can not teach you any more'; $1n tells you, 'You must be unaffected by magic, otherwise I can't teach you.'; $1n tells you, 'Remove all equipment, please.'; 0; 100; Strength ; 4; 4000; 8; 0; 0; 90; Dexterity ; 14; 14000; 12; 0; 0; 90; Constitution ; 14; 14000; 9; 0; 0; 100; Hitpoints ; 4; 4000; 11; 0; 2; 60; Brain ; 23; 23000; 14; 0; 4; 80; Charisma ; 18; 18000; 14; 0; " |
There are two other easy to use specials that you will want to use with your teacher. they are 'SFUN_GUILD_BASIS' and 'SFUN_MEMBERS_ONLY'.
- SFUN_GUILD_BASIS
This initializes the teacher and the only argument is the guild name
- SFUN_MEMBERS_ONLY
This simply blocks anyone who is not in the guild from practicing This means the argument is the guild name. and the act separated by a '#', an example would look as follows:
Finally we will show you what a full teacher would look like with the entire specials and the NPC definition.
jones
names {"blacksmith", "smith", "Jones"}
title "Jones the blacksmith"
descr "The venerable Jones Blacksmith is here."
extra {}
"The smith is old but his arms still retain the strength of his youth.
He looks as if he has retired, but he can still put you through the
drills of physical training."
flags {UNIT_FL_NO_TELEPORT}
romflags {CHAR_PROTECTED}
//Define from composed.h
M_HUMAN_WARRIOR_AXE(80, SEX_MALE)
//negative exp to discourage killing teacher
exp -100
special SFUN_GUILD_BASIS GUILD_UDG_FIGHTER
special SFUN_MEMBERS_ONLY GUILD_UDG_FIGHTER+"#$1n says, 'Buggar ye off,
$3n.'"
special SFUN_TEACH_INIT
"&labilities;0;
$1n tells you, 'I have never heard of such an ability.';
$1n tells you, 'I do not know how to teach this ability.';
$1n tells you, 'You haven't got %s for me.';
$1n tells you, 'You haven't got %d ability points.';
$1n tells you, 'I can not teach you any more';
$1n tells you, 'You must be unaffected by magic, otherwise I can't
teach
you.';
$1n tells you, 'Remove all equipment, please.';
0; 100; Strength ; 4; 4000; 8; 0;
0; 90; Dexterity ; 14; 14000; 12; 0;
0; 90; Constitution ; 14; 14000; 9; 0;
0; 100; Hitpoints ; 4; 4000; 11; 0;
2; 60; Brain ; 23; 23000; 14; 0;
4; 80; Charisma ; 18; 18000; 14; 0;
"
|
Guild master functions
When you make a guild you have to make a guild master for it. This NPC will let people join and leave the guild and it also gives titles. To create a guild master you need to use three 'special' functions. The functions you need are 'SFUN_GUILD_BASIS', 'SFUN_GUILD_MASTER', and 'SFUN_GUILD_TITLES'.
- SFUN_GUILD_BASIS
This initializes the master and the only argument is the guild name
- SFUN_GUILD_MASTER
The guild master function takes 6 arguments. Like the teacher function the arguments must be surrounded by double quotes. The strings in the arguments must be surrounded by tilde marks (~). The following is a description of the arguments and what they do.
- Line1:
The first argument is the guild name. As in the teacher, you need to place the '&l' symbol first so the VME doesn't mess with the formatting of the string when the guild master is compiled.
- Line 2
This argument is what quest needs to be done before the character can enter the guild.
- Line 3
This argument is the amount it costs to enter the guild in old gold pieces.
- Line 4
This argument is the quest the player must do before leaving the guild. If the player has not completed this quest the guild master will not let the player leave.
- Line 5
This argument is how much old gold pieces it will cost to quit the guild. If the player doesn't have enough money the guild master will not let the player join.
- Line 6
This argument is what guild the guild master will not accept players from. For example the following will make it so no Thief can be in the fighter guild.
When we refer to old gold pieces they represent the VME money system as shown in Table 14 in the Section called Creating a teacher
The following is what a full 'SFUN_GUILD_MASTER' function would look like
- SFUN_GUILD_TITLES
This function allows the player to request a title at the guild master. A title will be given every 5 levels up to level 100 so you have 20 titles you can set. The title function takes one title for male chars and one title for female chars so you have to set 40 titles.
The arguments of this function are easy. The first thing you do is the normal '&l' to let the VME know not to mess with this string. Then you put the guild name. Finally you follow it by the list of 40 titles. The following is the fighter guild's title list:
special SFUN_GUILD_TITLES "&lUdgaard fighter the %s Swordpupil the %s Swordpupil the %s Recruit the %s Recruit the %s Sentry the %s Sentress the %s Fighter the %s Fighter the %s Soldier the %s Soldier the %s Warrior the %s Warrior the %s Veteran the %s Veteran the %s Swordsman the %s Swordswoman the %s Fencer the %s Fenceress the %s Combatant the %s Combatess the %s Hero the %s Heroine the %s Myrmidon the %s Myrmidon the %s Swashbuckler the %s Swashbuckleress the %s Mercenary the %s Mercenaress the %s Swordmaster the %s Swordmistress the %s Lieutenant the %s Lieutenant the %s Champion the %s Lady Champion the %s Dragoon the %s Lady Dragoon the %s Cavalier the %s Cavalier the %s Knight the %s Lady Knight"
Put all three of these functions on your NPC and you're all set you have a guild master.
NPC banker
The banker function is the easiest 'special' function there is to use. The following placed on an NPC will make a banker:
As you see it's very simple, so we will just show you a completed banker and leave it at that.
bob
names {"Bob"}
title "Bob"
descr "Bob the Banker is here, sitting behind the counter."
extra {}
"He has a very serious look on his face."
// define from composed.h
M_SHOP_KEEPER(4, SEX_MALE, RACE_HUMAN)
//discourage people from killing banker
exp -500
flags {UNIT_FL_NO_TELEPORT}
special SFUN_BANK
end
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