New Foundry Features on Test Server

agentjaspor

Hey folks. So as mentioned in the patch notes, the Foundry did get quite a few bug fixes in the big patch now available on the test server. I just logged in, and checked out the new items. Specifically, these two items:

• Many Illusionary objects have been added to the Foundry.
• More Behaviors have been added for NPCs, generally dealing in non-combat behavior.

The "Illusionary objects" refers to walls and rocks that have no collision path and characters can walk through. Basically it's used to create secret rooms and paths and whatnot. Here's the list:



The "More Behaviors" essentially add two additional behaviors available for NPCs to to some of the existing ones - "ignore all" and "non-combat."

"Ignore all" means the NPC ignores all monsters (hostile NPCs, aka "Encounters") and is likewise ignored by all monsters. For example, the "One way patrol, ignore all" behavior is described as "Great for ghosts."

"Non-combat" means the NPC will not be attacked by monsters (hostile NPCs, aka "Encounters") but will "cower" if fighting is going on nearby.

So essentially, both types will avoid them from being attacked (and potentially killed) by hostile NPCs.

Here's a shot of the different combinations:


Some fairly minor, but welcome, changes.

angrysprite

It will be good to allow an NPC to not be killed. In my case I have an optional NPC at end-quest that may or may not be there (often not there as he gets killed a lot). In my case I like this "random chance" - now I'll have to decide if I want him to always be there, which will now be easier to do.

Nice.

My one (three year old) Foundry request is still elusive: allow Place Markers to be triggerable (appear/disappear). Which to this day is still not an option.

guitarzan698

Did they fix the sound?

vaelic

guitarzan698 wrote: »

Did they fix the sound?

yes they did

agentjaspor

I didn't actually try it yet on the test server, but considering it made it into the patch notes and they seem to realize it's important, I'm hopeful it actually was fixed. I'll try it later today.

xhrit

Not the biggest update, but any update is appreciated.

zahinder

Oh, very nice. Illusory objects will work very nicely for stuff where currently I have objects vanish, and the nod thing will be great for making sure dead bodies don't cower at enemies... Heh.

jintortle

I love the fact that we can now fight through a street with npc's and the mobs will not be distracted. Cool!!!

zovya

agentjaspor wrote: »

"Ignore all" means the NPC ignores all monsters (hostile NPCs, aka "Encounters") and is likewise ignored by all monsters. For example, the "One way patrol, ignore all" behavior is described as "Great for ghosts."

"Non-combat" means the NPC will not be attacked by monsters (hostile NPCs, aka "Encounters") but will "cower" if fighting is going on nearby.

So essentially, both types will avoid them from being attacked (and potentially killed) by hostile NPCs.

So glad for this. I can delete some invisible walls now.

chinspinner

zovya wrote: »

So glad for this. I can delete come invisible walls now.

I was thinking the same thing, it could be done before but just makes life a lot easier.

yospeck

chinspinner wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing, it could be done before but just makes life a lot easier.

Same with the Illusionary items, the "Viewable" options already made it so you could make an item an illusion. I figure a lot of the problems we have are the ones we've made workarounds for and so will be the ones they fix first. Not exactly a good thing as some things we CAN'T get around, however, non-combat NPCs is pretty great as it opens up so many options.

ovaltine74

I am sure I am not the only one, but some of those features could be useful on the project I am currently working on. Not that I don't have plenty of work to keep me busy in the mean time.

zahinder

What's nice about illusory items, if I understand it right, is that the illusion will REappear when you walk away... which is cool. Currently, you can only make something 'reappear' if you devote a lot of objects to it, and it will always be finite.


What would be nice is some sort of flag or modifier that makes any existing object 'illusory,' but that might be asking for too much.

meedacthunist

NPC behaviors are great addition. I can delete a few unneeded invisible walls now. Illusionary objects are great as well. I can put proper invisible walls into my RP map. Oh, and illusionary debris piles and walls are also great tool for making ambushes. A very weak encounter can be much more entertaining if player can't see it until it attacks.

oggbrox

When will this patch work for the normal servers, too?

I'm on my first Foundry-Quest. I want to release it with music.

agentjaspor

oggbrox wrote: »

When will this patch work for the normal servers, too?

I'm on my first Foundry-Quest. I want to release it with music.

I don't think they've said officially, but there's a lot of speculation that this patch will go live when they officially "launch" the game (and end open beta) in 2 weeks.

oggbrox

agentjaspor wrote: »

I don't think they've said officially, but there's a lot of speculation that this patch will go live when they officially "launch" the game (and end open beta) in 2 weeks.

Uhh, Baby. I pray to the god of all MMOs that it will happen in 2 weeks.
I ripped my *** off for the quest. It's already great, even without music. With music = rockin' the hell.

drakesigar

angrysprite wrote: »

It will be good to allow an NPC to not be killed.

Agreed. First thing I'd do is edit my quest so that the female rogue fights alongside the player, instead of having the player rescue her from the ground. Was never happy with that.

orangefiree

I was wondering when they would let me make NPCs that are not afraid of their own minions.

zogvarnoka

agentjaspor wrote: »

I don't think they've said officially, but there's a lot of speculation that this patch will go live when they officially "launch" the game (and end open beta) in 2 weeks.

The official end of beta is June 20th.

These changes are currently on a test server. One and a half weeks for testing. Three to four days to finish implementing any changes needed from testing that had not gotten fixed already. Then launch the patch for NW official release. Seems logical this is what will happen.

apocrs1980

Hey agentjaspor, can you take a look and see if they snuck any encounters or encounter models that were not mentioned in the notes?

nezroy123

drakesigar wrote: »

Agreed. First thing I'd do is edit my quest so that the female rogue fights alongside the player, instead of having the player rescue her from the ground. Was never happy with that.

Neither of the two new behaviors, as described, will allow you to do this.

drakesigar

nezroy123 wrote: »

Neither of the two new behaviors, as described, will allow you to do this.

I never implied they did, only that this is what I want to be able to do.

saerrael

I only see one problem... ...all quests currently under construction will probably remain that way for two more weeks ^^;

chili1179

Looking good! Can't wait to play around with some of those illusions.

Thank you for posting this.

ceryndrion

zovya wrote: »

So glad for this. I can delete some invisible walls now.

Will certainly make life easier in a number of situations, can't wait for these changes to make their way to live.

agentjaspor

apocrs1980 wrote: »

Hey agentjaspor, can you take a look and see if they snuck any encounters or encounter models that were not mentioned in the notes?

No new encounters or models that I noticed.

Music worked on two of my maps, though either it's a bit wonky still or I don't understand how sounds are supposed to work.

On my forest map, I have a "Background Sound Override" set in the Backdrop properties to play the "Forest ambiance, spooky" sound. Didn't hear that at all. And I don't have any actual sound objects placed on the map.

In the cave, there was music and it sounded great. But I'm not sure where it came from, lol. There's no "Background Sound Override" property in this map. I have a few Sound objects placed, but from what I could tell, none of those were actually supposed to be playing this music. And I didn't hear those sounds playing as I approached, but maybe that was because the music was too loud for them to be heard. And I have a sound object placed in the final "boss" chamber that's supposed to start up when that fight begins, and stop when the fight is over. Didn't hear it. It was the same music (which I couldn't find the source of) the entire time.

The final map (a small interior building) had a single sound object placed for some music (Tavern Ambiance 3). Heard that just fine through the entire map, so that seemed to work as expected.

Anyways, the music does add to the experience no doubt and glad to see it's working better now. But either it's still not quite right or I'm doing something wrong.

mosby1

zahinder wrote: »

What's nice about illusory items, if I understand it right, is that the illusion will REappear when you walk away... which is cool. Currently, you can only make something 'reappear' if you devote a lot of objects to it, and it will always be finite.

You can make very good illusionary walls now, which only disappear when you are close to them (or very far). See DM's Studio (NW-DHZ5DAV4R) for an example. But it will be nice to not have to fake it, yeah.

sheyjin

Did they make the House placables movable in 3D mode. I hate having to twitch back and forth just to move a house.

apocrs1980

agentjaspor wrote: »

No new encounters or models that I noticed.

Music worked on two of my maps, though either it's a bit wonky still or I don't understand how sounds are supposed to work.

On my forest map, I have a "Background Sound Override" set in the Backdrop properties to play the "Forest ambiance, spooky" sound. Didn't hear that at all. And I don't have any actual sound objects placed on the map.

In the cave, there was music and it sounded great. But I'm not sure where it came from, lol. There's no "Background Sound Override" property in this map. I have a few Sound objects placed, but from what I could tell, none of those were actually supposed to be playing this music. And I didn't hear those sounds playing as I approached, but maybe that was because the music was too loud for them to be heard. And I have a sound object placed in the final "boss" chamber that's supposed to start up when that fight begins, and stop when the fight is over. Didn't hear it. It was the same music (which I couldn't find the source of) the entire time.

The final map (a small interior building) had a single sound object placed for some music (Tavern Ambiance 3). Heard that just fine through the entire map, so that seemed to work as expected.

Anyways, the music does add to the experience no doubt and glad to see it's working better now. But either it's still not quite right or I'm doing something wrong.

Nope, thats defintaly a bug I would report it, sounds like it's not working. No pun intended.

agentjaspor

apocrs1980 wrote: »

Nope, thats defintaly a bug I would report it, sounds like it's not working. No pun intended.

Yeah, I posted it over on the Foundry "Preview" forum, but I'm going to mess around with it some more. Someone over there said the interior music is on the room level and not the overall map level, so I'll have to check that. Even if those are set, I would think that the placed sound objects would be able to be heard over the background music, and that doesn't seem to be the case.