People like to build maps here, I've heard, however time-taking they may be.
So a I had a couple simple ideas.
1. After defeating the Overmage, the rest of the city of Solanum should be unlocked for the player to explore and trade in. The city appears to be based in the trees, like Eirulan, but not entirely so. Meaning it may very well be built in between cliffs and among waterfalls and the like. Kind of like the Greilyn falls from the original, except imagine more houses and buildings and bridges and platforms near them. Maybe even the Hak'u return to hassle the Dryads like the good old days, but ALSO live in the city? Maybe even a Hak'u follower!
2. After defeating the Overmage, a new 'act' could be unlocked. (So just a downloadable map that takes place a few years after the events of Broken World, whether it has to be unlocked or not doesn't matter as much.) Which provides an alternate version of most of Broken World's landscape, except having been reborn. Plants thrive, animals live and roam as nature intended them. Featuring much of the original Dungeon Siege II's wildlife, except as peaceful NPC's. Maybe even, again, separate tribes of Hak'u, some of which are still fanatical and try to make attempts on the player's life, others of which are back to their kind, if mischievous ways. Most of these would be surrounding the Dryad Outpost. Because even if that region is separate from Greilyn, I still see that area as becoming rather jungle-like with their influence.
3. Speaking of the Dryad Outpost, maybe most of the refugee's leave to find a new life and it has become a traveler's camp out in the wilderness. Even the interior of the Outpost should be overgrown with greenery and filled with Dryads and traveler's. Some of which might even be wanting to join the great hero for whatever new adventures he's looking for.
4. A player home! How something like that would be executed in Dungeon Siege 2 might be a problem in and of itself, but maybe it's just a simple house that you can CALL your own. Maybe with some interactable objects.. or maybe nothing special.
5. The Northern Reaches! Snow-ified and with a new human town to explore. Complete with a re-built Snowbrook Haven.
Granted, I know most of these ideas don't seem to have enough substance to them to bother making them. But that's where I would trust people who might pursue this project to brainstorm. Side quests, a new main questline presenting some other problem that the hero has to deal with. Though I suppose nothing could present as much of a threat as Zaramoth Reborn, so it might seem trivial to the hero, but something for us to do.
I did have one particular idea for an interesting NPC I wanted to pass along.
What about a bound follower? Someone you find in the aftermath of Broken World, either in the Dryad Outpost or in Solanum. (If Solanum, it doesn't have to be a re-built Solanum, maybe that platform that we get to go to already would be fine.)
Someone who had such a strong will that they survived the binding. Someone who's mind stayed together. And maybe a good excuse would be that the surgeries killed all of his nerves, so he no longer feels the pain, or at least not as powerfully as those who are driven mad.
An Elven man with blood-red hair and bright orange eyes. Scars covering his face, ears and chest. His arms have been sewn on from another subject, maybe he's one of those guys who had Half-Giant arms. (Except not the same mesh, of course.) His 'skin' (The clothes under his armor) would be a bare chest with some sort of visible augmentation. Leather armor pants and feet wrapped in bandages. He could have his own quest, explaining why he joins the hero, or maybe joins them just because they were responsible for killing the familiar surgeons who dehumanized him.
If a side-quest, maybe he wants to help the hero root out a few of the surgeon's projects that were particularly powerful and are still roaming, and kill them.
Just some neat ideas I had.
Comments
It's tough to put a map together. I've come to the conclusion that's probably best done in a team. I failed at finishing all my map projects due to the amount of work they take. I'm thinking about expanding the original DS2 map sometime in the future by using portals that lead to short levels called realms. It's best to try to keep it simple.
I agree with Dulac. I've never finished a brand new map started from scratch but I did extensively modify an existing region in order to create another town in DS2 for DS2BW Adepts and that took something like 15 hours of work spread over about a month. I also completed two incomplete regions in the Legends of Aranna Map from the Legendary Mod and they probably took 5 or 6 hours each, not counting fine tuning from beta testing.
So that's why I had an idea to reuse the existing regions to create a brand new map for the Dungeon Siege prequel that was discussed sometime last year (basically exploring how the Empire of Stars was created), since repopulating blank ready made regions is far quicker than creating them from scratch. I even released a proof of concept demo of several existing regions from DS2 restitched together in a different order and using an alternative form of instant transportation (since teleporters wouldn't have been invented then).
It's nice to be given ideas for mods or maps but have you thought of actually trying to do this yourself? You don't know you might get hooked on it and make something brilliant. It does take a lot of commitment and can be very frustrating at times but also can be rewarding too otherwise there wouldn't be any user made content available at all for DS2 or any other game that supports modding or mapping.
The most important ingredient in making maps or mods is enthusiasm in the idea or concept you want to create and you have that.
I would still like to make variations of your monster island map Dulac. small maps are fun to play with esp with all the various monsters available.... as for new maps, its just like iryan said it takes 15 hours plus just to play with just one region from ds2.. I remember spending months just trying to alter ds2 regions, to have error after error, it was just time consuming.
but the idea of using snow in the reaches wouldn't be a hard edit if one wants to take the time to change the terrain to snow, matching a 4x grass with a 4x snow etc. would only need to change 1 file on the map side with text editor really as terrain is probably one of the easier fixes. although it may not look pretty... those are some great ideas presented...
I'd love you to edit that map. Feel free to stich a DS2 region or two to as well. I believe I gave it unique region ids not used by GPG to give it more freedom (can connect to the main GPG map). What stopped me on that map was tuning not working in the dungeon years back (I spent way too much time on trying to get it to work). I might try tuning the dungeon again. It should be quite easy to change monsters out in the tuned region (there are two different paths due to it being finicky with me). The dungeon could also use more object placement, but that isn't necessary. What shys me away from creating from scratch for the millionth time is all the map work on top of quests (I still need to learn how that's done). The big problem with it being a lot of work is getting burned out from slow progress.
Edit: I have several other unfinished maps that I might end up releasing. The most recent one was an icy region, but I'm just not feeling it. Back when I made these maps, I didn't realize you could set parameters for foliage to have random size and rotation, so I was randomizing their values by hand
. I started reading a section on mapping for information in SU 1 and came across the feature that randomizes their size and rotation! That would have saved me a lot of work, especially in the lush jungle region I touted early on in the DS2 modding scene.
Edit again: I wouldn't mind trying to do a map from scratch together with either of you two. If we all created a map together, I also wouldn't mind it having variations different from each of us. There are aspects of gameplay I want to get around to changing to suit how I want to play such as a much faster paced DS2. Essentially adding a D3 influence I've acquired (more powerful items and of course monsters for the challenge. I see D3 as more arcade like than D2 or DS2. More akin to Gauntlet. Some of that design would make DS2 more interesting in my view.
I have a lot of knowledge and experience with DS2 mapping, so I should be able to help with errors. It's just daunting while working on a whole map alone. I've also thought and tested of ways to use Broken World content. The nodes can be loaded in the editor (worked that out before) and you can use placeholders for the monsters, objects (strip them of their code if they use BW stuff), and npcs that cause errors.
Here is also how I want the monsters in maps to work in DS2. Monsters are either tuned (which is nice to add for randomness) or triggered with triggers that reset when you reload the game. The trigger is very easy and I made a test one awhile back. You can also ambush the player adding a nice challenge. I hate that you cannot clear a map more than one time in DS2, heh.
Edit again:
Perhaps the most neglected thing for me would be the story line, which is sad. This is only because of all the work that has to go into building maps
and tweaking gameplay (something I failed to do due to burnout too). However, I think Raymus' idea for having a home for the player is intriguing. It could just be simply a house with stash and other necessities (inn function).
Taking Iryan's advice, I think I'd like to learn making maps. I feel that it might end up being the most noob-friendly way of modding other than simple texture replacing. More on that later. But for now I'd very much like to learn how -- the problem with me learning to mod is always "Where the **** do I even start?" And you say that you're very experienced so would you be able to provide some advice, personal experience, or links? I'd be very appreciative.
I'm in the process of building my computer, and what should be the last of the parts are on their way right now, so I should have a proper gaming PC by the end of the week. So the process of learning to mod will probably go a lot faster without the issues of epic lag when I try to do anything, slow booting times, and general glitches that this dastardly low-end laptop likes to have.
So, again, if you're willing to help me out, because I'll surely have lots of questions, I'd love to learn to pursue this project myself.
I think for a complete beginner it would be best to start by working with templates (gas files). I'll try to find a tutorial that explains this sort of stuff (headed to bed atm). We've lost a lot of links to modding information, but I think there might be good ones at STD. If not, I'll try to guide you through this process. Editing templates won't take up a lot of resources like SE2 does on a lower end computer.
Edit: Oh, I wrote one about 9 years ago that I forgot about. I was thinking this would be a good place to start. I can clarify if it's confusing or if you have questions that go deeper.
http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/120
Edit again:
I mentioned Siege University for DS1 in that walkthrough. The link no longer works, but we have a compiled version of the DS1 Siege University, which has a lot of relevant information to DS2. You can find it here: http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/2052
Skrit pad can be found here: http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/3174
The DS2 Toolkit is here: http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/971
If tank viewer doesn't work for you, you might want to try this version that works with windows 7 and 8: http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/2951
From my experience, its extremely handy to extract the whole of Logic.ds2res to a reference folder that is easily reached on your PC. Here you can refer to how things were done in the game and many changes can be made by simply making minor changes to 1 or 2 files.
Objects.ds2res is another important reference file if you want to make graphical changes to the game. For instance you can retexture one of the existing armors and then clone one of the original files from Logic.ds2res and you have a new armor to play with in the game. I have the entire DS1, DSLOA, DS2 and Broken World files all extracted to a reference folder for easy viewing and access but that's only necessary if you like to dabble in everything like I tend to do.
Using Siege Editor 2 you can extract the maps as well and use the Editor to view them and even make changes to them. Go to the File Menu at the top left and select the convert .ds2map to Files option. Browse for the location of the maps an then they'll be extracted to My Documents\My Games\Dungeon Siege 2 Mod\Bits\World\Maps folder. The name of the DS2 map I simply ds2_world. To open one of the regions in DS2 use the Open option in the File Menu and a dialog box will open where you can select a region from DS2 to open in the Editor. The regions are all set out in order and are fairly easy to pick out as they have descriptive suffixes like a1_01_06_jngtown which is Eirulan.
That's why I was going to use the concept of reusing existing regions, all retextured differently and arranged differently. They don't even have to come from the same map as this demo which I released last year shows;
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/Dungeon_Siege_Origins_Test.ds2res
Its an amalgamation of 7 regions from DS2, Kingdom of Ehb and the Utraean Peninsula so the Legendary Mod is required to play it. Its been stripped of objects ready for re-editing and has an alternative to the town portal.
Its quite easy to rapidly change the look of a region by changing the texsetabbr value in the nodes.gas file from the terrain_nodes folder in the map's region. Using the search and replace function of notepad will quickly change the value but unfortunately some nodes will probably look bizarre as they'll only work properly with a preset texsetabbr value so some trial and error will be needed.
Quests are a lot easier to do in DS2 than in DS1. They use flicks to function and can be started by triggers or conversations. If you want to learn how to implement them I can make a small demo map to show how the basics work.
best way to learn is just sit down with Siege Editor 2.. start with a new section, find the terrain in the side menu and clik on one and the viewer will pop up and show u what the art looks like, make sure u in placement mode and just start placing some grass and some road, building etc and save a small map load the map and see your results.... and go from there. even if u place only 1 section of grass...u will have achieved more than most have, so there is no such thing as failure.
@iryan I've made conversations and shops for maps, but I haven't investigated quests themselves. Most of my quests would be to kill x monster or amount of x monsters to receive specific item or random item rewards and turning in items for items.
Yeah, and the generic sets seem to be the best to start off with imo.
Here's a small demo map showing how a secondary quest is implemented.
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/Quest_Demo_Map.ds2res
The quest giver will ask you to kill 3 monsters for him and then give you a reward.
- The quest has two tasks.
- Redundancy check to prevent you from killing the monsters and then asking for the quest (simply by making the monsters non-hostile until the quest is given. You can also make them invisible as well until the quest is given).
- Minimap quest icons.
- Quest icons that change at each stage.
- The quest giver will say something different at each step of the quest (four conversations in total).
- A talk flick controls the quest and will send an activate to a change property command which will make the monsters hostile once the quest is accepted, each monster's death will activate an accumulate trigger which will in turn activate a quest bit to complete the first task of the quest and start the second task. Finally talking to the quest giver will cause the flick to activate a reward generator.
I know Sharkulls' excellent tutorial map also features quests but everything in this small map is geared around the quest so that it can easily be seen how everything is done. It also shows how a small map can be started and it consists of only 3 nodes (16x16). Total construction time about 2 hours including testing and debugging (the map itself only took less than 5 minutes, including generating the radar).
Thanks Iryan. This sounds helpful. Do you have plans to share this on STD? I was also flipping through an old tuning tutorial you sent me awhile back while talking to Dark Elf. I saved the GPG one. However, yours is more comprehensive. It looks much easier to follow. It seems like a must for new mappers, especially since the GPG one is gone. I plan to give tuning another chance. I couldn't get it to work years back when I tried to tune a large dungeon. A GPG dev shrugged his shoulders too. It looked technically correct. There is something finicky about it I think.
Edit: Here is the map with the dungeon region I couldn't get tuned: http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/2958
I also had to use two different tuning paths to get the starting region to build enough blocks. The map is two regions and open source. Feel free to add it to whatever you want if you want.
Everything I release here is free to share. If bare_elf thinks its useful to link then go ahead. I just made it simply to demonstrate how the separate components work together to make a simple quest. It would be easy enough to make a comprehensive step by step tutorial out of it similar to the GPG, though I don't have the time to do it myself at the moment. I also haven't abandoned the compilation pack of tutorials I released last year but also don't have time to probably finish it off.