Story writers

[Saulus]

Open the Toolset. Press F1. Read.

You'll then know everything there is to know about the toolset -- or if you just want to learn how to do conversations, skip to that part.

[sharringtonm]

*chuckles* I sent you an email with the specifics, Venture. Saulus is correct, if you wish to do it in the toolset, thats a good way. If you just want to use a word processoer, the format is described in the email.

[Landaren]

O god conversation scripts, journal entries, quests....


*runs away and hides in a dark corner*

[sharringtonm]

Just checking up on the writers. How's the writing going folks? Any roadblocks I can help you overcome?


Remember.. you don't need to make a hundred conversations, start small. A single conversation is a worthy accomplishment.

Later folks

[sharringtonm]

Thank you Mark Poole.

Mark has sent us a conversation for a NPC, and he did an excellent job.

Is there anyone else out there wanting to help make sundren a better server?

(remember the only skill required is notepad, though mark did an excellent job making a flow chart in excel for me. And Don't worry folks, I have the 2007 version of everything. If you send it to me, I can open it.)

[Kaeldorn]

I love thinking my characters through and writing down a detailed half decent or better background (as you DM's might have noticed *chuckles*), but I tend to spend so much time on it that it would be hell to do for multiple NPC's.

I'm more than willing to help out creating some dialogue though, given a general description of how an NPC should speak and what about. But I'm not sure I'd feel easy about it if I just came up with a suggestion for what a random NPC should say without knowing the 'vision' of you developers...

[sparkeh]

Thank you Mark Poole.

Mark has sent us a conversation for a NPC, and he did an excellent job.

Wow thanks, it was fun. Plenty more to come

I would use the toolset but I plan to do this at work where I don't have access....hmm I wonder if anyone would notice if I installed nwn2 at work...

[Imbrifer]

If you're looking for someone to help out, I'm game. I've written dialogue for the training parts of mods, etc. I've also used the editor a fair amount, so I'd be more than willing to create conversations (or clothing, or even areas) if needed.

rycekk@gmail.com

[sharringtonm]

Here's what we have in mind. Your to pick out a NPC on the server. Any NPC. Your choice. Our only stipulations is it's not a NPC with a Name already or a conversation. Those are already spoken for. (By conversation I mean a pop up conversation, not the one liners you see when you talk to them)

Here's the format you want to use

• NPC's Greeting
• Players Choice of things to say (keep it between 1-3 to prevent burning yourself out)
• NPC's Response to Player's question #1
• NPC's Response to Player's question #2
• NPC's Response to Player's question #3
• Etc, etc

As you can see it can become quite long if you let it. Simplicity is keen, but feel free to get more in depth if you like.

Ideas for things to discuss:

Current Area the NPC is in. (creatures, good and bad shops, tricks to fighting the creatures that you as a pc would use, etc)

Current Events. (Including Things other PCs have done, just try not to make it too specific. No "the orcs have invaded!" cause eventually they won't have invaded 3 months from now.)

Themselves. (Go wild. Give them whatever history, background, mannerisms, etc you want.)
Or some odd bit off info that you decide the NPC might like to talk about (he likes his black hilted dagger a little too much, or frog legs taste like chicken, etc)

If you wish to portray a deficiency in intelligence, go for it, purposefully write badly etc. But besides that, please use a spell checker before you send it in to me.
Feel free to give the person a name. (For example, you choose a Sharharan prospector and name him Joe, I will change his name to be Joe, Sharharan Prospector In game.

Feel free to send me the conversation in any format. You are not required to use the toolset. Word, word perfect, text, whatever. I'll handle the conversion. Thanks again folks!


Send all your submissions to this email address please. sharringtonm@aol.com
And please be very, very clear which NPC your doing the write up for. Cause I'm going to have to go find them and will need all the help I can get.

I want to thank you for helping us turn Sundren into a real world. Your contribution will go a long way towards this!

Sean Harrington

[steel505]

I would love to do this (Used to plan out conversations as a DM.. yeah, nerd..), but I really can't at the momment due to loads of papers due. In a couple months when schools over, however.. Hopefully it won't all be done by then. I'll make short convo's, quests, maybe even a book or two, whatever.
Can't wait till I can help!

[sharringtonm]

3 things to note.
#1 Hats off to Roy Wang and Rycekk OrmLeren for their conversations they sent me. Awesome. You'll see them in on the next update.
#2 Try to always end the conversations with the PC saying something. We do not want the NPC having the last word as it will often get lost in the chat box and not actually seen if they do.
#3 Yes, you can have 1,2,3 or more Npc's participate in a conversation. Feel free to have other NPCs chime in if you wish. Also if you include expressions or body language (aka emotes) I will have the NPCs do them while speaking. GO wild!

[cmosier]

If you did not think your character through then all you have is a bunch of numbers. I prefer to do what makes for a better story. When I develop a character, I go into depth, parents, siblings, home land, the whole works. This ofcourse can lead to another character at a later date.

My first character on Sundren was quite some time ago, a warlock named Caelreth Dy'ner. While making him, I was torn between a warlock (which I didn't really like) and a rogue (my favorite class). I went for the challenge and made the warlock, but kept the rogue build in my head as his younger brother, Sehron, my current character.

Neither of these characters are really power builds, but role playing them has been a blast.

[Imbrifer]

Glad I can help out, sharringtom! I'll see if I can get a couple more created. I've got some proverbs id like to work into an older character or two..

[Silas North]

Ah, what the heck. I will give it a try.

There are a lot of npcs out there. Could not hurt to give them a little identity. Drunks in a bar, a sarcastic remark from nobles about what pcs are wearing, etc.

[Jaeram]

Lol, I just noticed this thread again, and wanted to apologize, it seems that shortly after I spoke to you about the conversations etc. I started getting bogged down with school work, papers, final studying, speeches, etc. You may have noticed a significant drop in my in game time lately lol. Once my finals finish up next week (I think the last one is thursday the 24th) I should be free for the summer, so I should be able to find some time to get some stuff done.