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Storehouse Container Aliasing

Discussion in 'Wishlist Requests' started by Jakkal, Jun 26, 2021.

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  1. Jakkal

    Jakkal Bug Hunter

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    This ones for @Sannio who created the idea for the containers, and whichever dev would handle the coding.

    I like the idea of Storehouse Container's, but its really weird talking to a box in game, I do enough of that irl already.

    Suggestion is to create an alias for them so the name that appears in the conversation window is for the npc "storehouse manager" standing near the containers.

    From a coding perspective this shouldn't be too difficult. It appears that the containers are just re-skinned npc's. Add an "Alias" variable to the NPC's, then use the Alias in the conversation window instead of the Name if the Alias is not Null.

    Example setup for all non-container npcs in the game
    Example for Storehouse Manager
    Name = "Storehouse Manager"
    Alias = Null

    Example setup for all container npcs in the game
    Example for Maple Tree Bark Container
    Name = "Maple Tree Bark"
    Alias = "Storehouse Manager"

    Hope that made sense.

    I'd really love to see these containers in the siege scenes, with items to support the war effort. Shoddy/Short/Long Bows, Arrows, Food items, Lesser Healing Potions, etc. It'd give us a use for all those basic bow strings and other items we never ever use.

    For that to work you likely have to limit the # of similar items or make those gear items stackable. That should be possible if they have the same crafters mark and durability. That would also help us with other crafted items in our inventories or on vendors that have a crafters mark which makes them currently un-stackable.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2021
    Jakkal, Jun 26, 2021
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    Elgarion and Wilfred like this.
  2. Sannio

    Sannio Lead Quest and Level Designer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    There was no special coding. The storehouse containers use the quest/conversation system. Technically, you don't interact with a container. You interact with an invisible NPC standing in the center of the container. Which, by the way, is why there's no collision on the containers--if there was collision, the invisible NPC would be pushed to one side.

    Our conversation editor is a custom program that isn't integrated into our Unity, and is a bit quirky. Also, the programmer who created the conversation editor isn't with us anymore and everyone else is hesitant to make changes to it. I'm the only dev who can edit conversations. I wanted a system where I could set up the pieces and any dev (especially Elgarion) could make updates or additions. This is how I came up with the storehouse containers. If the storehouse manager accepted turn-ins, then I'd need a custom conversation for each and no one but me could update them.

    This is a neat idea. You're saying that when you interact with the "container"/invisible NPC, the conversation appears to include a response from the nearby manager. We have something like that already in the conversation editor, however, it's based on the unique name of an NPC and not their generic title as you suggest. Right now, each common storehouse container uses the exact same conversation/responses and the wording is such that it never needs to change. To do the gimmick you suggest, we'd have to have unique conversations for each location/storehouse manager and that gets back to making me a chokepoint for updates and additions which we're trying to avoid. We'd need a programmer to make a change to the conversation system to use generic titles like unique names, but we're avoiding adding new tech here.

    We've added storehouse containers to 9 NPC towns and we'll leave it that way for now. We want to keep them a bit special and don't want to add them all over. However, we're paying attention to how they're used and reserve the right to make changes in the future. Expect a storehouse shelter to appear in one city of Hidden Vale and another in a not-yet-created city in Mistrendur.
     
    Sannio, Jun 28, 2021
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  3. Jakkal

    Jakkal Bug Hunter

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    Interesting, that shouldn't affect the "Alias" modification though. I'm surprised it's not a re-skin of the npc instead of using the invisible trick. Since we just had 50+ conversationalists added, I presume you have the ability to re-skin the npc's unless all of them have are just deco and using your trick with the standard invisible npc to operate the functions.

    That could affect things but shouldn't. I'm guessing you pass data to the conversation editor, so you'd just pass a different "Alias" name to it. Alternatively, it could work by just having all the invisible crate NPC's have the same "Storehouse Manager" name. The later option would likely require the Alias = Null coding to control what name appears above the crates.

    I'm not saying that the single Storehouse Manager controls all crate conversations, just that he appears to in name only. So each crates current conversation still exist on its own and the Storehouse Managers specific conversation would remain the same as it is now so it can be used generically, which avoids the chokepoint problem.

    I guess it could be classified as new tech, but its really just a slight modification with the addition of the Alias variable and an if statement based on "if npc.Alias = null" for which name to display. Definitely requires a tech to make the update, so not something you would do, but at the same time a very basic code change of which variable to pass to the custom program.

    That's fine, the Siege scenes just seamed like an ideal spot for war effort re-supply "crates", one that I'd thought of over a year ago before your crate system existed.

    Thanks for your time, once again.
     
    Jakkal, Jun 28, 2021
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