Re: LoC 2024 - Development Thread

[Amaryllis]

I think the monk look was the appeal hehe

But that looks good too

[nargil66]

I'm taking a break from LoC to work on NewSkins III for a while. I'm not very productive the last few days, maybe making some new skins and models will recharge my skill cooldowns

[nargil66]

Ok, started working on LoC again... what is done in the last few days:

- Ported all the new dyes from NewSkins III to LoC, with help from @soa . They are usable, but not linked to any NPC currently.
- This got me to the next point, starting to utilize the unique non-speaking NPC records (vanilla) that i have tracked from before. Moved a couple of healers, restored some speaking NPCs for lore sake, also Mystics will have anew look. Preview:



I'm still not sure if i should move dyes to a new vendor type as soa did for SV, but that's definitely an option. Maybe it's time to start adding the long delayed Illusionists...
Another thing, the skyboxes attached to the character are slightly improved. I donno if they will stay in the final version, but i'll keep them for now.

Edit - While i was working on the NPCs in Tegea, i noticed that the quest giver NPC for Leimon quest had somewhat weird animation before you speak with him. Fixed now. And since the quest giver Nymph is also near, ima improve her looks a bit. Then i can move on to Megara...

[nargil66]

Here she is, our sweet Pegaea :





On her head carrying a Hydria, a water jug. At first i wanted to use an Amphora, but then i saw that amphoras were used for wine and not for water. Then i was lucky enough to find a hydria model on Sketchfab

On to Megara!

Edit - Arrived at Megara, only to find that there are no unique NPCs there. The only 2 that are close to that have copies in Kencherai in Xpack2. But i'll try to think of something... in the meanwhile, the old fisherman in Megara has developed his own business, hehehe:

[nargil66]

What i'm working on for the last 2 days - i found a way to make fish appear pretty much in every water basin in the game, without the need to rework the map. The trick - i turned all the invisible sound objects (shown as green cylinders in Editor) that are located inside rivers and in the shores of the sea into fish



To preserve their ambient sounds (for which they are used), i made each fish monster to equip invisible armor, to which the corresponding sound object is attached. When you kill a fish monster, it respawns itself, and gives you a scroll via a quest trigger, which is the actual fish item that you can use. This is basically how it works now. Here is a video showing the mechanic in action:

[nargil66]

Today's progress - rearranged/restored a few NPCs in Megara, and added custom dyes from the new ARC to vendors in Helos and Sparta. Also reworked a few old and ugly skin packs.
My plan for the future regarding dyes is the same as it was for EG mod - each settlement in the game to have its own set of dyes. You go in Sparta - you dress like a Spartan. Delphi or Athens will have different dress code. I think it's convincing enough, and gives much more variety than vanilla.
This night i'll focus more on fish buffs, as they were left unfinished. If i find a way to simplify them even more... idk, will see how it goes.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Looking forward to playing it nargil.   

[nargil66]

I'll give my best to not disappoint, Medea

Second night working on the fish buffs... it's mostly slow and tedious, but it must be done. It's still early for previews, i'll just say that i reduced the amount of fish buffs drastically (to 25 total), but they are more useful now. Stay tuned!

[nargil66]

Here is the latest progress:



- Fishing Pole is now turned to a skill prop (appears only while you use the Fishing skill), which allows you to fish regardless of your equipped weapons
- Added 25 random Fish Buffs (finally finished them)

[Medea Fleecestealer]

What is it with fishing in games.     Seems to be an almost standard thing in some of them.  Hilarious.  Still we always need food don't we. 

[nargil66]

What is it with fishing in games.     Seems to be an almost standard thing in some of them.  Hilarious.  Still we always need food don't we.

Fishing has become a staple to some ARPGs like Torchlight or Fate. I like fishing, it adds flavor, its relaxing and make you take things not too seriously Like : "I have to save the world, but ill do it a bit later. Right now i'll try my luck in catching Asclepian Viperfish"

[nargil66]

Latest progress - i recompiled all records and resources for the fishing mod into a new ARC (took me one day to move everything). I plan to release it as a standalone mod too when it is ready. Other than that, i fixed fish floating above the water in water basins, added 25 new magical fish buffs (weaker) and tweaked some of the fish buff names and bonuses. You can even catch a tiny Kraken now, haha (those who visit the official TQ Discord may get the joke ):

[nargil66]

@Bumbleguppy , the latest source files are on Nexus now, just letting you know.

This fishing system is taking longer than expected. But it's shaping quite well at the moment. I still haven added the money and item granting fishes, also there will be a special fish that increases your fishing speed for a duration. Since fishes are from the Animal race, which is unused race except for wolf pets in Nature, the fishing skill works by dealing huge amount of flat damage only to that race. Otherwise you can't kill a fish, it has millions of hit points. So the "fishing skill fish" will give % more damage to Animals, to make your default skill faster... also fishing is affected by casting speed, since it's a projectile skill... but i cant avoid that.

Btw, one of the buffs is negative - the Pandora Hexfish buff:


It's nasty, and given the fact it lasts 3 minutes like the other fish buffs, it can be quite annoying, hehe

Edit - progress from last night: I added the money granting fishes and made so each magical or rare buff has 50% chance to affect the entire party. LoC is a pet mod after all   Also reduced the cooldown of fish scrolls to 60 seconds. The buff duration is 180 seconds, so you can stack up to 3 fish buffs at a given time. Idk if it's balanced, later testing will show.

[nargil66]

Here is a link to the stand-alone version (early alpha) of the fishing mod:
https://mega.nz/file/qwoB3bra#YoOjspIVepApZNYZ33TCBRsWKZVDrrr4sUS6h6Z09Ys
I simplified things as best as i could, i hope someone here will give it a try and provide feedback

[nargil66]

Something i started yesterday (because i'm tired of the fishing thing for the moment):




Ore deposit variants:

Spoiler for Hiden: