Re: LoC 2024 - Development Thread

[nargil66]

I open this new thread to post development progress, roadmaps, previews and such. Bumbleguppy has granted me full freedom on what to add or work on, for which i'm very grateful to him. Here are my current plans for the development of LoC:

1. Adding equippable mounts and brand new mount vendors to each game act. This has already been started, but will take time to finish. Here is an old video to show the idea in action:


2. Improving visuals of some pets (i'll start with the nymphs of course, haha) and LoC related items.

3. Adding more QoL features - this includes some of the features already implemented in Enhanced Gameplay, like lore text descriptions, displaying accurate weapon attack speed, more character skins, etc.

4. Rework and a visual overhaul of many MI items -  LoC already has a lot of improvements regarding MIs, it will make things even easier.

5. More enemy heroes and bosses with unique visuals and skills - i love that feature in SV, and i'd love seeing it in LoC also.

6. Making a "hard mod" version of LoC (loadable from the main game).

This is what is planned for now. I'll try to avoid making too many plans, to not get ahead of myself, but you get the main idea.

Also, that means the development of EG is officially canceled. LoC is the better mod anyway, and far more rich in content, so i hope if you enjoyed playing EG, you'll enjoy LoC instead.

[Amaryllis]

Congratulations on taking up the torch Nargil! I'll be watching your progress with interest, young padawan...

[nargil66]

Congratulations on taking up the torch Nargil! I'll be watching your progress with interest, young padawan...

Hehe, someday i'll be a Jedi Knight, you'll see

Last night did some tweaks on my old Nymph model (vanilla UV) and beautified it a bit. The plan is this model to become default for all LoC nymphs:

Spoiler for Hiden:

In this case she's using Thiyad (maenad) skin, just for the showcase. The hair is one of many, so there will be plenty of variety.

[Antar36]

Another great model of yours. It looks really nice. In my opinion, it might be worth making an add-on mod like your other skins. Looking at it reminds of a great easter-egg in the game: "Dairy of a Teenage Meenid".

[nargil66]

Another great model of yours. It looks really nice. In my opinion, it might be worth making an add-on mod like your other skins. Looking at it reminds of a great easter-egg in the game: "Dairy of a Teenage Meenid".

Hehehe, thank you. No problem with making it an addon as well. I have plenty of nymph skins that remain not properly posted to this moment. So i'll just combine the two tasks in one.

[Prosoro]

Heyo Nargil o/ stoked to see you take the lead with LoC, well deserved sir!

Looking forward to see how it develops and all the sweet shiny mesh updates

[Akunde]

Glad to see this mod continuing. It has always been my favourite, all the way back since the Summoners Delight days. Keen to see where you take it take it Nargil and can't wait to test it.

Thank you for your many years developing the mod BG, I probably wouldn't have played TQ anywhere near as much as I have without your mods

[nargil66]

Thank you both @Prosoro and @Akunde , and sorry for not responding earlier. I just didn't want to talk much before there is some progress.

What is added/changed since the last video posted above:
- Horses equip on greaves slot instead of torso. That will be the case for some other illusion items as well. I had to swap templates of all torso and greaves armors in the game (and mod) to achieve that, but you shouldn't notice any difference. The reason i picked leg slot is that leg armors generally have less impact than torsos.
- Common horses are ready for the Egyptian Act also, just have to make the vendors who sell them. Preview:

Spoiler for Hiden:

- There are new base models for both playing characters, as well as some skins for them (from NewSkins mod). I still have to update them to the latest versions
- Inventory space is greatly increased. Instead of base space and 3 big bags now there are 3 huge bags and no base space at all
- I don't want to change the map when adding the new horse vendors, so instead i started tracking all unique non-speaking NPCs on the vanilla map using Editor, ArtManager and TextCrawler (setting the search to .LVL file extension). Unique in this case means there is just one instance or the given NPC anywhere in the game. Unique NPCs are currently tracked to the beginning of Immortal Throne, today I'll focus on finishing the list.

Edit: All unique NPCs up to Eternal Embers are tracked. EE itself will take more time however - there are much more NPC files than usual.

[nargil66]

Ok, i'm still stuck on the EE NPCs, and I was bored to death, so i had to do something more fun. I saw that Bumble has included Skeleton Generals in the Act I undead pools... so i thought - what if i make them ride on skeletal horses?  There is a full skeletal horse mesh in the TQ assets, i guess the original devs used it when creating bone piles. But now it's utilized for something more interesting:

[nargil66]

Made an NPC "overhead" icon for future illusion vendors today:

Also ported all unique NPC records to LoC.

[nargil66]

Some time ago i had this idea to make my friend Bumbleguppy a special NPC... Well, here he is :

I hope you like it BG, this is my tribute to you and everything you've done for me and for this game over the years.

[sauruz]

AH , being honest its hilarious (in good way) , nicely done.

The Donut flying is nice touch

[nargil66]

Hehe, i'm glad you like it sauruz The donut idea came from Amaryllis, the flying carpet is an idea by Icefreeze... it good to have friends, isn't it?

Some finishing touches:



Also comes with increased "Zoop-iness" hehe.

[Prosoro]

woah that's some epic tributes there hahah
Those generals look formidable! I can imagine one of the 'empty' caves becoming a new home to one of these, add some ghostly vfx and make one into a sort of Shadowmaw 2.0 xD

[nargil66]

Thanks, Prosoro! About the ghostly effect, that made me think - what if i turn all Greek skeletons to ghostly and rename them to Phasma? IMO normal skeletons fit Egypt, but not Greece. According to Theoi.com:

PHASMA Ghosts or phantoms which haunted the living. Some were corporeal in form, retaining their physical bodies, others were merely bodiless spirits.

So it can be anything basically. Another type of ghost is the Taraxippos (a horse-frightening spirit):

https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/PhasmaTaraxippoi.html

And since it's related to horses, maybe it can be a mounted ghost?
So much to do, so little time... 

I'm working on something else atm, but your idea is noted