Ok, be nice now... ;P NEWB ALERT!

[Deebingo]

Hey guys and gals!

I just purchased RPGM3 last week and have been toying around with it whenever I get the time. I've been very excited about the prospect of creating my own RPG but am becoming more and more overwhelmed by the sheer complexity (at least to me anyways) of the scripting elements in this game. I have NO experience with past RPGM games and absolutely NO experience in any sort of scripting or programming.

I've been trying to try and teach myself by loading the "Dear Brave Heart" data and examining the scripts in the events section but seem to get more and more confused, and the little precious time I have to play this game has been spent being frustrated. I have so many good ideas in mind for my game but I'm becoming discouraged by my lack of comprehension of what the manual has to offer and thus, how to even put it together.

I would like to ask the experienced members of this community to try and be patient with me and maybe give me some good advice as to where to start when it comes to event scripting and such. Are there any good faqs or tutorials that explain the functions with detailed examples for instance?

I hope I'm not irritating people too much by asking for help on such a broad topic but I feel like I need a helping hand in getting started with scripting my ideas.

EDIT: eh paragraphs are nice ><;
Thanks folks, D.Bingo

[abner]

Re: Ok, be nice now... ;P NEWB ALERT!

let me give some of it a shot :

in layout mode for a town or dungeon, hit X where you want to create a new character/event. Lets say its in a town and its a character that will join you if you say yes to him. You would create him then go into the event under either day or night and do the following :

Display Message (it will auto choose the character you are working on as the person speaking) "Hi, might I join you and fight the Giant Bunny-Chiken?"
Control - QA Branch (which allows you to create a yes and no option)
under the END for option Yes, choose Party control, Join, and the character that is joining
under the No (by the way both of these get stuff added by clicking x on the actual Yes or No line to add stuff to those conditions) so Under the NO, choose Display Message "Sorry you don't want me to join you suck."

and thats all there is to a simple interaction.

mess with doing your own. just looking at the brave heart *crap didn't help me very much.

You can do all kinds of things during these events you plop down on the map, like track internal variables by choosing Property Control and then changing internal variables of characters/etc. Then you can check for those by doing Conditional commands. Mess around with a new slate. Think of something you want to test and make the situation. then think of something else. and on and on.

hope that helps

[tjoris9]

Re: Ok, be nice now... ;P NEWB ALERT!

One thing I'm sure most newbies get confused about is the "Modes" and pretty much everything associated with them, as well as how they are related to your story's progress.

Essentially, each mode is a state of being for the character. One of the most basic uses of modes is the "before and after" usage.

You have two modes for the same character. The first dictates the character's behavior before the player accomplishes a task. The coding can be as simple as commanding the character to say "Please save my baby", or as complex as checking a variable to determine what the character will say, making the player answer a yes/no question, making the character say a response appropriate to the situation, and then chaning a variable, and chaning the character's mode accordingly. The former usage is what I'm assuming is more your level.

The second mode is for after the player has accomplished something of significance to the character. Again, it can be as simple as the character saying "Thank you for saving my baby", or as complex as checking variables and character responses until it decides that the appropriate text involves streams of foul language followed by the player being attacked by the bereaved woman.

To simplify:
The player character (PC) talks to the non-player character (NPC), which is currently in mode 1.

NPC: Please save my baby.

The PC goes to the goblin cave and rescues the baby. You, the creator, cleverly embed a code that changes the mode of the NPC (All that's important regarding the order is that the mode changes when the baby is rescued, and that you make sure there is no way to rescue the baby without changing the mode). The PC triumphantly returns to the NPC and talks to her. She is now in mode 2, and thus says:

NPC: That's not my baby!

The most important element of setting up the event codes is to understand that you are outlining a series of occurences. Each event code will play out in the order you list them.

Maybe I'll post a list of some of the more obscure codes and their uses later. For now, you've got lots of stuff to take in and play with.

[Omnislash024]

Re: Ok, be nice now... ;P NEWB ALERT!

Your best bet is try out things yourself. I never really got anything out of lookng at sample game code. The manual actually does help somewhat, so don't dismiss it casually. If you have a specific question, you can always come here for answers.

[Deebingo]

Re: Ok, be nice now... ;P NEWB ALERT!

Thanks to all who posted replys! I guess I'll take it slow and ask specific questions later. I think I'm starting to get some of it now....