What are variables and what do they do

[jayvee97]

PLease try to explain in stupid form so that I can understand it lol

[Aminveloscasin]

Re: What are variables and what do they do

What are variables and what do they do?

I believe many people have asked this question. I also believe no one has done it accurately nor will I. But I will give it a shot.

What do they do?

Well variables can act in one of three ways.

Variables can count (some things)
Variables can lock
Variables can unlock

Variables can count.
Assume for a moment you want the actions of your main character to "change" the way people treat you. This would involve a reputation system. The easiest way to remember/make the system would be having an internal variable keep track of the main characters action. For every good action the character did his internal variable would increase. While for every bad character action his internal variable would decrease. Of course you would need to start your character at lets say 100. Which would be neutral alignment.

Variables can unlock.
A character with an internal variable of 150 or higher could perhaps get certain bonus's or be treated better by the people. To set this up you would need to make three modes for the event/character he interacted with. The first mode would count his variable(check his variable) depending on his variable. This would be set up through a Val-Conditional Branch. If the character had over 150 or higher reputation that event branch would activate. This would therefore unlock the 150 or over val-conditional branch.

If this was set up = example
A character could could have 150 rep. and since he has a 150 rep he gets the special sword which is only given to the righteous.

Variables can lock
Assume a character has 150 rep pts but this does an evil deed and is now below 150. Well since he is below 150 and no longer righteous he event that would allow him to get the special sword is locked.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can lock/unlock/count other things as well.

Assume you only want a quest to be allowed if the player has defeated the evil ogre!!! Well, you could make an event mode to modify the quest masters mode which would allow you to do the next quest or you could use variables to unlock it under a conditional.
(Modifying would be easier)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can also lock people out from areas through conditional means. Say you want your hero to go into the cave of disaster but only after defeating the three demons. Otherwise you would have an auto-event that would kick him out of the cave until the hero defeated the three demons. Well, after each demon was killed you could increase the variable of the disastercave so that when the auto event had a variable of 3 or above it would no longer activate (which means the hero would no longer be kicked out of the cave)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Variables are a correct term for what they are.
Variables simply stand for something else. Whether its defeating a monster...finishing a quest...talking to the mayor...or cuddling with a baby. The variable is simplly a symbol for that action.

Think of words and how they are referenced. What does TV stand for?
TV is just a symbol for an actual object. Variables are way for the game to keep track of actions made by the player in the game.

Things you can't count that we all wished we could!
= money & level