Tutorial 6: Journals and Conversations
Compared to the previous two (covered in Part 4) tutorials this one is quite big and in places it can be a little confusing. Having said that, the first part about the Journal editor is quite straight forward.
So, go ahead and follow the tutorial all the way until you reach the section marked "Conversation: Falstadd". Now before proceeding you need to be aware of this -
Important. There is a known bug in the conversation editor. What it does is to make conversation editing impossible by killing already written lines when you click on them (click and they’re gone, erased). The thing is that it doesn’t affect everybody but does affect a large proportion of users. The good news is that there is something that can be done to prevent it. To be on the safe side do the following -
- In the toolset open the options dialogue (Tools/Options).
- Select the Spell Checking option.
- At the bottom there is a section for spell-checking conversations with a number of check boxes. You need to disable spell-checking for the conversation editor which is turned on by default. Un-Check the topmost checkbox in this section. The one that says “Automatically check spelling when editing conversation nodes”.
For what it's worth, as far as I know, the spell-checker has yet to be implemented. At least I have seen no evidence of it actually working.
Once you have done that start the "Conversation: Falstadd" section. Now you may be tempted to copy/paste the text that you are given in the tutorial, into the conversation editor. However, you'll discover that there is no paste option on the context (aka right-click) menu. Don't panic. The standard Windows hot keys work here. These are -
[CTRL]+[A] = Select All
[CTRL]+[C] = Copy
[CTRL]+[X] = Cut
[CTRL]+[V] = Paste
For example, when you get to instruction number three you are told to create a new NPC statement and add the text "Hello again, <FirstName>. Have you learned anything about the mine?". So, proceed up to the point where you are told to enter this text. To copy & paste that text using the hot keys do the following. Highlight the text, hold down the [CTRL] key and press [C] to copy it (or use the context menu Copy option when viewing the tutorial). Switch to the toolset where you should have the toolset open with the conversation editor active. Press and hold the [CTRL] key and press [V] to paste the text into the text entry box. And that's all there is to using the hot keys. Incidentally this also works in the node text editing box at the bottom of the conversation editor.
Armed with that information you now have a little less work to do here. Still there is quite a bit to do. So, continue on all the way up to the Extra Credit section.
Now did you remember to "update instances" on both Falstadd and Veran? If not, when your PC runs up to them, they will just shuffle about and say nothing (guilty as charged m'lud - it happens to everybody so don't panic, just update instances now if you forgot).
That is almost that. However, I do strongly recommend that you do the extra credit section. Remember, if you are stuck on how to do something with the innkeeper's conversation, all the information you need is contained in this tutorial. Having said that, there is a subtle difference in the way you start the process of giving this conversation to the innkeeper, so I'll start you off.
Select the innkeeper from the Creatures/Standard/NPCs/Human part of the blueprints and paint it down where you are told to in the Extra Credit section. Now double-click this instance of an innkeeper you've just placed. This will open the properties dialogue for this instance of an innkeeper. Double-clicking to bring up the properties is a new feature of the Enhanced Edition. You can now proceed in the same way as for the previous conversations. Doing it this way means that the conversation will be unique to just this particular innkeeper. That being so, you have no other instances to update. Once you save the conversation (and any scripts associated with it) and the module you can try it out straight away with no further steps.
For the conversation I would suggest that you make it one (like Falstadd's) with a part that is only spoken the first time the PC speaks to the innkeeper. Other than that, I am saying nothing. It's good practice and will give you experience of actually typing in the conversation editor along with using the script wizard for yourself.
And that's that. See you in Part 6.