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The Persistent World of Ambrosia Profile by Jay Watamaniuk
Website please:UO Abigail: http://ambrosiapw.game-host.org/index.php While the website itself is not fully fleshed out, we do have a relatively active message board with links to additional information. What is your experience that lead up to helping with a PW?UO Abigail: I began small by scripting minor things to learn my way through NWScript. I eventually found NWN Lexicon, the godsend of scripting and my personal bible, hehe. At one point, I released an adult-oriented script for the social servers that was later pounced upon and expanded by others. Though not my proudest moment, it was a learning experience, and it later became the basis for my methods for scripting other systems. (You can download DirtyActions from NWVault.) Personally, my wife finds the original scripts quite humorous, hehe. Eventually, I felt confident enough to begin work on my own crafting system (UOACraft) that was originally based on Ultima Online's crafting system. Having been a UO player for 4+ years, I knew UO crafting inside and out, and I opted for a more flexible crafting system than CNR and ATS provided. It uses "recipes" as items within the crafting stations rather than click-through conversations, which I found to be quite cumbersome.
I read that you use 99% custom scripting. What do you mean by that?UO Abigail: In regards to 99% custom scripting, I am referring to the fact that, besides a few subsystems, such as smooth edge transitioning, color encoder, pwfxp by knat, and a bank gold persistence system, the rest of the module has been custom scripted by myself--UOAbigail. The aforementioned subsystems have also been modified from their NWVault releases to mesh properly with my own systems. Beyond that, I have begun modifying BioWare stock scripts for spells to change their behavior. For example, the Magic Missile spell now has a Wizard version and a Sorcerer version. Both no longer have a five missile limitation; a level 40 spellcaster will have 20 missiles. However, the missiles will now fire off to their target at the rate of one missile per second. The damage for each missile has also been modified. The Wizard version is more damaging, doing 2d4+1+Wizard level in damage per missile. So, a level 40 wizard will do 2d4+1+40 hp damage per missile. The Sorcerer version is 1d6+1+(Sorcerer level/2) in damage, and is much weaker. Both classes, however, can spend XP to increase their missile damage and effectiveness, and by increasing "Alternate Advancement" after level 10, they can accumulate up to 10 levels of enhanced missiles, which basically adds up to 10 additional missiles, plus all missiles do up to +10 damage each. Thus, a level 40 wizard spending 10 AA levels on Enhanced Magic Missiles would have 30 missiles, each doing 2d4+1+50hp damage. Alternate Advancement XP is accumulated by percentage (set by the player in the AA subsystem of the OOC Tool conversation). 0-100% of combat XP awarded to the player can be diverted from "character level advancement" XP to "AA" XP (AA XP may total up to 10,000 points). Once the player has accumulated 1,000 AA XP (one full red bar), they can assign level 1 AA to one specific AA skill, such as the enhanced magic missiles. This clears the bar, and they must then gain 2,000 XP to fill two bars in order to assign level 2 AA to a level 1 AA skill. This allows me to literally drain off 63,000 XP (1000+2000+3000 and so on) XP from character level advancement while still giving the PC more power and preventing them from reaching level 40 as fast, thereby increasing the playable lifespan of a character. This is per AA skill that is raised from level 0 to level 10. Currently, there are three AA skills at level 10+ for about six classes, and an additional six AA skills at level 15+ for all classes, and more will be added as time progresses. *Whew* I know that was a mouthful, hehe, but I do hope it gives you a sense of what is being accomplished on Ambrosia. :) What are weapon augmentations?
There must be at least two PCs of level 10+ that are all within four levels of each other in the party for them to be allowed to accept a mission. The mission will (currently) lead them to one of two doors placed on the landscape. Each door will link the party to one of four possible destinations, depending on the mission selected. There are multiple mission types available, including assassination of a leader, slaughter of a specific number of a specific creature, gathering a specific number of a specific item from creatures in a dungeon, constructing specific placeables within a dungeon, or demolishing a specific number of a specific placeable in a dungeon. The rescue a NPC mission has yet to be implemented. The level of monsters encountered is based on the level of the party leader who selects the mission. On each mission, there will be two spawned boss creatures. Each boss creature will have one augment as loot, among other possible unique items. The party has 30 real life minutes to find and enter the dungeon or the quest/mission fails. Once inside, the party cannot rest (they have to exit to rest and then re-enter) and they have two real life hours to complete the mission. If they fail to complete it after two hours, they will be booted from the area back to the entry door with a failed mission loss of one karma. Success on the mission adds one karma, which can be spent later for additional unique items. Augments enhance item properties. An example augment would be +1d4 fire. This augment can only be applied to a weapon and will permanently add +1d4 fire damage property to the weapon. Weapons can only have one augment added unless the weapon is exceptionally crafted or it otherwise states that more than one augment can be added. A PC can find a special augment battery that adds an additional empty augment slot to the weapon, thereby increasing the possible growth of item properties. There are additional means of increasing the number of augments available on the weapon, but those means are limited and require some measure of travel and combat to achieve. Augments may also be found for armor, gloves, shields, helmets, rings, and so on. All of the above information applies to each of the item types allowed. A PC can even make weight reduction bags if they find the correct augments. Did I hear something about Process Weapons?
Any creature which spawns with a weapon has a chance of that weapon being a Proc weapon, and yes, they will use them against the players too! Hehe. You have a version of custom housing in Ambrosia as well, do you not?UO Abigail: On the custom housing front, I am using a pseudo-instanced housing system whereby a PC buys a house deed, in Ultima Online fashion, and then must find a suitable location to place the house. It will appear immediately if the location is valid for the house type, and the PC will have access to set the house to public or private and to place furniture inside. Furniture is crafted by PC carpenters using UOACraft carpentry skill. The placeable furniture is inventory-based, meaning it's a crate in your backpack until you target a location in your house with it, at which point it becomes a placeable crate at that location and can be moved on x/y/z axes, as well as rotated, and then locked into place. There is the additional freedom to later change its position and orientation if needed, all without assistance from DMs or module builders. Storage in placeable crates inside of houses is persistent and dynamic, meaning if you want more storage...add more crates, hehe. All of the housing system respawns at server-up, so it is truly persistent, and contents are spawned into the house when a PC enters the house and despawned when the last PC leaves, thereby freeing up that house's template area for another player to utilize. What are some other modifications you have made to the basic systems of Neverwinter Nights?UO Abigail: I have also modified the default BioWare heartbeat script for monsters and NPCs to literally force any creature that uses it to simply teleport to a non-PC area and self-destruct. This prevents standard palette creatures from ever being killed by players, and allows me to ensure that all creatures are customized to utilize the systems I have set forth for the module. As for factioning, I have abandoned, for the most part, the normal four factions that come with NWN. I have created custom factions with OnPerception and OnDeath scripting and local variables stored on the OOC Tool that each player carries to ensure proper control of faction relationships in regards to players and their chosen subraces. It is possible, through time, to sway a faction into liking or even adoring you, although it is much, much easier to make a faction hate you outright, hehe. The relationships are so complex between the factions I have in-game that I literally have to keep separate notes to properly create new relationships without disturbing the older, established ones. This results in a very diverse starting game for players and can evolve in many directions. For example, a player could choose to become friends with the lizard-like Iss'Darians, but as a result, they would become hated by the Ardisians, which the Iss'Darians are at war with. Although, through quests and other faction relationships, a PC could manage to maintain friendly relations on both sides of this war if they are careful enough. This brings me to the unique spawner system I have scripted. I realize the usefulness and speed of using trigger-based encounters (as in standard NWN) or even NESS-style waypoint versions, but I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I scripted, from the ground up, a new spawner system that uses visible placeables as spawners, utilizing the nifty ability to store local variables on placeables directly in the toolset! ;) Thus, I can decorate my areas and spawn creatures from the same object(s) used to decorate the areas. It also allowed me to make a more efficient spawner, IMO, because spawner scripts are only run once every five module heartbeats, and only once for each area that contains a PC. If no PC is present, no script runs and no spawns appear. This has greatly improved server performance in regards to spawns, and allows me to continue to spawn creatures in an area even if a PC is not moving, which means resting in a hostile area can be deadly as a spawn can happen next to you without warning. That is a small list of features available in Ambrosia. There are plenty of additional features, but I do not wish to take up hours of your time explaining them all here, hehe. ;) ~
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Then there is Ambrosia itself, for which I am the sole builder and scripter at present, though applications are available for those who wish to join up and contribute. Currently, I have had 3 donators of content, all of whom are credited.
UO Abigail: Weapon augmentations are basically gems, of a sort. If you have ever played EverQuest then you will have some familiarity with augments. Augmentations are currently only gained through cooperative play on level 10+ adventures. Basically, a level 10+ adventure is patterned after EverQuest's LDON expansion, although only in concept--I did not/will not copy their work in this regard.
UO Abigail: Process, or Proc, is the process by which a random chance is determined for whether the weapon focus power will activate when it hits an opponent. In Ambrosia, we have Proc weapons which use OnHit:Unique Power OnHit (lvl 1) abilities. A sample Proc weapon would be a Minor Cold Focus Battle Axe. This battle axe, when used to strike an opponent (and succeeds in striking them), will have a chance of activating the cold focus power, which will send a visual display of impact (a beam or other combination of visuals) and have a chance of applying 20 points of cold damage to the target. Resistances and immunities do apply to this damage, of course, and the target gets a save DC based on the level of the wielder. Proc damage amounts range from 20hp, 35hp, 50hp, 75hp, 100hp, 125hp, and so on, to about 250hp. There are 10 total power levels of Proc weapons using 13 damage types, including DOT (damage over time) effects, such as a poison that afflicts the target with initial damage and additional damage every six seconds for a short period of time (similar to Melf's acid arrow).
