[Gothic 2] Multiplayer - Monsters and NPCs

[boddynight]

I've already asked about this in the Gothic Multiplayer thread and Aeterox has already helped with it, yet I think it is better if I make a separate topic because I might have other questions as I make changes to the game.

So my original question was abot putting monsters - and NPCs for that matter - in the Gothic Multiplayer. Aeterox told me that I can spwan them after I change the scripts, but I was wondering if I can insert monsters which are always on the map, regardless if I spwan them or not. In other words, when I enter the game I want them to be at specific positions on the map.

I also have a question regarding the perceptions. Aeterox said something like this:

As I said I don't recommend you to do it however because they won't be synchronised and attack other players, who can't defend themselves unless you change the perceptions.
My question is, what exactly are this perceptions and how can I modify them?

[Aeterox]

No, NPCs aren't supported by GMP and that script stuff is just a dirty workaround. It sounds like you want to have NPCs serverside so that they exist for all players and are spawned on server start - that's not possible.

By perceptions I mean that NPCs in your sightrange can sense you. In GMP they attack other players immediately. You can influence it by editing the files in _work/Data/Scripts/Content/AI/Human/B_Human. In example it makes sense to include this check in the function B_AssessEnemy in B_AssessEnemy.d:


if (Npc_IsPlayer (other) == FALSE)
{
Npc_GetNextTarget(self);
return FALSE;
};

or


if (Npc_IsPlayer (other) == FALSE)
{
Npc_GetNextTarget(self);
return;
};
in case of functions that don't return anything (basically void).

This disables the perception of NPCs for NPCs in your client and makes sure that they can only sense you. Thus bandits won't fight pirates too and so on. There might be other files in this directory which you might edit with this condition.

[boddynight]

Too bad you can't have NPCs at all times, for all players. That solution with the scripts isn't much help either. Do you think that in future versions this will be made possible?

[Aeterox]

It's not planned for the upcoming update and I'm not sure if it will happen in the future. I'd rather recommend you to keep track of our project Untold Chapters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRbgHZSHFD0) for synchronised NPCs. Back when this video was recorded NPCs were not synchronised yet but now they are. Only one player can talk with them and the others hear the dialogue and so on. It's not released yet though because there's still other work left to do.

[boddynight]

Ok, thanks for your help. I'll keep an eye on that project; although it's not what I was looking for, I guess it's better than nothing.

[Aeterox]

What else are you looking for?