Bare Elf Rescue Map

This is a log of the things that were done to make the map. It's primarily to give me a place to make notes as I hit problems, so that the solutions don't get lost.

The map reuses the burnt (Vai'lutra) forests of the Broken World map, and I've additionally scorched the town of Aman'lu (and rebuilt sections) and burned parts of the Vai'kesh forest and Calennor Wood as well, by replacing textures, and substituting burnt trees and bushes for normal ones. The Surgeon dungeons were replaced with houses (the one with a basement, so I could put useful things down there) and some of the other dungeons replaced with custom ones. A few logs have now fallen across entrances to side canyons, so that an axe or chainsaw will be needed to get past them.

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The green section of the Callenor wood near the elven shrine was retained as a refuge for some of the larger animals. The Elven Shrine there was removed, as were all Elven items that looked out of place in SoCal (although I'm sure you could find a real example of almost anything in California).

There are a fair number of neutral ambient creatures available in the Dungeon Siege bestiary that are not too strange to be used in this map, but I have made a few extras. I already had a Horse model from making Red for The Halloween Special Late Late Show, and I've made a duck and a kitten specially for this one. With the dogs, cows, pigs, pack ram, mules, deer, frog and gecko, there should be enough variety.

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The Challenges

The main hurdle to overcome was the lack of a BWMOD to test run the results. Although it is possible to run with DS2MOD, there are enough changes in basic functions to cause problems from time to time, and a significant number of skrit errors are thrown at startup.

It is not possible to make this map to run with regular DS2, as the use of the BW material means that a licensed BW should also be required. There is some DS1 material brought in, too, but GPG did that a lot, so I don't feel it's breaking the EULA to follow GPG's lead.

The Game

The start point is where the hall would have been in Aman'lu. I removed the building entirely, and put a tent camp on a flat area of scorched grass as yor base. The tents are the merchant tent from DS1, that was present, but unused in DS2. A single "quartermaster" merchant can be found in camp, and he'll give you certain supplies, like rope and refilled fire extinguishers.

There is no combat, just a hunt for the animals, and along the way you have to solve a few problems, like the fallen trees blocking the path, or a bridge out that you'll need to rebuild. You also need to find the tools in basements and underground shelters, but many of those will be locked and you'll have to find the keys.

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Your team will be yourself plus Bare Elf, Dog and Red. They'll join automatically when you talk to the camp leader, and you will need each one to complete the game. Some animals can only be herded by Dog, but he also frightens the deer, so he has to wait while you rescue those. Only Red will be strong enough to carry all the material to rebuild the bridge. Lili's mainly there to have conversations to guide the game, but she can wield an axe or a chainsaw or a hammer when you need her to do so.

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Bare Elf is shown riding Red at the start of the game, but because it's pretty well impossible to handle mount and dismount during the game, the opening sequence explains that she's had enough riding just getting there, and needs to re-educate her legs!

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Part Two

Lili's idea of a search for the seeds to replant the forest has morphed into a set of puzzles you must solve, to get the keys to the rainbow, which represents the rebirth of the forest. My rationale for the change is that seeds would be too small to represent properly in a UI, whereas the keys would be quest items appearing in your journal. To compensate for the lack of a search, I added the puzzles to solve, so you'd still have to work hard to restore the forest in another way.

You enter part two by way of a NIS where Lili is dreaming about the things that were said in the last conversation, which mentioned fire, Dryads, rain and sunshine. The last two imply a Rainbow, and her imagination fills in the rest of the story. You join her in her dream in a clearing in the forest, where you talk to a Dryad to start the quests.

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I built a new example of each of the puzzle types encountered in DS2 and BW, so there are (in order of their construction):

  • A light channel puzzle like the ones for the Jewels of Soranith in Act 3 of DS2.
  • A brand-new variation of those, using custom nodes, where you place stones in sockets to light the channels.
  • A waterworks puzzles like the Agallan Trial from Act 3.
  • A mirror dungeon with rotating statues
  • A connected lights polygonal puzzle like the Vault of Therayne in BW.
  • A plain old maze puzzle wandering over a beach and caves.

Once you have collected all the keys, which are in the form of a crytal sphere like a giant raindrop, you can teleport to the End of the Rainbow (cue a few Wizard of Oz jokes) and place them at an altar to fire up a rainbow.

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The "To Do" List

  • Eliminate the parts of the character UI that don't apply in this game - Powers, skills, etc.
  • Bypass the Mercenary/Veteran/Elite level menu
  • Amend the lore book to have two sections, animals rescued, and quest items (keys etc) - remove the rest
  • Skrit for party restrictions - Dog/Red in party only with Lili. - this not needed now there are requirements for round-up/hauling to make each one essential to party.
  • More fidget animations for animals, so they don't all move in unison.
  • Widget for putting out fires - an "object_breakable" that you can only attack with an extinguisher. Trigger turns off flame emitter. Fire extinguisher mesh and template exist, CO2 effect needed.
  • NIS for bridge rebuild - I have a bridge deck mesh for hammering on (the animation for that is DS2 standard, but not yet adapted for BE mesh), and there are broken and repaired bridges defined on the map to be enabled/disabled by the flick, but the sequence itself must be scripted. The bridge swap idea came from the one in Aman'lu that Finala repairs, and I had enough problems copying that setup that it probably deserves its own page once this project is finished.
  • NIS flick of Dog bringing in the kittens, and their mother. - hard part will be how not to show him carrying them, as dual-creature animations are nasty to achieve. This is triggered by rescuing fifty animals (which gets a quest update) and then talking the quartermaster in camp. I left out the mother and just did kittens.
  • NIS of chainsawing and dragging aside the tree across the side-canyon. The chainsaw animation exists for BE from Halloween, but need a new mesh for Horse-collar and ropes for Red, so he can haul stuff (which can be off-screen, that way one sequence can be re-used for both bridge and tree)
  • (Lili's great idea) Second pass of the map finding seeds to replant the forests. I'm thinking about a "dream sequence" NIS where a dryad asks you to do this - after all Humans started the fire, so it's their responsibility. I've made a pine cone object to act as the search item, but I still need to figure out a UI for pass two. The map area has been constructed, but the flick to enter/leave it is needed. The dryad has a custom head and a new talk animation.
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Things done so far

Almost done the first one! The combat stats have been removed from the character display, which has lost all but one of its tabs (no spells, no powers, so much simpler). What has been added is a list of animals and counts of those rescued so far.

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The counters are kept by the LocalJournal singleton via AddInt and GetInt and named as shown on the display. I added a flick function for the AddInt request that gets used in a talk flick to "rescue" each critter. That flick checks any requirements for party member or equipment (such as a rope or a sack), and deletes the item used from inventory. At present the animal then disappears - I may do something else later.

One drawback of using a talk flick is that each animal placed needs its instance updated in the actors.gas for the region to add the conversation, but at least the conversations themselves are re-usable for all members of that species. If a special flick is needed for a specific instance, that's also easy to set up.

I have laboriously created all the portrait icons for the animals by capturing a picture from the animation viewer, as well as inventory icons for all the new items. So that lot is in the "done" pile, too.

Various NIS flicks have been completed; for the tree and bridge obstacles, and an intro sequence before the game starts, and the story of Dog and the kittens once you have rescued 50 or more creatures.

Part two is sort of done - it's not what was orginally planned and may get adjusted a bit to reinforce the seeds/keys connection

There's a composite map that won't be part of the distributed files here. The puzzles are all reached via portals so a map is not helpful for those. The playable map is here. The map now requires Elys' All*saves or Succubus Manager as plain BW refuses to run it.

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