Topic: Spare NPC's

[Grimoire LD]

Along the lines of my AI Conditionals hack this will go through the NPC's and look for the ones that can be freely changed without consequence (or to those who want to add a few more meaningful NPC's to the game; hint: All Dancers will be on this list.)

Cecil's Maid (Superfluous)
Baron Dancer
All Books NPC's
Kaipo Dancer
Fallen Soldier - Bank 2 Message 1
Fallen Soldier - Terrible Bombardments... (Why is That its own Event Square?!)
Captain - Not Used? (Unused)
Chocobo - Not Used? (Unused)
Baron Dancer's Dress (not even used by default in SNES FFII)
Dancer's Leg in Water
Soldier - Not Used? (Unused - When spawned correctly he only has a D filler line.)
Fabul Dancer
Mist Bomb, Not Used (Unused)
Agart Dancer
Mysidia Dancer
Troia Dance Troupe's Dance
Sleeping Bubble (Superfluous)
-------------------------------------
Underworld/Moon


Invisible (Obtaining Magazine)
Invisible (Obtaining Grimoire 6C)
Invisible (Obtaining Grimoire 6D)
Sylph (Unused?) (Has no data other than a sprite)
Invisible (Obtaining Grimoire 91)
Dwarf (Dancer)
Sleeping Bubble (2)
Heart Bubble (Only used during the Ending?)
Sleeping Bubble (3)
NPC 495-511 (Copies of Dark Knight Cecil)

There are 16+ NPC's in the Overworld which can be freely modified (if you don't care about losing the dancers)
And there 20+ NPC's in the Underworld/Moon which can also be modified.

This should give a modder some good amount of freedom when they want to create new NPC's.
And there are

[chillyfeez]

You can't really use "NPC1."
00 terminates the list of NPCs in each location, so if you try to place this in a map, the game will see it and stop loading NPCs.
Also, remember that the latter 256 NPCs are the NPCs for the underworld and moon. I believe it is impossible to load them in the overworld, and likewise it's impossible to load the former 256 in the underworld and moon.

[Grimoire LD]

Hah... how could I have forgotten that? In any case the main post has been updated to reflect that.

[LordGarmonde]

Would it be possible to change the world as part of the routine for entering an area? So, for instance, I enter Antlion's Den but instead of loading that it changes the world index first and then loads the map (whatever it may be - I'm too lazy to look it up right now)

Also - glad to see the forum back up and that you're still at it. I'm hoping with this semester done I can get back to business in here. 

[chillyfeez]

There are ways to make it happen, LordGarmonde, but you'd have to kinda trick the game using flags and events.
Let's say, for example, I want Cave Magnes to be a "world vortex" - every time you go in from the Overworld, you exit back out to the Underworld, and vice-versa.
1) find an arbitrary event flag (anything over 200 or so is pretty safe).
2) Create two tiny events:
   i) Load Overworld at (x,y), clear event flag x, end.
   ii) Load Underworld at (x,y), set event flag x, end.
3) Set the entrance/exit of the cave to be an event trigger
4) Set the event call to say, "if event flag x is set, run event i. Else run event ii."

[LordGarmonde]

Ah, clever! It makes me wonder if the game uses a similar trick going through the pitfall in the Tower of Babil: I would think so if not something similar. I also thinking now about something like this bing used to active Rubicante's teleporter.

[chillyfeez]

Ah, clever! It makes me wonder if the game uses a similar trick going through the pitfall in the Tower of Babil: I would think so if not something similar.

Oh, absolutely, except the process is masked with much more event going on.

I also thinking now about something like this bing used to active Rubicante's teleporter.

Yikes. New device, new autocorrect?
 

[LordGarmonde]

I also thinking now about something like this bing used to active Rubicante's teleporter.

Yikes. New device, new autocorrect?
 

That's nice of you to give me the benefit of the doubt. However...it's more like the attached picture...  - lol

[chillyfeez]

Ha! 7th Saga! I used to love that game until I discovered how disappointing and seemingly slapdash the end is.

[LordGarmonde]

Ha! 7th Saga! I used to love that game until I discovered how disappointing and seemingly slapdash the end is.

The writing did take a nose-dive towards the end...

I wrote more on it here... I didn't want to end up hijacking this thread     http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1911.msg21576#msg21576

[Grimoire LD]

Would it be possible to change the world as part of the routine for entering an area? So, for instance, I enter Antlion's Den but instead of loading that it changes the world index first and then loads the map (whatever it may be - I'm too lazy to look it up right now)

Also - glad to see the forum back up and that you're still at it. I'm hoping with this semester done I can get back to business in here. 

Glad to see you back LordGarmonde! Yes, things have been a bit slower and this semester was absolutely terrible, but it's finally over for now. Chillyfeez answered your quandary well enough though in a much better way that I could have.

[JCE3000GT]

LOL Bonus points for the 7th Saga reference / picture.  I too loved that game until the ending...

[LordGarmonde]

Glad to see you back LordGarmonde! Yes, things have been a bit slower and this semester was absolutely terrible, but it's finally over for now. Chillyfeez answered your quandary well enough though in a much better way that I could have.

Thanks Grimoire LD! You guys always make me feel as welcome as Norm was every time he walked into Cheers. 

LOL Bonus points for the 7th Saga reference / picture.  I too loved that game until the ending...

Thanks JCE300GT! Since we all agree about the ending together we can collectively erase the world's memory of that part. 

 I'm curious - how did you guys play? I was generally very loyal - i.e. I'd pick one ally and stick with them forever. Over the years, though, I shifted - first taking on others until I got to my top pick - and just this last run (or two?) really cut-throating them: get 'em - steal their stuff - dump 'em.

The one thing that never changed was my hunting them - I always went around looking for them (like constantly) trying to pick fights. How 'bout you guys. That'd be an interesting mechanic to build into FF4. It seems easy enough to put any given character as an opponent in battle. I actually played around with a fight against Cecil, Kain and Rosa. Two notes about that: 1) Jump as an enemy command seems to imply "everyone jump" - or something similar, it was causing issues with more than one character enemy (clearly meant for solo opponents only) and 2) I remember having a spot of trouble with the optimal formation for multiple character enemies - I think it has something to do with how they lined up vertically: I recall that it worked pretty well when they were all staggered.  -- Now, where did I actually put that file... 


   - I just noticed I didn't even upload the right pic! It was one line too late  - oh well, all better! 

[JCE3000GT]

I always have loyalty on game characters like this.  I do this for Final Fantasy 6, Chrono, Romancing SaGa, and Suikoden.  :D

[chillyfeez]

I seem to remember having trouble getting a second character to join up. After I made my first ally, usually everyone else just wanted to fight.
Been a long time since I played it, but I'm pretty sure my "dream team" was Lux and Esuna. The orange dude (what was he supposed to be, an alien or something?) was good too.
I also remember the music from the game being annoying enough that sometimes it made it hard to play for very long...