Sacred 2 Developers Diary: English Translation

[Waaah 0]

Hi there,

I noticed that the "developer diarys" that are published in english are only the first two of five articles published in german. So I translated the thir d arcticle into (hopefully understandable) english. I have no idea whether or not Ascaron likes to see me do that or not but I'll give it a try.

 

Translation of the third diary entry by daniel balster about the questeditor:

How quests are developed in Sacred 2

 

To create the story and quests of sacred 2 we at studio 2 use our quest-editor which has extra been developed for this purpose. Every quest in almost every game consists of the following basic modules: Figures, items and connections. You could script this but it is much easier to do by some simple mouse clicks. You can always fall back on scripting but in most cases this isn’t even necessary.

 

Once a quest-author starts the editor he sees a simplistic version of the sacred landscape from the bird’s eye of view. Many tools enable him to navigate on the map, list and search for quests,figures or items. The detritus you can see on this map is a test-scenario for the level-designers – I like to use it as a playground to test special quest-techniques. All objects are disposed in a SQL-Database that is used by the editor. Because of this all authors can work on the same world simultaneously. To play the quests you just created,your database must simply be exported into the gamefolder.

 

Save my daughter!

For testing purposes I created a tiny and simple rescue-scenario: A man asks you to save his daughter. To be able to accept the quest your character has to walk through a “trigger-area” first. Only then the quest will be available. This can be seen by the question mark above the NPC. Because this NPC offers us a quest we started to use the term “questgiver”. For the author the quest will now look like in the picture.

 

The goblin is encircled and enlarged because the mouse points at this figure. The arrows and symbols that are connected to the figures display the coherences between them: A question mark for questgivers, exclamation mark for the target, red cross for victim,crosses for attackers and so on. If you point at the symbol called “RESCUE QUEST” you will get the options-dialog for this quest.

 

Standard forms ease the input

There are a few basic modules that can create every imaginable story. It is all about collecting, killing, triggering, trading, guarding or achieving a special goal. In this case friends shall be saved from some bad guys. So the author has to set the figures and doesn’t have to hack x,y,z-coordinates into the script – way easier and less bug producing! The fine adjustments can also be done with the editor. If – for example – an enemy figure has to be more detailed:

 

Additional parameters for authors with attention to detail

A huge library of behaviour, equipment and 3D-figures can be accessed to create a special enemy. If an author needs something custom built he orders the logic-programmers or the 3D-designers to create it and it will later be available in the selective list.

 

Because there is also a story to be told the text can be inserted here too. Due to the dialogues being disposed in the database you can switch between all the languages already and for example work with chinese or russian texts – you've got to understand it though. Many texts are optional and won’t be needed in many ingame situations. The author can leave them out or even create some completely different texts for special situations: For a female hero a different text could be used than for a male hero. Like this you can express friendship or hatred towards to different hero classes. The dubbing(sound recording) and furthermore the quest-book is also disposed in the editor.

 

Let the game begin!

Alright, exclusive and surely disappointing: Screenshots without landscape! As I said to test things I always play in a vast and scant landscape that somehow reminds me of the matrix. I already walked through the trigger and activated the question mark above the questgiver. Once I talk to him I can decide whether to accept the quest or not.

 

The questgiver is persistent, that means you can meet him at any time. The monster and the girl, however, will only be displayed once I have accepted the quest. How and at which time the figures shall appear in the world can be decided by the author. Like this he can control the story’s tension. Whether a figure can die before you get to it or not can be decided by the author and if the story can be played like this or not doesn’t matter at this stage. A special tool automatically checks the story and warns you if you have created something paradox.

 

Naturally all those mini-quests can be connected with each other: Search for the magician, get a valuable rune that gives you the power to survive in the area of the orcs. The orcs give you important information and so forth.

 

Finally a screenshot of a more complex area with many quest figures, markings and functions. Our designers are currently inventing a incredible exciting and interesting world without having to rely on programmers.

Edited July 6, 2007 by gogoblender

[erialc 2]

Waaah WOW Thank You so much for this translation. I have no idea how long this took you ibut you have the appreciation of all of us here at FDM for the work you have done

 

and and not forgetting the beers waiting for you on the bar!

 

[gogoblender 3,071]

Waaah, I wanted to personally thank you for your work here. Everyone knows how much of a difficult job it is to translate, and your offer of doing this for DarkMatters and keeping an eye on all the official Ascaron Announcements that come out in German then translating them to English for us is fantastic and absolutely appreciated.

This log is going to help with bringining in the excitement for the entire International Community and will help everyone stay up on top of the latest German Dev Blogs regarding the creation and publication of the much awaited Sacred 2.

 

My sincere thanks and deep respect not just from me but from the entire community whom I am sure is grateful.

 

Thank you!

 

 

gogo

[gogoblender 3,071]

Sorry for the double post: Just posted a link to this translation in a few other forums...here's the link to the one in the Sacred International Forum.

 

http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=43922

 

Nice work Waaah.

 

 

gogo