Temple area rework

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by sandor

Originally posted by Razorwing
First and foremost I modded four rooms below the tavern, two single rooms and two double, so why don't I create half a dozen NPCs whose sole purpose would be to mill around and create ambience in the tavern and temple compound.

Perhaps they are permanent customers (renting a room) who sometimes have to work in the bar to pay their bills.

I like your idea If I hadn't already set up the bar employee's AI schemes before I made the tenants I would have used it.

It's turning out to be a behemoth of AI by the way, with ~60 packages and counting. The whole southern Temple compound is filled with vendors right now. I hope I can get close to that 'crowded asian market' feeling I was going for.

[Razorwing]

I'd like to show the windchime I made. You'll find it dotted around the Temple compound later on. It looks really nice in-game, the way it captures the light and glistens.

Also, one of the interesting things about the Temple compound is that it's closed from 7 pm to 9 am. The schedule grew out of necessity because I didn't want the player to be able to roam freely around the vendor stands after the vendors went home for the night. If you stay too long a not-too-friendly Indoril guard will make sure you leave. But anyway - here is a shot of all my vendors standing outside the compound waiting for it to open:

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Nice tricks with the AI there but that windchime looks extra special! I can't wait to see how it works. It'll really add a bit of extra class to the area.

[Razorwing]

I've now submitted the final version of the Temple area rework. There are a handful issues left for me to work out, but on the whole everything turned out well (if I do say so myself).

It was a fun but rather ardous job because I had to do a lot of planning to pull it off, and among other things I wrote a dozen-page document (for real) just to keep track of the AI packages I created. There's probably twenty packages that only control how, when and where people frequent the new tavern. I needed to write another document, two pages long, to orchestrate everyone's seating arrangement.

There's a lot of details I could highlight but one of them is a meal arrangement that is as pointless as it is fun (for me). Four of my NPCs involved in the vendor business outside the Temple share meals together on a patio behind their homes. Usually that's not very remarkable but in this case the contents of the table change four or five times depending on the time of day.