[SPAWNCLASS] Rapid Starting Equipment

• [SPAWNCLASS] Rapid Starting Equipment
  Posted by Lord Nyriox on 12 Jun, 2018 15:58
• Rapid Starting Equipment
  
  Several weeks ago, dissatisfied with the design of "Adventurers Starting Gear", I started looking for alternative methods to make equipment available at the beginning of the game. 
  
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  My initial search turned up nothing...as did the dozens of other searches I made on the topic.  Eventually, disgusted, I went on to other projects--which a few days ago, turned up the "Warglaives of Azzinoth" mod, which, as it turns out, injects an additional "hidden" quest (with a spawnclass), that completes on accepting the Destroyers "Warn the Town" quest in Act 1. 
  
  Inspired by this method, I studied the game files, and quickly discovered that there is already a semi-hidden vanilla "start of game" quest, which also gets completed by talking to the Destroyer.  And so, with a tiny amount of work, I was able to reduce the impact of the "Warglaives" starting gear method to only 2 files, rather than 3. 

  
  After a couple of quick checks, I can now confirm that this new method works perfectly to provide starting items to the player.  It is a perfect 1-click alternative to "Adventurer's Starting Gear", and can be easily extended for use in other mods.  And it only modifies 1 (semi-hidden) quest to do it! 
  
  A sample starting-gear spawnclass (which I developed for @Kevin Boyle to use with his Titan class) is included as an example. 
  
  Download link (MEGA folder):
  

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• #1 Reply
  Posted by Phanjam on 12 Jun, 2018 17:56
• Nice work LordNyriox! I need to learn about quests too, bcos thats really the path to "new content". Thanks for sharing!
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• #2 Reply
  Posted by Kevin Boyle on 12 Jun, 2018 22:59
• Awesome mod!
  
  LOVE it!
  
  Thank you - much appreciation @Lord Nyriox!
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• #3 Reply
  Posted by doudley on 25 Aug, 2018 20:26
• Quote from: Lord Nyriox on 12 Jun, 2018 15:58

  After a couple of quick checks, I can now confirm that this new method works perfectly to provide starting items to the player.  It is a perfect 1-click alternative to "Adventurer's Starting Gear", and can be easily extended for use in other mods.  And it only modifies 1 (semi-hidden) quest to do it!
  

  So basically, every modder that wants this new method will only need the
  A1-STARTOFGAME.DAT
  with a reward
  <STRING>TREASURECLASS:QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME
  and a customspawnclass.dat with the
  <STRING>NAME:QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME
  Then all starting equipment/items would be conflict-free as long as no one will directly modify the NPC destroyer's function in echopass.
  
  Amazing! Good job @Lord Nyriox !
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• #4 Reply
  Posted by Lord Nyriox on 25 Aug, 2018 22:43
• Quote from: Phanjam on 12 Jun, 2018 17:56

  Nice work LordNyriox! I need to learn about quests too, bcos thats really the path to "new content". Thanks for sharing!
  

  
  All I did was tweak the hidden "talk to the Destroyer" quest, to add a "TreasureClass" tag to it.  The quest is

  Code: (PATH) [Select]

  MEDIA/QUESTS/TL2MAINQUEST/ACT1/A1-STARTOFGAME.DATI assigned it a custom spawnclass called "QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME". 
  
  
  

  Quote from: doudley on 25 Aug, 2018 20:26

  So basically, every modder that wants this new method will only need the
  

  Spoiler (hover to show)

  A1-STARTOFGAME.DAT
  with a reward
  <STRING>TREASURECLASS:QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME
  and a customspawnclass.dat with the
  <STRING>NAME:QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME

  Then all starting equipment/items would be conflict-free as long as no one will directly modify the NPC destroyer's function in echopass.
  

  
  Essentially, yes.  You can also change the XP, Gold, and/or Fame rewards while you are at it, in order to test high-level mechanics without using the console.
  
  Most notably, however, because this one quest is completed without any dialog of its own, every single item that successfully rolls from this SpawnClass is provided all at once—directly into the player's inventory. 
  
  A normal quest would force players to pick just one item, via the "quest completion" dialog.
  
  Note that I am planning on eventually posting a finalized "reference implementation" (using a renamed variant of the "Adventurer's Starting Gear" SpawnClass), with some proper documentation. 
  
  The currently posted source is an early draft, that I originally created for @Kevin Boyle's Titan armor project.  It includes some unrelated files, and therefore needs some cleanup. 
  
  P.S.  Technically, you can use any SpawnClass name under the TreasureClass tag, but I chose the name "QUESTREWARD_STARTOFGAME" for consistency with equivalent vanilla SpawnClasses. 
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