Seventh Sense Awards (FAQs, Ideas, Bugs, & Help)

[kamikaze1900666]

I was just inspired to conceptualize a new one- "Cutthroat of Fryelund"

I already have a few darker-themed ones, though almost all are self-contained in specific books, so I figured a far-reaching one for books 1-12, ripe with "out of character" decisions, might give a different feel for a read-through. Self-interest, criminal actions, and choices that seem to go against the "Lawful-Good" mold of the Kai will be the central theme, requiring a more "tainted" playstyle. Thinking back to an old request, in most books there is at least one passage that lets you do something dastardly. Probably take me a couple days to do the digging, but I think it offers a bit more contrast to the bulk which are more heroic or item-centric in nature.

Guess it's off to work on it now. *insert Naar's insidious laugh*

[kamikaze1900666]

Question: I've just completed my 3rd read-through of the GM series, and was wondering, should I start figuring out awards for them?

They're a bit linear, but I've found some themes I could tie together that are challenging, fun, or both (already have a good idea for a fun one in Dawn of the Dragons, and a campaign-long one for "boss fighters"). Know it's a ways off, and debatable if the mantle of programming them in will be taken up, but at least the notes will be there if so.

[Dave]

It's my every intention to include all of the adventures of Lone Wolf, which includes the Grandmaster series, as well! (Not the New Order, though.) It's not a matter of "if", but only "when".

So, by all means, if you have some ideas for Grandmaster awards, jot them down, whether for individual books, the entires GM series, or spread across the whole gamut of books 1-20!

(I already have a good bit of code in place for the GM series, which I included as I was updating for the Magnakai series, which is why it took so long for this update!)

[pi4t]

Why not the NO series?

[Dave]

It's not Lone Wolf anymore. Plus, I think the whole premise is a bit silly - all these grandmasters running around. This isn't really the place for such a discussion, though.

As another off-topic aside, I looked at the link in your signature, pi4t, and I like what I saw! I am thinking of incorporating those alternate discipline rules into a future version of Seventh Sense.

[pi4t]

I feel honoured

[Dave]

Kamikaze,
Here's an idea of mine that got accidentally put inside a quote box on another thread (and likely not read by you).

In response to the requests for more detailed information on how to earn awards, I thought of this:

You've given me a fantastic idea. Ever seen the Infocom games from the 80's (text adventures)? They had these hint books to help you solve the puzzles. They were written in invisible ink, so you couldn't see the hints unless you scrawled across them with the magic pen that came with the book (Invisiclues, they were called). When you had a problem with a puzzle, you could use the marker on the first hint, and if that didn't help, you could use the second hint, and so on. The hints went from general to more and more specific.

That gives me a great idea for some "invisiclues" style hints with the medals. Once again, I'll run the idea past kamikaze before running with it, but I think we're on to something here...

So, I'm running it past you to see what you think. We can take this into the PM level, if you want to explore it further. I think it would be really great. Plus, we can give a difficulty ranking to each award, so that people have a certain "commitment" expectation in trying to earn the various awards - more difficult = going to take more work, less difficult = more instant gratification.

[kamikaze1900666]

I actually caught that just a minute ago- so yeah I missed it LOL anyways...

I'll start going over the list and figure out what difficulty each should be placed at this weekend.

I like the "inclusives" idea, though think some of the really specific info should be unlockable somehow (ie- completed book/series= extra clue, attained another medal in book/series= more specific clue, attained X or more awards in a series=divulge sections). Granted, not all will get that far (such as the min and high combat counts could probably be divulged after completing a book), and I believe the campaign-long ones I'm not already blunt about can fall into the series they finish at if the info is unlocked (MK and GM).

Also, will this be a "click on the incomplete award to get more info" method (changing the tool-tip or giving a pop-up) so that those that want to figure it out from scraps can try, while others can cycle through to what they want?

[Dave]

Aug 26, 2010 2:28:22 GMT kamikaze1900666 said:

I actually caught that just a minute ago- so yeah I missed it LOL anyways...

I'll start going over the list and figure out what difficulty each should be placed at this weekend.

I like the "inclusives" idea, though think some of the really specific info should be unlockable somehow (ie- completed book/series= extra clue, attained another medal in book/series= more specific clue, attained X or more awards in a series=divulge sections). Granted, not all will get that far (such as the min and high combat counts could probably be divulged after completing a book), and I believe the campaign-long ones I'm not already blunt about can fall into the series they finish at if the info is unlocked (MK and GM).

Also, will this be a "click on the incomplete award to get more info" method (changing the tool-tip or giving a pop-up) so that those that want to figure it out from scraps can try, while others can cycle through to what they want?

May I suggest 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Moderate, Hard, and Expert? It seems like a fairly consistent terminology and ramp of degree of difficulty.

And yes, in regards to the Invisi-clues, I'm envisioning that they can click an unearned medal, which then brings up a pop-up menu screen (similar to when they click on an earned medal), only it will just have information on the difficulty of this Award, and give the first general clue (the same clue that each award currently has). There will be a button to close clue page, and one to show the next clue. So, if they only want to see the general clue, that's all they see. If they want a little stronger hint, they click the button, and only that next hint shows up. When they press the hint button again, a more obvious hint will be shown. They can stop whenever they like, so as not to spoil it too far.

I also like your concept of unlocking hint levels by completing either books/book series/or other awards.

We could try to match the difficulty of the award with the number of hints available for it. E.g.:
Easy Awards : 3 hint levels
Moderate Awards : 4 hint levels
Hard Awards : 5 hint levels
Expert Awards : 6 hint levels

You can click through to see the first 3 levels of any award. With the Easy ones, this will give you the explicit information you need to complete it.
For a Moderate (or more difficult)award, in order to see the 4th hint, you will need to complete (just brainstorming here), all of the Easy Awards for the book first.
For a Difficult Award (or Expert), in order to see the 5th hint, you must have completed that book's series (Kai, MK, GM) with a By-the-book Run
For an Expert Award, in order to see the last hint, you must have completed that book's series with a Hardcore run.

I think that the final hint for each award should *avoid* the formulaic approach of : You must visit section xxx, xxx, and xxx. But rather it should say, you must do this, do that, and this.

Once again, it's all just brainstorming. Wouldn't be very hard to implement in the form I described above.

(Obviously, some Awards would only have one level of hint (Try a run of the first 12 books in Hardcore style, etc.) but that's okay.)

EDIT: There's nothing that says we can't totally revamp some of the hints, too, if we want to avoid the totally obvious ones at first.

[Dave]

One other brief idea, a new category of award: Fresh Start awards. There would be one in each book from book 2 onwards: The idea is to - Complete this book without having finished any of the books before it. (You have to play through from beginning to end, nothing brought foward from past books.)
Some would pose a greater difficulty than others.

Just a thought.

[pi4t]

Incidentally, is the third award for book 1 (spoiler, highlight to reveal) got for going on the alether path? If so I hate you

[mckinstry]

Dave, the re-released console versions of Monkey Island use this Invisi-clues method. If your stuck in an area you simply press and hold X for a clue which displays on screen for a few seconds. Press X again and another more specific clue appears and so on. Your version for the award system would work great.

[kamikaze1900666]

Aug 26, 2010 3:47:26 GMT Dave said:

May I suggest 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Moderate, Hard, and Expert? It seems like a fairly consistent terminology and ramp of degree of difficulty.

And yes, in regards to the Invisi-clues, I'm envisioning that they can click an unearned medal, which then brings up a pop-up menu screen (similar to when they click on an earned medal), only it will just have information on the difficulty of this Award, and give the first general clue (the same clue that each award currently has). There will be a button to close clue page, and one to show the next clue. So, if they only want to see the general clue, that's all they see. If they want a little stronger hint, they click the button, and only that next hint shows up. When they press the hint button again, a more obvious hint will be shown. They can stop whenever they like, so as not to spoil it too far.

I also like your concept of unlocking hint levels by completing either books/book series/or other awards.

We could try to match the difficulty of the award with the number of hints available for it. E.g.:
Easy Awards : 3 hint levels
Moderate Awards : 4 hint levels
Hard Awards : 5 hint levels
Expert Awards : 6 hint levels

You can click through to see the first 3 levels of any award. With the Easy ones, this will give you the explicit information you need to complete it.
For a Moderate (or more difficult)award, in order to see the 4th hint, you will need to complete (just brainstorming here), all of the Easy Awards for the book first.
For a Difficult Award (or Expert), in order to see the 5th hint, you must have completed that book's series (Kai, MK, GM) with a By-the-book Run
For an Expert Award, in order to see the last hint, you must have completed that book's series with a Hardcore run.

I think that the final hint for each award should *avoid* the formulaic approach of : You must visit section xxx, xxx, and xxx. But rather it should say, you must do this, do that, and this.

Once again, it's all just brainstorming. Wouldn't be very hard to implement in the form I described above.

(Obviously, some Awards would only have one level of hint (Try a run of the first 12 books in Hardcore style, etc.) but that's okay.)

EDIT: There's nothing that says we can't totally revamp some of the hints, too, if we want to avoid the totally obvious ones at first.

True, I'll get on the rewriting some of the hints, adding new ones, and drawing up the names, etc. of the "fresh-start" ones this weekend when I have time. However, in the intrest of fairness, might I suggest adding Adgana to Book 11's equipment selection? You can't select euipment from that section if you started playing from book 10 or earlier, and, even with it, it will be a challenge beyond that of any other book played with a "fresh start"- Chaos Master, Villains, and the lowest possible combat count being so high will see to that, even with RNT guiding. I could write a description as to why LW would even be able to pick an illegal drug if needs be, and a footnote could be added to let people know it's not part of the original starting equipment. Also, adding the shield worn on arm variant to Prodigy would help, though both are up to you.

Aug 26, 2010 7:30:06 GMT pi4t said:

Incidentally, is the third award for book 1 (spoiler, highlight to reveal)
If so I hate you

That is one method, probably the "easiest" to attain by way of picking the most challenging path. But you don't have to pray for a couple miracles on that path if you take a couple others before and after. Though, feel free to hate me- it's not pretty regardless. Good luck!

[t0pel]

Hi, here are some of my observations after trying to get some of the awards.

Cardscoundrel of Ragadorn - Kind of strange name because only 1/3 games took place in Ragadorn.
Mad Murderer of Gorn Cove - I understand that Halvorc is a joke so u dont want to give a point for killing him, but according to the hint one would think that u can kill any of your innocent companions and still get something out of it :-)
Fryearl of Summerlund - The hint is also strange here, to me the hint says dont use sommerswerd, not enter as few combats as possible.

But I really liked the hint for Helghast slayer of Durenor :-)

[kamikaze1900666]

Aug 28, 2010 12:44:12 GMT t0pel said:

Hi, here are some of my observations after trying to get some of the awards.

Cardscoundrel of Ragadorn - Kind of strange name because only 1/3 games took place in Ragadorn.

The name invokes flavor- a crooked man in a corrupt town. So, being known as a cheat in a town of hustlers and thieves means something.

Aug 28, 2010 12:44:12 GMT t0pel said:

Mad Murderer of Gorn Cove - I understand that Halvorc is a joke so u dont want to give a point for killing him, but according to the hint one would think that u can kill any of your innocent companions and still get something out of it :-)

I considered it, but decided against it for two reasons- 1) he's a lowly trader from out of town who looks a little shady, so the locals wouldn't care about his life as much (considering how crooked the text makes them out to be)
2) you can sneeze and he dies, so a little more challenge is needed in my opinion. To balance the fact he's innocent, I decided to go with no penalty and no benefit- rampage takes a bit longer if you kill him, but it's still possible.

Aug 28, 2010 12:44:12 GMT t0pel said:

Fryearl of Summerlund - The hint is also strange here, to me the hint says dont use sommerswerd, not enter as few combats as possible.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll be adding a hint to the next release to clarify that.

Aug 28, 2010 12:44:12 GMT t0pel said:

But I really liked the hint for Helghast slayer of Durenor :-)

Thanks. I'm about 1/3 of the way through writing up the tiered hints, so they will all be a little easier to figure out. I'll start working on the stand-alone playthrough awards after that, which shouldn't take long- both will be ready by this Sunday, so that shouldn't be too much of a wait.

Then it's back to working on GM awards, which will take a bit longer, mostly with the campaign-long ones. Reading through all 20 books a few times will be a little exhausting, but fun