ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

In an earlier thread on the subject (which my search-fu, alas, is apparently not strong enough to find), the suggestion was made that the Melinda/Kryl-Feijan quest would be more approachable if it were implemented as an ordinary zone that could be entered at the player's discretion, rather than a now-or-never undodgeable random encounter. Well, I'm thinking I might want to give that quest another shot,? but on my terms,? and the necessary modifications turned out to be easier than I expected, so I give you my new Melinda on the Map addon.

The new event works similarly to the Sludgenest and volcanic caldera events: the zone entrance will appear when you enter the wilderness zone at level 24 or higher (when the encounter would be generated), in one of the random areas where side dungeons normally get placed. For now I'm reusing the Elven Ruins tile for the zone entrance; I'm open to suggestions on that front.

And this one probably won't be going into ZOmnibus, as I can imagine that some would consider it cheating.

[Technical data:] ----
? Not anytime soon, though; all my current characters are well past that point, and Eidolon willing, I won't be needing to restart any of them anytime soon. Maybe with an Ogre when v1.3 gets released?

? As I read the zone data, the quest zone stops scaling up at level 35, so my plan is to go in at level 40 or so --- maybe level 42, once I've got Draconic Body...

This is a cool idea. I think I'll try it out.

Just a small suggestion: how about using the Mark of the Spellblaze icon for this location? It fits thematically I think.

Effigy wrote:Just a small suggestion: how about using the Mark of the Spellblaze icon for this location? It fits thematically I think.

Hmm, yeah, that would work. I'll go ahead and push that out as v1a.

This addon places the crypt entrance just outside of the clearing, I can't actually GET to it I hope a revision will revise the placement in my game already started?

xyzzy99 wrote: This addon places the crypt entrance just outside of the clearing, I can't actually GET to it I hope a revision will revise the placement in my game already started?

*blink* ...wait, what? The pool of random locations used for the crypt entrance is the same pool used for all the other side dungeons, and those should all be accessible. Could you post a screenshot of the map showing where your crypt entrance is?

Here's the screenshot, I had to squash it down, the original was over the 256 KiB limit here.

What do you think about expanding this to include the Unknown Tunnels?

xyzzy99 wrote:Here's the screenshot, I had to squash it down, the original was over the 256 KiB limit here.

[sound F/X: source diving] ...Okay, apparently some of the designated side-dungeon locations aren't accessible. Preventing it from happening again shouldn't be too hard, but I'll need a little time to figure out how to fix your case.

Effigy wrote:What do you think about expanding this to include the Unknown Tunnels?

The lost merchant quest? I hadn't thought about it, because that can usually be avoided until you're ready for it by avoiding certain areas on the world map. I wouldn't be averse to changing it to match our changed crypt quest, though. Anyone else have an opinion? [And if you think I should do it, do you have an opinion on what tile to use for the entrance? ]

Zizzo wrote:[sound F/X: source diving] ...Okay, apparently some of the designated side-dungeon locations aren't accessible. Preventing it from happening again shouldn't be too hard, but I'll need a little time to figure out how to fix your case.

Well, that didn't turn out to be quite as tricky as I had feared; that's pushed out as v1b. xyzzy99, your crypt entrance grid should become enterable the next time you enter the wilderness (and you should get a dialog saying so).

Thanks, mate!

...So, um, yeah, it turns out that the game engine is not, as I thought it was, checking for an existing zone entrance on the map before placing the quest zone entrance. Which means one of the side dungeons could get clobbered. v1c, just released, should fix that. We Apologize for the Inconvenience.™

It sometimes puts the crypt entrance on an impassible tile. For example, this location north of the lumberjack village:

Effigy wrote:It sometimes puts the crypt entrance on an impassible tile. For example, this location north of the lumberjack village:]

You're using an old version; I can tell by the tile used for the crypt entrance. The latest version fixes that problem, and has a back-patch hack to make the grid retroactively passable. We Apologize for the Inconvenience.™

Weird, I thought the addons updated automatically.

Effigy wrote:Weird, I thought the addons updated automatically.

On Steam? I think you might have to "subscribe" to the addon in some way to make that happen. (I wouldn't know; I've got a pre-Steam setup, so I have to update addons manually anyway.) Does anyone else know more about this?