Best/Fastest way to add custom stuff to HL?

[Pollution]

Ok, so I'm trying to add alot of the stuff that we use in our game to HL. But I keep running into problems. The MAIN problem is that I'm trying to add ALOT of bloodlines to the program, but each one takes about an hour each to do.

What would the best order to input new data be?

For example:
Currently, I'm adding the Bloodline to the Bloodline tab.
Then I'm adding the Discipline in the Disc tab.
Then I'm adding the Discipline levels one by one in the DiscLevels Tab.
Then I'm testing EACH thing in the discipline levels.
Then I'm swapping over to the Discipline Tab and bootstrapping all the levels.
Then I'm testing the level.
Then I'm assigning the disciplines for the bloodline.
Then I'm saving and trying it out.

This WORKS, but it's slow. And if I forget to hit TEST, then it doesn't show up somewhere along the road.

Is there a faster/easier way to do this? Can you not just open up something in notepad or access or something to make my life easier?

I've got 30 players (yes, this is for a LARP) and over 1/2 of them have items/powers/merits/whatever that's not already included.

I know there will be an expansion to this later, and I'll be MORE than happy to get that when it comes out, but for now, I've spent about 3 or 4 hours and have only gotten the following into the program:

Spoiling
Geomantic Nexus (Size Location/effect)
Mortifiers of the Flesh Bloodline (with Scourge Discipline)
Icarians Bloodline (with Constance Discipline)

Is there a better way?

Also, side note, Constance will NOT show up in the Activated Abilities section so that I can check the +Resolve that it gives. That and I can't figure out which tag Willpower is to adjust that when Resolve goes up.

I know it's alot to ask at once, but I just got this yesterday or the day before, and it's not going well for customization on the scale that I'm going for. I've got 15 players left MINIMUM before I'm caught up, and it's driving me buggy.

Thanks in advance:

Pollution

 

[rob]

At 08:21 AM 4/18/2008, you wrote:

Is there a faster/easier way to do this? Can you not just open up something in notepad or access or something to make my life easier?

If you're adding lots of similar stuff like this, you might consider editing the data files directly. While I'm NOT recommending you do this, I think it would be a good bit faster. The reason I'm not advocating doing this is that we haven't yet release GOOD documentation on how to edit the data files directly. Once the Authoriing Kit is available (i.e. all the docs), I'll be encouraging you to edit the data files manually in a situation like this.

So, with that caveat established, I'll outline the basics. Each data file that you create through the Editor is a TEXT file. The file format used is XML, which is a lot like HTML in general structure. If you are creating an assortment of new disciplines, each eith its own set of discipline levels, then the process can be expedited by doing a mass copy within the text file. You can copy a bunch of things in one shot, then go through and modify the unique ids. Once you've done that, you can tweak a few tags as necessary and replace the descriptions appropriately. That's how I do it when I'm working on the core VtR/WoD data files. The Editor is invaluable for creating things with a lot of safety and simplicity. However, once you get the hang of it, editing the XML files directly is much faster.

If you modify the XML files directly, the only way to load them is to reload the entire game system. You can't splice stuff in like the Editor does. So that's the key downside of the manual approach. We've got something we call "quick-reload" that will be part of the Authoring Kit to greatly speed up the manual method. We use it extensively in-house, but it's not yet available wihtin the product.

I recommend creating one discipline and its corresponding levels, storing the material in its own data file. You can then open this file in Notepad or another text editor, at which point you can try out the copy and modify approach. Hopefully, it will prove useful for you. If it works well, you can extrapolate the technique to the bloodlines and other material that you're adding.

 

[rob]

At 08:21 AM 4/18/2008, you wrote:

Also, side note, Constance will NOT show up in the Activated Abilities section so that I can check the +Resolve that it gives. That and I can't figure out which tag Willpower is to adjust that when Resolve goes up.

Only discipline LEVELS will show up in the Activated Abilities list. For example, look at Celerity as an example. Celerity consists of both a Discipline AND a singel Discipline Level. In the discipline level entry within the Editor, there is the field in the list labeled "Show as Activated Ability?". Make sure to check the box for this option and the discipline level should appear in the activated abilities list.

If that didn't prove helpful, I'm going to need additional details about what you're doing and what behaviors are/aren't working in order to provide useful assistance.

I'm not actually familiar with the Constance discipline, so I'm not exactly sure what effect you're trying to achieve. If you increase the Resolve attribute, your Willpower will automatically go up, so it sounds like all you should need to do is increase the Resolve and you'll be good to go. Or am I missing something?

 

[Pollution]

I figured out what the deal with it now showing up was, I forgot to hit TEST, which makes it not work correctly. You HAVE to do the test on custom stuff, or else it won't load that item. Kind of like you have to compile new code before you can see your changes, even after saving and debugging.

Yeah, DUH, my bad, lol.

Also, once I got Constance to load, the +resolve DID add to Willpower, so spot on! The nice thing is that in addition to it adding to willpower, when I had a character with 8 willpower already, and 3 dots in Constance activated, the Willpower was 10, it did NOT go over 11, so bang on good job on thinking of limiting that! I was afraid I'd have to put in some kind of coding solution to where "if Willpower > 10 then Willpower = 10" type thing, which would be more code than I really want to put in. I'd hate to break everything I'd done up to that point with some stupid code thing that argued with another custom thing.

Again, Thanks Rob! I'll try out the XML files today and see how much easier it is for me to do, then post the results for you. I figure, I'm doing 1 custom bloodline per hour (more or less), let's see if we can't cut that down by...ALOT.