A First Look, Part 1
In this tutorial we will deeply examine a quest from the Demo, which is "Every Dead Man's Nightmare", if you have not played this quest, do it before proceeding with the tutorial. This is a long article where most of the elements of the RCK are used and explained, or at least mentioned, so make sure you have plenty of time before going forward.
The Quest goes this way:
The Player arrives to the North-East village and notices a board with some notes hanged on it. He gets near and examine them, the note is written by "Mother Nebivia", the priestess who runs the Curch, apparently there is a man who is digging graves and stealing the goods buried with the dead people at the cementary. The Player picks up the note, and the Quest starts. The first objective is to speak to Mother Nebivia, which will give the Player more details about what is going on, then the Player is sent to check the cementary.
When he arrives, he will see the Thief digging a grave. When the player will get closer, the thief will stop digging and talk to the player. Here the player can decide what to do, the quest can end in three ways:
- The player accepts a bribe form the Thief.
- The player kills the Thief.
- The player convinces the Thief to stop doing what he's doing.
If the Player accepts the bribe, the quest ends straight away.
If the player kills or convince the thief to go away, he will have to report the news to Mother Nebivia, that will give him a reward and end the quest.
This quest utilizes almost all the features that the RCK has to offer, that is why I've picked it as the quest to deeply analyze, because if you understand how is it made, you'll understand how the RPG Creation Kit really works and how every other quests in the Demo are made.
The Quest "Every Dead Man's Nightmare" has the ID: "SQ_EveryDeadMansNightmare" and is accessible to be viewed from the Rck Object Viewer.
Make sure to follow those two links to learn what a Quest is, how is it composed and how to open a quest with the Quest Editor before proceeding.
Starting the Quest
The Quest starts at Stage 10, if opened in the Quest Editor, the Stage does not have any particular setting, but the description "Speak to Mother Nebivia at the Curch".
The way the quest starts for the Player, as we said, is by picking up a note from the board. This note is a Book Item, a type of Item that represents a Book or a Note readable by the Player. What the Player sees on the board, is the Item In World of the "QI_NoteLookingForWork001" item, accessible from the Rck Object Viewer.
Open up the "QI_NoteLookingForWork001" in the Item Editor and you will notice few things:
- The Book Text says exactly what is displayed in game.
- You'll see the 3D model of the Item In World.
- You'll notice that it has an Item Script assigned.
Out of every settings, the only one that could add the quest is obviously the Item Script.
Now, if you're not a programmer and you don't know how to code, don't worry, you're totally fine. Indeed, what happens here fundamentally is Scripting. You will not have to learn how to code, but knowing how Scripting works is important, as some things can be done only through Scripting.
The Item Script is a piece of code that runs when certain events regarding items occurs, such as when the Item is added into an inventory, or when the Item is equipped, dropped, took or deposited form a Looting Point.
Which is exactly what we are looking for, as we know that we want to start the Quest as soon as the note is added in the Player Inventory.
Look up for the Item Script "HangingNote001ItemScript" inside the project and open it into Visual Studio, or whatever editor you've installed:
public class HangingNote001ItemScript : ItemScript
{
public override void OnAdd(Inventory inventory)
{
base.OnAdd(inventory);
if(inventory == Inventory.PlayerInventory && RCKFunctions.GetStage("SQ_EveryDeadMansNightmare") == 0)
RCKFunctions.AddQuest("SQ_EveryDeadMansNightmare");
}
}