Moonpearl's Party Interaction - have party members show on the map and talk with them!

[Moonpearl 32]

If you'd like to have your party members show on the map and follow you, and...

• you think caterpillars make your party look like a bunch of perfect idiots
  
• you'd like to interact with them
  
• you'd like to take control of them
  
• you'd like to program different responses according to the map you're navigating
  

Then Moonpearl's Party Follow script is exactly what you need.

 

 

 

Features

 

Natural movement - party members automatically turn to the player, and follow him only when he walks away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interaction - your party members are perfectly regular events which you can program through the eventing system like any others. Thus, copies on each map may exhibit a different behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share control - you may have the player switch from their current leader to any party members, for example to program different responses from objects according to which party member is being controlled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auto place party members - automatically warp party members behind the player whenever transferring to a different map.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy to use - fully interfaced with the eventing system - control everything using only variables and switches, no script calls or edits required whatsoever.

 

 

 

Download

 

See my blog entry.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Moonpearl

[kellessdee 48]

Finally, some one who is tired of caterpillar party following (other than me)

 

I remember implementing Chrono Trigger-style party follow system ages ago (for a game that has been since swept under the carpet, mostly)

 

I personally prefer the Chrono Trigger-style (the hero's looked like they were mostly wandering aimlessly towards the player), but I believe that is due to the limitation of RPG Maker's native tile-based movement. It would look better with pixel based movement, and I think it would possibly look better if each party member followed the next member, rather than them all following the leader (with the same kind of following-style, so they aren't piggy-backing each other).

 

But that's my preference, and just a thought (Don't change the script to appease me, that's not what I was getting at; just my thoughts).

 

Either way, I am glad someone is diverging from the traditional piggy-back parties.

[Jon Bon 43]

Now that you mention it, I think it would be cool to have the option to change between the different types of following part members. In a line is good for like caves, dense forest, any tight quarters. Loose party all following the leader is good for normal rpg style where one person leads. Then having them loose follow each one after the other, is good for things like children or zombie packs, loose groups of things. I think with all three types of following a game would seem very dynamic.

I too am not suggesting this addition, I am just now realizing how diverse a following system truly could be and how awesome it would look. Then again the limits are almost always endless.

[Moonpearl 32]

I get your points but i'm sorry, even a non-caterpillar system in which each member follows the next feels terribly unnatural to me. Following the leader is okay in the extent that he's the only one to move on his own, it seems logical to go after the one who's moving and who decides where to go. If you're in a group where you know there's ony a single person who knows the way while the others remain still, why would you go after another arbitrary person - and above all, always the same? Anyways I can understand that game designers/players might want to have things that way, so I'll consider it for future releases. Thanks for your positive thoughts, I felt like releasing a non-caterpillar system had became sorta a holy mission lately.

[Heretic86 25]

I cant get your demo to work. I dont usually install programs to their default "publishers are more important" directory first, and changed my default install path. Oh yeah that and my C drive was full when I installed.

 

Why no workie?

[Moonpearl 32]

Dunno. You're a scripter, you should know that it's as far as a mere "hey your script doesn't work" gets you.

[kellessdee 48]

Well, let me help you since I already had to go through this:

 

First get Moonpearl's Script Manager: http://moonpearl-gm.blogspot.fr/2012/05/script-manager.html

 

 

For that, you'll need

RPG Maker XP Base engine: http://www.mediafire.com/?vro2cvczhkw3bgx

Moonpearl's Scene_Base: http://www.mediafire.com/?2cbbkfh4ildfw1h

Moonpearl's common: http://www.mediafire.com/?d7nfwb7pf71xn41

 

Then, if those are all set up properly, then it should work.

They should have instructions, I don't really remember, I think I just put them in the places where the errors told me they should be lol, I hate reading instructions, just to try a demo.

 

Or, just use this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30100812/Party%20Follow%20Demo.zip

 

That will work out of the box, no configuring necessary.

NOTE: I had to modify the Script Manager.rb and the "Call MP Script Manager" script. The Call MP Script manager ONLY looks in the default install folder for Enterbrain's common files, which forces you to put stuff there, and is hoping thats where your default folder is anyways. I just added the scripts working directory to the load_path, and what not

# Load the Script Manager from RGSS shared folder and let it load the rest
$LOAD_PATH << "#{Dir.pwd}/Scripts/"
$LOAD_PATH << ENV['CommonProgramFiles'].gsub('\\'){'/'} +
             '/Enterbrain/RGSS/Standard/Scripts/'
load 'Script Manager.rb'

 

So it should load the script manager.rb that I added to the project's scripts directory.

 

Then, the Script Manager.rb only looks in that same folder to load script bundles, so I had to modify that file as well

DEFAULT_PATH = LOCAL_PATH

Note: this is a mere work around to get the demo to work right away, and not necessarily the best solution.

It seems to look in the Projects Scripts folder for individual scripts, but not bundles. Which does not ensure they are loaded in the right order, so I just made it look for the bundles in the Scripts folder instead of the install folder.

[Moonpearl 32]

Oh, is this about the Script Manager then? Well you're not quite right kellessdee, it does look into both the shared folder and the project's Scripts folder. You can try and remove all scripts you use from the shared folder and put them into the project's Scripts folder instead and see for yourself. Actually, what it does is that, when loading a shared bundle, it also looks in the project's Scripts folder in order to find hypothetical alternate versions of the files that are to be loaded, and loads them instead. So, in short, it loads both folders the exact same way, only the project's scripts take precedence over the shared ones. So if I understand correctly, your edit essentially does nothing more.

 

The actual true weakness of the current Script Manager, in my opinion, is that it assumes the RTP path to be the default one, instead of looking in the registry to find the actual path - and now I think of it, it might be the issue Heretic ran into. Well then, I thought it was not a big deal since one can easily change the path constant from the default loader. Guess I'll have to take a shot at that.

[Heretic86 25]

@kellessdee - Your dropbox demo version wont open either the game executable or editor. It complained that "This project is from an old version of RPG Maker and cannot be loaded." First time I have ever seen that error msg.

 

@moon - Actual error msg (I was tired and being lazy) did have to do with the Script Manager. "No such file to load -- bla bla path /RGSS/Standard/Scripts/Script Manager.rb". I didnt make a lot of effort to get it to work though. Tried it once and thought something in the script (that I didnt even bother to look at) was calling to the RTP packages installed to a different location and didnt notice Script Manager. Youre right tho, I should have provided a bit better response.

 

Bad me for being lazy, I deserve a spanking! And its not even my birthday! :P

[Moonpearl 32]

As I just said, you need to change the path constant inside the loader, from RGSS's default installation path to yours, and it should work just fine.

[kellessdee 48]

Oh, is this about the Script Manager then? Well you're not quite right kellessdee, it does look into both the shared folder and the project's Scripts folder. You can try and remove all scripts you use from the shared folder and put them into the project's Scripts folder instead and see for yourself. Actually, what it does is that, when loading a shared bundle, it also looks in the project's Scripts folder in order to find hypothetical alternate versions of the files that are to be loaded, and loads them instead. So, in short, it loads both folders the exact same way, only the project's scripts take precedence over the shared ones. So if I understand correctly, your edit essentially does nothing more.

 

I dunno, if I put Script Manager.rb, and the bundles into the scripts section, it explodes in my face.

 

load ENV['CommonProgramFiles'].gsub('\\'){'/'} +
 '/Enterbrain/RGSS/Standard/Scripts/Script Manager.rb'

 

Not trying to be a dick, but there's no way that's gonna load Script Manager.rb from the scripts folder (of the project).

 

Then, I dunno, maybe I didn't look hard enough at the actual script, but I was getting errors when the scripts were in the scripts directory (of the project)... Like I said I just kinda slapped something together, to make it work. I didn't really wanna spend much time on it.

 

@heretic: lol really? I'm using the latest version...That's an interesting message.

[Moonpearl 32]

Oh, I see what you mean kell. Yes, the Script Manager itself (that is, the program) is searched inside the shared folder - which allows to avoid making copies, and makes only a single .RB file to replace whenever an update is available). But the Script Manager will in turn look inside both the shared folder and the project's Scripts folder. This loader is meant to just load the Script Manager and let it handle everything.

[kellessdee 48]

Ah that makes sense. I didn't pay THAT much attention to what I did, I probably made some assumptions and jumped the gun xD. I have a proposal for you, I'm going to send you a PM after class