Trick for testing your events

[GovernerX]

Have you found it difficult to test events because they spawn infrequently? Heres a little trick I learned.


First: Setup your desired event, but do not set any type (we will be creating it with another event). The trick here is to create an event (without waiting) as a location near your village. This way it presists, doesnt move around, and is easy to get to. Once there, you can enter it repeatedly and test all aspects - just make sure you dont use event spawn: destroy event.

Second: create a event that is generic, interrupt, and village type- so it will spawn every turn. We will call this "spawner". In event entry filter, setup a player tag check for one of the generic tests (e.g. QUEST_TEST11) that your not using. Check to see if player does not have this tag - the spawner event should fire every round this way until that tag is set (step 2 below).

In this spawner event, Setup an adventure phase with the following options:
1. Create event, which leads to "spawn on map" phase, put your event you want tested under linked event. Put "place of interest" as spawn source - other spawn sources may actually spawn wandering monsters which you may not want - like the bear cave will spawn bears for example. Also, set your radius (I usually put 1 so its close).
2. Disable spawner: Leads to adventure end, with event modification results adding the generic test (e.g. QUEST_TEST11) as a player tag, and set it to 1. This is a neat trick to stop the spawner event once your location is placed, without having to stop and restart the game.
3. Ignore: Leads to adventure end with no logic, this way the spawner will keep firing every round until you have the event where you want it.

You can reuse this spawner event, by simply exiting the game and swapping the generic test tag in the logic. You also reprogram your spawner event to destroy your test location event once you have it completed. Or you can simply start a new game. I like to use the same game to test multiple events so I can creat an entire story module in one go. You just do one at a time, using your spawner to create and destroy the events as you go along. Plus you may need a strong party to test it, so you may want to play the game a bit at first. YOU MUST create the events before your start the game. Otherwise they wont be loaded.

Another thing you can do with the spawner is use it to give your group what it needs to test whatever events you want to make. For example, you may need an elf in your party to test the event with. Just use the spawner to add an elf as one of the options.

Hope this helps

[GovernerX]

Thanks :) Hope it works for ya.

[[The] Force]

Welp, I just set this up, it took me awhile to realize I had to exit the game and start it back up to actually have the event ejected INTO the game, little finnicky but oh well. Anyways this works really well! On a note, how do I set the event up to destroy the event location?

Also I just learned something going through someone elses events, you can create your OWN tags, just under player add one of the star tags, shift click the arrow to pull up the UI and there's a button "create new tag" in the bottom right.

[GovernerX]

Originally posted by Force2reckon:

Welp, I just set this up, it took me awhile to realize I had to exit the game and start it back up to actually have the event ejected INTO the game, little finnicky but oh well. Anyways this works really well! On a note, how do I set the event up to destroy the event location?

Also I just learned something going through someone elses events, you can create your OWN tags, just under player add one of the star tags, shift click the arrow to pull up the UI and there's a button "create new tag" in the bottom right.

Oh cool, good to know. I know the devs said they were going to add this ability.

In the spawner event, just add another player choice and call it something like "Delete Event" or whatever you want to call it. Then have it flow to a Spawn Event phase, set to "Destroy Event Owner", and select the event name that you want destroyed. You'll have to toggle your spawner tag again of course. You can then flow it back to the main menu or just end the spawner event if you wish.

And yes, when you create a new event, you have to completely restart the game for it to be present. And I believe that is something they changed somewhere along the way. But its cool, I just add a bunch of empty events in the module and give them some names until I am ready to fill them in. Then I can call them with the spawner at my leisure.

I have some cool dwarf events that only happen when in the mountains. So they dont really come up very easily. But with the spawner I can test pretty regularly.

Glad this helped someone. :)

[[The] Force]

Originally posted by GovernerX:

Originally posted by Force2reckon:

Welp, I just set this up, it took me awhile to realize I had to exit the game and start it back up to actually have the event ejected INTO the game, little finnicky but oh well. Anyways this works really well! On a note, how do I set the event up to destroy the event location?

Also I just learned something going through someone elses events, you can create your OWN tags, just under player add one of the star tags, shift click the arrow to pull up the UI and there's a button "create new tag" in the bottom right.

..."how to do event stuff"

I have some cool dwarf events that only happen when in the mountains. So they dont really come up very easily. But with the spawner I can test pretty regularly.

Glad this helped someone. :)

Yep, helped a lot, and having it available to test in the future will make doing these things much easier. Thanks for the destroy event thing and this idea a lot! Sometimes I'm stupidly dense.