My First Draft

[JulianSull]

I just finished the first draft of my script. I ran through it a few times and I think it's alright. Can some people read through it when they have some time and tell me what they think of it? It looks fairly long, but some pages are literally a couple of sentences. Here's the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?0tmkkqzcvzy

[DarkRider]

First thing that jumps out for me is your conversation structure is a bit off. You're starting all your convos with PC lines such as:

[Player Sits Next to Raine]

PC: Hello.

[surprised Look]

Raine: …Hi.

PC: You’re going to help them fight?

Raine: I already *snipped*

The game, doesn't work like that. When you start a convo it begins with the NPCs GREETING, so your convo (to use the same example) should probably look more like this:

[Player Activates Raine]

Raine: What do you want? (surprise 50)

PC: You’re going to help them fight?

Raine: I already *snipped*

This is just the way the mechanics of questbuilding work. The player initiates conversation silently, player greetings are implied in activation of the actor but are not spoken lines. It also works better to have the player speak as little as possible because every time the player speaks you have to make new topics to continue the convo and it adds.

Also, you can't script a quest the way you script say, a movie. You can't predict that the player will sit before activating Raine to begin convo odds are they will click her as soon as they get close so that sort of stage direction is unecessary when writing dialogue for a quest. You can try to force the player to sit using scripts or conditions, but to do that on every convo would likely get really frustrating for you and the player. It's better to not stress over those fluffy details.

Good so far, but I'm only a few pages in, I'll post back later.

[EDIT] About halfway through is as far as I'll get tonight. Are you just looking for general comments? Or do you want notes on specific aspects?

[JulianSull]

The biggest parts are when The Player and Raine are at her house, the assassin at Raine's house and at the very end when Beatrix is talking to the player specifically, but I want general comments as well.

Also keep in mind for some of these parts I wasn't planning on the conversation being one on one, which is why multiple people are speaking at once, including the player.

EDIT: Thanks for reading through it =D. Also it'd be nice to hear what you think about Raine, Valerius, Galen and Beatrix as characters =).

Edited June 23, 2010 by JulianSull