Basics[]
All text used in the game must be filed in the modstrings.txt file.
Think of this file as a list of string variable names (the 'tags') and the corresponding string variable values. (Well, string constants, to be precise)
Those variables can be names of items, NPCs or monsters as well as lines of dialogs, quest descriptions or names of regions. In the database, the World Editor or the Quest Editor, only the tags may be used. In-game, the tags will be substituted by the values specified in the modstring.txt file.
(If a tag value is not specified, the game will display tag not found: (NameOfUnspecifiedTag) instead.)
The strings must be filed following the pattern
tag=value
for instance:
NPC1NameTag=Ronald McDonald NPC1Dialog1Tag=Hello, welcome to our village of Foo-Bar! MySwordNameTag=Sword of the Golden Arches Quest1NameTag=Save the village
Comments[]
Comments can be made in the file using C++ style comments: // or # is used for a single-line comment /* to open */ to close a multi-line comment
You can also use dummy lines as comments, for instance:
XXXX Region Names XXXX=begin here
Linefeeds[]
Linefeeds are added with {^n}
For Example:
myTag=Hello,{^n}are you new here?
List of Font Changing Escape Sequences[]
| ^A | change color to aqua |
| ^B | change color to blue |
| ^C | change color to cyan |
| ^D | change color to dark gray |
| ^F | change color to fuchsia |
| ^G | change color to green |
| ^I | change color to indigo |
| ^K | change color to khaki |
| ^M | change color to maroon |
| ^O | change color to orange |
| ^P | change color to purple |
| ^R | change color to red |
| ^S | change color to silver |
| ^W | change color to white |
| ^Y | change color to yellow |
| &I | change font to italics |
| &B | change font to bold |
| &S | change font to normal |
Tips & Hints[]
- During gameplay, your dialog boxes will only remain open for five seconds then fade out if you leave the DefaultDialogSoundFile empty. The DefaultDialogSoundFile string is found in your dialog .dbr database files when you are in the ArtManager, under Default dialog, Additional Dialog and Irritation Dialog. To increase the duration for the dialog window to remain open you must associate a sound file to the respective dialog line.
- The speed with which the dialog's text scrolls up depends on the length of your associated sound file. This facilitates synchronizing the text's scroll rate to the speaker's speech rate. If you think that creating a speech file for every dialog line you make is too tedious, you may just as well create your own set of silent mp3 templates which have different durations.