Recall Stone Tutorial
by Ryan "WarLocke" Brown

So, you want to make a Recall Stone system, do you?

My experience has shown me that these little gems are a great frustration saver. They eliminate boring treks back to town to sell loot in singleplayer, and (with the right setup) can make it much easier to keep a party together in multiplayer. If you would like to set up a recall system, read on.

The first thing you'll need to make for a recall system is the recall item, itself. In the Aurora Toolset, start the Item Wizard (Wizards -> Item Wizard, or CTRL+ALT+I). The first thing you need to do is select the type of item you wish to use. For reference, the Recall Stone used in the Official Campaing is a Miscellaneous Medium item. Now, name it whatever you'd like (Recall Stone, Recall Token, Transmogrification Cube, etc) and select the palette category you wish to file it under. Make sure you have "Launch Item Properties" checked, and click on Finish.

Now we're in the Item Properties window. On the General tab, make sure you give the item charges if you plan on making it charge-dependant. You can also add to Additional Cost if you want the player to have to buy this item. Make sure that you jot down or can remember its Tag, as you will need it later.

On the Appearance tab, choose what you would like the item to appear as in the player's inventory. on the Properties tab, give the item the "Cast Spell - Unique Power Self Only" attribute (or the "Cast Spell - Unique Power" attribute if you would like it to be used on other players). Click on the right-pointing arrow to add it to the Assigned Properties window, then highlight it and click on Edit Property. In the new window, select whether it will be a single-use item (destroyed after one use), an unlimited-use item, or limited by uses-per-day or charges-per-use. Make sure to check the Identified box unless you want your players to have to identify it themselves.

Finally, type up a description of the item on the Description tab. Viola, a Recall Stone!

Now, how do we get it to work? We've made our recall item, but so far it doesn't actually do anything (the "Unique Power" and "Unique Power - Self Only" abilities send a notice to the module that an item was activated, but nothing else). In order to get our recall item working, we must write a few scripts. Open up Edit->Module Properties->Events and click the "Edit" button next to the OnActivateItem event. Delete anything in the script editor window and type (or paste) this script in:

void main()
{
// This line determines which player activated the item.
object oPlayer = GetItemActivator();
// This line determines what item has been activated.
object oActivated = GetItemActivated();

// Run this snippet if the activated item's tag is "RecallItem".
if(GetTag(oActivated) == "RecallItem")
{
// Set the player's current location in a local variable.
location lLoc = GetLocation(oPlayer);
SetLocalLocation(oPlayer, "RECALL_LOC", lLoc);
// Call a second script to do the actual jump.
ExecuteScript("recallitem", oPlayer);
}
}

A few notes:
-- On line 9, "RecallItem" needs to be replaced with the Tag of your custom recall item.
-- on line 13, "RECALL_LOC" is a custom variable that stores the location of the character when he or she uses the recall item. This variable is used when the player wants to return to the location at which they used the item (by using the Official Campaign's Recall Portals, for example).
-- on line 15, "recallitem" needs to be replaced with the name of the script your custom recall item will call when it is used (which we will be creating next).

Name this script whatever you'd like (I use "onactivateitem", personally) and save it. Exit out of Module Properties.

Now, you may have noticed that in the previous script, we checked to see if the item the player activated was a recall item (the reason being, an item cannot have a script attached directly to it; you have to "fudge it" by attaching the script to the module and checking for item use. This also allows us to have several item checks in one script--if the activated item is a recall item, do this; if it's a sword of dancing, do this, etc), and then we told the module to execute the "recallitem" script. Now we need to create the script so the module can run it. Open up Tools->Script Editor, delete what will be in the window, and type (or paste) in this script:

void main()
{
// This line determines which player activated the item.
object oPlayer = GetItemActivator();
// This line determines what item has been activated.
object oActivated = GetItemActivated();
{
// Double-check that the activated item was a Recall Item.
// This section is probably redundant, but I believe in
// being thorough.
if(GetTag(oActivated) == "RecallItem")
{
// The next two lines set the location to recall to,
// and jump to it.
object oObject = GetWaypointByTag("RECALL_SOURCE");
AssignCommand(oPlayer,JumpToObject(oObject));
}
}
}

Again, you want to change "RecallItem" (in line 11) with the Tag of your custom item. Also, in line 15, "RECALL_SOURCE" is the Tag of the Waypoint at which you want the character to appear when he or she uses the recall item. Save this script (making sure you name it exactly as the name you entered on line 15 of the OnActivateItem script, or it won't run), and exit out of the Script Editor.

Now, once you have given the player their recall item and placed a Waypoint Tagged as RECALL_SOURCE, you should have a working recall item!

Unfortunately, right now it will only work one-way; to enable the character to return to where he or she used the item, we will need another script, however this script will be launched through a conversation. Create an NPC (any will do, really--as long as it is not actively hostile to the player). Place it in an area (probably near the RECALL_SOURCE Waypoint) and open its Properties dialog (RightClick->Properties). Now we should be in the Conversation Editor. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will only need a simple dialog. With "Root" highlighted, click the topmost button on the left ("Add") and type this in (minus the quotations):

"Would you like to return to the place where you used your Recall Item?"

This line now becomes the NPC's initial dialog (what he or she first says when the player talks to them). Now, we need to add the player responses. With that line ("Would you like...") highlight, add a "Yes" and "No" response for the player to choose from. At this point that conversation should look like this:

Would you like to return to the place where you used your Recall Item?
|-- Yes.
|-- No.

Now, highlight the "Yes" player response and look in the lower-righthand corner of the Conversation Editor. Select the tab marked "Actions Taken". Now click on the "Edit" button to the right of the "Script" drop-down box. Delete what will be in this Script Editor window and type (or paste) the following script in:

void main()
{
// This line determines which character is having this conversation.
object oPlayer = GetPCSpeaker();
// This line determines where the character last used their recall item.
location lLoc = GetLocalLocation(oPlayer, "RECALL_LOC");
// This line jumps the character to their last recall location.
AssignCommand(oPlayer, ActionJumpToLocation(lLoc));
}

Save the script and exit the Script Editor and the NPC's Properties dialog. That's it! You now have a working two-way recall item!