Profile for Spidweb
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Spidweb |
| Member number | 1 |
| Title | Board Administrator |
| Postcount | 960 |
| Homepage | http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com |
| Registered | Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Quick Avernum 5 Update, March '07 in Avernum 4 | |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Monday, March 19 2007 15:04
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"Oh. The action point system will be like G4, not the skill point system." My mistake. I fixed it. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Quick Avernum 5 Update, March '07 in Avernum 4 | |
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written Monday, March 19 2007 13:18
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"v. Wait, what was the difference again?" The two main changes: i. When you try to attack with low skill points, your turn doesn't end. You attack. ii. It is now much easier to use items (like potions and scrolls) and attack in the same turn. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Quick Avernum 5 Update, March '07 in Avernum 4 | |
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written Monday, March 19 2007 12:36
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I've put in some hours on Avernum 5. Some more news. i. Elevations are completely in the game. They look nice. ii. There is now a system of battle disciplines. People with high combat skills will be able to use special abilities. Some of them are cool enough that some mages will be tempted to train in pole weapons. iii. I have vastly expanded the keyboard shortcuts. You will now be able to target attacks and spells using only the keyboard. (This includes fireballs.) iv. The plot is very elaborate and cool. I tried for a similar level of intricacy as Geneforge 4: Rebellion. v. I have also borrowed the much less annoying action point system from Geneforge 4. And a ton of the nice graphical effects too. vi. The most irritating thing left to be done engine-wise is boats. There will be a lot of water travel. vii. The Anama are back. Solberg has a decently sized role. Rentar-Ihrno is still dead. - Jeff Vogel Edit: Fixed typo. [ Monday, March 19, 2007 15:01: Message edited by: Spidweb ] -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Staff contact? in Tech Support | |
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written Saturday, March 10 2007 15:46
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The E-mail above is the correct one, and we read and respond to all messages we recieve. But E-mail is not a flawless technology. Not all messages reach us. If you have a different E-mail address, try sending from that one. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Avernum 4 crashes in Tech Support | |
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written Thursday, March 1 2007 11:33
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Thanks for letting me know. Random file corruptions are a source of unbelievable, endless frustration. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Avernum 4 crashes in Tech Support | |
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written Thursday, March 1 2007 00:56
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"Avernum 4 seems to be the most tempermental of the games in terms of system freezing crashes even on Mac systems." I handle all of Spiderweb's tech support E-mail. Avernum 4 has shown no more or less random crashiness than anything else. File corruptions can happen anywhere. The main thing to try for this problem, that wasn't mentioned, was to uninstall, redownload, and reinstall. Don't skip any of these three steps. - Jeff Vogel Edit: The reason more people have Avernum 4 problems is, most likely, that more people play Avernum 4. The more popular game gets more issues for obvious reasons. But it is NOT a buggy game. [ Thursday, March 01, 2007 00:58: Message edited by: Spidweb ] -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Jeff, please respond - Magic and Avernum 5 in Avernum 4 | |
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written Wednesday, February 28 2007 13:17
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For what its worth, control of Exile and Exile 2 transferred back to us in the previous century. Realmz is allowed to use some Exile graphics (and, in fact, both games draw from the same public domain graphics library). The lack of a Carbonized Realmz continues to dumbfound me. Carbonizing a game is not hard. With all the work that went into Realmz, I'm surprised they're just letting it die. But I haven't spoken to Tim Phillips in years and years, so I have no idea what personal or legal issues are involved. - Jeff Vogel [ Wednesday, February 28, 2007 13:19: Message edited by: Spidweb ] -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Nethergate: Resurrection in Nethergate | |
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written Tuesday, February 27 2007 14:01
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It will be a registration code system. You won't have to wait for a CD to be mailed. "Alorael, who is somewhat curious about how easily Nethergate can be imported into BoA or equivalent engine. The terrain and graphics should be easy, but the dialogue will require work. How much did underlying mechanics change, and how much should be applied to Nethergate?" It has been a considerable amount of work, especially adapting the dialogue to the newer system. The game mechanics (level gaining, combat mechanics) will be much closer to Blades of Avernum (though, of course, the spells and skills are all from Nethergate). - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| A problem with +creature str and hit % in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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written Tuesday, February 27 2007 11:17
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This is a bug, and it will be fixed in a future update. Until then, I'd avoid relying on items that give strength to creations. (Items that improve other pet stats appear to work.) No time frame available on a patch, I'm afraid. So far, this is the only known bug of note, and I'm pretty swamped. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Nethergate: Resurrection in Nethergate | |
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written Monday, February 26 2007 20:10
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Very unfortunate typo. The upgrade price will be $12, not $10. My bad. I hope this doesn't enrage people. The Blades of Avernum engine has a ton of things the Nethergate engine doesn't. Quest log. A nicer automap (which isn't in its own window). Nicer graphical things. It also has full scripting. The encounters and bad guys will be a little more scripted, though not a lot. The bad guys will have a wider range of abilities, but there won't be any huge multi-phase encounters outside of the new dungeons. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Nethergate: Resurrection in Nethergate | |
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 23:01
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Just wanted to let Nethergate fans know that we are a week from finishing the Roman side of Nethergate: Resurrection, the ground-up rewrite of Nethergate. We'll start beta testing soon after that. It should be out this Summer. A few notes. i. It will use the Blades of Avernum engine. 800x600 resolution. ii. It will be $25, or $12 if you've already registered Nethergate. iii. Old Nethergate saved games won't be compatible. Everything is wayyyyy too different. iv. There will be two new Sylak items. v. There will be two new dungeons, several new quests, and a ton of new magic items to hunt for. vi. For Mac users, it will be Universal. For Windows users, it will be fully compatible with Vista. - Jeff Vogel Ninja edit: I wrote the wrong upgrade price. idiot me. [ Monday, February 26, 2007 20:07: Message edited by: Spidweb ] -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Avernum Series Not Loading on Vista 64 bit in Tech Support | |
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 12:31
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You can also download the latest version. The crash bug is fixed in it. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Geneforge 4 saved games in Tech Support | |
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 17:40
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Look in your Documents folder. The folder is "Geneforge 4 Saved Games." I had to change things, as Vista strongly frowns on any application trying to put saved games in the Program Files folder. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Corrupt graphics A4 Mac 1.1 in Tech Support | |
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 17:37
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OK, try the download again. it should be fine now. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Corrupt graphics A4 Mac 1.1 in Tech Support | |
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written Friday, February 23 2007 20:01
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I have a fix for the problem. Download this file: ftp://ftp.spiderwebsoftware.com/mac/z116galwood.txt and copy it into the Scripts folder, which is in the Avernum 4 FIles folder. Then, when you trigger the event, all of the chitrachs will be fine. (If clicking on the link doesn't download it, try using the Safari browser, Control-clicking on the link and selecting Download Linked File.) - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Jeff, please respond - Magic and Avernum 5 in Avernum 4 | |
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written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:02
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The spell system for Avernum 5 will be pretty much the same. First off, I think that 40 spells is a pretty good number. It would be easy to pad it out with 50 (or 500) more junk spells, but it wouldn't add anything to the game except confusion. Balancing spells is difficult. My goal is to have a good variety of spells that actually have uses some point in the game. Each individual spell is a delicate balancing act between making it useless on one end and too powerful on the other. I can't do that right with too many spells. And, once again, honestly, 40 is quite a few. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| A4 mass non-appearing items in containers bug in Tech Support | |
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written Monday, February 19 2007 00:41
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This is my fault. I thought that this bug was fixed in the newest version of Avernum 4, but it's only fixed on the Windows side. I'll make sure to fix it in the next Mac update. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| A4 mass non-appearing items in containers bug in Tech Support | |
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 13:13
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Nobody has reported this problem, and, since the game has been out for months and finding no items tends to get peoples' attention, I suspect it's not a bug. Uninstall. Trash the game files (except for the saved game folders). Redownload. Reinstall. Go back to a saved game from before the disappearing items happened. Also, did you use the return to start cheat? I've heard that that can cause this problem. I thought I fixed that bug, but maybe not ... - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| BoA 1.2 crash (OS X Universal) in Tech Support | |
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 00:18
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The newest version of Macintosh Blades of Avernum is less tolerant of custom graphics with bad data than earlier versions. I am posting alerts about it for the scenario designers and scenarios hosted on this site should be fine soon (if there are, in fact, problems now). We can't vouch for scenarios not hosted on our site. In the meantime, if a scenario is causing crashes, play a different one. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Important Note About Custom Graphics in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 00:15
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Important Note About Custom Graphics For the Macintosh Blades of Avernum v1.2 and later for the Macintosh are far touchier about the format for the PICT resources in custom graphics. The frame for each PICT resource has to be all the way to the upper left (in other words, the top and left values have to be 0). In ResEdit and Resourcerer, you can check the frame rectangle for the PICT resource by opening it and opening the detailed information window. If the top and left values for the PICT's rectangle are not both 0, the graphic will not look right in the game. Most graphics editors (like Photoshop) don't ever cause this problem. Only a few of them (AppleWorks being the most common) create PICT resources with bad framing rectangles. To solve the problem, copy-paste the PICT into a graphics editor, move the graphic to the far upper left, and copy-paste it back into the resource file. Alternately, simply copy-paste it into Photoshop and then copy-paste it back into the resource file. It is unfortunate that this is necessary. It is an unfortunate result of the way Universal code handles PICT resources and how badly some graphics editors (especially AppleWorks) handle PICT resources. The bad graphics can cause real problems. For example, there is a bug report in tech support right now about a crash that is very likely caused by this problem. Checking the graphics in your scenarios is a very good idea. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Geneforge Political Spectrum in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 22:56
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Cool thread. I don't think self-shaping is enough of a moral/political issue to deserve its own axis. To me, the two biggest issues in Geneforge are: i. Creation rights. (Which was in the game from the get go.) ii. Whether the benefits of the practice of Shaping are enough to justify the dangers, both physical and moral. (This one really comes to the fore in Geneforge 4, but it was in my mind all along.) At this point, I am planning for Geneforge 5 to be the last game in the main story arc. At the end of it, you get to decide for good and all what happens. As for what I think is best? That would be telling. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Any Vista Users Who Got a CD? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 17:08
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Thanks for the information. We've redone the CD, and it should be better now. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| G4 Running Slowly (Windows) in Tech Support | |
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 15:07
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All I can say about this problem is that it is rare, and none of the beta testers had it. I'm also not getting complaints about it by E-mail. Because it seems to afflict only a small portion of machines, I kind of doubt it's my fault. I strongly recommend doing all the regular things. Uninstall-reinstall. Defragment. Shut down other processes. Reinstall drivers and directx. And if anyone can track down the piece of software that is interfering with my games, I would hugely appreciate it if you'd let me know. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| G4 Running Slowly (Windows) in Tech Support | |
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 15:07
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All I can say about this problem is that it is rare, and none of the beta testers had it. I'm also not getting complaints about it by E-mail. Because it seems to afflict only a small portion of machines, I kind of doubt it's my fault. I strongly recommend doing all the regular things. Uninstall-reinstall. Defragment. Shut down other processes. Reinstall drivers and directx. And if anyone can track down the piece of software that is interfering with my games, I would hugely appreciate it if you'd let me know. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Any Vista Users Who Got a CD? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 23:47
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We had a complaint from a user who was using Vista and who wasn't able to install the game from the CD. It should be working fine in general, so this worries me. Are there any Vista users who got the CD and it worked/didn't work? - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |