Getting BoA soon, need some explanation FIRST!

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AuthorTopic: Getting BoA soon, need some explanation FIRST!
Warrior
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Okay, about the BoA editor.....first off, are you allowed to change the system? I mean, add new spells, change old skills, etc.,? Like, lets say my scenario is one where you play in a world with many types of magic. Is it possible to add a new magic skill, like "Pure Magic" for Natural Mages, the magic that Athron talked about using, the "Pure magic" she used that came from within her but could not be taught, etc.,? Speaking of other worlds, about the BoA character editor and scenarios, once a scenario is kicked up into the official scenario table, does it count as the "official" scenario? I suggested A4 might have something on the Lost Bahsikava, and was notified that that was Kelandon's territory, which gives the impression that each scenario is assumed to have happened in the A universe?....I'm really confused :P
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
...b10010b...
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quote:
Originally written by Solodric:

Okay, about the BoA editor.....first off, are you allowed to change the system? I mean, add new spells, change old skills, etc.,? Like, lets say my scenario is one where you play in a world with many types of magic.
No new skills. You can add up to two custom abilities. You can't create new spells, but you can fake them pretty convincingly using items. Play the BoA scenario Canopy for several examples.

quote:
Is it possible to add a new magic skill, like "Pure Magic" for Natural Mages, the magic that Athron talked about using, the "Pure magic" she used that came from within her but could not be taught, etc.,?
Again, no (well, that is, not really, unless you can find a creative way to fake it.)

quote:
Speaking of other worlds, about the BoA character editor and scenarios, once a scenario is kicked up into the official scenario table, does it count as the "official" scenario? I suggested A4 might have something on the Lost Bahsikava, and was notified that that was Kelandon's territory, which gives the impression that each scenario is assumed to have happened in the A universe?....I'm really confused :P
This is an icky and complicated issue. Some scenarios will deal with versions of Avernum's past or future that contradict each other, and other scenarios won't really have much or anything to do with the Avernum universe at all. Basically, consider them to have much the same status as fan fiction and you won't go far wrong.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Warrior
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That is good to know, considering I have so many ideas for Avernum. I truly and honestly want to make a full, complete and unabridged CEP (Community Expansion Pack) for BoA. I have a lot of ideas about little dangling plotlines and all. I want to get into contact with Jeff and see if I can make a CEP and get it officialized so that it counts as part of the storyline :P
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Warrior
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[ Monday, January 31, 2005 05:55: Message edited by: Solodric ]
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Warrior
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Gah! Sorry about the double-post. By the way, if the editor cant do those things now, is there any chance it will be updated to do it later?....or any chance that, if I find a way to improve the editor so that it can, I can submit it to be released as a patch? and finally.....can I make new races in the editor?
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Off With Their Heads
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quote:
Originally written by Solodric:
That is good to know, considering I have so many ideas for Avernum. I truly and honestly want to make a full, complete and unabridged CEP (Community Expansion Pack) for BoA. I have a lot of ideas about little dangling plotlines and all. Start by making one scenario. Then we'll see.

I want to get into contact with Jeff and see if I can make a CEP and get it officialized so that it counts as part of the storyline I can tell you right now what his answer is going to be: no. Many scenarios have been made in BoE in the Exile universe, and I think it's fair to say that Jeff has never even played them, much less considered them part of his storyline. Be content with having it part of our community's accepted storyline, which it will be if it's good enough.

But again, trying making one scenario first. It's harder than you think.

Gah! Sorry about the double-post. There is an "edit" button for a reason, you know.

By the way, if the editor cant do those things now, is there any chance it will be updated to do it later?....or any chance that, if I find a way to improve the editor so that it can, I can submit it to be released as a patch? This is not possible. The issue is not with the BoA editor, which is open-source, but with the BoA app itself, which is not. BoA will never directly support special skills, although you can sometimes fake something like them with a Stuff Done Flag. (By the way, you get four custom abilities to work with, not just two, so you could actually add several new spells — especially because the best way to do new spells is to have them be items anyway.

and finally.....can I make new races in the editor? No. And you won't be able to make the editor do this no matter how hard you try. You could fake it by giving the party a bonus to certain skills and negatives to other skills and just telling them that they were a certain race, but you can't directly do this.
Start small, start within the editor's capabilities, and make something that you can actually finish. Once you've done that, you can start thinking about something bigger.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Warrior
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Of course I'll start small, I just wanted to know the editors capabilities, since a lot of my scenario ideas hinged on them. I just wanted to know whether or not, if the editor proved to be incapable of something, it would be patchedf by company or community *shrug*.

And yes, thanks again for the Edit button, which you've simultaneosly pointed out two me in two different topics ^.^ Oh, a couple more questions. One, is it possible to set some sort of notifier for whenever someone posts in a topic you posted in?

Also, how would a person go about making a special skill like Vahnatai Lore, such as Spider Lore (Something I need for the first scenario I intend to make)? Give the party a Special Item for each level they're supposed to have, or maybe give them a modified "Dread Curse" that instead lets them do special things?

Healer detects normal Dread curse, while whatever it is they're deciphering senses the Spider Lore dread curse? I want some way to mark it on thier character sheets...

[ Monday, January 31, 2005 05:58: Message edited by: Solodric ]
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Off With Their Heads
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You can't modify the Dread Curse. One way to do special skills is purely through SDFs, which is how I do an Ancient Slith Language skill in Bahssikava, but if you absolutely must have it show up on the characters' sheets, do it via Special Items.

And yes, the editor is being given more capabilities, but not those kinds. The application has the engine itself, so there's not too much that we can do to the game's engine, and SW is definitely not going to give us that much more in the way of engine changes. Special skills (which have been brought up before, numerous times) and extra races (same) are not going to be added.

To be clear: it's not just that the editor has to be changed; it's that the BoA app itself would need to be changed, and the BoA app isn't not open-source. We, the community, are creating a new editor as we speak, but it can't have new races, because that simply isn't possible with tweaking the app itself.

[ Monday, January 31, 2005 06:13: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #8
If you're looking to create your own fantasy world and modules/scenarios within, complete with your own races, skills, magic systems etc., then you might want to download Runesword II which is both freeware and open source. To be honest, even with all of it's capabilities and features, it is probably still nowhere near as good as BoA because of it's "dumbed down" RPG mechanics(which can be changed to your liking but would involve a lot of coding) combined with a very 'world specific magic system. In other words the magic system is unlike how sorcery is generally depicted in fantasy, which is great so long as you are not creating YOUR OWN campaign setting and are happy to just create scenarios within RS' world of "Eternia". But with some hard work you can change about anything in Runesword(and several people in the RS community have already done impressive things such as creating "Superhero" worlds, instead of fantasy, and scenarios within these other world-settings).

Many VB programmers are currently working on improving Runesword's engine(both the creator and the game engine itself) through a Sourceforge project because there ARE a lot of annoying bugs in the program(but what can you say...it's FREE!).

Apologies if this post is a no-no in the SW forums. I am assuming Jeff would have no problem with such a plug but I have been wrong before...

[ Tuesday, February 01, 2005 05:54: Message edited by: SkeleTony ]

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Warrior
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Profile #9
Heh. World-specific skills are exactly what I'm wondering about changing in BoA. For example, what if I wanted to do a non-magical medieval setting? *shrug* by the way, while it's true that the game is not open-source, many non open-source games have had mods made for them in the past. Is it impossible to make a mod like that for BoA? For example, people have made tons of mods for Diablo II, one of which was actually set in a modern suburb if I remember correctly (though it was supposed to be rather buggy) Would things like that be against the rules with BoA?
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Shock Trooper
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I never got too far with programming myself(did a bunch of half-finished and half-assed things with VB and C++ Builder and a few other languages) so what follows are my best guesses and may be completely off the mark.

I think that it depends on how much of the game is "hard coded" and how much of it is in data files that any programmer can access. The hard-coded stuff is probably stuff that cannot be mucked with unless the author releases the source code. Some retail games, like Heroes III, have enjoyed(well, suffered is more like it i the case of HoMM III) extensive revisions in teh form of actual fan made expansion packs which add scripting languages ahe other features, simply by modifying the accessible files.
Some games, like many first person shooters, have level editors released for them which enable extensive modding without really messing with the engine(probably the case with Diablo II as well).

And there are some games, like all of Spiderweb's games that, aside from the capabilites of the offically released scenario editors, you will not be able to alter jack crap! Understandable from Jeff's POV. If I had created Avernum/Exile, I would not want one of those grammatically challenged console kiddies popping off with "lOok!! I mak teh Bath of fire remaek with the Averanl engine!! its 2 awesome!! Plz Dl it and teLl me if ist gooD!"

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Warrior
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Your correct as far as hard-coding goes, but it is possible to hard-code, just requires opening up the game first, and anything thats hardcoded in, when you change it, you need to change a million other things, typically. Which is why, if I understand correctly (not too hot a programmer myself) you go into the hard coding and redirect a few things over to outside files, copy some of the hardcode into those outside files, and make changes as you please, then bundle it up and send it out as a mod (if memory serves).
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00
Off With Their Heads
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Modifying the source code of BoA and releasing it as a new program is certainly not encouraged by Spiderweb, and it is of questionable legality. Spiderweb does not want you to do this.

There are many ways to fake world-specific skills, but you can't actually code them in directly. You can make a non-magical medieval world, but you have to do it indirectly: set the party's magical skills to zero, and don't include any magical monsters, and put something in the scenario script to check if they've trained their magical skills and reverse whatever they might've done.

Jeff said, when making BoA, "My goal is to enable the designer to make fascinating and complex adventures in the Avernum system and world." It may be useful to you to read his statement of intent in response to requested features from the community.

[ Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:55: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Warrior
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I see his point on the universal system. It would have been mayhem, he has a point. Neverwinter Nights showed how much trouble something like that can be, and it didn't even offer full customization. I can still see a way to make it work, but yeah, after reading the EZ boards post, I have a much firmer grasp of what this games supposed to be like :P thanks much. I'd still like to put in some new spells/skills for my scenario, simply because it'll be necessary for the first scenario I want to make (Check the Blades of Avernum - Idea for Scenario post)
Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00