Developer's Update
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, January 9 2004 17:39
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Of course, you could have NPCs of any race you like join the party, although they will not be under the players control. A race check is in there. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 1097
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 12:48
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Hmm... we won't be able to add new targeted spells, but can we simulate spells? Like, play the attack frame of the Evil Wizard, and then play a spell animation, like an ice lance, between the Evil Wizard and his goblin minion, and then kill the goblin minion, without actually casting a spell? IIRC there was something like this in the intro of A3, where an apprentice mage tossed a bolt of fire on a practice dummy. Posts: 23 | Registered: Sunday, May 5 2002 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 12:53
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Of course. There are many animations that are possible. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:26
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No new races, and no custom graphics for PCs. To keep the development time for this monster reasonable, I drew the line at the game system/world/interface. You have a huge amount of freedom, but only within the Avernum world/system. >> What I'm more concerned with is being able to script with race. In A3/E3, there were somewhat-passive nephils who didn't attack the party if there was a nephil in it. Can we as designers pull these kind of stunts in BoA? >> Absolutely. With only a small handful of exceptions (conveyor belts being one of the first that comes to mind) everything doable in BoE is doable in BoA. -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:34
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*Sniff* Death of the famed conveyor belts. -------------------- DEMON PLAY, DEMON OUT! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:43
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Well, they didn't work properly in BoE when loading from a save. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 14:58
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A new question: What new stuff do we know on the ease of movie/cutscene making? Still easier than BOE? Edit: I doubt this is possible, but I must ask. Would there be a way to split the party up and have the user operate one group/person for a little bit (until, say, he pulls a certain lever), then cut to the rest of the party and operate them/him until they/he pulls a certain lever. After they do this, you could bring them back together in a small cutscene, or make the user guide them back to the meeting point. This would of course be impossible for a singleton, but we could just tell singletons to not play this scenario. Like I said, this probably isn't going to be possible, but please give news if it is. [ Saturday, January 10, 2004 15:03: Message edited by: [E.E.P.] Karzoth ] -------------------- DEMON PLAY, DEMON OUT! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 15:01
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There are commands to move NPC and PCs around, display text bubbles, make explosions and other sorts of animations, do pauses, redraw the screen, etc. So in other words, no more tedious and cumbersome Frame Animation!! :D -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1207
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written Sunday, January 11 2004 12:07
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Are the scripts compiled into the one file at the end? Personally I'd prefer to have a small number of files rather than hundreds for each scenario. Or do you have a seperate folder called "Scripts", from which all scenarios can access the same scripts? If it's like this will we still be able to edit the scripts from within the editor itself? Although my Blades of Exile folder is actually full of hundreds of megabytes of crap that I downloaded years ago. My prime example, by the way, of the succinct small number of larger files vs. hundreds of worthless small ones is that while the Mac version of Lemmings uses five files in total including the program, the Windows version uses five hundred. We won't need OS X to run the program, will we? And now I think of it: will the editor be fully hotkey featured so that we can press buttons or hold modifiers to get other tools? I found the placement system in BoE a bit tedious. And will the windows that open be "friendly": ie. you can move them as well as be able to access menus behind them, as was not in BoE? Will we have to open windows to edit item/monster info. This was very tedious. And to go back to a question I asked a while back: will I be able to create Escher Staircases, i.e. alter the vertical level of staircases? [ Sunday, January 11, 2004 12:32: Message edited by: the Thing ] Posts: 316 | Registered: Saturday, May 25 2002 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Sunday, January 11 2004 14:18
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The scripts are all separate files. Expect between 1-4 per town depending on how elaborate the designer decides to make each one. Look at Geneforge for an example. Windows are similar to BoE, but there are fewer of them since most of the dialog and editing is done in scripts. Selection can be a bit awkward, but once you get used to it, it's not too difficult. Escher Staircases, not really, unless you use scripts to edit height on certain places in the staircase. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Sunday, January 11 2004 18:16
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A good scenario will have over 50 scripts in its folder, many from towns and outdoor sections, but also many terrain and behavior scripts, even some that will not be used. Item, monster, and terrain editing are all done in scripts, not in the editor. This is good in some ways, and horribly ineffective in others. There are some hotkeys, but not much more than in BoE. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 1016
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written Monday, January 12 2004 04:05
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No conveyer belts? I thought that they wouldn't be to hard to handle with scripts. Will moving walls be at all possible? Will it be possible to change a square's elevetion with scripts to implememnt an elevetor or something similar? Posts: 141 | Registered: Saturday, April 20 2002 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 14
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written Monday, January 12 2004 11:55
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Conveyor belts weren't removed because they were difficult, they were removed because we all hate them. -------------------- Dragyn Bob "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"-The Divine Comedy Posts: 1481 | Registered: Thursday, September 27 2001 07:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Monday, January 12 2004 17:40
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"Conveyor belts weren't removed because they were difficult, they were removed because we all hate them." They were removed because they were impossible. They worked in a system where the party was either all in one space (town mode) or all move completely separately (combat mode). In a system where the party can move in a chain, they just don't work (to see why, think about what happens when the first member of the chain moves onto the belt, everyone else stands there, and the user pauses repeatedly). -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 1768
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written Monday, January 12 2004 18:02
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Speaking of height, will there be a z axis? Meaning, will we be able to have 2 objects on the same space at different heights? Such as a guard walking over a city gate in the wall? Or will it be like Avernum, where you could only occupy one height in each space, and everything under it was basically solid/empty? I suspect the latter, but I'm just making sure. -------------------- "Oh, North Wind, why frighten others? In Nature's family all are brothers. Puff and blow and wheeze and hiss; You can't frighten Shingebiss. Bring your frost and ice and snow; I'm still free to come and go. You can never frighten me, One who never fears is FREE!" -Shingebiss, the mighty duck Posts: 830 | Registered: Tuesday, August 20 2002 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, January 21 2004 18:07
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This has already been answered. Escher's Staircases are nixed. Well, I can't necisarilly say that 100% sure- one could make really clever workarounds I'm sure, but they wouldn't function as you seem to want them to. EDIT: Wait, did somebody say something about splitting parties and having both parties be active? That reminds me of what I had intended to do for the final dungeon of E:BH (and it would have been seriously awesome if I had mustered up the patience to do). The intent was to use the Mage Lore check to determine the number of party members, open 1-6 portculli respectively, and then have the party only be able to enter the portculli in combat, and not open the portculli admitting the party into the gauntlet as a whole until all party members were within two portculli. The party would be killed if they tried to exit combat mode with one or more party members still in the gauntlet- by this, the party would effectively be forced into different groups. It was a really, really, really good idea, and I really regret not having done it. I might just make a short scenario with the only purpose of demonstrating some of the really cool concepts I have, much like Shadow of the Stranger. :P [ Wednesday, January 21, 2004 18:12: Message edited by: Haamana the Homicider ] -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 84
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written Wednesday, January 21 2004 19:11
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Hey now, in my scenario's defense the concepts were built around the story, not the other way around. Granted, I designed the puzzles to show off the concepts, but the story is still what moves things along. :P A better example would be Isle of Boredom, which is also where Creator did something similar to what you described with that portculli / counting the party / can't leave Combat Mode bit. [ Wednesday, January 21, 2004 19:14: Message edited by: Drizzt ] -------------------- http://members.aol.com/risberg/blades/ Eternity approaches. Posts: 85 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Wednesday, January 21 2004 20:30
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TM was joking. Silly Drizzt. :P His idea sounds very much like the beginning of Boredom. The biggest difference being that I only really had one PC doing anything at one time. It could be cool - but then, I thought that everybody would love the Boredom intro. [ Thursday, January 22, 2004 03:27: Message edited by: The Creator ] -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Thursday, January 22 2004 16:21
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Wandering about crowded hallways with 6 cumbersome PCs wouldn't be much fun. The primary reason why I didn't go with the multi-PC dungeon is because I wanted to test the PC's strategies, or something elaborate like that- use different monsters to determine how the PC fights (ie. magery or bruisers). It was probably not a good idea to make things more complicated than I had nodes to use. :P -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1207
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written Sunday, January 25 2004 00:56
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If individual scripts for seperate scenarios are in seperate folders, won't we end up with hundreds of semi-redundant files? Is the custom graphic format as screwed-up as the last one? There won't be any .meg files sitting alongside our scenarios; it isn't even a proper file format; will there? We can use .gifs or something, can't we? Also, we'll be able to put a lot more scenarios in our folder, right? Like I won't have to move scenarios into a seperate "Unused Scenarios" folder, creating hundreds of redundant files because the program has a screwy limit of 20 scenarios? Posts: 316 | Registered: Saturday, May 25 2002 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 3809
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written Sunday, January 25 2004 13:49
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WHESH! It always meakes me glad to hear new stuff about BOA! -------------------- Hold fast young one, there is danger all about. He who holds the light of himself within will never shed light on anything, especially the evil minions that roam freely about at night. Posts: 23 | Registered: Sunday, December 21 2003 08:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Monday, January 26 2004 02:01
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Custom graphics - screwed up. Redundant files - yes. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 164
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written Monday, January 26 2004 08:32
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What's so screwed up about the new graphics setup? -------------------- Awesome BoA Graphics MSN: bleusoulilcercatore@hotmail.com AIM: Byzantine Jones Posts: 635 | Registered: Monday, October 15 2001 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 4016
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written Friday, February 20 2004 21:33
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When you say you're thinking of releasing it open source, I assume you simply mean you're going to ship it with the source code, not that you're gonna give it away for free, correct? -------------------- #99835 [Guo_Si] Hey, you know what sucks? [TheXPhial] vaccuums [Guo_Si] Hey, you know what sucks in a metaphorical sense? [TheXPhial] black holes [Guo_Si] Hey, you know what just isn't cool? [TheXPhial] lava? Posts: 10 | Registered: Friday, February 20 2004 08:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Friday, February 20 2004 23:05
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It's not really open source if the code is restricted to people who buy it. I think the idea was that anyone will be able to get at the editor code and fiddle with it, but the game code will still be kept secret, so you'll have to buy the game for the editor to be useful to you. -------------------- Barcoorah: I even did it to a big dorset ram. New Mac BoE Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |