Dastal

If I recall, a review of the Notary Public's Handbook once began something along the lines of 'I am about to review the Notary Public's Handbook. This review would have been much easier had I actually read the book I am reviewing, but that doesn't seem to have stoppped anyone else, so with that in mind, here we go...' This review is clearly in the same vein, I'm not sure there is anything factually acurate about this review.

Specifically, "Shaping" refers to crystals.

Where's the Heartstriker?

I'm a big fan of the Rentar, Erika, Garzhad announcement. Incidentally, what is translated as a phylactery is more accurately refered to as tefillin. They don't contain the entire Torah, only Exodus 13:1-10, Exodus 13:11-16, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:13-21. Those are the commandments to wear tefilin and the central prayer (creed, if you will) of Judaism. That just got me waay off topic, so, let me just close by saying that I'm in the camp which wants something totally new.

Humm...I think I return to my previous problem. I got those doors in X's tower open. (There's a spell book behind one, and nothing behind the other two.) Is this a bug?

Well, I dun know how I did it, but I managed it. Maybe I had high enough pick locks? (31ish)

Well...I did it. Unlock L3.

If it must be used, it should pop your tool use to like a bajillion, and have an infinte number of charges of unlock doors at level a million. Canon, hell, D&D, standard mythology, and Harry Potter, tells us that the holy anthame can break through any lock. Here's the problem, though. As it is, with my tool use and level three unlock doors, I can get to any door or chest in the game including the ones I need a key for or need to complete a quest to unlock. Not exactly plot helping, especially since I don't always know what is a plot related door or chest that I'm breaking though. For example, I broke into the royal suite and talked with Starrus before the advisor was dead... Incidentally, I really wish we had both the Anthame and the Orb. It would make the game a lot more interesting in several ways. I mean, we have all the supposedly dead NPC's, why not the lewt?

Well, cannon says that Demons where what were found in Exile/Avernum when everyone came down, so I'm accepting cannon.

What about "good" undead? I'm having a pretty tough time creating friendly towns, so undead and demons are playing roles as NPC's. I figure I can finagle one human settlement (miners who got lost, and are making the best of it), but much more than that, other than the people you come down with, is really pushing it. That means I need to use Sliths, Demons, Nephs, Drakes, Undead, and damn near everyone I can think of as friendlies. Few of them are "absolute" friendlies. Most are only willing to let you into their town because you can help them. And yes, this scenario is way over ambititious, especially since I only have the first outdoor section finished. (It's a biggie though. It has 17 towns since most of the towns go through three or four versions throughout the game.)

Okay, so I'm using demons as my major enemy. My plot is set before the founding of Avernum (possibly before the First Expedition: remember the "increadibly ancient" armor you find on the soldiers in the Spiral Crypt? I take that to mean there were people here before the First Expedition, especially since the First Expedition starts getting pretty big, at that point.) Here's the thing, the big baddie, we are repeatedly told, before Miccah, Mages, & Co. cleaned them out were demons. The way I have it set up, the Demons have a pretty political situation set up, and have found a ballance of power. Then you and assorted Bobs come down, and pull a Dorothy, and kill one of the Demon Kings unballancing the whole thing... Too cliche, or no? (And yeah, it may never be released. Let's get beyond that, please.)

Quote: Originally written by Hassium: How about you are hired as part of an exploration/settlement mission to new lands. So, you could have tasks such as saving a group of settlers under attack/subduing hostile enemies, exploring and charting new territory (including reporting back on mysterious events) perhaps making first contact and negotiating trade/property treaties. You could even incorporate some timed missions ala ZKR. But, here I would run the mission so that if you took time to explore an area you might find a powerful weapon or a different explore might uncover a new spell that would aid you on your timed mission. The consequence would be that negative events would be advanced by the time taken to explore (i.e. you must relieve an outpost, part of the outpost is decimated if you choose a sidequest). the side quest might make the mission easier but you would then suffer an experience loss (would not get as much as if you managed to save the whole outpost). After the mission you would be free to retrace your steps and do all the side explores/quests. You could be required to discover the source of herbs or other medicines. I think a lot of things could be done with this. Thoughts? I think it's an excelent idea. In fact, I thought it was such an excelent idea that I'm working off and on on a scenario that is more or less exactly what you said, with a fairly significant twist.

I'm on 14.1" TFT LCD monitor (running next to a 17" ViewSonic CRT with other stuff), and have no problemos. I'm only at 720x1024pix resolution.

Well, A5 could always be A0, you know, the First Party. In fact, I'm working on a little something along those lines, though I do change the history around a bit, well, if it's ever finished, you'll see.

Interesting concept, but very ambitious. I'm working on something similar called Academy Arcana, but not nearly as huge as what you describe. Good luck with it, but I'd lower m expectations. Even in A3, my singleton never achieved level 150 (I think he hit level 75 or so).

I have a tiny bit of scripting experience. I have some game-building experience, but mostly on the sound end of things. =) Sorry.

If I may suggest something: Make the editor a fairly basic framework. Perhaps the "base editory" would be even less functional then the current BoA Editor. Then, each imporvement could be worked in as a "module," "plugin" or "expansion." For the sake of simplicity, I'll just call them "plugins" for now. So, you could have a plugin which modifies the terrain display window(s) to allow for switching between 3D and 2D editing. I would aim for basic framework functionality of the following: · Numeric pallettes for floors, terrains, and items · On screen editing for hights · Scallable editing are · Menu access to all the current commands · Communication pathways (vestigal) · Scripting options (vestigal) The two "vestigal" pieces would be built in for future plugins to use. For example, the whole copy/paste bit and the internet access to databases would use the communications pathways, while the scripting options could work through plugins to allow for in-line scripts of all sorts, as well as interfaces for new terrain and items editors. Key plugins would then include: · Button-selectible pallettes · More pallettes for town options, and similar · Echoing some menu items in pre-existing palletts · A 3D editing option · An in-line dialogue editor · An in-line script editor · An in-line object editor (ie new objects, floors, terrains, etc.) · Communications with online databases · In-line access to BoA for testing Etc.

In addition, bookcases make really good secret doors. You can back a bookcase (or any other wall design) against a secret door wall, and then players can get in. I use this more for either places like a private study that don't add to the plot, or places I want accessable, but not *too* accessable. I think Jeff used this trick in A2 in the library.

I am a BoA scenario designer. I also happen to be a senior in high school, and am applying to college. I also happen to be taking a bunch of ultra-advanced courses, some of which are a lot of work, and some of which are relatively less so. I also have a girlfriend, and a bunch of friends, and play sports, and do a bunch of other things which take up some of my time. I also try to get a little sleep here and there as well. (This is all, in fact true about me, but it could just as easily be a lawyer, or a nurse, or a trash collector, or, most relevantly, a college/grad student. Perhaps even more so for a college or grad student.) That gives me a total of, oh, five hours a week, or so, to work on my scenario. Now, I could spend that five hours writing an amazing story, creating cool graphics, thinking up puzzles, or otherwise doing stuff to make my scenario really cool. Alternately, I could spend hours and hours scripting the diaglogue. Incidentally, instead of writing expressive dialogue that immerses you into the story and really makes it good, since programming the dialogue is hard and tedious, I'm going to shorten the dialogue as much as I can since I not only have less time to write it, but I also want to be as sucinct as possible. Since dialogue is so tedius, how much time am I going to be willing to spend on cool puzzles? Yes, I could do all of those things, and not release anything for a year, but I'll be honest, I don't have the motivation for that. So what has just happened? The scenario that could have been amazing has just become a crap scenario. Why? Not because the tool has deprived me of the ability to learn to write code. Oh no! Actually, because I spent so much time cranking out the code since I didn't have the tool that I couldn't devote time to other elements of scenario creation. That, of course, means designing a good scenario requires that you have much more time on your hands than is normal. I find that those kinds of people have much less relevant things to say than bussier people. Oh, and if I did have that kind of time, why would I design a scenario for Blades of Avernum? Why not create my own game, talk with some shareware distribution company, like Ambrosia, and release my own game, and not only make money, but also not have my ideas confined to what is, ultimately, a relatively simplistic engine in the bargain?

You want me to show you an amazing scenario written by someone who can't program? Pick your favorite commercial game. [All games in a series are included]: · Baldur's Gate · Neverwinter Nights · Ultima · Kings Quest · Diablo And that's just RPG's. All of them were written, designed, and produced by and large by people who had very little knowledge of programming. The coders were essentially just drones. In the broader world, why should you be able to eat if you can't grow your own grains, fruits, and vegies, and raise your own cows. Can you do all of the number crunching required to figure out how to display your commands? Heck, can you convery your programming commands into ons and offs? If your premise is "we should not have mechanisms to simplify coding into a more accessable interface," aren't you a bit of a hypocrite in using Blades of Avernum's editor instead of making your own game, or even using a computer instead of creating your own custom single-game console?

I think haveing a sucky interface would make "ease-of-interface" scripting tools useless. I also think TM's data actually contradicts his argument. Since the only currently published authors are Mac users, perhaps the Windows users are not as ready to go hard core on the scripting as the Mac authors have already demonstated they will. Incidentally, there are more than 5 designers, some of them have just published things. Now, in the interests of staying level, I should also point out that a large piece of why there are more Mac authors may have something to do with them having 6 more months to design. The fact that most of the published designers were beta-testers supports that supposition. Now, just looking at your list of pros and cons, there is one, admittedly fairly large, pro (ahm, there is no Linux BoA, so it doesn't really count). On the other hand there are 4 cons. The time and money issue is one you need to evaluate for your self. Crap interface, as I said above seems to make the whole project self-defeating, same thing with making a less functional version.

KernelKnowledge, if it's such an easy process, and you have already figured it out, you should have no problem quickly converting the Mac 3D BoA editor to Windows. On the other hand, if you have trouble putting your money where your mouth is, then maybe you should accept what others say.

There are three lumps of metal. The first is the one that the guy from the Inn of Blades tells you about. The second is given to you by Athron the dragon as part of Sulfuras's gift of the Beastslayer. The last, which is the one you are looking for, is found by first going Gidrik and buying the information from Zamora then going to Aminro and finding the map on the sort of pillar in the center of town, and then finally going to Eagle rock, which is southeast of Blackcrag Fortress, and heading northeast along the cliff. Search around a bit outside the second tunnel you come to (the one that has a cache of coins and a sticky charm inside) and you'll find your metal.

Believe me, they keep records, but they only send emails to the email you gave when registering. When I got a PC, and had previously registered Exile games on my Mac, which I had registered about 4 years earlier, I got 'em recovered.

I think #1 is way better! I'd also suggest a feature I really like in my HTML editor of choice: color coding. For instance, dialogue commands might show up in green, cinematic commands in blue, etc. Additionally, open statements (no "end;", ")", or "}") might be yellow, red, and orange, respectively.