Kelandon

I think this will be easier with BoA, though, because outdoor sections can be imported, too, and scripts (obviously) can be shared. So maybe the problem was that BoE wasn't conducive to collaboration, but BoA could be. I think it would be easier, at least. I would imagine that the same sorts of things that make collaborative writing work also will make collaborative designing work, although I am far out of my depth here and will let wiser ones speak.

It's just that people come along wanting to do this every couple of months and only a few have even managed to create scenarios at all. Those few scenarios that were created have not yet once been particularly good (head over to the Lyceum\'s CSR if you want to see for yourself -- look at the The Wreck of the Slug, for one). That's not to say it's impossible, just that it's hard. I say if you can find someone, go for it, but our negative response is due to many failures before. EDIT: Also, TM, Jeff, the Creator, and *i rarely all agree on something. I don't know that I've ever seen that before. But they are all people with considerable experience in the community and know far more than I do.

It might be more merciful if you just EAT the babies, Mr. Power. On a serious note, um, well, I didn't actually have anything to say, but I can make something up. Collaborations have, on the whole, not been very successful (at least in BoE). If you hold off a little bit until a few more scenarios have come out, you'll have some great examples of code that you can copy and paste into your own scenario with whatever slight modifications you need. Especially if this is a plot-driven scenario, the code should be fairly easy. A few message_dialog calls, a few If calls, some dialogue, and you're set. Also, good coders generally have their own scens that they want to write. But if you can find someone, more power to you....

Yes , topic necromancer. (Scroll down the ordering form and check out the "Discounts, Promotions, and Replacements" section.)

Quote: So my point is completely valid thanks to agree with that. If you weren't such a jerk about it, then it might be easier for people to discuss with you. EDIT: And while I'm at it, having thought about it a bit more, I retract that statement. I was wrong, because of something that Thuryl pointed out: the waste disposal took very little time (quickfire spreads pretty darn fast) when the party did it, so time being the primary issue still doesn't make sense.

I was going to say something, but Thuryl is a far better human being than I am, and he said it better than I possibly could. To tack on my own point: So basically, Vent, you're saying that Vinnia didn't want to clean up the pollution because it would take more time and delay the closing of the school, which might displease the Emperor. I can say to this only what I said to TiaraLi: this kind of makes sense, but it is the story that you have thrust upon VoDT, rather than the story that VoDT has given you. If one of the notes from Vinnia said something like, "We must hurry. The school's closing must not be delayed" or something like that, then I'd say that your point is completely valid. As it is, it is only your explanation and not VoDT's. So basically, what Thuryl said. EDIT: And what he said right below me, too.

*sigh* Well, I know for a fact that the Avernum Trilogy didn't have subroutines that you described, so it is rather hard to think of them as anything but scripts... this may account for the slight verbal slip-up. But this isn't at all what we are talking about. Okay, I'm done. Really I am. I will not post in this topic any more. *promises* EDIT: I'm still RIGHT, though. >_<

Okay, at your request, I'll try once more. About 2: they clearly had mastered teleportation and did have time to set up the portal. Who else do you think made the machinery that you activate to clear out the waste, if not the mages? No one has been there since them. Nothing had changed since they left. All you do is turn on the waste disposal system. They could've done this just as easily. 3: Yes, you're right. I found the quote: "For over a hundred years, I have stared at these miserable walls, eating worthless food and going out of my mind with boredom" (t8Storage Levdlg.txt, node 8, text2). So we have two conflicting dates, the one I cited above, and the one that the dragon gives here. I am inclined to believe the one above, because the dragon doesn't really have a reliable way of telling time, but it doesn't really matter. 4: The post you mention, by coreyh, only says that he likes the fact that the place was already abandoned. He doesn't say that the setting is important to the morality of the scen, which is what we're talking about. You're reaching, here. 5: I know that Vinnia was seeking power for herself. It was abundantly clear in the scenario. But how does leaving pollution behind in the school give her power? That's what I was saying. I was arguing that the scenario does not give motivations for her actions with regard to the pollution. Point 5 is really the only important thing here, but I just answered the rest of them for completeness. EDIT: Hmm, you're very quick to say I'm wrong about things. Careful with that word. And it WAS the dragon who gave the figure of eighty years, NOT the narrator. Go to the node in the script that I mentioned and check if you don't believe me. But again, it doesn't really matter.

Vent, I am going to try one more time in this topic and that is it. Quote: Ok so you don't need to define a script language to have different set of procedure for different NPC behavior. You don't need to define a script language to have a different set of procedures for different NPC behavior, no. I didn't say that you did. What I've been saying all along is that there is no evidence in the Avernum games that I can remember that any different procedures existed whatsoever. I provided examples of things that might've been evidence. I didn't ever say you needed a scripting language for this. Quote: So when you wrote: The difference between that and scripting is that scripting would allow a different set of protocols. That's not true, Jeff and Avernum don't need script to do that, it's not linked at all to the use of scripts. If you take "protocols" to mean "procedures" -- thus indicating that scripts allow creatures to behave differently from each other -- then the statement is true as is. You don't *need* scripts to do this. I never said that you did. That is not, and has never been, my point. My point is that the creatures in the Avernum Trilogy all behave the same way, except in the differences that come from their different abilities, such as you would see with a single script in BoA. Thus, the Avernum Trilogy had nothing resembling the creature scripts that you find in BoA. They come from Geneforge, not the Avernum Trilogy.

Vent, you're not going to understand me regardless of what I say, so I'm not going to try anymore.

I have no idea what that post just said. I meant "protocol" in the non-programming sense of the term. A better word probably would have been "procedure."

I count four features that I mentioned (special movement, messaging, string printing, and special targeting), not two, but whatever. Quote: But are you sure that all NPC behave the same? Pretty sure. I played each of the games a couple of times, and I was pretty shocked when I saw Geneforge (which DOES have creature scripts) and the complex behaviors I saw there. Again, if someone knows anything to the contrary, point it out. Quote: In fact in theory it's even possible to do just a subroutine that get in input complicate set of data in order to manage different NPC behavior. If I understand this sentence correctly, I think that it is vaguely kind of similar to what Jeff actually did. In the creature scripts in BoA, there is a command called do_attack. It behaves extremely differently for different creatures with different abilities. It is a single command. It takes into account many variables, such as distance to an enemy. It is still a single command. I think that the behavior of monsters in the Avernum Trilogy was kind of like that: they would follow one uniform set of protocols between them, but those protocols would take into account what the monster was capable of doing. The difference between that and scripting is that scripting would allow a different set of protocols.

Quote: Why it's in fact 80 years? Because of the line cited above, specifically the fifth string in the dialog box from state 13 in the text file t13Libraries.txt -- only applicable in the BoA version, because the BoE version gives different dates. I think (although I haven't checked, so correct me if I'm wrong) that the others say only "about a century" or something along those lines. Quote: Vannia want to hide to the Empire any possible problems, particularly the future pollution problem But why? The issue is that she doesn't have any motivation not to tell the Empire about possible problems, at least not any given in the games. And the reason that her motivation is important is this: without additional motivations, Vannia appears to choose not to clean up the pollution because she is in favor of pollution. No major point of view in real life has been pro-pollution; they've been pro-business and willing to allow some pollution in order to get their business done, or something like that. No sane person has ever viewed pollution as a positive good, but if Vannia gets nothing out of the cover-up except pollution, then she must view pollution as exactly that: a positive good. That means that we see two views represented: anti-pollution and pro-pollution. The choice is obvious. But real life pollution isn't this simple, pro-pollution and anti-pollution. One can be anti-pollution but pro-business, and then that person has to make the difficult decision of which is more important. Any decision has its drawbacks. Since VoDT simplifies the issue beyond any reasonable level, it does not represent the issue of pollution faithfully or accurately. It is NOT a continuity issue. It is critical to the moral of the story. Since VoDT does not explain the reason that the pollution was not cleaned up, it treats the pollution issue superficially. Quote: If they can hide possible long-term problems and win more money, someone will do it. But you're assuming that they got something out of the cover-up, which VoDT never says. Quote: The TiaraLi version isn't an hypothesis for a major part. Except for the part that I questioned, which is that time was the biggest deciding factor in why the waste mechanisms weren't activated. All I said was that we don't know why the waste mechanisms weren't activated, which is, as above, critical to the moral of the scen. Quote: Furthermore, to keep working the capitalism mechanism, many of those sort of agreement need a worldwide treaty. Now you're inserting your own views into the scenario. VoDT never mentions anything even remotely close to this. It's a related issue, but VoDT does not cover it at all. About 4: I should've said, "I don't think that's the most important part of what we're discussing here, in that no one has mentioned it yet (other than you)." It is an interesting narrative technique. It just doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. EDIT: Wow, I just read point 5, added while I was writing this. Vent: if this Quote: But the the point of comparison isn't a current science problem, as you seem to suggest (I don't see any morale problem here). It's about leak that could appear 100 years later, and cause a pollution in a limited area. were true, then let's explore what VoDT has to say about radioactive waste. It says that you shouldn't store radioactive waste in containers that could break in 100 years, because that could cause death in a nearby environment. What should you do instead? Press a button that magically disposes of it. Sadly, real life radioactivity has no such button. VoDT does not reflect the issue of radioactive waste at all. The fact that the analogy breaks down with even a superficial analysis indicates the faultiness of the analogy between VoDT's pollution and nuclear waste.

Quote: You mean that there was internal functions with the same usage than NPC scripts? Certainly but they where written by Jeff and in C. I think this statement is false. Unless someone has evidence to the contrary, I still stick by my statement that there were neither creature scripts nor any sort of C code to simulate creature scripts inside the Avernum Trilogy. They all worked off of the SAME PROGRAM, a primitive version of basicnpc. Again, if anyone can cite an example of behavior to the contrary, please do, but barring this, the above statement is not true. EDIT: See my explanation on the previous page (starting with "The way you could tell the difference between monsters all having the same AI and some having custom scripts") for my reasons for saying this. I'm not saying that it COULDN'T have been done; I'm just saying that it WASN'T done.

Vent, a few things. To your first bullet point in point 1: I don't think anyone has made that criticism. No one has said that a scenario need cover only the most pressing and important aspect of a contemporary issue. Quote: Obviously, when one speaks about warehouses of waste, one thinks of those of radioactive waste. In this direction, the scenario covers the subject rather well. I disagree. As Thuryl pointed out, all they had to do to dispose of this pollution was to PUSH A BUTTON. And they didn't do it. Radioactive waste is nothing like this. There is no magic button to push to get rid of it. I'm sorry, but the English in your third bullet point is so bad that I'm not sure that I understand you at all. Let me at least address a part of it. Quote: the major design choice of the scenario, 100 years later, leaves little place to an effective debate. It’s difficult to present the reasons justifying the choices involving this catastrophic situation. 1. Again, I don't think the part about VoDT taking place one hundred years (or eighty, technically -- t13Libraries.txt, state 13, string 5) after the fact is the most important part to most people here. 2. It would be easy enough to leave behind a note that indicated the reasons for the waste not being cleaned up, or to provide some sort of evidence to allow the player to speculate, or whatever. JV could've done this if he wanted to. As I wrote above, I think he didn't want us to think about the reason the school wasn't shut down. Quote: The moral problem is linked to those who wanted to hide the potential problem. It’s not linked to know why those who feared the future danger did not act. We have only your say-so on that. Either way, why did people want to hide the potential problem? Or why was the waste not destroyed? Why did any of the events unfold the way that they did? None of the characters demonstrate motivations, one of the most important parts about the writing of any sort of story. That was my objection: whether the cover-up was central, as you say, or the pollution was central, as others have said, why did people behave the ways that they did? We never know. The problem here is that the school has a magic button that will clean up all the waste, one that has no downsides (at least as far as we ever know). Real life pollution is not like this at all. It is about trade-offs.

Heh, you (RiotGearEpsilon) must be the only person who thinks that the GFs aren't responsive enough. I think this is more of an individual bug than a system-wide issue, though. If you want text boxes that tell you what you've just done, play Avernum. I thought the GFs were interesting in their setup. I didn't know exactly what would happen (or what had just happened, in some cases) as a result of my actions. I liked this effect. *shrug* A quest to notify their next of kin? I really don't like this idea, but I'm not sure why, so I can't justifiably say anything bad about it. I liked the way Nethergate handled joinable NPCs, that they would give dialog boxes ("talk" to the party, kind of) at certain times, mid-dungeon. I would really like to see GF3 be to GF1 and GF2 what A3 was to A2 and A1: a truly monumental epic, the culmination of everything that preceded it. Although hopefully he won't throw combat out of whack, the way he has done for thirds in a series before.

I think you misunderstood the article almost completely. If you read it in the context of the Creator's other articles , particularly Creating Compelling Characters and Good Bad Guys, then you'll notice some things in the article that show that he knows what you're saying already. Speaking for myself, my issue with VoDT is not that it is preachy -- which would imply an excess of moralizing, where there isn't all that much -- but just that the moral for real life doesn't follow from the story. The moral in VoDT is that pollution is bad. Why? Because it is. So don't pollute. Why does pollution exist? How is this more than just a black and white issue? These are questions that VoDT does not even attempt to address. My point is that while VoDT is not overly preachy, the only moral that one can draw from it is a shallow one. The issue here is that the characters lack motivations for their negative actions. Why do they leave behind the waste? We never know. If anything, that makes them closer to insane villains rather than to multi-dimensional people. It is not the most egregious example in Blades history, but it is one that most people are familiar with. Quote: Originally written by Qalnor: But you seem to want all villains to be insane; murderers, rapists or otherwise so far outside of social norms that you don't feel guilty considering them the bad guy. Did you even READ this article? Commander Groul in Nephil's Gambit is THE BAD GUY (kind of). He is "your adversary." And the Creator cites him as a good example because he is NOT insane. He is very rational, perhaps too much so. Quote: Originally written by Qalnor: your expectations as described in this article are quite honestly ridiculous Which expectations? These? Quote: Originally written by the Creator: If you're going to address an issue, you need to address it properly and fully. I would hope not. EDIT: I think what you're reacting to is the same thing that bothered me at first, namely that one paragraph (but NOT the whole thing) almost sounds as though he's saying to make everyone a good guy. But if you look closely, you'll notice he's saying to make everyone a good guy FROM THEIR OWN POINT OF VIEW. Virtually no one who ever lived has ever thought of himself as a bad guy who did bad things all the time because he was bad. For realism, none of your characters should, either.

Quote: If a beastie is in a dark area, can it still use missile attacks? Yes. Quote: If said beastie is in darkness, does its armor class improve? No. Quote: Is it possible to change the lighting on the wandering monster encounter areas? I don't see a call to change lighting anywhere in the docs, although Jeff promised us it'd be there... right now I think the answer is no. Quote: Finally, has anyone made any creature sheets for dwarves? You know, the short, bearded dudes with the subterranean home decor? Not that I know of. The place I'd look is the Louvre , and it doesn't have any dwarves that I saw.

Look! A newbie! I think this interpretation is a reasonable one. However, I don't know if the scenario says anywhere that the mages in the school didn't have time to start the cleaning mechanism. As far as I could tell, Jeff didn't want us to know why the mechanism wasn't started. When you pull the lever to clean things up, part of the dialog that comes up says, "For whatever reason, the waste destruction mechanisms weren't used when the School was closed" (town 11, state 27, emphasis added). The explanation I came up with while playing was that they didn't have a good energy source. After all, you have to get that Crystal of Power from the vahnatai before you can activate the waste cleanup system. Still, I'm just speculating. I don't know that VoDT says anywhere what the real reason is that the mages didn't activate the controls. I suppose I could quibble with one of the paragraphs in the article, because VoDT does kind of try to say that the experiments were important -- when you walk into the Control Chambers: "There can be no more doubt. The School of Magery was not just a teaching institution. Some remarkable research was going on here as well. The strange devices in front of you are evidence enough of that" (town 16, state 14) -- but insofar as it doesn't really detail any of them, the point is still pretty valid.

Never having used it, this is my understanding: it depends on when you want to turn debug mode on. If you want to play through the whole thing in debug mode, put it in the START_SCEN_STATE. If you only want to play one part of one town in debug mode, put it in a state in that town and put a special encounter rectangle that calls that state. At least, that's how it should work, but if anyone knows anything to the contrary, please correct me.

Come to think of it, JV did an "invisibility" (sort of) in Nethergate in the Roman plotline. (I say sort of because he made the townspeople just not notice you unless you did something weird and out of the ordinary. You were still completely visible, it was just a sort of Somebody Else's Problem field, kind of.) I thought it worked reasonably well.

My impression after mucking about with the Character Editor for a bit (trying to create a god party, I admit) is that the add xp function is a bit unreliable. I couldn't get it to work right. That's another advantage: my HLPM can take you up to level 100 in seconds! No complex Char Edit manipulation necessary! Ah, to hell with it. I'll finish it off so that it will raise chars to whatever level they like, and then I'll submit it as a utility. I'm tired of talking about it when it's 75% done and not released.

Well, it wasn't a scripting language. It was a rather clumsy (but ultimately quite powerful) system of nodes. You couldn't give creatures custom scripts or place terrain scripts or anything like that. And if I'm not mistaken, the Avernum Trilogy *does* use something fairly similar to BoE's nodes, but quite different from the GF and BoA scripts.

Quote: By your argument Avernum clearly had no graphics files because you couldn't open up anything and see pictures. Using ResEdit, you can open up at least three files (Avernum Art, Avernum Char Graphics, and Avernum Graphics) and see pictures. Quote: Archers/mages have a tendency to hang back, and sometimes they run away Again, archers and mages probably hang back because they have different abilities from fighters. You experience the same results with the basicnpc script in BoA. Quote: Whether there are 'external' scripts (ones not in the engine) or several internal ones, or just one big complex internal one, is something I really don't have the experience to decide (and frankly I don't think anyone does. There are too many possible variations on each to tell what's what.). The way you could tell the difference between monsters all having the same AI and some having custom scripts is by special movement (it runs somewhere after seeing you), messaging (it calls for help), string printing ("You have been spotted!"), or special targeting (a mung demon that targets the best spellcasters and not just anyone nearby with spell abilities). I don't remember any of these in the Avernum Trilogy anywhere, but it's been a while, so if you do remember them, be sure to mention it. I'd be interested.

Quote: How do you know the Avernum games included no scripts? I mean, sure, there weren't any convenient text files lying around for users to edit, but I'd assume things like that would be shoved inside of some data file. Because GF *did* have the text files just lying around. You have to go into GF Files and then Scripts to get to them, but they're there. A1-3 has nothing comparable. Quote: there are certainly different kinds of fighting styles in the game As far as I could tell, the only difference in fighting styles depended on the creature's abilities. Mung Demons dumbfounded because they had the ability to dumbfound, for example, whereas Empire Archers didn't, so they didn't. I don't remember -- correct me if I'm wrong -- any significant variance that didn't depend on the monster's abilities.