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Kelandon

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Everything posted by Kelandon

  1. One unexpected thing about alpha testing is that I have to relearn how to play BoA. I don't really remember how to allot skill points and that kind of thing. It's fun, but it's a bit weird, like speaking a foreign language for the first time in many years. As of this test, the party ends up around level 14 at the end of Chapter 1 if you do all the side quests. That's probably not going to change much between now and the beta version. I have a list of about two dozen things that I need to fix in Chapter 1 based on this round of alpha testing. I'm now ready to go into Chapter 2 for the first time. I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Initial alpha testing is usually pretty rough. But the capital awaits.
  2. To change party state to drunk based on dialogue, include the "code" characteristic within the dialogue node, and use set_char_status() or set_party_status() as applicable. To fully revive hp and energy and move the party, use the "inn" characteristic. To partially revive hp and energy, you'll have to use "code" plus a variety of related calls, including change_char_energy() and heal_char(), as well as (probably better) march_party() or (probably worse) relocate_character(). This is sort of complicated, and I'm not sure I'd bother. To give an item as a reward, use reward_give(). For further information on dialogue, look at docs section 2.14.
  3. Mac. Jeff used to do Mac-first releases.
  4. 1) How to place an anti-magic field or a quickfire or something related to that in an area? Use the put_field_on_space() call. 2) How to change a character's attitude (Friendly/Neutral) if a particular action is done? Use the set_attitude() call. 3) I have seen secret passages telling that "You could not have seen this secret passage from the other side." How to make passages like that? Use some combination of the block_entry() call and a flag. It depends on exactly how you want to do it, but the easiest way is to have something like the following on the space, where (1,1) is the flag that you set if you've found the passage: if (get_flag(1,1) == 0) block_entry(1); And then set flag (1,1) on, say, the space before that if you're coming from the direction where you can find the secret passage, probably with a pop-up message saying that you found the passage. A slightly more complex way—which I usually use—is to have a block_entry() call dependent on both a flag and the location of the lead character. It would look something like this, where the passage is at the x-coordinate 15, you can enter from the west, and the flag is (1,1): if (get_flag(1,1) == 0) { if (char_loc_x(first_group_member(0)) < 15) { message_dialog("You find a secret passage!",""); set_flag(1,1,1); } else block_entry(1); } I did something resembling this (though not exactly the same) in Bahssikava, town 19, state 12.
  5. If I remember correctly, if you train a character in Mage Spells or Priest Spells at character creation, the character starts by default with some of the lower-level spells. But this is something you should just try in-game. It's an easy thing just to test for yourself so you know the answer.
  6. It probably could be done with a level 50 two-member party if you gave them both warrior skills and spellcaster skills, as long as you gave them key items (e.g., both have Adlerauge) and made use of every exploit (e.g., both have Divinely Touched). But it would involve a lot of saving and reloading, and I can't really imagine why a person would want to do that.
  7. There's combat in the Prologue, but it's totally linear, so the difficulty is not dependent on player choice and thus easier to control. I guess another option would be to add more combat to the Prologue, so the player does the initial level-gain in a linear fashion. It would take a little rewriting, but it could be done. I think that's a decision for a later day. I think the easy solution, for now, is to drop a fairly conspicuous hint to the player at the end of the Prologue, and then throw in a small warning when obtaining the hardest quest (just in case the player picks it up too soon).
  8. Doing some alpha testing this weekend. I started afresh, and I still love the Prologue. Chapter 1 is getting there, but there's still a lot that alpha testing revealed that is problematic. Some bugs, but more just details that I forgot to fill in at one point or another. Their absence is not conspicuous when you're looking at the scenario in the editor, but it's conspicuous when you're playing. Right now, I'm puzzling over whether I made the Chapter 1 combat too hard. I'm doing the quests in a different order than I did in my initial testing, and it's taking some reloading. If I do some of the dungeon, back out, sell loot and buy spells, and go back in, I can totally do it. But is it too much? I don't know. BoA has an issue that is common to a lot of RPGs, which is that you gain power quickly in the early going. A level 1 party is much, much weaker than a level 5 party, and you jump from level 1 to level 5 fast. So if you do the quests in one order vs. another, you can end up with a radically different party at different points. Which I guess suggests that I should make all of the early dungeons pretty easy, but it seems fairly tedious if I do that. I probably just have to keep an eye on this as I do further rounds of testing. EDIT: After further testing, yes, the sequence of quests is a bit of an issue. There's really one that you should do first and one that you should do last. I probably should make this obvious, though I guess not mandatory.
  9. Apparently, the link suddenly became case-sensitive? Anyway, it should work now.
  10. I'm way ahead of you. EDIT: To be a little less flippant, as the other posts earlier in the thread say, Homeland involves a complete combat rebalance. Every monster has been modified in at least some way—often in very substantial ways. The level progression has been changed via new spells and abilities. Together with that, I've controlled what items are available in each chapter. One thing I'll be paying attention to during testing is whether I need to modify the items more deeply. Right now, I have special, magic items that are new, but a lot of the regular items are the same as what you find by default in the core files. It's possible I need to change that, though I think it's unlikely.
  11. Yeah, the reality is that while the coronavirus situation left some people with more time on their hands, it left me with less, at the same time as my side job picked up speed. So I've been able to work on this only a handful of times in the last few months. We've got a three-day weekend coming up, though, and I don't have anything scheduled. My hope is to spend most of the weekend on this and to make some real progress again for the first time in a while. And yeah, in terms of size, Homeland is 18-19 outdoor sections and, at this point, 100 towns. I don't expect to add many more, but I still need to fill in a lot of details in a lot of towns. I will say that for a scenario that draws its inspiration from the scandals and failures of the Trump Administration, waiting around a few months does tend to give me more material to work with.
  12. Yes, the thing to do is to email Spidweb. They've historically been pretty good about letting you transfer from one system to another.
  13. Have you read the documentation that comes with the editor? A lot of your questions are answered there. Here's the section from Chapter 1.6 on Editing the Outdoors: You probably want to use a Preset Encounter and specify the Move Type (probably Move Type 1, which is "Doesn't move").
  14. I think the problem is that there's no break; at the end of your INIT_STATE. You need a break at the end of each state.
  15. The mistake is that the message_dialog() call is not in any state. If it's not in a state, it never happens (and possibly breaks the script). Here's what you want: begintownscript; body; beginstate INIT_STATE set_name(20, "Chief Guard");// ID 114 message_dialog("Welcome to my town!", ""); break; beginstate EXIT_STATE; break; Note that this will show the message "Welcome to my town!" every time you enter the town. You need SDFs to make it happen only the first time.
  16. I have to admit, I'm not sure what you're asking. Could you clarify? Maybe references to specific pages would help. You may also want to look at some specific scenarios to see what they did. For example, my High Level Party Maker was commented out pretty carefully so that people could read it and understand what I was doing.
  17. There are a bunch of resources for getting started, including the old BoA Cookbook, the Scenario Workshop, various articles I wrote, and probably other things I'm forgetting. You'll want the most recent 3D editor, which I think is in the forum header. If you have questions, ask away. Also, welcome the boards, and leave your sanity at the door! I almost never get to do the traditional greeting.
  18. You definitely need to update to the most recent version. It's likely that this error is caused by some missing code that was added in a later version. Also, I'd probably just restart the scenario; you're very early on and it'll take you just a few minutes to get back to that point. If that doesn't work, I can help. These unhandled exceptions are the bane of my existence because, as a Mac designer, I can't reproduce them. I need to know exactly what happens right before the crash. There are several steps in that part of the scene: 1) Legare says "O Goddess, let what you have ordained BE!" 2) A bunch of the land changes 3) A message starting "As you stare on in amazement," pops up. 4) Legare says "DO NOT FEAR," etc. 5) Another message pops up, starting "As the sliths" 6) People disappear. 7) You walk forward. 8) You move to the Parted River. I need to know exactly when it crashes. For reference, an older version would crash at step 6).
  19. I was hoping to come back and say that everything through the end of Chapter 2 is done, but it's not happening as quickly as I'd hoped. What I'm doing now is creating all the stuff that didn't go right the first time—e.g., there was a space where I figured that I wanted something of general nature [x] to happen, but I couldn't come up with the details for [x], or I started to write [x] and it was bad, or whatever. I'm making progress, but I probably need another month or two. I'm also filling in minor details everywhere. For example, yesterday, I added area descriptions to every town in Chapters 1 and 2 that was missing them.
  20. You know, he tried that a couple of times. The second time, it was a complete commercial flop and nearly destroyed the company. He's said he's not likely to do it again. That may very well be the reason that Jeff hasn't tried it. Jeff is a good writer. He's a passable coder, but he's not great. You don't play Spiderweb games for their advanced programming; you play them for their immersive storytelling.
  21. I'd definitely recommend starting with Avernum or Avadon. Both are very good. Avernum is more open-world exploration, whereas Avadon is much more linear. I'd say that the mood of Avadon is darker and, at least for me, the story was harder to follow at first. Geneforge is excellent but is in the process of being remade right now, so I'd recommend not starting there (though you could). Nethergate is also excellent but a good deal older. I didn't like Queen's Wish, but most people here did.
  22. For whatever it's worth, here's what I thought.
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