Silent Motion

Several times I've seen posts that mention this. I'm curious as to why you like one but not the other. Thoughts?

Alex itself takes .6 MB The scenarios I host for those who've requested it take ~9 MB. So say 10MB for Alex as-is.

I think it's safe to say that we will never see the proposed update to Alexandria. I would really like to hand this over to someone else. Much could be done here, and if it's done right it could serve as a template for a BoA scenarios DB as well. This is a great project for someone who wants or needs to learn about Web-based DBs. Maybe you can even use this as a school project. Please give this some thought. I'll help you in any way I can. It's time somebody else stepped up and took Alexandria to the next level.

Quote: Originally written by The1Kobra: Somehow, I don't think "The master" is his actual name. His real name is inferred in QoS IF you pay close attention to his memories. I was going to include this as a bonus question in QoS, but decided it was too obscure. As no one has ever even asked until now, I think I was right.

FYI: The true power of the Master is only revealed at the end of Quests of the Spheres. If you pay close attention while in the mind of the Master, you'll note he was trained by Erika, and knew he surpassed her abilities before she released him.

I'd like to see.... Baba Yaga vs. whoever. She is a minor god, after all.

My annual April Fools joke to the community: http://p080.ezboard.com/fthelyceumfrm5.showMessage?topicID=269.topic

Has any work been done on a visual editor for creating dialog? There was a topic on this several months ago. Most RPGs have a heavy dialog component. A tool that would allow one to visually create and see dialog flows, with a back end DB to store them, and an engine to spit out completed code would be of great service not only to BoA, but could also be tweaked for use in other RPGs. Someone could make BIG $$$ here if they did this right.

I always fail to see why people need to inflate both monster HP and weapon damage. If you have a sword that does 6HP and your fighting a Goblin with 6HP, is that really any different than a sword that does 100HP fighting a monster with 100HP? Creating godlike weapons throws most scenarios out of balance, no matter what RPG system you use.

Wow! Looks like Exile IV. Seriously, this looks huge. It would be very difficult for anyone to build a scenario worthy of such scope. If Alexandria II ever is released, I suggest you post it there.

See http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001589

See http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/b/x/bxb11/boe/code/faces/faces.htm for info on dialogue picts.

On Sat, 1 Jan 2000, Tarl wrote: I'm not going to release my scenarios without passwords, because I'm too lazy for that. But I'll give away my passwords. If you mess with something and it no longer works, you're on your own. Also know that studying scenarios from the editor is of less value than you might think. Huge series of linked specials are almost uninterpretable. I've got a notebook with about forty pages of notes on Tatterdemalion, and even that might not do it. Most of it is written in a personal sort of shorthand that's a cross between my worst handwriting and a bunch of homemade abbreviations. In the meantime, the passwords: "Islands of the Wheel": 23457 (best hand in deuce-to-seven lowball) Tatterdemalion": akqj10 (as a royal flush, best hand in most forms of poker) Yes, I do play poker, and rather well! Enjoy the scenarios, --Tarl Roger Kudrick

Go to Google and search on random story generator adventure for a number of sites that will get you started. Here's my favorite (true) misspelling story. On a subway wall: "I love grils." Beneath it: "That's girls, not grils!" Beneath that: "But what about us grils?"

You can fake card games, like poker, blackjack, etc. You might build into your scenario a "gambling" skill that affects the outcome of playing these games, so a Level 1 gambler has a 50-50 chance of winning, at Level 2 it's a 55% chance, etc. Or you can "half-fake" some card games by having a set (10-20) hands that come up randomly. See the Hut of Baba Yaga duelling rats or Quests of the Spheres guards poker game. I think there are other scenarios out there that do these things as well. Or, you could build the card game entirely outside of BoE itself, with full randomness and complexity. When you win perhaps a series of hands, you are given a keyword that will (in BoE) force a character to give you a reward

Also, see a list of shops.

Go online and look at some maps of real towns. THat could give you some ideas.

Arenax, it's apparent that you won't be satisfied here unless you get the last word, so I'll write one more thing here, and then remain silent. If you want to continue to pick apart what I and others write line by line without looking at the meaning of what we write as a whole, so be it. You have points of view of coding, scenario creation, etc. I have different points of view on the subject. I believe that many people what to tell a story. Anything (in this case scripting) that gets in the way of telling that story reduces the chance they will be able to do so. You don't belive that. That's OK. There is NO right or wrong here. The best we can do is agree to disagree.

Wow - I never expected this to go on this long! I simply feel there are people out there with minimal programming skills that have great stories to tell. BoA's current scripting system will never allow them to express those stories. Tools that translate a visual metaphor into script would help them. What we have now only allows a small subset of the population to create a scenario. I'm not critizing anyone for not developing these tools - it would require a tremendous effort to do so. The Creator is right about me - I'm not the best coder in the world, but I am stubborn. It took me three attempts to get the Missionary and Cannibals code in Quintessence working correctly. Not many people are as stubborn as I am. Because of that, I'll add one very controversial statement: BoA will never achieve the level of success BoE enjoys, because it's too hard to script. Time will prove me right or wrong.

First, let me applaud everyone who is working in this area. I think it's a great thing. I'd also like to share some thoughts with you of what these editors could be, if a great deal more effort is invested in their development. When Jeff first started releasing snippets of what BoA was to be, I suggested he needed some good dialog tools that would translate some of the more common tasks (door settings, etc.) into script. He agreed this was a good idea, but it didn't happen. If we want to include a larger developer base in BoA, we need tools that make it easy to develop scenarios. Tools that I'm seeing now are a small step in that direction, but they still require one to understand the underlying scripting paradigm they are based upon. What would be great is a tool that used a different paradigm for the interface, then translated the user's input into scripting. For example, imagine a dialog generator that used a graphical interface, where boxs of text could be inserted and then arrows could tie dialog chunks together. The boxes could be dragged about on the screen and rearranged to visually represent flow. With this tool, you are free to concentrate on the dialog interactions themselves. The code is then generated for you. Just as in Windows or a Mac, dragging an icon is translated into code behind the scenes. There are many benefits to this approach, but the main one here are a larger developer base. That translates to more scenarios, more growth, etc. Now I'm sure some will argure that not all aspects of BoA scripting could be covered by this approach, and you are right. If we make as many things as simple as possible, well, that's a good goal to shoot for. Just some thoughts. IMO, BoE succeeded because it was dialog based - even if those dialogs were primitive.

Please don't be offended here, CO, but given that I have (so I was told) a "correct" format already up there, I'd really like several people who have added graphics to a BoA scenario to confirm what the correct template is. I do want accurate information. I don't want to go through this a third time. The best way to accomplish both is to have at least two people tell me "This is the correct template."

Submissions to me are VERY slow. I last updated the Louvre on Nov 1 - adding Corn, by Vincent Camley. I have no other submissions sent to me since then, with the exception of Captain Obvious's stuff, which is being reworked right now. As far as I know I'm up to date. What's missing?

I received this email message: "I found out that your wall template is incorrect. Because of the way that they are entered into BOA, they must be in the same order, the terrain graphics of BOA has several examples." Could someone in the know look at http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/b/x/bxb11/boa/boagraphics/buildings/index.htm and tell me what, if anything, is wrong here? Thanks!

You could do this, but it would have to be a direct overhead view, not the Avernum overhead& side view. The best thing I can think of to describe this is a square within a square, with diagonal lines connection the corners of the outer square to the corners of the inner square. The inner square is the floor, the outer square is the (transparent) ceiling, and the stuff in between are the walls. I really don't think it would look that great, but I've seen other games that do this.

The Pi question is a trick. Think about symbols you can make as an answer, not numbers or Roman numerals. You do get a reward. Do find the harmonics. Some are obvious. Some are hidden. Look for bones.