Silent Motion

From Bioware: Is the NWN Aurora Toolset coming out for the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights? No. Our initial goal was to create a cross platform toolset for the gaming community. However, we have encountered difficulty in obtaining a viable cross-platform solution to assist us in porting the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset. As such, BioWare has no plans to create Mac or Linux versions of the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset at this time.

Also see http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/b/x/bxb11/boe/howdoit.htm and look at the graphic tutorials there.

Make sure you do use the sav file that came with the game - this scenario is built around it. The Readme file contains all the info you need to build this file from scratch if you need to.

Try my site: http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/boe/ I just tested the PC download and it works fine.

Not that I'm selling NWN, but they recently released a new edition that combines the engine and all commercial scenarios to date for ~$40 US. New scenarios they are working on for a mid-Nov release will cost between $10-15 US. Add to that the hundreds of free scenarios out there, and I don't see how NWN would cost you 2X as much as BoA, unless you are not in the US? Then it makes sense. Even at 2X the price, to get a game that isn't abandoned by its developer and has a future is worth it, IMO. You can also try e-Bay for good discounts.

I've asked this in the BoA Forums with no reply: Is Jeff adding the requested features to BoA? This is the crux of the biscuit to me. If Jeff treast BoA the way he treats BoE, I'm done. I can't see investing the time and energy into another dead product. Look at NeverWinter Nights - great support, they listen to scenario developers, new scenarios all the time, a huge player base, up-to-date 3D technologies, and it costs only a few $$$ more than BoA. IMO, this is a no brainer.

Try http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~eet23/Done/outdoor.html

Quote: Originally written by Andrea: Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: But what's going on with that idea about making these things designer-editable? I thought we were going to have a new database soon that would allow us to go in and update things directly instead of e-mailing and waiting. I have it set up, I just need data. A DB dump from Alexandria would work. So what's the status on this? Did you get the DB dump I sent?

Quote: Originally written by Andrea: Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: But what's going on with that idea about making these things designer-editable? I thought we were going to have a new database soon that would allow us to go in and update things directly instead of e-mailing and waiting. I have it set up, I just need data. A DB dump from Alexandria would work. Send me your e-mail address Andrea, and I'll dump what I have to this point. That way you can test it. If things look good, we can decide on next steps.

So, were any new features added to this patch? Do we have ANY indication that Jeff will add features?

I am working on putting all these scenarios into Alex. Any help you can give on scenario info is much appreciated. No way I can play all these to count towns, etc. Also, I may just copy the entire all the scenarios from SW and place them on my own site. THey currently come to about 50 MB. I recently acquired 500 MB of storage. That way, no more broken links as people move things, SW renames ZIP files, etc.

Actually, most scenarios listed on Alex are on SW servers. I just link to them. Now that I have more storage space, maybe I'll transfer them over to my space...

I'm not sure we should post utility scenarios or code examples on Alex. Right now, it contains playable scenarios. What do you think?

Like I said, if something's missing, please resubmit. Most "new" things are in the Color edit & misc. file download.

Quote: Originally written by spy.there: I am sorry for your bad karma and hope, the times change soon for you. Nevertheless I dare to bother you (or somebody else, who could give me a hint) with a silly question about graphics formation. In Louvre you write that gif is preferred. When I change my jpgs to gifs, a lot of colours are spoiled. So I sent the graphics as jpgs. What are you doing with jpgs? Is there a special trick to transfer a jpg into gif without loss? I work with Photoshop. Any advice is appreciated. I will post jpgs, but as mentioned above, unless you save the jpg with no loss (100%) people will probably have some problems using them. Many graphic programs do allow you to set the level of compression on the jpg - if you have such a program, crank it up to 100%, which means no compression or loss.

I hope I have everything submitted to me recently. If you sent me something in the last several weeks and you don't see it, please resubmit. My apologies. Read on if you want to know what's happening. Two weeks ago my wife broke her ankle, requiring an operation. She's fine, but I'm doing double duty right now, so I'm a little swamped and foggy. Add to that my father passed away last week. He's in a better place now, and had no hope for ever getting better, so that's a good thing. Also, my home machine was choking on e-mail, so I switched to PSU's web-based e-mail system, and I'm pretty sure it ate some things. I never use it, but had to to keep up with my real job. I wanted to let you know this because I'm receiving e-mails telling me I'm lazy and unprofessional in my Louvre updates. These are the reasons why someone might think so. PS - After several long discussion with Clint Peters, I decided to place his submissions in the Color Edits and Misc. Images Download ZIP file. Clint did some interesting things with BoA graphics, but would never respond to my question - "Are these color edits, yes or no?" They look like color edits to me, so that's why I placed them where I did. My apologies to Clint if I've misrepresented him in any way. Given my mental fog of late, I just couldn't understand his paragraphs-long explanation of what he did with these graphics.

Has anyone looked into this? I'd really like to be sure that the info I have on Louvre is correct as is. I'd also like to include Clint Peter's efforts, especially the coding info, if it's correct.

Quote: Originally written by Silence in Motion: I mean like this And FYI for those out there that think I'm all-knowing. Well, you're RIGHT! I'm just testing you! Seriously, while I did beta test BoA, I've not built anything with it. The graphics design section on the Louvre was built with the help of many experts, but I'm not one of them. I just brought it all together. Edit: Auugh! I hit the quote button instead of Edit! Double post! I guess I'll have to report myself....

I don't know if you've heard or are even interested in Adventure Game Studio, but looking through their docs I was impressed by their dialog editor. You can see the basics of it at http://www.agsforums.com/acintro8.htm IMO, this is something that BoA really needs - an interface that allows one to easily build, store, and modify dialog trees. So now all we need is someone to build it........

Please go to http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/b/x/bxb11/boa/boagraphics/items/index.htm and then tell me if this info is correct. I have some submissions that are placing thumbnail "cells" to the immediate right of the original graphic, where the thumbnail cells are stacked one of top of the other, and I don't believe you can just copy and paste these into a BoA Graphic Sheet. Please let me know what works and what doesn't.

If you are interested in seeing how I set up Quintessence's SDFs, etc., please go to http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/boe/beta/quintessence.rtf It may give you some ideas.

With Mac OS X 10.3.5, I'm having several troubles with BoE. First, ResEdit will not work to create a .MEG file. I have downloaded new copies of ResEdit, bumped memory up on it, etc. No go. It either crashes when I attempt to paste an image into a file, or it refuses to paste it. I've used ResEdit for over 10 years, BoE for at least 6, and previously created dozens of MEG files, so I know it's not me. Second, the Character Editor is very flaky. If you are in millions of colors and start the editor, it will crash the first time when you try to save a file, even if you've switched to 256 color mode. If you then reload it (while still in 256 color mode) it will limp along. Even if you do get it to work, sometimes when you try to add spells to a character, the text in the dialog box that names each spell is absent. So, you have several rows of checkboxes with no descriptive text. What fun! Also, the icon for the Character Editor has changed to the default application icon in OS X - two sheets of paper with a pencil, brush, and ruler on the bottom of the paper. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Quote: Originally written by Andrea: Brett, what format can you get the Alexandria data to me in? It would be useful to have an existing dataset to work on. It's in Filemaker Pro. So, Tab delineated. Each field seperated by a tab, with a return at the end of each record. Or, CSV, SYLK, DBF. The fields are as follows Name Download Location Description Author Last Name Author First Name Author email Level Supporting Docs Size in KB when Zipped Play Time Custom Graphics? # of Outdoor Sections # of Indoor Sections Content Rating Scenario Attributes Alex Total Rating (average of individual ratings) Alex Individual Ratings & comments SW Rating Lyceum Rating Lyceum Full Review Password (Yes, No, password) Awards Comments Added to Database on Some of these are straight forward, some are not. Look at Alex and check the "details" checkbox before doing a search to get a feel for this.

Quote: Originally written by Andrea: Doing it for one would do it for others very easily. If I were hypothetically to make this hypothetical database for Blades, speaking in a purely hypothetical manner, what data do you think would be useful to store? Basically what you have at Alexandria? I've also been thinking that it'd be useful to have a separate table for designers. That way, one would simply have to modify their contact info once and it would change all of their scenario records. What do you think? Er, hypothetically. I think everything at Alex would be good. Do keep seperate tables for designers, download locations, user review e-mail addresses. That would be far superior to what I have, and far easier to maintain. If Alcritas moves one more time.....

Quote: Originally written by Andrea: It would be feasible to develop a community-serviced scenario database. You'd simply have a password system -- scenario designers sign up for an account; you add a few administrators; other than that, the scenario designers themselves add and modify their scenario entries and upload the appropriate files. This system would make it so that the only administrative red tape would be that required to manage accounts and keep an eye out for abuse. Combine this with an Alexandria-style system and you have a searchable scenario database, complete with scores, kept current by those with the most interest in keeping it so. Scenarios by people who are no longer around in the community could be grandfathered in by the administrators, since there's little chance of the original author needing to modify the record. All it requires is some scripting, some HTML, and a nice SQL database. And effort. And interest. I've been planning on implementing such a system for Pyg. It'll be fun. So why not do it for BoA? BoE scenario development is so slow now I don't think it's worth it - but if you want to do it, I'd be happy to send you all the Alex data and turn it over to you. Talk is cheap, but action here would be rewarded by a very grateful community.