BainIhrno

Well, I've been doing a little playing. I notice the SFX effects don't show at all. Will they be restored in a later version?

I'm not necessarily saying that it's impossible to achieve, more that I probably won't be the one to port some scenarios (such as NTH, despite it being one of my favorites.)

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to seeing what people think. I can't seem to edit the post, so some possible tags could include Drama, Arc Series, and Plot Fork. It's probably even between being linear and open ended, so I'm not sure what the best word is for that. The content rating also appears to be missing from the CSR post. Depending on how many people play/like this scenario, I may consider porting the follow-up, Redemption, and working on that. There's a lot of BoE scenarios, though, that don't really seem "port-able", as the atmosphere is created with features in the BoE engine (such as An Apology or Roots) and may not translate as well in BoA. The idea of creating my own original scenario in BoA is still on the table as well.

I never cared for this scenario a whole lot - certainly, it was a very creative idea (balance good and evil), but the atmosphere felt fake and often swung between trying to be a comedy and trying to be serious. Average

The scenario was interesting, but never really engaged me. It felt needlessly long and didn't really like the aesthetics (too much basalt wall, etc, too many small rooms, etc.) The plot seemed okay. Average

So I've decided to go ahead and release the scenario now. Of Good and Evil is a BoE scenario by Alcritas, and has now been ported to Blades of Avernum by myself. It is for level 10-15 parties (15 from the HLPM) and is rated Mature. Enjoy. Mac - http://www.sendspace.com/file/9kf6gk Win - http://www.sendspace.com/file/vq9khi

The Cradle was a short enjoyable scenario. Some of it felt a little dull, and there didn't seem to be a whole lot to do, but overall, it's certainly worth playing. [rating]Average[/rating]

I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation again on Netflix. I forgot how great that show is. I've also been watching a number of programs from ABCFamily, and look forward to the next season of Pretty Little Liars (returning next week). The last movie I saw in the theaters was "Noah" - which is good if you just take it as a movie along the lines of a mythology story.

I've got it up and running. Scenario editor doesn't work though. (Maybe I'll make a HLPM for BoE like Kel's BoA one, with more restrictions obviously, and include features for creating pre-fab parties, as there's still no Character Editor).

Are there any plans right now to make BoE available for OS X version 10.8? I'm getting a weird craving to play it again.

I'm often picturing Of Good and Evil, a Blades of Exile scenario by Alcritas, which is currently in beta testing for a port to Blades of Avernum as a movie - I could see a lot of potential here, but for the movie to be good, it would almost have to be a big-budget film, and getting people to the theaters to see it could be a challenge, as almost no one outside of Spiderweb has ever heard of it, and historically, movies based from games generally aren't received well. I could picture a film though that if people were seeing it, they'd have a hard time believing it came from a game as opposed to a novel. A fantasy film receiving Metacritic.com scores of 95+ however, could provoke interest. It's also by no means a happy ending fairy tale, and (in my vision) would probably be a very dark film (that's not to say there isn't hope or good anywhere - I thought "The Dark Knight", for example, suffered from not offering any good or worthy cause worth fighting for). If you play BoA, once I release the scenario, you'll see what I mean, and you can always play it in BoE, if you can get a working copy.

DeltanAmbassador, I'll be the first to admit that in the past, I would express opinions towards scenarios I didn't care for in a rather hostile manner (as you can see in my previous "review") - which was common in the old BoX community. At the time, I was younger, less mature, and felt more influenced by what others said, and I realize this was wrong. That being said, Nikki and Slarty are right - some reviews got lost and it is simply the ratings that are being preserved. As for the scenario itself, my opinion hasn't really changed. It doesn't give the impression that effort was put into it, and, as such it's hard to give a substantial review. Eh, Kelandon could probably explain this better. (Poor)

Last call for beta testers! If you're interested, fill out the information above.

Wow, I can't believe it's been 10 years... congrats Kel.. I'll have been a 10 year member also after October 25, 2004.

Any more takers? I'm still waiting on a report for the other half from Jerakeen, but after that, I will have received full reports from J and Ishad Nha, as well as a report from Kel on the beginning.

Sorry for the delay on this; I've done more extensive alpha testing, and do believe I've caught a large batch of errors, as well as made some updates. I think I'm going to renew the beta call at this time; if you'd like to test, and haven't signed up before, just fill out the information on the top post. Thanks. I'll send it out next week before Thursday.

I'm also curious, does anyone know where I could find free artwork that could be used in scenarios (I know Bahssikava had a city mural) with the draw_pic call?

Well, another year of movies… I've only seen 7 movies this year, but there's not a whole lot that looks interesting outside of that…. it seems that the quality of movies is decreasing these past few years. Anyway, the movies I did see... 1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (9/10) - This is my clear winner for 2013. I honestly thought Smaug was the best dragon I have seen on film to date - he was genuinely terrifying, and had a great voice (Benedict Cumberbatch is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors). There was a lot of exciting battles, great special effects, and great acting. It didn't have the same emotional impact as the LOTR trilogy, but was still very fun and exciting. 2. Star Trek: Into Darkness (7/10) - It had an interesting story, but it eventually became clear that the writers were more interested in the special effects than the plot (seriously, did we really need a prolonged scene of the crew trying to stop the Enterprise from blowing up? That's really the best they can come up with?) Still, some exciting scenes and a great performance by Cumberbatch. 3. Frozen (7/10) - A good storyline, but as with many Disney movies, too much was unexplained and felt very simple. 4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (7/10) - It was okay, but felt repetitive of the first one. Additionally, I felt the heroes didn't get enough to do on their own, almost everything that happened seemed to be the work of 'outside forces' rather than the main characters. 5. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (6/10) - Attempts to use Greek mythology in an interesting new way, but did anything of substance really happen in this film that hasn't already been done 100 times already? 6. Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (6/10) - Cut all the scenes out where there is no fighting, and it would be pretty much the same film. The fighting scenes were exciting, but the film ultimately feels very cliched. 7. Despicable Me 2 (5/10) - Stupid. The villain was a dumb Mexican stereotype, and large portions of the film were quite dull. Did anyone else see anything better?

Some things I'm trying to figure out... 1. Do creatures have a chance of not dropping an object even if their chance of doing so is 100%? There are two items in my scenario that are needed for side quest completion, but I'm still noticing that the creatures still don't always drop them (I've currently changed it so the item is directly transferred into a characters inventory after the creatures death, but this seems a little awkward.) 2. At one point, items appear that the party is not supposed to be able to pick up. They are all set as regular items, and are placed with a put_item_on_spot call. If the party looks at the item, however, it is listed as 'unused'. If there anyway to fix this? 3. Is it possible to set names for characters if you can't talk to them, without creating a separate creature type? Thanks for any help.

As you may know, I've been working on porting OG&E to BoA. I'm not sure if this question has ever been answered, but in the story, was Protagoras intended to be the traitor that Clarke was referring to? What made me wonder: 1. Protagoras has made a sculpture of a Slith Warrior for a contest. 2. Protagoras does not give you a chance to fight the Sliths, unlike Ralkan and Clarke, at the end of the "refuse" story. 3. Protagoras seems to have a slightly larger role in the "accept" version of the scenario, where you are not at war with the Sliths. 4. Alcritas did mention to me (back in 2007) that he intended to build a secret third path in the scenario, where you would work for the Sliths directly - in this path, Protagoras would have a larger role - this was dropped because at the time, he thought a BoE bug would make a scenario this large unplayable. Now this may be evidence of nothing - but the traitor General Clarke referred to is never revealed in the scenario. Protagoras does appear briefly in "Redemption", which I have not played in a long time, so I may be missing important information. The reason I wonder, though, is that he seems more 'connected' to the Sliths than any of the other characters. Thoughts?

I seem to remember a large package of custom talking pics by TGM - I have downloaded 101-150, but I can't seem to find it anywhere now. Does anyone still have them?

Okay, Just looking through the information that I have, I'll try to make the corrections and alpha test more extensively - this is the first time that I have ever made it this far designing for BoA, so some judgements as to how to do things are/were difficult to make. I'm on 10.8.3, and I don't know of any working copy of Alint - it would probably be helpful if I had it. As for town 10, it is not accessible in the scenario so I didn't bother too much with that. I will send a PM to Ishad Nha to address information on his report. In the meantime, I will try to make corrections before calling for additional testers. I may not be ready for a few months, though, as I'm also back in school and will need to find time.

Just an update: I still don't have any beta reports other than Ishad Nha and a sypnosis of the beginning from Kelandon. I'm thinking that I would like to make changes based on what I have so far, and then send out a new beta to anyone who is interested - but I am skeptical about releasing the scenario with only one beta report.

Drat, I was going to remove the turn_off_debug_mode call before I sent it out, sorry.

I have sent out the beta to Kelandon, Ishad Nha, and Nikki - sorry for the delay. I'm still taking more testers, if anyone is interested.