Arenax

If someone provides a document detailed down to the most minute level, I'll take a crack at it. But it's an idea that strikes me as wholly unnecessary and the creation of a floodgate for "kewl i can make a scenario w00t" types. Maybe I'm wrong--but that's what BoE had for a long time. EDIT: And you're still seeking to simplify it. :-P

Spells are mostly useless against all of those. If this is A3, then almost every party should have the physical muscle to beat them down (INSANE damage levels, wahey!). In the others...well, buff up your fighters and throw them at the guys. I recommend summoning weak creatures as extra targets, too.

Cats are awesome, therefore Motrax is likewise awesome. Really quite simple, no?

Quote: Originally written by Morgan: That statement presumes you're working with a system that is of sufficient complexity that simplicity would limit its abilities. The dialogue system for BoA is no such thing. Its like saying the invention of the typewriter limited the usefulness of words. To be frank, if you can't do dialogue by hand, it's unlikely that you grasp the most basic principles of Avernumscript. I made AvDialogue to eliminate the tedium, not to remove the functionality.

Ben's right.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: Arenax, you missed Brett's point rather badly. The idea is that one could create a visually-oriented program that would then write script. The "state =" and "nextstate =" could be represented by lines connecting dialogue text. I caught it, Kel (though I was half-asleep and the "dialog box" part sort of confused me). I was explaining from a technical standpoint why that wouldn't work for most scripts. Dialogue scripts, yes--but even those, not to the extent he's talking about, simply because of the way they're structured. You'd have to restructure them in your own code in order to deal with it, which is possible but unlikely. For instance, try to come up with a way to "visualize" a town script. The only way I can see to do it is with nodes, and that wouldn't work for a host of reasons, most of them dealing with the fact that Avernumscript is not always a linear language. Quote: People who don't know how to script aren't necessarily identical to people who don't know how to write stories and develop interesting scenarios. The idea is that the process of scripting could be made easier, not that people would create scenarios without scripting. Anything that removes control from the user will cause problems, especially if the user is not conversant in the ways to solve the problems. Avernumscript is excellent BECAUSE you have control, and abstracting that control will do little but cause problems. EDIT: I can't remember who to credit this saying to, but IIRC, it went something like this: The more simplified something is, the less useful it can be.

Quote: Originally written by KernelKnowledge12: Quote: Originally written by Arenax: Are you guys actively trying to get me not to do this? If you don't want any help/suggestions, than make your program any way you see fit and stop wasting people's time. "Don't do it if you're not going to do it right" isn't a suggestion nor help. So grow up and get a brain.

Quote: Originally written by m's avatar: With an editor though it should be able to work like that. The interface would change the code that fixes the dialogue in place. I suppose that would be rather complicated but it is just an example.... Hmmm would you restrict it to just 100 nodes? or maybe 1000, or much bigger? Unlimited nodes, but I'm still limited to 10-99 as states.

Quote: Originally written by Calm Ichneumon: TGM has been around constantly for years, and most cheeses contain little or no lactose. Cheese makes me ill, alright?

BoA has too much orthogonality for this to really be effective. After AvDialogue is done I'm going to toy with the idea of creating a node-based system, but no guarantees. Oh, and BTW--you wouldn't be able to "drag around" parts of a dialog box. For the most part, they're fixed in place by code. EDIT: My CallWizards idea does what you're talking about, but you have to know how to script. And frankly, I don't want people who can't script making scenarios. If you don't know what you're doing, it's counterproductive to put out slop.

Quote: Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse: Jesus. Do you have to be so defensive? If you're going to be offensive, then, why, yes. Quote: In any case, wxWidgets doesn't require Gtk+ on Windows. As far as I can remember, wxWindows was out on Win32 before Gtk+ for Win32 existed. Maybe so--but I've had hell with Gtk+ and was unsure when starting this mess whether it was necessary to port. Quote: Regardless, even the Unix port doesn't make you do anything directly with Gtk+. That's why it's a cross-platform library. Fair enough. Quote: wxPython and XRCed together make a very fine rapid development platform. I see no reason why trivial applications like yours would take more than a week or two to implement with them. Because I'd have to learn it, and picking up new stuff takes me a while.

Quote: Originally written by KernelKnowledge12: Quote: Originally written by Arenax: And I'm sure you just glossed over that I didn't care to spend weeks doing it, but hey. If you're not going to do it well, don't do it. ...Can you read? Let's see what I said. I said I can make it in a few days with a RAD tool or spend weeks doing the same thing with C/C++ or something. Are you guys actively trying to get me not to do this?

Motrax, for a number of reasons. -Cats are cool. -Salamanders are explosive, and explosions are cool. -He's got good loot.

Quote: Originally written by : I wouldn't actually consider myself a newbie, dear member #5181.. Oh, unless you actually are a secondary account of a member who's been here longer than me (= your member number is less than 1098, and you're not a WELL known and member (ie. Kel, Aran, Stugie, etc.). I was around about six years ago as Arenax. I was here when Akhronath and Aceron were around; I was around Malkeera well before SW opened its boards. Quote: Also, flaming The Misterhood is quite bad an idea. Things like that tend to cause massive flame wars, in which both sides get shot to pieces. And that bothers me...why? Quote: Quote: The idea that you're entitled to tell people what to do is hilarious. I've ORDERED you to leave BoE forum, now? Learn to read. To SUGGEST ain't even close to ORDERING/FORCING in my dictionary. Are you not telling others what to do? Ordering and suggesting are both telling others what to do. Quote: So, some cheese with the whine? Sorry, lactose-intolerant.

There's another way to do it. Kill Sss-Thsss. His head works as your Royal Token.

Quote: Originally written by : Arenax fails at both mockery and thinking. Suggesting you to leave a forum DEDICATED TO A GAME YOU DISLIKE AND KEEP ON DISSING isn't whining. I like BoE perfectly well. It was great for its time It's just that it's become rather worthless in comparison to BoA. The idea that you're entitled to tell people what to do is hilarious. (And for the record--I was referring to both pictures. TGM is a newbie, and he's also a whiner.)

Quote: Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse: Um, wxWidgets doesn't force you to do ANYTHING with Gtk+. It doesn't even USE Gtk+ on your target platforms, so I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. The last version of it I checked out required GTK+ installed on even Win32 machines to work. Quote: [qb] I thought you said you were a Python man. Use wxPython; it's extremely mature. I use Python for web scripting and a scripting language in the game I'm writing. I've never used it for standalone executable programs, and from the problems I had when I tried, I don't plan on it. And I'm sure you just glossed over that I didn't care to spend weeks doing it, but hey.

Walker: I don't use wxWidgets and a more portable language because of a few things. 1) Being forced to work directly with GTK blows hard. 2) I don't know how to do GUI programming in C/C++ and can't do something of this depth using Java in a reasonable amount of time. RAD has a purpose. (My knowledge of C/C++ is more or less limited to DirectX, OpenGL, and game logic.) To do this in C++ would take me weeks. In any flavor of BASIC I can do it in under a day. The first version of AvDialogue took me seven hours, and I haven't spent more than ten adding new features and debugging. 3) I'm way more comfortable doing file access in BASIC languages, because I can do it faster and more reliably. TM: You "big-name" designers are less likely to use my tools, anyway. These are mostly for less seasoned designers. And for everyone: I've started working on it. The CallWizards idea is already gone, though if I ever port/finish AvScript it'll be there. This is going to be slow as hell to do, but I'm working on it.

Should I bite the bullet and start figuring out REALbasic in order to port AvScript and AvDialogue to Macintosh? I'm asking for your votes, people. There are pros and cons to both decisions. PROS -Mac people can use them. -Uh...Linux people can, too. CONS -I will have to rewrite virtually everything, in essence starting over at 0.1 BETA. -The Windows version will suffer in functionality. I'm not going to run two separate projects; both platforms will get the same thing. -The interface will become crap. I can't use tabbed controls in REALbasic, which are the basis of most of AvScript and AvDialogue's interface. So we'll have a bunch of smaller things crowded onto a single form. -It'll involve a lot of time on my part and probably cost some money so I can buy the product and actually use it legally. I know others have offered to port it, but I just don't let others mess with code my name could be attached to. So, I'm asking you. Should I? My main problem is that the Windows version will become less useful, which means the people I'm primarily building these for (PC users) become screwed. I'll do what you guys choose, though.

Should work anywhere you toss it. There is a slight bug with loading files that I'm going to fix tonight and upload tomorrow.

Mules help in Nethergate.

Quote: Originally written by : Quote: TGM: BoE > BoA, actually. Quote: Arenax: TGM: Keep drinkin' that koolaid. I'm not allowed to have a personal opinion? New members aren't required to COMPLETELY SCREW THEMSELVES UP here, you know. Just leave this Blades of EXILE forum, if the game, in your opinion, is sucky. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion. But I am likewise entitled to my opinion of your opinion. So take a nice good look at that picture and see who it really refers to.

Quote: Originally written by KernelKnowledge12: Why not just get the maker of the Mac 3D Editor to port his own/Jeff's code using a free cross-platform class library? Because Jeff's code, to be very frank, sucks. I've looked at the Mac 3D code, and I find it wholly unportable. Graphics are handled entirely differently and the mechanism for putting them on the screen is weird on a Mac.

Dual monitors at-- Drool. Like Kel says, it's probably not possible. I'm almost certain it's not on Windows, for a number of technical reasons surrounding the fact that JV's Win32 code is done with a meat ax. On a Mac--hell, I wouldn't know.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: The challenge comes in doing things that seem as if they can't be done, or doing things that can be done in a new way. For example, alchemy in BoE kind of sucks, because potions can be bought and most of their effects can be duplicated with spells anyway. In designing my soon-to-be-released scenario, I wanted the player to be forced to use alchemy, and so found a way to make it useful and indeed necessary. Creator also created a scenario (Areni) based around alchemy, and implemented it in a completely different way. Basically, the fun is in making things do things they were never really meant to do. It's a little like those guys who proved Minesweeper was Turing complete by implementing Boolean logic gates in it. This is the mindset that really doesn't make sense to me. You'd rather use tools that are, more or less, garbage (I mean more the BoE editor and less the game itself), to do "stuff that seem as if they can't be done," when you can just do them in something that is effective. ...Why? The "challenge" doesn't make sense; doing something well is a challenge I can see, but when you can do something far better using a system that isn't all that different, calling that a challenge seems rather quixotic instead.