Poit

Thanks for persevering. Are you the only one working on this?

Quote: quote: It's already been superseded in both technical and story terms by Av4 Anyone who dares complement A4 deserves whatever form of death visits such a subhuman animal. Hah, I don't think you know my dead seated hatred for Avernum 4 or "the abortion" as I affectionately like to call it. What I was getting at is that BoA only had a relatively brief period to establish itself before the engine it was built on was ditched. If there is no certainty about the future of a program who want to commit to designing something over the prolonged period of time it takes to produce a decent scenario? Quote: quote: Attitudes like these are snobby and unproductive. What, you think that my perspective is lacking? If so, let's talk facts. I probably didn't need to say that, I'm just always wary of discussions that becomes a pissing match over matters of seniority. Luckily this one hasn't. One of the interesting things about this situation is there may not be much we can do. What struck me about all of the suggestions many people including both I* and TM made, (scenario competition, AIM chats, ironing out plot ideas,) is that they're mostly very sensible things to do. They are good thoughful choices to make in this situation, except for the fact that they don't seem to have worked. Obviously it's impossible to expect some sort of overnight success, but have we had any? The crucial thing here is attracting new blood, to generate the critical mass of fans and designers needed to sustain BoA after it is rendered "obsolete" by other SW games. Does anyone thing we have that? I'm probably being a bit too dramatic and devils advocatish but consider. ...BoA requires a longer period of time spent to create a scenario than BoE. ...BoA was superseded by a newer SW game faster than BoE. ...There are other distractions in the gaming world, not least Avernum 4 and the Geneoforge series My question would be, does BoA right now have the conditions and structure that would lead to long term success? Quote: Action has to be taken. Open-sourcing BoE would be a nice start. Maybe I missed this boat? What do you plan to do to the source code?

Quote: Enraged Slith: Remind me... how much have you done to stop Blades dying? Quote: 1. Those of us who have been in the community for over 5 years (this is how long Creator has been in it, I believe) have a better perspective than most. Attitudes like these are snobby and unproductive. I doubt the lack of scenarios is not primarily to do with laziness, in fact I'd wager that the very nature of BoA is the primary cause of the low number of scenarios released. The first thing to consider is the familiarity and expertise needed with the editor to create a passable scenario. Of course you don't have to be a rocket scientist to operate it, (hell even I can manage,) but it takes time, far more time than a BoE scenario. The larger investment of time means on average less scenarios will be released than we've grown accustomed too with BoE. I don't think the lack of scenarios at this stage is something to be alarmed about, rather it's the lack of players and designers that should make us poop ourselves. The crippling thing about the lack of new talent is that the only way to attract new players and designers to BoA is to have a database of worthwhile scenarios, which in turn require designers to create. People even today are buying BoE simply because of the wealth of scenarios it has built up over the years. Without those why would people bother to learn to use a game that is quite dated in all other aspects? This is the main thing we're lacking and I honestly don't see much of a way to attract new blood, there are just too many other games and distractions out there. This really hit home the other day when I was almost heartbreakingly close to finishing my BoA scenario, (Note to other designers: never announce when you intend to release your incomplete work, *kiss of death*,) but only until Fallout 2 came along to amuse and distract me with it's charm. I honestly can't see how BoA can capture and hold someones attention when better alternatives present themselves. At this stage BoA seems to be the bastard halfspawn of the Avernum series, the red headed stepchild of the Spiderweb family. It's already been superseded in both technical and story terms by Av4, and I'm not sure if we really have much of a chance.

Quote: Worst thing to do in general is to accidentally toggle "Automatic Hills" to ON I hear you. I've found the amount of costly time wasting mistakes has gone down dramatically since the creation of the 3D Editor. It's nice to be able to see what your actually doing.

I'd like to hear about some of the awful mistakes people have made in the editor that caused them to loose lots of work. Most of my mistakes thus far have been relitively simple, mostly doing something manually and then finding out there is a button that could have saved hours of work. I'd like to hear about the frustrating experiences of others to put my small ones into perspective, so now's that chance to tell everyone about your BOA horror stories and moan to your hearts content.

Quote: NO. No freaking mazes or puzzles! How difficult is this for you maggots to understand? Yeah endless mazes of doom have been done to death around here. I'm glad you're running with the minotaur idea.

Edited for content.

Most of the code you need should be listed under the item calls page. Typically the char_take_item(short which_char_or_group,short which_item); call can be used to remove the item, and the char_give_item(short which_char_or_group,short which_item) call can be used to give it to your party. This wiki may be helpful. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blades_of_Avernum_Script_Reference#NPCs_Joining_Party_Calls

Yeah I've been working on a scenario on and off for about a year now. All towns, dungeons, and dialogue are done bar the final few. There are some miscellaneous scripting issues to iron out, but like Thuryl I've suddenly found myself with lots of spare time so I should have it completed in three weeks or so. Whether it will be well recieved is a another matter.

Quote: @Poit: I'll be the first to admit it was a big undertaking but I did say that I have oodles of time. I wouldn't have started if I didn't know that I could finish it. It was ambitious, yes, but I waited until I had about 13+ sections completed in a little under 3 days before I even dared to raise the community's expectations. Frankly, it is not the sort of thing a n00b should undertake, but I knew I could cut it if I tried. That and I have worked with more complicated editors than blades. I don't claim to know it inside out, but I can't help but snigger at anyone who says that it is 'complicated'. Yeah look I don't think its terrible complicated but it certainly had the potential to be a mundane and thankless task. All in all I'm glad to see you stuck with it as this is the type of tool that will be very valuable to other designers over the years. Anyway congratulations, and I look forward to playing your scenario when it's ready.

Quote: No, I believe I'm the slowest. I've been going through things so exhaustively (I read everything, from signposts to item descriptions), that I haven't quite hit Almaria yet. Horrible, I know, but I am still finding bugs and strange happenings. I still manage useful reports (at least, I think they would be useful). I just got the beta the other day so I assume its hit the second round of testing. Unfortunately you guys seems to have done a pretty thorough job and there isn't much left to alter. Do you know when Jeff intends to release this?

Quote: Update:Documentation is coming along nicely. I've made a few modifications to scripts, simple ones mainly. 'Balancing & Corrections' of items, monsters. If that ain't your thing, then it will be simple to remove those changes. Well congrats on getting this far. When I first heard about this it seemed like such a mind bogglingly large task that I assumed you would eventually be defeated by its magnitude and left as a shattered husk of a man. Glad to know I was wrong.

I've always been a big fan of the Exile and Avernum engines but realistically I think they've going to die a slow death as they get bypassed by the engine advances in Avernum 4. Realistically they'res almost zero chance of an Exile 4 ever being produced. As Spiderweb is run for profit I can't see them artificially prolonging the life of an outdated game engine just for nostalgic reasons. Also bear in mind that no matter how many people post here and say they would buy it if released, we are only a small slice of dedicated Spiderweb gamers and our opinions don't count for much in particular. Mainly as we're the type of "loyal" fans who will buy Spiderweb products regardless of content.

Quote: A case in point is the game Cythera. In that game taking something that was 'not yours' caused problems regardless of whether anyone could see you or not. People worked out that if you moved the item before taking it you could steal with impunity - and the status quo was restored. Ha I used to love that particular little bug. Great game as well.

Thanks both of you, I just wanted to be sure I didn't stuff up my fax. I'm still not sure of course, but at least I know no one else has recieved the beta yet.