DreamGuy

There are some beach-like terrins available at: http://es.geocities.com/falcata2/BoApics/Terrain.html As far as implementation goes, you'd have to cut the small pics out onto their own sheet, and then pu† both sets of graphics into your scenario file. (See the using custom graphics part of the documentation for that.) Then you need to define floors and/or terrains that use those custom graphics. (See the part of the docs about custom floors and terrains for that.) If you have specific questions you can post them here.

I have the most recent version of BoA, and I saw all sorts of problems like the ones mentioned above. Constantly, all over. Not every single person I talked to, but a smallish but significant percentage of them, and especially in the town by the mine. This scenario was the only one I ever saw have a problem with that, so it's logical to assume that it's in the coding of the scenario.

Oh, so it may not be a bug, it may just be a very strange design decision. The bow itself can't make all arrows be normal/acidic/whatever, those are controlled in the item description for the ammo. What would be the point of changing the animation of the missiles based upon the thing shooting it instead of what's being shot when the differences are controlled by the missile description? And of course the thrown items can set their own animation because nothing throws them, so why program them so they work differently? That's just bizarre.

Quote: Black line on the Rakshasa image? I don't see one. It doesn't show up in the editor, but actually playing the scenario shows a very distinct 1 pixel wide black line the entire height on the left side, like the image was positioned wrong. I was going to check the image in the file and see, but ResEdit is having one of its grumpy "freeze if I try to open a graphic" days. Quote: And are you saying that it_missile_anim_type doesn't work? If so, that'd be the first I'd heard of it. Well, I don't know if it never works, but if I try to put something other than an arrow animation on something that fits in an arrow slot, it doesn't work, it just gives the arrow one. I thought I saw in one of the lists of known bugs that it didn't work at all, but I could have misremembered that. I didn't test it on anything else.

I've never seen someone able to close a door from a non-adjacent space, or search them for that matter, so I don't know if that's a real bug. The torso-less augmented giants and the black line on the Rakshasa image aren't esxactly bugs but are fixable easily enough and ought to be. Does this list include things on other lists? What about not being able to set missile animations for custom objects?

This is slightly off the topic, maybe, but I was shocked to discover that summonings somehow can grab creatures from another scenario you had open recently. I have one I am working on where I was testing out variations of the basic monsters in, and when I returned to a save file of the KZR scenario and did an Arcane Summons suddenly these monsters I had been working on from my scenario showed up. It was way bizarre. And, for some odd reason, during some summonings in both Bahs and Backwater, the giants that showed up were missing the top half of the graphic, so the giant legs were running around attacking people. I don't know if both of those scenarios change the settings for that monster so it only uses one graphic instead of the normal two (if so, why???), or if there's some other sort of wonkiness going on. The reason I bring this up is I'm thinking of trying to make PC summons restricted to certain kinds of monsters in my scenario, but the examples I ran into above imply that even if I come up with a way, weird monsters from other scenarios (or bizarre nightmares like the torso-less giants) might accidentally show up anyway.

Quote: Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. Simple, you make the events that happen largely time-based instead of location-based. You've got scripting, use it. Quote: As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. By picking words that actually have nothing to do with what you were arguing, great... Quote: "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it Well, then the people in the BoA community ought to learn what word really means instead of trying to change the meanings of other words. Quote: AFAIK, you have never designed anything for BoE or BoA. This makes you quite literally the least experienced designer in the debate. Oh, rightttt... because someone who hasn't yet released a game for BoE or BoE cannot possibly have other game design experience elsewhere. I've got plenty of other experience, and I've read the documentation and have been working with that knowledge so am aware of most of the techinical limitations. I'm sorry, but the people here talking about linearity and not knowing what the word means, claiming that things are impossible just because they have never done it, pretending that they are better designers than Jeff and so forth and so on are just play-acting at being designers, because they can't be bothered to learn the basic concepts of game design.

Quote: Please explain to me how the hell it is possible to make a good scenario where the party "can't dawdle" but is still able to go anywhere and do anything at any time without being punished for it by losing. Simple, you make the events that happen largely time-based instead of location-based. You've got scripting, use it. Quote: As for redefining the meanings of words, I was attempting to capture the connotations associated with the two main design paradigms in a snappy way. By picking words that actually have nothing to do with what you were arguing, great... Quote: "Linearity" as you use the term is simply not linearity as the BoA community thinks of it Well, then the people in the BoA community ought to learn what word really means instead of trying to change the meanings of other words. Quote: AFAIK, you have never designed anything for BoE or BoA. This makes you quite literally the least experienced designer in the debate. Oh, rightttt... because someone who hasn't yet released a game for BoE or BoE cannot possibly have other game design experience elsewhere. I've got plenty of other experience, and I've read the documentation and have been working with that knowledge so am aware of most of the techinical limitations. I'm sorry, but the people here talking about linearity and not knowing what the word means, claiming that things are impossible just because they have never done it, pretending that they are better designers than Jeff and so forth and so on are just play-acting at being designers, because they can't be bothered to learn the basic concepts of game design.

Dear Lord, now people are trying to change the definitions of words. Great. The description above for "Grit" is what linearity is. It's what the word means. A scenario that is gritty by the normal meaning of that word is something that tries to be edgy realistic instead of fantastic. Gritty would be things like having to have food to eat (insteafd of it just being something to allow you rest in the outdoors to heal and restore energy) or else you die, needing water, having to sleep regularly, getting infected from rusty swords, flame spells causing wooden structures to burn and trap you, shopkeepers that aren't paying you tons of money for whatever junk you bring in with an endless supply of gold, and a conspicuous lack of do-gooders here and there. Something can be gritty and non-linear. Something can be fantastic and linear. Linear is where choices are taken away from players, where there is a small selection of things to do and options to take. I think what Thuryl is trying to get at here is a claim for dynamic scenarios or something where the story moves along and you can't dawdle and must react to what's going on. Of course those can be either linear or nonlinear as well. Inexperienced designers may find that a lot easier with very linear scenarios, but that's not the only way to do it. And, either way, consistently shutting off most of the options for players is bad, whether it's part of the plot or whether it's part of the battle tactics. In the meantime though, I suggest Thuryl go read up on creative writing and game design resources on other sites and so fort. It sounds like he's just going from what he thinks up and how he mistakenly believes words to be used instead of reading the the wealth of information on these topics that exists outside of these boards.

Dear Lord, now people are trying to change the definitions of words. Great. The description above for "Grit" is what linearity is. It's what the word means. A scenario that is gritty by the normal meaning of that word is something that tries to be edgy realistic instead of fantastic. Gritty would be things like having to have food to eat (insteafd of it just being something to allow you rest in the outdoors to heal and restore energy) or else you die, needing water, having to sleep regularly, getting infected from rusty swords, flame spells causing wooden structures to burn and trap you, shopkeepers that aren't paying you tons of money for whatever junk you bring in with an endless supply of gold, and a conspicuous lack of do-gooders here and there. Something can be gritty and non-linear. Something can be fantastic and linear. Linear is where choices are taken away from players, where there is a small selection of things to do and options to take. I think what Thuryl is trying to get at here is a claim for dynamic scenarios or something where the story moves along and you can't dawdle and must react to what's going on. Of course those can be either linear or nonlinear as well. Inexperienced designers may find that a lot easier with very linear scenarios, but that's not the only way to do it. And, either way, consistently shutting off most of the options for players is bad, whether it's part of the plot or whether it's part of the battle tactics. In the meantime though, I suggest Thuryl go read up on creative writing and game design resources on other sites and so fort. It sounds like he's just going from what he thinks up and how he mistakenly believes words to be used instead of reading the the wealth of information on these topics that exists outside of these boards.

Yes, Greek plays using Deus ex machina devices are pretty much the textbook example of poor plotting. Not all of them used that device, and the ones who did were soundly ridiculed for it, both at the time and later. And trying to clarify that it's impossible to make BoA games nonlinear and still dramatic but maybe it's possible in other games is still wrong, because there are no technical limitations in BoA that affect that sort of thing. If anything, designers are positively floating in options in BoA, with flags that can keep track of tons of different choices, towns that can be hooked together any which way, scripts that allow extensive modificiations and can adjust what happens when based upon the party's level, and so forth. And, heck, the examples of linearity we've been talking about aren't really questions of not having the time to build in options. The designers specifically spent time coding things to remove options from the players. Extensive time and effort was taken to make the whole things extremely linear and exactly the way the programmer wanted, going so far as to turn off spells, make spells that are normally effective in certain situations completely ineffectual there so that a plot point can be shoved in the player's face, and so forth. And, Kel, Jeff's scenarios are like a thousand times less linear than yours. It's all about options. Where you go, in what order, the choices you can make in combat/dialog/shopping, who you help and who you don't (sidequests, factions) and so forth. Your Bahs scenario has next to none of any of that. You make people go from specific encounter to specific encounter following only one strategy in fighting anything (pure mindless hack and slash, with an occasional bless altar thrown in) with no alternate routes or ways of doing anything. Pretty much the whole way through if you choose not to do the obvious thing you are intended to do in front of you and look for something else to do, the whole thing grinds to an immediate halt, because there is nothing else, anywhere at anytime. If you are claiming that Jeff's scenarios are just as linear you either just no have no concept of what the word means or are seriously in some major denial. And, for crying out loud, restricting the combat down to only one option is not "challenging," especially since the option you end up doing is not only blindingly obvious and the expected norm (haste/slash/heal, repeat) but even frequently spelled out to you on screen (go into combat mode now... look for something in the southwest to stop the ghosts, etc.) But then I'm repeating what was already explained in the emails. It's a rather simple concept to grasp, so I don't get why it's such a difficulty, other than sheer stubborn self-interest.

This whole topic is a lost cause, because of the large number of people who apparently just don't get the basics of storytelling or game design. Like the following outrageous statement: Quote: "It is IMPOSSIBLE to develop ANY solid atmosphere in a strictly nonlinear work" No, maybe you aren't capable of it or don't want to be bothered, but that's a long, long ways from being impossible. It clearly is not impossible because other designers on other games do it all the time. If the person who posted this passes as a well-respected designer on these boards, it's no wonder the community is in such a sorry shape. You've got the blind leading the blind. Then we got: Quote: "Why should the party be so influental?" Because they are the main characters! The main characters in any story are what the story goes around. A book in which the characters aren't influential and some plot device comes from out of nowhere to make things happen is considered to very poor writing. Perhaps you're familiar with complaints about using a Deus ex machina in a story? If not, perhaps you can imagine how frustrated the star player in a sports game must feel if he's benched and forced to watch everyone else play the game he's supposed to be playing? In a RPG game, the main characters have to be even more influential, because they are directly controlled by the player. The player can't just sit back and watch, he has to make an effort to move the PCs around. If they have no influence and just watch while other people do things (and gab about all the great people they met and all the things they did) you are basically turning the player into a bunch of ineffectual nobodies, which spoils the entire point of these games. Which leads directly into Kel's statement: Quote: "If so, I challenge you on A: how could Bahs have been made non-linear without destroying the story?" Considering that you ignored everything I suggested by email and ridiculed the entire concept of letting the players have choices, I'm not going to waste my time making a bunch of suggestions you'll just insult and ignore again. But the basic thing here is that you are all worried about *your* story (background to all the sliths, some vague mysterious with Prophet that we are supposed to worry about but not be able to do anything with during the game) that you don't even consider the PC's story, which is what these kind of games are supopsed to be about. All you have is your cut scenes, repetitive details about the backstory and unsympathetic characters who order the players down tedious fight sequences with no way of making any substantive decisions, being at all creative, or heading off in any direction other than the one the great designer god from the sky continuously points his finger toward. And, again, I already gave you tons of suggestions which you summarily and snottily ignored, so to just now "challenge" me on it is really quite hypocritical. But then vast majority of the posts I've seen from people defending linearity have been more about posturing and ego than actually discussing storytelling or game design, so there's little hope that anything being talked about here will help in any way.

Ok, so... Why is it important to be able to display the party's location? Is this just to provide any easy way to follow a FAQ giving the walkthrough on how to solve the scenario?

Just off the top of my head, the editor needs: Tooltips for all those tiny buttons (you know, so a description of what it is pops up if you hover over it). I am only now after weeks of playing with it starting to get the hang of it. The option for placing items from the item and creature menus to be stickly and continue placing the same thing until you choose another tool... Or just a better selection process for those in general. They don't seem to be grouped logically (I'd love to have all the non-weapon, no value junk tools in one place, all the undead in the same area, and so forth), and the menus are a pain to scroll through.

And there seems to be a problem with the internal logic: How can a level 1 character just decide to become the next archmage and hope realistically to accomplish it? If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. But then part of that objection is due to the basic underlying assumption with these games in general that the PCs advance in power extremely quickly while everyone else stands totally frozen in their competency level. Either way, you should scale back your expectations by several orders of magnitude. It's a tremendous amount of work to make a scenario where a player can be expected to advance even 20 levels. 100+ levels strikes me as hopelessly unrealistic.

Quote: So a boss like Shroud would take tremendous amounts of HP damage from the spell, making it unbalanced. That's not unbalanced, that's a natural result of the way the spell works. If you didn't like it then you should have designed the character differently.

Err, yeah... the tutorial that comes with the BoA editor documentation is so short it's nearly nonexistent. I really don't see how anyone who hopes to design scenarios could consider it too lengthy. It needed to be at least 10 times longer and actually cover scripting to some extent to be of much use.

By the way, why are these articles posted to the Blades of Avernum folder and not the Blades of Avernum Editor folder?

I have to strongly agrgee with SkeleTony here and expand on what he said. These are games, and the whole point is to give the players as much control as possible and for them to have fun, not for you to tell a story. Every cut scene, locked door, restricted geography, unavoidable encounter, forced decision and so forth is tearing down a piece of the interactivity that makes a game a good game. The question is how to balance it. You can take some control away, as long as you don't take away the illusion of control. Some people don't even try, and those people are bad scenario designers. They may be good pixellated movie directors (not even that from what I've seen though), but they are just plain awful game designers. The "You'll find that some designers are better storytellers when you yourself aren't trying to write everything on your own." comment is especially ridiculous. If you want to tell a story, write a book or go to film school and assault people there with your grand ideas. Don't pull the poor players by their nose hairs through tedious testaments to your ego and L33t programming skills. The "Party vs. Designer" debate is no contest: Party, or else you shouldn't even bother. Now if someone wants to make a Drive in Movie series where people can download files and sit in their virtual cars and watch events the creator envisioned unfold with minimal input, hey, great. That's fine as long as you advertise it as such and don't go around claiming to be a game designer.

You know, I really think the tone of a lot of these posts is very unhelpful. Jeff is not "lazy" if he doesn't get around to doing these things, he's just concentrating on the projects most likely to support his business and family. I mean, am I allowed to call you lazy if you don't drop everything and come spend a week building me a log cabin? The antaganism I see here over and over isn't going to accomplish anything. Jeff's not going to do what you want just because you insult him or claim that it'd be easy or important or whatever for him to do something. He's far more likely to be helpful if you treat him with respect and try to understand his situation. Childish namecalling and stomping of feet is far more likely to just put anything you say down on the lowest rung of the priority list.

I was reading the announcements Jeff made about what the BoA editor would be able to do, and I think he specifically said turning off light levels was something he was going to add the capacity for. It would be a shame if it isn't possible.