Donald Hebb

I used this: not_used = spawn_creature(ME); That was probably my error.

I still want this: void revive(short pcent_or_amt, short amount); Where if pcent_or_amt is 0, then amount determines the percent of HP the character is revived at, and if pcent_or_amt is 1, then amount determines the number of hit points the character is revived at. It would be used in a creature's death_state. I tried an erase_char(); call followed by a spawn_creature(); call in a creature's death state, but it resulted in a unary error. I want this so that creatures can be killed but still not-totally-die. (This would simulate Lifesaver amulets on monsters.) I also think a DISPEL_BARRIER state in terrain scripts would kick ass. But that's just me.

Post it in the Scenario Format 3 thread! It's definitely a good idea.

Wow. You really are a whiz with terraining.

Quote: Originally written by The Creator: For "bows" you just can't go past the guns in Doom Moon II. But then, for super-powered anything you can't go past Doom Moon II. The Baleful Fasces with Flaming Weapon from Fahd al Ghalib tops the Queen of Swords. Destiny almost ties it. And of course, B2 is chock-full of encumbrance-0 armor at evert turn. And then, there's the Flamethrowers...

Personally, I'd like an unlimited *number* of variables. Because as it's going, I'm going to flat-out run out of them for my Area of Effect custom AI script.

Bandits II, as Thuryl said, has some crazy-powerful weapons of every type imaginable. Echoes also has powerful weapons of every type imaginable, seeing how the default weapons in Echoes are stupid-powerful to their maxima.

You can replace any variable with 2 SDFs. To define the variable: while(damage >= 255){ inc_flag(1,1,1); damage = damage - 255; } set_flag(2,1,damage); To re-use the variable: damage = 0; while(get_flag(1,1) >= 1){ inc_flag(1,1,-1); damage = damage + 255; } damage = damage + get_flag(2,1); Voila! Variables now become permanent at the cost of two SDFs. Three, I suppose, if you want to be able to keep track of negative values. (That is, set (3,1) to 1 if damage is negative, and multiply damage by -1 if 3,1 is 1.)

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: If we get these things, I would also like a much more solid variables system. Right now variables get messed up when reloading in the outdoors. I want variables to STAY, just like SDFs. How about no? If you want a variable to remain permanent, use SDFs. You have, god, over one thousand of them. For me, what I'd absolutely LOVE to see... * Dialog boxes. * Pathing. * Getting/setting memory cells. * Getting/setting time calls. * Getting/setting daylight/nighttime calls. * Getting/setting immunity calls. (Make the work easier for all of us- and hell, make Area-of-Effect spells possible with something resembling decent AI! Oh lord, have I got ideas for THIS...) * Deducting AP, even though I'm not sure how this would work- would the character's turn thereafter somehow be compromised? (Am I the only one who is seriously pissed that JV did flat-out nothing with his new day/night innovation for A3?) * Vectors. Damn, it can't be THAT hard, can it? * Is Space Blocked? calls would be lovely. But really, can't we split the floor+terrain and blocked to NPCs into separate calls? Also, Kel, shame on you! Where are Stareye's spell libraries? I'd LOVE to have them. Put them up on the list, post-haste. A concrete, mid-combat way of changing strategies could make things incredibly interesting. A few more ideas: short is_valid_target(short from_who, short whom, short good_or_bad); Where from_who is the person being compared to the target, whom is the target, and good_or_bad is the type of hypothetical ability being tossed about. This would only be of good use in creature scripts, but it still deserves mention. Targetable items that call scripts- even scripts that help the creature- say if you want to anger the town or not by doing this. And then, even if you use a damaging item on the character, the character stays friendly to you. The latter can (obviously) be worked around, but the former is more difficult. Why not get rid of the default prompt as to whether the player wants to attack a friendly creature have this in its stead: short request_crime(); It would call the special, center-screen dialog, and would return a 1 if the character goes through with the action. This also requires getting rid of the prompt on useable items, but still...

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Two months, and NTH STILL isn't up there, and now B2 has disappeared. This is outright intolerable. I knew we were going to be mostly abandoned, but this is way beyond the rejection I had anticipated. Bollocks. Utter bollocks.

This is NOT the correct place to post this.

I believe so. Yeah, you convinced me not to release it. I put it out anyway, but you've seemed to stick steadfastly to that philosophy in the interim. On an unrelated tangent, how's RiB doing?

Technically, I was around before then. Making Streila Spies, hosting TMU when less than nobody cared, and thinking that BSR wasn't one of the community's worst designers. God, was I a lost case back then.

I joined The Lyceum when Solberg started complaining to me that he was being banished. I asked him where The Lyceum *was*, and here I am today. (Well, more accurately, I visited The Lyceum, played Redemption, played An Apology, and *then* decided to stick around. But that's being pedantic.) So yeah, mid-late '00. Alcritas was having trouble with his short contest, so TM came to the rescue! With Unbalanced Accounts. Oh yeah, and then came the Megasite...

Just keep track of the party's spell levels via SDFs, and call a node in the scenario's start script to axe that spell level- change it by -99 levels or summat- so that they can use it for, um... ...one turn at maximum, I suppose.

Four is passable, I suppose- there were only four scenarios in the second short contest, and it was... ...technically a contest. I'm not sure that you'll get the number of entries you want, so at some point, just accept the number of entries you actually get.

short get_inven_item_type(short which_slot); short get_inven_item_level(short which_slot); short get_inven_item_bonus(short which_slot); short get_inven_item_abil(short which_slot, short which_ability); short get_inven_item_abilstr(short which_slot, short which_ability); So that we can check every item in the party's inventory for an item type, level, bonus, ability and ability strength. It would make parties entering scenarios much more reasonable. short revive(short pcent_or_amt, short amt); Called in a DEATH_STATE, so that a creature can still be alive even when beaten up. (Because really, half of the times I use the death node is to explain why somebody *isn't* dead, after all. ) More as I think of them.

You could just do a check in the attacking state for whatever you want to trigger the casting of the spell, and set the creature's spell levels accordingly.

Quote: Originally written by ButteredToast: Here goes. There seems to be some problems with the submission process. This is especially true with beta testing. Kelandon has written an article on what to do when testing a scenario... No, no he didn't. Quote: 5) Assume it will take longer to create a small scenario than you planned. It took 6 days for Emerald Mountain to reach beta. It took 7 days for Edge of Ciprius to reach beta. Real life interrupts all the time. It will take at least 2 days to receive reports for a small scenario, then another 2 to fix problems. For a really fast experienced scenario designer it takes 10 days to do a small scenario. For others 14+ days. 1) EM took 5 days. Karzoth's scenario still hasn't reached beta. 2) 10 days for a really fast and experienced designer? You mean I don't count? And I most definitely don't agree with some of the additions you're proposing, even among those I can understand. (Language barrier between grade levels is inhibiting my cognizance here- apologies.)

void set_town_noice(short sound); It's like set_incidental_noise();, except you can set it to any sound- even ones like fire burning, so that could be considered abusive.

Whether you're a designer, beta-tester or particularly critical player, it helps to know how to be the best debugger, critic and overall beneficiary to the scenario's development as possible. I have designed arguably my fair share of scenarios, and I have also tested many- some well, some poorly. Thus, I have a few suggestions on how to best get under the scenario's skin- your players and/or designers will, if they're any good, love you for it. 1) Take notes at all times! EVERYTHING that you see that strikes you as being weird should be noted the instant you run across it. Don't say to yourself, "I'll make a list of things I saw while playing today this evening." You'll forget most of the things you observed by then, so it's always best to keep a text file open to jot things down instantaneously. Often times, this will generate page upon page of critiques that you normally wouldn't have generated otherwise. 2) Spot errors intuitively. When something happens that is OBVIOUSLY wrong, jot it down. Bugs are usually the first thing that a designer tells his beta-testers to spot, and shame on you if you let one get by. Whenever something seems odd, jot it down. Maybe it's intentional- if so, the fact that you thought it was a bug means that it should be executed in a better way in the final release or next version. Don't always trust that the designer knows what he/she is doing- We're capable of error, and even capable of imagining flawed ideas and flawed ways of bringing those ideas to fruition. 3) Play Counter-intuitively. Sure, the plot makes you want to rush off and kill the bad guy the moment he becomes available, as most good scenarios should. As a player/tester, this is where you suffer- at all times, you should see if you can play a scenario in ways that its plot says that you shouldn't. In Nethergate, Jeff made an error. One of the three Crones is dead as you approach the Spire of Ages and the remaining two disappear thereafter, but if you return to the Crone Caverns, all three are still there and well. These types of errors are painful to have, and should be avoided at all costs. Another example- in An Apology, a towns-only scenario, it is possible to leave town and emerge outdoors. *Whoops.* A scenario's quality and the force of its plot often make these errors equally as difficult to discover in the eyes of any other player, but they're still dangerous when and if somebody *does* stumble upon one. 4) Spot spelling errors as you see them. Nobody is expected to test every paragraph for exact spelling or grammatical correctness, but you should be reading the text as it appears, and if something doesn't strike you as being well-written or is spelled outright incorrectly, then you should comment on it. A good designer should run his text through a spell-checker, but that might not catch there/their/they're errors. If a spelling error breaks up the flow of a paragraph when you play through the scenario, it will surely do it for other players as well. (Mac users using OS 10 or higher have an added benefit insomuch as TextEdit has an automatic spellchecker, though I'm not sure if PC users have such benefits.) 5) Testing combat. To be critical of gameplay, always play the scenario with the lowest level recommended by the scenario's author / yourself. You don't have to play any lower, but sometimes it's recommended. I had people saying that Roses of Reckoning was difficult at level 12 and that Emerald Mountain was difficult on level 30, in spite of the fact that both scenarios are rated levels 1-3 and 15-20 respectively. Being difficult is not a bad thing, but being overly-difficult. Echoes is a scenario for Blades of Exile that is totally unplayable and not worth the download for this very reason- I did not test for combat, and the scenario suffered accordingly. 6) Town Design Should Click. If you see anything out-of-place with terraining, whether it be dreadfully dull towns or dungeons that don't make sense, say so. Don't be tempted to shy away from this type of comment because it puts too much pressure on the designer to make major changes that he/she might not implement, those changes are often very important. Many articles have been written about towns and dungeons, and with good reason- If a town is outright terrible or a dungeon makes no sense, say so. Often times, it is very easy for a designer to make a dungeon that exists only for the party to tear it up, and is a twisty-turny, one-way path as a result of that. If the path doesn't make sense, say so. 7) Shout at People Who Use Too Much Outdoors. If you are a player/tester, shout at the designer committing this sin. If you are the designer, flog yourself heavily. Too much outdoors is a lose-lose situation with no upsides- even the best scenarios suffer for this. Adventurer's Club 3 has +150 towns, but people still complained about its expansive outdoors because it had ~60 sections, if not more. Almost any non-epic scenario can take place in 1 outdoor section (or no more than 9), and most probably should. 8) Don't Stop at Errors! Saying that the Balrog should have 100 fewer/more HP and that "Alter" is not a religious monument is good, but what is even better is saying where you thought the plot skipped or how you think an encounter should be improved. Your suggestions without any prodding are always appreciated, and at best, the designer can say "no". If something really irked you, say so, and then explain why to the best of your ability. As a designer, you should be looking at ways to increase the quality of your scenario as you play through it. Beta-testing isn't just custodian work and a face-lift, and neither is it limited to just that after beta-testing either. Don't treat it as such.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: As for the second, though, char_on_spot and char_on_loc do this, if I'm understanding that post correctly. Yeah, but they don't check for party members... Again, I could do a while(i < 120) statement, but I don't want to have to.

Not sure if this is possible, but... short space_blocked(short loc x, short loc y) Checks to see if the space is blocked. I'm not sure that there is any way to do this right now, minus the possibility of an ungodly-long while and if statement- if(get_terrain() == 67 || get_terrain() == 68 || ...) It would be totally unwieldy and not even remotely worth the trouble for the designer. short creature_on_space(short loc x, short lox y) Checks to see if there is a creature on the space. I suppose a while(i < 120) statement could be used and then the monster's coordinates checked accordingly, but it'd be a nice convenience to have.

Hunh. Is that using the way I suggested? 'Cause that actually looks pretty good.

Could be. Haven't tried a frame animation since Two Strands.