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Everything posted by Donald Hebb
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Quote: Originally written by Spidweb: The one thing that still causes me pain, however, is the chitrachs in Avernum 4. Having them look like clawbugs is Weak Sauce. But I wrote them into the game before I realized that I couldn't find a different, decent Poser model for a weird bug. The MOMENT I find one, that clawbug is SO out of there. Amen. The giant also confused me at first- what is that thing on its back? And a comment in general- most of the attack graphics look a bit uninspired. A giant is mildly punching me? I'm poking the enemy with my sword? If you could use Poser to give more dramatic motions to attackers, it'd be a nice improvement. EDIT: Also, I know that you have to use color shifts because you lack models- okay. But could you vary the colors in each monster a little? Fighting blue blob after pink blob after green blob... Blech.
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Carbonized Avernum Public Beta
Donald Hebb replied to Spidweb's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2000-2002 original versions)
Correction- I don't think a patch is necessary. If you look under Macintosh HD > System Folder (9) > Preferences, you'll find Avernum 2 Prefs. Copy/drag it to: Macintosh HD > users > [your user name] > Library > Preferences And it'll be done like that. EDIT: Bonus! Saved games still work too. -
Helping Jeff advertise
Donald Hebb replied to Glafna's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2000-2002 original versions)
Wait. You want JV to get money? For A4? I don't think I understand the nature of your request. -
Lets hear about your editor mistakes
Donald Hebb replied to Poit's topic in Blades of Avernum Editor
Quote: Originally written by Niemand: 'Why the #$%& are there projectors in this scenario?' was a major headache for my players where using the editor. -
Lets hear about your editor mistakes
Donald Hebb replied to Poit's topic in Blades of Avernum Editor
Worst thing to do in general is to accidentally toggle "Automatic Hills" to ON. -
Quote: Originally written by iluvhorses: Next day daughter wakes up from drugs (unfortunately for the mage) and sends you a mental call. You meet her and find out that the real mage is her and that she's not a child - her father is a fake, You see all of this? This is concentrated absurdity. 1. How can a girl give out a "mental call"? 2. Why? What makes this a good story? Girl instantly pops in, reveals bad guy, then what? You kill him? Why not just have the daughter legitimately believe that she'll be cured, and then have the party demand to see the child after the unicorn makes his sacrifice? Of course, that could lead to a few things- maybe Imperial soldiers ambush the party. Then, maybe the mage escapes during the fight, but the party catches up with him. The party goes ahead and kills him off, but they're too late- the Unicorns without their leader have already been subjugated. Party is forced to flee the valley. The end. (Although perhaps the party, in the mage's tower, actually could find some of the alicorn elixir and feed it to the still-imprisoned sick girl as a sort of extra, moral bonus.)
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General Problems/Issues
Donald Hebb replied to Horus's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2000-2002 original versions)
Quote: Originally written by Horus: 1. The game sucks FYT -
Ya know, I'm just gonna toss this out there- making a more interesting story doesn't necessarily require taking more time to do it. "What about he wants to sell the elixirs or alicorns to make a profit (sell to the Empire, maybe the Empire hired him to do this??)?" If he's selling the alicorns to "make a profit", then that would make a particularly evil man who most people would not hesitate to put down. (This sort of thing is called "poaching".) "Or perhaps he's just evil and hates unicorns for the good that they represent and wants to be rid of them?" Demons or no, that's incredibly lame. I mean, what's a villain like that going to say to the party- "Fwuahahahaha!"? (Not that the villain has to spill his motives, but most villains should at least have some.) I mean, my suggestions don't even have to make the scenario longer. You can "force" the party to kill the mage by having the mage be particularly paranoid and not willing to reason with the party. That makes the surprise at the end even juicier- the party gets the reward, is a bunch of regular heroes, unicorns ride off... And then the party enters the town at the end of the valley whose widows and orphans are desperately begging for the cure to their plague, wondering when the mage will send his alicorn elixirs into town. The end.
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Quote: Originally written by Dikiyoba: Maybe a puzzle, instead of just a maze, to make it more interesting and learn more about scripting. NO. No freaking mazes or puzzles! How difficult is this for you maggots to understand?
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Quote: Party is travelling and stops to rest for the night. During the night they are woken up by a unicorn asking for their help. Unicorn tells party that the leader of their herd is dying but they don't know why and the unicorns have tried everything but leader is still dying. Party discovers that a rogue mage/sorcerer wants to have control of the herd of unicorns only to harvest their alicorns - somehow he's killing the leader(haven't figured that out yet). Party kills rogue mage/sorcerer. Party gets antidote and cures unicorn leader and saves the day. Well, it's technically 6 sentences... The idea isn't a bad one (other than I don't know what an alicorn is, though that might be my fault). But who is this mage? Why is he doing this? Is he just generally evil? Here's an idea- why not have the mage who wants the alicorns want to heal innocents? Let's say that he has a child whose disease can only be cured with the alicorn elixirs you speak of, or maybe he just wants to supply the Empire with these things to cure their mortally wounded. He'd be a much more believable villain, a much more convincing one, and the party would have a moral dillema- Kill the mage and let many innocent people die, or kill the unicorn leader and let many innocent people die. (Or just leave the valley, in which case the unicorn leader dies anyway.)
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Quote: Originally written by Inthrall: I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or ideas for this? DON'T DO IT.
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Quote: Originally written by dareva: My first scenario is going to be fairly short: Party goes to training school. Mysterious stranger tells them of some bad guys to fight, but they must sneak out of school to do it. Party fights bad guys, gets some neat stuff, but gets in trouble when they come back to school. WOW. I really, really, really like this idea. Do it. It's okay if midnight is the only time you can come- most of us will probably still be on then anyway. (And if nothing else, I'll be on AIM for another hour.)
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Pshaw. It's not as difficult as it's cracked up to be, although truthfully, experience DOES help. Don't worry- scripting and town/outdoors design are learnable, and if you take up a really small idea, it's very doable. Plus, a first effort doesn't have to have all-that-complex scripting- there's nothing inherently wrong with just a human settlement and a dungeon that needs purging. Step 1 is "think of something neat". Step 2 is sorta a toss-up. I prefer to draw towns as I go and script the plot as I go, especially since it allows me to contol a scenario's pacing better, but that's all your choice. And heck, if you're lost, you can always ask a designer for advice.
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Four people- this is a good starting point. So far, I count: Nicothodes, Ephesos (who I hope will not give up DoK2 either!), SupaNik, Slith Lord, Arachnid ... Quote: Mind you, when I started I had a rather small plan for a scenario with about 12 towns. then I got hooked on designing towns, and I had all these nice ideas and I liked drawing more and more custom graphics, so there you are. 42 towns. I don't want to say that it's impossible- Shyguy did it. On the other hand, Shyguys are the exception to the rule by far. (Plus, Shyguy had a lot of klunkers that come with new design, albeit very competent design in his instance.) SupaNik- The idea sounds sorta simple, and I like it. On the other hand... "The story wasn't great, so I was gonna flesh it out with cool things I picked up from films etc." Man. "Short and simple" is not equal to "inadequate". An Apology, for instance, isn't that long. Five of the top ten scenarios of all time are what you might describe as "short". Among the remaining five, only three are "epics". "They were sent to oversee it all. Poor story-wise, but they are level 1... Perhaps it's part of an apprentice, maybe a training op?" Back to the drawing board for you. Although I do like the idea of the party's being apprentices! One idea I have, then, is to perhaps give the party an "advance reward"- for all characters in the party, you could give those who aren't already magi +2 to mage spells and +2 intelligence for effect. (If you want to be perfectly fair, you can have each of these "bonuses" take away from the party's final reward- if it's 5k gold, for instance, have each character "enhanced" take away 1k from the reward.) But that's a detail that can be discussed later. My point is that you should have the party's role selected well in advance. Even if it's not very GOOD, it shouldn't be assigned randomly. "If you confront Zama, he kills all or most of the other villagers(maybe?) so at the end you are left either to abandon the valley or try to rebuild the village." I'm not liking this. I mean, I can sorta dig the crone, though I'd make it less "everyone thinks she's crazy" and more "Zama/Zag (you seem to alternate with names) had her imprisoned, and you have to sneak inside to reach her." Heck, you could have her be the author of the spellbook- perhaps even have Zama/Zag be her former apprentice. That would make for a far more interesting adventurer without adding anything in length. And Zama/Zag's "killing the villagers" doesn't make sense- why do what he's doing in general, if not for control over these people? What good does killing do? If I were Z, I'd incriminate the party and try to have my ex-teacher killed at all costs. If I were the party+crone team, I'd try to wow the townspeople with newfound "magic", challenging Zama/Zag in a duel. Now, this would make for a REALLY interesting final fight- You'd have the party, the crone, Z and the town guard. The party has to protect the crone, but ALSO not attack Z, lest they risk people accusing the crone of cheating. The party also has to protect the crone from the town guard, who are trying to kill her. To that end, I'd suggest adding the crone to the party as a PC, so the party can use Heal, War Blessing, etc. on her. You'd just have to keep her paralyzed every turn. Also, Z would have to be a monster with 1 HP, so any attack the party does instantly kills him. (You can also add calls to check for added statuses in his script in case the party decides to hit him up with slowing, paralysis, etc. And don't forget to include a check for who_last_attacked is!) After a while, the crone wins, and she explains to the people that the prophet is nothing but a lying scumbag and the people are "freed". Now that would be a good scenario. Think about it. In fact, the whole prophet scenario indeed has a nice little paragraph to it: "Prophet controls town with paltry magics. Party does task for prophet. Party finds spellbook belonging to crone. Party finds crone and learns truth. Party confronts prophet and liberates people." I'd say that it's the most complicated I want any of these scenarios to get. And I mean it- to all of you. Think about it. Think about two things: 1. What's interesting 2. What's not too complicated Now, as for chat times. We have two "american" time zones, one "british" time zone, and two people who forgot to list theirs. (Nice.) The designing "aids" all happen to be americans (who are in school, no less). So hm- how about some time around 4-6 PM EST? That translates into 9-11 (always remember) PM GST, I think. At the chat, I want all who come to have a solid idea of what they're doing with the scenarios before they leave. So okay, what's say we have it some time in the middle of next week? And really- if anyone else wants to join in, have at it. The more, the merrier.
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There are barriers that are above piercing crystals or even the highest level of the spell itself.
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I'm not sure that I like the idea of three "quests" proving that the prophet's god doesn't exist. The quests, in order to do that, would have to be fairly complicated- I mean, would it just be books lying around? And if so, why? There's no simple solution to that one. Why not have ONE task from the prophet? And your ending... The vagueness isn't good. Why not have the Prophet exile the party for offending his god if they discover the "truth"?
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And revive BoA while I'm at it. From the BoA Chat yesterday... See, I've made some observations while looking at the boards, and I've concluded that: 1. People want to design. It's true- people seem to have no shortage of inspiration, always discussing unmade scenarios and how complete they are. This is a good thing. 2. Scenarios are not getting done. People are not finishing scenarios anymore. Okay, sure- the 3 or 4 remaining designers are churning out *something*, but there hasn't been an actual release (nevermind a good one) in a long time. 3. Blades of Avernum is basically going to pot. Scenarios are not getting done, thus people are not playing scenarios, thus there is nothing for the community to do. Nuts. Which is confusing- plenty of people talk about making scenarios, and yet no results. 4. People need to have smaller focuses. Much smaller. This is where I crush your dreams. If this is the first scenario you're making and you plan for it to be more than 20 towns, it will not get done. If you are a new designer and have to give "status reports" about a scenario, it will not get done. The solution is to aim for more reasonable goals. In the manual, Jeff says: "People are often surprised at how much work and concentration it takes to make adventures. It takes time to make good stuff. I strongly suggest, for your first adventure, aiming small. A few outdoor sections. Ten or twenty towns and dungeon levels. Don't try to make the world-changing epic until you really understand what you're getting into. It is better to release and share one small adventure than to make half of a huge one that nobody ever sees." He is right. Which is why I have a plan for all new designers: A. Write a paragraph that, in 2-5 sentences, describes your entire scenario. Like a good thesis, it should describe what you will be doing and nothing more. For example, an intro paragraph would be: "Party enters Green Valley to assist settlement in fending off goblins. Party goes to goblin lair and meets king. Party finds GV's mayor's seal on a note to goblin king. Mayor intends to bring military presence into GV to bolster its economy. Party kills mayor." You can play through this scenario- it is missing some details, such as the option for the party to merely kill the goblin king, not notice the note, get 100 gold from the mayor and leave the valley. It doesn't say how the goblin king fights, nor which script it uses. However, this paragraph says what the scenario will do. It outlines the scenario and gives the designer a scope that is as small as it is reasonable. I could have written introductory paragraphs for Bandits or RoR-BoA, but that would have been too complex for what I am intending. B. Make your scenario. This is the difficult part. Preferably, your scenario will be small enough to do in 1-2 outdoor sections and no more than 4 towns. One dungeon, maybe 2 floors of it. One town. I want the scope to be miniscule. A bunch of designers will be ready to help you out if you do not know what to do. Do not hesitate to ask questions. Finish your scenario. C. Revise it. The same designers who will help you will also not hesitate to help you revise your scenario. For instance, if all the mayor does is surrender peacefully, rather than summon the town guard, designers could help you make a dramatic final sequence the party has to escape the town. Maybe toss in some very high-level soldiers who the party will have to work to escape from. Perhaps have the party get less of a reward at the end from offended beureaucrats for killing the mayor. Who knows. D. Release it. The final step. Everyone benefits. My goals in organizing this effort are three-fold: I. New scenaros will be released. The most obvious result. Depending on how many people agree to follow this setup, we will have a good number of new scenarios. II. People will regain enthusiasm about the medium. If there are new scenarios, people will play these scenarios. There are enough people minimally present who would do this given the chance that, given a batch of new scenarios, a revival could be possible. (And heck, maybe they might themselves start designing! One can only hope.) III. A batch of new people will know what it means to release something. This is the most elusive but also the most important result- the number of people who do this will know exactly what it means to make a scenario to its end. When Pat Doe makes Scenario A, s/he is that much more likely to be able to finish Scenario B. If BoA has 4-8 more new designers, that is a designing base upon which things can be built. So if you're interested, let me know. Post here saying that you're interested. 4-8 people would be a nice total, but if more people are interested, that's great. Post here. (You can even post your intro paragraphs in this topic if you want, but I'd suggest thinking it over for a while.) I plan on having a chat some time soon on AOL Instant Messenger, so knowing your time zones can help with planning out a time. So far, Stareye, Ephesos, Imban and Yours Truly have enlisted their aid. (Not sure if Kel is in either- don't remember if I got his response or if he had already left.) If you're a designer and don't mind giving extensive feedback to newer designers (I'm looking at you, Ash), feel free to post here also. If you want to be a scenario designer, that's great- just have enough faith to let proven designers share some wisdom about it. (And as a sidenote, while doing this doesn't mean permanently abandoning any epic you might have planned, it does mean that your skills will advance to the point where said epic will look shoddy by comparison! Be forewarned.)
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Oh, cripes. A mac games periodical. I'm biased- last time this happened was when spy.hard put a review of BoA in her city's actual newspaper.
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Link. I mean it- what backwater european city would care about a US shareware release?
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I dunno. I don't like the AP system because of what Alorael describes, but I also think the "x slows y down" solution is inelegant and insufficient. I mean, I'm not sure what check you might use- A level check? Opposed (DEX + QKS + QKA + GYM)d6 checks? And why does a goblin slow me down as much as Rentar? (Personally, I'd rather a goblin actually attack me rather than take AP away sometimes.) Mind you, the old solution- get attacked whenever leaving another's melee range- is equally nonsensical. I mean, a goblin should not have upwards of 100 attacks per round under any circumstances. For further releases, I'd have parrying skill determine AP penalties others take while passing by (with a base of 1), and also determine the chance you have of striking an opponent going by you. The number of strikes you'd get per round would be determined by DEX/QKS/QKA/etc., with a bonus/penalty depending on how many AP you have left when you parry.
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...Thuryl, I think he's in the first of Rentar's keeps.
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The demo is... Terse. My first reaction was, "dang, this is short." But the demo isn't the whole game! Alas. The whole game is basically going on quests to meet the levelup mandates of the rest of the game. So okay, it's long... But man, at what price?
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+1 Polearms is one more "level" of damage and +5% to hit. +1 "level" of damage is just the damage.
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Once, I topped 500 with a god party.
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Quote: Originally written by Dear Alorael:: —Alorael, who would rather ride pylons anyway. ... ... ...