Ormus

Memory for towns, outdoor sections and text strings is allocated dynamically but at this time this isn't done in a right way. It allow to remove some internal game limits in the future but now it always creates constant size arrays so there is no profit form allocating memory dynamically now.

As some of you know, I'm creating new scenario editor. At this moment, I have some basic application which can read and save scenario files, edit texts, view and edit outdoor terrain, choose outdoor sections and edit terrain properties. I'm creating it in in VCL, which is class library native for Borland C++ Builder. It is NOT portable and therefore I should change it to something cross-platform like Qt or wxWidgets. Unfortunately, I am not going to this at this time. The reason is simple - I do not have time now to learn new GUI. Generally I do not have time to do anything - I do not have any free time now. What I am going to do when I will find some: build the very first version of editor in VCL. I will do it quite fast because I know VCL and there is no need to experiment with unknown constructions, components, concepts, utilities (debuggers and such). When the application will be complete it would be MUCH easier to port it to some better GUI. Now, the good news. I've written class called Scenario which is responsible for reading and writing scenario data. It is isolated from GUI and uses standard C++ libraries only which makes it portable. Now I'm writing documentation for this class. With this class and technical data it would be possible to write any sort of scenario editor AND rewrite the game itself very easily, which is my goal. Generally, it is much more important for me to make portable, reusable classes that encapsulate vital elements of the game and the editor than working on GUI. Again, screen recording in BB Flashback format: http://rapidshare.com/files/165058509/boe_new_se_test1.fbr

The Almighty Doer of Stuff, thanks for this utility scenario. I'll try to find the bug this evening.

Originally Posted By: SlothMan If Ormus could show me what to edit to make it 12x12 or something? Playfield is painted over image stored in TERSCRN.BMP which is loaded into global variable named "terrain_screen_gworld". If you want to change size of the playfield you can start with going through the code and analyzing all functions in which terrain_screen_gworld is used.

Originally Posted By: Miramor Ormus: trying to download the new BoE packages gets a 403 error... I think the permissions on your site are set wrong. Thanks for information. Fixed. Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna Maybe a town thumbnail could appear when you mouse over the towns list That's great idea! It must be done! :-)

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel What are you writing it in? C++, VCL (Borland C++ Builder). I know that it would be better if I used some portable GUI like wxWidgets or QT but I wanted to try some concepts quickly so I used C++ Builder. My goal was to try using X-Macros to deal with data structures that are used to make scenario files. It works great and saves me a lot of work! Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna OK that is really neat. I especially like the new outdoor selection mabob. In the future I am going to display thumbnail images of each outdoor section. Originally Posted By: lampshade Ormus you might want to gather a number of people to help beta test your stuff. Sure! I'd like to use some help, but at this point I have to do some things myself. The code I created is very bad written and it is possible that I will make some things from the scratch.

Originally Posted By: Miramor Wait until tomorrow, when Ormus will upload the old, unbugged version of OBoE. Old version uploaded again. I was on a holiday far away from computers and that's why it took me so long to upload it.

Whoa! That's really strange. It all works perfectly on my computer. However, I've just tested it on another PC and truly there is a bug with displaying monsters! In that case I'll upload previous version of BoE on Monday. Sorry for that weird thing but it really helped me understand what's going on in the code. By the way I am working on new scenario editor. I'm just starting, so I don't have anything to show except this: http://rapidshare.com/files/161843686/boe_new_se_test.fbr (Video file. Open with: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/FlashBackFreePlayer.aspx) At this point it loads and saves scenario files correctly in both windows and mac format and allows to edit scenario and outdoor text. (Btw, sorry for weird colors on the recording. These come from my Windows. The editor will be looking like a normal windows app.)

lampshade, I tried to recreate the bug by following your instructions but nothing bad happend. I've recorded my efforts so you can see it yourself: http://rapidshare.com/files/160841939/boe_scenario_creation_test.fbr (To play this video file you need FlashBack Player from there: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/FlashBackFreePlayer.aspx)

Originally Posted By: lampshade I have to double post but I want to bring attention to the matter... Right now as I'm typing I'm trying to replicate the crash... 1. I have just generated a scenario, with 1 x 1 outdoor section and 1 medium sized town. 2. Edited town terrain. 3. Placed monster. 4. Edited monster and assigned a personality. 5. Created a personality for said monster. 6. Added dialogue which destroys the monster and creates a portal when triggered. 7. Added another dialogue. So far so good, usually crashes at this point when I mess around. 8. Added scenario details. 9. Added opening dialogue. 10. Created new town, medium sized. I was expecting it to crash at this point, I decided to close the scenario editor and reload the scenario. Then I saved to see if it was still working and lo' behold, Error Number 102, then Error number 103, and finally crashed. I reloaded the scenario to see what's up and it is no longer recognized as a BoE scenario. I'll check it tomorrow. Could you please send me this scenario file? My mail: Grzegorz.Kowalski@wit.edu.pl (or kowalsg0@wit.edu.pl)

Originally Posted By: lampshade Hey hey Ormus before you disappear again at least the fix revive bug in OBoE at least. I'll do what I can. Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel I would be more interesting in porting BoE to C++ than to Java – a much easier task, I would think. That's what I'm trying to do now, but Jeff's C code is really hard to encapsulate into classes.

Originally Posted By: The Almighty Doer of Stuff I'm putting together something to test killing and reviving the party in various situations. This will be helpful for you, and also it may be easier to coax a Mac user to test it if they have a short, simple scenario to test it with instead of having to go through the four (that I know of: Nephil's Gambit, SotS, Revenge by Creator, and also I think I heard once that one of Stareye's scenarios does it to take away the party's items but I could be wrong) scenarios that use this method. I'll get it done ASAP and send it along. I'd be VERY grateful for that. :-) Originally Posted By: The Almighty Doer of Stuff Also, I just downloaded what I thought was the latest version. The latest version is ALWAYS on my website: http://info.wsisiz.edu.pl/~kowalsg0/ This is latest version available at this time: http://info.wsisiz.edu.pl/~kowalsg0/boe_full.rar

Niemand, Java is much more better programming language than C/C++. I was working in C and C++ for years and some months ago I've switched to Java and found coding in this language fast, fun and created code quality is much better due to language restrictions and conventions. Java applications are much more extensible and easy to change. Now I ask myself how I could do ANYTHING in C++ - it seems to me to be a nightmare.

I'm not playing BOE anymore although I occasionally work on its code. :-) Simply, I don't have time to play. I don't even have much time to fix these little bugs that you all report. ;-) But I believe it will change someday. I have a dream to port BoE from C++ to Java and I'd like to make this dream reality.

Originally Posted By: Miramor This was a known bug in Ormus' build. I had assumed it was fixed by now, but evidently that is not the case... Can someone notify Ormus? Ok, I'm notified now. :-) Originally Posted By: msazad My PCs are not brought back to life when they should be (after the dreaming thing). Please, send me... 1) scenario 2) your save game taken JUST BEFORE the bug occurs 3) instructions on what I have to do after loading your save game to make the bug occur My mail: Grzegorz.Kowalski@wit.edu.pl