Prince of Kitties

Open heart surgery? Ouch. Good luck on the recovery, man. Meanwhile... Does anyone have some idea what might be causing the no-resurrection bug? (I would try to help with it myself, though I'm no programmer, but OpenBoE won't compile on my Linux system. )

Forget it... There are specials that make it permanently (as far as I can tell) impossible to access the staircase if you step on certain cave floor tiles; I can only assume it's a bug. I just blasted a path through with the Scenario Editor. Edit: Feh, I have had enough of this scenario. I fail to see how it is possible to battle my way through mana-draining caves, purify my party of evil magic, fight my way back through the caves again, walk into a volcano, cast RoS on the altar, and then fight a Haakai, using a mid-level party, unless I make exceedingly heavy use of the Character Editor. The story behind this scenario is excellent, but the execution simply makes things too difficult for the intended party level.

There are no runes - the stone I got from the guy in Keptus turned out to be a fake. Found Gwennyth already though. Thanks anyway though. Edit: alright I've got the right stone now, however the runes aren't appearing when I use it. And I still can't figure out how to get to the next level... According to the scenario editor there's a stairway, but it's behind an impassable cave wall. Help?

Wow, I seem to figure out everything about five minutes after posting a question... Anyway, I am now in the Spine, and the portal maze is stumping me. What do I do there? (Also - how do I destroy the evil sword, once I find it?) BTW - I know there used to be walkthroughs for this, but Drizzt's site was utterly destroyed when AOL shut down Hometown. If anyone has kept a copy of the hints pages around, that would be nice...

*Sigh* Okay I found the key, now I'm in the offices. I can't make it through the cafeteria without getting spotted... What do I do?

Alright, I am now in the secret lab... I need a key to access a maintenance tunnel, but there doesn't seem to be a key anywhere, where do I find it?

Ormus: trying to download the new BoE packages gets a 403 error... I think the permissions on your site are set wrong.

I just started The Forsaken with a spanking new level 1 party, and things had been going very well in the bandit lair, so imagine my chagrine when I went back up to the first level after defeating the leader and discovered that all the portculli had closed... How do I get out now? Are there secret passages or something? Update: never mind, I found it. D'oh.

Wait until tomorrow, when Ormus will upload the old, unbugged version of OBoE.

FWIW, the Slime Pit is in Algiers, not Za-Kazi.

I don't think it's that bug, though. Or at least, another bug would have to be present as well, for stuff like the cobblestone-edge graphics to be off. (One of the issues is that some tiles showing two kinds of terrain, e.g. diagonal edges of cobblestone areas, display as completely different terrain such as runes or crystal pedestals... See the third screenshot.)

Yeah, the graphics work fine in the old version... It's a bug.

The alt-D + Enter thing doesn't work... You using IE? Edit: N/M, using wget works.

Hmm, that might also prove problematic... It looks like the names of image files have changed since the last version.

Yet another update: more terrain graphics problems: http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051333281280x800sje4.png

And more evidence of screwed up graphics: http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051312051280x800shp7.png Those cave wall squares really should not look like that.

Update: also, the wrong monster graphics are displayed in messages, e.g. a dialog message that's supposed to show an official may instead show a beggar. Monster graphics in general are very messed up. (Does anyone have a copy of the previous version of OBoE? This really sucks.)

Observe this screenshot: http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200811051240381280x800shy4.png Other monsters are also shown with a pure white background, though player graphics are displayed fine. It looks like the latest modifications to the graphics code broke something.

Java is nice as a language, but isn't the JVM a little huge and slow, even in this day and age? (On the other hand, BoE as a web applet would be... interesting.)

I'll probably still play BOE in some of my free time... Also, I've had a scenario in the works for a while, about dragons, sliths, Lovecraft, technological singularities, and other such drivel. I might work on it from time to time, but it will probably never be finished.

Are there any scenarios out there that actually exploit monsters' preferential summoning? I can't think of any...

Could monsters at least be made to preferentially cast damaging spells, instead of preferentially summoning and clogging up the battlefield?

Meanwhile, another suggestion... I'm not sure how difficult it would be to implement - better monster AI. Not crazy Nethack-style stuff, just simple things, e.g. - Monsters move around obstacles to attack the player - Better spellcasting: monsters start with their highest-damage spells (e.g. Kill and Firestorm) and go on down the list as they find out what their opponents resist/are immune to.

But does it happen in the Mac version?

Okay, never mind... I found it. FWIW, you have to find a bunch of ingredients for the druid in Cade, and she'll grant you access.