Celtic Minstrel

15 hours ago, Kelandon said:

Can you maybe just run original BoE in Sheepshaver? If the current version isn't really stable or functional, emulation seems like another option.

I'll note that it's probably easier to run the Windows version in Win3.1 under DosBox (or, maybe, under WINE, though I recall having some problems with that) than it is to get SheepShaver to work.

On 2017-08-12 at 7:51 AM, Chessrook44 said:

Seriously, who creates a weapon that kills yourself?  What is the point?

Playing a prank on your enemies?

There was definitely something about special nodes being triggered in boats only in town or only outdoors. I don't know if it applied to all specials, or only to placed specials. Maybe you were using terrain specials, as I did for my unfinished scenario that didn't use an outdoors and linked towns together with edge nodes?

 

(To clarify, by "terrain specials" here, I mean terrains with the "call special when stepped on" ability.)

It should be possible in OBoE, but is untested. In legacy BoE, boats would only trigger specials while outdoors, so you probably wouldn't've even gotten the "can't use staircase" type message. In OBoE, they always trigger specials (unless you block them with a Boat Block, as I recall), and I think I extended stairway nodes to work in more situations.

Yeah, the "go back" problem was already known, but I don't recall spotting the menu issue before, so that's helpful.

I can't really give you an answer to that question, sorry. I haven't tried out a lot of custom scenarios, and frankly, I'm probably not going to do so until the main scenarios are entirely working.

 

Regarding the blacked out squares, that could potentially happen if for any reason the game is unable to load a custom graphics sheet. In particular, if you didn't place the custom graphics sheet (a BMP file) in the same folder as the scenario, then any custom terrain graphics would likely appear as a black space.

14 hours ago, sylae said:

i'd imagine, if you need get_current_tick() for ticks beyond 30k, you could probably just have a script run periodically to check if the tick count is less than it was last time you checked (ie it overflowed?) and increment a global or SDF or whatever.

 

then you can basically just do (times overflowed*30000)+get_current_tick() to get a better tick value as well, i suppose?

 

I wonder if you can really rely on something like this. I wouldn't be that surprised if it turns out that numbers in AvernumScript are 16-bit signed integers, which would mean that 2*30000 overflows. Is it known or documented what the size of AS integers is?

I would say that it's the fact that it's now freeware that enables the possibility. Before it was freeware, the existence of such a tool likely would've allowed playing the full version without registering, since as I understand Exile relied on a flag in the preferences file to determine whether it was registered. (Sure, you could make the upgraded version read that flag, but that wouldn't stop anyone from making a modified build that ignores it.)

 

In any case, this isn't something to even consider doing until OBoE is stable for running BoE scenarios.

12 hours ago, BlueBonsia said:

I am a die hard Exile III Ruined World fan. It's slightly ridiculous how obsessed I am with that game. Is there a way to play it on my newer computer? I'm not tech savvy at all.. I saw that you were trying to come up with way a to combine the blades of exile and exile 3. Any progress on that?

I'd love to port Exile III to the OBoE engine, and we've discussed this a few times in the past. However, I have no plans to do so, and in any case we'd need permission from Jeff before doing it.

 

For playing E3 on modern computers, my suggestion would be to install Windows 3.x on DOSBox and then install E3 on that.

 

EDIT: Oh, there is actually an option which wouldn't require Jeff's permission (though I still have no plans to do it) - enable OBoE to read the Exile III data files.

Oh, that's what you were talking about. I don't really see any reason to expand the 9x9 for any scenarios, really.

On 2017-07-14 at 2:29 AM, sylae said:

maybe this is just me but blown-up pixel graphics typically look terrible. like, if it's too large i have trouble even figuring out wtf the art is supposed to be

 

also, i dunno if you're going for "make this bigger" for the sake of making it bigger, or for the sake of improving the interface? from an aesthetic view, everything is the color SQUARE and that's really jarring compared to anything remotely modern. like, i get nostalgia, but too much square is too much square IMO

 

The point of scaling up is so that it appears around the same size on a modern screen as it would have appeared on an older screen, because modern screens have far higher resolution which makes the game interface appear far smaller.

 

20 hours ago, Beyond the cry lies the meaning said:

Also, are those 6 white icons PCs to select for the inventory pane?  It doesn't make a lot of sense to have the PC selectable in 2 places right next to each other (that and the party stats pane).  I think you can skip that row entirely.

 

The active PC and the PC whose inventory you're viewing are separate, so you do need the two separate toggles. It especially matters in combat, where you can change the latter but not the former.

 

16 hours ago, sylae said:

hey those are the three default interpolation options in GIMP, along with no interpolation (all blown up 150%). now i'm no pixel art connoisseur, but except for linear (which is a little blurry) they look pretty fine to me.

 

For the record, without using a shader, I only have a choice between cubic and linear interpolation. Using no interpolation (as ADoS appears to have been assuming) is actually more work.

 

16 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

CM can't figure out how to 2x zoom the graphics, much less apply an interpolation.

 

I have a vague idea of how to 2x zoom the graphics, and when I do, linear or cubic interpolation is essentially free. I don't need to do any extra work for that.

 

15 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

I've thought idly about that, but it might be good, actually. Lock the player in the classic interface, or possibly one more moderately modified than what I did here, for legacy scenarios, and offer a full-screen terrain view option like in newer games, for new-format scenarios. If that's what you mean.

 

I dislike this idea. If there's going to be an option, I'm not planning to allow the scenario to force you into any particular interface. (The scenario can customize the look of the interface elements, but that's it.)

 

4 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

I didn't actually change the size of the text at all.

I dunno, could that be the problem right there? I mean, the point of scaling stuff up 2x was supposed to be that everything gets scaled up, right?

 

4 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

I know I compacted the physical space of the inventory, horizontally, to make it fit.

Well that doesn't sound good. If the inventory is narrower, item names may not fit.

 

Also, in your second (and third) layout, I feel that there's not enough space for the transcript text.

On 2017-07-09 at 08:22 PM, sylae said:

or maybe have the default handler be a tiny little wrapper application that gives you a "scenario import" or "scenario edit" option?

 

Hmm, okay, that could indeed be viable.

 

On 2017-07-09 at 08:22 PM, sylae said:

at the very least, having each application be able to handle double-clicks would enable the user to decide what they want to do by default, and for the other they could use the context menu's Open With.... option.

 

Handling double-clicks and handling dropped files are equivalent, so that's basically what I just said.

On 2017-07-08 at 0:53 PM, sylae said:

maybe it would be cool to add a handler to allow users to double-click an .exs file, and then boe will do all the work of copying or whatever witchcraft it is now.

 

This is a good idea, but impossible. I already installed a handler so that double-clicking an .exs or .boes file opens it in the scenario editor, and you can only have one handler per file type. (You'd have to use the installer package for that to work on Windows though, and I haven't been releasing any installer packages. It'll work on Mac with the current packages.)

 

That said, you could still enable dropping the .exs or .boes on the application icon to install it.

 

No, the ._readme file would be something like the resource fork of the readme file, which wouldn't have any useful content as far as I know.

Can you give any details about the crash? Does it put up an error dialog or just quit? If the latter, is there a way you could get some sort of crash report log?

Did we specify a license when asking if we could use them? I don't remember. I'd still prefer having the graphics be under something CC, but whatever.

2 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

We've included all of it in OBoE with Mr. Hunter's blessing, although as he points out it's really Spidweb's blessing we need, since the graphics were sold to Spidweb for a lump sum.

 

I haven't actually committed that to the repository yet.

Ugh, boat locations resetting? This sounds really bad... I assume that affects save as too?

Short answer: The Blades of Exile graphics from the original BoE source release can be used for whatever you want, since Jeff release them under GPL. The Exile Trilogy graphics that didn't make it into Blades of Exile (blue cave floor, a few grass tiles, the stone wall, female merchant, green merchant, and a few others) are pending approval from Jeff. I was going to ask him about them again at some point.

Does this mean that the Lvl 1 spell 'Stumble' is more effective than the Lvl 2 spell 'Curse'?

Hmm, it does appear to mean that, unless there are other factors at work here. The bonus is your Intelligence bonus if I recall correctly.

There should be no missing items now, but I suppose there's a small possibility that I accidentally deleted something I shouldn't've when cleaning out excess blank items from the scenario files.

and Yeah I never could figure out how to do the store/unstore thing. I tried for hours but I still dont get how it works. Whenever I did anything with it I just got a PC with a blank name and 6hp. I guess its really just the store part of it. I know they go into a SDF but where and how do i check this?

Well, it's also an experimental new feature, so it's possible that it just doesn't work properly yet... >_> I'll try it out myself sometime, and if it works I'll let you know how, and if not I'll fix it.

Another way to do a crafting system might be to give the party "recipes" which are in fact usable special items. The recipes check for the presence of the needed ingredients and then take some and give you the item.

 

I guess you didn't go with the "store/unstore" method for the PCs?

Fresh BoE parties still start with all level 1-3 spells, but they can be removed by a scenario. It's not ideal, sure, but it would work if the scenario simply removed them on entry. (OBoE can call a special node immediately upon starting the scenario.)