Celtic Minstrel

Just make each terrain space have an optional bit field which contains flags for whether each of the possible fields exists on that space. Though, you might want to handle crates and barrels a little differently to prevent a single space from holding both. (That might be on the wish list already...)

...What? There's no such location "Blades of Exile.exe/scenarios", because "Blades of Exile.exe" is not a folder. Same for "party123.sav/scenarios". Or, if there is such a location, there shouldn't be.

I remember the first inquiry about this. I think I might have added it to the suggestion list, but I can't really remember. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea. It change gameplay in subtle ways. I don't know how hard it would be to implement. The main thing, though, is that no-one's actually working on the source code right now (as far as I know), except for Ormus who is just doing bug fixes and stuff on the Windows version.

If Ormus is reading this, I honestly think it's not a good idea to join graphics sheets together. Ishad, those are all the Windows graphics sheets you uploaded?

Whateley: Are there scenarios in the Blades of Exile Scenario folder? If you can enter Valley of Dying things, then wherever that scenario file is found, is where all the other scenarios should be.

I found Exile I too hard when I played it, probably with the prefab party. Exile II and III, on the other hand, were easy enough for me to finish the demo portion. Not that they're actually easy – they're just not too hard. I think I kept getting killed by Thugs or something in the original Exile...

...I know. I thought you were talking about encapsulating everything into objects.

Originally Posted By: Nobody likes you, but I'm a nobody. It should allow the user to specify a special savegame and scenario folder, perhaps as a thingymabob in blades.ini. ...No, it should allow the user to choose a save file from a file dialog.

Moving to C++ would be easier than moving to Java, though, because C++ is a mixture of object-oriented programming and... what's it called, structural programming? But if C++ is only intended to be an intermediate step in porting to Java, then Niemand's suggestion sounds sensible. Ormus, I would recommend checking out the Mac OBoE code on Khoth's site. Apparently there have been a lot of changes made to it – new nodes added, bugs fixed, etc. You would be looking at the second version, which is (hopefully) not the one that people have been downloading. I remember *i was working on it at one point. He said somewhere that he was rewriting the scenario format or something. Does anyone know whether he finished that? Should I send him a PM? I've seen him around recently, but he doesn't seem to check this forum anymore...

...That shouldn't be necessary...

I would be more interesting in porting BoE to C++ than to Java – a much easier task, I would think. And also making it use dynamic memory allocation. Why didn't Jeff use a few mallocs here and there?

It's an endian difference, I believe. I don't know whether that would help, though. Probably not, without knowing the actual format of the file.

I heard they randomly reappeared or something... And there's probably no way to add them back, either. (Though there will be, if OBoE ever gets anywhere...)

Originally Posted By: Ackrovan ....or turn magic into the force? The thing is, many of the magic spells in Avernum don't translate well into Force moves. Originally Posted By: Excalibur What about that guy in the sixth episode that shoots lighting bolts? Well, yeah, that could be one of your spells. Actually, come to think of it, you could do it – but you would have to tightly control just what spells are available to the player. In BoE it's not possible because all the spells up to level three are automatically known (and there's nothing you can do about it), but I forgot that BoA doesn't have that problem.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Note that this only works with dialog boxes that have two options. Or if for some reason two of the choices have the same effect... though I don't know why you'd want to do that...

Originally Posted By: The Dragon Ackrovan ...Jedi Nephil's? Sith Sliths? My god, that's glorious! Actually, as I recall, that scenario was very badly done. If you wanted to do a good scenario in the Star Wars Universe, you would need tons of custom graphics, and it had none. And you would also need to find some way to deal with magic, which isn't really suited to the Star Wars universe. It would probably be easier in BoA, though, since you can have custom abilities... and then you could just disable magic completely...

Originally Posted By: The Almighty Doer of Stuff Also, I recommend you type "&*()" (without the quotes) while playing BoE. Why?

I don't really think I fit into any of the categories. I don't play often, but I do intend to release a few scenarios some day. I just need to find the time to work on them.

Sorry, I meant the idea in the first post doesn't make sense. The stuff about wingbolts and artilas and bats made sense.

I would want to make an improved AI optional, though. I'm not sure what would be the best way to do this (other than introducing a scripting language).

That idea doesn't really make sense to me...

Could this be a result of one of the corescendata errors?

Interesting – the mixed.bmp does not even exist as such in the Mac version – the map icons get their own sheet, and the background patterns are stored as ppat resources rather than PICT. Perhaps there should be a new section for platform-specific problems...

...What do you mean by that? And which are the twp BMPs you're talking about? The graphics sheets are not named for Mac users.

But I want to know if it occurs in Shadows of the Stranger when the latest Mac version is used.