Jerakeen

Also, characters with Sanctuary can be targeted with offensive spells.

Originally Posted By: Tirien Actually, I dont stink. The only thing I dont do is shave, im just too lazy to do it. If the only thing you don't do is shave, then stinking must be one of the things you do.

It would be interesting to see how creative different designers could be within that framework. I think you'd have to allow sign text to be edited; what about items?

Duck’s best offering yet, this has the makings of a good scenario for a level 1-5 party. I’m looking forward to playing the whole thing. This is a slightly edited version of the review I did for the contest. Plot: This all sounds interesting, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. But I have to grade this on what we have right now: it’s way too complicated for the size of the scenario, and obviously unresolved. Writing/Dialogue: There’s a surprising amount of dialogue, considering that most of the scenario takes place in hostile territory. The writing is basically good, with only a couple of typos. I’m not sure that the humour in the Hopkins dialogue really works, though. It would have been right at home in a scenario like Oops, but here it jars. Combat/Balance: I started to wonder if my level 5 party was somehow overpowered, so I started over with a level 1 party and had a lot more fun. I’m not one of those hard-core gluttons for punishment, but playing at the lower level actually made it necessary for me to use almost all of the resources that were provided, which was a nice change. Otherwise, the potions and scrolls were really excessive. Town and Outdoor design: The outdoors looked nice. And I was glad to get a chance to rest. The boat was pretty cool. I liked the idea of a mobile staging area for whatever it is the Black Sun is doing. All the teleportation and disconnected areas reinforce the impression of secrecy and concealment, though you’d think they’d keep a better watch on them. But it functions. Oh, and I know that doors close themselves when you leave a town in BoA, but I wish that the door to my room had not magically repaired itself while I was upstairs. I don’t know if there’s a feasible way to arrange that, though. Technical: No obvious bugs, although I’m not sure how the boss fight is really intended to go. The designer should be aware, however, that many players will routinely open doors and enter rooms in combat mode when in hostile territory. Or enter combat mode at the first hint of danger—like the sound of something ramming the door of the room, for example. This can cause them to miss plot-relevant dialogue, and/or make message dialogs appear after the fact. There was nothing game-breaking, but it’s a little odd to read that Score: [rating]Average[/rating]

Originally Posted By: B.J.Earles Come to think of it, I'd really like to read the judges' reviews before doing any more editing, but I can't seem to find them. Have they been released yet? Apparently not yet. I'll e-mail you a copy of mine.

I don't know if you've read my review, but I mentioned a couple of bugs that I saw. If you like, I could run through it a couple more times and send you a proper report.

Originally Posted By: The Ratt So what I'm getting from this is Bush lowered, or kept taxes level while increasing spending, racking up a huge national debt, and now the conservatives want to continue to have low taxes even though getting rid of the debt would be a better idea. To be clear, the accumulated debt was already huge. Getting rid of it is not going to happen any time soon. There's a lot of talk about getting rid of the annual deficit (so as to at least stop adding to the debt), which actually happened under Clinton. By the end of his second term there was a large surplus. This could have been applied to the debt or used to pay for services, but Bush & the congress decided to slash taxes instead. This, along with the wild spending, turned a record surplus into a record deficit. Originally Posted By: The Ratt I really want to hear a well-informed Republican argue how they would have the government get the US out of debt. Me too. Unfortunately, what you mostly get is a bunch of catch phrases. With few exceptions (the Pauls, for example), they're unable or unwilling to say exactly where they would cut spending. Looking at what they say versus what they do, it's hard to not to conclude that their real intention is to bankrupt the country. Originally Posted By: Droid So American comservatives are in effect voting for more debt, and some seem to claim(rightfully or not, I do not know) that this debt will make things better by increasing consumption? Debt in itself is not good. Keynsian (sp?) economics says that running a short-term deficit can boost the economy, but only if you are spending on things that increase consumption or create jobs directly, like food stamps, unemployment insurance, public works projects and so on. Tax breaks for the super-rich do not fall into that category, though conservatives will try to convince you otherwise. To the original question: Originally Posted By: The Ratt Anyone care to explain the basic Republican philosophy? I can sum it up in six words: Click to reveal.. Screw you, Jack--I got mine. Before I get flamed, that was a joke. Sort of.

Cool. Good to know, thanks!

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith It would be nice to get input from multiple judges, because I think each of the entries is really good. It was hard putting them in any sort of order. This.

Well, anyway, Niemand's suggestion worked beautifully once I sorted out all my brackets and semicolons. And I learned not to use the call "end()" in dialogue code unless I actually want it to end.

I'm just starting to play with while loops. Where would you suggest putting one?

Ah, very clever. My way works, (and actually makes sense in the context), but I like your idea better. I'll try it. Thanks.

OK, what I'm trying to do is compare how much gold the party has before they sell their stuff and after. I can get the first number by putting this (courtesy of Niemand) in the dialogue node before the shop mode node: Click to reveal.. i = coins_amount(); set_flag(74,0,i/256); set_flag(74,1,i%256); But I can't figure out how to get the second number. Putting a similar chunk of code in the code section after begin_shop_mode doesn't seem to work. I think basically what I need is some way to call a state immediately after the party finishes shopping. Feasible? Edit: Using the SET_SDF action to trigger a call in the town's start state sort of works, but if the player goes into shop mode again before moving or waiting or otherwise using up a tick, the original number gets over-written before the second number is generated. Another Edit: OK, I've got it. SDFs make dialogue into a versatile tool. Added another node: "I'm busy, come back when flag (0,17) is set back to zero." sort of thing. It would be more elegant if I could put the call right into the dialogue script, but the game doesn't seem to pay attention to anything you put after begin_shop_mode. Is this one more thing that isn't mentioned in the documentation?

In that case a rewrite would be a worthy project at some point. I just don't know that I'm the one to do it--at least, not without major input from experienced designers. Can all of the errors be found on the "known bugs" list, or would I have to hunt through the forums? Edit: Well, OK, I guess I could start looking at the top of this forum, where it says BoA bugs...but that would be too easy.

Ah, well that's where experience would come in useful, I think. I wouldn't begin to know where the appendices are inaccurate or out of date. Since it's only the editor that's open-source, not the game itself, I had assumed that all that stuff would be unchanged. No?

OK. The fact that I'm learning as I go may actually be an advantage here. I remember what was most confusing for me at first. I'll start working on it in my spare time, and I'll PM you when I have questions.

Updating the version solved my problem, thanks. But the offer stands re the docs. Searching the forums for "version" led me to a bunch of useful information that I didn't know about: Sticky placement mode? Moving placed objects? Awesome features I wish I'd known about before.

The delete function works for special encounters, but the "select/edit placed object" button does not let me select town entrances. I'll try downloading the newer version. The documentation comes in a Word format as well as the PDF. It shouldn't be too hard to edit that, if Jeff didn't mind. I'm not trying to make more work for you--I'd be happy to help.

The docs say this: Click to reveal.. Edit Town Entrance - Press this button and click on a town entrance rectangle to change what town it leads into. If you press the Cancel button, it will delete the town entry. Bold mine. This works in the old editor, but in the 3-D version pressing cancel has no effect. I've got version 1.0.8--I don't know if that's the latest one.

Apparently it's not something that arises very often, if you haven't seen it before.

Yes. They both work the same; it's just that on 507 the PC is standing on the "near" side of the terrain and is therefore not obscured. Same with the other two: on 509, with the railing to the north, the PCs are visible; on 508, with the railing to the south, they're obscured. (These would be the two terrains visible at the top of the image.)

Yes, I thought of that today, and it works: But of course you'd need a separate terrain for each height, which is kind of cumbersome if you're using it more than once. Is it worth it? I guess it depends on how obsessive you are.

The idea was a railing along the stairs. It looks OK, and it works as far as preventing movement to the sides, but you'll notice the PC on the right is mostly hidden by the terrain. The same thing happens with one of the east-west stairs. Can anyone tell me what I've done wrong? Here's the code: Click to reveal.. begindefineterrain 506; //railed stairs, this is the one hiding the PC in the screenshot import = 289; //regular stairs te_which_sheet = 524; te_which_icon = 16; te_second_icon = 6; te_second_icon_offset_y = -55; te_move_block_e = 1; begindefineterrain 507; //this one works perfectly import = 506; te_which_icon = 17; te_second_icon = 7; te_move_block_e = 0; te_move_block_w = 1; begindefineterrain 508; //this one is also defective import = 290; //regular stairs te_which_sheet = 524; te_which_icon = 18; te_second_icon = 8; te_second_icon_offset_y = -55; te_move_block_s = 1; begindefineterrain 509; //this one is fine import = 508; te_which_icon = 19; te_second_icon = 9; te_move_block_s = 0; te_move_block_n = 1; What really baffles me is that the ones that do work are imports of the ones that don't. Edit: Oh, duh, I just realized it can't distinguish between one part of the terrain and another; it's treating the whole thing like a wall or fence, so of course it hides the PC. I guess there's no way around this...oh well, I can still use the railings.

Yes. Some sort of penalty will presumably be applied to any scenario that did not meet the criteria.

Gotta love them second amendment remedies. Because you know if Democrats win that means there was rampant voter fraud. (voter fraud = minorities voting) Still, the overall outcome is probably enough of a bloodbath to satisfy the right. They can declare victory. Now we'll see what they do with it. Edit: Post #333