Xoid

I could have speculated on what exactly Jeff would find acceptable or not, but I'll refrain. I would prefer him to repsond to this personally. Knowing that Jeff rarely reads the forums, I emailed him, asking him to do so.

If you are absolutely pedantic about mapping every where, then use magic map. Once you get it at level 3, use it outdoors, and use it frequently. Get into every nook and cranny, and use the Orb of Thralni to go places you really shouldn't. I've managed to get almost every section and every town of the Avernum Trilogy completely mapped out. I don't think I've ever had less than 2/3 of a section mapped out, or 9/10 of a town.

REQUEST: Windows Avernum 2 savegame, high level party is preferable, from someone who isn't a kleptomaniac. This is because my level 46 powergamer / kleptomaniac / wizard / priests have had an... unfortunate tendancy to pick up almost everything that isn't nailed down. So reconstructing the towns, even with a basic inventory is prooving considerably difficult. That is unless you don't want a reconstruction that is even mildly accurate. To anyone wondering: I am not going to include the entire town's items. There are numerous reasons for this. Cheap and useless items: clothing, ropes, buckets, trash, saws, bars of iron, sticks, rocks, etc, will be included. Armour, magic items, weapons, cutlery, crockery, etc, will not be. PROGRESS REPORT: I have fixed up literally hundreds of errors. Mainly to do with the fact that it is often difficult to differentiate between two floors when the only difference between them is a small gray line in the lower right hand corner. I've added in a couple of area descriptions, some trees, signs, and rocks that I missed the first time round. I have also cleanned up the wall configuration in a couple of spots, and the garden surrounding The Castle is now a lot closer to the original. I won't be releasing this version yet, I still have a dozen sections to clean up, but I've been getting very quick at this, I got through about 30 sections in a couple of hours last night. I am going to wait until I have the bulleted list in the post above done before sending Kelandon this version. This version, once done, will include documentation of deliberate changes, and my reasoning behind them.

One could assume from what Thralni was saying, that the puzzle is for the back door. Thralni, if you are going to make a puzzle for the back door, either make it: Extremely easy (If you can't be bothered making an alternate route.) -OR- Average difficulty (Include a walkthrough for it, and be prepared for some moron to stillask for help on how to get through the puzzle.) -OR- Extremely complex (Include a walkthrough for it, include at least one obvious combat-oriented alternate route, and be prepared for some moron to still ask for help on how to get through the puzzle.) Assuming that you are using the 'push some barrel and/or crate' approach, you can try using any combination of: buttons, 'floors as buttons', height differences, hostile combatants, hostile terrain (lava, swamps, etc.), levers, traps, and water. Hopefully these ideas are enough to get the gears turning, hope it helps.

Cleanning up of the documentation - 'cause I'm one lazy n00b. Regardless, not a single bug report yet, or someone asking: did '(insert location here) really look like that?'. I have found a couple of niggling little oversights and have about 85% of Silvar done. Currently planning only to do these towns, might include a couple of minor ones that I rebuilding specifically for my planned scenario. Cities/Forts in bold are going to be done last, as they are not intended to be include in the template. If someone asks for one of those in bold to be included, it will be. Version one dot whatever will take longer though. Almaria Angierach Blosk Castle, The Cotra (Repaired) Cotra (Ruins) Dharmon Formello Silvar Tower of Magi, The (A2 Version) Tower of Magi, The (A3 Version)

In an older thread: "te_can_look_at strangeness", spiderbytes mentioned that "te_can_look_at" was dodgy, only working properly in conjunction with a terrain script. In a different thread, The Creator mentioned that "te_can_look_at" either didn't work at all or didn't work properly. Has anyone actually been able to lock down the idiosyncracies of this pesky little call?

This little bit of code is really giving me a headache... Code: begindefineterrain 434; clear; te_name = "Fence"; te_which_sheet = 717; // te_which_sheet = 788; te_which_icon = 6; // te_which_icon = 1; te_ed_which_sheet = 688; te_ed_which_icon = 99; te_icon_offset_x = 20; // te_icon_offset_x = 0; te_icon_offset_y = 13; // te_icon_offset_y = 0; te_move_block_e = 1; te_can_look_at = 0; te_draw_on_automap = 1; te_beam_hit_type = 1; When I press 'L' to look, this terrain feature comes up as selectable. I have tried it with te_can_look_at = x; as 0, I've tried it as 1, I've tried it without that line altogether. Same result every time. What exactly am I doing wrong here?

This is one of these 'oh my god, that is so easy to fix!' kinds of bugs. By simply adding Code: te_name = "Fence" to those two entries, it is fixed. Nothing more than an oversight really.

Only alter non-stacking items and/or pray for the best. Pretty much the tactic I was going to go with anyway.

Code: void change_spell_level(short which_char,short mage_or_priest,short which_spell,short amt_to_change) Changes the skill character which_char knows spell which_spell by amt_to_change (which can be negative). If mage_or_priest is 0, changes mage spell. If 1, changes priest spell. If the character is a party member, he or she can only learn the spell if his or her mage or priest spells skill is high enough. If the skill isn’t high enough, this call has no effect.

Check out corescendata2.txt - terrain #172 and terrain #173 are obviously fences, yet are named windows. Jeff used the import = whatever; feature to great effect I see. sigh... Is this one of these things that will get fixed, or does BoA get similar support to BoE?

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: Q2: The items have the alterations that you've made. What do you mean? Should have been more clear, but Imban answered that one - I'm just going to have to test it. sigh. Thanks guys, this'll save me at least digging for non-existant calls on the date thing, and confirms my suspicions with the custom items. Incidentally: I wander far too much in A2, I don't think I've ever finished in less than Icefall 1, 824.

Question 1: What exactly are the consequences of altering default creatures from BoA? Example: In my scenariodata.txt I import #22 to #255, alter #255 and import it back to #22. If in the corescendata.txt #23 imports #22... see where I'm going with this? Question 2: What exactly are the consequences of altering default items from BoA? Question 3:If altering them has no... horrible effects, what are the prospects of someone completing/balancing certain item sets? i.e. Plate Boots, Titanium Boots, uh... where are the bronze boots to go with the bronze platemail, and why is the dragonskin cloak called a dragonskin cloak? Why is there poor leather armour, but no poor leather boots? Etc. Question 4: Is it possible to alter the date that BoA shows? Question 5: What was the 'official' date that A2 finishes? i.e. When did our enterprising hero(es) win?

I could not agree more, Kelandon. @Grape slime: Regardless of the legality - there are so many differences between the two engines that game balance alone could take upwards of four months to tailor suitably. Just the terrain was upwards of an 18/7 endevour(sp?) for two weeks straight (plus a one week hiatus for sheer laziness). Scripting everything in, plus cross platform enabling the scenario (graphics formats people...) makes a singular effort to be improbable in the extreme. It really should have gone without saying: A complete remake of Avernum 2 that Jeff would be unable to charge people for without investing time on altering BoA's code - for yet another remake - is a very real and totally justified reason for Jeff to sue.

Sorry, I'm as blind as a bat then. Similar thing happened with Wikipedia earlier today - I really need to get my eyes checked. That and I really need to stop typing.

I'm certain this is not A1 specific bug, I've experienced it all through out the Avernum trilogy - infrequently but at least once in Avernum 1, 2 and 3. In every case it has been seemingly random - the only common factor I can remember, is that this happened whilst I was switching programs constantly via Alt-Tab. This indicates to me that it might be 'memory contamination', y'know, where some program writes over the data in memory that is used by another program without properly checking if that data is no longer required. But this is just speculation really.

@Kelandon Sorry for not responding promptly but I 'work' irregular hours - much like Jeff really come to think of it. I don't have any problems with the page, but adding a link from http://home.sanbrunocable.com/~tommywatts03/ to http://home.sanbrunocable.com/~tommywatts03/A2Template.html seems logical. If I've just overlooked an already present link, then disregard this. Also, forgive my ignorance, but the *.sit format, I'm assuming this is Mac's native archive format? I'm sure I've got a utility that can open *.sit files, but do other Windows users? (Does it even matter really? Isn't almost every scenario maker a Mac user?) Either way if the link that says "Avernum 2 Template v1.0.zip" is pointing to a *.sit file as it seems to be doing... that's misleading. @Archmagus Micael: I've just sent it to you, it is in *.zip format (don't have a utility that can create *.sit files, but aren't you a Windows user anyway?) Otherwise grab it from Kelandon's site. @Overwhelming: I have no idea why Hotmail hates me but it wont send you the file, sorry about that. Either that or I'm somehow screwing up your email address. @Anyone even mildly interested in this... Please, give the scenario a once over and report any stupid mistakes to me: xoid (at) hotmail (dot) com Finally: I should have documentation listing deliberate changes from A2's terrain in a couple of days - its mostly done but the prolific swearing in it needs removal - don't ask.

Oops. I thought there was another seven sections to do, apparently there were only about four. I've done all that I can do - sections that I couldn't enter in A2 remain mostly incomplete. (Mainly to the north of Erika's Tower and west of Staging Ground D,which is just west of the Mass Teleporter.) I have sent the complete-est possible alpha off to Kelandon and Overwhelming, hopefully there is nothing wrong with it. Or any obvious and stupid mistakes that'll make me red faced, for that matter. There is an excess row and column of sections to the left and bottom of the scenario - this has to do with the fact that the riverways right at the edge in at least four sections. You could trim them, but I included them for completeness. @Overwhelming: My email to you bounced - not sure why. Will retry in the morning.

Argh... never been too into using forums, here's hoping that bumping this thread by posting after myself isn't considered double/triple/whatever posting. An update for anyone who hasn't forgotten about this little project of mine: Reasons Why I Got Side-tracked This Week Car troubles. High school graduation ceremony. I got sick. Needed a break. Read too many webcomics. Relatives visited. To put it in a nutshell; it is unlikely that it'll be ready until the end of the month. If Kelandon or Overwhelming really want to host the incomplete alpha, I'll send it along. Note: Although all of the A2 areas are done are mostly correctly done - I'm not perfect - there is likely to be at least 1 screwup somewhere... - I've started to reconstruct a couple of sections that were inaccessible in A2 from the accessible version in A1. As such they will not fit in perfectly.

An update if anyone is interested: I've completed the section with Bargha & Harston in it, almost finished the section with Formello in it. Over 30 sections done so far - including a reconstruction of the Chasm of the Spire - as accurated as possible given the circumstances. By either the end of this week or the beginning of next I should have it completed. Would have had it sooner but the Waterfall Warrens were a true pain to reconstruct, that and unavoidable cave giants keep getting in the way of my surveying in the "Giant Infested Lands" section.

That would be very much appreciated Kelandon. For now though I'll be getting back to work, as I've been slacking off. Mainly reading too many webcomics for my own good. And being too wordy.

I've sent an email with the savegame attached, here is some info on it: I am at day 160: Either get through this QUICK, do the Tower of Magi, or turn the Tower of Magi boom off (under character editor.) I do not have the crystal that makes the Crystal Souls sleep. But if you want you can have it made still. I do not have Erika's amulet - but you can still get it if you want. The reason for these... oddities is because I wanted to wipe any Vahnatai that resist my merciless rampage out of existence. Also, I don't believe Erika deserves to die for those nut jobs to be stopped. Quite frankly I believe in a good pre-emptive strike: since Rentar-Ihrno is a nut job and will never forgive the Empire, taking out their Crystal Souls seems a prudent option. Frankly, if the Vahnatai wanted to wipe out the Empire, I couldn't care less, but their attack on the surface is a betrayal of their Avernite allies - because it would make it unliveable for Avernum - a far greater crime in my mind's eye than simply killing some oversized and arrogant batch of 'undead' - (the Crystal Souls had their mortal lives and they try and prolong them past death after all...)

I've got a late game save - 4 person party with most of the mod-cons. Apart from carving your way through Tinraya the rest is done. Would that suffice?

I am aware of why exactly beta test/ers/ing should apply regardless of my gut feeling that the effort is 'unworthy' of the title. So I'll be sticking with 'poor batch of saps I've conned into bug testing the evidence that I lack a real life'. For brevity it shall be shortened to beta test/ers/ing depending on what is referenced.

Quote: Originally written by Thralni, emperor of Riverrod: Are you also going to reconstruct the towns, do you think, or will that be to much work? Not a chance in hell of reconstructing all of them. Major towns, (The Castle, Tower of Magi, etc.) are a strong possibility. Primarily dependant on whether others already have, or failing that, I might decide to include it under a second scenario file like I'm (inevitably) going to do with the Vahnatai's lands. Incidentally, just past Dharmon and the front lines is a section you can never get into - reconstructing this from Avernum 1 would be a highly subjective measure. Fort Spire (or it's ruins would be here. I know for a fact that Jeff never had a full section here - just enough so that can see mostly into it. However - there are two overlooked spots that a very observant person can see the road ends abruptly into this section - one from the Scree Pits (easy to notice), and one from the section Erika's Tower is in (very difficult...) - so things may not line up exactly. After going through Avernum 1 and investigating that section it is obvious that it will not properly fit into there. I am considering reconstructing this section and simply trimming some squares (approximately 5 to 8 would need to be) from the left edge. From a cursory inspection only a few minor side passages would be lost. Doing that section (Fort Spire's if you've already forgotten) will be a true *****. (Insert proper name for a female dog, as in I'm putting my b... out to stud, where the astericks are. Funnily enough, I do actually breed labradors. If I ever post about it I'm going to inadvertantly be censored by this infernal bulletin board.) I'm likely to end up doing it if even a couple of people show interest in my doing so. Also, I am aware of how to use an email client. And of course I'm going to compress it - regardless of how small it is my connection is slow - even a quarter meg seems to take millenia. (Sorry if all that reads like a snarky comment - I'm grumpy and tired.) I was merely unable to reconcile what to do if people pop up out of the woodworks, so to speak, and ask for a copy after I've already sent the email off. I'd prefer not to be constantly sending out mass emails if I can - so I'd prefer to keep the "beta" testing group relatively small. God, can I even call it a beta testing group really? It's not like it's an effort worthy of the name - merely reconstructing someone else's work. For the most part anyway. Might it more appropriately be called: 'poor batch of saps I've conned into bug testing the evidence that I lack a real life'? G'night people. I'm going to sleep.