The Almighty Doer of Stuff

If you really want consistency, we could ask Luz, now that we have her attention. But I think if the one in the blue robe had zir robe edited to be translucent like the other Exile Vahnatai (and clearly Kelyar-Ihrno knows how to do it, ze did it with the second Vahnatai) I think I'd like that one. The one in the yellow robe appears to be standing like nephilim, i.e. on their toes with a long foot to allow pouncing, like the cats they're based on. I think Vahnatai have humanesque legs, held straight with the entire foot on the ground.

Upon further inspection, the Inn of Blades ZIP on TrueSite4Blades does indeed include a BMP and a GIF, not a JPG. Where did you get your copy? Check out Jewel's site.

*snip*

TM has always said he doesn't like the first two. They're his first attempts and are stand-alone. Inn of Blades isn't connected directly to any other scenario, being mostly a pile of cameos from community members, although references to it are made throughout his other scenarios. Teh Grich and its sequel are parodies of a scenario called "The Grinch", which is a terrible scenario, probably intentionally so. I forget who made it, maybe the Fizz brothers. Bandits and its sequel are separate from Echoes, I think, although I've only played the first. I remember I loved a particular artifact from that scenario. Minimalism was a joke; I think all that happens in it is you take one step, TM insults you, and it ends. I'm pretty sure Nebulous Times Hence, Corporeus, Two Strands, and Roses of Reckoning are standalone. Roses of Reckoning was largely an attempt to test out BoA's import function, and the BoA version is much more complex. I think Kelandon is right about the Echoes scenario for BoA but I never got too much into BoA so I'm not sure.

The Pyrrhic Gauntlets seem to be one of Spidweb's most popular items, along with items like the Black Halberd and the Xian Skull. On that note, can we bring back the Xian Skull thread?!

Nevermind not expanding, he actually shrunk it. He doesn't distribute others' work anymore, and I'm not sure Linda Strout is still working for Spidweb. She still has an About page but it's not linked to from the main site anymore. Jeff is happy with his job because he doesn't have to bother with anyone but his wife and a few graphics and sound artists while he's making his products (of course there's marketing, but he does that his way too). Any success or failure for his company is his own doing and he can own it. This is the satisfaction of 100% owning a small business. If he wants, he can turn Spiderweb Software into Spiderweb Potato Distributors and only Mariann can have any say in the matter. If the structure of the company changes, so does his freedom, and Jeff is a proud libertarian. I'm working on a small business myself, actually. My work, my products, my schedule, my rules. It's a dream, anyway.

How complicated is the code on your site? I can figure out any HTML or CSS easily enough with a bit of Internet searching, and I've used Javascript before. I could figure that out too, probably. The only PHP on my site is PHP Includes, and Celtic Minstrel told me how to do that and I just copy and paste what he gave me. But if all it needs is a webhost to archive it, I can do that. I'm afraid I don't do much in the way of playing video games these days though, other than helping CM with OBoE. Maybe once I'm done working like someone's going to die if I don't, I can try playing through the Exile games again (new medicine, it may be easier to stay focused) and add bits of info here and there. I can't say I'm interested in A1-6, but I would be open to taking input from someone else. Same goes for Exile, actually. And yeah, like Slarty said, I couldn't quite figure out what you were looking for with the initial post either.

Clearly I missed something. You were misbehaving, Hyena of Ice? I didn't notice. I wouldn't if this was in any of the game forums for Geneforge, Avadon, Nethergate, or Great Trials anyway, I guess. Believe me, I'm schizoaffective and I also have an alter who won't grow up past in 1998. I've been acting like an ass around here since 2001 and I haven't been banned yet. These folk are really nice and understanding. Just get some sleep, take your meds, apologize sincerely when necessary, and in general try to be more careful when you can, and I'm sure it will all be fine.

I have Andrew Hunter's email address, it's the same as the AOL one in the original credits, but at Gmail now. He has made hobby of drawing naughty cartoons as a rebellious reaction to his actual career censoring foreign video game graphics for the sensitive American market, and his contact info is on that site. It's possible I went to Spam, he didn't notice it, or he for some reason really wants nothing to do with BoE. I may email him again, just in case. (What we especially want from him are a few monster graphics and the classic blue cave set. I made my own cave set that I love but which CM doesn't like. He has veto power as the one who knows how to make the graphics accessible by default. ) Luz, however, is elusive. There are a number of Luz Piazuelos on the Internet, none of which seem to be Luz Piazuelo of The Blazing Blade. The email address on her site (now hosted in archive at TrueSite) is dead. We'd really like her contact info, if anyone has it. Alternately, I know she shows up here very occasionally, so if you're here, Luz, please talk to us!

Hello! Final tests are being done, a few new or tweaked features and some bug fixes are being prepared and implemented, and the first fully-functioning, release-quality version of Open Blades of Exile (OBoE) is nearing completion! Part of the last things we're doing is adding some last-minute graphics. We'd love to include some of Luz Piazuelo's beautiful work, but alas we can't figure out how to contact her to get her graphics officially released under a Free license. We have an email address for Andrew Hunter whose Exile Trilogy work we'd like to include but Spidweb can't remember whether they have full rights to his graphics (they do but we can't really argue with them) and Mr. Hunter didn't respond to my email. So what's been happening is I, personally, have been giving my best shot at creating alternate graphics filling the niches we need. Alas, I suck at it. One new feature is the long-wished-for Vahnatai PCs. The specific mechanics are being balanced but you can indeed create Vahnatai PCs to go on adventures with you as of the current beta release. The thing is, we need original PC graphics for this race, and my attempts at making them have been less than spectacular. So, if any of you are good with GIMP or Photoshop or the like and can create original, non-color-shifted Vahnatai graphics which passably match the style of Andrew Hunter's work, and would like to release them under GNU GPL 2.0+ (other Free licenses may work too, I don't know), we'd love to have them! We need four, preferably: a waveblade wielder, a razorblade wielder, a spellcaster, and one other. Inclusion of the graphics is at the discretion of myself and Celtic Minstrel. CM can be picky (reasonably so, because we both want a highest-quality, consistent experience for players and designers), so don't be offended if your graphics aren't used; CM rejects my graphics more often than I'd like. Besides, even if they're not packaged with the game, they can always be used as custom graphics in user-made scenarios! If you have anything such as wall or floor sets, townspeople, spellcasters, and warriors, dialog icons, or other broadly-usable graphics, we'd love to see those too. Thanks for your support! (By the way, you can still buy lovely promotional Blades of Exile T shirts. The link is in my signature. Excuse the formatting, Spreadshirt's programmers are less than spectacular too...)

I know "Karma Police" by Radiohead lifted a lot from The Beatles song, "Sexy Sadie", right down to the piano melody. They had been listening to the White Album a lot for inspiration and they didn't even realize they had done it until someone pointed it out after the OK Computer album was finished and released. Whoever had the rights to that song (some combination of Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, or Michael Jackson, I think) could have sued for a lot of money if they wanted to. They let it slide because the band apologized and, I think, possibly maybe my memory sucks, offered royalties willingly. It could have been a nightmare for them though.

This sounds like the name of a dinosaur.

Speaking of annoying sounds, I've been to the spider cave in A:EftP but I can't remember this. Are the old "spider hi" and "spider hello" sounds that are in BoE, or some higher-quality replacements, still present? If not, if I ever get around to playing again, is there any way to ADD annoying sounds?

Make that eight designs! I just added (what I think is) a cool design featuring various assorted loot you can find in the game, piled against a wall. That'll be the next one I buy, I think!

https://shop.spreadshirt.com/BladesOfExile/ Seven designs, all reworked, much cheaper prices, quality printing! The other developers tell me it's a little pointless to buy these shirts before we have a stable, official-releasable version of the software, but it's up to you all, I guess. I have an older version of one of these and I like it. The designs will probably still be there when we've got everything settled, if you prefer.

What Slarty said, and also, I get all that too. It's possible to recover still. It was partly luck in that I stumbled into the right supports at the right time, but a lot of it was just stubborn determination and a desire to be happier. As for Jeff, we don't know what his health issue is. He may have developed a mental illness, he may have hurt his back, he may have cancer or a degenerative illness that will result in his agonized premature death in ten years. He didn't say and he doesn't have to say, regardless of what it is. It's his right to feel old and to express such, regardless of his literal chronological age or relative health. I wear a shirt that says, "It's OK to be OK, & It's OK to be NOT OK" and when I designed it I meant it.

"Adulthood sucks unless you had an abusive childhood." Trust me, as someone with an abusive childhood, adulthood still sucks. Last night I was thinking and I had to stop myself because I'm in a depressive state right now: I'm 27. 27 x 3 = 81. I'm probably a third of my way through life right now. I'll be lucky if I live as long as I did only twice more. When I think about it I feel frightened, so I try not to.

James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet. Cameron was the writer, director, and producer of the film "Titanic". DiCaprio and Winslet starred in it, and those three lend their names to the characters in the Blades of Exile scenario, Bandit Busywork. The fourth character is Ilona. I don't know where that comes from, but it's not in the "Titanic" Wikipedia article. Could it be a reference to Helen of Troy? Wikipedia says "Ilona" is sometimes speculated to be a cognate of "Helen", and as the face that launched a thousand ships, it could be the cause of the shipwreck that is Bandit Busywork. I don't know though, maybe there's a less speculative reason for the name.

I believe if you carry the Xian Shrub, they'll occasionally appear in your inventory if you have an empty slot. There's another one that does the same with rocks, I think. Both are totally worthless unless you really, really like shrubs and rocks, but they're interesting.

In Blades of Exile, Jeff included, only in the Windows version, a bit of code that granted a delay of several days on the destruction of the fort in The Za-Khazi Run, according to his comment in the code, something along the lines of "to make it easier for players". He did this in the code of the program, not just in his own scenario, leading to the Day Reached? node being unusable, and much puzzlement, frustration, and accusations of Jeff being an idiot.

I think it was 80 in E1 and E2. Maybe E3, but by BoE it was reduced to 50.

The best way is to holler, "Don't Tase me, bro!"

Thanks!

Thanks. The step I'm taking right now is cleaning and organizing my bedroom. Tomorrow my mother will bring me more of my possessions and when I have them and everything's all nice and neat and my art is on the walls, it will feel more homey. I have a long day ahead of me and I'm still awake at almost 3 AM, but I want to get it all out of the way. Plus I need to have room for the nice glass shelves. They were part of a crappy desk that fell apart but I discovered the shelves could stand on their own so I kept them. I can even get a printer for my computers if I keep an empty shelf for it. Having a harmonious living space may lead to a more harmonious mental state. No sleep will not but it will only be for one day. And I'm almost done.

I don't know. I do know that foreign nationals can pay into and receive Social Security provided our country has the appropriate agreement with their country, and I'd still be an actual American citizen, so maybe, although I would not receive the Massachusetts state supplement, of course. Anyway like I said, there are more options available to me here in Massachusetts than I had considered. Please don't judge me or mock me for freaking out. It's very hard living with schizoaffective disorder especially because it causes irrational, nonlinear, clouded thinking on a difficult-to-impossible-to-predict basis. It's basically all the "fun" parts of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia thrown into one bag.