The Almighty Doer of Stuff

The Small Window thing stopped happening. It may have been a fluke. I'll try installing a fresh copy in a different directory and see if it happens again later. As for the spell points, it allows you to hit the "-" button for Spell Points to decrease spell points into negative values. I think this was present in the original editor, and I think it resets it to zero after you hit OK, making it merely an aesthetic glitch, although some testing couldn't hurt.

I found another oddity, that was present since the original BoE. The Affect Experience node gives 150% of the experience you tell it to give, it seems. Backwards compatibility needs to be preserved, of course, but for the future perhaps the node should be made more transparent.

Thuryl helped out, using his extensive knowledge (far more extensive than mine, anyway) of what has been done in legacy scenarios. That seems to have been helpful in determining whether changing various behaviors would break legacy scenarios. Hee hee! It gives me chills to actually see myself in the credits in the BoE documentation. I've wanted to do something useful for the community since I first found out about its existance, and now it's happening. Too bad it's only after nobody plays the game anymore. Maybe once the new scenario format is set up and stable, we can try running a publicity campaign. I tried plugging it a few times on the FSM Discussion Board, but unfortunately I seem to have been ignored.

Originally Posted By: Chokboyz (and the info given is not the same in the "Start Scenario" dialog and the custom one) How's this, then: Quote: A small village is having problems with a group of mysterious bandits. You have been called in to exterminate them, but first you must find out where - and who - they are. Tell me what you think. Feedback on the icon is welcome too. EDIT: And while that dialog is being edited, perhaps the title of A Small Rebellion could be fixed? It still says "A Mild Rebellion".

Yes, that would be the problem. It seems like an awful pain to have to remember to subtract 20 from every message that gets put in a special node. Perhaps for future (non-classic) releases this could be made so you enter the actual string number? Anyway, I found an actual bug, in the Character Editor. The Character Editor allows you to make Spell Points negative. I don't know about other stats.

I found a bug in the Windows scenario editor. I had a node chain in my town, which utilized Has Item of Class? (+ take), Random Number?, and Display Message. Then I realized that Has Item of Class? (+ take) only takes one item and not all items with that class (for some reason I never knew that, although it definitely makes sense). So I decided to redo the node chain with only one class and only one HIoC(+t) node , and deleted the whole thing, but left the Town Text items so I could re-enter them in the new nodes. However, when I entered the message numbers in the new Display Message nodes and hit "Create/Edit", I got an asterisk in each of the two text entry fields. Some experimentation revealed that the editor was not deleting the messages, which is good when you've entered a number for an existing message, but then it displays the first two unused (asterisked) messages in the text entry fields, with the asterisks still there. If you don't enter numbers (leave both at -1) and hit "Create/Edit", it selects the first two unused messages and deletes the asterisks, as it should. Also, if you don't enter numbers, hit "Create/Edit", and enter a message, then click OK and hit "Create/Edit" again, the proper messages will be displayed in the text entry fields. EDIT: Also, this seems to happen with all nodes with Display Message-style messages. I don't know if it happens with long messages (the ones with 6). I might test that later.

http://ados.ermarian.net/BoX/AskAbout.gif Sure it fits. It only has to have room for four letters, after all. There's even room left over.

Just a minor thing regarding dialogue: If you Ask About... "name", "buy", or "bye", you get the standard Don't Know response, rather than the Name message, the talk node for "purc", and ending the conversation, respectively, as they should be (or I think they should be, maybe there's a reason for this). I know that asking about "job" or "work" will bring up the Job response, and asking about "look" will bring up the Look response. Actually, now that I think of it, perhaps the "Ask About..." button could be replaced with plain text "Ask about..." and a text entry field, eliminating the dialog box that pops up and allowing for easier keyboard asking, like in Exile 1 and 2. I always find myself trying to ask about things that way and accidentally choosing Name by pressing N when what I want is to ask about something starting with N. Perhaps the one-letter shortcuts to the buttons could be changed to entering the one letter in the field and hitting enter instead. I think the convenience of not having to click the Ask About button would outweigh the convenience of having the standard button keyboard shortcuts, as I imagine the Ask About button is used far more often than the shortcuts (at least for me. Before I got used to the E1/E2 system, I always clicked on the buttons.) Just an idea, and not a terribly important one.

http://ados.ermarian.net/BoX/Bigscen.bmp I pasted it into BigScen.bmp, accidentally forgetting to increase the color depth first, and I think it made it look more uniform with the other three. I also shifted the mountains toward blue and made the grass on the hills more brown and less vivid, to match the smaller icon. Is it any better? Also, weren't Jeff Vogel's scenarios going to be excluded from the Custom Scenarios list? They still appear to be there.

Have I mentioned I'm not a programmer, haven't seen any of the BoE code, don't know the variable names or what they represent, and that Code: block you posted looks like gibberish to me? I think you understand my idea, but I'm sure I don't understand yours.

http://ados.ermarian.net/BoX/BigBandt.bmp It's kind of cheesy looking, but it's the best I could do. I realized that the image is actually based on the Grand Tetons as seen from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which made it easier. I used three different public domain images (the mountains, the sky, and the hills) to make it.

Its ability is concealed, and Silverlocke is a little crazy. If you know what it does you won't want to buy it, but if not, then you're in for a surprise, I guess. Also, perhaps it tastes good? I know in Exile II, in Fort Duvno, there's shop that sells alcoholic beverages. They're expensive and all they do is curse you and make a small message that says "Hic... That's good stuff!", but they add atmosphere.

I have an idea. What if, when a timer goes off during a Have A Rest node, the game counts how many moves are left in the Have A Rest node, and stores it to a variable. Then, it waits until the HAR node chain finishes, and triggers the timer. Then, if another timer is called in the same chain as the first timer, the number of moves for the new timer is reduced by a number equal to the lesser of the following two numbers: A) the new timer's move counter, or the HAR remaining moves counter. The HAR remaining moves counter is reduced by the same number. If, when that timer resolves, another timer is called (for instance, if it were a loop), the process repeats until the HAR remaining moves counter is empty. If no more timers are called by the time all chains finish, the counter is reset for the next HAR. Perhaps this would minimize the potential timer misalignment that could be caused. I know it's not written very well, but maybe you can understand. If not, feel free to ask questions.

A few odd things I noticed: 1) The Spiderweb Software logo screen when you start BoE no longer plays the sound. The splash screen with the bald guy still plays the music, but I believe the Spidweb logo used to play the sound that plays when you enter a darkened town. Not really important, but just noticing. 2) When you exit the Preferences screen in the game via the OK button, it automatically reduces the window as though you had selected "Small Window (not full screen)". However, when I selected that option, hit OK (at which point it did what it should) and then went back to Preferences and selected to display the game Centered, that weird behavior stopped. 3) In the scenario editor, when you load a new town, it automatically enters the Edit Town Terrain screen. This is inconvenient if you want to edit dialogue.

Oh, I see what happened with the Brew of Lethe now, and why there's two of them. This is the way it was in Exile II, so I guess it's the reason it's like this in BoE: One of them, valued at 500 GP simply to make it more expensive to purchase and weighing only 1 unit, is Silverlocke's potion. It also has a So-So (20-200 GP) item treasure class. The other, valued at only 50 GP, weighing 5 units and having a treasure class of Lousy (1-20 GP), is meant to trip up inexperienced parties who drink unidentified potions they find on the battlefield. Since they both serve different purposes gameplay-wise, they should probably both stay, in my opinion, although perhaps the lower-value one could be changed to "Potion of Lethe" to avoid confusion. Anyway, if someone didn't notice the (delete) tag when they made their scenario, they could end up having monsters dropping the potion with that tag still attached, and this could potentially make it through beta-testing as well since it's random. Also, for some reason there's a Helm of Speed, an Amber Periapt, and a Scale Necklace on the ground in the middle of Warrior's Grove. I assume those are there from when their item abilities were being tested, but perhaps they should be deleted now. I just implemented those changes and uploaded the Bladbase.exs here: http://ados.ermarian.net/BoX/Bladbase.exs If you want to use it this way, go ahead. If not, it doesn't really matter to me. :-P

Well, asking twelve times in ten different threads isn't going to change that.

I looked for the other one and couldn't find it, although I know it should be there. Anyway, I think the other one should be deleted instead, as those four potions (Knowledge Brew, Ironskin Brew, Brew of Battle, and Brew of Lethe) are a set. Silverlocke sells them in Exile II.

Originally Posted By: Ignoble Flush The internet may not be a mechanical engineering feat or moment of pure inspiration like [...] plains, [...] but I think it's every bit as big an invention. I agree. If the Flying Spaghetti Monster hadn't invented plains, animals like buffalo and giraffes would have nowhere to live!

A couple things, having just poked around the Win32 CBoE Beta 2 scenario editor: Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work oddly. Ctrl+C copied some text from the Who Wrote field, but would not copy text from the Scenario Intro Text fields. I had to use the context menu. Also, Ctrl+V did not work at all. I found out about the weird copying behavior when I tried to paste Intro Text into Notepad. Also, why does the Brew of Lethe in BLADBASE.EXS have "(delete)" attached to the name?

http://www.avernum.com/avernum6/index.html Looks cool. Maybe I'll play the second trilogy someday after all.

Also, don't use Stuff Done Flag (0,0). It's buggy. I think it's been fixed in OBoE, though it's probably best not to mess with it until there's a good, stable release of OBoE.

My fighter, Queso Blanco, uses thrown weapons, particularly razordisks and Lightning Rods, if he can find them in plentiful supply, or in BoE he'll use slings or the Singing Mace from Riddle of the Spheres. I never use bows or crossbows though. Even without missiles, Protective Circle doesn't necessarily need to protect a fighter. I think what happened in that battle was everyone fighting was in close quarters, so when I cast the spell, my opponents were all hit with damaging fields. Queso Blanco had a ton of HP (as a high-level fighter should) and was heavily blessed, hasted, and possibly magic-resistant as well before I cast Protective Circle, so he could go about killing everyone without worrying too much about the fields and spells, while my spellcasters were well protected. It's been a long time since that happened, though, so I'm probably fuzzy on a lot of the details.

Monsters definitely can't breathe out of an antimagic cloud in BoE. I learned that in the same battle in which I used Protective Circle. Darkness breath may be an exception though, for all I know.

Protective Circle saved me in a scenario once. The one with the bird people, in what I think was the final dungeon. Was that Tatterdemalion? As for antimagic clouds, in Exile II at least, even if you cast an area-of-effect spell on an unclouded space next to a monster in such a cloud, it won't damage it. Also noteworthy is the fact that breath weapons don't work into or out of antimagic clouds. Was this changed in E3 and BoE?

Yes, I neglected to mention the exact dimensions because I couldn't remember what they were. I was hoping "reeaally small" and "Classic BoE does not include the capability to display large images" and "very, very simple and stylized" would have gotten the point across. I also mentioned the wrong node, as I should have said "One-Time Display Dialogue" and not "One-Time Text Message". It's been a while since I looked at the editor.