Code Discussion Thread

[keira]

Perhaps it could be replaced with a thingy that uses the actual 28*36 graphic? Something that generates a minimap picture from the custom graphic?

 

If that is too complicated then it should at least use the miniature pic for the slot-default graphic.

[Robsta]

I was saying that in the Game, it seems to be able to generate a small version of the custom graphic, just not in the editior.

Ps. w-dueck the link in your sig doesn't seem to be working (for Calamity Refuge)

[keira]

yeah the entire free-site-host.com domain is down (FTP too). I assume it is down for maintenance, either that or I have a really bad track record with hosts.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: w-dueck

Have the "Display Small Message" call text-wrap. Figuring out where it cuts it off is such a hassle.

When you have a custom graphic on a monster/terrain/item, you can not see the graphic for the m/t/i that you are editing. The space where it is is blank...

When you are in the zoomed out view when editing terrain, custom graphics appear as just black, only standard graphics show up. That need to be fixed.

What do you think I've been working with recently?

Added.

[keira]

Monster 255 is not available in the M5 Menu. There's a blank unselectable spot where it should be.

[Celtic Minstrel]

A couple more have been added to the list.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Originally Posted By: Stuff after this goes here

Also: when you have an icon with more than 5 of those little icons on it, they overflow onto the terrain above it. Could this be fixed (have it put the 6th on the bottom, next to the first one), or better yet, have an option to get rid of them all-together.

[pointless tangent]Try adding a wandering monster arrival point, and make it the scenario starting point as well. What fun![/pointless tangent]

[Prince of Kitties]

If the party dies, they die permanently, regardless of whether the scenario is supposed to resurrect them:

 

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=111476

 

This bug exists in Shadow of the Stranger as well as Nephil's Gambit, I'll put up a savefile when I can.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Does it occur on both platforms, or Windows only?

[Prince of Kitties]

Dunno, I think it may be Windows-only.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Anyone want to verify that?

[lampshade]

Greetings, I'll try out Shadows of the Stranger and see if the bug occurs for everybody. My save file for At the Gallows somehow got busted anyways....

[Ishad Nha]

In my experience the bug did occur in Shadows of the Stranger, when the then-latest version of Ormus's program was used.

[Celtic Minstrel]

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

[keira]

Suggestion: Have the scenario editor use the terscrn.bmp frame instead of creating a frame from the backgrounds on mixed.bmp.

[Celtic Minstrel]

...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.

[keira]

http://sqcfzw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pC...qA89Q/MIXED.BMP

 

http://sqcfzw.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p8...gd0/TERSCRN.BMP

 

This be a screenshot of the predicament (I edited the graphics a little, can you tell?):

http://ahueja.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pw...neditscreen.PNG

[Celtic Minstrel]

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...

[Mervian]

Quote:

If the party dies, they die permanently, regardless of whether the scenario is supposed to resurrect them

Unfortunately, this happened also in "A Gathering Storm" (thrown in prison someplace.. and couldn't recover, as I remembered it.) - windows version -

[Prince of Kitties]

But does it happen in the Mac version?

[Prince of Kitties]

Meanwhile, another suggestion... I'm not sure how difficult it would be to implement - better monster AI. Not crazy Nethack-style stuff, just simple things, e.g.

 

- Monsters move around obstacles to attack the player

- Better spellcasting: monsters start with their highest-damage spells (e.g. Kill and Firestorm) and go on down the list as they find out what their opponents resist/are immune to.

[Celtic Minstrel]

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).

[Niemand]

Supposing an improved AI were coded C++, what about a switch in the editor that lets designers designate whether a creature type uses the old or new AI? This might not be feasible if it required a change in the scenario format, though.

[DesertPlah]

What about various types of AI's, such as magetypes, warriortypes, guardtypes, civietypes, berzerkertypes, etc?

[Niemand]

I went and took a look at the code that the game uses; as currently written it would be a severe headache to add multiple AI types. The trouble is that almost everything is done in a single nearly 500 line function which mixes up the looping over all creatures with the individual creature logic. To really get this working nicely, one should first rewrite this function, likely transforming it into several more modular functions. Once this was done it would become practical to implement different creature strategies.

[Prince of Kitties]

Could monsters at least be made to preferentially cast damaging spells, instead of preferentially summoning and clogging up the battlefield?

[Robsta]

As stated before, the game should run exactly as it did before, so none of the scenarios are changed. But I do like a good AI, so this should be something stored in the scenario - with the default call being usual monster AI (what we had before).

 

EDIT: AI is possibly the most complicated part of any game - improving it or changing it would not be easy.

[Niemand]

As you say, the solution to not breaking old scenarios is to make the default AI be the old simple one. Writing new ones would be relatively easy after a code clean-up, assuming that you could come up with the rules you wanted to implement. It sounds like people have plenty of ideas for that last, so that's not the problem. After all, the goal wouldn't be to write the perfect AI, but just to make some improvements or alternatives. Besides which, AI is much simpler in a turn and tile based game like BoE than in something like an RTS or FPS.

[Prince of Kitties]

Are there any scenarios out there that actually exploit monsters' preferential summoning? I can't think of any...

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Miramor

Are there any scenarios out there that actually exploit monsters' preferential summoning? I can't think of any...

The Arena relies on it to make spellcasting monsters balanced, but that's not really a conventional scenario.

[keira]

Here's an annoying one. When the scenario kills you and you don't have a full 6-person party, the invisible prefab members die too.

 

So if you had a five-person party with slot one open, Jenneke appears and dies when the party is killed.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Fartin' Tuna

Here's an annoying one. When the scenario kills you and you don't have a full 6-person party, the invisible prefab members die too.

So if you had a five-person party with slot one open, Jenneke appears and dies when the party is killed.

A few scenarios with premade parties actually use this to give a secret message to the player on death, but on balance it would probably be better off being fixed.

[Celtic Minstrel]

The OBoE code on Khoth's site may have already fixed that. At least, I remember Stareye saying that he'd fixed it.

[King InuYasha]

Originally Posted By: Miramor

The OBoEcross32 site is gone. I get a strong impression that King InuYasha has quit on us.

(Would that I knew my way around C++...)

I'm back after about a year. Sorry about being missing, but second semester is always very fast paced. I didn't have any time for it. And the summer was spent in surgery and recovering. (Open heart surgery does take a long time to recover from!)

I'm thinking about mixing wxWidgets and Qt, since Phonon is so useful and much easier to write sound output for than SDL or anything else really. Unfortunately, now I don't know what the latest code is now, since I haven't been around for a year....

My site may be gone, but the sources are still there at https://sharesource.org/hg/oboecross32/

Though, they are quite out of date.

[Prince of Kitties]

Open heart surgery? Ouch. Good luck on the recovery, man.

 

Meanwhile... Does anyone have some idea what might be causing the no-resurrection bug?

 

(I would try to help with it myself, though I'm no programmer, but OpenBoE won't compile on my Linux system. )

[Robsta]

All the links in the original post do not work anymore. Probably because they call the page it was on before the boards were updated a while ago.

[Prince of Kitties]

New one... The random number generator seems to need some work. Here's a scenario of the sort I commonly see:

 

- You save the game and walk up to a monster. The monster casts a spell at you.

- You open the save file and walk up to the monster again, retracing your steps. It will cast the same spell at you. As long as the same path is followed, the same spell will be cast.

- The pattern is only broken if the party members walk a different path to the monster.

 

Basically some of the game's randomness seems to depend on how the party moves, and I don't think this should be the case.

[Niemand]

This is your imagination. An inspection of the code shows, for instance, that a monster's selection of spells uses the get_ran() call, which, on Mac OS, in turn calls the system supplied Quickdraw Random() function. Assumedly on Windows an equivalent system call is used. While the core RNG is likely not a very good one, it is almost certainly good enough; this is a game not a scientific Monte Carlo simulation.

 

One aspect to keep in mind is that a monster's choice of spells is certainly not purely random. It will take into account parameters like its own health and the numbers and positions of friends and enemies nearby. If confronted with the same situation a monster will likely lean towards doing the same type of things.

[*i]

Quote:

...a scientific Monte Carlo simulation.

Story of my life...

[Celtic Minstrel]

I added the shop item graphic bug to the list.

 

I haven't updated the dead links, though...

[ixfd64]

In late 2005, I posted a topic on BoE limitations. The funny thing is that quite a few people thought that the BoE source would never be released!

 

Since those people were proven wrong, there are now many, many possible things that we could previously only dream of:

 

• source ports that work with Vista and other systems - since people have done it with the classic Doom games, I don't see how the same can't be done with BoE.
• easier to create books that can be edited
• make dungeons that negate certain spells without intensive coding
• moving walls without having to use nodes intensively
• more skills, such as fishing, cooking, fletching, mining and crafting (e.g, the player gets food by successfully cooking a raw salmon) - OK, I stole this idea from RuneScape
• more spells, monsters and items
• PCs and NPCs above level 50
• an input console - do stuff such as spawning NPCs, editing shops and teleportation with a simple command
• mythological equipment - would sure be fun to wield the Claíomh Solais or the Green Dragon Cresent Blade

 

Also, here are some ideas (from another earlier thread) that can possibly be done, whether with or without the source code release:

 

• Fantasy worlds based on other works of fiction, such as Narnia, Middle-earth, Dragonriders of Pern and Brisingr
• Fan versions of other games, such as the Legend of Zelda series, RuneScape, World of Warcraft and EverQuest
• Real world locations such as Yellowstone, Carlsbad Caverns, Hawaii or well-known cities
• Places with personal connections (e.g., go to your high school and talk to your P.E. teacher to get a +STR boost )

 

Anyways, I think this topic is great for brainstorming. Even if you don't know how to use the BoE editor, you should post your ideas since other members might like them enough to implement them in their scenarios!

[Prince of Kitties]

Some of those are good ideas, but I think it might be hard to implement all of them while still maintaining compatibility with old BOE scenarios and savefiles.

[Celtic Minstrel]

While some of those ideas are good, we do have to make sure that old scenarios are still supported. It's not strictly necessary to make sure old save files are supported, but it would probably be a good idea.

 

However, a rewrite of both file formats will probably be required (certainly of the scenario format), so support of the old formats would basically be code to convert them to the new format.

[Ishad Nha]

That would be a lot easier than porting from BoE to BoA, which is possible here and now. Simply write a program to convert old scenarios and old save games to the new format. Now Ormus is busy, Niemand is currently busy on a new Windows 3D editor.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Yes, either that or integrate the conversion code into the new editor, so that when attempting to open an old scenario it will automatically convert it. Probably after confirmation.

[Niemand]

Based on Xcode's message for the same situation:

"The selected file was saved by an older version of Blades of Exile. Are you sure you want to open an upgraded copy?"

Choices: "Don't Open" and "Upgrade a Copy"

[Prince of Kitties]

Alright, I'd like to report what I think may be the first regression in OBoE... Giant Strength doesn't work. In BoE, it increases both damage and chance of hitting - Giant Strength at 10 produces a noticable advantage, and at 127 (the Super Editor maximum) it increases damage by a factor of about 4 or 5.

 

In OBoE though, Giant Strength produces no advantage whatsoever. No matter how high the ability level for an item is, there is no increase in damage, and in fact seems to be a slightly lower chance of hitting.

[Ishad Nha]

Custom icons are not shown in the Editor zoom out view, one solution is to port the scenario to BoA and use the BoA zoom out. The 256 BoE terrain display icons, on the right of the screen, are exactly the right size to use as BoA editor icons: 16*16.

 

Until Ormus can rectify the problem this is one solution.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Honestly? That's the worst solution to a problem that I've ever heard you suggest.

[Niemand]

Hey, it didn't involve using a hex editor, so I'm sure he can still do worse.

 

More seriously, I think that this is a bad idea since there will be some things which look fundamentally different between the two: for example, walls will be displayed differently. Also, note that since this is custom icons we're talking about, the BoA editor won't display them at all for any view mode unless you do a lot of additional work.