How about new BoA scenarios?

[Thralni]

I made this topic because of two reasons:

1) The depressing "future of BoA" topic;

2) pure curiousity.

The fact is that quite some new scenarios have been released. All the authors of these scenarios: Thanks. You have done a good job. Now it's time to look into the future. Will you, or are you already making a new scenario? From some people I already know they are making new stuff, from others I suspect it.

 

I myself have been busy with my secon scenario for some time now. Go here , and look in the "news" section for the latest entry, which also has the link to the scenario section. The page describes the intro story of the scenario. I will also put screenshots there from time to time.

 

I can't say anything about when it will be released, judging by how long WtRM took me. I also won't say anything about the plot as yet. i think the plot will be better then in WtRM, which was a standard "kill the plague" scenario. After I read all the reviews about Exodus, I have the feeling that my second scenario (The Nephil Search: Escape) will be a bit like Exodus in some aspects. However, and I am completely honest about this, in order not be affected by anything in Exodus and take over any idea, I will not be playing Exodus until I ironed out all of the plot of my scenario! I have respect for Kelandon and Exodus, and I don't want to find myself in the same situation as Solberg found himself...

 

So, again: do you have any plans for a new scenario, and iif so, have you started yet? Are you willing to say anything about it?

[nikki.]

I am slowly working on three scenarios, which is probably a bad idea..

 

First of all, there is Twilight Vale. This is a purely plot-driven scenario - no combat at all, and which is probably going to be out first, maybe by about February. It takes place on the surface of Ermarian, and is basically a horror story.

 

The second scenario is merely a few pages of notes and an outdoors section, set in Avernum towards the middle of the Empire War, shortly after the barriers fall down. No idea when this will be finished.

 

And finally, I have ideas for a series of scenarios based upon the seven deadly sins. Want to keep that one under wraps for now, and will probably take a while.

[Kelandon]

My next project is updating the HLPM, which should happen maybe sometime next week, whenever I have a free day to work on it.

 

After that, I'd like to spend some time re-writing the docs. I'd also like to make a short scenario, sort of like LP after Bahs, something that takes only a couple of weekends. I have a few ideas what this short scenario could be about, but I'm not sure which idea I'm going to go with at this point.

 

And eventually, someday, I intend to make the third part of the Slith Homeland trilogy.

[Dintiradan]

By Kel:

Quote:

After that, I'd like to spend some time re-writing the docs.

Why, what's wrong with the docs?

 

All LoD1 needs is around a week of hard work before I can fully alpha test it. However, I want to complete astring for Windows first (give me a few more days), and I've committed to Project Diki.

 

Right now, Solaria! is nothing more than a notebook full of map sketches and plot outlines. Expect it to be released a week after Drakey announces the beta for RiB.

 

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The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

- Attributed to Donald Knuth

[Ephesos]

I saw the title of this topic, and I thought to myself "I love how these topics pop up every few weeks, and they're always by people who've never touched the editor and never..."

 

Oh wait, it's Thralni.

 

But yeah, I'm still working on another. Right now, it's a vague idea for a plot and a lot of pretty islands... I'll get a screenshot up on my site later.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
I saw the title of this topic, and I thought to myself "I love how these topics pop up every few weeks, and they're always by people who've never touched the editor and never..."

Oh wait, it's Thralni.

Don't really know what to understand from that...

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
...pretty islands... I'll get a screenshot up on my site later.

As it's you saying this, I believe you. I'm curious for the screenshots.

[Lazarus.]

The Eternal Vigil (which is undergoing a title change) will be complete sometime in the next couple months. I originally thought January, because I counted on getting a lot done over Christmas break. Turns out I'll be on vacation, so that pushes the date back a while. Screenshots on my website, though it hasn't been updated in a while and I haven't revealed anything about the plot.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

I am still far from hard at work on The Vitoba Monastary Seige, though I'm hoping (against all reason and past experience) that I can get some intense work in once crunch time ends late this week.

Yay for procrastinating on my intro scenario.

Fie upon schoolwork for getting in the way of my gaming!

 

Okay, I confess, I am quite excied about submitting a film to a national competition, but aside from that...

 

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The Silent Assassin is still working on teh uber- epic.

In other news, the moon is falling.

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by Lenar Labs:
Okay, I confess, I am quite excied about submitting a film to a national competition, but aside from that...

Huh? Do tell.

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni:

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
I saw the title of this topic, and I thought to myself "I love how these topics pop up every few weeks, and they're always by people who've never touched the editor and never..."

Oh wait, it's Thralni.

Don't really know what to understand from that...

I just meant that I was a bit surprised to see you heading a charge for more scenarios... usually it's Arrna or some random newb. You know, someone completely unwilling to help speed up the process by trying their hand at making stuff.

Oh, and... LET THERE BE SCREENSHOTS!!!

(So far, it's really just outdoors and skeletons of towns)

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
And eventually, someday, I intend to make the third part of the Slith Homeland trilogy.

I hope you get around to this sooner rather than later, if only because I'm itching to see how in the flying blue hell you intend to make a scenario for level-120 parties.

As for my own scenario... well, BoA isn't my highest priority right now.

[aka Ravenwing]

You guys know about ItSoD. And no, it shouldn't be taking so long, because it's probably still gonna be really short. I sometimes have to restrain myself from scrapping the whole thing in pure disappointment.

 

Don't know when that'll be ready, because I still have to reorganize my thoughts (as well as the files) for said scenario. Then I have to deal with the stupid lag, generated by my Intel Mac. This I have little patience for, so it could well be after Jeff fixes that issue. Boo.

 

I sure hope this little scenario is worth all the trouble it's being. Right now it doesn't look like it is.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

Eph:

Every year, the students in the Advanced Video course are required to submit their final projects into a nationwide film festival. This festival only accepts works that were submitted for credit in a college class.

So for the last three weeks, I've spent a large chunk of time working on the final project for the course.

It's due Thursday. I hope to have it posted online before the end of the week.

 

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The Silent Assassin just walked past my office carrying my dress robes.

If this has anything to do with the fire upstairs...

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Alchemy:
I hope you get around to this sooner rather than later, if only because I'm itching to see how in the flying blue hell you intend to make a scenario for level-120 parties.

Well, my first idea was monster plagues of level-edited demons and undead.

[Smoo]

I am making yet another one. This one should keep me busy for a year or two or if I continue to invest as much time into making it as I am now, for all eternity.

 

It's set in (mostly) one huge city with no outdoors and I hope it to have a better plot than my previous works (as in there's more of it) but like in my previous works I will bury the main plot under a hundred side quests.

[Ishad Nha]

Importing Blades Of Exile Scenarios

The way to increase the number of BoA scenarios is mass – production: importing Exile scenarios into Avernum.

 

If you really want to be an author but have zero literary talent, then porting is the way to go. Ditto if you are an author and want to import one of your great Exile hits into the Avernum world. It is magical; choose the Import option and a few seconds later an entire scenario appears all at once!

 

Admittedly there are still some bugs to be worked out, a 3D editor is needed that can be compiled on any common compiler. Before this can happen the porting process commands will need to be revised. Easily enough done by a three – way reference: BoE Editor Help, the Bl A Fileio.c source file and BoA Script Reference. (The Bl A Fileio.c file is the one that actually contains all the commands used in porting, it is found in the official editor’s source code. Its analog in the 3D editor is Bl A Fileio.cpp.)

 

At the end of the day, BoE and BoA are very much different games, so the process will require a lot of manual effort, it can never be automated.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Originally written by Ishad Nha:
Importing Blades Of Exile Scenarios
The way to increase the number of BoA scenarios is mass – production: importing Exile scenarios into Avernum.

If you really want to be an author but have zero literary talent, then porting is the way to go. Ditto if you are an author and want to import one of your great Exile hits into the Avernum world. It is magical; choose the Import option and a few seconds later an entire scenario appears all at once!

Admittedly there are still some bugs to be worked out, a 3D editor is needed that can be compiled on any common compiler. Before this can happen the porting process commands will need to be revised. Easily enough done by a three – way reference: BoE Editor Help, the Bl A Fileio.c source file and BoA Script Reference. (The Bl A Fileio.c file is the one that actually contains all the commands used in porting, it is found in the official editor’s source code. Its analog in the 3D editor is Bl A Fileio.cpp.)

At the end of the day, BoE and BoA are very much different games, so the process will require a lot of manual effort, it can never be automated.

Don't hold your breath... It was tried twice, and I heard that it was a total disaster. Something about towns that had to be totally redone, same for dialogue?

[Lilith]

More importantly, artistic vision is precisely what the community isn't short of. Coding skills and (especially) time are what's lacking.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

Thuryl makes a great point.

I'm sure that if everyone who ever attempted to start a BoA scenario could complete it within a month, and bring it to its full potential, BoA would possibly be the most popular shareware RPG scenario engine in existence.

As it is, Ishad Nha, scripting takes halfway to forever, and porting requires a huge amount of effort in map redesign alone, let alone converting the special nodes into script states.

 

Kel, how long did it take you to port 9 Variations on Point B?

 

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The Silent Assassin is outside, doing his civic duty by protecting our community from an evil menace.

You know, with the way he describes it, you'd think he'd go squirrel hunting more often.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Lenar Labs:
Thuryl makes a great point.
I'm sure that if everyone who ever attempted to start a BoA scenario could complete it within a month, and bring it to its full potential, BoA would possibly be the most popular shareware RPG scenario engine in existence.

Also, if my wang were made of solid gold, I would be a rich man. But it ain't gonna happen.

[Imban]

The only way that would happen, though, is if you sold your wang. And then you, of course, would be wangless.

[nikki.]

You'd also be less attractive, Thuryl.

 

I have begun working in earnest on Redondo Beach (working title), and finished designing the outdoors today. Hopefully, with the enthusiasm I'm feeling for the project, it'll be done before TV.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Ishad Nha:
It is magical; choose the Import option and a few seconds later an entire scenario appears all at once!

Have you actually tried it? If you had, you would know that this is an entirely misleading statement.

Quote:

Originally written by Lenar Labs:
Kel, how long did it take you to port 9 Variations on Point B?

I think it took me a day. Possibly a few. But that scenario has almost nothing in it, so my experience with that is not at all representative of what people would face in porting real, decent scenarios.

And it was annoying as hell — the way that BoE and BoA deal with space in towns is totally different, so you have to place most of the specials (and many of the walls) over again. And, of course, you have to re-make all of the custom graphics and re-write much of the code. In fact, you basically have to re-write the scenario from the ground up.

No, porting BoE scenarios is not a quick and easy way to make more BoA scenarios. There is no quick and easy way to make more BoA scenarios, except perhaps making small, manageable scenarios.

[Thralni]

Ephesos: Those screenshots look very good! I'm getting eager to see more of it.

 

And I have uploaded some screenshots of TNS:E. Just follow the link thralni.ermarian.net, search in the news section for "12 - 12 - 2006," and click on "here." It doesn't look extremely pretty, I know, but that will probably come later.

 

Something else to say about my scenario is that it will be for more puzzles and logical thinking than fighting, considering the place this scenario takes place in.

[Nioca]

Right now, I'm working on two. Agadia Isle, which I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about ( ), and The Escort. The Escort will likely get finished before Agadia, as it's a lot smaller and simpler.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

Quote:

Originally written by Immanuel Velikovsky:
Also, if my wang were made of solid gold, I would be a rich man. But it ain't gonna happen.

You illustrate the point quite vividly.

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The Silent Assassin is constructing some sort cluster bomb upstairs in the kitchen.
I am quite curious as to how this relates to the eight gallons of whipped cream that he brought in earlier.

[BainIhrno]

Believe it or not, I am actually considering making the scenario after the one I'm currently working on for BoA (Not the one I'm currently working on), the reason being I'm seeing better BoA scenarios coming out, and the idea for the setting of my fifth scenario might be really cool in 3D. No promises, though, but chances would be better if that editor remake is done after my current BoE scenrario is released.

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by BainIhrno:
...but chances would be better if that editor remake is done after my current BoE scenrario is released.

So, in other words, chances are fairly low?

[Old MikeS]

I'll probably release the scenario I'm working on also (Amnesia). Don't know when (got most of the town/city laid out, won't have any outdoors), but it took me almost 3 weeks to get some custom graphics created/finished. Still need to populate, setup dialog and flesh out the plot.

Similar to what Nikki x has planned, it will have no combat (the coding for that is finished - I take away all equipment/magic at the start, give it back when you finish). I'm leaning at a March/April time frame, depending on how often I can work on it between work and family.

[Ishad Nha]

Yes, Kel, I have tried it on a few scenarios, the process is quite straightforward, that is why I know it only takes a few seconds.* An entire scenario appears as if by magic, granted it may not be terribly playable. The conversion I find technically fascinating, trying to express apples as oranges.

 

Thralni, entire towns had to be re – done? I haven’t heard about that, I don’t know why this might be. There may be problems with translation of terrain perhaps; it can look pretty shapeless after porting. One problem that can’t be solved easily is the fact that in BoE the party occupies only one space while it is exploring, unlike Avernum. Another problem is that the current Windows version of the official editor wrongly rotates the coordinates of all town specials!

(The dubious thrills of ported dialog scripts?!? I have zero literary talent; I have trouble writing appropriate questions for the scripts. By contrast, deciding upon which states to give each node is not too hard.) Custom graphics, thank God for Blazing Blades and the Louvre, even so there are many graphics that have not been translated yet.

 

Undeniably, porting is not always easy but a large number of the problems in porting come from errors in the way the translation is done. They would be easily fixed by revising the porting process itself. This will frequently, but not always, require re – writing the editor. A few can be removed by hex – editing the existing editor. Errors that can’t be fixed will always occur in the same situations, so they are at least perfectly predictable.

 

The scripts generated by the porting process always need to be revised; an example at random is the move_to_new_town call. In Avernum this can be called only one way, so you would need to find a place to put a new special node. Another example is type 63, the trap node; here you must create a terrain script with all the relevant details. The finishing touches for an entire scenario could take a few weeks easily.

 

Translation of objects: terrain, monsters and items.

This is done by a set of tables, it is a one on one process, and an Exile object is given a single Avernum translation. It is simplistic, based upon default objects when every big league Exile author used / uses custom objects. In actual practice the translations can be customized even without a new editor.** A quick bit of hex – editing of the translation arrays is all it takes. Said arrays can be found at the following locations in the official editor:

short old_monst_to_new[256] = {…} is found at line 6,734 column 47 through line 6,741 column 67.

short old_ter_to_floor[256] = {…} is found at line 6,741 column 69 through line 6,749 column 19.

short old_ter_to_ter[256] = {…} is found at line 6,749 column 21 through line 6,756 column 41.

short old_item_to_new_item[400] = {…} is found at line 6,756 column 43 through line 6,768 column 02.

These arrays can also be found in source file Bl A Fileio.c, from lines 122 thru 275.

 

*Fine print 1, I am assuming that there are no complications like monsters or doors outside of town boundaries.

**Fine print 2, deciding how to translate the custom objects does take some doing. Even with all the relevant data copied into an Excel spreadsheet, it takes me a while to decide.

My approach is to copy the data from the scenario exs file then compare it with the default BoE data.

[Lilith]

There are some fairly critical differences between BoE and BoA that you're overlooking. For example, BoA makes a distinction between terrains and floors, while BoE doesn't. In BoE, a wall has thickness but no directionality -- a wall takes up one space, and a north-south wall is the same as an east-west wall. In BoA, a wall has directionality but no thickness -- a wall exists on a floor space but doesn't prevent creatures from occupying that space, and a north-south wall isn't the same as an east-west wall or a corner wall. This is why towns have to be redesigned; a BoE town will be ported into BoA with gaps between all the walls, which just looks weird in BoA.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

It's a little relieving to know that you've at least done your background work on the theory behind porting.

 

The question becomes, however, if the changes that you say need to be made can be done in a timely and practical fashion.

And then, once said changes are made, if the porting process is still practical.

 

What we've all been trying to tell you is that in our experience, porting was more hassle than having the ported scenario was worth: one might as well start bulding the ported scenario from a fresh file, with all of the time and effort that it takes to turn the port into something functional, let alone aesthetically pleasing.

As things currently stand, we might as well make our own original scenarios.

 

However.

As progress is seldom made without getting outside of the box, I'd like to encourage you to look at practical applications of what you've come up with.

And then, try to apply them.

People tend to be a bit more receptive if you have a working prototype; so find someone (I'm afraid that I would not know who to ask) who would be willing to make the program adjustments, and then do a port.

Figure out what went wrong and what could be done better, and then do it again.

If you can make the process practical and demonstrate it to the community as such, you may be able to change our outlook on porting.

If not, well, you can either give up, decide that porting is ineffective, or try a new approach.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb. Leave your sanity at the door, if you've not done so already.

And get cracking, because right now, you may be the only one who believes in this cause.

 

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The Silent Assassin has gone out to rent a dunk tank, so that he may reverse engineer it.

I do hope that he will not be trying to prank the local church fair again this spring... the gatorade in the water gun arena was bad enough.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Ishad Nha:
Yes, Kel, I have tried it on a few scenarios, the process is quite straightforward, that is why I know it only takes a few seconds.

Misleading, I said. Running the importer takes a few seconds. Porting a scenario takes much, much longer.

But if you feel like porting a bunch of scenarios, by all means, do it. There's no one stopping you.

[The Loquacious Lord Grimm]

You know, I think some terms need to be defined here.

 

Importing is the automated process of converting an .exs file to a .bas file plus scripts. This is done when you click the "Import a Blades of Exile Scenario" option.

Porting is the manual tailoring of an imported scenario by a designer so that the scenario is compatable with and functional within the BoA script system, world engine, and isolinear aesthetic.

 

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The Silent Assassin got into a car accident.

He accidentally locked himself in my t-bird's trunk.

Yeah. I'm waiting for the explaination on this one.

[Ephesos]

Ishad, I support your ideas, but I don't think I could really help much. I'm interested in seeing if you can get a smallish scenario successfulyl ported, though.

 

Lenar, that's awesome.

[Ishad Nha]

Right, the wall problem is what you guys were talking about, I become indifferent to it. I don’t think it can be solved in the near future, how do you program aesthetics into the editor? (Symmetry is aesthetic to me but programming it could be tough.)

 

Granted the town walls are usually a pill, but I have a shortcut for cave walls. Use the cave floor(BoE) from the Blazing Blade for the floor then couple this with conventional walls. Here I am relying on my ability to customize the translations.

 

In porting I am really thinking of the greatest Exile scenarios, ones that are worth the effort.

 

At some point I will have to finish the three way guide, this compares the BoE Editor Help file descriptions of the BoE nodes, the Bl Fileio.c source code translations for them and the descriptions of the BoA calls.

[nikki.]

This topic has inspired (wrong word, but meh ) me to try porting a smallish BoE scenario, just to see how hard it is. So, I chose 'Bandit Busywork' (hey, I'm a sucker for alliteration).

 

After using the import tool (in the normal editor, the 3D one didn't like me doing it), I quickly realised things aren't all that terrible. It looked workable, terrain-wise at least, and I thought I may even be able to work around some of the scripts.

 

So I dived in. Terrain isn't a problem, although I have had to lose a few specials because of the different terrain types (being able to walk through trees, for one). In fact, from the aesthetic point of view, it all seems okay. I've not done everything yet, but it's doable.

 

Then I realised that I don't have the notes for the scenario. Meaning that I don't know what any of the flags are for, unless I run through all of the scripts and manually make a list (which isn't a problem for this scenario, but would be for bigger ones).

 

The biggest problem I can see is the fact that it's not my world. I'm just prettying it up. From a design point-of-view, I could port the damn thing. I just don't really WANT to.

 

Yeah, so this is neither interesting nor funny. But still. Porting can be done, and it's not terribly hard if you're porting rubbish that nobody wants to play

[Kelandon]

Just writing a guide for porting is useless. If you want there to be more ported scenarios, port something yourself.

[Ishad Nha]

The 3D editor is wonderful, except for porting, where it crashes infallibly. It has never worked for me once.

 

One thing missing from Avernum is the Exile type 4: secret door node. One substitute is to design a specific terrain, tree or whatever, that can be walked through. Another approach is to have two (or more) out_move_party(x,y) nodes represent this feature, one node on each side of the terrain.

 

Another solution is to have the terrain toggle to type 0, when the party activates a certain node. The snag here is that the party activates a special encounter before it steps into a square, this could be bad if they step into the square activating the node above. (The party is standing in the square containing the toggled terrain, which is currently type 0, it moves onto the special node, the terrain where they are standing is toggled back to impassable terrain, they can’t move anywhere. Unless they have an item that permits uses of the out move party(x,y) call, with random choices of x,y.)

 

One likely problem: porting a scenario where you don’t have the list of what SDF, Stuff Done Flag, coordinates were actually used. Mercifully, Blades of Avernum has three times more places for the SDF flags than were found in Blades of Exile. If you want to add new flags to a ported scenario you just use coordinates that are found in BoA and not in BoE. As far as I can tell, any SDF should be safe if it has a 10+ second coordinate, if it is of the form (X,10+).

 

Other than that, you will have to learn what they do the hard way. Many of them will be self explanatory, used to record the displaying of one – shot messages.

 

From the list of Rated BOE Scenarios: Bandit Busywork - 3.91 (8.5/2.0). So this is not from the top ten scenarios.

 

Unless you are the author you are doing someone else’s world of course. If you want the top – notch authors to ever port their own work, it helps if the basic method has been developed and demonstrated beforehand.

 

I have mostly finished a port of River and Leaf, it really could do with some cut scenes&. (Also having trouble trying to use some BoE graphics from the Blazing Blades, grass is a lot brighter than everything else.)

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Ishad Nha:

 

Quote:

One thing missing from Avernum is the Exile type 4: secret door node. One substitute is to design a specific terrain, tree or whatever, that can be walked through. Another approach is to have two (or more) out_move_party(x,y) nodes represent this feature, one node on each side of the terrain.

What's wrong with the secret door wall terrain that already exists? That's what Jeff used to port the first three standard scenarios.

 

Dikiyoba.

[nikki.]

Quote:

Originally written by Dikiyoba:
What's wrong with the secret door wall terrain that already exists? That's what Jeff used to port the first three standard scenarios.

Dikiyoba.

Also, it's easy to make trees and rocks and stuff that you can walk through by editing the terrain in a custom data script.

[Kelandon]

BoE actually had a special node to make it possible to walk through things that weren't walls, like trees or rocks; using a wall in place of a tree would look quite odd.

 

Yes, it's easy to make a special terrain to substitute, which is what Ishad Nha suggested, if you read carefully.