My Scenario --questions

[Mistb0rn]

It's not released yet, but I figured it might be a good idea to post my questions here rather than keep making new topics for each one.

 

My first question-- How do you make the Scenario Pic something custom? I know that TM did it, but I can't figure out how.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Are you using a Mac? This might be something that's only possible on a Mac.

[nikki.]

From TM:

 

To get this to work, you need to number your graphic 200 + item picture # (as seen in item editing).

[Mistb0rn]

No, I'm using Vista.

I can't find a way to make it custom. The only thing I can get it to do is an item graphic, with the transparency being replaced by whatever happened to be on the screen before (in the 'custom scenario' window, in-game it just shows the item.)

I couldn't find the sword that shows up on Bandits 2 in his graphics sheet, so I'm guessing he either used the item pic or what he actually did do doesn't show up on Vista.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

He used the greatsword item pic, item pic #1. Other than items, you can't have custom icons on the Custom Scenario selection list, unfortunately.

 

You have to go into the Scenario Intro Text, but instead of picking an intro picture, you enter 200 + the item graphic number you want. Then you click OK. It will probably give you an error. Ignore it. Click it away and then immediately click Cancel. You should now have an item graphic, probably distorted, as your scenario icon.

 

However, this only works up to graphic 55 (the sparkly blue wand), which would be entered as 255. With 256, clicking OK will take you out of that window and select the graphic with people walking on a ledge in a cave. Above that, and you'll get no graphic at all. Same goes for 30-199.

[Mistb0rn]

Ok, thanks! Now, second question-- What all nodes can you call during a conversation? I'm assuming no sfx, but will play sound work? And what about if there is a yes-or-no dialog. Can you jump from there to an out-of-conversation-screen non-dialog text message popup and then display in-conversation text? And what about place town encounter? Will that work in the middle of a stringin a conversation? I suppose I could just try a bunch of tests to find out, but if someone knows...

 

Thanks!

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Play Sound works.

 

If by "out-of-conversation-screen non-dialog text message popup" you mean a two-message node like Display Message, where you enter the numbers of two messages in Text1 and Text2 rather than entering the first of six, then no, it will automatically display in-conversation. As far as I'm aware it will only display the last message called, although I don't know what happens if you call a Display Message, then play a long sound, then call another Display Message. I might check that out.

 

However, if you call a Display Dialogue, you can then call a two-message node in-conversation after they close the Dialogue window.

 

Place Town Encounter should work.

[Mistb0rn]

OK, now is anyone interested in testing this thing? It's now called 'The Cherth Campaign', and I think it's just about finished.

Email me at Mistb0rn@aol.com and I'll send you the link.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Have you tested it yet? You need to test it yourself before getting others to test it...

[Mistb0rn]

Yeah, I've tested it until I'm totally sick of it, and then some. I can't find any more errors myself, but I'd like a few other people to try it before I officially release it.

[Mistb0rn]

Another question.... I seem to have run out of special nodes in an important town. Is there any way to increase the number of nodes available? Would it work to have a person in town 1 with a personality from town 2 call nodes from town 2 (while in town 1)? Or would that introduce errors?

 

Thanks!

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Town nodes are always called from the town the party is currently in, even if the chain is called through a personality in another town. The only way to use more nodes is to use Scenario nodes. There's a node called Call Global Special that lets you do this.

[Mistb0rn]

I'm running low on scenario nodes too, and I'm only about a third of the way through. How do people do huge scenarios so well?! I guess I'll have to cut back on the special items, and maybe make some of it actually take place in a different town. Thanks for all the help!

[Callie]

nevermind

[Ishad Nha]

If you want to increase the number of nodes in a town, look at Jewelz' scenario Redwall. She has a couple of versions of the same town, thus wandering through a door actually takes you to another version of the same town. If you have three versions of the same town you have three times as many nodes to use.

[Mistb0rn]

I've considered that, but I'd prefer not to. It always annoyed me to have to explore a town more than twice. Like in the scenario Of Good and Evil? It seems like every time you do anything there's a new version of half the towns. I might have to, though. (Just thinking out loud there.)

 

Thanks!

[Celtic Minstrel]

That's not actually what Ishad Nha suggested. It's not that there'd be multiple versions of the same town – it's more like splitting the town into several parts such that some of the major buildings are in their own town. For example, if there's a town hall, you can split it into a separate town. Then walking through the door would transport you from one town to the next.

 

Each town would probably have the same terrain, but the parts that are inaccessible in the main version of the town would be precisely the parts that are accessible in the other versions.

 

But if you don't want to, I don't care really.

[Ishad Nha]

You could go either way, have multiple versions of the same town or have some buildings basically occur in their own private towns.

 

Apparently Jewelz run through a lot of nodes doing things that are not easily done in BoE, like cutscenes for example.

[Mistb0rn]

Ohhh.... you mean like split a large town into four small towns that are all linked at the edges? That could work. That would be good! Yeah, thanks!

[Celtic Minstrel]

Well, that's one way. But that's not quite what I meant – if you do that, it will take a lot of specials to handle travel between towns (unless you do it like I'm doing it and link it to a terrain type).

 

What I meant is, you design a town. Then you create a copy of that town. Now, as soon as you step into the door of one of the buildings, a special node takes you from outside the building in the original to inside the building in the copy. So, in the copy, you can only explore inside the building. And in the original, you can only explore outside the building.

 

Understand now?

[Mistb0rn]

Oh...NOW I understand (I think). That could also work. Thanks for all the ideas! ;-) I'll have to see which ones work best in what situations, and then reprogram my towns.

Ack.

[Ishad Nha]

Play Redwall then look at the scenario in the Scenario Editor. You will exactly what has been done to get around these problems.

[Balladeer]

To be fair, as the creator of Redwall, I only used that extra town on the scroll room because I didn't plan well. I, personally, find it a clunky solution and wouldn't make a town like that on purpose again if it could be avoided. Planning is the key to making sure you have enough nodes.

 

If a quick fix is what you need, it'll work, but it's not ideal.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I used it when I wanted to place more than the maximum number of specials in a town. You can carefully save your nodes, but you can't really save your specials.

[Mistb0rn]

OK, new question. In my second scenario, there is a whole lot of stuff that is unimportant to the main storyline, which is fairly open and vague. There are a few essential side quests (like getting a key) and some people you need to talk to, but the majority of the map is 'extra' stuff. Is that a bad idea?

 

And is it okay to make them look around and find out stuff themselves instead of being told "go there, find this, open that"?

[Celtic Minstrel]

For the first question: no, I don't think it's too bad an idea. The original Exiles often had such things.

 

For the second question: yes, within reason. If what they're looking for is well hidden, you'd better leave some good clues.

[Robsta]

I can say that I enjoy a scenario that is not a "rail shooter", but that drops enough clues to be able to follow the storyline. This is not always ever easy to do.

 

As for the first question. Yes, I like extra frills a lot, one of my problems with a (good) scenario like Two Strands was the lack of such frills. On the other hand they often take much longer to make a good storyline and can bog down the production of the scenario quite a bit.

[Mistb0rn]

Does the default graphics sheet for Mac have darker terrain than Windows? Because I've noticed that some scenarios' custom graphics fit perfectly, and some don't.

And, if so, does anyone know where I can get a copy of the Mac versions of ter1 - ter5?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn

Does the default graphics sheet for Mac have darker terrain than Windows? Because I've noticed that some scenarios' custom graphics fit perfectly, and some don't.

Yes. Traditionally, Mac and Windows monitors have had different gamma settings, so graphics that look okay in Windows will look too bright on a Mac. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult for Windows users to acquire the original Mac graphics in a format they can use.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Someone really ought to make it available. It's in the Mac source code, I assume. It would be really nice if some kind Mac user could convert the Mac graphics (including the Mixed image that has the cave floor for the edges of pits, water and lava) into BMPs and put them online.

 

EDIT: In fact, maybe if the Windows graphics were compiled into whatever format the Mac BoE uses, both versions could be put online and bundled with future versions of BoE. That way, for those users who are comfortable with changing the graphics, scenarios could be played with matching terrain.

[Niemand]

Here you are: http://misc.hallsofchaos.net/BoE%20Pict%20Resources.zip

That's every PICT resource from the file 'Blades of Exile Graphics', converted to bmp format. They still have the macintosh version's numbering scheme, so you'll have to figure out which is which.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Note that the Mac version actually has more separate sheets than the Windows version, so some will need to be joined. Also, I think it's Misc.bmp that is particularly different than the Mac equivalents. It also contains the graphics that are stored in ppat resources on the Mac (the background patterns).

[Niemand]

Okay, here are your blasted ppat resources: http://misc.hallsofchaos.net/BoE%20ppat%20Resources.zip . (It took about a hundred times as long to get these; I had to copy them manually from Rezilla instead of letting Graphic Adjuster do all the work. Yech.)

[Mistb0rn]

Is there anything else special I need to do to copy a scenario to full Mac compatibility? Is the graphics file supposed to be different than .bmp? And is there anything else I need to do/change?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

The Mac graphics file is a .meg. Only Mac users can create them. You have to send the graphics file to them, ask them to create the .meg, put it in a .zip, and send it back to you. You must not open the .zip, or else you'll corrupt the .meg.

[Mistb0rn]

How exactly would I go about changing it to a .meg? We have a mac, but I don't use it much.

[Lilith]

The editor documentation has detailed instructions on how to do it. You'll need a resource editor such as ResEdit.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Didn't Khoth alter the open source version so that it can use a BMP if available instead of a MEG? I thought he did, anyway...

 

Anyway... what kind of Mac do you have? Is it Mac OS9, or Mac OSX? If it's Mac OS9, you can download ResEdit from the Apple site somewhere. If it's Mac OSX, you'll need a different resource editor, such as Rezilla.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Not everyone has or uses the open-source version though, so you still need to make a MEG. No point in needlessly cutting off people from playing your scenario when so few people are playing anyway.

 

Or at least it seems that way, since nobody is rating scenarios at CSR. Particularly mine.

[Mistb0rn]

It's OSX.

 

What are your scenarios? If you want I'll play and rate them when I have the time. Do I have to do anything special to be allowed to post reviews, or just be a member?

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn

It's OSX.

Okay, so while you may be able to use ResEdit (if it's a PowerPC rather than an Intel processor), it'd probably be better to try Rezilla.

Once you have it, all you have to do is create a new resource file. It'll give you a choice of "data fork" and "resource fork" – you'll need to choose "resource fork". Then simply open up the BMP in Preview, select all, copy, and paste it into the resource file. It should show up as a PICT resource. You'll need to change the resource ID to 1. Then save the file as scenname.meg (where scenname is the name of your exs file), compress it (you may be able to simply control-click on the file in the Finder and choose "Compress"), and place the resulting archive in the same folder as the scenario.

(The reason for compressing it is the fact that the file is incompatible with the Windows FAT file system. Compressing it preserves the file system or something so that it's not corrupted if stored on a FAT drive.)(

[Mistb0rn]

How does the 'stuff done flag to eliminate encounter' section in the outdoor wandering encounters work? I've looked through the help docs, and it doesn't say anywhere that I can find. I want to make it so that once you kill the leader the others stop attacking you, but I can't seem to get it to work. Do I need to set the flag to a specific number?

[Lilith]

Setting an SDF to eliminate the encounter will make the encounter stop reappearing, so you won't ever fight it again after the SDF is set. It won't end the battle in the middle of the encounter. The only way to do that in an outdoor encounter would be to make the leader a special monster type with the "Death calls scenario special" property, and call a chain of Destroy Monster nodes that destroy every type of monster in the encounter.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I think what he means is once you kill the leader, presumably in a dungeon, the outdoor wandering encounters will stop appearing.

 

I'm not sure what you have to set the flag to. It might be anything non-zero, but I'd go with a One-Time special to set the flag. Either way, testing it to see if it works should be fairly easy.

[Mistb0rn]

Thanks, I think I've finally got that working! (I ended up setting a flag to 10; calling a one-time do-nothing didn't seem to work.)

 

 

Next question--how many custom graphics can I use before it overloads the game? Would a complete graphics conversion probably be a bad idea? And, is it possible it might crash on other people's machines even if it runs fine on mine?

 

I think I've heard something about this in the past, but I'm not sure what exactly the limits are. Does anyone here know? Thanks!

[The Mystic]

To use a custom graphic in a scenario, number to use is usually the number of the slot, plus some multiple of 1000. Therefore, my guess would be enough to fill a custom graphics sheet 10 slots wide by 1000 slots tall, or 10,000 individual slots. Why anyone would want to use that many is beyond me.

 

And as for a complete graphics conversion, it's entirely up to you. For an example of this, I highly recommend you play "Destiny of the Spheres," listed on the BoE forum main page.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn

Next question--how many custom graphics can I use before it overloads the game?

As Mystic says, 10,000 slots. (For a moment I thought we were talking about BoA, with much higher limits...) Note however that only the first 10 or so rows (is that right?) of these can include item graphics.

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn

Would a complete graphics conversion probably be a bad idea?

I don't see why it would be a bad idea. Go for it!

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn

And, is it possible it might crash on other people's machines even if it runs fine on mine?

With a complete graphics conversion? I doubt it. There are bugs involving graphics that appear sometimes, but I think that's actually more a function of trying to place too many diverse objects in a single town.

[Mistb0rn]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

And as for a complete graphics conversion, it's entirely up to you. For an example of this, I highly recommend you play "Destiny of the Spheres," listed on the BoE forum main page.

Thanks! I'll take a look at it when I get the time.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

With a complete graphics conversion? I doubt it. There are bugs involving graphics that appear sometimes, but I think that's actually more a function of trying to place too many diverse objects in a single town.

How many different custom graphics in one town section would be too many? I'm considering using things like chairs, tables, and trees as items so as to cut back on the number of terrains, but would that increase the likelihood of the graphics acting odd?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Trees should probably not be items, unless they're in pots or otherwise not rooted to the ground. Tables are iffy, but chairs, rugs, potted plants, paintings, etc. have been made into items to good effect before.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Well, I suppose you could make a tree an item, but you'd want to probably make it maximum weight do the party can't pick it up. However, I'd say do that only as a last resort when you need more terrains.