The Adventurers' Guild

I've been thinking I might implement that with exclamation point. If you have all monsters tagged "ice", you could create a spell that affects "!ice". I haven't implemented that yet. (I suggest not using exclamation point in monster tags since those work if I add special processing to the exclamation point.) Would that work for you?

Yep! That would work perfectly!

dulsi wrote: In my testing it worked fine. If you can create a file that crashes btbuilder, send it over to me.

It's a non-issue now and I've reverted to the default Job.xml, due to the limitations in the Review Board.xml. Until we get it fixed to where the RB you can "buy" skills and not spell levels only, my magic system is on hold.

Dulsi wrote: Ok. That involves a little more work. Right now when you equip a hand weapon, it unequips any other hand weapon you have equipped. If you separate them to Axe, Dagger, etc. it needs to know that they are all hand weapons. I do want to add support for that. That way you can find a sword and need to get it identified.

Oh. That sucks. I mean it's cool that you want to add that. I was thinking we could use the TAG system, like with monsters and spells. I've grown rather fond of it.

Dulsi wrote:I've put out a new release. Unfortunately I wasn't able to throw in a skill check conditional. Since caars is waiting for a new release I decided to not wait. In my haste I also forgot to mention the teleport spell in the release notes. I also never got back to fixing the teleport screen to display zero for the starting values nor prevent it from being cast in combat.

Save and attack rate bonus spells support not stacking bonuses. Caster only area effect added. Add tags to monsters and allow attack spells to only effect some types. Add line wrapping to specials and remember previous values when editing an existing command. Map editor has a coordinate system on the screen (max of 99 displayed). Add some sounds for the play sound special. Allow selecting a map location from through the user interface.

I checked it out and was all, "He didn't add anything. This was in the last one." I had forgotten you sent me a beta to check out the map screen issue. XD

Now that I know exactly how you want to do it, do you want me to make another map screen? I can white out where the number is and make it look similar to the Game Screen, by rendering it. I don't want to increase it, though, 'cos it makes a foreign screen. Although...... Does the Map Screen support having it's own screen size and resolution? I mean, it won't break anything else if it were say 800 x 600, but kept all the original dimensions for picture slots for 640 x 480 , right?

And don't worry about not getting stuff in I wanted. I asked for a lot. Under the hood, however, did you add anything I need to document?

Methuselas wrote:It's a non-issue now and I've reverted to the default Job.xml, due to the limitations in the Review Board.xml. Until we get it fixed to where the RB you can "buy" skills and not spell levels only, my magic system is on hold.

You can buy skills now I believe. Unfortunately you go to spell acquiring to do so. There is no way to specify different text for a skill. Also I don't think it supports having multiple skills available for purchase.

Methuselas wrote:Oh. That sucks. I mean it's cool that you want to add that. I was thinking we could use the TAG system, like with monsters and spells. I've grown rather fond of it.

I hadn't thought of using the tag system for bows/arrows. It could be implemented that way.

Methuselas wrote:Now that I know exactly how you want to do it, do you want me to make another map screen?

Sure.

Methuselas wrote:Although...... Does the Map Screen support having it's own screen size and resolution? I mean, it won't break anything else if it were say 800 x 600, but kept all the original dimensions for picture slots for 640 x 480 , right?

That's what I was thinking. There are some technical problems with implementing it so I haven't looked any further into it.

Methuselas wrote:Under the hood, however, did you add anything I need to document?

I need to tell how you format the level.xml file to allow you to teleport between levels. I forgot to add an example or even mention it. Also should fix the application to not display it in editor mode or implement an editor for it.

dulsi wrote: I need to tell how you format the level.xml file to allow you to teleport between levels. I forgot to add an example or even mention it. Also should fix the application to not display it in editor mode or implement an editor for it.

Are you talking about APAR? I tried inter-level teleporting in the editor and the picker seemed to work but I didn't test it. Only thing is it forgot to set the tiles when it came back to the source level. It looked like the city.

When you implement those skills can you make it so that I can get a monster to choose randomly between ranged attacks? I want zeus to attack a different amount of times either throw a lightning bolt or cast a spell like in this awesome video:

Phantasie 1 Killing Zeus (Commodore 64)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Th76-0iy4

dulsi wrote: You can buy skills now I believe. Unfortunately you go to spell acquiring to do so. There is no way to specify different text for a skill. Also I don't think it supports having multiple skills available for purchase.

The Review.xml does "spell acquiring" based off the Character's Job. So, if you have an Illusionist Class, the Engine will say "Level 2 Illusionist Spell Level costs......" That's how the engine works and how it does in the other game. Now, you can create MANY, separate Jobs, Evoker, Transmuter, Enchanter, etc and everything works fine.

However.....

Say you have a Class that has 3, different spell levels. Illusion, Evoker, Transmuter. The Engine can't differentiate between those, 'cos the Review levels skills, based on the JOBS, not individual SKILLS. So, if you have multiple skills that you can level, the Engine will say "Level 2 <blank> costs....."

What I've seen, though, is it only works for Spellcasters. You can't make a non-spellcaster level skills in the Review Board, only Spell Levels.

That's the problem I've run into.

I can make many skills (and have already, but they can't be used yet), but if I want to level them using the Review Board, you can't and if you have multiple skills, it doesn't display the name of the skill.

The Review Board from the original game (and BTBuilder) weren't designed for skill leveling. I need it to or I need a way to purchase skills for non-spell casters.

dulsi wrote: I hadn't thought of using the tag system for bows/arrows. It could be implemented that way.

Yeah, I thought this may be possible.

dulsi wrote: That's what I was thinking. There are some technical problems with implementing it so I haven't looked any further into it.

Yeah, I was wondering this, 'cos I wanted to set the Map Editor to be a default 960x600, but use the 640 x 400 images, for more space. All of the display elements are in the mapedit.xml, which means it's self-contained. What concerns me is breaking the engine, by pointing it to the 640 images, instead of the 960, 'cos of the xMulti element. I would prefer pointing it to images we already have for the game, than making a clone of an entire image directory specifically for the map editor.

I tried doing this, originally, when you sent me the beta of 0.51, to make a new screen, but set it as a display of 960x600 with an xMulti of 1. It didn't work as I expected. I'm assuming that's the technical problem you were talking about.

dulsi wrote: I need to tell how you format the level.xml file to allow you to teleport between levels. I forgot to add an example or even mention it. Also should fix the application to not display it in editor mode or implement an editor for it.

I haven't played with Teleport yet. Been too busy with other stuff. I'll check it out, play with it and then post my text, so you can review it and fix anything where I'm incorrect.

sombunall wrote:Are you talking about APAR?

Yes. There is a new xml file to define what maps are grouped together. It is named level.xml and is found in the same directory as the maps. Here is an example of the format:

<data>
<level>
<group>World</group>
<filename>CITYBUIL.MAP</filename>
<filename>NOWHERE.MAP</filename>
</level>
<level>
<group>Sewer</group>
<filename>sewerone.xml</filename>
<filename>sewertwo.xml</filename>
</level>
</data>

sombunall wrote:Only thing is it forgot to set the tiles when it came back to the source level. It looked like the city.

Oops. Fixed in next release. Speaking of bugs I forgot to mention that I fixed the bare hands attack of monks. I apparently accidentally commented it out a while ago.

sombunall wrote:When you implement those skills can you make it so that I can get a monster to choose randomly between ranged attacks?

Methuselas wants that as well. The big problem with implementing that is that I have to address the "AI" system.

dulsi wrote: Yes. There is a new xml file to define what maps are grouped together. It is named level.xml and is found in the same directory as the maps. Here is an example of the format:

<data>
<level>
<group>World</group>
<filename>CITYBUIL.MAP</filename>
<filename>NOWHERE.MAP</filename>
</level>
<level>
<group>Sewer</group>
<filename>sewerone.xml</filename>
<filename>sewertwo.xml</filename>
</level>
</data>

I'll add this to the manual when I have the time.

Dulsi wrote: Oops. Fixed in next release. Speaking of bugs I forgot to mention that I fixed the bare hands attack of monks. I apparently accidentally commented it out a while ago.

I was wondering what happened with the monk damage.

Dulsi wrote:Methuselas wants that as well. The big problem with implementing that is that I have to address the "AI" system.

Sure, just keep blaming me for everything. ;P I'd much rather have special skill checks and TAB based bows/arrows first.

dulsi wrote:Speaking of bugs I forgot to mention that I fixed the bare hands attack of monks. I apparently accidentally commented it out a while ago.

Finally I get to have monks. I had to shelve them due to that bug.

Dulsi,

How hard would it be to implement a Good, Neutral and Evil alignment system that doesn't do anything, other than limit Jobs, Skills and is used as a Conditional for Specials?

dulsi wrote:

sombunall wrote:When you implement those skills can you make it so that I can get a monster to choose randomly between ranged attacks?

Methuselas wants that as well. The big problem with implementing that is that I have to address the "AI" system.

The AI system could wait...

I just went back to my map after a long break and realized there are more important issues with the editor. Right now I have scripts that I made where I need to change the if statements. I can't take something that's in an if statement and move it anywhere else. I want to use counters to make my code more readable. Just a cut / copy / paste function would be a big help.

I also find indentation of 1 character to make it harder to read. It would be nice to press a button that would spawn a version of the editor with a smaller font and fill the whole screen and allow changing the tab size.

Also for a future improvement it would be nice to be able to pass a counter to another script and then run that script. That way I could have a master treasure and master trap script. The higher the counter the more extreme it gets and would de-duplicate, organize and ease code.

Hide empty 'else' statement wouldn't hurt too.

sombunall wrote: I just went back to my map after a long break and realized there are more important issues with the editor. Right now I have scripts that I made where I need to change the if statements. I can't take something that's in an if statement and move it anywhere else. I want to use counters to make my code more readable. Just a cut / copy / paste function would be a big help.

I also find indentation of 1 character to make it harder to read. It would be nice to press a button that would spawn a version of the editor with a smaller font and fill the whole screen and allow changing the tab size.

The Map Screen falls under the F12 command, but will be limited to 640x400, due to how BTBuilder does resolution. You could remove the mapscreen.png from the xml, then change the resolution to have an iMulti of 3, to make it 960x600. The problem is, you'll have to convert ALL of the images to 336x224, to not crash it. I don't think I have the old 960x600 images I did. At least, they're not in my work folder.

As for the fonts, I know the Linux version can use truetype fonts. The Windows version doesn't. That may help with reading them. I've just grown accustomed to the blocky 8 bit fonts.

I can't use f12 on lxde because it switches my dual monitor system to clone mode then won't switch back.

As for the editor I only mean the script window. It's just pure text.

Methuselas wrote:How hard would it be to implement a Good, Neutral and Evil alignment system that doesn't do anything, other than limit Jobs, Skills and is used as a Conditional for Specials?

Basically tagging on PCs. Adding the capability to PCs isn't hard. Adding a conditional for specials is not hard. Limiting Jobs/Skills would take the most work.

Special would be "party has someone who is $$". Gender, race, and job would automatically be considered tag. Allowing this one special to replace "class $C is in party" and "race $R is in party".

I found a bug. Bt Builder doesn't like < in text. I've fixed the bug. I've also added "party passess $K check of $#" for a skill check conditional. After succeeding, the PC who passed is set. Any 'print "$$"' command after that which includes <name/> in the text will be replaced with the PC's name. Right now it will print <name/> when no PC is set. I'm not sure about keeping that. It would be more consistent to simply say it is always parsed and <name/> will be blank if no PC selected. However then you need some way to escape the text if you want to be able to support print <name/> without substitution. (What about other PC attributes like race, class, etc.? Right now only name is supported.)

dulsi wrote:Basically tagging on PCs. Adding the capability to PCs isn't hard. Adding a conditional for specials is not hard. Limiting Jobs/Skills would take the most work.

Special would be "party has someone who is $$". Gender, race, and job would automatically be considered tag. Allowing this one special to replace "class $C is in party" and "race $R is in party".

Make it happen! The job/skill thing sucks, since it requires the most work, but I could do a lot with the other two.

dulsi wrote: I found a bug. Bt Builder doesn't like < in text. I've fixed the bug. I've also added "party passess $K check of $#" for a skill check conditional. After succeeding, the PC who passed is set. Any 'print "$$"' command after that which includes <name/> in the text will be replaced with the PC's name. Right now it will print <name/> when no PC is set. I'm not sure about keeping that. It would be more consistent to simply say it is always parsed and <name/> will be blank if no PC selected. However then you need some way to escape the text if you want to be able to support print <name/> without substitution. (What about other PC attributes like race, class, etc.? Right now only name is supported.)

Race and class additions would be perfect!