The Adventurers' Guild

BTCS manual lists the max experience as 4,000,000,000 but uses only 1 byte to store level. So if you had that much experience a warrior should be over 20,000 (or at least I think that is what it was when I calculated it). Instead if you go over level 255 you drop back down to 0. Why bother putting in a maximum experience if you can't really support it.

The special command to see if a particular monster is in the party requires that the monster has not been renamed. Also the monster specials don't seem to affect illusions.

Why do monsters start as level 0 when they join your party. Interestingly it seem to change them to level 1 when you remove them and readd them to the party.

I never realized how different combat is in BTCS. It has the annoying feature of giving you all combat options even if you can't use them which I knew. I didn't know multiple attacks can be spread over multiple opponents (or at least the character editor says so I haven't tried). But you also can't choose which group to attack with hand-to-hand weapons.

I remember a GDC talks by a designer on the Zelda games. He talked about the little things he did to make sure he captured the feel of Zelda like the secret passage openning noise. I'm amazed at how badly Interplay screwed up BTCS. It often feels like a poor clone of the Bard's Tale games.

I've started implementing spells. I decided to test duration on a Resurrect spell. Unfortunately the manual is incorrect. The "Run" effect is nothing. I suspect I'll find similar things with the cure poison, cure insanity, etc. spells.

In order to implement spells I needed to code up time. In testing how BTCS works I found time seems to pass much slow than previous Bard's Tales. Then I found out why. In older Bard's Tales, night time had tougher monsters but otherwise functioned like day. In BTCS the monsters stay the same difficulty but night is completly dark without a light source. My brother says I shouldn't even bother implementing the BTCS way. (Obviously the more difficult monsters wouldn't be doable with BTCS files but I can add a night time monster level to my files.)

Testing with BTCS is really painful now. Bt Builder is much easier to use now even if it is incomplete.

The "Run" effect of Resurrect is resurrection. It just appears all spells on a person are cancelled when that person is killed so the run effect never happens. So long lasting party resurrection spells work but not long lasting targeted resurrection.

Alright I understand not coding up Resurrect spell to work on monsters. Heal not working on monsters seems dumb to me but ok. But Summon Monster doesn't work for monsters. How are you supposed to do conjurers? How did they really expect to create a Bard's Tale adventure in this?

What were they thinking when they implemented armor bonus spell? Since the armor bonus spells stack you would have to make sure that the spell point cost is so high that the player won't abuse it. With a five armor bonus, zero spell cost and short duration I managed to get my armor class below -100. On top of this they don't account for summoned monsters. If you cast party armor bonus of five and summon a monster with an armor class of 10, they will get an armor class of 15 when the armor bonus spell ends.

What I'm thinking of implementing for bt builder is the following with an optional btcs compatability mode:

1) You may have one armor bonus spell on the party.
2) You may have one armor bonus spell on each individual in addition to the party spell.
3) If you have a negative armor bonus in effect and cast a positive armor bonus, both spells cancel.
4) If you have a positive armor bonus in effect and cast a negative armor bonus, both spells cancel.
5) If you cast a higher armor bonus spell, the weaker one ends.

This way I can also add an icon on the screen if a positive party armor bonus is in effect.

I don't know if you are familiar with Devil Whiskey, but Pete Karasanow is doing the Bards Lore I and II using the Devil Whiskey engine. It is a much easier interface. His website is http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/p_gmhelp.htm
I found it difficult to use the Bard's Lore games as they are.

Chaney wrote:I don't know if you are familiar with Devil Whiskey, but Pete Karasanow is doing the Bards Lore I and II using the Devil Whiskey engine. It is a much easier interface.

I'm familiar with Devil's Whiskey. I'm one of the programmers. It has a more Bard's Tale like interface than the Construction Set. Unfortunately it isn't really designed as a Construction Set. Editing dungeons and such are rather difficult. Althought it has been a while since I've looked at the mod community so maybe an editor has been made that improves that.

Well, perhaps you will answer a question that DW people want to know. Why was it abandoned? Why was the code not released? It is an excellent game. Nobody who bought it understands why there was no sequel. Did it just not sell well? Any anwers would be deeply appreciated. Thanx, Chaney

I don't really know what has been going on with the rest of the DW people. I had some information on sales prior to the boxed version. Most of my communication was with the lead programmer. After he moved on, I seem to have kinda been left out of the loop. Based on previous sales I doubt it sold enough to reach the point where we planned to release the code.

That is beyond a shame. That game was wonderful. It took BT and gave it a much friendlier interface. I for one thank you for whatever contribution you made on the game. I don't quite follow the release of the code issue. If no one is involved anymore, what would be the problem with releasing it. There are some modders who have done 1 or 2 mods, but would do many more if they had access to the code.

yeah thanks for your contributions to the Devil Whiskey. It really was a fantastic game. best rpg I've played in a while.

Chaney wrote:I don't quite follow the release of the code issue. If no one is involved anymore, what would be the problem with releasing it.

Well, the simple answer is I don't have the rights to release the source code. The company owns the source code. For all I know the company could be secretly working on a project where the source code is crucial. Although I doubt since the site doesn't get many updates but who knows.

I decided to determine what happens when two bards play a song in combat. I figured it would either prevent one or both would have an effect. What I found was strange. I used Super Bill from the test party and a new bard I created. Super Bill always went at the start of the round. When I had my new bard sing he usually went later in the round. (They only allow one bard to sing per round in case you were wondering.) I've apparently modified Super Bill as he is listed as level 200. Does level affect initiative? Does it only effect bard song initiative?

Sanctuary is listed as a max in combat effect of 18. It appears that is incorrect and the real limit is 15.

Anti-magic zones stop current spells and prevents casting new ones. That makes sense but why doesn't it stop an existing light spell. I thought maybe they did it to allow torches to work but they fail when used in an anti-magic zone.