Welcome, Bard's Tale fans one and all.

Currently, there are a lot of different places on the Internet to get tons of Bard's Tale stuff. You can search for "Bard's Tale" on Yahoo, and get links to some pages, while you can search for it on Excite and get totally different pages. As of today, there are twelve pages on the Bard's Tale Webring, each offering totally different resources. You can goto Bard Songs to hear all of the Bard's Tale music in many formats. Stop at The Bard's Tale Archive, The Complete Bard's Tale Homepage, and The Adventurers Guild to download the games, manuals, walkthroughs and editors. Check out Troy Cheek's Bard's Tale Page to sign the Bard's Tale 4 petition. And of course, if you can only see one Bard's Tale site in the whole world, you must visit The Bard's Tale Info Page for complete maps of all 3 games.

But what about BardsTale.com? What is our niche that we specialize in? I'd like to be more than just "A Bard's Tale site by Scott Nelson". In fact, my page doesn't even have a real name. It's not "The Guild", "The Complete Home Page", it's just BardsTale.com. How original!

I'd like to think that my page could offer up tons of original Bard's Tale Media that you couldn't get from anywhere else. I guess I'm a jack of all trades. Not only am I a game player, I'm a musician, a graphic artist, a programmer, and I suppose that now with these monthly editorials, I'm a publisher of some sort. You may have noticed a few things different about my page than most other web pages on the Internet, Bard's Tale related or not. First of all, I don't have the actual Bard's Tale games on my site. You can get those off of any other random BT site. I'm trying to offer different things.

I also don't like to clutter my page with other company's advertisements. I'm here to talk about The Bard's Tale, and I tend to make my web pages quite focused. I think that sometimes people put small ads and other graphics on their pages just to fill up space. There's no need for that here! I have enough work to do just to publish Bard's Tale related things!

I'm really not interested in showing web counters. While I do care how many people see my page, I don't feel that I need to brag about it. And if the counts are low, I don't need to show that either! If you'd really interested about seeing the counter for BardsTale.com, you can see it here.

I program all of my pages in HTML, using nothing but Microsoft Notepad. I'm so picky, I don't like other editors putting their extra baggage into my pages. I guess that makes me a control freak too. This is the only ad that I would ever show on my page!

MIDI Music

I have been in a rap group (TMA) for six years now, and have produced 2 albums. Even with all that experience, I still don't know much about musical notes. I'm best at playing music by ear.

Two months ago, I pulled out my DR-5 Dr. Rhythm, sat up next to my PC which was playing the WatchWood Melody, and started hammering out the song, one note at a time. After I made the first couple measures, I knew I had missed some notes, so I put it down for a month. Then, in mid-July, I picked it back up, fixed the first measures, and finished the entire song! I published the WatchWood MIDI file on July 24, fixed some more bad notes, and updated it again the next day. I still think one note towards the end may be off, but I figured that no one could hear it. The song is so complicated! The songs that I have made in the past were beyond simplicity when compared to this medieval masterpiece!


I plan to make more BT MIDIs later this year. Do you have any thoughts on which should be next?

WAV Music

I started recording the C64 Bard's Tale songs as WAV files in January. Tom Greene recommended putting out versions in MP3 format, so I did that too in the spring. I don't think I'll make any more MP3 Bard's Tale files. You would usually make a file with MP3 formatting to shrink down the file size. The only problem is that you must record your sounds with a sample rate greater than or equal to 32 KHz. I recorded all of my files at a low sampling rate (22 KHz), which in the end has the same file size as an MP3 file.

Icons


It's hard to find a good Icon Editor to make Windows icons. I can't find on the Internet at all. You'd think they'd be abundant! I have created several Bard's Tale icons using Microsoft Visual C++, which comes with an icon editor. I use Paint Shop Pro (I'm on day 793 of my free 30 day trial) to resize the C64 images into 32x32, and save them as icon files.

Bard's Tale Editor

What hacker could resist "modifying" their favorite Bard's Tale characters, and giving them some extra Gold for their hard work! Not me! So I made an editor that lets you edit all BT1, 2, and 3 characters.

Graphics

On July 12, SPYDER WEBB announced that he was selling his BT3 for the C64 on E-Bay. This could be my big chance to come across some original boxes to scan! Well, I was outbid at the last minute, but then I heard about VintageComputer.com. I went there and bought the Bard's Tale 2 and 3. The seller said that I was the fourth person to buy the Bard's Tale that day! Lucky for me, the BT2 Cluebook was included in the box! What a treat! I'm scanning in some stuff on the boxes at high-resolution to make some cool Windows backgrounds. Here's a couple that I've got so far. As always, click on them to goto the enormously huge desktop wallpaper versions.

The Destiny Stone Cover
Thief of Fate Cover

Every month I have a different Bard's Tale graphic on the main page. Now, when the month is over, I archive the picture to the editorial for that month. By the way, the picture of me at the top of this page is taken in an elevator. Pretty wacky, huh?

I'm working on scanning in the entire Bard's Tale 2 Cluebook. You can click here to see what I have done so far.

Screen Saver

I have recently learned how to make a Windows Screen Saver, and thought about making one for The Bard's Tale. The first submitted idea is to have a monster slide show. Another good idea is to show a party traveling through the Catacombs. That will require making a dungeon engine, similar to the one used in the Bard's Tale. I am working on one right now, as a matter of fact, but that will take quite some to come to pass.

Well, I guess that's about it. My page specializes in homemade Bard's Tale Media. My hats go off to all Bard's Tale Web Page Administrators!

Troy CheekBard's Tale News, Rumors, and Updates
Jeremy GaudetThe Bard's Tale Info Page
Tom GreeneThe Adventurer's Guild
Allan HartiganBroken Arrow Inn
Keir HowellBard Songs
Thomas LarsenThe Bards Tale Section
Mike O'HaraThe COMPLETE Bard's Tale Web Page
David SinclairBard's Tale Memories
Greg WadeGreg Wade's Bard Tale Page
RomeoXThe Bard's Tale Central
9020@kktv.comThe Bard's Archive

Go back to BardsTale.com or see other BardsTale.com Editorials.