> How long does it take for a scenario to post? (I submitted mine > about 10 days ago.) It can take a week or two. We have a lot of things to get done, and there's only two of us. We'll do what we can, but be patient. We'll get to it. Also, bear in mind that if you're scenario needs frequent update, we'll tend to be much slower to update it. After all, frequent updates put an unfair burden on us. > Is there a way to charm one or more party members so they end up > fighting against the party? Not until Nethergate. > Is there a way to take items away from the party (all scrolls, or > for that matter, all items)? [e.g. the party gets captured and > their stuff is taken away.] All items: no. If an item has a special class, you can strip it away. > Why is there a limit of 50 placed special nodes in any given town? > I have run up against this several times. You have to limit things somewhere. > Is there a way to award negative experience for killing something > (friendly creatures for instance.) No. >Is there any way to transfer saved game files between PC & Mac? No. >> After picking some alchemy ingredients, how do I give a message that the ingredient is still growing and cannot be picked? >> There are examples of this in the 3 scenarios that came with Exile. Basically, have the special encounter call a special node checking if the Stuff Done flag for the ingredient being gotten has been set yet. If not, give the item. If it has, jump to a special node which says the stuff is still growing. THree special nodes in all, with an If-Then node being the first called. >> When I made a few custom graphics, I tested them out. The problem is that on my PC, if there is any white on the bitmap image, the game reads it as transparent, so I have some creatures that, when placed on grass, leak green from their white robes or whatever. Any way to fix this? >> Use off-white pixels instead of white pixels. White pixels are always transparent, but you can just use very, very light gray instead. >> Some characters are not responding to the "buy," or "sell" buttons within the dialogues. I was able to fix this problem for sell, by inserting the word sell into the "xxxx" field, but, of course, this won't work for "buy," because it is only three letters long. I thought that leaving the field as "xxxx" would still make the character respond to the "buy" button, but it doesn't seem to work that way . . . I've looked all through the instructions, but find nothing to help. Can you tell me what might be wrong? >> The buy buttons asks about Purchase, not Buy. Set the field to ' 'purc' and you'll be fine. NOTES ON MACINTOSH AND CUSTOM GRAPHICS FILES >Jeff-- > >Tried the fix suggested for the problem of losing track >of the resource fork when using Stuffit Expander to unzip. >Did not work, at least where Riddle of the Spheres is >concerned. Tried using ZipIt, instead, and it worked >fine. > >Haven't tested the set-creator-and-type approach on other >scenarios with custom graphics, but frankly, I expect it >would not work on those, either. The problem when Stuffit >Expander unzips the archives is not that the type and >creator values are incorrect (although it does happen that >they are); rather, it is that Stuffit Expander acts on the >assumption that they are DOS/Windows files, and therefore >have only a data fork. As a result of acting on that false >assumption, the file Stuffit Expander will generate has no >resource fork-- and hence no PICT graphics. I'm not sure if >Stuffit Expander appends the information for the resource >fork of ZIPped files to their data forks, or simply discards >it; regardless, merely changing the type and creator codes >should not fix the problem. > >Perhaps, if the resource information were simply appended >to the data fork by Stuffit Expander, and if the data fork >was previously empty, and if the type and creator codes were >recognized by the application setting them as belonging to a >file which must contain a resource fork and must not contain >a data fork, the suggested fix would work. I'm can't think >of a type and creator code combination that would fit that >bill, however, at least on a Power Macintosh, because even >pure resource files are allowed to contain PowerPC native-mode >code in the data fork, which in "fat" binaries would correspond >to the 68K-mode code contained in the code resource. Sigh. >Anyway, the ZipIt fix works fine; perhaps you should simply >omit the bit about editing type and creator codes after Stuffit >Expander has been used to unzip the file. :-( > >- Bill (haz1@nwu.edu) > I'm CONFUSED about the scenario editor in Blades of Exile. First >of all, It >won't let me have more than 8 town entrances outside. Does that mean I can >only have 8 towns?? You can only have 8 entrance PER OUTDOOR SECTION. More outdoor sections, more towns. >Then, in Exile III, I think, you could read the Book on >Pedestal. How do I make that happen? Also, I read the Docs about 20 times, >but I can't figure out how to edit a book. Help!!! Can I only use the >already written books, or can I change the writing? You can't change the writing. If you want customizable books, make the SPecial Items, not regular items, and have special encoutner be called when the item is used. There's great examples of this in Small Rebellion. Look at the Special Items there. WARNING ABOUT THE SPECIAL THING HAPPENED SPECIAL NODE >Fields 1b and 2b appear to be reversed. 1b, where it says to list the # of >the major event, has the "create/edit" button next to it, and when you >press it, it jumps to the number of the node equal to the number of the >event you entered. (e.g., enter '2' in the field so it will check status of >event #2, and the button jumps you to special node #2.) Field 2b, "call >this special..." has no "create/edit" button next to it, which you kind of >need. > >Has anyone used this? Should I just assume the texts should be reversed? >(I'm about to run a test) As a result of extensive testing by an independent research group (i.e., myself, 5 min.) I conclude the following: The texts describing fields 1b and 2b are CORRECT. It is the "create/edit" button that is in the wrong place. So don't use it, or you'll inadvertently end up editing nodes that happen to correspond with your event numbers. In order to edit the node that gets called, you'll have to go to your general list of special encounters, edit a new one there, and then put its number in field 2b. BUG FOR IMPORTING TOWN Blades of Exile Scenario Editor V1.0.1(Macintosh) has a bug in Import Town. I imported a town from another scenario which changed the town number. The Town Dialogue was not properly altered by the copy. The first ten slots which describes the personalities were renumbered to correspond to the new town number. The sixty town dialogue nodes retain the old personality numbers. It seems that import should iterate through the town dialogue nodes and adjust any positive personality numbers which were legitimate with the original town number. >Why is there a lock pick option under the reagants section of the >abilities menu in the object editor? And how would I go about making >something like a more powerful version of lockpicks called skeleton >keys? Lockpicks are consider tools and you could only make reagants out >of non use objects. Lockpicks are used automatically when you pick locked doors, and improve the chances of success. The higher the item ability, the more they help. >>I'm a user of BOE Windows Version. And I noticed, though the manual says that all items with non-zero Item Level will be taken away from the party leaving the scenario, THE ITEMS REMAINED. >> This may be a typo. Items with non-zero special class are taken away. >Ok, I've got this scenario where I'm trying to recreate The Odyssey. I'm >having trouble with Circe, though. I have a few questions. First of all, >there is a special encounter in her house where it says "Do you want to eat >this food? yes/no" (actually it's a button, but if it has yes/no i think it'll >work). If you eat the food, you're turned into pig and the game's over. If >not, you just continue on your merry little way. In Circe's garden, there's a >special encounter where you find a special item called the Moly. There is >also a talking pig who was transformed by Circe. First question: How do I >make it so you can only use the Moly in the vicinity of Circe's house? Second >question: How do I make it so that when you use the Moly, four things happen >(Circe disappears, the special encounter for food disappears, the pig in the >garden turns into a person, and the Moly is gone)? Third question: How can I >make the pig-person talk now? Please answer. From Seth. First: Make the Moly a usable special item. Make the special encounter do an if then to check what town the party is in. Second: There are special nodes that will do all of these things. In particular, you want to call nodes to make the pig and Circe creature types disappear, and to make a hidden class including the person appear. Third: Destroy the pig-person who can't talk, and have a pig-person who can talk there with a hidden class. >I am creating a scenario where you have to go down to the Tower of Magi >from a portal on the surface. The problem is, there are no specials that >will let you create a portal that takes you from one town to another. I >can fake one using a stairway, but I want custom buttons that say "Step >in" and "Leave". If I use a one-shot, then there is nothing to put after >that that will transfer from the surface down to the Tower. What can I >do? Read the documentation on the Stairway special node. There is a setting which moves the party toa different level without asking anything. Before this, use a custom dialog with the Step In and Leave buttons. >I'm tring to use a Text Response If/Then Node inside of a dialogue special >encounter tree. The problem I'm encountering is that for some reason the >node which presents the question to which the player is expected to answer >never appears. For example: > >Node 1: Display message: "Will you take the quest?" (Jump to Node 2) >Node 2: Text Response I/T (Yes-> Node 3; No-> Node 4) >Node 3: "Great!" >Node 4: "Darn!" Hmm. Nobody has ever tried to use a text resonpse in talking, so I think we can assume that it's buggy. For now, just use a custom dialog box with Yes and No buttons. This will work a lot better, I think. >Hello, ive been working on a scenario, but ive encountered a problem >that seems unusual. > >I have a base town (warriors grove) which i set up with some scenery and >dialogue changes, i then imported that town 4 more times, to create >town0,1,2,3,4 > >now each of these towns has different repsponses from the NPC's and also >different town terrain. > >I then set up a variable town entry so that the players actions would >trigger off entry to the different towns as he/she progresses through >the scenario. > >ok the problem is! as the player enters say town1 instead of town0, the >scenery changes just fine, but the dialogue from the npc's remains >exactly the same as it was for town0... > >i should point out that in town 0, npc's have numbers 0,1,2,3 and for >town 1: 10,11,12,13 >and i also changed the node numbers since they were copied between towns >too.. > >anyway this is a bit of a pain, im not sure if its just the way it is >with importing towns or it is a bug or what? but its all i need so that >i can distribute my scenario Just more of a word to the wise sort of thing. When you import a town, it makes a copy of the town. This includes the personalities of the characters. This is a good thing ... it keeps the personalities from unpredictably being reset. You need to change the personalities manually.