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Thursday, July 28, 2005

Version 0.11 Released

There's a lot more in this release than I originally thought I'd have time to do. A couple of late nights was all I needed. Here's what's new:
  • Fixed the bug that occurs when you try to run from a combat after being blocked during a move (HOORAY!!)
  • Fixed the bug that causes the game to crash if a character dies while owning hirelings
  • Fixed the bug where you are between two mountain clearings, each with a monster, and you cannot move because you are endlessly blocked!
  • If you are blocked during your turn, the point at which it happens is denoted with the word "BLOCKED"
  • Fixed "End Current Game" option. No more black-edge maps, or dead frames.
  • Fixed issues with T Monster vs. mounted native (Rule 34.7/7)
  • RED-side-up T Monster flips back when its target is dead
  • Can choose a horse (or two) in the Combat Tester
  • Native Archers roll 1 die instead of 2
  • Hits that don't fatigue, wound, kill, or damage armor don't count when determining if combat ends
  • Spellcasting is not considered "inactivity" for a round of combat (ie., combat can continue as long as spells are being cast)
  • Swordsman only rolls 1 die when doing TRADE (not HIRE!)
  • Can't cheat anymore by mousing over clearings, and finding out where state chits were hiding
  • Fixed the bug where a spellcaster couldn't unselect other characters when casting an area effect attack spell
  • Must place spell attack before being allowed to continue
  • Doesn't offer buy drinks for FRIENDLY or ALLY when looking for block/battle at days end
  • Magic Sight works with clearing pile now
  • Can only save games during recording stage (Birdsong) - Save games should work more reliably now
  • Finished Power of the Pit results
  • T Monster flips to RED when their part/weapon hits
  • Natives no longer ride horses in CAVES
  • When running, targets are now disengaged
  • Missile table WOUND result no longer wounds the archer doing the roll!
  • Bug where Combat round sometimes doesn't get reset between battles is fixed

Unless there is a game killing bug in there, this is going to be the last release for awhile (several weeks). I've got a bunch of stuff going on, and I'm not going to be near my computer. You can continue to send bug reports, but don't fret if I don't answer my e-mail. I'll get to it again when things settle down, and pick up where I left off.

Thanks to everyone who sent me bug reports this week! The credit really goes to you for helping me find out what's wrong with RealmSpeak. I'm not sure I would have ever been able to fix that annoying "Run Away" bug if it wasn't for the playtesters. Some new playtesters (see the About box) found some particularly nasty bugs that I was able to get fixed in this release. Hooray!!

Thank you!!!!

Monday, July 25, 2005

Dieing with Hirelings

I became aware of a new bug today. A couple people on the Magic Realm discussion list said that RealmSpeak "crashed" on them, after a character died. After some experimentation over lunch, it seems that if you die while owning hirelings, the combat window closes, and the screen goes gray. The game crashes.

As this is a fairly serious bug (crashes are very VERY discouraging), I'll be putting together a release fairly soon. Hopefully, I can squeeze a couple other things in to make it worth the trouble to download.

Thanks to Steve and Vincent for bringing this one to my attention!

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Run Away Bug Found!

Thanks to the detailed comments of one playtester (Peter), I was finally able to recreate this bug! Here's how it happens:

You record a move across several clearings. Because you plan to be hidden, the monster in your path isn't too much of a worry. Unfortunately, you fail your hide roll, and are blocked before you reach your ultimate destination! Since you are caught unprepared, you decide to run away at the first opportunity. You succeed, but realize that instead of being placed between the clearings, you are still sitting in the clearing with the monster!!

On your next turn, you move, and discover that your only option, is to return to the same clearing! This isn't good!! You've encountered.... THE BUG!!

First reported on the MagicRealm Wiki by Eric Topp, this bug has been plagueing me for some time (since v0.4!!). It seemed to pop up rarely, but it is almost always a game killer. It has been hell for me to find it, because it never popped up when I was looking for it, and thus was never able to really get AT it.

Now (finally) I can recreate the bug at will, by simply recording a move "through" a monster without hiding, getting blocked, and trying to run. A fix will be in place by version 0.11.

Thanks to everyone that sent me information and screenshots on this one!!

Monday, July 18, 2005

Version 0.10 Released

For the first time, Native Combat! Here's what's new:
  • Clear out Serious Wound Rolls each round
  • Fixed "Decrease Levels" logic in Harm (decreases final harm, not just strength)
  • Missile weapons don't benefit from excess FIGHT strength
  • Added ability to alert MAGIC chits in combat simulator
  • T Serpent is armored now
  • Fixed Ghosts Notoriety Earnings (was 1, is now 2)
  • Highlight all rows with pending actions
  • Character attacks/maneuvers are secret if a character is attacking him/her
  • Hireling maneuvers on their own sheet (defender) are secret if a character is attacking them
  • Characters can mark which other characters are their enemy (Relationships tab) so friends aren't presented with the combat window on every turn.
  • Battling natives works (complete with drink buying)
  • Sucker punch - Monster gets its own combat sheet
  • Native combat, and most aspects of it, are implemented - NO NATIVE LEADER SUPPORT YET!
  • Monster/Native Regeneration - has always been there, but the code was never called!
  • Fixed Ghosts respawning - they are always prowling, and thus always respawn on the 7th day
  • HIRE action works
  • Show current month/day in character frame header
  • Fixed problem with taking a BOON from an Ally (used to bump down to Neutral!!)
  • Spell Selection page no longer shows "You may select more than ONE" if you can't.
  • Can place an attack without selecting a target (characters only) to alert a weapon (Rule 22.4/2a)

What's next? I think I'm going to take a step back, and work on some annoying things that have been broken for awhile (run bug, save/load features, combat simulator, etc.). Expect version 0.11 to be a bit of a maintenance release, with not a whole lot of new features. I imagine that will be okay, since this version should give you to plenty to play with for a while!

Have fun!

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Done with Testing

I'm done with my testing for v0.10, so now all I need to do is get the files together for the release. I should be able to put it up tomorrow (Monday) night or Tuesday. I'd do it now, except I'm tired, and I have a family to attend to! :-)

As soon as the release is up, I'll post it here, and send a message to the RealmSpeak mailing list.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Slow but Sure

I had forgotten how much there was to do with natives on the non-combat side of things! I think in the interest in getting a version out sooner rather than later, I'm going to forgo writing the code for handling Native Leaders for now. In other words, you'll hire natives, and they'll follow you until their hire term is up, then they'll drop into the clearing. They'll give you T strength when you need it (and if they have it!), and they'll fight in your interest when you get into combat, but outside of that, they are just... well.... inventory!

I changed the mystery "followers" panel that has always occupied the RealmSpeak character frames with a "hirelings" panel that shows who is working for you, where they are, and how long their hire term is. Of course, hirelings will always be with the hiring character for now, but when I finish writing code to support sending your leaders off in different directions, and transferring hirelings to other players, this part at least will be ready.

I am getting very close to releasing v0.10. I'm currently dealing with a couple of bugs related to spell targeting amongst natives and other characters, as well as a problem with native friendliness change after a BOON is taken (still isn't working!!), but other than that, its ready. Once I fix the bugs I've found, I need to play through a couple of solo games to make sure nothing else is broken, and then I'll post the release (maybe this weekend??)

Sunday, July 10, 2005

HIRE Phase Working

Not much point having native combat in place, if you can't hire them in the first place! I got that piece finished, and I'm beginning to work on how spoils happen. In other words, when you slaughter the natives at the Inn (a strategy I'm not terribly fond of), their supplies are open for looting.

Oh, and I discovered rather inadvertently that monster respawning wasn't working. The piece of code that does this has been tested and in place since version 0.1, but simply never been called by the RealmSpeak main frame! I doubt many of you noticed this, unless you ever killed the ghosts, and noticed they never came back... This is fixed now, and you'll see it in version 0.10, which will come out sometime this month, I promise! Thanks to Steve M for pointing out the problems with the Ghosts!

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Still Progressing on Native Combat

I've got Native combat mostly finished. Native horses behave properly, deployment works (even against other characters!), and monsters can own their own combat sheet. Still need to support Character-Character combat (almost there), and then I have to turn to the game itself: Hiring phases, Battling Natives, Native Leader turns, etc.

Can't promise a release time yet (got a busy holiday weekend), so the best I can offer is to keep an eye here, or better yet, sign up for the mailing list (see link on left sidebar).

Happy Fourth of July!