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Saturday, August 27, 2005

Make Whole

Woo-Hoo! I finally broke down and got another spell done. I had to add a bunch of code (surprisingly) to support the behavior of an instant spell, but I got it done. That's one: Make Whole.

With that done, there's not much reason to put off any of the Instant spells, which means most of the I's.

More Maintenance Today

I managed to find several hours today to work on RealmSpeak, and thus have fixed many little problems that accumulated in my inbox while I was on vacation. Version 0.12 is going to be one of the largest maintenance releases since some of the very early versions.

I'm really hoping to find some time for some new spells (it's been too long since I've adding anything substantially "new"). If I do any, it will be the WHITE magic spells, so that the Pilgrim can see his full potential.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Image Files

(I meant to post this yesterday)

There have been some issues surrounding the new image files I introduced in v0.10. If these image files are not put into the correct directory (/images/combat), the game behaves strangely, especially when playing hired natives in combat. Part of the problem is that RealmSpeak doesn't report this error, and continues happily as if nothing is wrong. When native combat ensues, there is no indication of the missing denizen melee sheet in combat, instead showing no change when clicking the natives.

If you are having problems, I recommend downloading the entire resource pack again, and reinstalling the image folder. This will guarantee that you have things where they belong. Version 0.12 of RealmSpeak will indicate when an image file is missing or misplaced, and will not run until the problem is resolved. This should alleviate any future difficulties with the program, and should settle any confusion.

I really need to either use Java WebStart (a Java install & run application by Sun) or come up with a way to do updates that requires a little less file-manipulation. Some day...

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Pony Bug Fixed

Vincent pointed out a bug that has a tendancy to be exploited: If you own a Pony and record a single move, you will suddenly have an infinite amount of actions at your disposal! Makes looting the Lair in one turn a piece of cake! Needless to say, this bug is squashed, and will be fixed in v0.12.

There's another bug that relates to horses that I'm not sure I will get to this time. If you have a Pony/Horse and a Warhorse, you can use the Horse or Pony to gain a movement advantage, and then use the Warhorse to transport heavy items. This is clearly wrong and should be fixed, but the rareity of it precludes from jumping on it right away. I don't know about you all, but the times I've ever even owned a horse I can count on one hand! How do you do it Vincent!! ;-)

Proofreading the Counters

A number of people have reported some typos in RealmSpeak, which can affect the game greatly. Here are the one's I've fixed in v0.12:
  • Soldier HQ - Vulnerability is Heavy, not Medium
  • Octopus - RED attack speed is 4, not 2
  • Silver Breastplate - Heavy, not Medium
  • Shoes of Stealth - Missing text HIDE 1 die

With these errors, I decided it was time to proofread all the counter data, something I haven't done since the data was entered years ago (yes, years ago!). I found a few other errors which are fixed in 0.12:
  • T Spider - Light side move time is 3, not 4
  • Patrol 1 - front/back sides were backwards
  • Morning Star - Unalerted speed is 6, not blank

I'm pretty sure that's all of them. I will provide a counter data sheet with all future release, generated directly off the XML data file RealmSpeak uses. This will allow players to check the stats, if they think something might be wrong during the game.

I just finished enabling the combat screen for every turn of the game. Several of you have been requesting this, so that you may do Encounters without enemies (running, spellcasting, etc). Of course, if you (like me) don't want combat to pop up every turn, there will be a checkbox to disable this feature on your main character window.

Speaking of which, I decided to rearrange the top of the character window a bit. That whole part of the window just seemed a bit chaotic to me, and needed some structuring. I think you'll like the result.

Okay, that's enough chatter for now. I've a got a couple more hours to work on the code, and time's a wastin!

Monday, August 15, 2005

Back to the Realm

Just got back from my 2 week "vacation" to Oregon with my family. I see many of you have been sending me bug reports (none of which I have even looked at yet), so I'm guessing I've got my work cut out for me for version 0.12.

Don't expect too much in the next couple of days, but maybe this weekend I'll get back into some coding!

For the record, 19 hours of driving in two days with three kids (7, 5, and 2) is about 15 hours too long! Home sweet home.