RealmSpeak

Quest Work Continues...

2011-05-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just a note to let you know that work continues on the quest code for RealmSpeak. I've been working fairly closely with another Magic Realm gamer (Steve S) to iron out a lot of the details, and for testing the application. Once we feel this is ready for prime time, I'll make the new version available, along with a bunch of quests.

Also, as a reminder: if you are designing quests in the builder, keep in mind that there may be drastic changes in the next release that will render your quests nonfunctional. Once I have a stable release, I'll let you know.

Quest Reward Groups

2011-04-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've gotten some questions about the "Reward Group" concept in the quest builder. Let me explain that a bit.

When a character completes the requirements of a particular step in the quest, there's always a chance for the quest designer to supply "rewards". In many cases, the rewards are clear cut, but suppose you want to give the player a choice of rewards?

There are 26 rewards groups (A through Z). If you specify more than one of these reward groups, RealmSpeak will provide the player with a choice of options. If you play the DragonSlayer quest, you see this right at the beginning, when the player gets to choose starting equipment.

There's also another reward group marked only with a dash "---". This reward group is ALWAYS given, regardless of the player choice. Say for example you wanted the player to have a choice between a horse, weapon, or 10 gold, but you want the "Old Man" to join as a Minor Character regardless. You would make the "Old Man" reward as a dash "---", the horse as "A", the weapon as "B", and the gold as "C".

Of course, you can have more than one reward land in each group. If you want the player to have the choice between a Warhorse or a weapon plus 10 gold, you would set it like this:

--- Old Man
A Warhorse
B Weapon
B 10 Gold

Version 1.0.24.0 Released

2011-04-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a new release (finally) with a few minor changes, and one big change. The big change, you may have guessed, is that this is the first to support any form of "questing", an idea I originally heard about from Jay Richardson's "Book of Quests" (find information about that here).

Now before anyone get's too excited, keep in mind this is more of a quest-beta than the final product. In other words, there's still a long ways to go. That said, there is actually ONE quest in this release based on the Book of Quests: Dragon Slayer.

When you start a new game of RealmSpeak, you'll notice a new "Victory Conditions" section:

To try out the quests, you'll want to select "Sudden Death", and "Book of Quests" like I did above. The other two questing options do NOTHING, so no need to even select them. Choose a character like normal, and then you'll see new gold button on your character pane:

Click that button, and you should get a quest chooser popping up, with the lone quest "Dragon Slayer" as your only option. Notice that you can click on the little shields to see how the quest all fits together. Click OK, and the game is on!

Notice now that there is a new quest tab:

This is where you'll periodically want to check back to see what it is you need to do. The gold shield with a Green check mark, is the setup step, and you've already done that. The two gold shields without a green check mark indicate the next possible steps in the quest. The gray shields are not achievable until you've completed those. Click on the shield, and there is a description about what that quest step requires. Once you have completed the requirement, the shield will automatically get a check mark, and gray shields will turn gold. Complete that last shield on the right, and you win the game. (I'll be honest, this is a bitchin' hard quest to complete)

Now if you've played the Book of Quests before, you'll immediately notice some shortcomings. Remember, this is supposed to be a beta!! I'll get to that stuff eventually, but this is what I have now. Also, there is only the ONE quest...

If you look in the download, you'll see a new batch file called "launchQuestBuilder.bat". This will actually launch the beta version of the Quest Builder for you to play with. WARNING: I will likely be changing things about the builder, and any quests you may assemble now will likely be broken later. Please don't put a lot of work into any quests with this tool! Once it is a bit more solid, I'll lock it down, and you can design to your hearts content!!

Ok, my wife is bugging me to wrap this up so we can go grab a bite to eat (is it really 8pm already?) Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Quests
- Completely revamped the victory options in the setup dialog:
- Choose between Endless, Timed, and Sudden Death games
- Optionally select one of the questing choices: Book of Quests, Questing the Realm, or Guild Quests (only Book of Quests works right now)
- Currently only "Dragon Slayer" from Book of Quests is provided. Many more to come, as well as a tool to make your own!!
  - The quest itself, should work. From rescue, to looting, to slaying the dragon, to returning the girl home to her family.
  - Some aspects of the quest not yet implemented (for example, you still earn fame/notoriety even though the quest states that you do not)
- New Quest tab added to character window for following quest results
[1744] - New house rules to make character development easier
- No VP Ramp: 1 VP per chit regardless of level
- No VP Restriction: VPs count towards level regardless of initial allotment

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1748] - Fixed a bug that caused the SEARCH function to crash when the character is located in a clearing that doesn't lead anywhere.

Quest Actions

2011-04-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Just for fun, thought I'd list some of the actions that can be applied for a given quest step, once the requirements have been met:

Information	Displays a dialog with information in it. This is a good way to inform the player what is happening.
Item	Add an item to the character inventory, or take one away. Allows for choosing items from a group.
Attribute	Modify Fame, Notoriety, or Gold. Can either add or subtract points/gold.
Hireling	Add or remove a hireling.
Companion	Add or remove a monster ally.
MinorCharacter	Add or remove a Minor Character. Must create Minor Characters BEFORE creating this reward.
Teleport	Teleport the character to a new location. Must create a QuestLocation BEFORE creating this reward.
RelationshipSet	Set the relationship of the character with a particular native group, or all natives in the clearing.
RelationshipChange	Modify the relationship of the character with a particular native group, or all natives in the clearing.
QuestComplete	Tells RealmSpeak that the character has completed this quest.
QuestFailed	Tells RealmSpeak that the character has failed this quest.
SummonGuardian	For a specific quest location, summon the treasure site guardian (if any)
ScareMonsters	Randomly move all monsters in current clearing to other clearings either in the same tile or other tiles, as defined.
AlterHide	Change questing character's hide status (from hidden to unhidden, or the other way around).
MarkDenizen	Mark a particular denizen for later reference. This is useful if you want to make sure a character kills (for example) a particular monster.
StripInventory	Removes ALL inventory and (optionally) gold from the character.
LostInventoryToLocation	All future lost inventory from this quest will go to a specified location.
LostInventoryToDefault	All future lost inventory from this quest will go to wherever they started the game, including treasures. This is default setting.

I should mention that there are actually more actions planned, than those listed above, but these are the ones I have going so far. This list also covers everything I need to complete the Dragon Slayer quest.

Amazon Quest

2011-03-30T18:17:00.001-07:00

The quest integration with RealmSpeak is coming along. Thought a teaser was in order (click for a full size view):

What you are looking at is the Amazon after having selected a quest. This quest, "Dragon Slayer", comes straight from Jay Richardson's Book of Quests, so you may recognize his wording copied verbatim here. Notice that this is a new tab (yeah, there are a ton of tabs now...).

At the top of the tab is the quest name, followed immediately by a short description of the quest. Below that is the quest step tree, which describes the order that the steps must be completed. As you can see, the first step (left-most shield with a green check) has been completed. That step was actually the "setup" step where the starting reward (warhorse, weapon/armor, gold, etc) was chosen. The next two shields appear as "gold" because they are the next up. The top one (currently highlighted in green, if you can see that) is "The Rescue", and the step description is immediately below. The shield below that is "The Treasure", and details that you must draw a treasure from the same HOARD or LAIR that you rescue the girl from.

The rest of the shields are gray because they cannot be considered yet. Notice that two of the gray shields are dependent on "The Rescue", and the last shield is dependent on those two, plus "The Treasure". Complete that last step, and you will receive appropriate rewards, and finish the quest. Hooray!

This quest was created by the quest builder tool (described in some detail in a post from Aug 15 last year), and saved as a file to a "quests" folder with RealmSpeak. RealmSpeak automatically recognizes the quest file, and makes it available when the character chooses a quest. As myself and others make more quests, there will be more to choose from, much like the custom character design.

Ok, so what I'm not telling you, is that there is still some work to do to get the Dragon Slayer quest working, and a bit more work after that to get the builder tool ready for prime time. I'm really quite pleased that the integration of quests with RealmSpeak went so smoothly, so now its just a matter of filling in the blanks. Like I stated previously, I'll make the Dragon Slayer quest work mostly like Jay Richardson intended, and then release that with the next version (hopefully). Shortly after that, I'll release a version of the tool that will let you design your own quests.

They said it couldn't be done.... :-)

Slaying the Dragon

2011-03-21T14:56:00.001-07:00

I've had a few e-mails about the next release. I haven't put anything new up in a while because my goal is to have some form of RealmQuest working in the next release. At the very least, you will have the first quest in the Book of Quests (Dragon Slayer) in all its glory to play with.

The challenge is making sure that every aspect of the quest can be encoded using the Quest Builder tool, without requiring any technical knowledge of the underlying data itself. One of the toughest parts of that, is giving the quest designer a way to reference any piece in the game, like a Magic Sword, or a T Dragon (flying or land).

The way I'm accomplishing this (partly) is through regular expressions. If you are a software programmer, you've probably heard the term, and if you are a Perl programmer, you likely use them every day. As you may or may not know, regular expressions are used to search strings for patterns, and can be very powerful tools. Regular expressions can also be very complicated, but I'm hoping to alleviate the pain there a little bit. When you design your regular expressions, you'll have a usage key visible, and a live list of RealmObject data updating live as you tweak your search. It's pretty intuitive, I think, so we'll see how that works once I can put it your capable hands. :-)

Not sure yet whether I'll also release the quest builder tool this time around, but it is coming. You see, I'd rather not enter all the quests into RealmSpeak myself, so I figured I'll let you guys work on that. ;-) Seriously though, its much like the character builder: the more people designing stuff, the more fun they are to play.

Anyway, look for something in the next month. If I get time during Spring Break, I may have something even sooner than that.

Version 1.0.23.0 Released

2011-01-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Mostly fixes to expansion features. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Added a "flies" notation to the remodeled/Frenzel chits (helpful with expansion monsters and natives)

BUGS/ISSUES:

Search hint for "Peer Neighborhood Clearing" no longer shows current clearing hints

EXPANSION CHANGES:

Holy Relic will work to prevent undead from generating at the Tomb now
Removed Stink W from carnoplants summon box (didn't like that these could appear at the L Fire)
Added the "flying" attribute to some monsters that were missed:
- T Harpy
- H Harpies
- Wasp Queen
- Wasps
- The Fairy from the Fairy Ring treasure
- Dragon Men (yes, flying natives!) - makes for some interesting hirelings that can carry you around...

Version 1.0.22.0 Released

2011-01-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Some bug fixes, some expansion game changes, and a couple neat new features. Wanted to get this out before my next online game so that it is ready to go. My favorite new feature is the search table hint system.

Sometimes when I'm playing with someone new, I get the question: "Which search table do I use to search for the path?". If you are a veteran realmer, the answer is obvious, but even though there is descriptive text on each button, it's still an issue. Oh, this is especially true with the expansion games, because there are a lot of new pieces, and it isn't always clear which table does what.

Now, when you are presented with your choices of search, you will also see what applies in your current clearing. For example:

You can quickly tell, for example, which button to press to search for the hidden path, and which to search for the Status. Also, the "hints" only show things you haven't yet discovered, so you will be less likely to click the wrong button when searching for a secret passage versus a hidden path.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Hint system for search table buttons
- Peer: shows icons for hidden paths you need to find
- Locate: shows icons for secret passages, treasure locations, and other chits you need to find
- Magic Sight: shows all the chits you need to find, or can loot
- Other search actions (Read Runes, Capture, Open Vault, etc): identifies the game piece being acted on
Moved all game play menu options into a single dialog called "Options..." under the File menu (there were just too many, and I found it confusing)

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed another problem with the map rating system, that sometimes caused primary dwellings (Inn, Chapel, Guard, House) to be placed in unreachable clearings.
Fixed a bug with the GM tool that would crash when Wasps were on the board
[1743] - Added code to catch and report an error when custom character files cannot be unzipped.

EXPANSION CHANGES:

Expansion spell "Heal" now allows you to target up to four chits, instead of only one.
Presence of Holy Relic will stop Bones X from summoning undead.
Changed the name of the treasure location "Labyrinth" to the "Maze" (because it fits better on the chit!)
Changed the name of "Labyrinth Map" treasure to "Map of the Maze".
No longer able to "Run Away" from the Maze until you've discovered it.
Moved the Murkers to Monster Die "5"

Version 1.0.21.0

2010-12-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, has it really nearly six months since the last release? I remember thinking that I wanted to get this one out quickly, because there were a couple of unpleasant bugs that needed fixing.

In any case, here it is, just in time for Christmas! :-)

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Added 6 random spells to the Magic Guild, for sale at 10 gold a-piece.
In addition to stopping monster generation (expansion), destroying a generator will also:
- Kill all generated monsters (excluding guardians) on the board (without the source of power, they die/leave/disintegrate)
- Reward the character with 20 Fame and 20 Notoriety
[1685] - Experimental new launch file (SmartRun.bat and SmartRunHere.bat) to allow Windows 7 users to launch without tweaking the files.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1727] - Fixed a bug that causes the HTML export to fail when a character has more than one hired leader
[1725] - Fixed a bug that was crashing combat on an old save game, when armor was destroyed.
[1726] - Witch's familiar, and Phantasm spell can PEER again. Note that for the Familiar to work, you must start a new game (an old game will still have this problem)
[1732] - Fixed a problem with TERROR result of Power of the Pit when the target is transmorphed into a H or T monster.
[1733] - Can learn spells while transformed now, as long as you have the correct type of MAGIC chit
Newly added companions (like when a custom character is playing a development game) will start off HIDDEN, so that they don't get killed in the same turn you receive them.
[1740] - Fixed a bug that sometimes crashed the game when trying to move a dead traveler.
Trading activated treasures to the Magic Guild for advancement no longer leaves the items in their activated state when they are bought back.
Lockpick Set treasure actually works now (apparently never implemented - sorry about that!)
Bag of Weightless works correctly now when you are flying away from combat.
Flaming Oil no longer destroys the Tomb (only Pond and Hive are affected)
[1722] - Skeletal archers now have a length of 14, and skeletal swordsmen have a length of 3 (instead of zero!)
Captured travelers will follow by default, and cannot be reassigned. If the character teleports or runs away, the traveler immediately escapes.
Fixed a problem with the "build map by rating" feature that was causing the campfires to sometimes be placed in unconnected clearings.

Realm Quest Update

2010-08-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

I recently got a Mantis issue:

Hi Robin,
Wow, you have been busy! So I am sorry to ask, but I was just wondering if you could give an update about the Book of Quests. Is it still in the que or is it not practical at this time. The last update to the Wiki was October 27, 2009. Thank you for all your hard work!!!!
Mike

Fair enough. It has been awhile since there has been any movement on the quest code, though you may be surprised that there is a full featured quest builder mostly finished in the RealmSpeak code:

The quest builder will ultimately allow you to build a quest from scratch (much like the RealmSpeak character builder), and make it available for RealmSpeak (more on that later). Each quest will consist of one or more quest steps, each with their own requirements and rewards. At least one of the steps will have as its reward "Quest Complete". The steps can be processed in order (step 1 before 2, before 3, etc), or you can setup your own logic to make multiple quest path possibilities (i.e., you can either save the villagers from the Dragon, or kill the villagers).

Each quest step has requirements and rewards. The requirements are things like:

Certain number of attribute points added (gold, notoriety, etc)
Specific treasure in your possession
Perform action, or satisfy a condition at a specific location

Rewards are things that you might expect:

Gain points/gold
Gain relationship levels
Earn a hireling or companion
Receive an item
Teleport to a new location

When you build a quest, you get to specify which rules must be in or out of play:

By default, none of the rules are tied to quests, but there might be a reason (for example) that the optional DRAGON HEAD rule must be active, and that AMBUSH should not be used.

Each quest can have a number of locations. These are named in a special window on the builder:

Each location can be a clearing, dwelling, and/or chit, and they can be specific to one, selected by the player, or even randomly chosen. Once you have a location, you can refer to it in the text, and it will update the text to match in the quest when you are playing the game. Locations can be referred to by any quest step requirements, so it is easy to define when and where you want the player to go.

Jay Richardson introduced the concept of a "Minor Character" in his Book of Quests (available here) which I'm planning on supporting in RealmSpeak:

Now that I've presented all this, you are probably wondering when it will be available? Although the quest builder is nearly done, there is virtually NO code in RealmSpeak to actually play a quest. That's primarily because I haven't completely decided HOW quests should be implemented in-game. There's the Book of Quests approach, where each character chooses a quest that they must complete to win the game. There's Steve Schacher's Quest Cards concept (based on Book of Quests), where a number of cards are drawn/selected by players based on predefined victory conditions. Then there's my own version, where quests are available at the three guilds in-game, and must be completed to advance a level in the guild.

Time to complete? Considering that I'm not working on it now, its hard to say. I imagine there's easily a months worth of work in there, so don't expect anything this year unless I get particularly crazy.

I hope that's a good enough update Mike! If I do make any more headway, I'll be sure to post the progress here. If you have ideas/suggestions, be sure to drop me a line.

Version 1.0.20.0 Released

2010-07-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

Note: This release is NOT compatible with save games from earlier releases. I made changes to the data file that will affect the Ancient Telescope and the Crystal Ball. If you use this version with an older save game, THESE TWO TREASURES WILL NOT WORK CORRECTLY! Sorry about that, but it was a necessary change to make them consistent with other objects in the game.

-----------

Mostly just working through reported issues and feature requests. I think the list is down to only 34 items now!

Anyway, here's what's new this time:

NEW FEATURES:

[1694] - For map builders, enlarged the tile pick view, added the tile flipside, and made the tile currently being placed respond to the SHIFT key to show you the enchanted side.
Some new house rules are available under the title "More House Rules":
- [1285] - Enable a feature where damaged armor can be repaired at any dwelling for the difference in price between intact and damaged.
- [1494] - An optional house rule where Soft Ground and Early Snow only prevent Hide rolls in non-Cave clearings.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[967],[1148] - Fixed issues with Ancient Telescope, and Crystal Ball.
Fixed a problem with REPAIR, HEAL, and FORTIFY as base character abilities.
[1716] - Fixed a problem with custom characters with light armor in a non-expansion game.
Fixed a bug that was crashing the combat simulator when launching it in "Original Game" mode.
[1717] - Luring an attacker off another sheet no longer leaves a "ghost" image behind.
[1679] - A RED-side up monster on a native no longer prevents random assignment from occurring with other unassigned denizens.
[1718] - Host game setup dialog made slightly bigger to accommodate most OS's.

RealmSpeak Home has Moved

2010-07-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

I decided to move the base webpages where RealmSpeak is managed to a new home:

http://realmspeak.dewkid.com/

Note: This blog is NOT moving!

Why move the home page? I did this for a number of reasons. The main reason, is that I wanted RealmSpeak to have its own subdomain. I actually set up the subdomain a year or so ago, but I've never made the switch to a new webpage.

Recently, my domain host ICDSoft (see link on the top left) announced that they had a beta version of a web design tool, that is available to members for free. Since my web design skills are pretty atrocious, I figured I'd give it a try. Turns out it was pretty easy to slap together something that looks somewhat professional (IMHO).

My goal with the new web design, was to make it more intuitive, so a new user could quickly find what they were after, without trundling through a maze of links. I think I've accomplished that, but if you have any suggestions on how to improve it, I'd love to hear from you.

In any case, if you have any bookmarks to the old site, you'll find that the webpages now give you a new link to follow. I suggest updating your bookmarks, so that if the old site vanishes someday, you'll still be connected.

Of course, as mentioned above, this blog isn't moving, and it has links to everything you need to get started. If you use the blog as a launch point, you'll be safe. :-)

Version 1.0.19.0 Released

2010-07-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

GMs - If you are running a 1.0.18.0 game now, it is SAFE to upgrade to this version. It will not harm your game file. In fact, I recommend upgrading, because of the random number bug I fixed (see below).

I've been wanting to get this release online, but I've been sick the last week. The big bug-fix in this one is to restore the behavior of the random number generator when loading a save game. It used to be (several versions ago), that saving a game would also save the state of the random number generator, thus making it a) impossible to cheat and b) possible to replay a day with the same result (important for GMs). Alas, I broke this functionality when I implemented the new random number generators, and that's something I wanted fixed ASAP.

New in the release is an experimental feature to make board generation more... better? I decided that too often, my online games started with our characters at the Inn, with only one possible way to go, and that way was through a maze of caves and/or a hidden path/secret passage. To alleviate that possibility, I decided that there needed to be a way to "rate" a map, and then have RealmSpeak rebuild the map when it fell below a certain rating.

The rating system I came up with is fairly simple: For every Valley clearing where a dwelling or ghosts would start, start moving down the path in both directions, and count the total number of tiles that can be reached WITHOUT entering a cave, or using a hidden path or secret passage. The total number of tiles that can be reached (including the starting tile) is the rating for that tile. The map rating is simply the worst (lowest) rating of all five Valley tiles. Say for example, a map is rated a "6". This means that in the worst case, you will be able to visit SIX tiles without ever having to enter a cave or use a special road.

With the rating system in place, I then added a control in the game setup options that allows you to select a preferred rating, from 0 to 5, that must be achieved before RealmSpeak will select a map. If you set it to zero (the worst possible rating), then RealmSpeak will take the first map it generates, just like you are always used to. If you set it higher, the maps it allows will be fewer. Remember the more times RealmSpeak is forced to toss a map, the longer it can take to start a game. Keep an eye on the status bar at the bottom of the window to watch it's progress.

Now I can hear some of you already groaning that my algorithm here is too simplistic, and perhaps even favors some characters over others. Also, the logic of rebuilding a map that fails might be the lazy way out, and isn't the most efficient solution. If you have better ideas on how to accomplish "smarter" maps, please let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

By the way, this new rating system works great on the original game as well as the expansion. It does NOT, however, work too great with 2x/3x/4x size maps, as the number of Valley tiles increases, and causes a LONG delay in map building. It took nearly 2 minutes to build a reasonable 2x map, and then all it did was line all the valleys up in one long path right in the middle of the map. :-O

What else... oh, I added a new "export" button in the battle window, that let's you dump the current state of combat to HTML, much like the "Game Export" works. When I was GMing the tournament, I found the most difficult part was relating what was happening, where everybody was, and who had what chits fatigued/wounded where. I'm hoping this new feature alleviates that pain, as it puts everything in a nice navigable set of web pages with everything you could possibly want to see in a combat. It's probably not perfect yet, but it'll get there.

Enough jabber, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

You can include travelers as hirelings in the battle builder now (so you can test those kinds of scenarios out)
Experimental new feature for setting the rating of a map, so you don't end up with crummy starting places. If you don't want to use it, just set the minimum map rating to zero (default).
- Not recommended for double/triple/quadruple maps (it can take a REALLY long time to build one of these)
[1673] - Attackers can be seen in the summary table of the combat frame, instead of only on the combat sheets.
[1665] - You can now export information about a battle to HTML, to simplify GMing in a combat situation.
[1703] - Transferring a character allows you to choose from a list of names now, instead of requiring case-sensitive typing. Of course, you can still type a name if you like.
[1013] - New full featured window memory system (see "Custom Layout" under "Window" menu)
- Allows you store your favorite window layout in up to seven different slots.
- Layouts are remembered the next time you play, so if you have something you like, it will default to it.
- You can name your layouts, so that it is easy to remember which is which. (Witch?)
- Even the size/position of the main frame is remembered, so spanning multiple monitors is a really easy thing to do now.

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a bug that caused an error to be logged when you attack a Giant while carrying the Pretty Rock (Expansion treasure)
When deploying a combative traveler (i.e., Dragon Slayer) no longer prompted for a deploy side.
Carnoplant box #3 reads "5" instead of "35" now
[1713] - Fixed a problem where saving and reloading a game wasn't restoring the state of the random number generator.
Fixed an issue where transferring a character didn't always remove the character frame from the player losing the character
Fixed a bug where Archeological Dig and Fountain of Health (expansion) could end up in a TWT.

Version 1.0.18.0 Released

2010-06-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

Been fixing lots of bugs lately, some old some new. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1216] - New option in "Other House Rules" to turn Day-End trades ON by default for all new characters.
[1710] - New option in "Robin's House Rules" to allow you to gain special rewards past level 4 when you level-up during the game.
[1703] - Battle Builder will allow you to cast Permanent Spells now, so you can simulate scenarios where (for example) you have already absorbed a T Troll.

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem with Transform that could lead to an infinite loop that would freeze the game.
[1216] - Trade button removed from combat window, as trading isn't allowed during combat.
[1710] - Leveling up in development works again. (broken since 1.0.11.0)
[1709] - "Rehire" is no longer an option with permanent companions.
[1708] - Blank chat line no longer messes up chat display on map
[1406] - Fixed a bug in the character builder, that would allow you to create a die roll modifier that didn't work.
[881] - Fixed a bug that would let you use color chits to make change while resting, even when you had active effort chits.
[1680] - When you are selecting spells, if you forget to enchant ANY chits, you will get a reminder now.
[1561] - When a leader rests, followers will get their rests IMMEDIATELY, so that they have a chance to rest (for example) a MOVE chit or two, so they can actually follow!
[1586] - Fixed a bug where watchful natives already on someone's sheet, wouldn't battle other attackers, allowing a second character to end combat early.
[790] - Fixed the handling of fatigue when using a treasure (or custom character) that allows three or more asterisks of fatigue.
[1711] - Fixed a missing fatigue step when charging someone with 2 asterisks that runs away, and combat is ended by the remaining combatants.

Version 1.0.17.0 Released

2010-05-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

Added some more features that should aid online play, including a neat new feature to play a sound to remind players that it is their turn (suggested by a user named "storymachine" in the bug tracker).

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1706] - The focus is given to "Next" and "Done" when you are playing your turn, and "Next" in combat so you can just press the ENTER key to advance.
[1705] - RealmSpeak will now play a sound when you are playing online when:
- It is the beginning of a new day
- It is your turn during the day
- It is your turn during combat
- When you forget to press "Done" at the end of your turn
You can enable/disable sound, and adjust the volume, in the options menu

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1701] - Made the fatigue/wound call thread-safe, so that network play doesn't lead to the "mystery round" condition.
[1702] - Fixed a problem with the chat lines on the map view when a player's name was particularly long.
[1690] - "Play Color Chits" button in combat will be disabled now when you don't have any more color chits.
[1707] - Fixed a problem with choosing a character with an extra chit or two.

Version 1.0.16.0 Released

2010-05-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Just a quick release to fix an expansion bug, and to make the chat interface a bit more visible. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Count of "treasures left" in discoveries window and search dialog will now exclude "CANNOT MOVE" site cards that you have already discovered. This means other players may now see a different count for the same treasure site, depending on what they have already found.
[1094] - A list of ALL spells is available from the View menu now (only during a game)
Chat is now visible on the map. By default, 10 lines of chat will be visible on the map, but you can tweak this number under the options "map" submenu.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1700] - Revealing a TWT in the Pond or Tomb is equivalent to revealing a large treasure now.

Version 1.0.15.0 Released

2010-05-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

This release addresses a couple of issues I had while playing the game online with my friend last weekend, and the tournament game a couple of weeks ago. Also, for no apparent reason, I added two new treasures.

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Chat interface includes multiple colors now, which are automatically assigned (for now).
[1670] - Host can selectively kill one connection now.
New treasures:
- Bone Hand - Cursed great treasure that can be activated to increase sharpness of any wielded weapon at the cost of one level of vulnerability.
- Net - Subtract one from any CAPTURE roll (capturing travelers)
[1393] - Green combat hotspots now split when mounted natives are involved, to allow you to position natives together with their horse, or separately.
[1143] - Improvements to chit fairness calculations in character builder:
- Account for MAGIC chit speed
- Disadvantage for complete absence of MOVE/FIGHT chits
- Disadvantage for chits that are locked to a position (like DUCK)
- Advantage for chits that can be alerted to increase vulnerability
- Advantage for FLY chits

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a redraw issue with guilds and travelers when playing online
[1695] - Fixed a problem with empty error logs being generated every time you ran a battle simulation
[1542] - Added a couple places I missed when logging chit fatigue.
[1696] - Travelers that fight, will die now, instead of living on indefinitely.
Fixed a problem with indents in the detail log, when casting a group effect attack spell
[1683] - Added a new item to the map "right-click" menu to hide/show Site Cards (like Toadstool Circle)

Version 1.0.14.0 Released

2010-05-02T00:06:00.000-07:00

Did this release, so that I could play the expansion with a friend of mine. This version has a crude chat interface, which helps when you are playing with players that lack a TeamSpeak (or other audio) connection.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Added version information to the combat simulator launcher, and the error logs.
[1669] - New chat interface (rough, but it works) - look for it in the character frame tabs (last tab)

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a bug with hiring Bob (Traveler)
Fixed a bug with destroying the Cloaks
Fixed a bug in the character chooser that was throwing an exception when choosing a random character
[1693] - Fixed a problem with hiring natives with a hypnotized native (expansion)
[1671] - Fixed a problem when transferring characters around, that was leaving familiars, hirelings, etc. behind

Version 1.0.13.2 Released

2010-04-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well, doggone it! There were another three bugs that pretty much ruin the game that I had to fix. Better to get these done sooner, rather than later, so people don't get too frustrated with me. :-)

Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1686] - Fixed a problem with prowling monsters introduced in 1.0.13.0
[1687] - Fixed a problem with flying introduced in 1.0.13.0
[1688],[1689] - Problem with native positioning, introduced in 1.0.13.0

Version 1.0.13.1 Released

2010-04-25T22:38:00.001-07:00

Just a quick patch release to fix a few bugs. Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1681] - Fixed the spell targeting problems introduced when treachery was implemented.
[1682] - Fixed a bug that was preventing you from buying anything from the guilds.
[1675] - Fixed an NPE when viewing the connections window
[1676] - Fixed a NPE when painting a native chit
[1677] - Fixed an exception that happened when saving the game while others are playing.

Version 1.0.13.0 Released

2010-04-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

The RealmSpeak bug list is shrinking every release now. There are currently less than 50 reported bugs/issues/features at this time, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. New this release, is a feature that's been lacking from the general rules since day 1: Treachery. Yes, at long last, you will be able to turn on your hirelings (for a price). Make sure you also look at the 3rd edition rule options for the "Benevolent Spells" option, or you'll be creating rebels every time you try to enhance your hirelings.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1316] - New house rule to allow a character to go into negative fame/notoriety to pick up a campaign chit
[1507] - Flying hirelings/companions can be ridden now.
[1644] - Option to "Offer" inventory when trading, in case other character is offline, or just unresponsive.
[1542] - When chits are rested/fatigued/wounded, they are written to the log now.
[17] - At long last, Treachery is implemented in RealmSpeak.
[430] - Benevolent Spells option (default off), so you can cast spells like "Poison" without causing your hirelings to turn on you.
Guild Improvements:
- Separated the "Join Guild" option into its own action. It will cost one more phase to join a guild, but at least you can do it without being REQUIRED to buy a service, and can start benefiting from the NEUTRAL relationship right away.
- Shuffled a small treasure away from the Inn, Guard, Chapel, House (they are back down to 2 apiece), and increased the guilds allotment to:
  - Thieves Guild: 3 small treasures
  - Fighters Guild: 2 small treasures
  - Magic Guild: 2 small treasures
- Gave each of the guilds some sort of weapon/armor to sell
- New armor: the Cloak - this is equivalent to the Suit of Armor, but with a LIGHT vulnerability. The Thieves Guild does have one MEDIUM cloak for sale.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1667] - Fixed a bug with the R250_521 random number generator that crashed the game after a long run.
[1393] - When not playing with optional riding rules, native horses will default to the same box in combat (no separate placement).
[1485] - Phase-based weather fatigue (like Ball Lightning) will correctly fatigue TWO asterisks when moving through mountain clearing.
[1540] - When looking at your own CACHE, the amount of GOLD that is stored there is shown.
[1389] - Fixed some issues with the Lost spell: you can record multiple moves to the same clearing now (to simplify Lost movement), and Timeless Jewel no longer lets you "cheat" the lost rolls.
[1553] - Committed artifacts/books no longer available to cast a spell, until the spell they are committed to has ended. Of course, if you are using Enchanted Magic rules, then this fix doesn't apply.
[1113] - Rest interface will break up multiple rests when there are possible phase-affecting conditions (like weather fatigue, or flowers of rest)
Reduced hire wage of Exorcist Traveler from 25 gold down to 12 gold (didn't intend for him to be THAT expensive!)
[1569] - When wounded/fatigued, and following another character through a clearing with Flowers of Rest, the "tired" character will fall asleep, and be left behind.
[1558] - Fixed a bug that was allowing a character transmorphed into a demon (non-flying) to be able to fly away with the Broomstick's FLY L4* chit.
[1529] - "Watchful Natives" will no longer override "Peace" effects. Also, chits influenced by PEACE will be marked as such now, for clarity.
[1294] - Getting teleported away while a flying dragon is following you, will no longer let you FLY on the next phase with the Timeless Jewel
[1127] - Can no longer rearrange belongings at day end, while between clearings.
[1084] - Can no longer burn color chits after the last phase of the day.
[1354] - Character's will now only be able to block at the END of the phase, not the beginning.
Fixed a bug where summoned animals/elementals/undead would sometimes become unkillable.

Version 1.0.12.0 Released

2010-04-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

This release fixes a few bugs, and builds on the last release by adding seven new travelers. I also reworked the credits section, as there have gotten to be a lot of names to cover, and too little space to do it.

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1659] - When the previous round of combat has no damage/fatigue/spellcasting, it is shown now on the combat sheet, so you can remember to fatigue if you want combat to continue.
New RealmSpeak credits window (check it out!)
[1661] - Battle Bracelets will work correctly against other characters now
[1660] - Weather/Season information visible in HTML export
Seven New Travelers:
- Gypsy - Offers magical talismans for sale (each talisman has its own advantage)
- Seer - Capture to gain "Timeless Jewel" ability for 14 days
- Rock Golem - Capture to gain GRAY magic for 14 days
- Bard - Allows you to "sell your story", losing fame, but gaining gold
- Pickpocket - Steals 0 to 5 gold from dwellings where you end your turn
- Bat Hunter - Attack speed 1 against Giant Bats
- Exorcist - Protects from new curses

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1657] - Capture Traveler table is visible now
[1658] - Fixed a bug that wasn't counting kills by PoP as "damage" for purposes of determining end of combat.
[1662] - Fixed a bug with the Magic Flute that was causing the game to crash.
[1663] - Changed the behavior of the Magic Wand slightly, so it is applied when the spell is cast, rather than later. This fixes a problem with being able to control the RED die when casting a spell against another character.
[1006] - Permanent spells in the presence of an automatic source of color magic, will no longer go inert at midnight.
[1664] - You will be asked to confirm when abandoning an item.
[1383] - You can drop underlings (and travelers) during your turn now.

Version 1.0.11.0 Released

2010-04-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

Note: This release is not recommended for existing games, so if you are GMing a tourney game right now, you might want to wait on upgrading, or download the new version in a different place. To be honest, it will probably work just fine, but I did change some of the "behind-the-scenes" behaviors, and that might make an existing game behave strangely.

-----------------

This new release comes pretty close to wrapping up the entire expansion. Most of the travelers are implemented, and all the guilds work. I did make some adjustments to the rules and setup, so don't expect this to be identical to the expansion description I released years ago. If you want the most up to date rules, RealmSpeak provides them in the View->Expansion Rules menu items.

In short, there are 25 travelers, from which 12 are selected to be on the board per game. The traveler is a new kind of chit:

Take a look at the Traveler rules to learn the different ways you can interact with these new pieces, and discover their advantages.

Also new in this release, is a set of fully functional guilds:

The guilds are where you can essentially earn unique services by being a member, gain various native relationships, and even earn a new character chit. Read the provided rules to learn more.

Oh, and for those of you that have been giving me grief about my random number generator (I use the default Java Random class), I'm providing a new option that allows you to choose from a couple of other generators, that may or may not be better than the system one. If you want to see where I came up with these, take a look at this Michael Brundage essay for more details.

Almost forgot: I had something new happen that's NEVER happened before, since the very first release of RealmSpeak. I had another Java developer decompile the code, implement a feature he requested, and send me the changes. This developer, Matt Gardner, asked to have a feature to allow starting a game with a character at a higher level than four, in the spirit of being able to "keep" character gains from from game to game. His implementation works wonderfully, so I'm including it in this release. Thanks Matt!!!

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1646] - New house rule to allow you to place either side of a visitor/mission chit, even if the other side has already been placed.
New house rule to allow you to exclude the campaigns, using only visitors and missions.
[1647] - Option pane allows you to manage your favorite option settings. When the setup window pops up, be sure to look at the new control at the top of the window.
Replaced the "Event" chits with "Sound" chits (decided I didn't like the Event concept for the expansion)
Travelers are working (see rules under Expansion Rules under the View tab)
- Currently there are 26 travelers, only 12 of which (randomly chosen) are active per game.
- Move around the map
- Those with gold circle amounts can be hired (HIRE phase)
- Those with black circle amounts must be captured (SEARCH phase)
- Those with green boxes offer services for sale (TRADE phase)
Guilds are working (see rules under Expansion Rules under the View tab)
- Record TRADE phases to interact with a guild
- Thieves Guild must be discovered before you can trade with it
- New "Ring of the Hero" treasure can be used for one free advancement
Removed all of the "Hamlet" chits (replaced with traveler or gold chits)
Changed the Guild setup so they are more likely end up in Woods, Valley, and Swamp (it makes more sense this way)
[1550] - GM Tool allows you to remove the CHEAT flag from a character
[1173] - The reason you cannot buy drinks (if appropriate) is shown in the trade windows now, and is written to the log.
[1654] - New feature, programming courtesy of Matt Gardner, to allow you to start a game at a level higher than 4. Thanks Matt!
Option to choose one of two different random number generators besides the default system one. If you have another to suggest, just let me know.
- R250/521 (an old generator that's pretty well favored, and pretty reliable)
- Mersenne Twister (a newer generator that is supposed to be even better than the R250/521)

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1649] - Fixed a bug that causes the game to crash some days after you kill a generated monster in the expansion game
[1331] - On multiple board setups, spells will no longer be setup indiscriminately across boards. "A" spells will go to the "A" board, "B" spells to the "B" board, and so on.
[1653] - Alerted MAGIC chits can be used for enchanting.
[1651] - Native horse being killed by another native no longer causes the game to crash.
[1624] - Permanent spells will energize BEFORE testing block status when moving through a clearing with a permanent source of color magic.
[1156] - Absorb Essence on artifact will expire now, once the caster is dead.
[1604] - Permanent spells will no longer de-energize between tiles if you are carrying the color source.
[1622] - The treasure that you are bidding on will no longer be logged for everyone to see, until you successfully purchase it.
[1566],[1590],[1615] - No longer have to fatigue chits due to weather when you are transmorphed, and then die.
[1621] - Timeless Jewel moves interrupted by heavy inventory will no longer mess up where RealmSpeak thinks you really are.
[1632] - Following hirelings help support active treasure weight when moving.
[1631] - When a hireling becomes unhired, an inventory check is made right away to verify that you can still carry everything.
[1528] - Exorcise spell will no longer cause natives to become watchful and attack.
[1554] - Spells cast with magic chits altered by another spell (i.e., Witch's Brew) will expire when the altered chits return to normal.
When you find the Rune, but cannot learn the spell, it tells you so now.
Fixed a bug when looting a heavy item or color emitting object from from the minor treasure locations, it correctly flips the treasure so you can see it.
Random character selection buttons on character chooser no longer opens a new window: it merely selects a character, and you can opt to choose another, or press the button again.

Version 1.0.10.0 Released

2010-02-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

Note: this release is compatible with previous releases going back to 1.0.8.0, so if you are GMing a tournament right now, and are using 1.0.8.0 or later, you are safe to upgrade.

-----------------

This is exciting. My brother-in-law arranged to have some drawings done for the expansion, and I just got these a week ago. Basically, these are replacements for my own artwork (which was pretty pathetic), and boy are they great! The artist's name is Vrin Thomas, and you can see some of his work on his facebook page. If you like his work, I recommend hiring him! Here's a few of the images he sent:

That's the Lich, the Carnoplant, a Dragonman, and a carrion crawler. Pretty sweet! I added these to this RealmSpeak release, along with all the others, in both a black & white format, as well as color. I hope Vrin likes the colors I used...

It was actually a shame to shrink them, but its a necessary step to getting them on the chits!

Oh, something rather cool in this release: under the View menu, you'll see a couple of entries for tracking Die Rolls. That's right, every single die roll in the game is now tallied, and you can see the statistics for each kind of roll. Why? I've gotten a lot of complaints about the "random number generator", with people saying that it's a little "6" heavy. Well, now you can do your own statistics, and see if that's true. Have a rough game? Check the statistics, and see how it all laid out.

Okay, you probably want to know what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

New expansion graphics, from artist Vrin Thomas.
[1634] - Add option to turn off version warning.
[1637] - All die rolls are tracked, and statistics can be viewed at any time in the View menu under "Die Roll Statistics"
GM Tool changes
- [1627] - The GM tool will now let you hire any monster or native in the list to any living character.
- New buttons to change the state of items in clearings (facing, dropped, abandoned)

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1633] - Fixed a NPE bug with getting killed by Power of the Pit coming from Toadstool Circle during a search.
[1626] - Fixed a problem with PoPs BLIGHT killing hired natives and transformed characters.
[1636] - Fixed a bug introduced with the expansion, that prevents Golden Arm Band and Golden Crown from being worn at the same time.
[1638] - Fixed a NPE bug in the server code.
[1642] - Grudge/Gratitudes will only be applied when killing unhired natives now.
[1062] - Watchful natives on a character sheet, will no longer attack another character in the phase after their target runs from the clearing.
[1639] - Running and failing with 2 asterisks no longer costs you 2 asterisks in fatigue
All characters in battle builder will start with 50 gold now, in case you want to be able to buy drinks.
[1640] - Selling using the Commerce table will no longer double the price of buying drinks for your own hirelings.
[1576] - The Frost Giant (Pruitt's Monster Variant) is now persuadable with the Persuade spell.
[1413] - Multiple board problems fixed:
- "B" characters will choose equipment from "B" boards
- "B" armor will regenerate at "B" dwellings
- Maps of Lost Castle and City will work only on the correct board now
[1357] - Attacking another player's hirelings no longer cause the unhired natives from the same group to start battling, or become watchful.
Charging a character with a horse no longer puts the horse as a "character to be charged".
Generated monsters (expansion game) will get monster numbers too
Generated monsters will stop moving automatically once blocked

RealmSpeak Version 1.0.9.2

2010-02-06T13:13:00.001-08:00

Just a few more bug fixes to keep the tourney rolling, and fix to the multi-board code. This release is compatible with any 1.0.9.0 or newer game.

Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1623] - Fixed an HTML exporter crash that happens the evening that a native HQ is hired.
[1620] - Fixed a crash related to choosing multiple boards
[1616] - Fixed an error generated when running as a transformed monster or mist
[1426] - Running away from combat with hirelings no longer allows you to END combat prematurely
[1614] - When the only character in the clearing is "Mist", you will be able to END combat
[1613] - Fixed a NPE in the dragon breath code

TimeTripper 0.6 Released

2010-02-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

Why don't you put down your swords and spellbooks for a moment, and take a chance to go back to Vietnam, get stoned, and jump randomly through time with nothing more than your Radio, a few weapons, and your trusty M16.

What the heck am I talking about? Why a new TimeTripper release, of course! This is an old SPI game that I converted to Java several years ago, and has sat stagnant for far too long. I abandoned it because I was still pretty heavily getting RealmSpeak up and running, and because I had too many Grognards (you know who you are) nit-picking the thing to pieces. I mean, that's cool and all, I just got tired of it.

This new release has plenty to offer: lots of updated maps, support for saving and loading games, and of course, plenty of bug fixes. Why, the bug tracker is completely empty at this point for the game, so I'm looking for a "few good men" to start playtesting this again. Heck, I'll even listen to the Grognards!

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Extra information on action buttons:
- Attacks show percent likelihood the weapon will be emptied
- Negotiation button shows how easy a negotiation would be with the given set of natives
New custom battle fields for many of the maps, including
- Marathon
- Alesia
- Gladiator Games
- Little Bighorn
- Blood River
- Monmouth
- Hells Angels
New information on screen about most every in-game roll
- Rolls displayed for
  - Accuracy
  - Negotiation
  - Combat Result
  - Detection
  - Weapon empty
  - Awe1/Awe4
- Mouse over on-screen icon to see extra information:
  - Who was affected by the roll
  - The table that was used, and how the cross-reference result was calculated
Horse detail now appears on the battle description pane
You can save and load your games now.
Equipment Chooser has a lot of new information:
- Accuracy and Attack values for each weapon mode
- Total number available to Trippers (useful in a game of Team Tripper)
When Flux is aligned, you'll see an arrow on the time maps indicating direction.
Awed soldiers that have already attacked will have an "A" on them now.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[802] - Burst and Rapid will work correctly now, allowing to strafe across empty hexes
[1618] - The current battlefield time period will display when no other hex is highlighted
[808] - Game will end when last tripper dies now, regardless of how many awed soldiers are left
[806] - Rollerbrawlers in Battle 48 will correctly have a move of 6 now, instead of only 3
[1619] - Cars and pong balls no longer exert a ZOC
[820] - Timepolice will only stun now (no roll made on the combat result table)
Fixed a bug that left the tripper activated in the first game round after doing negotiation
Starsoldiers (Battle 41) will no longer attack the Tripper when negotiations "enrage" the natives.
When natives combine their attack while "enraged", the combat result is adjusted accordingly
[819] - Stunned soldiers no longer move or attack during negotiations
[800] - Stunned awed soldiers can no longer be moved or attack
Japanese Banzai troops (Battle 33)
- No longer kill you with their bayonets from a distance
- Icon changes when they switch modes
[807] - Fluxed soldiers/animals (awed or not) will no longer attack or move on round 1
Trippers can only carry one type of grenade (rule 13.14)
[801] - You can now combine melee attacks to kill an opponent.
Trippers only drop "loose equipment" when they die
Trippers lose one point from their maximum endurance when they die (permanent loss!)

Multi-board Broken

2010-01-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

Just a note to let you know that the latest version has a known bug, that causes any game with multiple boards to crash on launch. The workaround is to simply not select more than 1 board, and it will work.

I'm not sure which version this bug was introduced, so I don't know how far back you'd have to go to get rid of it. I'll try to get this one fixed this weekend, assuming I have time.

Version 1.0.9.1 Released

2010-01-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick bug fix release to repair an issue with the exporter, and to back out a change I made in 1.0.9.0 to "fix" the battle summary. This version is compatible with 1.0.9.0, so there's no harm in updating.

Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1611] - Fixed the HTML exporter so that it doesn't add dwellings to clearings before the game has officially started.
[1609] - Restore the summary view to before I made changes in 1.0.9.0 which broke it.

Version 1.0.9.0 Released

2009-12-25T21:22:00.000-08:00

Update 12/26/2009: John S. Myth just provided me with a linux script for the GM tool. I just added it to the download, so if you already downloaded the release, and wanted the new script, just download it again. Thanks John!!

-------------

Merry Christmas!! My kids are all off in their rooms playing with their new toys, so I found a few moments to myself to wrap up another release, just in time for ROUND TWO of the Magic Realm tournament. I'll be hosting one of three boards, so I thought I'd lessen the burden on myself by releasing a GM tool for editing and repairing save games.

For windows users, the new tool can be accessed by running the batch file:

gm.bat
For the rest of you guys running on non-windows systems, you'll have to create your own script. The only line you really need is:

javaw -mx384m -cp RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmGm.RealmGmFrame
If javaw doesn't work, try it with java alone:

java -mx384m -cp RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmGm.RealmGmFrame
The tool is relatively easy to use (for me), so hopefully you guys can figure it out. Simply open any rsgame file, and you'll see the characters, items and map appear. I think its pretty self-explanatory, but I expect there will be some confusing bits too. Please e-mail if you have any questions!!

I also made some tweaks to the expansion, based on a game I played with some friends. Mostly just toning down a couple of things that were just a little too hard, and fixing up some of the fame/notoriety/gold values of the new small treasures (had some complaints that these were too inconsistent with the original game). I also "lightened" the weight of many of the small treasures, for the same reason.

The rest of this release is a bunch of bug fixes that were prevalent in the first round of the tournament. I'm hoping with this done, the GMs will have an easier time of it!

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

RealmSpeak GM Tool
- Edit ANY RealmSpeak save game
- Change the location of any piece on or off the map
- Change the states of character chits (fatigue,wound,color,alerted)
- Add/Remove Curses
- Change hidden/blocked status
- Revive the dead, kill the living
- Reset monsters on the setup card
- Move treasures to any treasure location or dwelling
[1592] - Hired Leaders and Controlled Monsters are included in HTML export, so you can see their inventory too.

BUGS/ISSUES:

Changed how the "Charge Character" button works to reduce confusion. Now, you need only click it, and it will show you a list of characters you can charge.
[1588] - Fixed a problem that was causing a charge chit to be counted twice for purposes of fatigue
[1605] - Fixed 7th day magic for season ICE (BLACK now instead of WHITE)
[1145] - Fixed a bug that would prevent you from using multiple extra moves from multiple items/horses when one item is incapacitated.
[1600] - Fixed a bug that would cause characters to become unhidden when a follower traded with the leader during a turn (network play only)
Saving the game in the middle of a player turn works correctly now.
Adjustments to Expansion
- Small/Large treasure prices and fame/notoriety to bring more in line with comparable Small/Large treasures from the original game
- Adjusted the weights of some Small treasures to be more consistent
- Tweaked the spider that protects the web a bit, so it isn't so insanely deadly! (way too hard)
- Removed "Flutter X" from the H Harpies, so that you don't have to fight these AND Giant Bats at the same time in X tiles (a party killer for sure)
- [1594] - Swapped "Elven Poetry" and "Incantations" names (they were backward)
[1601] - Fixed a NPE in the connections viewer
[1597] - You can play an artifact enchanted to color magic during combat now (enhanced magic rules)
[1568],[1585] - Potions will only be added to notes now, and nothing you haven't seen already will be revealed.
[1598] - When canceling a spell with Dissolve Spell or Remedy, you'll be able to tell the difference between multiple Transform or Absorb Essence spells.
Fixed a problem with the "hire" symbol on hirelings for custom characters.
[1607] - Fixed a bug that would allow you to buy an item with a fame price, and go into negative fame, when the "No Negative Points" house rule was in effect.
[1557] - The familiar will correctly SPY on another character looting or using a secret/hidden path now.
[1599] - Buying drinks will no longer exclude OR double the number of natives that are following other characters.
[1606] - Fixed a bug in the combat summary display that incorrectly showed simultaneous hits that kill, as non-kills.
[1567] - When Power of the Pit result Blight/Terror causes the last character chit to be wounded, the character will die now.
[1596] - Fixed a problem with Enchanted Items (i.e., Flowers of Rest) not showing their color or function in native dwellings.
[1581] - When a character is put to sleep, they can no longer be blocked, or block monsters.
[1589] - Familiar no longer waits for blocking decisions (since it cannot be blocked)
[1603] - Added to code to distinguish between missile weapons (bow/crossbow) and thrown weapons (Alchemists Mixture/Holy Grenade).
[1545] - Fixed a problem that would sometimes make hirelings vanish when the character ran from the clearing.

Installing RealmSpeak

2009-12-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

One of the most common issues I have come to my e-mail box, is regarding installation of RealmSpeak. The way it is now, you have to download the application (2MB), and if the images have changed, the resource pack (11MB). This keeps the amount you have to download to a minimum, though it can be a little tricky to install. You have to unzip the resource pack and the application into the same folder, and this has caused many installs to choke. Usually, people don't extract the entire zip file, and end up losing important files that prevent the game from launching.

I've thought about numerous other solutions. One solution involves using Java Web Start to install the app. The definite advantage here, is that it installs in a way I specify, and even downloads Java JREs if you are missing what you need. The problem with this approach, is it is difficult as heck for me to setup (a Java Web Start newbie), and requires some type of Jar file signing, that I don't completely understand. Oh, its worth mentioning that this is the approach the Titan for Java (Colossus) project chose, and its rather nice.

Another solution is to use an independent installer builder package, like wItem for Java. The advantage here is that you get all the features of an installer that you expect: it creates a shortcut in your Start menu, uninstallation, all file handling, creation of exe style launch scripts with an icon. Very cool, but this pretty much leaves my Mac/Linux/Sun users high and dry. Also, using this type of installer means the file is going to be 15 MB every time there is an update. With today's bandwidth sizes, I suppose that isn't a big deal, but I just don't know.

I'm going to post a poll on the sidebar shortly. If you have an opinion on the matter, please mark something on the poll, and/or make a comment on this post. I probably won't do anything major until the new year, but if I don't hear from you, I can't possibly know what you want to see! :-)

Version 1.0.8.0 Released

2009-11-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

NOTE: version 1.0.8.0 is NOT compatible with savegames from any previous release. It will allow you to open an earlier savegame, but the behavior may be unpredictable. If you are currently playing a game, I suggest finishing the game before upgrading to the new version.

This release is mostly a fix to bugs related to the expansion, as well as a few adjustments to game play. If you are not playing the expansion, there really is no need to update. I will get back into fixing "regular game" bugs eventually, but I wanted to get the expansion "playable" before that.

There were several treasures which were causing the game to crash, or were behaving weirdly, and I think the last of those are fixed. Also, I added some new monsters to cover the X tiles, so those aren't going to be a walk in the park anymore.

The big thing in this release, is that the monster generators are working now. Blobs move and grow, undead shamble down paths, and giant wasps swarm. The rules for the generators have changed a bunch from the written expansion, so you'll probably want to check out the new ruleset. If you look at the "View" menu, you'll find a new entry called "Expansion Rules" which will be the home of all new rules that I put into the game. Right now there is only the single entry "Monster Generators" which you can use to read up on how these things work, and what you have to do to destroy them.

I've had at least one person comment that the F/N and gold prices for many of the new treasures were a bit high, and that's something I still need to fix. I'll probably get those tweaked for the next release.

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Monster generators
- Rules are available under "View|Expansion Rules|Monster Generators" menu
- All monster generation and movement works
- Killing Hive Queen destroys Hive
- Killing Lich destroys Tomb
- Flaming oil destroy Hive/Pond
- Looting 2 Large Treasures destroys Pond/Tomb
Dragonmen and Murkers added to character builder for relationships

BUGS/ISSUES:

Only show the sidebar info for cards when they are face up (like author name or "Expansion 1")
[1583] - Fixed a bug that crashes the game when the Murkers are on the board, and a monster die of 4 comes up
[1583] - Fixed a bug where the HQ and Rank 1 Murkers are not prowling on a die roll of 4
[1582] - Fixed a problem where the Pirate's Map would crash the game at Midnight
[1577] - Fixed a bug with the Journal that caused the game to crash when activated
[1584] - Expanded the Woods Girl's special ability to include the Dark Forest and Grove
[1574] - All one-way paths are learned automatically when you enter, so you no longer have to search to leave. Also, spies on the "hidden" side will learn the location too.
Incantations Book should have been type IV not VI
Ice Storm correctly says "mountain only" instead of "cave only"
BLANK chits are now HAMLET chits, for a bit more realism, and to reduce confusion.

Blanks and No X

2009-10-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

One thing I'm discovering, both for myself, and from e-mails I'm getting, is that the Expansion is a little too easy. I think a big part of this comes from the fact that there are no roaming monsters for the X tiles explicitly. That means more often than not, you are safe in the X tiles when there are no treasure sites. That's not good, and makes the game easier than I intended. That will change in the next release, as I assemble some monsters to cover that portion of the board.

Also, the balance of treasure at some of the sites is a little... off. The generator site has something like 12 treasures, and when you find that, its easy pickings to get a load of new stuff, and get very powerful very fast. I need to adjust that a bit.

There has been some confusion about the "BLANK" chits. I have had some people think this was an error in the program, but truly these are intentional. The 10 BLANK chits are meant to mix up the board a bit, to provide a level of danger to the normally safe Valley tiles. In most cases, the Valley tiles will end up with either a GOLD or a BLANK, but there is a small chance that the Gate of Chaos will appear which brings a lot of chits at once. If you want to calculate the odds, you can see the setup in the original expansion rules.

That said, Roberto U had a wonderful suggestion: make these BLANK chits into something meaningful, if no effect. One example he gave was "HAMLET". The chit would still have no overall effect, but would have more flavor than just "BLANK". Oooh, hey I just thought of something. If I made each of the BLANK chits actual "places", then there would be something to reference in the Guild Quests (coming soon) for various tasks. For example, imagine a quest that reads "Travel to the Cherry Hamlet, and pick up a package. Deliver the package to Druid Grove where ...." anyway, you get the idea. Since the Guild Quests feature will come with a quest generator tool that you can use to make your own quests, this will open the door for all kinds of variety.

Version 1.0.7.0 Released

2009-10-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Requires new Resource Pack!

Not compatible with previous releases!

At long last, I have a new version of RealmSpeak that includes an unofficial expansion pack. The expansion provides new monsters, new treasures, new spells, new natives, new tiles (well, technically new), as well as a host of other things. Though most of this comes from the unofficial expansion my friend and I put together nearly 10 years ago, quite a few spells and even a couple of treasures were taken directly off the Magic Realm Wiki. In the cases where I knew the author name, I asked permission, and included their name as a credit down the left side of the card in light blue. Thanks guys!!

Although the expansion isn't completely finished (still some work to do on the special rules), you'll still find a lot of it in place. Take a look at the final list of spells (click to enlarge):

and treasures:

Of course, there are a lot of other new things:

To play with the new expansion, simply choose the game variant in the setup window:

Alternatively, if you want to play regular Magic Realm, but want to try out the new spells, you can do that too:

When the game starts, be sure to take note of the new "Expansion" tab on the character window:

You'll also want to take a look at some of the new tables you'll be rolling on:

One new concept in the expansion I want to draw attention to, because it doesn't exist even in the print version I have online: Cursed Items.

These are items that once activated by a character cannot be deactivated! The only way to deactivate a cursed item, is to spend the night at the Chapel. Once this has happened, the cursed item is destroyed, and removed from your character. I think you can probably see why you would (or would not) want to activate these items.

I'll probably post more about the expansion later. Anyway, I'm tired, so let's just get to what's new in this release:

Version 1.0.7.0 - October 11, 2009 - Changes since 1.06
NEW FEATURES:

Changed version code to a more standard format (app.major.minor.revision), to reduce confusion
"Expansion One" implemented.
- 60 new treasures (all but two are ready to go!)
- [1467] - 36 new spells (that's about 3-6 new spells per MAGIC type)
- Some special rules in place
- Using Gates to move in the realm
- CURSED items - Once activated, cannot be removed. If you spend the night at the Chapel, the item is removed, but is also destroyed.
- Minor treasure locations and bags of gold
- New chit setup - Valleys will be a little more interesting... still pretty safe, but you never know.
- Hive/Pond/Graveyard treasure location is randomized
- Labyrinth must be discovered before character can leave clearing!
- NOT working yet:
  - Events, Travellers, Guilds (they are there, they just don't do anything... YET)
  - Monster generation at the generators (Hive, Pond, Graveyard) - The Hive has a queen, but the other two are unguarded.
  - Minotaur buckler does not parry attacks like it is supposed to.
Option to use expansion spells in normal play or with Pruitt's Monsters
Better spell selector - spells separated by type, and sorted by name for easier finding.
Hirelings following a leader are visible on the board now (always hated how hirelings could appear invisible when following a leader!)

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a couple of bugs with enhanced magic:
- No longer lose the actions phase in the round AFTER casting a day/combat/permanent spell.
- Cast enhanced spells properly expire on death
Went through EVERY spell (old and new) and verified that they were working - fixed them where they weren't:
- Bad Luck spell didn't do anything, and apparently never ded (guess that tells you how often it is used!)
- Illusion spell when tied to a tile wasn't giving +1 to search rolls in that tile.
- Fixed the text on the map when using "Talk to Wise Bird"
- Pentangle no longer allows the Demons and Imp to attack the target
Fixed a problem that would crash the game when a spellcaster was killed BEFORE his controlled monsters killed their target.
[1573] - When a missile attack exceeds TREMENDOUS, it kills the target outright, ignoring armor, as per the rules.
[1560] - Fixed a spelling error in the HTML report (Squeak curse is no longer the Squak curse!)

Sixty New Treasures

2009-08-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

I've been working pretty heavily on the new expansion for Magic Realm/RealmSpeak, and thought I'd give you an update. There are 60 new treasures planned, and 43 new spells. Most of the treasures are done, so I'll be moving to the spells soon. If you are familiar with the expansion my friend and I released a while back, then you'll recognize a lot of it, but there are definitely a bunch of changes too! For one thing, there were a few treasures that were a little out of character for the Realm, and needed some tweaking. If you are curious what is coming, this is the current list (click the image below for full-size):

Of course, there's bound to be changes, especially those that are marked in green as UNFINISHED. I'll post the list of spells at a later date.

Expansion One

2009-07-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, before RealmSpeak was much more than a dream, a friend and I decided to expand the Realm with a new set of rules, tiles, monsters, treasures, spells, etc. After much toil and trouble, the unofficial Expansion One was born. After introducing it to the Magic Realm community, I discovered pretty quickly that there were those that liked it, and those that "wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole".

Many years later, having become even more intimately familiar with the Magic Realm ruleset than I was back when we designed the expansion, I realized why people might not like the expansion, and tried to make adjustments. The biggest problem, is that it's really difficult to playtest, because setup is such a pain, a single game can last hours! In many respects, my inspiration for writing RealmSpeak, was so that I could someday playtest our expansion, and clean it up.

Finally, I can say that I've begun work on integrating the expansion. I started by drawing up some of the monsters, and rendering them onto chits:

Yeah, pretty amateurish art, but what can I say: I'm a programmer, not an artist. :-) I've got all the treasures entered, though none of them do anything yet. I should be able to enable a bunch of them, at least those that leverage existing rules. The ones that don't will take a bit longer, but that's just how it goes.

Of course, the expansion will be a game variant option, much like the "Pruitt's Monsters" option, and if you don't want to try it out, please don't. I'm not sure how long it will take me to complete, but that doesn't mean there wont be new versions of RealmSpeak while I'm working on it. I'll keep you updated.

Version 1.06 Released

2009-07-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Mostly just a bug-fix release, as there are not a lot of new features in here. There is a new option to open the VP selector up, so that you can choose whatever you want. This will enable those of you that are unhappy with how VPs are chosen for different situations (game extensions, restarting characters, etc), to do what you think is right.

In any case, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1547] - New VP option to allow each player to select any number of VPs when starting the game.
Added some more details to the log to better explain the situation where a character is unable to perform actions while blocked.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1543] - Altar/Shrine/TC/EM work correctly for summoning vistors/mission again.
[1546] - When buying from natives, don't show the names of treasures until they are being bid on.
[1552] - Pilgrim will no longer be blocked during the day by Demons/Imp.
Power of the Pit "Rust" result will now correctly destroy armor that is already damaged.
[1548] - The Imp's Curse alone is not sufficient to keep combat going, unless it does real harm (fatigue chits). Multiple identical curses are logged for clarity.
[1427] - Day end trades no longer prevented if you are blocked during the day, or during combat!
Curses will show up in exported character html now.
[1532] - "Wish for Health" no longer rests the chit you cast it with.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.05 Released

2009-07-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is mostly a maintenance release to fix a couple of bugs, and to add some more detail to the log and html exporter. Sorry, no new character advantages in this release (didn't have any time to build any up), but I did fix a bug in the character builder tool that was making it impossible to have a companion with the same name as your character.

If you are upgrading from 1.04, you will see a warning about the version change, but it can be safely ignored.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

HTML Export enhancements
- [1535] - Fixed a bug in the exporter that was putting the "clearing" hyperlinks in the wrong places.
- Inactive inventory is visible for each player now. Treasures remain secret.
- [1534] - The exported HTML for clearings no longer contains the NAME of face-down treasures in the Alternate-Text field.
- [1533] - Treasure Card HTML has hyperlinks now, so you can see what is where (face down treasures and spells where appropriate, of course)
Detail log enhancements
- [1536] - Trade information (what was up for sale) is shown in detail log.
- [1539] - Change tactics information (new monster attack side) shown in log
- [1539] - Monster numbers added to monsters in log
- All actions (alerting, dropping, activating, etc) shown in log
- Indented combat resolution for clarity
- Each phase identified in log by a separator

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1538] - Transmorphed characters can do the CACHE activity.
[1537] - Target assignment during combat is randomized each round now.
[1541] - Non-simultaneous attacks on native horses will spillover to the rider now.
[1530] - Fixed a problem in the character builder that was creating corrupt character files anytime your character name is identical to a companion name.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.04 Released

2009-06-28T12:56:00.001-07:00

I meant to get this out last weekend, but there were some things I was working on that prevented that. In any event, here it is. The big thing in this release is a bug fix to Magic Sight, that was causing severe problems for the Witch King. It only happens when he tries to loot items in a clearing (like after cremating all the Rogues in the Inn), but since that's actually a fairly likely scenario, I thought I'd better get it fixed.

As promised, there are a couple new custom character abilities added to the character builder, straight from the advantages request page: Light Armor, and Extra Inventory. The first came from an original request to be able to construct custom armor for a character. This seemed a bit like overkill, since there really aren't that many options for armor. Instead, I went with an alternate suggestion, that there be an option for Light Armor. Now, in the character builder, you'll find that you can equip your custom character with one of the Light alternates:

The first pictured above, is the buckler (Light Shield), then the leather cuirass (Light Breastplate), and finally the leather cap (Light Helmet). If you don't like my crude drawings (can you tell I'm NOT an artist?), I'd be happy to replace them with something better. I'd ask however, that you don't just steal something off of google images: custom drawings only please!

These new armor tokens behave exactly like armor: they reduce sharpness, are damaged when hit with equal harm (Light), and destroyed when hit with more harm (Medium or greater). If the armor is hit with Medium or greater harm, the character takes a wound.

In my playtesting, I've found that this armor vanishes pretty quickly during any combat, but it can be a lifesaver. When the armor is destroyed, it goes to the same location as it's Medium counterpart: cap and buckler go to the House, and the cuirass goes to the Guard.

The other new custom character feature, is what I call "Extra Inventory". This allows you to select from many treasures (though not all) as a starting piece of inventory for a particular character. There's also a feature there to allow you to rename the treasure, to make it unique. Alternatively, you can select a horse, from any that are in the game (either for characters, or even natives!). Note that in either case, you are making a copy of that treasure or horse, so they are not lost from gameplay.

Oh, I added a new high quality version of the "Export HTML", so those of you that don't mind the bigger map size (4 MB instead of 1 MB!), can get a cleaner image.

Here's what's new:

Version 1.04 - Changes since 1.03
NEW FEATURES:

New Character Builder features:
- Can use Light armor now (Cap, Cuirass, and Buckler)
- New "Starting Inventory" advantage allows you to choose a horse or treasure (most treasures except TWT, books, artifacts) as a starting item of inventory.
- Better handling of "unknown character version" problems
- Armor chits now appear on the "View Gear" graphic
Can export a high quality version of the map in the html generator.
Added some more detail to the log for a player turn, including:
- The clearing that the character started in, and the clearing they ended their turn in.
- Which chits (if any) were turned face up at the end of their turn.

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fortified characters can no longer RUN from combat (I felt this was a necessary fix, to lessen the impact of this new custom character ability from 1.03). They can still run once the fortification is destroyed.
[1521] - Fixed a problem that crashes RealmSpeak when an rschar file with a mismatched icon file is found.
[1522] - Fixed a bug in MagicSight, related to looting the clearing.
[1525] - Fixed bug in the character builder that would allow you to create a malformed rschar file by changing the name of the character right before saving.
[1377] - With optional horse riding rules in place, you can target native horseback riders with Fiery Blast now.
[1524] - Fixed a bug with sudden death, that wasn't allowing the game to end properly when curses are healed at midnight.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.03 Released

2009-06-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Another maintenance release, with a couple of goodies. I fixed a problem with the curse dialog, which those of you that do a lot of "Read Runes" will appreciate. The behavior of dialogs and threads is interesting, to say the least, and quite fragile. I repaired a game lock related to table effects (Curse, Wish, PoP, etc) in 1.00 that sort of left it all a bit weird. I think this is the last of the weirdness fixed, and it all should be a bit more stable now.

I decided to attack a couple of the Character Advantage Requests listed on the Magic Realm Wiki. I plan to add one or two of these for every new release - we'll see how long THAT lasts! ;-) Anyway, one of the cool new advantages (by request) was to give a character special new actions. I implemented three: HEAL, REPAIR, and FORTIFY. Okay, that last one is my own invention, and it will likely get some raspberries from the most hard core Realmers, but there you are. The point is that these are likely to be major advantages (especially REPAIR), so its up to you designers to disadvantage them in some other way!

A character with a "special action" (as I call them) will have a new button appear at the end of all the buttons on the character window. For example, here is HEAL:

Otherwise, they work like any other action. HEAL and REPAIR are pretty obvious (see below), but FORTIFY is described like this:

Can FORTIFY during the day to gain armor-like protection in all directions (Suit of Armor) equal to their vulnerability. The FORTIFY action requires a successful roll on the HIDE table (though not affected by HIDE advantages!). This fortification can be damaged and destroyed as if it were armor. Regardless of its condition at the end of the battle, the fortification is lost at MIDNIGHT.

Maybe that's TOO powerful, I just don't know yet. I thought about limiting it to M armor, but I'm sure those of you that care will let me know! ;-)

Okay, here's what's new:

Version 1.03 - Changes since 1.02
NEW FEATURES:

New Character Builder features:
- Can specify multiple companions of the same type at once (1-20). Why so many? Why not!! I made a Nature Druid that had a flock of birds, used to lure monsters. They don't last very long in combat, but they can give the Druid a chance to fight.
- [1515] - Lizardman added to companions
- Can specify an extra chit be added
- Can use special day actions:
  - HEAL - Can HEAL one asterisk of fatigue or wound on any other character
  - REPAIR - Can REPAIR one armor item in carried inventory
  - FORTIFY - Can FORTIFY during the day to gain armor-like protection in all directions (Suit of Armor) equal to their vulnerability

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1514] - Repaired a GUI modality problem with Reading Runes and Curses during the day (broken in 1.00) - probably affected other tables as well. The change was made to resolve 1227
Fixed a problem with custom character icons in the character list.
[1517] - Fixed a problem with suiciding a character on the map edge
[1126] - Reflecting Grease will now properly reduce wounds on armor hits only.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.02 Released

2009-06-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry about releasing an update less than 12 hours after the last. I just finished playing an online game with some friends, and we ran into a couple of painful bugs affecting a couple of BLACK magic spells. The first had to do with the Absorb Essence spell being cast under the optional Enhanced Magic rules - the game would crash, and leave the autosave in such a state, as to be unable to continue!! We had to completely restart the game from the beginning. Ouch. Fortunately, turning off enhanced magic was the immediate remedy, but I still wanted it fixed.

The second had to do with Power of the Pit crashing every time the "Rust" result was rolled. Of course, this comes up on a roll of SIX, which is pretty common, so it happens a LOT. Turns out it was just something stupid I did in the code for 1.01, so it was pretty easy to fix. Since Power of the Pit is somewhat unavoidable in a game of Magic Realm, I figured this better be fixed quickly.

To reiterate, here's what's new:

Version 1.02 - Changes since 1.01
BUGS/ISSUES:

[1508] - Absorb Essence and Enhanced Magic play nicely together now
[1509] - Power of the Pit "Rust" result no longer crashes the game

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.01 Released

2009-06-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

----
Update #1 - Thanks to John S. Myth (an alias I'm sure), there are now Linux scripts included in the 1.01 release download. If you've already downloaded, and you don't see them, then you probably got it before I added them. Download again, and you'll be fine. :)
----
As promised, I'm doing a quick turnaround on the last release, to resolve the worst bugs. I'm actually fairly pleased at how few new bugs were discovered, especially considering how many things changed in 1.00!

The only real "new" feature in this release, is the addition of updated Mac applescripts to support the new classpath I required in 1.00, thanks to Jorge Arroyo! If someone wants to do the same thing on the Linux front (or any other operating system you guys are running this on), I will be able to provide them in future releases, and make RealmSpeak more easily accessible to those less "geek" than others.

Mostly just bug fixes, so here's what's new:

Version 1.01 - Changes since 1.00
NEW FEATURES:

New Apple scripts for RealmSpeak, RealmBattle, and the character builder! (Thanks Jorge!)
New Linux scripts for RealmSpeak, RealmBattle, and the character builder! (Thanks John!)

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1490] - Fixed the crash related to using the "No Dwelling Start" option
[1505] - Fixed an issue with firing up the Flying Carpet
[1501] - Fixed a problem with hirelings helping you carry your inactive equipment
[1499] - The correct number of treasures added to the pile are shown now, when the Mouldy Skeleton is revealed.
[1492] - Set Cross-platform Look-and-Feel ON by default for new installations. People can switch this OFF if they want, and get the native platform UI. Of course, RealmSpeak will still remember what you prefer, so you don't have to set it every time you launch.
[1388] - Cannot peer INTO a tile affected by FOG anymore.
[1195] - Fixed some strangeness involved with hirelings ending their term of hire while a character is flying.
[1496] - Fixed a problem with Power of the Pit result ending up BEHIND the combat frame.
[1495] - "Foes" information will show on campaign chit view again

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.00 Released

2009-05-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

----
Update #1 - Edited the Mac command-line script below based on commenter Mark's suggestions, and removed my reference to Mac-users as Mac-heads. I didn't mean it to be insulting, but re-reading it this morning, it certainly comes off that way, so I just removed the line. Sorry if I offended anyone!
----
Update #2 - Just a couple of notes from the comment thread for this post:
The optional solitaire "No Dwelling Start" option is broken. It will cause the game to stop after choosing a clearing, but no character window will be showing.
If you are running on Linux, you will also have to heed the advice in this post (below) for Mac users, and adjust your classpath.
Linux users should use the "Cross Platform Look and Feel". Apparently there is some problem with the "Native L&F" for Linux: at least the way I'm using it in RealmSpeak.
----
I meant to get this out earlier in the day, but we decided to go to Knotts Berry Farms today, and we're just now getting home! Our season passes expire tomorrow, and we thought we'd get in one last hurrah before the summer crowd hits.

Well, it's finally here, a little over a year after the last release. A project I thought I had put away forever suddenly regenerated itself, and came back with a vengeance. I decided to bump RealmSpeak to version 1.00, since it's about 99.95% the way there (will it ever be 100%?-NO). Before you skip all the boring chat here (maybe I'm too late), I want to bring your attention to a number of things that will be important if you want to enjoy the new version:

Mail Support Means Mac & Linux Scripts are Broken
Networking menu has changed a bit
New images folder
Lots of new game setup options

Let's deal with these one at a time:

Mail Support Means Mac & Linux Scripts are Broken

If I had planned this better, I would have had someone help me with this before the release, but the apple scripts will NOT work with RealmSpeak, because they lack a reference to the two required libraries: mail.jar and activation.jar. I was able to fix this in the Windows batch files, but without a Mac, I have no ability to update the apple scripts. If you want to play RealmSpeak on the Mac, you'll need to open a unix window, cd to the directory where RealmSpeak.jar is, and type the following:

java -mx384m -cp mail.jar:activation.jar:RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmSpeak.RealmSpeakFrame
To keep all the config file local to the directory RealmSpeak is launched from, type this instead:

java -Duser.home="." -mx384m -cp mail.jar:activation.jar:RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmSpeak.RealmSpeakFrame
To play with CHEAT enabled:

java -mx384m -cp mail.jar:activation.jar:RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmSpeak.RealmSpeakFrame CHEAT
To run the battle simulator:

java -mx384m -cp mail.jar:activation.jar:RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmBattle.CombatFrame
To run the character builder:

java -mx384m -cp mail.jar:activation.jar:RealmSpeak.jar com.robin.magic_realm.RealmCharacterBuilder.RealmCharacterBuilderFrame
If somebody wanted to write apple scripts, or whatever is equivalent to batch files on Windows, and send them my way, I would greatly appreciate the help! I don't own a Mac, and I no longer have access to them at work, so I have no way to create these scripts, or even to test them.

Networking menu changed a bit

In the previous versions of RealmSpeak, I had two complete menus with identical items, with the exception that one was for playing a local (non-networked) game, and the other was for playing online with friends. THIS HAS CHANGED! NOW, when you start RealmSpeak, there is a File menu for all actions related to playing the game (save/load/restart/exit), and a Network menu with just a few non-redundant items. If you want to play online, you'll have to FIRST turn network hosting ON. You do this by clicking on the "Network Hosting OFF" menu item under Network. This will add the words "Networking Active" into the title bar. Any game you play with networking active, will make your game visible to the internet community. RealmSpeak remembers your last setting, so if you close RealmSpeak with Networking active, it will open with it active again.

New images folder
You're going to need a new images folder, which means you'll have to download the latest resource pack with this release. I would recommend keeping whatever version of RealmSpeak you have intact, and download this release into a new location. That way, if there is anything major broken in this release, you can still get back to playing the game until I get it fixed. I've playtested it a bunch of times, but you never know!

Lots of new game setup options

You are going to want to look through all the new options on every page of the setup dialog. You'll find there are a lot of new things there, and you may or may not want them. By default, new stuff is turned OFF, so if you click through, it should keep your favorite options in play. However, there were some minor changes, and stuff moved around a teensy bit, so its probably a good idea to familiarize yourself with what's there!

Okay, THAT's out of the way. Let's not wait any longer. Here's what's new:

Version 1.00 - Changes since 0.60
REQUIRES NEW IMAGES FOLDER
NEW FEATURES:

email notification
- When you host a game, you have the option to turn on e-mail notification. You'll need to provide and SMTP host, and a home e-mail address to get started.
- A "Test email" button will allow you to verify that you set things up correctly.
- The application will automatically e-mail any player when it is their turn, when combat starts, or when it is a new day.
- The application will only e-mail players that provide an e-mail address when they join, and then only if they are offline when the event occurs (no need to send e-mail when they are online!)
Completely removed player/character count restrictions. As long as there are still characters to play, you can add them.
Added a "player password" concept for joining players. If you use a password (it is optional), then your player name and password must match before you are given control of the character. This would prevent someone else from grabbing your character while you were offline (especially possible in a "slow" game)! The host will have control over this, and will be able to reset a player password if a player forgets it.
New game option tab: "Other House Rules"
New game options:
- [1230] - Optional Magic Rules
  - [1457] - Optional Automatic Enchanting implemented
  - [1458] - Optional Enhanced Magic rules implemented
  - [1459] - Optional Enhanced Artifacts and Spell Books rules implemented
- [1460] - Revised Enhanced Magic rule implemented (under "Other House Rules")
- [1315] - Optional Quiet Monsters rule implemented as two separate options:
  - Hidden characters and hirelings do not cause chits to flip, or monsters to be summoned. New "Tile Chits" button on character frame appears when appropriate to allow you to view chits secretly.
  - When positioning attackers on a character sheet, they do NOT have to be positioned in as many red boxes as possible.
- [1101] - 3rd Edition Extended Grudges implemented
- [1210] - Advanced Dropping Items rules implemented
  - Buttons that read "Abandon" will abandon the item in the clearing (can only loot)
  - Buttons that read "Drop" will drop the item in the clearing at your feet
- [1477] - Advanced Sudden Death rules implemented (on the first tab of game options)
- [1420] - New house rule to allow native leaders to remember discoveries between hire terms. However, killed natives still lose their discoveries. Monsters are unchanged.
New character builder features:
- [1142] - New "Evaluate" button in character builder checks your custom character for flaws that would make it non-Hamblen-like.
- [1473] - New "Export Gear" button in character builder allows you to create an image file which you can print, so you can create chits for boardgame play.
- [1483] - Custom Weapons can be set to start with the Visitor's now.
- [1221] - In the "Edit Symbol" dialog, you can now generate a default icon, which is simply the first two letters of the character name, or if you have two words in the name, it will use the first letter of each.
[1096] - Remapped the menu controls a bit (hope that's not too annoying), and added a new menu item called "Restart Last Game", which will allow you to start a game over from the VERY beginning, using the same setup.
[1237] - Many more monsters added to custom advantages "Companion" tab in the character builder, including Tremendous monsters, and natives. Take it easy now!
[1338] - New characters can choose where their starting inventory comes from now (or you can continue to have your starting inventory taken from random dwellings)
Added a few more credits to the "About Box", and fixed the 3rd edition citation.
[1262] - New voluntary Unhide button (looks like a lantern) next to Trade/Share and Block buttons on character frame
[1478] - New "Shout Out" button allows you to share all relevant discoveries in your clearing to every legal character in the clearing you choose, with one action. Makes group play a bit easier.
[1298] - New feature to view running Fame/Notoriety/Gold tally on the combat sheet by mousing over the character tokens.
[1482] - Added mission/campaign chit information to view menu.
[1474] - Notes page now keeps track of inventory stolen by previously hired leaders, and potions after they have regenerated.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1310] - Memory Leak is fixed! This should resolve the "Out of Memory" crash we are all familiar with on long games with many characters. You'll also notice that RealmSpeak performance has improved somewhat.
[1343] - Couple of harmless NPEs fixed
Fixed a problem with the HTML generator that would sometimes put map messages on the final image.
When highlighting clearings (blue circles), use the word "Exit" on map edges rather than "-1"
IP address is trimmed to remove any external whitespace.
[1348],[1361],[1382] - Fixed a bug that prevented you from running from a clearing you ran towards.
[1349],[1435],[1445] - Incentive payments to take treasures off a native's hands during TRADE (like the Order getting rid of the Black Book) is fixed.
[1410] - Fixed a Power of the Pit bug that caused the game to crash on a result of THREE, when a hired leader is following another hired leader.
[1362] - Fixed a bug in the turn panel that put secondary actions (like a PoP roll after searching Toadstool Circle) in the wrong order on the screen.
[1129] - Empty cache's will no longer appear on the treasure setup card
[1286] - Roman numerals on enchanted artifacts no longer duplicated
[1233] - Fixed a bug when Garb of Speed or Belt of Strength was used by a custom character with a three asterisk chit.
[1353] - No more Great Great Elves (or Light Great Elves) (or Great Light Elves) (or...)
[1351] - Timeless Jewel can be traded between characters now. (no more "must be deactivated" warning when its obviously NOT activated!)
[1444] - Fixed a bug that was allowing you to redo the prebattle by reloading the game!
[1438] - Fixed a bug that could leave the game hung when between mountain clearings in the ice/cold.
[1446] - When looting treasure that is heavier than your character, you have the option to abandon it now.
[1215] - Can cancel out of REST dialog now, in case you want to rearrange your inventory first.
[1449] - Custom characters with starting gold other than the standard "10" is figured correctly now in "starting worth" calculations.
[1448] - Commerce rules no longer affect visitors
[1441] - Characters following in frigid weather (fatigue one asterisk per phase) will have to pay for fatigue equal to that which the leader got.
[1443] - Heat Wave will no longer kill transmorphed characters because they have no chits.
[1415] - Fixed a bug where sometimes a character chosen at a lower development level would get all 12 chits at the start.
[1437] - Pressing "Play All" will now stop anytime you arrive at an invalid move action (in case you need to energize a spell to walk woods, or fly).
[1402] - Hired leaders killed in the line of duty will regenerate properly now.
[1425] - FightAlert chits (like BERSERK) will be limited by the monsters on your sheet now.
[1395] - Fixed a problem with GRUDGES where a hireling (NOT a hired leader) killing a FRIENDLY or ALLIED native was not having an effect. Now ALL hirelings will work as expected.
[1419] - Changed how "speed 8" is represented in the log, so that you don't see "infinitely slow".
[1396] - Being on a roadway connected to the Chapel no longer heals curses, or provides WHITE magic.
[1461] - Natives that start a fight with the character will not change friendliness when killed using extended grudges (e.g., characters are allowed to defend themselves without penalty)
[1439] - Fixed a bug where absorbing a monster off another character sheet with multiple monsters was causing that character's attack to be canceled.
[1405] - Can no longer pickup a campaign chit where the foes are already dead. Same bug also made finishing Pillage impossible.
[1414] - Wish for Vision will include the Visitor boxes now (assuming they have any treasure).
[1411] - Destroyed armor will no longer remain activated when you buy it back.
[1404] - Pruitt's dragons (Wyrm and Firedrake) are included in the Quest chit now. If the dragon can never come out because of clearing type (Pruitt's rules), it isn't counted.
[1392] - Dialog that shows who was regenerated will only show ONCE per online player (used to be once per character)
[1397] - Fixed a problem with custom character item restrictions, that was failing on any weapon with a space in the name
[1390] - Hired Leaders and Controlled Monsters will have a Spells tab (like the character) so you can see which spells are bewitching them
[1385] - Dark Forest no longer prevents entry from off-map, in a solitaire game.
[1373] - Viewing Clearing Detail (right-click on map) no longer causes face down treasures to turn face up.
[1375] - Changed spelling of "Gray" to "Grey" to match the rulebook.
[1398] - Trading with hired natives on the day of hire work correctly now.
[1381] - Fixed Pruitt's Cockatrice to automatically kill like a RED-side-up T Monster, as per the rules for this monster.
[990] - Orc Archers will now change tactics on a 5 or a 6, as per the rules.
[1379] - Blend into Background spell will work properly with hired leaders now.
[1463] - Fixed problem with Witch's familiar badge button, when saving and loading a game without exiting RealmSpeak.
Added an exception to the situation where the game handler is calling a DEAD client. This should quickly reveal the source of any other game freezes that are the result of this problem.
[1470] - Character following another character can now trade with others at beginning of phase
[1378] - Horses no longer count as kills for purposes of the multiplier
Allow the host to transfer a character during combat
[1345] - Running with horses logic is fixed. You can choose either side, and if you fail on gallop side, you wont be able to gallop during melee.
[1469] - Die rolls will no longer appear when you are selling to natives, and commerce rules are off.
[1283] - No longer lose your horses between tiles after flying away from combat.
[1297] - Enchanted Meadow/Altar, and Toadstool Circle/Shrine summoning boxes will work on multiple boards now.
[1471] - Move/Fight chit conflicts during positioning are fixed.
[1440] - Fixed a problem where transformed magic users couldn't ride flying steeds
[1355] - Daily combat checkbox should be a bit more persistent now, and remember what you last had set it at. This will be helpful for long server games!
[1231] - Character card correctly shows how much gold you start off with, for custom characters with special gold allowances.
[1472] - Sleeping characters will not be able to trade anymore.
[1464] - Custom character speed 8 chits will not be excluded by filters when determining which chit can be played.
[1429] - Pack horses will no longer support the weight of activated items!
Fixed a bug that was preventing flying characters from dropping items.
[1416],[1480] - Fixed a problem where a spell interrupted by hirelings could never be cast again. The same problem affected Enchant Artifact and other spells.
[1366] - Fixed the order of treasure locations on the discovery tab of the character window.
[1481] - Fixed a problem with the logic for determining whether actions were sheltered or not.
[1302] - Fixed the text of the Amulet treasure to include "(discard to shaman)"
[1205] - If you create a custom character that uses the familiar, it will adopt the character name, rather than always being the "Witch's Familiar"
[1295] - Fixed the "drop/abandon" buttons on the turn panel to allow dropping of activated items (used to only be inactive items).
[880],[1479] - Fixed how simultaneous attacks are handled, to a system that should be much more robust.
[1432] - Fixed a problem where character horses were absorbing non-simultaneous hits.
[1342] - Added the correct filtering to the logic behind choosing a chit to charge another character.
[1484] - Fixed a bug that would allow you to skip choosing attack spell targets if you also had a native pick a target, which eventually lead to a locked up combat.
[1209] - Invalid custom character files will no longer prevent RealmSpeak from launching.
[1222] - Fixed some problems with how abandoned color-source treasures were shown on the map, and in the "View Clearing Detail" window.
[1350] - Fixed a problem with casting Control Bats on a transformed bat. Also made similar adjustments to other monster-specific spells, so that transformed dragons, goblins, spiders, etc can be targeted too.
[1367] - Fixed a bug with Magic Sight, that would cause a treasure card site (like Enchanted Meadow) to jump to the backwoods when a "Treasure cards" result was rolled!
[1347] - Fixed a bug that allowed monsters to attack a character playing a horse directly, if another character targeted the rider.
[1204] - Fixed a problem with random assignment, that was allowing two hidden characters with hirelings to take monsters not assigned to them, and end up in a game deadlock.
[1344] - Extending the game with low level characters, no longer leads to negative VP assignment!
[1134] - Unhired Native Leaders killed by PoP will drop inventory in the clearing correctly now.
[1227] - Fixed a deadlock related to Control Bats and Wish cast by two characters at the same time.
[1456] - When you start the game with a low level character, and seasons, you still must (at the least) record 2 VPs.
[1306] - Fixed a bug that was preventing hired leader's inventory from dropping into the clearing when killed by a monster.
[1384] - Persuaded Giants/Goblins will no longer block your hirelings

June 1st Deadline

2009-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Since everyone is asking, I'll let you know that I'm making June 1, 2009 the deadline for the next RealmSpeak release. Lot's of new optional rules in place, some neat new interface features, and tons of bugs fixed.

You'll see it here first, as well as posted to the RealmSpeak mailing list when it is ready.

26 Days Later

2009-05-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished playing a game of RealmSpeak with the new "Sudden Death" rule in play (coming in the next release). I set the number of VPs to 1, thinking that I could make a really short game, and test this new feature at the same time.

I chose a random character, and got the Woods Girl (one of my favorite characters, believe it or not). I put my single VP into "Great Treasures" thinking it would be cake to find at least one of these things. I didn't take into account the negative score you start with due to gold...

Anyway, I wandered around the board, and found nothing but empty tiles: no treasure site, and no prowling monsters. The monster rolls I got were really quite amazing, in how they effectively dodged every warning/sound chit I encountered!

Finally, I discovered the Pool in the Caves (great...), and got to looting. The first treasures I found there were the Alchemist's Mixture, and 'lo, the Magic Wand! Yay! A Great Treasure!! Wait, why didn't I win? Ah, a great treasure with -10 fame.

Still no sign of the Goblins or Octopus, so I continued looting. The next two treasures I found were the Withered Claw, and the Cloak of Mist, which was good. I decided to leave, seeing as I was pretty fatigued after looting the pool, and I wasn't really all THAT excited to meet the Goblin clan. After first stopping to rest in the Curst Valley, I moved through the Ledges, and dispatched a wandering Giant with my bow. With no other treasure location in the tile, I proceeded into the Crags where I discovered the mighty Lair!

I moved quickly into the clearing and searched for several days with no success. A giant bat started circling overhead, and that drew the attention of the Lair Dragon. As I was wearing the cloak, and was successfully hidden, it was obvious that all I needed was one good kill, and the game would end victoriously. I activated the Alchemist's Mixture, and flung one pinch of the stuff at the dragon. Direct Hit and instant kill! With only the bat left, the Woods Girl decided to run from the clearing. The fame/notoriety from the two kills (Giant, and then the Dragon) was enough to make my total score equal to "0", which meets the requirement of Sudden Death. We have a winner!

... and it only took me 26 days ... (sheesh!)

(You can see the game here if you are interested.)

Long Standing Memory Leak is Fixed!

2009-04-04T00:15:00.000-07:00

OMG.

The memory leak. You've all seen it. You'll be playing a long game of RealmSpeak with 3-4 characters, and the game gets slower, and slower. Without warning, the game will ultimately crash with an "Out of Memory" error, and that's that. Sure, you can reload your game, and its good again for a few game weeks, but what a pain! Also, if you've ever tried to play with more than about 6 characters, the game is nigh-impossible to stand, as everything is sooooo slowww. This memory leak has been a royal pain in the !@#$ since the inception of RealmSpeak. I've never been able to nail down the problem, and its been driving me NUTS!!!

Warning: Java tech speak ahead!

On a whim this evening, I decided to set up a small simulation of my GameServer and GameClient, and have them communicate indefinitely in a loop, and watch what happens to memory in a controlled environment. Memory gets eaten up quickly, and my loop ultimately dies in an "Out of Memory" error. Great! I've reproduced the problem in a smaller (non-RealmSpeak) application, which will serve as an excellent test subject.

After some toying around with different freeware memory profilers, I found one that gave me an "Object Allocation" graph. This basically tells you which objects are being created, how many, and how long lived. From this graph, it was quickly obvious that my primary data transfer object (GameObjectChange) was piling up in memory, and outliving many other objects. Hmmm, that shouldn't be happening, should it?

Looking at the code, I made sure that there were no static collection objects (a common memory leak), and that each collection object went out of scope at some point in its life, so that I could be sure that the objects contained therein were cleaned up by the Java Garbage Collector (GC). Okay, so that all looked good, but that was no surprise. I had looked at that like a thousand times before!

Next, I added a finalize() method to my GameObjectChange object, with a message to the console to let me know when the object was GC'd. I ran my test app, and...whoa... FINALIZE IS NEVER CALLED. That means that the GC had determined that every single one of these objects was still being referenced somewhere, and passing it up for collection! That's definitely NOT good, and I realized that I was going to HAVE to find the source of those references if I was ever to fix this problem.

Did you know that there really is no good way to do this? I vaguely remember a tool that would help me here, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was. Anyway, I ultimately had to resort to looking at every place that used one of these objects and ask whether it was holding a reference or not. My first pass revealed nothing, and I thought I was going to fail yet again solving this problem.

Then, for some reason, I was looking at the Java docs for the ObjectOutputStream (the stream I use to transfer data), when I discovered something I did not know: this stream actually maintains a reference to every object that passes through it, until the stream is either closed, or reset! Since close() was out of the question (that would kill the connection), I immediately tried adding a reset() call after the normal flush() call in every case. Lo-and-behold, the objects started getting GC'd, and the finalize() method I wrote started spitting out messages to the console!

Excited, I ran the test application.... and memory is STABLE. It creeps up briefly as new objects are created (normal), and then stabilizes at a reasonable size, and changes no more! Wow!

The next test is RealmSpeak itself. I fired up a game, and added eight characters, and played for a game week. The game rolls along quickly, with no sign of the sluggishness seen in previous versions. In fact, the performance has clearly improved overall. I want to play a longer game when I have more time, but I'm pretty convinced the leak is sealed.

Bug fixed!

Long time no see!

2009-03-21T23:58:00.001-07:00

Well, it hasn't been a FULL year since the last update, but damn near. Sorry if it seems like I abandoned this project, but I wanted a break from fixing bugs. I've been working on a couple of other projects, and though none of them have seen the light of day yet, they may still. I'm hoping someday to release my CyberDox game (already play tested it once online with friends), but there's still a lot of work to do before its ready for prime time. I've also got a couple of XNA games on the burner (if you don't know what XNA is, google it), but those are even further away from seeing the light of day.

So here I am - I've been playing RealmSpeak online for the last several weeks, and it always gets me anxious to fix things so it runs better. I've actually tackled a bunch of bugs already, and even added a few new features (Automatic Enchanting). Hopefully, I can get a release together for you guys in the next month, but we'll see.

Catch you later!

Combat Summary

2008-05-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

With the last release (0.60) came a new feature you might enjoy. During battle resolution, a new button will appear near the "Next" button:

Pressing this button will give you a concise summary of the round's results:

The display is shown in the order of resolution, so you can pretty much read it from top to bottom like a story. The big arrows give you a visual indication of the results: blue means miss, red means hit, solid red means kill. You'll see any rolls that are tied to the individual hits, and any changes in the level of harm are shown.

Of course, all of this information has always been there, but never in a way that you can quickly discern the results. Most of the time, I'll be playing with friends, and someone will say "Hey, who killed the Great Axeman?" You can stare at the combat sheets and figure it out, but sometimes it takes a bit (let's see, we both hit, but I was faster... no wait... length goes first because it round 1....) This new display lays it out in a way that there is no doubt as to who killed what. Then, if you want to refer back to the combat sheets or detail log to get the gritty details, you can.

What doesn't it do? It doesn't show non-attack spells. If the Pilgrim casts Small Blessing, it will not appear in this window. Sometimes, when someone is killed, it shows them as alive further down the summary - this happens when there are simultaneous hits. These are things I'd like to fix down the road, but I think its pretty useful even in its current state.

Three Custom Characters

2008-05-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

My friends and I decided to fire up a game of RealmSpeak tonight, using only custom characters. For the most part, we've had a pretty successful run at it! Though the Vizier (me) lost his companion Viper pretty early on, he's still managed to stay alive by nursing his Transform into squirrel spell. I would have preferred a T Dragon, but ah well.

The Ogre Hero, and Dark Elf did a nice job of dispatching all the Rogues and Patrol at the Inn, and collected a bunch of booty (horses, armor, some treasures).

We just discovered the Lair, and we're getting ready to move in. The current state of the game can be viewed here if you are interested.

Version 0.60 Released

2008-05-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

This release requires a new resource pack. Make sure you download the latest resource pack (v0.60) before playing!

OMG its been a long time since I've put a new version up! If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that I took a bit of a break from the coding to get myself together again. This is a fairly massive release that includes a ton of bug fixes, and lots of fun new features. For the most part, my aim was to make the "Slow Game" concept (see previous post) a bit more user-friendly, but there's tons of stuff for the solo player to enjoy as well.

One new thing, that I think veteran RealmSpeak players will appreciate, is that the autosave feature has been expanded a bit. Now, instead of only saving at BIRDSONG, autosave will kick in after every player turn, and after each individual combat. That should make those unexpected game crashes, a bit less tragic. Don't worry - I kept a separate BIRDSONG autosave, in case you want to restart the day anyway, which is good for playing "what if" scenarios. Be sure to select "Restore from autosave BIRDSONG" instead of the usual restore from the menu.

Another cool new feature, is the Export HTML Game Summary feature. This new bit of code will actually generate a publishable set of web pages to describe your current game to its fullest extent. If you have a good game going on, and want to share, generate and publish! An example of the output can be seen here:

http://realmspeak.dewkid.com/games/SlowGame/

Oh, another feature for the veteran players: you know how when you quit a game in progress, and restart later, you lose the entire detail log? No more. The detail log will be saved alongside of your save game. Look for the extension rslog, and you'll find the file. Note that this file isn't necessary to load the game: if it isn't there, you simply start your log from scratch.

Ok, its been long enough. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Bunch of new features aimed at making Kyle's "Slow Game" concept workable:
- When players are offline, RealmSpeak will no longer simply show "Not Online", but rather show the current step the player is doing.
- Export HTML Game Summary feature
  - New File menu option allows anyone playing to generate a cluster of HTML documents that could be uploaded to the web, to describe the current state of the game.
  - You can generate these files ANYTIME, even during combat
- Couple of game server improvements:
  - Added a 10-second timeout to the RealmSpeak server-side, so that random non-RealmSpeak connections don't tie up the connection pool.
  - Any connection which does not have a logical RealmSpeak-like request, will be immediately dropped.
- Detail log is now persistent:
  - The log is saved anytime the game is saved (including autosave)
  - Players joining a server will get an automatic copy of the full log
  - You'll see a new "rslog" file along with your "rsgame" save files, with the same name
  - "rslog" files are NOT required to load a game, but if you load a game without a corresponding rslog file, your detail log will start out as empty
- When joining a game, the last 10 IP addresses are remembered.
- You can now view a readonly host pref dialog when you are not the host, so you can see which options the host is playing with.
- Autosave used to only happen at the start of each new day, as any RealmSpeak veteran knows. Now it will happen with more frequency, so that restarts are less painful:
  - At the start of each new day
  - At the beginning of every new turn
  - At the beginning of the every new clearing combat (NOT every round, though)
  - At the end of ALL combats (MIDNIGHT)
- A separate autosave_birdsong.rsgame file is saved at the start of each new day, in case you want to replay the day (like RealmSpeak did previous to this release)
- The e-mail framework is in place, but it DOES NOT DO EMAIL right now. I still need to figure out where all to put stuff.
RealmSpeak is now a bit more lenient with older version game files. It WILL allow you to load them (with a warning), but you must keep in mind that there may be version-related bugs that come out of it. In most cases however, this should work just fine.
[1324] - Using the remodeled counters, the hired leader chits now show their commerce behavior: +N when they add notoriety, +F when they add fame, or both when they add both.
[235] - When the "Show Turn End Results" option is checked, the denizens that regenerated are shown at the start of your turn.
[979] - The Spell Selector dialog now shows the color(s) that will be available on the next 7th day, to help you decide which chits to start with as enchanted.
A couple of combat sheet improvements:
- [995] - Mouseovers on castable spells on a character combat sheet will now show the spell full-size for clarity.
- [1003] - When transformed, your attack/move chits, and any head/club is shown next to your character counter, so you know what kind of damage you can deliver.
- [1015] - Round Summary button allows you a quick analysis of the current round, so you can see who hit who, and figure out what the die rolls were. This feature is a little rough around the edges, but I think it accomplishes the task well enough.
  - Visually see whether you hit, undercut, or missed outright
  - Die rolls accompany each hit row where appropriate. This will make Fiery Blast missile rolls a bit more obvious.
  - Character battle/maneuver chits are shown along with the token, so you can see WHY the hit happens.
  - Summary is shown in proper combat order, so you can follow the logic of the battle.
  - No more searching through the detail log to figure out why you lost a henchmen.
  - Does NOT show non-attack spells right now, so if you cast WISH on yourself, nothing will appear in the summary.
[628] - New House rule allows you to make the Lost City and Lost Castle act like shelters for purposes of sheltered phases and weather. Obviously, if you are playing without weather, this will have no effect.
[948] - Following characters now get a button to allow them to stop following. If you are being followed by other players, the Play All button will be disabled, and the Play Next button will force you to wait 5 seconds between clicks to allow other players to stop following.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1311] - Extended the limit on the VP selector from 100 to 1000, to accomodate LONG campaigns
[1327] - Chest can be looted from the clearing using Magic Sight now.
[1318] - A problem with the PEACE result from Small Blessing that was not updating the combat window, is fixed.
[1325] - Transformed animals no longer return to the clearing of their transformation at days end.
[1317] - Fixed a couple issues with Transformed Flying Dragon result: null name, and flying ability.
[1291],[1313],[1314] - Control spell logic updated to make sure monsters disengage once controlled, when appropriate.
[1312] - Fixed a syncing problem between Transform and Pentangle
[1235] - Roof Collapses and Exorcise will now also affect hidden characters/natives in the clearing.
[1296] - Wishing denizens elsewhere when lured by hirelings works now.
[1323] - Selling the Timeless Jewel while active will now BLOCK the character.
[1163] - Underlings no longer included as carry strength, when determining score.
[1087] - Fixed a null pointer when mixing Alchemists Mixture with Oil of Poison
[1064] - "Hire Window" no longer goes off-screen when dealing with MANY individually hired natives (like Rogues)
[906] - Fixed a problem where a Timless Jewel carrying character would not get REST or ALERT phases when following a character who does them. Also fixed the behavior of the action screen, so that the FOLLOW activity isn't hidden.
[812] - Related to the previous bug, there was a problem with how following characters using the TJ were hiding, which is now fixed.
[1299] - When a Woods tile has no clearings leading back to Borderland (due to other tile enchantments), the Campfire summoning no longer causes the game to crash.
[912] - When you specify a controlled flying monster to follow you, the FLY button is appropriately highlighted to indicate that this is now possible.
[1308] - Fixed a problem that was preventing a Giant Bat from being targeted by a spell after it was blocked by a player, using the "Block Now!" button.
[1332] - Fixed a harmless bug related to the note window
[988] - Tweaks to treasure setup card generation code, to make the summoning words a bit more readable.
[1005] - Native leaders no longer make change when you trade valuable items to buy something.
[1021] - Wish for Vision dialog is modeless now, so you can check the map or character window before choosing a vision result.
[1014] - Fixed some problems with how Phase Chits were implemented. Protection from Magic should work correctly now.
[1333] - Monster targets are cleared at the beginning of any new combat, to guarantee that no previous battles targets influence the current one (wish I knew how that happened anyway, but at least it wont be a problems anymore!)
[1080] - All combat participants are flipped to their light side before combat starts. This actually happened already, but there were cases where this wasn't, and that is now fixed.
[1093] - Denizen's attacking a RED-side-up monster on a Character sheet will properly reposition and change tactics now.
[1025] - Dragon Essence is no longer affected by "Peace with Nature" (spell or abiliy), as per the rules.
[1034] - Fixed a loophole that would allow you to record an invalid move on purpose, while between clearings, to keep from having to move to either clearing.
[1335] - Fixed clearing 3 and 6 on the Lake tile, and Clearing 3 on the Tristar tile, to be WOODS (were mismarked as NORMAL).
[1321] - Fixed a problem where the Woods Girl, with optional rules turned off, was not getting her bonus on Woods tiles from non A maps (B, C, D)
[1033],[1035] - Fixed a problem where you would sometimes run in a direction you did not come from. Only happens when running back and forth out of the same clearing multiple times.
[1048] - You can view the flipsides of visitor/mission chits on the treasure setup card now.
[1070] - Persuade will work correctly with your OWN hirelings now.
[1336] - Controlled monsters will now correctly use their vulnerability to carry items.
[1045] - If you kill a FRIENDLY/ALLIED native with an absorbed monster's weapons (club/head/axe), GRUDGES will apply appropriately now.
[1337] - Fixed a bug that allowed the Dwarf to place his Duck T3* chit in CHARGE/DODGE when playing a horse.
[1047] - Fixed a couple of bugs related to killing a character with an absorbed monster:
- You will now get an appropriate fame/notoriety bounty from the absorbed monster in addition to the notoriety of the killed character.
- When a character is killed with their absorbed monster, the monster (which is killed too) will properly regenerate back to the setup card, the next time it is appropriate.

Slow Game of RealmSpeak

2008-05-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Kyle, a Magic Realm enthusiast, presented an open invitation to join in a "Slow Game" of RealmSpeak. Basically, it's an online game of RealmSpeak, but setup in a way that you can jump on, do your turn, and then jump off.

Of course, this wasn't how I intended RealmSpeak to be played, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized its actually fairly well suited to do this. It was designed to handle lost connections with grace, and so it just kinda works.

Anyway, myself and five others (including Kyle) are currently playing a game. We're on day 3, and though there hasn't been much action yet, its getting rolling pretty quick. With the exception of an initial problem with connection handling due to a rogue internet process, everything has been running smoothly, and I'm having a blast. Thanks Kyle for the great idea, and providing the host server!!

As you have probably noticed, I've been out of the RealmSpeak coding mood for nearly four months. I think I burned out on it, and just needed a LONG break. Thanks to Kyle, I'm seeing RealmSpeak in a new light, and starting work on it again in earnest. Because of the SlowGame idea, I decided to focus on some things to make that type of game more workable. For example, I've improved the connection handling a bit, so that rogue processes can't eat up the RealmSpeak connection pool. I've changed how the display shows offline users, so that you can still see what they are doing.

The biggest thing I've added, however, is a new tool to allow you (or the host) to export a set of HTML pages to describe the current state of the game. The idea is that others who are not participating, can still follow the progress of things by looking at the status page. For our current game, I've generated these pages out of RealmSpeak:

SlowGame - Host Kyle

There is still an issue with the detail log, because this is lost every time you log out (this will be fixed in the new version coming soon), but mostly everything else is there. A complete summary of the game rules are available, and you can check out the game map. You can even click on map clearings to see the contents of any clearing with chits in it. I'll try to keep this page up to date as things progress, in case you are interested.

The next question you'll ask: when will there be a new version available? I was hoping to get one out by the end of April, but it's looking to slip a bit into May. If I get time on Sunday, I may put version 0.60 out, but no promises. If you are curious what is in store, check out the Bug Tracker Change Log for details.

Hope you are all enjoying a great year so far!

Version 0.59.1 Patch Released

2007-12-15T21:35:00.001-08:00

A few necessary fixes, and a couple of bonus ones. Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1206] - Fixed a game killing bug that only occurs if you play with development rules turned OFF
[1207] - The "Distribute" button was not working if none of the players had inventory, but did have gold. This is fixed.
[1072] - If you are blocked BEFORE your turn, you will not summon monsters anymore (as per the rules)
[1185] - When you aim to sell items to a native group, you will no longer be charged a TRADE action if you press cancel before proceeding.
[1090] - Boots are checked after ALL items are sold as a group, not individually anymore
[1118] - Abandoned treasures are no longer face up
[1208] - Characters killed by another character's attack spell transfer inventory correctly now
[1162] - When you are teleported by WISH, your hirelings will remain behind, as they should.

Patch Coming

2007-12-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

At least one person has reported that there is a game killing bug in the last release. I'll get a patch up today, but in the meantime, please be entertained here.

Version 0.59 Released

2007-12-14T14:20:00.001-08:00

A bunch more fixes, and a number of improvements. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Character Builder
- [1190] - Edit Symbol (no longer "Load Symbol") now has an option for disabling the icon invert code for when the icon appears on solid black. This is good for color icons.
- [1183] - New File menu option to export character graphics alone
- [1198] - Fixed a problem with monster immunity to "Flying Demon" - should have been "Winged Demon". The Pilgrim will also behave now.
Season/Weather Notifications
- [1180] - Whenever the season or weather changes, you'll see a green notification bar appear on the map. It will vanish the first time you click on the map after its appearance.
- [1200] - Clicking on the map season icon will bring up a window that shows ALL the detail. Hovering the mouse over the icon shows a quick summary of the weather details.
[1099] - A new button on the inventory panel called "Distribute" will appear in development games. Allows you to share all your goods across all characters in the clearing for purposes of earning development stages. Great for solo games.

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem in the battle builder when you select the Witch as a character
[1179] - FLY chits can be fatigued now, when you are hit with Weather fatigue
[1189] - Flying companions can follow you when you FLY now.
[1187] - No more errors with Broomstick FLY chit
[1177] - END button works when the game finishes naturally
Clicking on EARNED cells in the victory panel table, shows the calculations now.
[1192] - Fixed a mouse error
[1191] - Split WIZARD optional abilities into two separate options in the setup dialog
[1193] - Phase chits and Boons can't be "dropped" anymore
[1194] - No longer allowed to trade Timeless Jewel when it is active. This should end the problem where RealmSpeak was allowing you to trade the TJ and continue with your turn.
[1203] - Can no longer rearrange or drop items when you are blocked.
[1202] - Curse and PoP, when cast by Imp/Demon, can be controlled with Magic Wand now, as well as any other die modifiers (ie., Lucky Charm)

Version 0.58 Released

2007-12-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

Not a lot "new" in this release. Mostly some necessary bug-fixes to get RealmSpeak back in line since the addition of custom characters. I'm going to start adding unit tests where I can, to prevent some bugs from recurring (something I should have been doing all along), so hopefully that will make RealmSpeak more reliable going forward.

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Character Builder Updates
- [1171] - Added spiders to the monster immunity page, and companion page
- [1170] - Choose between two classes (fighter and magicuser) for purposes of random selection in the chooser

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1157] - Fixed Map of Ruins treasure AGAIN - Added a unit test to this so it shouldn't break again
FLY chit bugs fixed:
- [1151] - FLY chits available only when you achieve the correct level
- [1154] - FLY chits are fatigued properly when running away
- [1153] - FLY chits are properly included in the effort calculation now
- [1169] - Running away with the flying carpet is working properly again now.
[1168] - Dwarf gets his 1 die roll in caves for HIRE and TRADE, as well as MEETING now
[1155] - Shielded Lantern is no longer restricted by the "Shield" Item Restriction custom ability
[1164] - DUCK and similar type chits are no longer included when determining how much your character can carry.
[1152] - When you try to activate a restricted item (per advantages), you'll now get a message telling you why you can't.
[1158] - Reset button works on luring page again.
[1160],[1165] - Problem with casting attack spells is fixed.
[1131] - Fixed a problem where interacting with your CACHE containing heavy items was testing your boots unnecessarily
[1149] - Fixed a problem that crashes RealmSpeak when you have a custom character in your "characters" folder, with a name that matches treasure locations (like "Statue")

Vizier

2007-11-21T20:45:00.001-08:00

I just played through a game with my custom Vizier character (modeled after the Vizier from the Aladdin stories).

I rather like the design. If you haven't seen him, he has an immunity to snakes, and starts the game with a Viper as a companion. His fight chits are particularly weak for his vulnerability of Medium (intentional), and he's not all that quick. He has four type VI chits, and one type IV chit. This means that he can fire off one type VI spell per turn, and rarely has a chance to do type IV spells without another source of purple magic. He is also unable to enchant tiles.

I thought that initially he would be fairly underpowered, but after playing a game, I find that his advantages are rather nice, if a bit weird. I did lose my Viper to a battle with a T Spider early on, but at least I managed to stay alive. With development rules turned on, I knew that by achieving a new advancement level, the Viper would regenerate (this is the only way for companions to regenerate), and so I aimed to survive long enough to achieve the needed VPs. Since I started at level 4, I knew this would take some doing, especially since losing my companion already put me 2 notoriety points in the hole.

I started the game with 2 spells: Transform, and Fiery Blast. Yeah, hopeful thinking. My first major encounter after losing my Viper was with the T Flying Demon. I hid, and thought it might be worth turning it into a frog and then killing it. Alas, I turned the Demon into a Lion, but thankfully I remained hidden, so the Lion didn't attack. Whew!

I snuck out of the clearing, so I could rest my chits, and the Flying Demon returned to the setup card, which cancelled the Transform spell. I'm not sure that's correct according to the rules (might be a bug) but that was good enough for me. I went back to the Shrine where the Demon had been, and looted it for all it was worth. I managed to pick up the Scroll of Alchemy, which was perfect for the Vizier with his type VI proficiency. I stood near the Chapel and read runes until I learned all the spells. Several curses, and Chapel cleansings later, I had them all: Unleash Power, World Fades, Phantasm, and Dissolve Spell. Not too shabby!

I decided at that point to move through the caves nearby, and see if there was much treasure on the other side. In the caves, I got pounced on by a pair of Trolls, but a quick Transform turned me into an Eagle, and I was able to fly away. Cool!

I came across the Small Campfire, and the Woodfolk were waiting for me there. I rested my type IV chit, and made more purple magic before moving into the evening. The Woodfolk decided to battle me, so I quickly turned into an Eagle, and somehow managed to kill the leader, before flying away. Sneaking back, and looting the clearing, I found one L Bow, M Bow, and both small treasures (Alchemists Mixture and some other potion... can't remember now). With the L Bow (couldn't really use the M Bow - not strong enough), I used ambush to slowly kill the remaining Woodsfolk. I finished cleaning up the clearing, and moved into the Cliff tile.

Whoa! The Lost Castle reveals itself, along with the Lair, Hoard, Pool, and Altar, as well as a tub-full of dragons. I wasn't able to do much but fly away as the Eagle , and land in a nearby woods tile, where the Vipers appeared. With the Vizier's immunity, the Vipers simply watched me rest my chits, and allowed me to move back towards the Cliff. At the site of the Woodsfolk slaughter, the Lancers had appeared (FRIENDLY), and the Vizier was finally able to unload some previous loot, and earn enough gold to hire the Lancers, AND achieve a new level (yay, my Viper friend is back!) With an army of Lancers, a Viper, and a well-oiled bow, I thought it was time to make work of the Dragons in the Cliff, and revel in my riches.

Without going into excruciating detail, I can tell you that we cleaned up a lot of dragons, but ultimately, a few crummy rolls left me in the grips of the T Flying Dragon, with not much else to do but die. It sucked, but the game was fun nonetheless. I considered reloading an earlier save, but I'm thinking I should probably quit for the night, and spend some time with the family downstairs. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and may your travels be safe!

Version 0.57 Released

2007-11-21T18:10:00.000-08:00

This release fixes most (all?) of the bugs related to custom advantages from the last release, and adds a whole bunch more new advantages. Also fixed a few bugs from the regular game. Not much else to say, except here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[977] - When playing a local game (non-network), the gold chit placement dialog will allow you to place all the chits at once, and will not cycle through characters unnecessarily.
New Custom Advantages
- Lock picking (open VAULT, CRYPT, or CHEST without keys)
- Different starting gold amount with an option for setting maximum recorded gold
- Item Restrictions (i.e., can specify that Suit of Armor cannot be worn)
- "Plus One" die mods (disadvantage)
- Start the game with a companion
  - Many monster types (not all)
  - Transform types (Lion, Eagle, Bird, Squirrel, Frog)
  - If you are doing development, you DO get the companion when you achieve the level
  - Companions regenerate when you advance a level (is this too powerful?)
- Rest counts double advantage (like Dwarf)
- Walk Woods ability on the 7th day of the week
- Monster Immunity - generalizes the concept of "Demon Immunity"
  - Demon Immunity is no longer available on the miscellaneous panel
  - You can specify any number of monsters, including those from Pruitt's expansion
  - Immunity means that the monster cannot attack you, cannot be lured, and cannot block you at any time.
- Natural armor - character has a natural armor like monsters
  - Dampens attack sharpness as if it hit armor
  - If real armor is hit, it does NOT dampen sharpness again (unless you are playing with penetrating armor rules)
  - Once sharpness is dampened by this armor, the full effect of the attack is taken (i.e., you don't simply get a single wound!)
- Not really an advantage, per se (it doesn't take up a slot), but you can create FLY chits among your regular character chits
  - FLY chits must have at least one effort asterisk to be valid.
  - FLY chits are fatigued when used, much like MAGIC chits - this is true for regular (daytime) movement, as well as combat maneuvering or running away. Yeah, flying is hard.
  - You only fatigue a FLY chit when you "take off", not for every tile moved.
  - If you "take off", land, and "take off" again, you will be fatiguing TWO FLY chits, if you have them.
  - Because of the changes in the FLY code, if you have other options (flying steed, flying carpet, flying spell, etc) you don't need to fatigue your FLY chits.
- Other special CHIT abilities:
  - BERSERK-like vulnerability adjustments
  - DUCK-like movement chits
  - DUCK-like fight chits
  - You get to give the chit its own "name" here, but MOVE, FIGHT, MAGIC, and FLY are reserved names. Otherwise, anything goes: take care not to make something toooo long. :-)
Character Builder
- New chit INVALID indicator when chits are not... well... valid!
  - MOVE chits with a strength less than your vulnerability are invalid
  - MAGIC or FLY chits without effort asterisks are invalid
- Added a new export function, so you can save an image of your character card without the picture
- Added a "Suggest" button to the description field of every advantage type, so you can get a default if you don't feel like writing it yourself.
- New "Edit Notes..." button allows you to add/edit notes for your character. This is a good place to keep track of character versions, or mention that you made changes to someone else's design.
Reworked flying logic
- if you have multiple flying possibilities, you get to pick which one you want to use
- if you will drop items by flying, you get a warning now BEFORE it happens

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem with giving weapons names with more than one word
[1119],[1124] - Fixed problems with custom characters using "optional" advantages:
- Druid Lull (no site chit summoning)
- Magician's MAGIC chits don't fatigue
- Wizard's ability to skip SPX phase
- Druid's immunity to curses
[1120],[1114],[1117] - Fixed an issue with MEETING die roll modifications (affected both Knights, and custom characters with the meeting table diemods)
[1125] - Custom Characters with more than one extra phase, will behave properly now
[1116] - Added the awakened spell count to the search buttons for Read Runes
Fixed a problem where some of the temp files were not getting deleted for the character builder
[1115] - Support for negligible weight weapons
[1123] - Characters that have the ability to start at the GHOSTS will not crash the game anymore
[1130] - A problem with custom weapons crashing the game during combat is fixed.
[1133] - Fixed a problem with how tweaked-imported characters were appearing in the character chooser
[1135] - Cannot inactivate enchanted items during combat anymore
[1141] - Fixed some minor annoyances in the character builder tool
[1144] - Fixed the log so it is clear that gold bounty is split across all simultaneous attackers
[1136] - A recurring problem with the three Map treasures is fixed.
[1122] - T chits without effort asterisks are no longer fatigued when opening the VAULT or CRYPT

Multi-player Games and Custom Characters

2007-11-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

Here is something to note, if you ever play a multiplayer game: each character has its own unique checksum, that is constructed from everything about them. If you so much as change the case of a letter in the name, the checksum is different. The only things that don't change the checksum, are the pictures.

When the host starts a new game, all the host's characters are preloaded, and the checksums are cached. Each player that joins is quickly compared against these checksums: if they are missing a character, or even have a modified version of one of the hosts characters (different checksum), they are informed, and then kicked off the server. All they need do at that point, is get a copy of all the hosts characters, and they'll be set to go. This guarantees that everyone is playing with the same starting crowd. Also, this gives the host some control over what characters can be played. The last thing a host wants, is some rogue player playing a demi-god character with all T1 chits, full armor, and a greatsword!!

I suppose I could have built in an automatic transfer mechanism, but I hesistate to do stuff like that without the computer owner's knowledge. It opens the doors for all kinds of problems: where do I put the transferred characters? do I overwrite existing characters? do I delete them when the game ends? etc. Its just as easy for the host to e-mail an archive of the character set they will be using for a particular game to all the players before-hand.

One more thing: though a joining player must have the same character set as the host, there's no problem if they have additional characters in their custom folder. They still can't use the additional characters in the online game, but at least they don't have to delete or move them to play.

Version 0.56.1 Released

2007-11-10T07:39:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the double-release. I just HAD to get the card exporter fixed, and the ACME gif exporter I was using was just driving me nuts (I've completely ripped this out, so the Acme license is no longer needed). Now I'm using PNG files internally, and the exporter creates a JPG file. Plus, you can import images from any of these formats: GIF, JPG, PNG. Both GIF and PNG support transparency, so either of those will work fine for your token/weapon icons.

Oh, and thanks to those of you who have already added ideas to the Wiki. Since a couple were so darned easy, I went ahead and added a few new advantages to the miscellaneous tab.

One final point to make: I plan to always keep the rschar files supported, regardless of which version they were created in. If I ever change the format, I WILL make a conversion tool, so you should never have to make them again from scratch. This release is no exception: if you made any characters with v0.56, they will continue to work with v0.56.1. :-)

Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

New Custom Advantages under Miscellaneous
- Enhanced Peer ability
- Remote Spell ability
- Timeless Jewel-like ability
More graphics file types supported: GIF, PNG, JPG
Character Card Exporter works (creates a JPG file)

Graphics Revelation

2007-11-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

I had a bit of a graphics revelation this morning. I didn't realize that Java has its own built-in support for exporting PNG files (which do support transparency, as it turns out). Since PNG files can be created without first indexing the image, I will be able to lift the restriction on GIF files for all images. I'm thinking about doing a sub-release this weekend (maybe in the next few minutes) that will enable GIF, JPG, and PNG as import graphics, and will get the image exporter working.

Version 0.56 Released

2007-11-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, I think I'm happy enough with the character builder now to do an initial release. Not a lot of new changes to RealmSpeak except for the addition of the custom character builder stuff.

Here's what you need to do to get started:

Download the latest version of RealmSpeak (version 0.56)
Unzip the archive in the usual place (your RealmSpeak folder)
Double-click on the launchCharacterBuilder.bat script (WinXP)
- Note: Another way to access the character builder, is to launch RealmSpeak the normal way, and then look in the HELP menu for the character builder.
Select a "New Character" from the FILE menu
Edit and save your character to the default "characters" folder.
Launch RealmSpeak, and you are ready to go!

NOTE: Make sure you allow custom characters by turning the option ON in the "Expanding the Realm" tab of the "Host New Game" dialog. If you don't, only the basic 16 will be available.

Editing a character is easy. Ignoring the graphics (I'll talk about that in a moment), you can copy a premade character in about 5 minutes. You might want to start by naming your character. Change the value in the Level 4 character text field (fourth panel down on the right) from "Untitled" to something of your choosing. Edit the other three level names if you like, or leave them as is.

Once you have a name, edit the chits. Simply click on a chit, and a little dialog will pop up to allow you to change the attributes.

Press DONE, and the attributes are applied. Curious to see how you are doing? Click on the "View Card" button anytime to get a rendered version of your character card.

Now you are going to want some special advantages. Typically, a character has two, and these are typically aligned with levels 2 and 4. You don't have to comply with this, but that's how it's usually done. To edit an advantage, press the respective "Edit" button, and an advantage dialog will appear. Initially, the dialog is empty, except for a couple of buttons on the bottom. Press "New" to start working on a new advantage.

A bunch of controls will pop up. Across the top are the details of the advantage, including name, description, and a badge icon (a default badge is provided). The bottom portion of this dialog has the mechanics that will tell RealmSpeak how the advantage works. To the left, you'll see a list of categories:

Die Modifiers - These are all the die roll modifications you'll ever want
Extra Actions - This allows you to specify ANY of the day actions as an EXTRA action
Color Source - This makes your character a color source (I know, this is odd, but there are some designs out there that will require this)
Tactics Change - This lets you design a Battle Bracelet/Elusive Cloak-like ability for your character
Miscellaneous - This is just about everything else. You'll find all the usual advantages here, plus a few extra.

Now I know what you're thinking: what if I can't find what I need? As you can imagine, without writing a script-engine for RealmSpeak, I can't anticipate everything you might want. The best I can offer is to try and compromise for the time being, and let me know what you are after. I'm thinking a Wiki page might be the way to go for requests of this nature, and I'll try to accomodate reasonable requests in a timely manner.

UPDATE: I just added a new page to the Wiki for this very purpose.

Okay, so back to the builder. You are done with your advantage, press "Done", and it is applied. Go back and press "Clear" if you want to remove an advantage.

Your character starts the game with a weapon? Easy: click on the "Edit" button in the weapon area (one per level), and the weapon dialog appears.

Here you'll see another blank page with a number of buttons across the bottom. Click "Pick" to select a weapon from the standard Magic Realm set - OR - press "New" if you want to make your own. Note: If you decide to make your own, make sure the name is unique, or the builder will force you to use the in-game weapon of the same name (i.e., it wont let you make a different kind of weapon named "Spear") The weapon editor allows you to select the attributes, and even select a new icon. This part is actually quite fun - take a look at the scimitar and shuriken weapons I created for my two custom characters I'm releasing shortly.

UPDATE: I just added a new page for hosting custom characters. You'll find the two I made there, and hopefully I'll be hosting more from other people in the near future.

Finally, modify the other features of your character: relationships (click directly on the table to change), starting locations, vulnerability, armor, gender, etc. When you are content, save your character to the "characters" folder. You'll end up with a single rschar file that you can use to play with immediate, or share with your friends.

Okay, so I promised I would talk about graphics. I made the builder with the idea in mind that you would be able to custom design your own symbol, weapon icon, badge icons, and even card picture for your character. It does this, but there are a couple of things you need to know about before you dive in.

First and foremost, the builder will only read GIF files. I hear some of you sighing already, but this is a restriction only because of the library I'm using to export GIF files. Actually, there's another reason. Java itself can read JPG, GIF, PNG, and a few others, but GIF is the only one that I know for sure can have transparency, and this is very important. Without transparency, the symbols wouldn't lay over the top of the rendered chit the way they do in game. I know that JPG does NOT support transparency (please correct me if I'm wrong here), and though PNG does, I don't have an exporter for it. If anyone wants to give me some advice here, I'm all ears. I would love to allow any type of image file in this builder. It would sure make life easier! :-)

I do have some size recommendations. If you look in the HELP menu of the builder, you'll see what I suggest. Go ahead and experiment outside of those ranges, but I think you'll find that what I suggest works best. The picture you use for your characters has the most leeway, because the builder actually resizes it for you. Of course, you may not WANT it resized, so just keep that in mind when picking your picture.

My last point about graphics, is simply to give you a couple of links to free tools that I use:

GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program - This little guy will open ANY image format, and will save ANY image format.
IrfanView - A graphics viewer as well as converter (useful if you need to convert a JPG to a GIF, and don't want to mess around in GIMP)
Symbols.com - A good place to look up symbols that might be useful to use as your token.

Of course, if you already have access to some version of Photoshop, that will work too! :-)

Okay, here's a complete list of what's new in this release:

NEW FEATURES:

New Custom Character Support
- Launch the character builder two ways:
  - LaunchCharacterBuilder.bat (provided)
  - Run RealmSpeak, and then look under the HELP menu
- Design new characters from scratch, with full control over every aspect:
  - Names
  - Chits
  - Starting inventory (you can create your own weapons, or use the standard ones)
  - Relationships
  - Special Advantages (lots of options here)
  - Icons (token graphics, as well as individual badge icons and even weapons!)
  - Picture
- Import one of the original 16 characters, and modify at will
- Characters are saved as a single rschar file, which can be transferred easily from machine to machine
- Simply drop the the character files into a "characters" folder (same level as "images" folder), and the characters are ready to go
- Online play IS supported (Every player must have the same set of custom characters as the host, or they will not be able to join)
- Fully formatted character cards can be generated as a gif at a click of a button, so these characters can be used in F2F or PBEM games too!
  - Uses the ACME Gif encoder: http://www.acme.com/license.html

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1081] - Changed the wording on the "Exclude Starting Worth" description
Fixed a couple more windows that were getting stuck behind the main frame:
- Treasure Setup Card View
- Combat Frame
[1103] - Fixed a problem with fetching the Hall of Fame on Linux systems
[1109] - Mission reward calculation displayed properly now
[1100] - Added clearing number to Treasure Location chits in notebook view
[1092] - Ointment of Bite, Oil of Poison, and Penetrating Grease will now all apply to your dagger in the absence of an alerted weapon
[1083] - Dark Forest Hidden Paths on discoveries panel, will show the clearing plus the edge direction, so you can tell which is which now.
[1088] - Belt of Strength and Unleash Power place nicely together now
[1069] - Concurrent mod error fixed.
[1082] - Fixed wording of the VP Assignment option
Fixed a game hang when a hired leader is killed (rare)

Custom Character Builder Coming Soon!

2007-11-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

If you've been watching the bug database, you've probably noticed that I've not been touching too many bugs lately. The reason for this, is that I've been working on a new tool for building new characters for RealmSpeak. The tool will let you customize everything: names, chits, relationships, starting dwellings, armor, etc. It will even let you create a weapon unique to your character (a shuriken for a Ninja, for example). It even has a fairly complex tool for adding special advantages to your character.

When you are done, you save an rschar file, and when version 0.56 of RealmSpeak is released, all you do is drop this file into a folder called "custom", and you are off and running. The character will be available in the chooser, and everything about it (weapon, advantages, etc) will be ready to go! Pretty cool, eh?

Check this out: the builder will even let you choose a picture for your character, and then generate a character card. Here is one I generated for my Dark Elf character:

That's how it comes out - no tweaking in photoshop or anything. The picture that you select is even automatically cropped into the typical oval. Pretty sweet!

Anyway, I should have this thing wrapped up in a week or two, and then you guys can go nuts making characters. I'll probably provide a few of my own on my website, and then add to it when people send me their own.

UPDATE - Here's a couple more, just for fun:

UPDATE 2 - I realized I should probably give you screenshot of the builder, so you can see what it looks like. Here ya go:

Shortest. Game. Ever.

2007-10-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

I started off as a Wraith (Witch-King level 1). I took TRANSFORM as my spell, and energized my sole IV chit into PURPLE magic. I figured that along with the VI, I could at the very least, cast this spell on myself, and hope for something good.

I moved one clearing away into the neighboring tile, and failed both of my HIDEs. I got immediately jumped on by two Heavy Flying Dragons. Since casting transform on only one of the dragons would do me no good, I cast it on myself (c'mon Lion or Eagle!!). I turned myself into a frog and was killed in the first round.

Game over.

Version 0.55 Released

2007-10-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

Not a ton of stuff here, but enough to make it worth the download, I think. The TRADE bug is worth it alone, because I know this has caused more than one person grief.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[1013] - Added three layout options to the Window menu, including one that will automatically make your map as big as possible. All three have keyboard shortcuts.
Implemented new random number logic:
- When you load a game, RealmSpeak will restore the random number generator to the state it was when you saved the game.
- If you do the same actions during the day after a save, the same die rolls will occur
- No more cheating when you fail that HIDE roll, and reload the game (though I can't stop you from changing your turn around, or adding more HIDE phases!)
- Here's the best part: when your game crashes right after something amazing happens (roll snake eyes at a treasure site with 1 item), you don't lose the roll, assuming you repeat the same actions!

BUGS/ISSUES:

[1056] - Fixed a bug that freezes the game when a previously controlled bat returns to the setup card
[1058],[1060] - Fixed a bug in the TRADE action that freezes the game when you have an item in your inventory worth exactly zero for a particular native group.
[1054] - Fixed a bug that was failing to draw the blue X on the pony icon for hired leaders.
[1050] - Moving out of Toadstool Circle after using SP phase no longer charges you phases retroactively
[1077] - Fixed map season icon, so it doesn't occlude chit view.
Development-specific Bugs
- [1062] - Fixed a bug that was wiping out your relationships before doing the addition at 3rd level.
- [1067] - Knights adjustment optional rule applies to development characters now.
- [1078] - Newly gained chits are shown immediately in the chit panel now.
- [1055] - Gaining new chits while WITHERed will update the chits to fatigue appropriately now.
- [1057] - Gaining new chits with chit effect (like Belt of Strength) in effect is updated appropriately now.
- Added a new option to allow you to ignore your starting worth for purposes of advancement
- Added a new option to allow you to gain your normal relationships at 3rd level (note: this was the default in the previous version, but now you need to turn the option on to get it)

Version 0.54 Released

2007-10-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Attention! This release requires the new resource pack version 0.54.

It's been a long time coming. From day 1, character development has been in RealmSpeak in some form or another. If you've played RealmSpeak at all, you've seen the grayed out radio buttons in the character chooser that indicate selection of other levels. That's because I designed the character data structure to handle development from the start. I realized, however, that there was not much point to development, until the game had matured to a point where it would really matter.

When you start a new game, look under the "Expanding the Realm" tab, and turn on "Development". This will open this ruleset, and allow you to play a real development game. If you are so inclined, turn on "Extended Development", and you will be able to progress onto the higher levels.

One thing that I implemented here that turned out to be pretty cool, is the concept of "Advantage Badges". These badges represent the advantages that your characters get, and act as a visual cue to what you can do. This is important when you are dealing with sub-level characters, and gives you the feeling of leveling up when you earn new badges.

When you get your first look at these things, be kind: I drew all of them by hand. That said, I'm open for improvement in this arena, and will glady entertain any graphics replacements for those I created. Keep in mind, however, I get to be the final judge, and wont promise that any image submissions will be used. If you do want to send one, they must be 32 x 32 pixels, and I would ask that they be GIF (but I can always convert them if need be).

What's not here? I made no attempt to deal with the rules that END a game when you achieve your VPs. No rewards beyond aquiring VPs is built in. For the most part, you are going to want a double-board, and multi-month game to make playing development worth your while. There's also no way to preserve a character from game to game. I imagine that will come someday, but its not there now.

One reason I'm hesitant to release this version, is that I'm sure that the way I've implemented the development rules is going to differ from how some of you are used to. For the most part, it follows the design in the 3rd-edition rules. There's also likely to be a few bugs in the implementation, though I can tell you that I've been playtesting this thing all week, and its pretty solid.

A fairly minor feature that I added is worth mentioning. When I first added seasons/weather, I put an icon on the main character frame, and though it took a lot of space, it looked rather nice. When I collapsed a lot of the functionality onto the character list window, the visibility of this icon went away, hidden in the calendar window. As one playtester pointed out, having the icon clearly visible added a sense of season to the play, and now that its gone, you lose that aspect of it. Well, I decided to add the icon back, but in a different place. Look in the options menu under Map Options, and you'll see a "Show Season Icon" option. Turn this on, and an icon will appear on your map display:

It shows the season, as well as the weather. If you are playing with seasons turned off, then the icon will not harass you.

Well, I can blather on about every detail, or you can just read what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[604] - Character Development
- You can select a character at less than level 4 ability
  - Fewer chits
  - Fewer spells
  - Fewer VPs
  - Possibily different starting inventory (or none at all!)
  - Different relationships
  - Fewer character advantages
- Chits are gained with earned VPs
  - If VP assignment is turned off, then VPs earned in any category are credited, otherwise only those assigned categories count, and then only as much as you've assigned!
  - Look on victory point tab to see where you stand, as far as earned VPs, and how many you need to achieve the next chit or level.
  - Development progress bar on main character window gives you an indication of where you are, in terms of points, chits, and levels.
- New levels bring new advantages (based on 3rd edition rules)
  - 1st advantage at 2nd level, 2nd advantage at 4th
  - Gaining optional advantages is varied (see 3rd ed rules)
  - Relationships are gained at 3rd edition: these are additive, so that if you are using grudges/gratitudes, your existing relationships still modify the ones you are getting.
- Advantages are represented by a "Badge", shown now above the color magic/curses panel
  - Hover mouse over badge to see text
  - Badges appear as you get them (if using development)
  - Witch's Familiar badge can be clicked on to enable/disable the familiar (this replaces the ugly Familiar button added in v0.52)
- Extended Development (if you turn the option on) allows development past 4th, with appropriate bonuses:
  - Level 5 = 15 gold
  - Level 6 = Random treasure from any native group
  - Level 7 = 10 Notoriety and 5 Fame
  - Level 8 = Take one horse from any native group
  - Level 9 = Get one BONUS phase every day
  - Level 10 = Get one weapon/armor counter from any native group *OR* record a new spell
  - Level 11 = Tagged as "Immortal", and no further advancement occurs
[975] - Right-clicking a clearing on the map, and choosing "Show Clearing Details" will give you lots of information about the contents of the clearing.
Added a new option to show the current season/weather icon on the map
[987] - New folders for handling seasonal tile graphics. If you are interested in working on new tile graphics, please contact me, and I'll give you more details.
[1004] - Character vulnerability is printed on the combat sheet

BUGS/ISSUES:

Some Pruitt Monster attributes fixed:
- [1007] - Tomb Guard F/N is only 6 (not 9)
[1024] - Fixed a problem with Great/Light Elf not working.
[1022] - Trouble result on Commerce Neutral, will correctly roll on Unfriendly column (not Enemy column!)
[1017] - Fixed a bug that prevents hirelings from fighting back, when assigned randomly with Watchful Native rules turned on.
[1016] - Restored behavior of Map of Ruins in tiles with Ruins M or Ruins C chits
[1020] - Hired Leaders or Controlled Monsters that become unhired (expired term) will "drop" any hireling followers in the clearing.
[1026] - Following characters are no longer immune to the effects of frigid weather.
[1030] - Fixed a harmless bug generated after you leave the board.
[1031] - When you absorb a monster with a weapon/head, you can choose which side to play the weapon/head during combat.
Fixed a problem when LOTS of monsters are summoned at once, and you get a really tall narrow window that you can't close.
[1019] - Fixed an inventory validation problem when you have a pack horse.
[1032] - Tristar enchanted side cave clearings will behave like cave clearings now.
[1018] - Fixed a problem that occurs if you are using the Timeless Jewel, and running RealmSpeak with Java 1.6
[1038] - Problem with controlling a Wyrm (or any Pruitt Monster)
[1036] - Cannot play color chits while between clearings or between tiles anymore
[1040] - Fixed a problem that made it impossible to change tactics with Battle Bracelets or Elusive Cloak when you play a double-asterisk chit
[1041] - Combat will no longer pause on tactics phase when active character wearing Elusive Cloak is not in the clearing
[1042] - For purposes of weather fatigue, being between cave or mountain clearings, is the same as being in a cave or mountain, respectively.

The Guardian

2007-10-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'm currently playtesting a version of RealmSpeak that has character development in it, and I have to share this game. Check it out:

---------------------

For years, Tello wanted to be an adventurer, but his faith kept him tied down to his small town, just east of the area known as the Magic Realm. As long as he remained here, he would always just be an Acolyte (Pilgrim, level 1). Though his parents were very proud of his successes with the church, it was never enough to make him happy. That is why he decided to go west.

He knew, as he approached the famed Inn, that he would have to hire help, if he were to survive more than a day. Patting the 10 gold pieces he had in a pouch on his belt, and saying a short prayer, he was confident he would be able to get a swordsman to guide him through the Realm, and reap the rewards that await.

On entering the Inn, however, Tello's confidence waned very quickly. The rough, perhaps even evil, men he saw there were not those that he wanted to have at his side. More than likely, he thought, they would be the first to stab him in the back, and rob him of whatever gold he had. Several Rogues looked at the timid boy standing at the door, and made crude comments about his parentage. Tello turned and walked out without saying a word.

Frustrated at being unable to locate any allies at the Inn, Tello decides to head out on his own. One Rogue, standing on the porch next to a large axe, laughs at his stupidity, knowing that he is certainly going to his death.

The Acolyte, green as the grass he tramples, and perhaps blind as the rocks around him, enters the Deep Woods, a place he has never gone before. The trees close in around him quickly, and the sound of a distant roar sends the poor boy into shivers, and rapidly muttered prayers to the all-god. Coming across the bones of some poor adventurer nearly sends him running back to the Inn, but the face of the laughing Rogue keeps him stalwartly proceeding forward.

After a couple of days of careful movement through the woods, the boy notices a change in the trees around him. The stink of smoke reminds him of an encampment he had heard about somewhere in the Nut Woods, and gives him confidence that he had made it through the Deep Woods. Knowing that the natives may be more of a threat than any monster he may encounter, he decides to turn quickly south, towards the large mountain known only as the Crag.

Creeping into the mountain, the boy knows that he must be very very careful. Reports of a large flying dragon around this area may be myth, but he is not taking any chances. As he finishes a difficult climb, and moves into a large clearing, he realizes he is not alone. With a dodge and a roll, the boy avoids the killing blow of a Heavy Spider, and somehow manages to plant his small ceremonial dagger into one of the large eyes of the overgrown horror (I rolled snake eyes on the fumble!!) Tello manages to pry himself out from under the corpse of the spider, and after another quick prayer, moves on.

The next clearing opens up onto a large cluster of boulders, as big as the Inn, covered in what could only be scratches. Tello shivers to think what may live here, but decides to stick around and search. After a full day, Tello learns who's home he has invaded: the Flying Dragon is no myth, and comes home to roost with some sort of cattle in its claws. Thinking quickly, Tello covers himself in the strange mud (which he knows now is dragon doo), and hides under a rock outcropping. The dragon appears disturbed, but never locates the boy.

Days of frantic searching go by, with no success for Tello, and he begins to think he was in fact killed by the spider, and now wandering aimlessly in purgatory. Then he sees it: a curiously round boulder blocking an opening in a cluster of rocks, apparently placed there by something other than random chance. There is enough room around the side of the boulder for Tello to move, and he discovers the treasure site known as the Hoard!

The first item that Tello finds, is a strange magical belt that grants him strength like he's never known before. With this newfound strength, he is able to work quickly to search the Hoard even further: the Lucky Charm, the Poultice of Health, and then... the Sacred Grail. Tello cannot believe his eyes, but there it sits, casting the entire area in gleaming WHITE magic.

Grabbing the loot, knowing that a Flying Dragon, and strangely, two Giants are prowling outside, Tello is able to sneak away from the Hoard, and move back down to the Nut Woods. After a quick conversation with a local native, Tello learns of a path to the Chapel, where he knows the Grail will be welcomed.

The Realm remains mostly quiet during his trek to the Chapel: Curst Valley, Linden Woods, Cliff (where he has a close encounter with a Demon guarding the Altar), the Borderland and finally the Chapel in the Dark Valley. At first, the Knights question the boy strolling out of the Borderland, but when he tells them of the Grail, they drop to their knees in reverence to God, and quickly bring the boy in for a hot meal.

The Order, as it turns out, was very much looking for this Grail, and rewarded Tello with a Warhorse, and a Greatsword (actually, I sold the grail and some stuff, and then bought these items). The Order also named Tello, formal Guardian of the Chapel, and said he was welcome anytime he returned.

---------------------

This is where the month ended. I'm going to continue this campaign later (gotta go eat dinner), but so far so good. I'm amazed I survived as long as I did, but now I've got a pretty brutal weapon, and a FIGHT T2** chit to boot! (Belt of Strength). Oh, and because I went up a level, I'm now immune to Demons... I'm thinking the Altar is my next target. Wheeeee!

Version 0.53 Released

2007-09-30T17:46:00.001-07:00

Hoo boy. Some interesting new features here, and a couple of necessary bug fixes. It appears that my quick patch didn't really solve the ALERT phase issue discovered in version 0.52, but rather made it a bit weird. That's what I get for doing a "quick fix", and releasing a patch. I can assure you that the bug is fixed in this version, so those of you frustrated with the inability to ALERT your weapons, will find that this is back to normal.

The biggest new feature here, is what I'm calling a "Comprehensive VP Page". If you have ever flipped over to the victory point tab on your character frame, you've seen the bland table that's been there forever. A number of rows and columns, with not so much as a single tooltip or hint to let you know what is going on. I've never liked this interface, because it always leaves people questioning whether or not I'm doing the calculations right.

No more. The new table has more columns, and more breakdown of the numbers that go together to make up your score, as well as colored sections to keep related info together. The best part, is that you can click on any cell in this table, and get a quick picture of how the number is derived, right down to the details of individual treasures you've acquired during the game:

The cell of interest is always bordered in blue, and if other cells are involved in the calculation, you'll see them bordered in green. Having never been a fan of the whole VP endgame built into Magic Realm, this interface actually makes it a bit more interesting. It helps you make decisions about which items you should keep, and which you should sell, and keeps you attuned to the bizarre logic from which your score is derived.

There's another feature I added, that has been requested multiple times. The reason I've put it off for so long, is that I thought it would be an annoying and useless feature. Turns out, after adding it in, I discovered that I rather like it. Take a look in the options menu under "Popup Window Options", and you'll find an option for "Turn End Results". Turn this on, and a window will popup at the end of your turn to let you know which monsters were summoned to your tile. Of course, if there are no monsters summoned, no pop up will show. Try it out!

Ok, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

New comprehensive Victory Point page
- More columns break down the points to more detail
- Every cell can be highlighted for more information:
  - Calculation of cell broken down into an equation
  - All treasures that make up the highlighted score are shown
[989] - Gold Chit dialog now has a "Place Random" button that will place a random chit in a random box, if you don't want to pick one yourself.
[1002],[234] - Option to show turn end results. Right now, all this does is show you which monsters are summoned to the tile (if any).
[991] - A tweak to the map mouse clicking logic that should yield more reliable map clicks (important when you are plotting your moves)

BUGS/ISSUES:

[978] - Enchanted Cards in a cache will show face up now
[982] - Fixed a harmless error that is generated when dropping items while using the Timeless Jewel.
Some Pruitt Monster attributes fixed:
- [983] - Fire Drake head has length 14, not 7
- [984] - Frost Giant RED-side: move speed 5, not 4
- [985] - Cockatrice length is 3, not 0
[981] - Fixed an error that crashes the game when you have an encumbered follower.
[992] - Fixed a problem where if you start placing gold chits, and then let the computer finish them off, you can end up with multiple chits being placed per box.
[1008] - Fixed a bug that would raise an error when you have the ASHES curse, and you are selling items to natives that offer/demand gold with a negative penalty (ie., OFFER GOLD -5)
[980] - Treasure Site Cards will remain visible on the setup card.
[1001] - Truly fixed ALERT phase bug - this will work correctly in ALL characters now.
[996] - Hired tremendous monsters, when using the remodeled chits option, cannot be flipped during combat anymore.
[1000] - When running away, after enchanting the Deep Woods and losing the path, you no longer get a free round of combat.
[974] - Native relationship shown when "Buy Drinks?" dialog is displayed.
[993] - All Hire/Trade windows (including those when you don't have enough gold) show the offer (ie., Offer - Price x 3)

Version 0.52.1 Released

2007-09-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, I had to release a patched version because of a nasty bug that was preventing the ALERT phase from working! If you already downloaded version 0.52, you're going to want to download version 0.52.1, which is online now. You might have to hit "refresh" in your browser when you go to the download page to see it.

Here's what I changed:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[971] - Fixed ALERT phase (broke this in 0.52)
[973] - Fixed a harmless error related to cancelling placement of gold chits

Version 0.52 Released

2007-09-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

Every few months or so, I get a new RealmSpeak user that decides to hit the game really hard, and report bugs. I love this, because it's always good to get new eyes on the program, and get a new perspective on the interface. It's also a chance to get someone's honest first impression, which in turn gives me a chance to improve the interface.

Recently, I got a new user (alias Yxklyx) that took this to a whole new level. He began discovering little nits here and there, and decided to report every thing he found that was either wrong, or difficult to use. A large part of his bug reports were simply "It would be cool if" types of requests, and I decided to implement a bunch of them. He also found some pretty gnarly bugs that have gone unnoticed for some time. Did you know that with version 0.51, that if you are between clearings, you can move to any clearing on the board? :-) Of course, this kind of reporting is what keeps RealmSpeak on track to becoming bug-free, and user-friendly.

Yxklyx joins the top ten RealmSpeak reporters of all time:

vincegamer - 178 Reports
dwfiv - 152 Reports
dewkid - 135 Reports
Yxklyx - 52 Reports
srschacher - 37 Reports
gambulator - 36 Reports
mcknight - 35 Reports
Netzilla - 21 Reports
Brightstar - 20 Reports
ahiggins - 17 Reports

Of course, bug reporting isn't just about the number of reports. Quite often I'll get somebody who reports a couple of bugs/ideas, and really makes a big difference. Thanks!!

Lots of neat interface enhancements in this one. One of my favorites so far, is the character notebook (a Yxklyx idea). You'll see a new tab on the character frame:

Anytime you discover clues (Peer), learn something from magic sight, or see what the natives have to trade, it will be added to this window. You can even manage your own custom notes!

I redid the spell selector window for spellcasters, so that you can manage your color chits and spell selections at the same time. I know, I know, that just makes too much sense. Heck, you can even see how many slots you have to fill!

One piece that was sorely lacking, was the code that allowed you to place visitor/mission/campaign chits. You know, that clunky thing that forced you to step through three windows, with not even a wink or a smile. Thanks to Yxklyx and vincegamer's suggestions, I compiled the code into a single dialog that has a complete library of information at your fingertips for making the tough decision as to what goes where.

The last new interface improvement I want to point out (you can see all the new changes listed below), is the addition of "Castable Spells" above the character icon in the battle windows. This gives spellcasters a quick look at what they can do, and acts as a reminder to cast spells in the evening.

Ok, it's late and my daughter has an early soccer game tomorrow. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

A bunch of interface improvements:
- [932] - Treasure Locations show clearing number on Discoveries Tab
- [927] - Prowling row(s) highlighted on setup card.
- [930],[942] - Choosing spells and starting chit enchantments now occur at the same time.
- [933] - Treasure backs on Setup Card show Large/Small, and Spell backs show type.
- [926] - New option in the options menu, to allow you to visualize clearing numbers on mouseover. This can be very handy when a lot of clearings are covered by chits!
- [949] - Display game phase (BIRDSONG,DAYLIGHT,EVENING,MIDNIGHT) in the title bar of each character window.
- [949] - Added current season/weather to title bar on game map window
- [951] - Added a submenu to the View menu for viewing all 16 of the character cards.
- [954] - Added some more information to the TRADE PAYMENT window, so you can see the current relationship, and roll result.
- [956] - Character Spy window (the one you get when you double-click a character row in the upper left window) includes following hirelings, and active curses
- [941] - All castable spells are visible on the spellcasters combat sheet during combat (but only for the owning player!)
- [935] - You can drop active inventory now (no need to deactivate first), unless of course the item cannot be deactivated (ie., potions)
- [934] - Fame/Notoriety value of inventory has been added to the detail view.
- [957] - You can view the price lists from the VIEW menu now.
- [879],[931],[937] - Character notebook tracks information you learn throughout the game:
  - Clues (local or remote)
  - Perceive Spell
  - "I Wish for a Vision"
  - Native & Visitor Treasures/Spells
  - Custom notes can be added to your notebook by clicking a button
- [962] - The Witch has a new button that will enable her to turn her familiar ON or OFF. This is useful in long games, where the familiar becomes fairly useless.
- [928] - Right-clicking on the treasure setup card will enable you to view the back sides of all the counters
- Horses, Clubs, and Dragon Heads (if any) are now shown in the popup window on the treasure setup card.
- [929] - Revamped the gold chit (mission/campaign/visitor) placement dialog to include lots of relevant information
  - Relationships for visitors
  - Relationships for natives in the respective boxes
  - Mission/Campaign stats are shown
  - Visitor's stores (treasures, spell types) are shown
  - Types of spells (if any) that your character can learn
  - Chits that have already been placed
[692] - By clicking the pony icon in the phase window, you can now lock the pony extra move, and use regular moves. This will enable non-pony-mounted followers to stay with you as their guide. Pony-locked moves are represented by "M!" instead of "M".

BUGS/ISSUES:

[917] - Monster die is red again
[925] - Casting a spell while hidden, no longer causes your hidden hirelings to be unhidden.
[913] - Fixed a problem where the Swordsman was not getting one die on rolls on the Commerce table.
[921] - Fixed the Warlock's special pricing to comply with 3rd edition rules, which really is a reflection of 2nd edition rules + The General's Errata.
[918] - Fixed the representation of ownership on Native Horses from extra boards.
[920] - Option to abandon Dragon Essence (and other enchanted treasures) before energizing permanent spells.
[902] - Boons taken by hiring are now treated the same as those taken by buying goods.
[899],[924] - Fixed a bug that would crash the game on loading a save game where a player is between tiles. Fix should also address other issues where RealmSpeak is trying to determine the location of a clearing before the map has been drawn for the first time.
[915] - Fixed a bug that would crash a multi-player game, when more than one player is in a dwelling at the same time, and needs to buy drinks. I think this same bug is responsible for other in-combat crashes, so I believe you will find it to be a lot more stable.
[908] - No longer able to make a controlled T Monster RED-side-up by simply flipping it in the Luring stage.
[869] - When all hirelings are held by Red-side-up monsters at once, and the character is absent/hidden, random assignment no longer locks up the game.
[960] - Balrog (Pruitt's Monster Set) is now armored, as it should be.
[914] - ALERT phase can be used to turn weapon counter EITHER-side up.
[954] - No longer able to close BUY window by pressing the RED-X (close button). This complies with 3rd ed rule 7.6.5.
[963] - Fixed a game crash that would occur when a hired leader or controlled monster created a new CACHE.
[959] - Fixed a problem with how the third H Spider returns to the setup card in the Pruitt's monster option. Also fixed a similar problem with the Minotaurs.
[947] - Getting blocked during the day no longer affects whether you can do day-end trades, or not.
[964] - Map of Lost Ruins, and Map of Lost Castle no longer tied to specific board in a multi-board game (I could have sworn that was in the rules, but alas it is not!)
[966] - Frigid Air will no longer cause fatigue when you cancel an action.
[953] - Trade window shouldn't hide behind the main frame anymore.
Fixed a problem in the battle builder, where characters were not getting the default starting native relationships.
[935] - Enchanted cards are always active inventory now.
[922] - Transforming into a Mist will prevent your own underlings from following now (they are left in the last clearing where you were solid).
[965] - Enchanted cards acquired from Remains of Thief will properly radiate magic.
[874] - Flying away from combat properly drops horses, if applicable.
[944] - Underlings are left behind when flying, if applicable.
[903] - Hired Leaders no longer keep the FAME for themselves when selling items with a FAME value.
[943] - Controlled Monsters will drop all inventory in the clearing when the spell ends, instead of moving it to the SETUP card.
[901] - Campaign/Mission Chits can no longer be sold.
[895] - Enchanted cards will now remain face up on the treasure setup card.
[418] - Spellcasters limited to a maximum of 14 spells at any time. Added an option in the house rules tab, to disable this limit.
[872] - When casting POP as a Demon, you now appropriately get credit for multiple kills with Terror result.
[968] - Orc Archers will properly use the MISSILE table now.
[955] - You can enter the mountains in Easter with a Pony now, when you only have 2 phases.
[970] - Can no longer move from between clearings to any clearing on the map (ouch!)
[722],[969] - Fixed a serious bug that crashes the game if you end up between tiles after flying away, and then stay there for a day (intentionally or unintentionally)

Version 0.51 Released

2007-09-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm slowly recovering from my hard drive loss, so I don't really have much to say about this release. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[896] - Added the clearing color magic to the mouseover display
[883] - A new option in the option menu allows you to display monster numbers on the monster chits, where there is more than one kind of monster. This is helpful (for example) when you need to identify which Bat is which.

BUGS/ISSUES:

[877] - Expansion tile Lake is properly distinguished from Ledges now.
[892] - Woodsgirl no longer gains ONE DIE advantage when in a clearing with her own cache.
[878] - Accidentally allowing characters to choose Visitor/Mission chits, and then changing your mind, will no longer leave the Choose button active.
Fixed a couple of problems with the Pruitt's Monsters option:
- [873] - Game crashes when also using the expansion tiles
- [898] - Game crashes when starting the Witch King with the ghosts
[887] - Denizens returning to the setup card will correctly have all bewitching spells canceled
[897] - Mandatory "Gold" special action buttons (Assign VPs, Energize Spell, etc.) have been fixed.
[885] - Using Power Gauntlets with Battle Bracelets no longer prevents changing your attack.
[888] - Moved "Unassigned Hirelings" warning to the SEND button, so it doesn't harass Timeless Jewel users.
[871] - Fixed a problem where RealmSpeak wouldn't allow you to pick up FOOD/ALE if your FAME was negative, even though FOOD/ALE only charges Notoriety.
[886] - Inert spells (ie., Transform) that are nullified by Melt-into-Mist, will no longer energize when Melt-into-Mist goes Inert.
[884] - The T Dragon from the Transform spell is now armored, as it should be.
[876] - World Fades no longer allows you to hide during combat, when you also have the SQUEAK curse.

Fried Computer

2007-08-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, my wife turned on my computer, and after running for about 10 minutes, it shut itself down, along with a slight electrical smell. Not good. I asked her to unplug it, and it was a good thing: the plug was really hot, and might have even caused a fire if left alone.

Since I purchased the computer from one of those computer building shops, and I had a 5-year labor warranty on it (at least that's what I thought before they charged me $110 for labor - still not convinced I didn't just get robbed), I decided to let them replace the power supply, and get this thing back up and running. At least that's all I figured it would need.

As it turns out, not only did the power supply burn up, it took the motherboard, and my primary hard drive with it. According to the guys that fixed the computer, the hard drive spins, but just isn't recognized as a peripheral by the computer BIOS, so there's no way to get at the data. No cheap way, that is.

The good news, is that I ALWAYS make a backup of my code, and carry it around on a USB stick, and occasionally (2-3 months) make a backup of my repository to a CD. Though my last backup of the code repository is way back in May, I have the most current code safe and sound in three different places now (I made a bunch of copies after the incident). I'll lose a bunch of "checkin" history, but the end result is safe, and that's good enough for me.

I did lose a number of other things: a couple months worth of digital pictures, documents, a number of e-books, and who knows what else. I guess I'll just have to say goodbye to those things. I am considering buying a SATA external drive enclosure, and see if I can get at the data at all, but I'm not really holding up much hope for that.

Did I learn any lessons? Despite never having lost a hard drive in my 25+ years of computing, it can still happen, and there is no excuse for not having a good backup strategy. Granted, it could have been worse (I would have cried for weeks, if anything happened to RealmSpeak), but it could have been better.

I'm looking into some real backup software for the first time in about 5 years, because my strategy of "oh, I guess I'll burn some files to a CD now cuz it would suck to lose them" just isn't sufficient. A friend of mine recommended Dantz Retrospect, but if any of you PC users out there have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

I do have a new version of RealmSpeak nearly ready, so I may get that online pretty soon. It really depends on how long it takes me to get the fixed computer back up to a point where I'm able to build and upload the software. Of course, when that happens, you'll see it here first!

Backtranslating RealmSpeak

2007-08-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

A couple of months back, I got an e-mail from a RealmSpeak user (Jorge) who was stuck using a Mac with an old version of OS-X. Apparently this version (10.3) did not support Java 1.5, and so he was unable play the latest version of RealmSpeak. He suggested to me that I look into an open source project called Retrotranslator, that allows you to take a Java 1.5 compiled project, and backtranslate it to Java 1.4, without doing any coding. I tried it, and it actually works!

If any of you are in the same boat as my friend Jorge, then I recommend you look at the new RealmSpeak Tools Page (someday I hope to add more here). There you'll find a link to a page that gives you instructions on how to process the latest RealmSpeak.jar into Java 1.4 compliant code. Though I strongly recommend you use the latest Java available, this will get you going if you can't.

Some of you will ask: "Why don't you simply provide both versions?" The primary reason, is that the need is going to be fairly low, and I really don't have any interest in maintaining two files instead of one. However, if you are one of the people that need the conversion, it will be as simple as running a translation script.

Hope this helps!

On Vacation Next Week

2007-07-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be on vacation next week, so no updates or RealmSpeak bug acknowledgements for awhile. If you find a bug, just add it to the tracker, and I'll get to it when I return.

Later!

Update 7/31/2007: I'm back! I'll get to issues again in the next couple of days.

Version 0.50 Released

2007-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Only have a couple of nights work in this one, but its got some nice new features. First off, is the ability to build a board using a mix of the expansion tiles. I'm not going to go into great detail, but the jist is that the regular tiles are randomly mixed with the expansion tiles to allow some variability. Of course, this is an optional feature, so if you don't want to mess with it, don't.

I added a new option in the Options menu that will allow you to change the look and feel. By default, you are using what is called the "System" look and feel, but this has caused some problems for my Solaris 10 user (users?). The new option lets you switch to the "Cross-Platform" look and feel, which is supposedly more robust on these machines. I'm hoping this will enable him to get around the conflict he has encountered, and actually be able to play this game again.

Still no progress on Treachery, but I think that is my next area of focus.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[440] - Added a new option (Option Menu) to allow you to switch the look and feel to "Cross-Platform". Hopefully, this will resolve the strange graphics problems on Solaris machines.
Hidden Enemy status shown in character spy window (the one you get when you double-click a character in the character list window)
Backspace button allows you to "unsend" your recorded turn, in case you change your mind before the other players have finished recording.
Option to include a random mix of expansion tiles
- Ambush always starts enchanted side up, to facilitate placement
- Paths/Passages attached to tile edges work like one-way gates. For example:
  - Tile A Clearing 1 connects to the north edge of the tile via normal road
  - Tile B Clearing 5 connects to the south edge of the tile via hidden path
  - You can move from A1 to B5 without knowing the path
  - You must discover the path to move from B5 back to A1
  - There are only two tiles where this matters: Dark Forest and Pinnacle
- Chasm logic is not implemented (normally prevents woodswalking across chasm)
- Volcano logic IS implemented:
  - Red-clearings cause daily fatigue
  - Orange-clearings cause daily wounds
  - White-clearings cause daily serious wounds (1d6 wounds)
  - Hirelings are NOT affected by any of these (I agree that doesn't make sense), but for now, that's how it is
- If you do a multi-board, you will not necessarily end up with two of every tile, but you will still have:
  - 5 "Mountain" tiles for every board
  - 5 "Caves" tiles for every board
  - 5 "Valley/Swamp" tiles for every board
  - 5 Woods tiles for every board
- NONE of the rest of the expansion (spells, treasures) is implemented: this is just an inclusion of the new tiles
- If you don't like this ruleset, then don't play with this option turned on

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem where recording a turn, and then saving the game would create a situation that made loading the game impossible
Clearing plot (the yellow line that shows which clearings you are planning on moving to) is updated when different characters are selected in the character list. This is only applicable if you have multiple characters, and are plotting their turns simultaneously.
[867] - Changed the threading logic on a major piece of the program that I'm hoping will eliminate the possibility of a deadlock on Solaris 10 running Java 1.6.
[821] - Fixed a strange bug that would occasionally crash the game on a double-board.
Fixed a graphics anomoly that was appearing on triple/quad boards
Added an optimization to the map building code that has a noticable speed improvement in the auto-builds of multi-boards.
[729] - Shielded Lantern, when activated in a cave with the Timeless Jewel, will properly allow you to take a bonus phase.

Dwarven God

2007-07-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share. I played a game with the Dwarf last night. I used the Productive Dwarf rules, which allows the Dwarf to get the same number of phases as anyone else, but must pay an extra MOVE for every non-cave clearing. This appropriately punishes the Dwarf for having short legs, but does not penalize his ability to do non-move things, like resting, and searching. I did notice that there is a problem with getting the Dwarf to move from a Cave clearing, and into a Mountain clearing: since you only get 2 basic phases for being in a cave, and the Mountain costs 3 to enter, he's stuck. The only workaround is to run from the cave clearing during combat, so that he's outside during Birdsong, but that ends up costing two days to do, and really hurts the Dwarf speed. Another workaround is to simply have the Dwarf follow another character, but that doesn't help in a solo game...

ANYWAY, I got distracted. The reason I'm posting, is the amazing luck I had with this little guy. He had just finished killing a Bat and two heavy trolls (love that Duck T3!!), when he discovered the Vault. He opened it, and immediately scored the Garb of Speed. This thing is a sweet treasure to have when you are a heavy fighter like the Dwarf. If you don't remember:

** = Speed 3
* = Speed 4
- = Speed 5

The conversion of his chits is phenominal:

Move H6 => Move H5
Fight H6 => Fight H5
Duck T3* => Duck T4*
Fight H5* => Fight H4*
Move H5* => Move H4*
Move T6* => Move T4*
Fight T6* => Fight T4*
Fight H4** => Fight H3**
Fight H4** => Fight H3**
Move T5** => Move T3**
Fight T5** => Fight T3**
Fight T5** => Fight T3**

The only chit that suffers, is the Duck T3* chit, which loses a point of speed, but all in all this is a pretty nice setup. The Dwarf ends up with 2 Fight T3** chits, which can just about undercut anything on his sheet, and he has plenty of asterisks to fatigue, especially since he doesn't really need the Fight H3** chits.

A bit more searching in the Vault yielded a couple more amazing treasures: Battle Bracelets (replace Fight over 4), and the Golden Arm Band (M armor vs Swing). Since the last two treasures of the Vault were now a bit too hard to aquire, the Dwarf moved onto the caves, where he found the Pool. After dispatching a Tremendous Troll, another Bat, and couple of Flying Heavy Dragons, the Dwarf went to work looting the Pool.

Feeling rather powerful already, the Dwarf made a rash decision to skip hiding, and simply do two loot actions in the Pool The first two treasures he found were the Power Boots (an asterisk free Move H4), and the Elusive Cloak (replace Move over 4). Laughing with all the power I had in my hands, I noticed for the first time the monster die roll: I had rolled a 3. The Octopus was coming out, along with 6 axe goblins……. and I’m unhidden.

Not giving up, I put the Octopus in the first red box, and then divided the goblins between the other two. I targeted the Octopus with a Fight T4* (unalerted axe, of course), and played the Power Boots as my maneuver. The Octopus lined up, and died right away, but the other two boxes changed tactics. Now I’m looking at some particularly nasty goblins. Rounds 2 and 3 brought down two of the angry goblins (thank you Fight T3**), but also demolished the last bit of armor the Dwarf had. Round 4 delivered enough wounds to leave the Dwarf in a very broken state, and despite a hard fought combat, left him dead in round 5. Dang it!

I probably could have played that better. Getting slaughtered in the caves by a bunch of Goblins was NOT how I wanted to go, but at least I got to play with some neat treasures.

Version 0.49 Released

2007-07-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

Needs New Resource Pack v0.49!

Another big batch of bugs and features to get out to you guys. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and its inspired me to work even harder on this stuff! I've very nearly cleared out all the issues on the bug tracker for RealmSpeak, and that's pretty darned nice. Granted, there's still a number of bugs that crash the game that I've never been able to nail down, but I think that a lot of the stability I've been building into the code lately, will make those bugs more and more rare.

Big new thing in this version, is a feature that's been needed since day one: character blocking. Yes, at long last, you can block your buddies, and block monsters to your hearts content. Simply turn on the blocking feature for each of your characters, and other characters will require approval to pass through your clearing. Unless, of course, they are hidden, and you haven't found hidden enemies. I added a couple of new icons to the character frame to account for BLOCKED status, and whether or not you've found hidden enemies.

The other big thing in this release, is the ability to do trades/rearrangement after combat, but before the new day. Look for the "Day End Trades" checkbox on your character frame to enable this feature. Turn it on, and you'll have an opportunity every evening to trade amongst your characters, and/or rearrange your belongings.

Most of the rest of this release, is really just fixing bugs. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[75],[313] - Characters can block other characters now
- Each character has a "BLOCK ON/OFF" button on their frame
- When this button is active, all characters passing through your clearing must get approval before continuing with their turn
- If you are the blocking character, a "Block Now!" button will appear that will allow you to determine whether or not to block.
- Once approval has been given, the only way to reset, is to turn the button off, and then on again
- Midnight resets all block buttons
- You cannot block hidden characters, unless you have found hidden enemies that day
[313] - Characters can block monsters now
- Activate the "BLOCK ON" button when moving through clearings with monsters
- If there are monsters to block, a "Block Now!" button will appear
- Pressing the button gives you an opportunity to block the monsters in your clearing
New icons in character frame
- Block icon shows if you've been blocked
- Hidden Enemies icon shows if you've found hidden enemies - mouse over to see who, if you found enemies using magic sight
Battle Builder has new option to specify whether the character has "Found Hidden Enemies" or not
[552] - New "Day End Trades" checkbox on every character frame, allows players to do trades/rearrangements once combat has ended (but before MIDNIGHT)
[618] - Missions are affected by season now (if you are playing seasons).

BUGS/ISSUES:

[854] - Using a color chit during the actions phase will no longer disable the run button.
Daily Combat button state will be remembered when you save/load a game.
[360],[406] - Added a "flip" hotspot to the luring stage for hirelings, to allow the owner to choose their initial side.
[557] - When doing random assignment, you can no longer add monsters to natives with a Red-side-up T Monster on their sheet.
[861] - Trading the belt of strength while activated no longer leaves your chits in the enhanced state.
[855] - Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented you from flying away after transforming.
[508] - When you have multiple inert absorb essence spells, you will get to choose which one becomes active when you are in the presence of a permanent color source.
[814] - The strength of the transmorph spells are now considered when dealing with conflicts (ie., Absorb Essence cannot overpower Transform)
[753] - "Wish You Were Elsewhere" will properly cancel combat targets on the wished victim.
[619] - Map of Lost Castle and Lost City no longer give you the bonus BEFORE the chits are discovered.
[862] - Problem with Discover Chits in a tile with Lost Castle or Lost City before chit reveal, is fixed.
When you are energizing an inert Transform, or just looking at the spell info, you can now see the target animal (Dragon, Lion, Eagle, Squirrel, Frog, or Bird) that it will turn you into.
[863] - The "End Game" menu item now reads "Exit Game" to distinguish it from the END game button, which does an entirely different thing.
[774] - Hired Leaders that find hidden enemies during the day can be deployed to hidden targets during combat now.
Charging a hidden character now requires that you find hidden enemies.
Switched the wording and logic on the "Decline Opportunity" dialog, so that it doesn't require a voting mentality to figure out which way to go.
[796] - Fixed a nasty bug that would crash combat anytime an unhired native HQ was killed, and grudges/gratitudes is in play.
[793] - Denizens transformed into mist become unassigned, and cannot be randomly assigned, lured, or deployed against.
[858] - Fixed the mission logic for multiple boards.
Fixed a issue that was causing missions/campaign from BOTH boards to be summoned
[829] - Fixed cross-board specials
- Lost Keys match to Vault and Chest from same board
- Maps of Lost City/Castle match chits from same board
Pressing END game does some additional work:
- [799] - All Missions/Campaigns that are underway are expired, and the owning characters punished appropriately.
- [537] - All spells (of every type) are cancelled.
[624],[818] - Treasure setup card improvements:
- Visitors are all available in the sidebar
- All cache's appear on the sidebar
- If the cache belongs to you, you can see all the treasures face up.
[669] - When buying items that are worth less than zero from a native group (commerce rules), they will give you the difference in gold to take it off their hands.
[806] - Witch's familiar can follow the witch when she flies
[729] - Shielded Lantern, when activated in a cave with the Timeless Jewel, will properly show a bonus phase in the display.
[521] - Native horses no longer grant an extra move in the caves.
[866] - Positioning stage is enabled every round of combat (used to only show when there was somebody targeted). This will enable the strategy of extending combat while hidden, by playing two asterisks during this stage.
[792] - Followers that get blocked, can still finish the follow activities.
"Find Hidden Enemies and Paths" Peer result was NOT setting the hidden enemies flag (Only "Find Hidden Enemies" was).

What's next you ask? Think "Treachery"... :-)

Version 0.48 Released

2007-06-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

The first thing you'll notice about this release, is the large number of bug fixes. I wanted to knock the bug tracker issues down to a manageable level, focusing on some of the oldest bugs. Some of you may remember posting these issues more than (gasp) a year ago! I apologize for taking so long to get to them, but that's just how things go when you are a single programmer.

I redid the character list window interface a little bit. You'll notice the change immediately with the presence of a lot of new little buttons. Don't worry, the log button is still in the same place (I took some heat for moving that one last time). Mostly this affects the host, but if you only play solitaire anyway, this is you. I'm not going to explain them in great detail here, because I think you'll figure them out quickly enough. If my icons leave you baffled, hold your mouse cursor over the button for a couple of seconds, and and explanation should appear.

During my last online game, one player suggested that there be a popup calendar, so that he could plan for a certain type of color. This is especially true with Seasons in play, because the 7th day color changes every month. The calendar button on the character list window (3rd button in from the left, in the image above) replaces the season icon that used to adorn the individual character windows. I think you'll like the change.

Lots of other nice goodies to talk about here, but I gotta get my act together for a game starting at 9:00 pm tonight. Just take a look at what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

[133] - Riding Horses Optional rule implemented
[134],[135] - Horses in combat, Optional rules implemented
[136] - Penetrating Armor Optional rules implemented
[844] - New Calendar window (thanks Dave S for the great idea!)
- Shows the current day from the perspective of an entire month
- Shows all the 7th day colors
- Season (if any) and weather (if any) are shown, and a detail button allows access to more information about the displayed month.
- Some notes on specific days to identify when:
  - Weather changes
  - Denizens reset
- If playing with seasons, you can step through the months to see what is coming
- Since this button is on the character list window, you can check the season (when using random seasons) before picking a character
Iconized the buttons on the character list control for easier layout
Many Modal Dialogs converted to Frames (will reduce the likelihood of a game freeze due to a locked window state)
- Treasure Setup Card View
- Character Card View
- [852] - Transform and Weather dialogs
- Any of the "VIEW TABLES"
- View Remodeled Counters
- Memory window
- About window
- View Hall of Fame
Experimental feature in combat frame to "Lock" the Next button
- Allows you to lock any of your own characters out of combat
- This feature can only be activated if the "End" button is enabled (ie., there are no angry denizens in your clearing)
- Spellcasters don't have to wait for other players to press next
- Pressing END only confirms with the non-locked characters
- Currently, there is no way to undo the lock for a given combat, so don't activate it unless you really want out
- Use this as a convenience, not as a way out of trouble! If there are hostile characters in the clearing, locking your next button is the surest way to die.
- Cannot lock ALL characters. The last character must either play the combat through, or press END.
[633] - New House rule must be turned on for results of looting and reading runes to appear in the log (which is visible to all players)
- If it is turned off (default), the log simply shows "Found Treasure" or "Learned a Spell".
- Enchanted cards, sites, the Mouldy Skeleton and Remains of Thief are always revealed, as per the rules.
[633] - Double-clicking on a character in the list will now bring up a display that allows you to spy on:
- Character Card
- Fame/Notoriety
- Current state of chits
- Activated Inventory
- Current relationships

BUGS/ISSUES:

[836] - Fixed an issue with double prowling (from Solitaire rules)
[835] - Don't show the "Decline Opportunity" dialog when simply rolling for native block/battle in the Evening.
[765] - Fixed a harmless warning message, when a flying character follows another character.
[756] - Fixed a rare bug that happens with Watchful Natives, and the Wish I Was Elsewhere result
[840] - Fixed another Absorb Essence problem, that was allowing controlled denizens from continuing to battle an absorbed monster
Combat log is now cleared between battle simulations
[838] - Fixed another harmless bug, that happens when you exit the map, and press the Reveal All button.
Fixed a problem with Premonition spell lasting beyond its expiration
Shuffled some spell activation to the host, where they are less likely to crash the game.
[842] - Fixed a problem with weather fatigue and the Witch's familiar
Better reporting of fumble logic and meeting rolls in the log
Bunch of Wish You Were Elsewhere result fixes:
- [755] - can no longer select a horse in the clearing
- [851] - no longer carries all following hirelings with you
- [849] - no longer includes yourself in the possible choices
- [850] - hirelings which teleport to dwellings on the board, will not become unhired
[805] - Swordsman (or Premonition spell) will no longer allow you to take a turn between the Witch and her familiar.
[771] - Killing the last Giant Bat in the same round you take control of it no longer ties up your spell (and chit) for the following day.
[290] - Hirelings and Red-Side Monster combat issues fixed
- [847] - Deploying a native to a RED-side T Monster on another native sheet, causes the T Monster to move to its own sheet
- [848] - Natives attacking a RED-side T Monster, that aren't its target, will disengage properly now.
- [557] - Natives deploying to a RED-side T Monster on another native sheet that also has randomly assigned monsters will work correctly now.
- Hirelings locked in combat with a RED-side T Monster can no longer deploy to another monster
[846] - Monsters moving to a clearing will properly block ALL the unhidden characters, not just the first one.
[845] - Native relationships are handled properly now for multiple boards
- Soldiers B are a completely different group than Soldiers A for purposes of affecting relationships
- Missions from Board B affect only natives from Board B, and so on.
[644] - Characters that restart will get a fresh slate with the natives.
[416] - When you fly to a tile, and record a non-fly action, the character token is moved to the clearing immediately so you can decide what to do.
[462] - If you transform after recording phases gained by activated treasure items, those items will no longer be automatically activated, and the phases will be cancelled.
[689] - Activated items that become inactivated due to a transmorphing spell, will return to active state when the spell goes inert.
Character option panel shows the full name of the character, including board identifier (B,C,D)
Natives with Board Identifier properly show # now. (Was showing RB for all, instead of RHQ, R1, R2, R3, etc)
Non-hostile attack spell placement is no longer invisible to the other players

Luring versus Deployment

2007-06-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Magic Realm is a game that is both very complicated to learn, and very rich in detail. The strategies we use to get the best score vary from character to character, and often from game to game. You never know where you'll find the next treasure site, or if it will be in a cave or a mountain. You can't be sure that you'll ever encounter the tremendous flying dragon, or find the motherlode of goodies in the Hoard. If you are lucky enough to find one of the magic swords, you can change your course in the game from being a lowly peasant, to being the king of the realm, but then only if you know how to wield it in combat.

That's what it all comes down to: combat in the realm. If you don't know how to handle yourself when besieged by monsters, you will die before you even make it through the week. If you are smart and/or lucky enough to have hirelings, you may be able to survive even longer, especially if you know how to use them. In a recent discussion on the Magic Realm mail group (see http://wolff.to/mr/ for joining information), the strategy behind luring and deploying was dissected, and I thought it would be worth bringing forth here.

The luring stage comes before the deploy stage, and the end result is similar: your hireling is battling a monster on a separate combat sheet. What really differentiates these two actions, is what happens during battle resolution. A hireling that lures a denizen, gets to choose its side and position and will not be affected by random placement or changing tactics. This can be very important if your hireling has a definite power attack on one side. The most dramatic example of this is an archer, who has no attack on one side, and a speed 1 attack on the other. If you lure with an archer, you are guaranteed to at least undercut the lured opponent, and score a hit. If you deploy an archer, you lose that control, and the archer even has a chance to "change tactics" (ie., flip) and become virtually worthless for one round of combat.

Why then would you ever deploy? Where luring only allows a hireling to bring one denizen onto his sheet, deploying enables you to pile your hirelings onto a denizen's sheet, and better your chances of getting the kill. It's true that you cannot guarantee where they will end up during battle resolution, or even which side they will be on, but the numbers are in your favor. Remember that when you deploy, the LAST attacker on the denizen sheet, is the TARGET of that denizen.

If you are playing by yourself, this enables you great control over how the hirelings will lay out on the sheet, and lets you choose which hapless hireling will be the target. However, playing with multiple people can definitely mess things up a bit. You might lure with your archer, assuring a kill, but then lose the advantage when another player deploys his hireling assassin to your target. What happens in this case? The target moves to its own sheet, with the assassin as the first attacker. The luring archer is now added as the second attacker, and the target of the denizen. Not only is your archer a target of the original lured denizen, but his position and tactics are randomized, limiting its effectiveness! (Thanks Vincent for pointing this out!)

If you are confused about the comings and goings of luring and deployment, this example (provided by Vincent on the discussion group) does a good job of bringing it all together:

A lures monster
- Monster moves to A's sheet, A is the defender.
B is deployed against monster
- Monster moves to its own sheet with B as the target
- A is now alone, so A moves to Monster's sheet
- Monster switches to targeting A since A was the last to enter his sheet.
C is deployed against monster
- Monster targets C since C was the last to enter his sheet.

In summary, lure when you want to have control over your hireling, deploy when you want multiple attackers against a single denizen. When playing with others, watch out for luring/deployment combinations that might change your battle plans.

Update - I just got this note from Steve M:

But there is another obvious reason to deploy rather than lure. You can only lure unhired denizens. If you want to attack a character or another hired denizen with your hired Rogue, you've got to deploy!

Friday's Game

2007-06-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

I promised I would get a report online, to let you know how version 0.47 worked for us, but then I got sidetracked with a lot of other things this weekend.

We started at about 9:00pm, and selected a double-board, with player build option turned on. We also had random starting season, and weather active. With three of us placing 40 tiles, it took somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes to setup the board, but it was worth it. We ended up with a board that concentrated treasure tiles in the middle, and woods/valleys around the border. I did end up with a bunch of errors going into the log, but they were harmless, as they didn't affect the process at all.

I saved the game immediately (in case something crashed), and then we began choosing characters. I always press "Random Character", because it keeps me from playing the same thing every game. I got the White Knight, and I realized that I hadn't played this character in a very long time. I selected Make Whole as my spell, and started at the Inn, knowing that's where I'd find my friends. George started with the Black Knight, and my friend Dave picked up the Magician. The season started with Halloween.

The first turn found the two Knights hiking into the Mountains to scope out the treasure possibilities (of which there were none), leaving the Magician behind to chat with the Rogues. He was able to hire two short-swordsman, and catch up with the Knights in the woods beyond the Mountains.

As a group again, they had a choice: explore the Caves to the north, or continue west into the Borderland tile. Both choices required entering caves, so it was agreed that checking out the Caves first was the best option, since it really connected to nothing else, and would be good to get out of the way. Both Knights followed the Magician, so they could take advantage of his bonus Alert phase, and moved into the Caves. Nothing, and another wasted turn.

After a short bout of cursing, the party turned around, and using the same follow strategy, moved into the Borderland. At last, the group found a treasure site: the Altar. The Magician, knowing that he had the Absorb Essence spell, and a day filled with color magic coming up (Halloween is EVERY color on the 7th day), rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

The first treasure discovered, was a site: Toadstool Circle. A permanent source of BLACK magic, and an evil temptation for all players. After fending off a couple of heavy Trolls, and some pretty fruitless looting, the Demon finally makes his appearance. As I mention, in an earlier post, the Absorb Essence spell was broken, so we were forced to dispatch the Demon with brawn and steel.

As the Altar was not proving very valuable, the White Knight decided to roll the dice on searching the Toadstool Circle. First roll, he is teleported to any cave. Rather than making a smart choice, and choosing a cave in the same tile, he decided to explore the adjacent Borderland B tile. Having neither alerted a weapon, nor hidden, the two Heavy Trolls that appeared were more than a little concerning for the White Knight. The Magician, knowing precisely what happened, searched the Toadstool Circle, and actually got the same result right away. He popped over to the same Cave clearing with the White Knight, and assisted him in the combat. Both Heavy Trolls were dispatched fairly quickly, and the Knight having suffered no damage, and just a little fatigue, was pretty happy.

The Black Knight, having been left behind (and unable to locate the Toadstool Circle) decided to reunite with the party on foot, in the Ruins tile just South of the two Borderland tiles. As all three members convened in the same clearing (hidden), the Lost City made an appearance, and brought with it, the Lair, Hoard, and the Vault. Thanks to a monster die roll of four, it also brought two Tremendous Trolls, which immediately moved to our clearing. Damn!

The mismatched trio decided it was best to escape the situation, and plan a course of action. All three moved into a nearby woods clearing...

... and that's where we stopped. It was getting late, and at least two of us had early days on Saturday. Not to mention the fact that the computer I was playing on is in our bedroom, and my Wife was trying to sleep. I knew I should have used the laptop!!

Anyway, I think we only had a couple of technical problems. The Combat Frame messed up on one of the players, and we had to restart. The second time it happened, the affected player had been looking at the Treasure Setup card, and simply had to "find" that window (ALT-TAB), close it, and then all was well. I'm convinced that at least 70% of the so-called game freezes are due to this kind of problem. I'm hoping to get rid of most of the modal dialogs in RealmSpeak, so this should happen less and less.

I'm very pleased that the manual board builder worked without a hitch. If you haven't been using it because of the past problems, I think you can safely try it now.

Well, that's all I got. We'll pick up our game next week, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Version 0.47.1 Bugfix Released

2007-06-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

I'm probably going to regret doing this one so quickly, but I really wanted to get this done, and enjoy the rest of my Father's Day.

Here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[834] - Absorb Essence bug introduced in 0.47 fixed.
[830],[832] - Witch can enter the board with her familiar now (Solitaire Rules)
Fixed a bug in the Suggest Action AI, that would throw an error if you don't have a weapon, or are transmorphed.

Absorb Essence Broken in 0.47

2007-06-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

I played a game on Friday with a double-board, and all went pretty well, except for a one thing: Absorb Essence is broken.

The White Knight, Black Knight, and Magician were looting the Altar. To the Magician's pleasant surprise, the Toadstool Circle appeared, bathing the party in the sickly glow of BLACK magic. Why would the Magician care? Because he chose Absorb Essence as one of his spells, of course! After dispatching a couple of Heavy Trolls, the Demon appeared. The Magician grinned an evil grin, and the two Knights stepped back to let him do his work... but things didn't go as planned.

The Magician lured the Demon onto his own sheet, knowing that the Demon's speed of 4 was equally matched to his sole MAGIC V4** chit. He cast his spell, targeted the demon, and in a flash of lightning, and maniacal laughter.... the Demon became unassigned.

That's it? No transformation? No Magician/Demon to protect the Knights? Augh!! It it weren't for the Magician's loyal Rogue servants, the Demon might have taken us all down - it did manage to hit the Magician with a FORGET result, but the White Knight was able to counter with "Make Whole". One of the Rogue's managed to line up with the RED-side demon, and take it down before it killed the other Rogue. Freaking amazing!

So, it's true. This spell is broken, and I suspect Transform is too. As this spell is pretty important to a lot of people, I want to recommend that you all wait for a bug fix, coming later today, or maybe tomorrow. There's a couple of other bugs I can fix related to the new Solitaire rules, so that will make it worth it. If you've already downloaded v0.47, just stay away from the transmorphing spells, and you should be good.

Version 0.47 Released

2007-06-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

Already, you ask? Yes, though there isn't a ton of new stuff here... well, there is a lot... I wanted to get this online for my game tonight. I'm hoping that we'll be able to play a double-board game, built by the players, with seasons and weather. You might want to wait until I can post a report on how the game goes before downloading the latest release.

Double board game. I've never really played with a double-board, even though this feature has been in RealmSpeak as "experimental" for quite a few releases. Part of the reason, is because it had so many issues. I think the last release (v0.46) resolved about 80% of the problems, and this release will do away with another 15% or so. There are still some minor nits (see the bug tracker for more info), but mostly its working pretty danged well. Once the logic was in place for 2 boards, taking it out to 3 or 4 boards was as simple as adding a slider to the setup panel. That said, I imagine you are going to run out of memory pretty quickly with a quad-board, but you can give it a try if you like.

Yes, I mentioned that we would be building our own board tonight. If you've ever tried this feature in RealmSpeak, you know that it has had problems: chits appearing off-board, game freeze when building online, failure to save the board. I worked on this part pretty hard, because I really think this feature is essential to Magic Realm. Looking back at a review I wrote at BoardGameGeek.com some time back, I suggest that building the board is "quite fun", so it makes sense to get this piece working right, at long last. At least one recent e-mailer will be happy to see this.

Oh, I made a neat change to the way the Magic Wand works. Normally, when you have this treasure item active, and you roll on a spell table (Curse, Wish, PoP, etc), a dialog with 6 faces of the RED die pops up, and asks you to choose one. Unless you have all the tables memorized, this task is pretty daunting, and can often have you choose the result that will get you killed. Now, when this dialog pops up, it will include an image of the table, so you can use it to decide what you will do. I can't tell you how nice this is.

Finally, I added a bunch of code to the "Suggest Action" button, added into the combat frame in the last release. Though its still not complete, and will not always give you the BEST advice, I think it does a pretty good job of guiding you in the right direction. If you have a new player joining you in a game, teach them to press this button often.

Okay, I gotta game coming up in 40 minutes, so I'd better tell you what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

Player Board Builder is fully working (see bugs below) - I know I've said this before, but it really is working now. Give it a try!
Changed "Double Board" feature into an expandable "Multi Board", allowing up to 4 boards to be in play at once (OMG!!)
- I haven't playtested anything beyond a double board except to see the map, but it should work
- The only real issues are memory and speed
  - I might need to bump the memory allocation in the batch file for boards larger than 2 (even 2 is pushing the limit!)
  - You will notice that the game startup is slower, but overall, things should run normally
- Notice the different chit renderings for Board B, C, and D.
- Quad boards might make for good multi-month games (someday, character development games)
- I did get an OutOfMemory error trying out the 3 board game, so maybe its not quite ready for prime time... If I can figure out a better way to handle the board memory...
[442] - Solitaire Play Options (see new "Expanding the Realm" tab)
- Two rows of monsters prowling (instead of one)
- Dwellings not revealed at the beginning: discovered like campfires
- Start the game by entering from a map edge
[351] - You can move off board to exit the game now
More work on the "Suggest Action" button in combat, now has suggestions for:
- Luring
- Deploy/Charge
- Attack Spells
- Alerting Weapons (existed previously)
- Assigning Targets
- Playing Maneuvers

BUGS/ISSUES:

Removed some harmless debug code that ends up in the error log for every game.
Fixed all the issues with the manual board builder:
- [706],[823] - Clearing locations are no longer messed up after board completion
- [700] - When a game is saved right after building a map, and then reloaded, the start game is properly shown, instead of the build map button
- Fixed the issues with building a map in an online game
[414] - FLY activity requires that untransmorphed horses are left behind (see 2nd ed 47.2/3). This works now.
[743] - You can activate PHASE chits (ie., Protection from Magic) in combat now
[826] - Chapels from other boards will properly cure curses at midnight now
[813] - Transmorphing with a color chit negates any spell casting you may done during the same actions phase.
Play Color Chit triggers the reset button now
[504] - You can be blocked after a BLANK phase now
[760] - You can activate items before bonus phases when using Timeless Jewel now.
[419] - New "Land Now" button in the turn interface will enable flying Timeless Jewel users to land before they perform further actions.
Added the "Die Roll" to the popup season/weather dialog, so you can tell better what happened to change the weather, or interpret the weather chit.
When using the Magic Wand to affect a spell table, the actual table is shown to aid you in choosing what you want to happen (ie., Power of the Pit)
[828] - Summoning logic with double boards is fixed. Monsters/Natives will summon properly now.

Why Ask Demon?

2007-06-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

I got this in my e-mail today:

How does "Ask Demon" work in Realmspeak? Seems to me that this would be pretty hard to replicate in an online game. Surely you could just replicate the effect by asking your opponent via TeamSpeak the question? And how does it work single-player?

Good questions!! Basically, it works like any spell. You cast it during the actions phase, and during the assign targets phase, you specify a Demon, a player (by name), and a question. There is no logic preventing you from asking whatever you want, but it does remind you that you must ask a yes/no question about the past or present, or a question that requires a number response.

Once the spell is energized, the targeted player gets a dialog that looks like this:

Really, they have three options, and three options only. Once the target player responds, the casting player will get a simple dialog with the answer (ie., Dave responded YES). Simple.

Why not just throw up a dialog that says "Hey, you cast Ask Demon, so go ahead and ask your question to the person you want to ask..." Well, for a couple of reasons. First, if you use voice to ask the question, then there is no easy way to make it private. Everyone will hear the question, and everyone will hear the answer. I think that kind of defeats the purpose of the spell, as it is supposed to be a SECRET communication. Now I know that TeamSpeak has the capability of sending private text, or alternatively, you could use MSN or IM or whatever, but then you have to hope that everyone has the right software, and/or knows how to do it. I'd rather just let RealmSpeak handle the busy work, and let the players play.

Regarding single-player: when it comes up with player names during the assign target phase, it filters out your own name. If you are playing alone, the interface will recognize this, and report that there are no valid targets. After all, why would you risk a confrontation with a demon to ask yourself a question? :)

Honestly, I've never used this spell before either, so I don't really understand its utility. I suppose if you were playing a referee'd championship game, and needed to know something important (ie., do you have the Flying Carpet?), it could mean the difference between winning and losing. That's hypothetical, of course, but you get my drift.

If no-one actually uses this spell, why work on it at all? I wasn't going to, but then, why leave just one spell unfinished? I want to someday make the claim that RealmSpeak is "finished", and without tackling every last spell, this is something I wouldn't be able to do.

Version 0.46 Released

2007-06-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty nice build. I figured it was time to get a boatload of features into a release, especially since the last couple of releases have had a fairly small amount of "obvious" changes.

First, I thought I'd tackle all the "mean" spells: the spells you would only use if you were playing competitively, and wanted to mess up another character. Basically, this is Fog, Illusion, Bad Luck, Lost, and Violent Storm. Rather than taking a long time to do, I got through them fairly quickly, and realized I only had three spells left to do. I was thinking how cool it would be to have them all done, and decided to go for it.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I started hitting the bug list pretty hard. It has grown past 100 issues, and I really hate that. Also, some older issues needed some attention, so I just kept going until I reached a point where I was comfortable (just barely under 100).

I added a new button to the combat interface, that I'm planning a lot of work on in the near future: "Suggest Action". The idea is that you can press this button at any point during combat, and a little bit of AI determines what your best course of action might be. My thinking here is not that it would be so smart, that you could hone your strategy, but rather be a tool for new players to get a feel of the game without having to understand it all at once. I've played a few online games where new players get completely lost, and it would nice to just tell them to press the "Suggest Action" button. Right now, I think the only place where it actually does anything, is during the Actions phase, and then only if you have an unalerted weapon (can you guess what the advice is?)

Okay, I could blather on forever here, but YOU just want to know what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

All spells are finished! New in this release:
- Fog
- Illusion
- Bad Luck
- Lost
- Violent Storm
- Hurricane Winds
- Peace
- Ask Demon
Spells affecting individual tiles (like Fog and Lost) are shown on the tile itself, and in the mouseover. There is an option in the "right-click" menu to turn these indicators off, if desired.
New "Suggest Action" feature in combat (VERY alpha right now)
[742] - Added a check for character attack placement, so that you wont forget to do this, and get yourself killed!
[479] - A new house rule to allow you to decline an OPPORTUNITY roll on MEETING/COMMERCE, and instead take the result of rolling a 2 on the same table.
Ability to save a combat while doing combat in the battle simulator. This allows you to setup a situation, play a round to get things into position, and then save that point in time.
Added log button back to main character panel - I should have never removed it

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem with Enchant Artifact not removing the added spell when INERT
You are properly able to use multiple magic types (like from Enchant Artifact) on an artifact now
[794] - Fixed an issue with Transform causing the appearance of a game freeze.
[294],[795] - Fixed a problem where a magic user killing an opponent with a spell, and then getting killed himself, would cause combat to freeze.
[494],[733] - Fixed a problem where Transform was taking natives out of combat
[494],[698] - Fixed a problem where deploying a native to an unassigned denizen, and then pressing cancel, was causing the denizen to vanish
Fixed a gnarly bug that killed my last online game - involves using a transmorphing spell from an artifact while carrying another artifact with an active permanent spell on it
[711] - Heads/Clubs will show light-side up when a monster is killed and regenerates
[539] - Hirelings following HQ will properly be counted when buying drinks
[714] - Character that fatigues when running will properly extend combat for those left behind
[817] - Fixed a harmless exception that is sometimes generated when you quit a game
[757] - Fixed the PEACE wish result from affecting the entire tile: now it properly affects only a single clearing
[516] - Day actions no longer lost when saving/reloading.
[816] - Reveal All button goes away after extending game.
[815] - Don't assign VPs to hired leaders when extending game.
[770] - Double board discoveries will no longer cross boards
[693] - Double board treasures/spells/chits are appropriately mixed across both boards.

Fixing a TeamSpeak echo problem

2007-06-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

TeamSpeak is a great tool for playing games online. The only problem, is that sometimes, somebody joins the group, and causes an echo. The problem IS solvable, but it isn't always obvious how to do it. Here's a short article from the TeamSpeak FAQ on at least one way to fix the problem:

http://www.goteamspeak.com/index.php?page=faq

Q: My mates tell me I produce echos. How to fix?

A: There basicly are two ways echos can occur:

a) Sound from your speakers/headphones being recorded by your microphone.
b) Your sound driver recording all sound that you hear for you.

Now, 'which one do I have' you might be asking yourself... You can find out quite easily: Just turn your speakers/headsets off (volume = 0%), and ask your mates if you are still echoing. If you are not, you got (a); if you are still echoing you have (b).

Fixing (a):

This type of echo is nearly impossible to fix completely, but you can minimize it greatly if you follow a few general points:

* Switch your speakers off when TeamSpeak is on, use a headset to hear.
* Use headphones that shield well, meaning they prevent as much sound as possible from being audible to the outside.
* Try and keep your microphone as far away as possible from the headset (or more general, the sound-source).
* Lower the volume of the sound-source.

Fixing (b):

These echos are produced by your sound-drivers, they should be configurable by your driver too (its not a bug, its a feature). From windows users we have often heard you can select from which devices to record in the mixer (a mixer is the place where you can slide all these volume controls). Make sure the microphone is the only entry that is being recorded from. How exactly this is called, and where exactly you can find it depends on your driver/OS combination, you just have to search around. Good luck.

Hope this helps!

Stable Release

2007-05-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

I feel like its worth mentioning that version 0.45 is sweeeeeet. :)

I played a game last night from 9pm until 1:30am, and with the exception of one person having to quit and restart due to a gray screen, the game played flawlessly. One big success is the fact that the trade interface worked without freezing up even once! As those of you that have played this game online know, this has been a pervasive problem for a long time.

The speed of the interface online is hugely improved. I promise that you will notice a difference, especially during combat. Because it is so much faster, the combat screen doesn't blink anymore. When you press NEXT, the screen is repainted instantly. I can't tell you how nice that is.

I got to try out the Enchant Artifact spell in a real game, and it was pretty nice. After dying once with the Black Knight (stupid axe goblins!), I decided to play the Sorceror. I selected Enchant Artifact, Fiery Blast, and Lightning as my starting spells. One of the first things that I did, was team up with the Great Elf at the house, and with two alerted IV chits, killed all the soldiers. Looting the house afterwards revealed the Book of Lore, which the Great Elf shared with the Sorceror. I used Enchant Artifact to add the Fiery Blast spell to the book, and suddenly had myself a powerful speed 0 weapon. Nice!

Anyway, the game is still in progress as a save game, which hopefully we'll pick up again next week. The Great Elf found a nice source of income (Food Ale), a M bow, and the Woodfolk in his employ. The White Knight had a pretty nice stint in the Mountain tile, killing 2 or 3 Giants, and a handful of spiders. We found the Vault, Cairns, and just before quitting, the Lair. There's going to be some sweet looting next week.

I should mention that I did lose the Sorceror to some bats right before we quit, but we decided to restore from a save game instead, to recover that stupid mistake (I was getting tired). I know, that's cheating, but hey, we're having fun!

I recommend trying v0.45 for your next online game!

Version 0.45 Released

2007-05-25T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is the second release in a row that is seemingly small in changes, but really there is a lot of work under the hood. This time around, I thought I'd at least give you all a new spell to play with: Enchant Artifact. I doubt its perfect (my first run of a spell usually isn't), but I think it will perform fairly close to what you would expect. Yes, you can actually add a spell and chit to an artifact of your choosing. Yes, you can use the new chit added to the artifact to cast spells ON that artifact.

Another fairly important bit in this release, is a discovery I made to how I was handling the communication between server and client, during an online game. I realized that I was forcing these two to interact with each other in 50 ms chunks, and by so doing, causing an unnecessary slowdown, especially as it concerns messages transferring to the log window. The 50 ms "sleep" time HAS to be in there, so that the CPU can do other tasks, but it doesn't have to be in play until there is nothing left in the queue. After making this discovery, and making the change to process the entire message queue before sleeping, makes a HUGE difference.

For example, a combat I was testing with the Sorceror, Fiery Blast, and 12 goblins was taking 6 seconds to process before the results screen became visible!! That's like 6 seconds too long, in my opinion. After the fix, the combat results come up virtually instantaneously. Granted, that's running a internet connection within my intranet, but I'm guessing you'll still see some serious performance improvements when playing on the internet.

I'm going to be playing a game tonight with some friends, so I'll let you know how that goes. Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

NEW SPELL: Enchant Artifact works now! (caveat: you can still only use the artifact once per combat - I will fix this part eventually)

BUGS/ISSUES:

Fixed a problem with "Whistle for Monsters" that was freezing the combat interface after the first round.
Reworked the spell targeting logic (behind the scenes) to make it a bit more robust
Fixed a problem with "Talk to Wise Bird", that resulted from changes made to the trade interface in v0.44
Fixed a speed problem when playing online
- This will virtually eliminate those long delays during combat when multiple things are happening at once
- Everything will be as fast as your connection, instead of being tied to a speed defined in the code (at long last!!)

Smack Down

2007-05-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see how things were working, since some changes I made to the spell targeting logic, so I played through a game with the Black Knight and the Witch-King. One lesson I learned rather quickly, is that this game can start off easy, and then take you down hard.

The map was harsh, and gave me two options: Go one direction, and explore the Borderland, Deep Woods and Mountain, or go the other, and see all the other tiles. Since it seemed logical to get the first three tiles out of the way, I chose the former. Unfortunately, nothing panned out. All three tiles were completely devoid of any treasure.

With several days wasted, I moved back to the Inn, and tried the alternate choice. The Cliff had nothing either, and I was beginning to think the game was against me, though the monster rolls had been fairly kind: I was able to tangle with, and kill 2 M Spiders.

At this point, it dawned on me that I had taken the Broomstick spell with the Witch-King, and that I could be covering more ground, faster. I sent the Witch-King across the board to the Ledges tile, where he found... nothing!!! In the meantime the Black Knight continued on foot into the Cavern, and found the Statue, and infamous lair of the Imp! As luck would have it, the Imp was there, and the Black Knight was unhidden. One round of combat left the poor Black Knight cursed with Wither. Somehow or another, the Black Knight managed to land an alerted mace on the Imp, and put it down, but the damage was done.

The next turn, the Witch-King travelled on foot to the neighboring Ruins tile, and lo there was much glittering and gold. Of course, there was also a boatload of monsters, which in some ways was comforting to the Witch-King. Seeing the Lair, Shrine, and the Pool, made the Witch-King think that he might not have wasted a spell slot on Absorb Essence after all! Quickly moving to the shrine, the Witch-King begin searching the site, hoping quietly for the appearance of the Winged Demon. Turn after fruitless searching turn, the Shrine remained quiet, though the neighboring clearings were quickly filling up with hungry monster. On the very turn that the Witch-King failed his hide, he was ambushed by a Giant Bat. As the Witch-King had failed to find any useful treasure, and lacked any form of movement options (stupid me for not preparing a Fly chit!!), was killed in the first round. Damn, I knew I should have absorbed the thing!!

The Black Knight, seeing his partner's demise, wandered through the Caves, and hustled to the Lair. Having failed his hide (again!?!?), the Tremendous Dragon that appeared (stupid monster die of 1) made quick work of the Withered Black Knight. All that remained was the glitter of gold:

Some Spell Woes

2007-05-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

I rather suspected this would happen: a new problem resulting from the change I made to the trade interface. That's why I chose not to send out an e-mail for the last release, and why I chose not to close the Mantis issues.

Currently, there are some strange problems with casting spells that do feedback, like "Talk to Wise Bird", and "Control Bats". I'll have to back out the changes I made to the Trade interface to fix the problem, but I think I'm getting closer to getting that working reliably.

Anyway, thanks to "BD" for letting me know about this new problem. I'll get another version online this weekend.

Update: Ok, it turns out that "BD" was using an older version (0.41), so he is seeing a problem that was fixed in 0.42. I only tested "Talk to Wise Bird", and there is a problem with that spell, so I assumed it was a broader problem. Near as I can tell, the bug ONLY affects "Talk to Wise Bird", so its not as serious as I originally thought. For the time being, I've disabled the download of v0.44 until I can verify that this is the only spell affected.

Version 0.44 Released

2007-05-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is more of a patch, than a full-on release, but I didn't feel like making a 0.43.1 release. I did make a fairly dramatic change to the underpinnings of the trade interface. I'm feeling like it should eliminate the problems you all have had with this accursed thing, but there's no way to know for sure, except to give it a ride. If you still have issues, please let me know. If it works better for you, I'd like to hear that too.

Oh, and this release will fix the annoying problem with the treasure sites that was introduced into RealmSpeak recently (see earlier post), so you looters can get back to looting!! :-)

Okay, not much here, but here's what's new:

BUGS/ISSUES:

[785] - Can loot the treasure sites again.
[730],[741] - The trade/share interface is fixed. No longer will doing a trade lead to the game freezing up.