Coding Task List - Before IB2 Initial Release

[youngneil1]

[Dorateen]

[youngneil1]

If the issue persists I can hace a look at a savegame with the affected character? With the debugging tools we should be able to find out why the error occurs. Maybe some trait that is autoadded at that level is buggy (eg spelling error with tag of trait)?

[Dorateen]

Got it! I misread the information, the character was actually 8th level, and 11,000 xp would put him at level 9. The problem was, the saving throw arrays, (Fort, Reflex and Will) only had values for up to level 8. I added the values for the next level and that fixed it.

Since thieves level up so quickly, I am crossing into uncharted territory with the amount of XP now available. To be safe, I will adjust all the tables to go up to level 10.

[slowdive]

Level 10! wow, Hearkenwold is quite the large campaign already. I remember when level 10 was considered about the top for many classes...maybe it was 1st edition that had the names associated with each level and I think fighters were considered Lords by then...don't remember exactly, its been awhile

[youngneil1]

Good catch, Dorateen - I wouldn't have thought of this being related to one of the other tables. Yes, lvl 10 is very impressive already in the D&D world. Most pen&paper campaigns I played in the past ended around that level (minus one were we did get to ridiculously high levels, but my friends and I were rather young back then and couldn't let go of the power surge ).

[Dorateen]

[youngneil1]

I am bending my mind around scrolling in combat currently. This is signifcantly differnt from main map, because:

1. Camera shift to current actor/attacked pc can have any scroll direction and must cover a lot of squares in one sweep, ideally with a speed that is related to the distance jumped (scrolled then).
2. Camera will have to follow moving NPC in varous instances. This has to be synched with the jump to actor as an actor might start moving while the camera still homes in on him.
3. Also, there is the key/click driven scrolling when the player moves a pc. This is most similar to main map, but again diagonals are possible here.
4. Finally, the manual panning of the camerea via keys is another instance for scrolling.

Especially the long distance camera sweeps will require lots of dynamic or preoloading of the encounter area (and its actosr, props, height shadows). All just brainstorming which might not make much sense after further investigation ...

Edit: Mastering these techniques might enable us to do ingame cutscenes at a later stage (in additon to cut scene dialogue without particitpation of party which is currently possible already - via smoke and mirros of course ). Hmm, on seocnd thought maybe a script for turning party invisible and moving party position around (gaCutSceneCamera or some such - due to complexity of the instructions required for a staged cutscene likely part fo a custom made IBScript for each cutscene) might already do it for main map actually. Party position is basically the camera into the world - some kind of trickery I already use for the ingame overview maps (where the party becomes a red selection rectangle for scrolling overview maps around).

[youngneil1]

Camera is still pending, but I am making great progress on a very comprehensive clean up operation for the combat log (spacing, colors, info provided...). Adidtionally, I did quite some work on effects (and getting their durations caluclated correctly as well as describing the duration fittingly in the log).

What's rather cool right now is that I think I will be able to also add a mouse over info mode with more details on pc/creatures (the info appears in place of the combat log which is temporarily blended out for this purpose). A right click will open a second page with info on max. of ten effects currently on the right clicked creature, including time remaining left.

As often, this is a tedious work, but will hopefully be worth it - we got quite deep mechanics already, now let's bring them to the light (and into the focus of the player)...

[slowdive]