Grimoire Thread

[Biggus]

He banned me for saying that the game is unbalanced:

Cleveland Mark Blakemore :

Free key my fucking ass. Give me back the money if that's "free" for you.

Also, grow the fuck up and learn to take criticism - you'll need it because I'm writing the RPG Codex review. And I'm going to mention what you just did and how Grimoire is a broken game that should be sold in Early Access. And you won't be able to ban me here.

How the hell can he ban you for saying what he said himself, and is obvious to everyone anyway? FFS

 

[Reapa]

criticizing

Banning someone and threatening to revoke their game key != criticism.

If this was someone else, would all you guys care this much? Cleve's gonna Cleve. Nobody's special or safe in the bunker.

there are people on the codex known for having taste and for knowing what they are talking about when criticizing an rpg. we wouldn't care about any codex member since we don't know much about many, but you're a retard if you expect us not to care about felipepepe.

yes felipepepe is guilty of liking undertale for reasons we may never understand, but banning him for criticizing grimoire is going not just against some codexer. it's going against the philosophy codex is based on. the freedom of saying what we want to whom we want about games and quite a lot of other stuff. cleve knows this as a member and long time shitposter. he still enjoys said freedom here. he is known though not to understand that freedom what with his retarded ignore list.

why felipepepe talked trash about grimoire on steam where he knows he can be banned without reason is a mystery to me. it's possible he did it on purpose to affect the game's sales. i think felipepepe knows very well what kind of community he was trying to influence there. it's possible he wanted to affect the game's sales out of a sense of gaming journalism responsibility. to that but he took a risk posting there instead of here and is now facing the consequences. i'm sorry for him but at the same time can't say he didn't deserve it.

while cleve is guilty of not understanding codex freedom of speech, felipepepe is guilty of not understanding that said freedom of speech makes codex special. He should have posted his criticism here, not on steam.

Fuck you Cleveland Mark Blakemore for being a pussy with a big bad banhammer!
Fuck you felipepepe for fighting the good fight in the wrong place and leaving me here to fight the fanboys and fangirls alone!

 

[udm]

First non-retarded post by Reapa. Truly 'tis the beginning of end times.

Spoiler

Just kidding. Come here Reapa

 

[treborSux]

He got banned from Cleve's steam forum. At worst it's an inconvenience for him to post there anymore, at best it's funny the drama it's caused all you dorks. WHO CARES. Felipe is a big boy, I'm sure he cares much less than any of you do lol

 

[Sarmatian]

Cleve you're being a gigantic fag. Knock it off, it's unbecoming.

Really? I think it's totally becoming.

 

[Crospy]

Felipepepe likes proper RPGs

No.

This is the kind of 'content' you can expect in the 'cRPG book'.

 

[Reapa]

Felipepepe likes proper RPGs

No.

This is the kind of 'content' you can expect in the 'cRPG book'.

as opposed to the perfection that is grimoire.

 

[Lahey]

Both sides are to blame!

Both sides! How dare you equivocate, nazi apologist!

 

[Bocian]

Y'all need to chill. I see two circlejerks throwing shit at each other (same people brofisting the posts all around, and retarding the opposition), and it's rather pathetic, not funny, to see how you play serious now and try to "criticize" without any sort of constructive criticism, just pulling stuff out of the ass, like that one with "almost impossible without exploits". The game is meant to be hard and challenging, and I believe that's what all of you wanted.

Edit: Yes, that's what I was talking about. The same people.

V

 

[Zep Zepo]

/\ also Reported for Retadred harvesting.

Zep--

 

[Roguey]

Seeing Sawyerism-hating felipe arguing in favor of more is hilarious.

You wanted an early/mid 90s RPG, you got it. Warts and all.

 

[Leitz]

...yes felipepepe is guilty of liking undertale...

I've read enough I hate this guy now!

 

[Hoaxmetal]

True that, there is no Steam Key here. But yeah....

Game DVD - not going to happen.
Printed manual - pdf at best.
Hint guide - fan made wiki.
Physical map - maybe of Australia.
Soundtrack CD - same as Game DVD.

The least backers should get is the Steam key

 

[Viata]

 

[Lord Andre]

True that, there is no Steam Key here. But yeah....

Game DVD - not going to happen.
Printed manual - pdf at best.
Hint guide - fan made wiki.
Physical map - maybe of Australia.
Soundtrack CD - same as Game DVD.

The least backers should get is the Steam key

But then they won't learn anyhting...

 

[Biggus]

My biggest problem with Pepe's post is he's basically hammering Cleve for the exact same thing Cleve himself admitted and promised to fix asap.

There's something on Steam called EARLY ACCESS that serves for this exact purpose.

Cleve chose to ignore it and release the game as "done" and charge top dollar for it. So I'm judging what he release, not what he says behind the forums he'll release.

I think it's fairly clear that Cleve considers the term Early Access to be some sort of dirty slur against the game.
Either that or he doesn't like the irony.
It's a unique selling point: "Grimoire - the world's first 20+ year long early access title."

It works for Factorio - near the top of the global sellers list for how long now...?

> No manual or documentation. And not much point in writing most of it until the mechanics are finalised. Don't need it personally.
> Obvious mouse cursor bugs. Literally the first thing you notice when you start the game. Great first impression!
> Sound FX / Music sliders don't work as expected (try setting Sound FX to 0% and Music to 100%). As above.
> MIDI tracks for sound but no hardware MIDI support i.e. completely pointless.
> Initial release couldn't be finished!
> Crashes, trashed saves, bugs, broken quests, missing items, npcs, several alterations to the encounter rate, etc. Ongoing.
> Crafting GUI present but nothing functional.
> Certain game areas are sparse / pending content.
> Classes, encounters, multi-classing, XP gain, gold prices, etc - all need balancing/adjustments.
> Wizardry 7 style roaming npcs not added yet.
> Even more stuff +++

The testers must've been blind to not spot some of those or non-existent.

Cleve claims that Grimoire V2 - should we ever see it before we all die of old age - won't resemble the initial launch. Is that not the definition of early access?
Grimoire the MMORPG - it never ends.
:australia:

There's another possibility. The/some testers weren't blind, but the dev didn't want to listen or be constructively criticised.

 

[an Administrator]

I stand with felipepepe
Glad you found the truth(although a bit late) about this false prophet of incline and said the truth without any fear.

 

[Tarrant]

Cleve in the Steam forum just now responding to a question re: banning felipepepe:

"The guy was too dramatic for this forum and he is not the first person I banned for going wild and starting to argue with me and tell me he could say whatever he wanted and then tell me what I said. I have banned a dozen people exactly like that, just for going a too dramatic on a computer game forum. Drink bottled water, I recommend it highly and stay away from caffeine."

Not sure if the irony is hilarious or tragic.

 

[Trash Player]

Y'all need to chill. I see two circlejerks throwing shit at each other (same people brofisting the posts all around, and retarding the opposition), and it's rather pathetic, not funny, to see how you play serious now and try to "criticize" without any sort of constructive criticism, just pulling stuff out of the ass, like that one with "almost impossible without exploits". The game is meant to be hard and challenging, and I believe that's what all of you wanted.

Edit: Yes, that's what I was talking about. The same people.

V

Damn, I read "circlejerks" as "crackerjacks" at first.

 

[vdweller]

cRPGs such as Grimoire must have a fair amount of "logic rules" to evaluate and adhere to. For instance, when a fight occurs, the code must have to check a lot of variables and constants, to see what happens to the party, and to their opponent(s).

I'd be really interested to learn from designers/devs how they would go about designing this. I guess one poor way would be to "hard code" this logic in to the game code itself using a set of if statements, or equivalent. Would a better idea be to take as much of the game's rules and logic, and put it in to some kind of "seperate module" (eg XML file, or database table, or some other repository perhaps?), and have the game code check this module to understand how fights pan out?

So if you wanted to add, edit, or delete a certain type of monster for instance, you could leave the game code untouched, and just edit a special text file, or database file, or other repository? If this idea is roughly sensible, then could the same principal apply to managing quests, and perhaps other things that occur in the game too?

What's the best way of designing this, so that it's easy to scale the game's contents, while at the same time helping to keep bugs out of the code? Thanks for any thoughts.

First of all, most games rely on complex logic and checking stuff. CRPGs don't exactly break new ground there. It's what you do with all those checks and logic that may or may not engage a gaymer as a final product.

Iron rules about coding are mostly for people who like to fap to their Stack Exchange posts. Especially if you are a solo dev, you can be even more lax since probably noone will ever see your code and need to understand something.

You can put data in your code, use XML or whatever the hell you want. The main problem is actually designing the fucking game.

Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) is a very addictive hardcore roguelike with a staggering amount of factors and interactions. It has hardcoded data. Who gives a fuck? You could play it start to finish and never have your game ruined by a bug. Unless it was a killer bug in the Bug Temple :D

Dwarf Fortress is probably the most complex videogame of our times. Guess what, hardcoded data there too.

Sometimes the eternal hunt for elegant code and structured perfection leaves people half-insane, cursed to roam Quora and boast about their 200 IQ, never having being able to complete anything remotely worthwhile.

 

[Rick]

It looks like Cleve simply packed up Stones of Arnhem code, much of what he didn't wrote. Cleve was probably a mediocre tools programmer there, no wonder the project was scrapped as a result of failings from impotent idiots like him. Game projects are always doomed when incompetents swarm a studio by "Oh, save him!"-hiring methods.

Look at him failing even to code a basic file open - the save / open routine that had a "overwrite" warning message pasted into it and couldn't even complete a basic file save operation??? Did people read that on Steam that an other developer recognized the LAMER ERROR and pointed it out to Cleve on Steam - who by then was foaming at the mouth about pirates infecting his game with their evil save games??? So Cleve finally was able to fix that blatant mistake, which proved he cannot code?

Also do you remember the EXE versioning was left on DEMO. Any sane real programmer always takes care about the versioning first..

That Cleve doesn't understand steam_api.dll and is unable to use it, all can see he couldn't include it in "his" game.

All this seems to prove that probably Cleve is only hacking away at a code that he doesn't understand or he is just trying to edit the exe somehow and has some level editing tools that other programmers wrote 20 years ago and is inept at even that?

How about the ridiculous fact of a missing manual and Cleve wondering on Steam about the monster attack frequency saying "Even I was surprised..." It appears the game code is far away from Cleve, he never wrote it just stole it and cannot understand most parts...

Inept hacking at a code to further mess things up with his "updates and patches".

Unfinished areas after 20 years???!

Banning people left and right, so nay sayers doesn't hurt Cleve's Scam on Steam.

I hope Cleve will be banned from Steam for good and by court rule he will be ordered to refund all Steam income. So people will get back their money from this imbecile.

Still hurling that libel on this forum. Going to find out who you are one of these days and you're going to have to back up your random bulls*t. Do I know you? What do you know anything about Stones of Arnhem, stolen code, blah blah blah weren't you the asshole claiming Grimoire would never be released, didn't exist, stolen assets, stolen this or that. Do you know what I know about people who anonymously call strangers thieves? They're always thieves. Always.

Did I ever tell you about this colossal fat guy neckbeard who sat on a stool at Wendy's all day and was an expert on everything until some homeys poured an entire bucket of chili down his ass crack from behind and it totally vanished into his pants like a gigantic blue diaper?

THAT GUY WAS A MEGA-WINNER COMPARED TO YOU

Just a polite request from an owner -

Instead of posting to these people which does no one any good, can you please finish the manual first? I generally like Grimoire and I think there is a great game under the imbalances and whatnot, but willingly letting others hijack you from finishing the manual as well as other aspects of the game is ... well, I don't know how else to say this ... discourteous to those who would very much like a manual and more balance.

Speaking of which, is there a new ETA on the manual?

 

[Lord Andre]

cRPGs such as Grimoire must have a fair amount of "logic rules" to evaluate and adhere to. For instance, when a fight occurs, the code must have to check a lot of variables and constants, to see what happens to the party, and to their opponent(s).

I'd be really interested to learn from designers/devs how they would go about designing this. I guess one poor way would be to "hard code" this logic in to the game code itself using a set of if statements, or equivalent. Would a better idea be to take as much of the game's rules and logic, and put it in to some kind of "seperate module" (eg XML file, or database table, or some other repository perhaps?), and have the game code check this module to understand how fights pan out?

So if you wanted to add, edit, or delete a certain type of monster for instance, you could leave the game code untouched, and just edit a special text file, or database file, or other repository? If this idea is roughly sensible, then could the same principal apply to managing quests, and perhaps other things that occur in the game too?

What's the best way of designing this, so that it's easy to scale the game's contents, while at the same time helping to keep bugs out of the code? Thanks for any thoughts.

I'm no game programmer but since no one else answered, I'll give it a shot.

First of all you need to understand object oriented programming. You can look it up if you're not already familiar. It's sort of like defining the 'template' you describe. It has standardized data fields and pre-coded operations that can be ran on said data. So from the weapon template you can generate and store as many weapon items that the game needs. Same for monsters or loot chests and so on.

Once you have all the different type of 'templates' that the game needs, you construct an engine that 'knows' how to use all of them and broker communication between the objects. For example a player object is fighting a monster object with a weapon object and the monster has a destroy weapon 'operation'. The engine has a birds eye view of the sequence of events and makes sure all objects states are updated accordingly as the combat sequence and results happen.

Think of it as graphics engine but instead of textures and 3d models and so on, our engine manipulates items, player characters, monsters and so on.

Now the problem with everything I said above is that it relies on breaking the game into standardized pieces and defining general operations for said pieces. Some things cannot be standardized so easily. Operations that make perfect sense as abstract sentences in your head can be notoriously hard to translate into a sequence of code.

For example a sword that does 10 slashing damage and an extra 5 fire damage vs undead and a mace that does 8 crushing damage and an extra 6 damage vs golems, both of these can be easily created from the same general 'template'.

A sentient talking sword however that reacts with dialogue to the player's choices and different events is a whole other issue. That you basically have to hardcode it's behaviour because it's unique.

If you have 10 talking weapons in the game, than you would have to find a way to define a complex 'template' (remember a template has operations as well not just data) for them, find a way to code a standard common behaviour.

Quests, if they have branching and/or complex stories are a whole other business. The common approach is to define global flags to track different actions the player has done. The flags can be true/false or they can be a number where each increment indicates the stage of the quest that the player has triggered so far. Now, to provide reactivity you will need to have giant if this and that but not that or if that and this but also that than set another flag to x or y or z. And the NPC object is notified of the state of the relevant flag and it presents different dialogue or different rewards or quests and so on.

As you can see it becomes very hard to keep track of stuff very fast.

Now, all the stuff I explained is pretty basic, by now there have been so many games that there are different game theories describing the best or most used ways to implement these basic principles into efficient coding. Those kind of details are above my pay level.

In conclusion, at the end of development you do end up with a sort of editor that you can use to add stuff into the game. The simpler the game the more stable the editor and very low risk of introducing bugs. The more complex the game, the more the editor is less ergonomic, harder to use by anyone but the guy that made it and any new addition to the game has the potential to create bugs throughout the system.

Basically the more complex the game is, the more interwined and vast it's systems are, the more there is danger of producing a "butterfly effect" even with a simple addition and create bugs in places you never thought of.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

P.S.: This rant got too big to bother to proof read so try and parse through the grammar and syntax errors...

 

[Zep Zepo]

If he "finishes" the manual. Then he has to print about what...600-1000 Hardcovers for indiegogo peeps...Then Ship them with a BOXED version of the game...and what else...a WALL MAP, HINT GUIDE FOR ALL 200+ MAPS, CD MUSIC, or whatever else bullshit he promised.

There goes his 1,600 steam sale profits.

And let's not forget all the law-suits he threatened, he's gotta waste some money on that too.

Grimore will turn out to be Net Negative cash wise for Cleve if he fulfills all his promises. Which he won't.

Zep--

 

[Rick]

I'm no game programmer but since no one else answered, I'll give it a shot.

Obviously I didn't quote the whole thing in the interests of space

I basically agree with your post. However, as a former game developer (don't ask!), I found what's more important than how you code something (to a point, of course) is how you comment the code. There were times I'd look at something I coded even a recently as 6 months, and stared at it as if I coded it whilst drunk. But I always used very verbose comments, both "headstones" for the module and any functions and code-specific comments. It does, I'll admit, clutter things up a bit, but they were essential to understanding what the hell I did and made maintenance and enhancements MUCH easier and far less likely to break something whilst fixing something else.

 

[GandGolf]

Cleve, dont refund anybody who spent almost 80 hours in game got their INCLINE treatment dose and now want their money back. It is not fair

But if Cleve revokes Felipe's steam key so he can't play Grimoire any more wouldn't he legally be required to give a refund?