Prelude to Darkness Patch 1.1

[thathmew]

The version 1.1a patch is up. I'm calling it a beta, but I expect it will test out across the board, I've hit it hard on all the computers I have here and CP's had several goes at it as well.

Pretty much all the changes and fixes that I've mentioned previously got added. The full list and the patch are available at:

http::/www.zero-sum.com/downloads.html

The UI visuals probably still need some tweaking but it's definitely clearer, scrolling is a probably as good as it will get, it's definitely a _lot_ better. I also made a lot of back-end changes which should improve stability so drop me a line if you're getting frequent crashes after the patch.

The registration system had to be changed every so slightly, so those few who purchased it will need a new registration key from me.

Cheers,
and as always, comments, suggestions, criticism are welcome,

-mat

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I just played it a bit and got no crashes so far. I did run into a problem, though. I exercised pickpocket on some shopkeepers and raised it to 30, but I got no visible bonus to dexterity. I was using a thaumaturgist with 10 pickpocket and 20 dex, and I created a played with him a little before the patch. Using my merchant, I also noticed speech going up every so often, but barter never did when I traded, though maybe I didn't use it enough to raise it past 20.

 

[thathmew]

hmmm. Looking at it the script, there is an issue. Simply that it has to get past thirty. So you should the bonus at 31. Also looking at the script several of the bonuses are off. Grrr. I'll get on it.

Barter only has a chance to improve on transactions over 5 drachs in value and it does go up rather slowly. Though probably it sound's like pickpocketting goes up too quickly.

-m

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I raised it to 31 for 2 exp but still didn't see the bonus. I haven't tried using the skill. Really I used it a lot to get it that high. At first it would raise every 3-4 times, but past 25 it was more like 10-15 tries. My character also had 19 intelligence.

 

[thathmew]

yes, further investigation has revealed that skills aren't generating attribute bonuses properly. blarg.
It is easily fixed thankfully.

-m

 

[CP]

I raised it to 31 for 2 exp but still didn't see the bonus. I haven't tried using the skill. Really I used it a lot to get it that high. At first it would raise every 3-4 times, but past 25 it was more like 10-15 tries. My character also had 19 intelligence.

I assume you're still able to rob Heira blind (bad pun - sorry) I don't have a problem with that, I mean she's got a few potions but nothing incredible. We can make her (and other merchants) more difficult to rob though. Thoughts?



CP
Designer, Zero Sum

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I assume you're still able to rob Heira blind (bad pun - sorry) I don't have a problem with that, I mean she's got a few potions but nothing incredible. We can make her (and other merchants) more difficult to rob though. Thoughts?

There should be at least one person in Kellen that a pickpocket of 10 works on, so I really wouldn't adjust her too much, if it all. After all, there needs to be someone for the people who just put a point in that skill to hone their practice on.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, I started by cleaning out Heira and then graduated from there. Once I got a higher skill, there were more opportunities. Also, I think it's easier to pickpocket someone who is asleep, so that helped out, too. There was a bit of munchkinism I guess, but mainly I just wanted to try out raising a skill a lot. Really something you might think instead of making it a lot harder to steal from shopkeepers is to label the stolen goods "hot" like some other games do, so you can't turn around and sell them back (then steal them again ). I'm a bit ambivalent as to giving you fences who will take the stolen merchandise like BG2. On the one hand, it makes sense. On the other, it basically makes the whole thing pointless, as all you have to do is steal from the fence and then sell his stuff back to him.

 

[Rosh]

Really something you might think instead of making it a lot harder to steal from shopkeepers is to label the stolen goods "hot" like some other games do, so you can't turn around and sell them back (then steal them again ).

Only really is plausible when it's a unique item, otherwise who is to know it's hot?

Also stealing an item from someone and then selling them back to them shouldn't be allowed. They should recognise their own merchandise (if it's obvious, like they only have 9 swords of a certain kind left, they had 10, and someone is selling one to them) and sound an alarm or whatever. But part of that would be a tad much to code up, so for simplicity a shopkeeper could just refuse to buy what was stolen from their own shop.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That'd be where a good speech skill would come in handy.

Shopkeeper: "Hey, you're selling me ten swords and I just had ten swords stolen. These look like my ten swords."

Player: "Why no! I just.. errr.. Found them on some bandits I killed.. Yeah.. That's where I got them. Hey, is there a reward for killing them too?"

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Wow, so then you get to practice pickpocket, barter, AND speech! Though I guess anyone who could pull that off would deserve it. It would still get a little silly if you could just keep doing it repeatedly, though.

In a perfect world, it might be interesting if people caught on to you eventually. Yeah, you can rob one merchant and offload all his stuff to the shopkeeper next door - but they're going to figure it in a day or two, guaranteed. It's only natural the first shopkeeper is going to be bitching about getting robbed, and it won't take long for the other shopkeeper to figure out what happened. If you just skip town and never return, not much will probably happen to you, unless you happen to meet someone from there later on. It could be cool, though probably hopelessly complicated to implement. I thought reputation in BG was lame on several different levels, but it would be pretty neat if you could implement it more realistically. It's the same with other thieving skills, too, I always thought it was rather silly that as long as nobody sees you, you're always home free. When a group of travelers waltzes into town, everyone's belongings go missing, then the crime spree suddenly stops when the travelers move on, people are going to figure it out.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Reaction based on individuals, similar to Arcanum and Morrowind, should at least affect that assuming the items you steal still carry the original ownership values. You can sell them back, and talk them in to buying them, but they'll trust you less each time until they'll eventually have nothing to do with you.

 

[CP]

Also stealing an item from someone and then selling them back to them shouldn't be allowed. They should recognise their own merchandise (if it's obvious, like they only have 9 swords of a certain kind left, they had 10, and someone is selling one to them) and sound an alarm or whatever. But part of that would be a tad much to code up, so for simplicity a shopkeeper could just refuse to buy what was stolen from their own shop.

As much as I'd like to see this happen as well, there's too many vendors (over 40) and items (over 1,000) for us to thoroughly implement and test this. This being the case, if one tiny mistake was made in script or code, there's a good chance that items would be mistakenly identified as 'hot' thereby totally ruining the suspension of disbelief. i.e. player starts with ironwood shortsword and tries to sell it to Jactus. Jactus thinks you stole it from him and calls the guardians -- you're hung. Not fun.

What we can do is make it much harder to steal from merchants. Right now, it's not too difficult to steal from them at around, what, 30? We could up that to 40, 50 or so. We can also make it impossible to steal from them. What do you think?


CP

 

[CP]

I thought reputation in BG was lame on several different levels, but it would be pretty neat if you could implement it more realistically. It's the same with other thieving skills, too, I always thought it was rather silly that as long as nobody sees you, you're always home free. When a group of travelers waltzes into town, everyone's belongings go missing, then the crime spree suddenly stops when the travelers move on, people are going to figure it out.

I don't really have a feel of how much of the game you guys have played the game, but there are times when the bad stuff you have done will really come back to haunt you.


CP

 

[HanoverF]

After patching I still crash to desktop from clicking on Compass and Possible Item Weight Increase in the help topics.

Also occasionaly when scrolling and panning the camera I tend to get black boxes on the screen until the terrain tiles appear. This doesn't seem to occur until the camera is panned and then its almost constant.

 

[thathmew]

stability

Can anyone out there comment on the general game stability and crashes pre and post-patch?

-mat

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'm now getting the lock up when you click on "save" thing. I didn't have that before, or at least, this is the first time I've managed to trigger it.

 

[Savant]

Images distorted / changed

I downloaded v1.2 version from the site:
Sometimes, after repeatedly going to the Options screen, parts of the graphic images get replaced by an image of a Downward arrow (even the animation of the Watcher writing in the opening sequence!)...

I noticed that one of the character portraits was distorted and had this arrow image too... so I clicked on LOAD...

It hang after that. I couldn't exit the game nor Windows so had to manually restart my PC.

 

[thathmew]

I'm now getting the lock up when you click on "save" thing. I didn't have that before, or at least, this is the first time I've managed to trigger it.

Is this happenning when you click "save" from the main options menu (return, save, load, options, quit) or when you click "Save" from the savegame list window?

-mat

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Is this happenning when you click "save" from the main options menu (return, save, load, options, quit) or when you click "Save" from the savegame list window?

-mat

Save from the main menu.

 

[HanoverF]

With version 1.2 my computer is locking up a lot when I quit the game.

 

[Savant]

Patch status update and others...

Just an update, played all night last night and didn't have the "downward arrow (kinda like the minimize icon of the older Windows versions)" error during my play session... I didn't go to the Options screen repeatedly this time around so that might be why.

Didn't experience any other errors too...

So far the game's great! :D

note: just a wishlist kind-of-thing though:
:idea: it'd be better if the engine could detect if the mouse pointer is actually pointing at an object and highlighting it instead of having to point at the actual tile in which the object lies to highlight / do an action on it. (ex. having to highlight the tile a character is on in order to talk to him / her instead of just pointing the pointer at the character)
:idea: also, why is the no. of Hitpoints, Will points / Rest points, not indicated in the Character screen? We have to "Examine" our own characters in combat to know the actual no. of hitpoints, will points, etc.
:idea: wish also that there was more information available on everything (which can be added in the Help file)... for example, how much more damage is added when I choose Strong Attack, how much more To Hit Percentage is gained when choosing Aimed Attack, Damage and other Stats of the Spells and other abilities, etc. It would really help and gain our interest more if we actually knew the statistics of them... :wink:

Well, that's about it! Great effort and skill shown in the actual product... you guys deserve applause. :D

 

[Savant]

Questions...

Hello again! Have a few questions...

1. I tried healing my party members with Mother's Kiss(?) outside of combat and the one who was casting it did not use up any Will points. Is this normal? That means I can practically heal all my party to full health outside of combat!

2. How do I use some of the Non-combat skills? Like Nature (how do I discover herbs for potions, etc.), Stealth (how do I hide), etc. Don't see the command buttons for these skills... do they just occur by themselves while walking in the wilderness, do I have to select the one with these skills as the leader when outside??

 

[Savant]

Hang when encountering random monsters!

Oh no... I encountered a bug when encountering random monsters... the one which presents you with choices like: a) Approach b) Cause a distraction c) Hide until they have passed, etc. etc.

Whenever I choose Approach and combat is about to begin, the monsters / attackers are displayed with my party and the text "Next Round begins" is displayed, but after this the game HANGS. The default mouse pointer is replaced by an hourglass pointer.

It does not hang the computer, fortunately, and you can press Ctrl+Alt+Del to terminate the game and return to Windows.

Hope you discover this game-stopper bug and stomp it out!

In the meantime, I'll just hide / escape from random monsters until you do... :wink:

 

[thathmew]

1. I tried healing my party members with Mother's Kiss(?) outside of combat and the one who was casting it did not use up any Will points. Is this normal? That means I can practically heal all my party to full health outside of combat!

This is odd, I'll look at it, haven't seen it on my end, casting outside combat should use will points, healing doesn't take many. Check to see that the green bar on the character doing the casting is going down or not.

2. How do I use some of the Non-combat skills? Like Nature (how do I discover herbs for potions, etc.), Stealth (how do I hide), etc. Don't see the command buttons for these skills... do they just occur by themselves while walking in the wilderness, do I have to select the one with these skills as the leader when outside??

Stealth and Nature are passive and never have to be used directly and generally to be effective just need to be in the party. Occassionally in scripted events the leader's specific skill will be checked, not simply the best in the party, but such situations should be obvious.

-mat