175 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Sorry folks, it's not going to come out in a couple weeks, which is what I had previously estimated.

For one, the engine patches aren't done yet... but it wouldn't have much difference if they were, seeing as I couldn't have really started my test run anyway. I'm grinding away at scripting for The Broken Hourglass at the moment, and I really won't be able to get to my test run until the current workload is finished. -That- will hopefully be done in two to three weeks, and I should be able to start the test run then.

So, figure something like a Thanksgiving release for 3.0. Sorry for the delay.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 07 October 2008 - 09:04 AM.

[Water Man]

Hey good to hear there is still a plan going on. Glad to see the work continuing.

[scient]

I've had little free time as of late with school etc so it has taken me longer to finish up the last remaining engine patches Qwinn needed before he starting his playthrough. So unless he turns up bugs with my patches while testing or something major that needs fixing the engine portion of the updates are all set.

I'll be working on one final fix for upcoming release while Qwinn does his testing that will expand the amount of displayed journal entries. The code for this is localized and will work retroactively so it won't effect the mechanics of a game in a way that would require the extensive testing as other fixes such as new morale system.

[Qwinn]

Excellent news, all

Major thanks to scient for some great additional work. He's fixed some lingering issues in the fix to the portal bug, and also fixed the issues with the expanded journal... you can now see ALL journal entries in your journal, from the first entry on Day 1, no matter how many you accumulate, all the way to the end of the game. Huzzah!

That wraps up the engine fixes Now for me to get done with my current real-life work so I can make time for a test run.

Is anyone interested in beta-testing version 3.0, while I do that? I'm tentatively considering accepting two or three people for that role if anyone's interested, where I would send beta testers a pre-release version. Please don't ask me to do that if you're not willing to start from the beginning, or not be willing to provide detailed descriptions of any problems you might encounter. People who I have actually met before, and people who are in the habit of saving their games as ridiculously often as I do, would get preference. Let me know if you're interested

Qwinn

[rtr86]

Excellent news, all

Major thanks to scient for some great additional work. He's fixed some lingering issues in the fix to the portal bug, and also fixed the issues with the expanded journal... you can now see ALL journal entries in your journal, from the first entry on Day 1, no matter how many you accumulate, all the way to the end of the game. Huzzah!

That wraps up the engine fixes Now for me to get done with my current real-life work so I can make time for a test run.


Qwinn

Great work Qwinn, really looking forward to the release.

[Qwinn]

Thanks, rtr86, I really look forward to releasing them, I think this version will add a lot of fun to the game.

Incidentally, scient has snuck in one last fix before he wraps everything up for this session, and I think it's a very good one too:

Horror/Terror were previously massively overpowered. Even against some of the strongest critters in the game (like High Level Constructs), what these very low level spells would do is effectively mass-paralyze them, and you could then just grind them down or AOE them to death very easily. This made these spells much more effective than even some 9th level spells, and made combats that should be difficult trivially easy.

What was happening was that they were all getting set to the "PANIC" state, which apparently means just stand there. This is not what was intended. There was supposed to be an 80% chance of each affected creature fleeing, 10% chance of panic (just standing there, like they all do now), and 10% chance of them going berzerk (attacking the nearest PC). In Version 3.0 forward, that is how these spells will actually work.

Qwinn

[scient]

Horror and Ignus' terror are both working perfectly. The 80/10/10 probabilities that Qwinn mentioned are the same as if you dealt enough damage to a NPC causing them to go into flee mode.

What is even cooler is that I've expanded the horror fix to work on PC's as well (per Qwinn's request).

PC's cannot have their morale broken in combat from damage due to how the morale system works. However, there are no issues that I can see caused by horror (terror is PC specific) since the effects are temporal. There are a few NPC 's in the game that cast horror such as

Spoiler

the necro in the Dustman mausoleum quest

. However, in stock game after they cast it nothing would happen since both horror and morale system were broken. This may make certain battles more challenging and those anti-magic spells a bit more useful. After horror has landed on a PC, it will have the same effects as if it landed on a NPC (run, panic, berserk). You cannot view their inventory or select them until the spell wears off (30 seconds).

[Qwinn]

Thanks tons scient. I wasn't even particularly looking at it, but -yeah-, the fight you have pictured there always did seem way too easy... great to realize that was because he was wasting his time casting Horror and it wasn't doing anything. Now it will Awesome stuff.

And yes, very cool to see that all the PC's have a "panic" portrait that we never really got to see before, and now we will! Wewt.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 October 2008 - 04:09 PM.

[scient]

Well, I just sorted priest/mage spells being reset when you remove an item that added bonus spells such as Grace's "Bodice of the Godless Priest". Someone forgot to add in checks in case a value ran into the negatives causing some funky stuff. This was the last engine bug on Per Jorner's list. The exp text not being displayed for AOE kills is quite complicated so its going to be lumped with Stats revamp when I'm on break. Soon I'll have to start making up my own bugs to fix.

Oh and it is actually possible to create spellbook pages past whatever the max limit is, you just have to patch a couple bytes. This should work for BG1 as well dunno bout BG2.

[scient]

Another minor fix that's going in is now TNO will regain all his hp after dying. In stock game, TNO would only regain his base hp without any item related bonus hp. Qwinn pointed this out to me awhile ago in PM but I forgot about it till a couple days ago.

[scient]

Here is another somewhat minor but useful mod to display current morale, law and good values. TNO will only have law/good values displayed (determines alignment) while all other PC's will show morale. There is no point in displaying TNO morale and other PC's don't store law/good values. This will be part of tweak pack, not fixpack. I just didn't want to create a new thread there since this thread is geared toward upcoming release.

[Gelrof]

I can't wait for this to be released! I am waiting to start PS:T again until I can add this to the installation. Great job! I really love those "restoration" projects. The problem is, currently all games I want to replay have new versions that will be released in the near future.

Keep up the good work though, don't rush it out the doors. Love what you guys are doing.

[rtr86]

I can't wait for this to be released! I am waiting to start PS:T again until I can add this to the installation. Great job! I really love those "restoration" projects. The problem is, currently all games I want to replay have new versions that will be released in the near future.

Keep up the good work though, don't rush it out the doors. Love what you guys are doing.

I agree, I'm waiting for the new fix (and hopfully UB too) before my next PS:T play!

[Qwinn]

Very eager to hear news of progress

U can haz newz of progress

As of tonight, all of scient's latest engine changes are now coded and in. Yay!

All but one are going into the Fixpack... the display of law/morale is going into the tweak pack, and I will probably just replace the Scale of Souls tweak with it altogether, as this makes it completely redundant.

If, for some strange reason someone would -prefer- to keep the Scale of Souls tweak around rather than simply being able to tell their law/good/morale scores right on the character screen (like, oh, being madly in love with the beauteous dialogue I wrote for it... uh huh), now's the time to let me know. Note: "to keep my old save games compatible" isn't a good reason - the decision and announcement has already been made that old save games will -not- be compatible or supported with this upcoming release of any of my mods. If this is the first time you're hearing about that, don't fret... there's tons of brand new stuff even in the very first parts of the game (yes, even the mortuary) if you install Unfinished Business as well, so you'll hopefully want to replay anyway.

EDIT: Just to keep things simple for myself, I will probably just let the new engine tweak remain named "Scale of Souls", even though there won't actually be a Scale in the game anymore.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 November 2008 - 07:46 PM.

[ghostdog]

Your "beauteous dialogue" for the scale of souls was rather good considering it was for a game like PST that has probably the best writing I've ever seen in the medium. It was definitely better structured than most dialogs I've seen in FO3 but having it in the character screen is better anyway.

[scient]

Qwinn sent me copies of WeiDu patched exe's and they matched up 1-1 with my own copies. Since this is the final stage before a release, I manually went through all the patched code for both versions of exe's to check for problems. I couldn't find any issues so engine portion is all set for beta installer.

Also, I want to reiterate what Qwinn said about starting a new game. Most of the fixes are stand-alone however the new morale system could potentially cause really bad things to happen from an older saved game. Say like causing all the NPC's in an area to turn yellow. Permanently...

Edited by scient, 20 November 2008 - 06:28 PM.

[Qwinn]

Okay, put together beta versions tonight and shipped 'em out for testing. Readmes are updated and all -planned- content is in, though of course testing will probably produce another item or three or ten that'll need to be done before final release.

I'll do what testing I can over the next week or two, but I doubt I'll be able to finish a game before Thanksgiving If a couple of beta testers manage to finish the game, test the new content, and I can fix any bugs they report, though, then I'm comfortable releasing based on that, so all hope for a Thanksgivingish release isn't dead yet. Even if we miss that, though, release will absolutely positively happen a good while before anyone should be starting any winter breaks, at least.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 21 November 2008 - 02:23 AM.

[Qwinn]

Decided to decompress from the real job this weekend, take a couple days break, and do some testing. Besides some more punctuation corrections in the dialogue file (I really can't seem to find any misspellings anymore, please report if you find any), I've found two more fixes. Any other issues I find in my testing this weekend, I'll note by editing this post (unless it's major).

1) Fixed another small dialogue bug re: Morte's interjections when talking with the devils in the Smoldering Corpse bar. Actually, I caused this one in the process of fixing about 4 other bugs in their conversation in a previous version. All fixed now.

2) Mochai was giving her second bribe twice. Fixed this. Also gave her real copper to give to you, rather than having her create it out of thin air. This makes the more evil methods of dealing with the quest involving her not pointless, though be aware both evil methods draw from the same pool of copper now.

Qwinn