The Veins of the Earth BETA 12!

[DarkGod]

The main menu is just an other module which you can also replace.

[Zireael]

The main menu is just an other module which you can also replace.

Fancy seeing you here, DG.

It's another thing to go into my notes. Right now, we want to focus on the basics, to have them done before I leave

[pat]

Hey, just thought I'd let you know that I tried it again and it worked some reason. I downloaded the same version of the module I tried at first and used the some t-engine installation so who knows what did it.

DG, I didn't mean to seem obnoxious about my complaints about the t-engine and it's presentation. I know it's open source and fully flexible and really the closest thing that anyone has ever come to a user-friendly roguelike engine, so I don't want to get down on it and annoy you by proxy. I fully accept that it can do anything I want it to and the only limitation is me. But, I just can't handle the presentation which comes standard and to be blunt, that's the hurdle which steered me away from t-engine development. The visual bells and whistles (tooltips, animations, graphical psuedo-ascii) which are integral to TOME seem really out of place to me for a simpler game and I tried mucking around with it to strip it back as much as possible but couldn't make much progress.

For instance this Underdark module seems cool, but the presentation at this stage is way too much for me and I find it a real turn off. I have no doubt that I'm in the minority though and you'll catch more flies with the graphical honey than if you focused your attention on idiots like me who spent the better part of 20 years sweating over monochrome nethack.

[Quendus]

Maybe it would be nice if there were a mod even more skeletal than the example mod.

[Zireael]

For instance this Underdark module seems cool, but the presentation at this stage is way too much for me and I find it a real turn off. I have no doubt that I'm in the minority though and you'll catch more flies with the graphical honey than if you focused your attention on idiots like me who spent the better part of 20 years sweating over monochrome nethack.

I don't do much with the presentation, that's more of Seb's field.
I don't think there's much 'graphical honey' here.

Anyways, came here to tell you that we got archery working, after 2 days of sweating over a silly oversight.

That means we're really close to the first beta release!

[Zireael]

Last touches including making doubly sure the OGL is included and we haven't included Project Identity by mistake.

[Zireael]

Just marked the master branch as beta.

(The computer I'm writing from is sh*tty, so blame any typos on it)

[Zireael]

Even though I'm stuck on hols with a super sh*tty comp, work is progressing (I just discovered github.com's edit feature).
We've also made use of the Issues tab.

Skill checks now take armor into account. Armor now limits Dexterity bonus to AC. Also, encumbrance works properly and stairs have a chance of not changing the dungeon level.

[getter77]

Excellent!  Speaking of OGL doings, this project just turned up on my radar and, on the surface at least, seems like it might hold some promising elements for down the line to ponder at least a bit for Underdark as I could see how some of it could adapt well to Roguelike doings:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamesmiths/nrg-system-core-rulebook-ogl

[Zireael]

Excellent!  Speaking of OGL doings, this project just turned up on my radar and, on the surface at least, seems like it might hold some promising elements for down the line to ponder at least a bit for Underdark as I could see how some of it could adapt well to Roguelike doings:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamesmiths/nrg-system-core-rulebook-ogl

Thanks for the link.
Currently I'm scrolling my way through http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Netbook_of_Feats_Version_12.4_of_the_Netbook_of_Feats and cursing the fact that the computer at the resort died (the fan seems to be broken) so I'm forced to visit a local net cafe.
I think I'll have to make a checklist of great ideas to implement when I have access to my own comp.

EDIT: Getter, feedback and/or ideas would be much appreciated!

[getter77]

Well, I guess one thing you'll have to reach a decision on at some point, much like as with the above KS, is whether this will also grow to include "near neighbor" OGL or stay on the original 3.something'ish:

ie  Pathfinder's OGL  http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

Beyond that, much of this comes down to knocking out as many of the easier tasks as possible as fast as possible to keep progress going while trusting your instincts---as those are what have resulted in this coming together so quickly in the first place.  It is fine to come up with a framework that will work for a lavishly complicated bit just to get that settled, but first populate the rest of it further down ladder.  Think of it in terms of gameplay---what do I have to hook a player in those first 5/15/30 minutes?  What is the expectation for the first hour?  Settle those things in chronological order before going deep into content that would take ages to reach.

Having a better mechanism than Github to distribute a "plug and play" archive or .teaa or whatever to throw in the folder or just have operate standalone as per Grey's projects that also use T-Engine 4 would also be handy for folks like me and otherwise as far as discoverability and ease of use---especially since this has made it past that critical Alpha stage that claims many a project into the void into the considerably sunnier and Better Expectations that is Beta.

I am just a simple, lowly Win7 user after all!   

[Zireael]

I now have access to my own comp (albeit limited by the fact I'm running on battery and access to power is rare), so I'll try to plug in some monsters, items, domains and whatnot (i.e. the stuff that's easy to do and does not take long).

Having a better mechanism than Github to distribute a "plug and play" archive or .teaa or whatever to throw in the folder or just have operate standalone as per Grey's projects that also use T-Engine 4 would also be handy for folks like me and otherwise as far as discoverability and ease of use---especially since this has made it past that critical Alpha stage that claims many a project into the void into the considerably sunnier and Better Expectations that is Beta.

- For the code, we're sticking with GitHub. Releases will be also available from git.
- We plan to make releases available on ToME page, too (but I have to make an account on the main site, and I can't do it here because the net loves to go down).
- A standalone version is also planned, but that's for when I'm back home and can devote my full free time to it.

Basically, point 2 should be done sometime in early August, a.k.a as soon as I'm home, and point 3 soon afterwards.

[getter77]

That's great, point 2 and 3 look indeed to be squared away.  Heh, the timing for all this going on is somewhat amusing as well---there's now a Beholder Class/Race addon that just saw a first public release on the Addons board over there that is aiming to adapt it into the ToME 4 world.

[Zireael]

Contributors WANTED
If you want to contribute, just fork the repo and make your changes and make a pull request back.

Don't include anything that's not OGL (e.g. no kuo-toa or illithids)

[Zireael]

As the module is now made available from the ToME site, we also made a v 0.0.6 (beta 1.5) release. Changes from beta1 are mostly bugfixes, but there is also some added content.

Will work on standalone as soon as I get a clean copy of T-Engine itself.