Messages

I don't think getting rid of it is that necessary. Just place a largeish warning on the Add game -page that clearly says that anyone confirmed for having upped their download counter by illegit means will be permanently banned without warning, as it's rather easy to investigate if the hits are genuine or not.

Also, Fish's suggestion doesn't sound too bad to me. And any sane person should be able to smell the rat in 13.000 downloads in AGS' scale.

I think maybe a top games by rating would be better.

We've been through this a few times, and it still wouldn't be a good idea.

And I think the panel ratings might get a bit too static, no?

What if we had a badly drawn Guybrush and the SoMI font? Vivendi should just be honored that AGS is still using Roger and co. And none of us is not making any money out of them. I bet Dave doesn't use them in his games.

That's ok, we are tennis nerds so we qualify

No, you don't. Any sports greater than walking to the nearby store to buy chips and lemonade are forbidden.

I prefer to have the manual as it is - easily at hand, portable, independent. And the F1 context help is very useful, I don't know how that'd work as well with an integrated help.

And what is 'wiki format'? I think everything's presented just fine right now anyway...

That's not going to happen.

Have a wild guess why a group of community members acquired a few bulldozers on different continents a while back

Microsoft aren't watching, I can assure you. Or if they are, they just don't care. Atleast not about Flight Simulator X, so why should anyone care about a font from a old game by a company that in a way doesn't even exist anymore?

I second the notion, if you still don't get it, AGS is not for you.

Saving Files - It isn't clear what SAVE and SAVE ROOM functions actually save.   I guess that SAVE ROOM saves the CRM and ASC files but what does SAVE save?  Does it save the currently selected file or does it save everything?  What if I want to save a specific file or save it to another file name?   Perhaps SAVE should be renamed to SAVE ALL or SAVE GAME.  Also perhaps there should be a SAVE FILE function.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the Save Room option needs to be there. The main Save option will save everything, including any open room, so I'm not convinced that the Save Room option is necessary.

Well, if you mess up something in many rooms or in the global things, but wish to keep your changes to one or two rooms, the Save Room option would still come in handy, in my opinion.

And that is lesson 1 of Political Party Hacks 101, class. AMERICA is a bigger threat to world peace than Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia.

I second that.

I missed that one. Sorry.

For your information, she sings horribly.

Not that it matters or anything, ofcource.

You could always use #defines or eNums for it...

Although having not studied the matter that closely, I second Tuomas on that Russia is just going back for it's position as a great power, seeing how the US is about to police the entire globe in a few years if nobody does anything.

But most world leaders seem off in the head, true.

Anyone recall Tomb of the Moon from an odd one and a half years back?

I've been toying around with the idea for a game related to the story since I won the OROW, but as my artist has been on holiday for the past year I'm putting up this ad in hopes of some day completing the game.

So, I'm looking for a teammate to produce a medium-lenght game related to the story of Tomb of the Moon. I can and wish to cover scripting, story design and music, so I'm primarily looking for an artist for the whole lot: backgrounds, interface graphics, characters, objects, everything. An idea person to work with would be someone who could also provide me with feedback on about everything about the game I show to them, proofreading and testing, providing new ideas, thinking up puzzles with me, etc. And thus the game would eventually be a product of our co-operation, not just someone drawing and me doing the rest. The project's not in a hurry, but I wish to finish it some day. This asks for someone with motivation to stay with the project for a long time, if neccessary. I'm mainly looking for one person, but don't deny having more people on the team as it develops.

For style reference, try Tomb of the Moon. In my opinion it pretty much explains the main idea here. PM or email me if you're interested.

There were so many people moaning the other times...

I believe those with complaints come forward with their thoughts much more often than those with something good to say...

I didn't realise "story" expansion packs existed

That's what I've always thought as expansions packs. The Sims stuff is just addons or so. Only a few of them truly expand the game. Pets for the first maybe was an expansion, but I don't know about the rest...

It varies from game to game, but generally an expansion uses the same engine and resources as the original game, but adding new gameplay elements.

For Diablo 2 the expansion pack added a new Act (lenghtened the story, new areas to explore, new monsters, new quests, etc.) and enhanced some elements of the gameplay, like adding some items and features to the use of items, as well as two character classes. But you could still create a "classic" character which didn't have the expansion enhancements available, I believe.

The StarCraft expansion added three new campaigns and a couple of new units to each race, with the original game still playable as it is, and the expansion as it's own game, with the new units in use on non-campaign play.

I have one more little suggestion. Could the focus upon loading or creating a room be on something non-scrollable? If I now turn the scrollwheel down after doing so I get presented a dialog to choose a background frame to import...

Andail and InCreator make very good points. Indeed, the goal wouldn't be to get a heap of games out, the point would be to learn - about ourselves, teamwork, working under pressure, each other - whatever you face during the cource of the competiton.

I think it should be made clear from the start that people who know they can't last through it without losing interest aren't encouraged to enter, to avoid half the teams falling apart because 90% of each's members lost interest and went twiddling their thumbs in the corner. Instead, start the competition with just those half the amount of potential teams, but atleast have them work 'till the end. Not to close anyone out, just to encourage the motivated to enter, instead of the bored or the ones looking for something to do for a few hours.

I'm getting the feeling that it's almost time to move onto Release Candidate stage. Just out of interest, is anyone actually using the 2.8 betas to properly work on a game, and if so how've you found it compared to 2.72?

Go for it, says I. Seems ready and stable enough. And for me getting used to the new feel was rather easy. I already feel like my working with 2.8 is as efficient as it was with 2.72.

A few things that have come to mind, however:
- Start page. It's sure useful for newcomers and people hopping over from 2.72, but as it is it turns rather useless after a few starts. I was thinking if you could add some information on it, like some vital statistics (current exe size, if one is built, number of rooms, number of this and that, whatever seems important), maybe a summary of the most crucial general settings (name, game resolution, colour depth, states of sprite compression, save game screenshots, enhanced save games, etc.)
- I'd much more prefer the treeview categories closed (or collapsed?) when the game loads, as they now seem to load open
- Would it be possible to make the treeview and property grid movable to the left side of the main window?