Messages

You can look around in the technical archive forum for something that fits your needs.  I would suggest manually browsing through that forum and also pay attention to modules that may implement the features that you may want.  Most modules come with an example game.  I don't have any specific recommendations or links; perhaps someone else does though. 
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?board=10.0

A template can be updated by using that template to create a game with a compatible version of AGS.  The resulting game can then be imported by a later version of AGS.  Depending upon how old the template is  you may be able to import it into the latest AGS version or you may need to import to some intermediate version first.   Once imported to the latest AGS version it can be saved as a template.

I would suggest that you PM the author and let them know that their template needs updating.  If there is no response then goahead and update it, upload it somewhere (check the tech archive for upload space), and post the link in it's tech archive thread.

P.S. you also may find some of the documentation that comes with the demo game useful.  There are templates for global and room scripts and programming guidelines that can help keep everything organized and make your scripts easy to read and debug.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=34048.0

The template file has to be in the same directory as the ags editor (i.e. AGSEditor.exe).  If you just clicked throught the install then then default location is something like ...

C:\Program Files\Adventure Game Studio\

I think you need to use the PlayeMusicQueued() function.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/manual/PlayMusicQueued.htm

Thanks Progz. 

Not to worry about mentioning obvious things in this kind of situation.  I have been working with industrial controls systems for 20 years and it's amazing how many times I've either gotten or given an obvious piece of advice that eventually lead to the identification of an intractable bug.   Sometimes just hearing someone else tell you something you already know helps find a problem.

[distributed free of charge]

Nikolas,

Have you thought of contacting Creative Commons and asking them if this guy is violating the license.  If so they may be willing to help resolve the situation. 

With open source software it is common practice for people to distribute GPL software and charge a fee for making a CD, printed manual, etc and shipping them.  The recipient is, of course, free to redistribute according to the terms of the original license. 

I am not sure if what this guy is doing falls under this category or not.  As you say he is not making physical copies.  However, he is obligated, to distribute exact copies, license and all.  The terms of the CC license should be clearly stated on the document (sheet music) somewhere  as well as a notice that it is being distributed free of charge.  So you could at least be sure to piss off his customers by letting them know that the guy ripped them off.

Btw, here is the Creative Commons contact page.  http://creativecommons.org/contact/

Thanks for all the info everyone.   Here is what I have done so far...

o Identify Mother Board - ASRock Dual SATA2 Dual Core Socket 939 8X

o CMOS Battery - Pulled out for several minutes and replaced, no change

o RAM Sticks - Pulled out one of two 1G ram sticks,  POST reports 1G ram, swap sticks same, replace both 2G ram reported.

o Capacitors - Visual inspected electrolytic caps, no signs of overheating or burn out, same for voltage regulators

Increator thanks for taking the time to post the image.  I was definitely thinking blinky lights  .  Anyway there are no beeps on startup.

I don't have a manual for the mother board as I bought this thing off Craig's List  back in June.  I got the computer 22 in LCD monitor, 7.1 sound system and Sound Blaster card, an NVIDIA video card, 350G & 150G hard drives, 2G Ram, AMD64 Dual Core 2.2GHz, and a color printer,scanner, copier, fax  for $350.   

I've ordered a new mother board from EBAY for $60 so maybe I will end up with a manual this time.  Even with the new $60 mother board I think I still got a pretty good deal.

I let you guys know how it turns out when it arives in a couple days.  Again, I really appreciate the help. 

So, people pulled triple shifts at work during Five Year Plan out of will to NOT prosper or progress?
Every kid wanted to be a cosmonaut, every worker wanted to be the best in his factory/whatever, every factory competed with every other simply out of boredom?
...
...
...

Yes and in spite of all that pride, effort, willingness to sacrifice, good intentions, etc, etc, etc it all amounted to a slow ride to the poor house.

The communist worker, after reaching the limits of being best in his work, realized, that in western countries, he could profit much more from his skills and experience. And live much more luxurious life. This is when they started to look West.

That's how they knew they were poor and that their needs were not being served by their ideology.  It must have been an embarrassing realization.

And if you think it's tiresome to hear the "you can't blame communism because it hasn't been tried"-argument, well, get used to it. Because it hasn't really been tried; what you've got so far has been dictators taking control of everything and enslaving people. Then they've called it communism, because, well, you have to call it something.

In fact it was tried by the first European settlers to arrive in North America in 1620.  known as "The Pilgrims" over here in the US when they first arrived each family was given a plot of land to farm but it was decided that the harvest would be shared evenly. 
After one year half of them were dead from starvation and malnourishment.   The
governor did not survive and was replaced by William Bradford who abolished the sharing policy so that each family could keep whatever it produced.  The change produced spectacular results.  The harvest was so bountiful they were able to have a huge feast and even invite their aboriginal neighbours.     It's all documented in Willam Bradford's journal including his analysis and observations of why the communal system failed.

Even the communist Chinese know that communism is a loser and are abandoning it as fast as they can without the party loosing it's political power.   They have embraced capitalism but they are still essentially a brutal dictatorship. Their economy has been growing for several decades now at 8-10% per year in spite of the government still being the same old dictatorship.

If your definition of communism is that people simply don't own anything, then yes, it can automatically be applied to all systems where poverty is present, but this is a very simplified definition.

Communism does not mean that a particular group of people owns everything, it means that everyone owns everything, only that they share it, and are not allowed to collect excessive amount of said property just because they can.

You must be confusing my post with someone else's?  I mentioned individual property rights among several other attributes of prosperous societies.  However, it seems to me that everyone owning everything is the same as nobody owning anything.  Ownership of something means that one has control over it's disposrition and it's not possible to share control with everyone, not even in small groups.  Just ask my wife about the TV's remote control.

And if you think it's tiresome to hear the "you can't blame communism because it hasn't been tried"-argument, well, get used to it. Because it hasn't really been tried; what you've got so far has been dictators taking control of everything and enslaving people. Then they've called it communism, because, well, you have to call it something.

It's a very convenient position.  Since communism is something that people won't do willingly then the only way to implement it is through coercion.  When it finally fails just claim that it wasn't really tried because coercion was used to force the people into.   But it's against human nature voluntarily practice communism so it can never really be tried and thus never prove itself to be a failure.

In fact InCreator's  passionate response disclaims the notion that communism wasn't truly tried in the ex-soviet Union.  He describes how hard people worked and how much they sincerely believed in what they were doing.   He rightly points out the many of the accomplishments they rightly took great pride.  And he also explains that the factor that brought everything to an end was the realization of how poor they were.

Perhaps a clever one of us can describe a scenario in which it can really be tried? 

I don't personally advocate communism, because I think the alleged benefits from it are exaggerated. I don't think rivalry and jelousy and revenge and competition will cease to exist just because people share their material property; such traits are fundamental and will be channelled in other ways. We are identified by our differences. It is by excluding people we form teams and groups.

Well I've never really understood what the benefits of communism are supposed to be.      It seems to me that the supposed benefits are not beneficial.   However, I do pretty much agree with your above statement.

I also support democracy - preferably social democracy

I support a free society that cherishes individual freedoms.   IMHO, socialism is just a slower ride to the same destination as communism.   Sooner or later slackers will begin to accumulate and the producers will slowly get less productive.  Wealth derived from natural resource royalties can slow the process but the end is inevtiable.  But I guess to each his own poison. 

... I have a gripe with people who dismiss everything but the capitalistic way, as if that way isn't also smeared with blood from people who died in its name.

Hmmmm, we hadn't yet talked about all the millions and millions of killings, and the magnitude of human suffering caused directly by communism but I supposed you felt a need to defend against that point.   Btw, I have never heard of a capitalistic genocide, capitalist killing fields, nor of anyone dying in the name of capitalism.  Maybe you could explain yourself. 

When I went to my computer this evening it was all locked up.  Couldn't reset or get any response.  So I cycled power and when it came back up it hung just after the BIOS completed the memory test.   Attempts to enter setup during the post results in a message indicating that it is entering setup mode but it never does. 

AMD64+2Gmemory+IDE HD+SATAII HD+2 IDE CD
AMI BIOS 939 Dual-SATA BIOSP1.80

I would be very grateful for any ideas or suggestions as to what the problem may be or how I might proceed to isolate/identify the problem and replace whatever needs to be replaced.   

Then again, Comminism has never been truely tried. It's been forced (IE Bolshevikism) but it has always required a natural series of events (Menshevikism).

The  "Communism has never been truly tried.." thing is a tiresome excuse for failure.  I've heard it many time but I've never heard anyone give a thoughtful explanation.  Communal human societies have been in exsistence as long as there have been people.  They all have a number of traits in common, the most notable of which is poverty. 

Just look around the world and where you find the most severe poverty you will also likely find a tradition of some kind of communal system, where the group or society owns property rather than individuals. 

... Communism attempts to break the vicious cycle of Finite Needs but Infinite Wants ...

I think you meant to say "Finite Means" instead of "Finite Needs".   Regardless, your statement would indicate that communism's basic premise is flawed.   What you describe as a vicious cycle is what drives progress and creates wealth.  It doesn't need to be broken and in fact is necessary for a society to prosper.   If it were human nature to be satisfied with just having one's basic needs met we would still be living in mud huts and eating berries.  I guess there are still examples where people still live in mud huts and have little more than berries to eat.  I'd bet they didn't get that way through a system or tradition of individual freedoms, individual property rights, and free market capitalism.

.. people want the best situation possible for themselves ...

What's wrong with this kind of thinking.  Isn't it good thing that people want to improve themselves and their living conditions?  Imagine what it would be like if this were not the case?  Instead of typing and reading shit on the internet we would probably all be  roaming around the woods half naked looking for berries.

Almost nobody would give up their allusions to all those Wants they have for the sake of giving everybody an equal amount of Wants ...

Except those people who would stand to gain power and/or those who get to sit on their asses all day for a living.  The reason it's been forced is that people won't voluntarily submit to it, especially the people who do all the hard and undesirable work
that's required to keep a society functioning.     

True Communism will always require a change in the human condition.

This is the best condemnation of communism as I have ever heard or could have thought of myself.  If communism is unable to serve the needs and wants of humanity or inspire it to progress and prosper then WTF good is it? 

  Increator makes a truly profound statement when he says ...

While system might be nice on paper, people are not.

Communism, socialism, and other failed isms, are fatally flawed because for them to succeed it is necessary for the human participants to act against their nature.   People will always act in their own best interest; always been true, always will be true.   Put them in a situation that requires them to do otherwise and they will find ways to game the system.   Almost all loser isms have one trait in common in that they require everyone's participations claiming that if everyone doesn't participate then they ism won't work.   This is an admission that if people had a choice they would by and large choose not to participate and that the ism will under-perform.   If only a small number of people opted out and over time they were not doing as well as the people who opted in then it wouldn't be necessary to require everyone's participation, now would it?  Everybody would want to opt in because they would be demonstrably better off.

All governments are flawed.  Power begets power, institutions and bureaucracies have a life of their own and will do anything and everything to survive and grow.  That's why Thomas Jefferson said that "The government that governs least governs best" and suggested that a little revolution from time to time would be a good thing.   Name one, just one, political group that has disbanded when they achieved their initial goals.   It's never ever happened.   There are no doubt examples of groups that have atrophied and subsequently vanished but none that stood up and said "Hey, we've accomplished what we set out to do so we are disbanding our group and going back home to play with the kids and the dog."   

I do like the idea of  "opting in", term limits, and choosing politicians at random.  The problem with career politicians is that by necessity, they make too many promises and commitments, owe too many favors, and are continually tempted to trade favors for favors (sometimes illegally).   Term limits would help this situation because legislators would come in virgin and have to leave before they could be corrupted very much. 

I would make it so that whoever wanted to be in politics would be automatically disqualified from doing so.  Then I would select political candidates randomly from everyone that was left.  Then the general population could vote for the candidate of their choice.  Sort of like jury selection a la Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.   

Just wanted to update this thread with the news that the current beta AGS3.1.1RC1 now supports net mapped drives!!!   

This means that now your AGS game files can reside on the Linux host disk drive instead of the windows guest's virtual drive.   This is a much more reliable arrangement and so it something should happen to the virtual machine or it's virtual drive you work will not be lost.  Also game resources created using linux tools can be kept in the same project directory/folder tree. 

Here is a tutorial explaining how to do seamless integration which I highly recommend doing.  Pay particular attention to the section that explains about "net use". 

http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/02/01/how-to-do-seamless-window-integration-with-ubuntu-virtualbox/

Here is what I did specifically for AGS. 
1. Create Linux Folder
    - /home/ags, owner=root, group=vboxusers
    - permission=owner/group read/write/modify

2. Make Virtualbox Shared Folder
    - From virtualbox console make /home/ags a shared folder named ags (i.e. //VBOXSVR/ags)
    - Access from windows as My Network Places => Entire Network =>C

3. Map Network Folder to Drive
    - From windows command line type "net use x: //VBOXSVR/ags"
    - From Ags create/save game files in x:\GameFolder

I've looked into this further and it seems to be a Win32 error where FindFirstFile returns the wrong error code on Linux shares. I've put something into RC 1 that should get around this, let me know if it fixes the problem.

Thank you so much, it seems to work just fine.  I'll give it some heavy duty testing in the next couple of days but so far it seems top work just dandy.  Thaniks again...

No More Files Error on net mapped drives,

Just a reminder about this.  I believe in a our previous discussion it was determined that .NET incorrectly throws an error condition when getting a list of files from an empty directory and that the error could be filtered and safely ignored.   I can ask smiley to workout a code snippet to do the filtering if that would be helpful.  Thanks for all your hard work.

Do I understand correctly that you are trying to avoid locking out the player while the file is being read?   If so then have you considered reading the file in the background?  This could be done by reading some maximum number of lines each game cycle. 

I am guessing that the last 20 lines you are looking for is more or less the previous state of the game when the player exited and that you need to read these when then next session is started.   If so why couldn't you implement a cache of some sort.  There would be your master log file and there would be the cache file.  The master log would work the way it does now.  The cache would only contain the last 20 entries, or the entries from the last session or whatever yiou are looking for.   You would just have to write to two file when making a log entry.  On startup you would only need read the cache file  and then start a new one.

What version of virtual baox are you using?  Version 2.0 was recently released and I just upgraded.  The behavior of the task bar seems to be a bit better and the whole thing seems to be a little faster.  I would recommend upgrading to the latest version.

[Marriage]

Marriage

As you mentioned earlier in your post, RickJ, by the Constitution other states do not have to recognize the marriage if a ...

ProgZ thanks the additional info.  We do have a point of confusion or disagreement though between us.  I don't really want to start a long debate but would like to comment for the benefit of our non-US friends who may be listening.  The US  constitution which says that states do have to honor each others laws, which would also include marriage.

Wiki - Article IV, Section 1 of the United States ConstitutionArticle IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, commonly known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial rulings" of other states. ...

So normally a marriage executed in one state would be valid in every other state.  However, a federallaw was passed in 1996 called the Defense of Marriage Act that says:

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

Quite frankly, if not for AIDS and employer paid health benefits I don't think anyone would be interested in this at all.  Like the old cliche says "just follow the money".

Currency
I wasn't aware of this thanks for bringing it to my attention.   I don't think anyone in the US would like this at all nor do I think it would be all that popular in Mexico and Canada either.  Just look at how resistant people are to using dollar coins.  I also hold the Constitution and national sovereignty in high esteem and believe it's important to do so.

A World Government? I don't see how that's a remotely realistic prospect within the foreseeable future. Look at what's happened in the EU: the desire by some Eurocrats for even just a federal European state has met with immense resistance ...

In the US we have the benefit of 50 laboratories (i.e. states) that are all competing with each other and experimenting with slightly different laws and policies.  If one state comes up with a great idea that in fact works and is of benefit then other states soon adopt similar laws or policies.   The federal government is supposed to be limited in it's authority.  Sovereignty lies with the people first, then to individual states, and then to the federal government.  Over time the federal government has usurped more and more power and is what ProgZ alludes to when he mentions "States rights"

IMHO, most people who have a leftist or socialist point of view would rather have a strong central government  or "one big government"  because nearly all such policies require that everyone be forced to participate.  It's usually claimed that everyone has to participate or else it won't work.  I think these kinds of things don't work regardless of participation and that it's just a means of eliminating alternative that are potentially more successful.   If the ex Soviet Union encompassed the entire world how would the people have known that they were poor and that their system was an embarrassing failure?   

I am not that knowledgeable about the EU but I do have a couple observations from the point of view of an outsider.   Political labels and categories do not translate well from country to country.   From what I read about the first vote on the EU constitution the French rejected because it wasn't socialist enough and the British rejected it because it was to socialist.  I am sure it was more complex than this but it does illustrate the problems faced by the EU movement.  Also I believe in practice the EU federal system is more top down than the US federal system. 

Obama is a democrate and therefor lets the states themselves figure it out. So no gay marriage in texas and no death penalty in new york.

It's more complicated than that.

The democrat party supports bigger, more intrusive government in all areas.  An overwhelming majority of the US population prefer the traditional definition of marriage.  In fact this is true in just about every single state.  Even in California there was a law passed by voter initiative that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The republican party attempted (and I believe succeeded, but not sure) to do the same thing on a federal level.  There are many federal laws that refer specifically to marriage, spouse,  and married couple/individuals.  For example there are different tax rates depending if you are single or married, when a person dies their spouse is entitled to a portion of the deceased person's social security benefits, and etc.  There is also a "full faith and credit" provision in the constitution that says that the states have to honor each other's laws.  So for example one can obtain a drivers license from the state of New York and drive cross country to California with out having to have a drivers license from each and every state along the route.  So this would mean that the federal government wouldn't have to recognize gay marriage with regard to it's laws and that individual states wouldn't have to recognize gay marriages from other states.

The last really explains why this is being attempted on a state by state basis. What has been happening is that groups have been filing lawsuits in liberal/lef leaning states like California where they can find a sympathetic judge who will rule the status quo unconstitutional.      Then once it's legal in one state people can go there get married and then move to where ever they want thus circumventing the local laws.

@snarky: I remember our squinky and a chick squinky talking about having the same nick.. It may have been Deirdra. Anyway I think our girl squinky uses squinkycakes or something like that over here on AGS.

@creatorlars:  I would welcome a chance to collaborate with you.  Since my last post the Thread module source has been lost to a disk crash, so it will be a  while before I need help testing again.   I do have extensive hand written design notes that will help me reconstruct everything after the holidays.   

Anyway more to your point of interest I have a good bit of documentation regarding the plot engine.  My fresh knowledge of the Thread module's capabilities has brought me clarity to a couple of unresolved issues with the plot engine.  Together we should be able come up with a solid spec for a plot engine.   I'll see if I can send you something by the weekend,  If not PM to remind me.   It will be a good exercise and will help me preserve the essence of the now departed Thread module.  Looking forward to working with you.

I would also recommend that you install the VBOX Guest Additions and setup seamless integration if you haven't done so already.  This lets us use windows and linux application on the same desktop.  Here is a link to a tutorial that explains what to do.   

http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/02/01/how-to-do-seamless-window-integration-with-ubuntu-virtualbox/

The one other thing you should be aware of is the snapshot mechanism; avoid it like the plague.  A snapshot is sort of an image of the virtual drive.  They make it too easy to accidentally revert to an old image and adequate warning is not given.  It's sort of like having a "format c:" button in between the Ok and Cancel buttons on a save-file dialog.

Just be sure to setup a shared folder with linux and backup your stuff from the virtual drive to a shared (network mapped) folder in the linux file system.   

One last thing currently AGS won't allow you to compile games that reside on a network mapped drive because .NET incorrectly throws an error.   It's been determined that this error can be filtered and that it's probably ok to ignore it.  Hopefully this will be done in the next Beta version of AGS.  So I hope you will jion me in requesting this.

Good luck....

@Snarky:  That's not our Squinky   

I used a thing called KnowIt in Linux and a thing called TreePad in widows.   The seemed to workout pretty good.   

http://www.treepad.com/
http://knowit.sourceforge.net/

I also use DocBook which is a form of XML.  You write your stuff once and then run a compiler of sorts to produce an output document.  So from the same source you could create an HTML document, a PDF, a website (multiple html linked page), chm or others.   What's neat is that table of contents and index are generated automatically (with some tag info added in the document).   I am currently using notepad++ to edit docbook and ede to complie; both in windows.

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
http://www.e-novative.info/software/ede.php

I'm am also little vague on the specifics of Mind Maps.   Aren't they a kind of structured text but with some kind of visual presentation?

I was toying with the idea of creating a plot engine that could execute data extracted from a structured text document  something like what is being discussed.   I am currently working on a Thread module that allows one to easily create multi-threaded animation scripts that could receive commands from a plot engine sort of thing.   

It's currently in an alpha phase of development.  All the interesting and difficult things have been completed, including a pretty cool debugger.  I now need to do a lot of boring testing before I implement the rest of the instruction set; primarily wrappers for character, object, etc built-in functions.  If anyone is interested just let me know.