* COMPATIBILITY: Excellent :-) Although your existing pets will disappear.

* Hopefully the turbulence of recent releases has swept past us and no bug is so big that it can't wait for a sober release of A37...

* CHANGED PET CANDY COLOR TO BLUE. This makes the color mixing game more fun. I have given each element a 'perfect diet color' (I paint the emotion-o-meter with that face color). Your job is then to keep the stomach full of a mixture of meat/veggie/candy to match that color. As it passes through the system, the total amount of food controls 'hungry' while the quality of the food in the colon controls 'sickly'

Sickly influences changes in stamina, while hungry influences changes in strength. It's actually kind of fun... everybody loves color mixing games, right?

* ALL THE LITTLE METERS WORK. (On the Pokegatchi Training Screen, I mean). The stomach and colon work, ability points come and go, and a new button "WASH PET" lets you reduce dirtyness. Please see the POKEGATCHI DEVELOPMENT NOTES for a recent screenshot and manual of operations.

* NEW PET TOOLS: WASH AND PLAY. Wash has a little cartoon of soap bubbles, and play is a little cartoon of a frisbeed. Wash lowers your pet's DIRTY score, while play lowers STUPIDITY.

* PETS NOW LEVEL UP. XP is now meaningful to your pet. Works pretty much like for heroes (lose half when you die, etc.). XP change points follow the hero class 0 (sword-user in Evergreen). I have a functioning level 20 green jelly. He's a bad-*** m*******r. Don't you be messin' with my jelly!

By the way, this has me thinking it is a mistake to let you tame a high level creature in the first place, and that maybe pets should have to start out weak and be trained to high levels. Ask yourself honestly which has the better 'game play value'

Oh, on the off chance that your pets survive the A37 upgrade (doubtful, but who knows), the 'old' pets will be starting with 0 XP and will take forever to level up to their starting levels (and will drop to level 1 or whatever on their first fight). New pets will start life with a more appropriate base XP.

* NEW MINIGAME - QUADRIS.

==============

REMEMBER: I will edit and delete your entries as I update the development notes...

1. block out the offending name, make it invisible, only the happy face Icon shows or

2. Scramble the name with random characters.

Either of these would suffice, but PLEASE....do something about inappropriate names.

<fixing typo's>

[I'm not ignoring you here, it's just that there are other issues involved. Keep making suggestions. But basically there are many sorts of 'bad behaviour' possible and adding a separate command line option for each one seems an endless task. Plus, once you distort a name, then you lose a common reference. (At least here you can discuss the bad person, as opposed to NRALPEESAIBIS unless I synched in on all screens, but then not everyone would find the same ting objectionable, etc. You could argue that is what the serial number is for but, for example, no one mentioned this person's serial number.

I would PREFER to take action based on serial number, and have a consistent action to take (time-out, loss of MIX privilege, report to police, etc.) It's possible that names do deserve a special kludge, as did skins. -S]

[This message has been edited by Lord FireFox (edited 04-10-2000).]

[yeah.. yeah.. let's make this a micro-goal for the Big Integrated Guild Tourney featureset]

<<afterthought: Maybe just double attacks with your pets? That seems a bit more feasible. Like magical physical attacks, firesword, for example, or just fighting attacks like double-skullbash! (I want a double skullbash... I don't know why)>>

[well, I'm just thinking aloud about what might make for the best game value. If you can pretty much easily pick up a level 87 monster at the drop of a hat, it isn't as much of an achievement as having to level up a level 12 pet all the way from 87, keeping it well fed along the way. That makes the pet more valuable, gameplay wise, as opposed to just being a really big gun you found lying around. Also, it makes more sense for pets to be smaller creatures, in general. I am not making this change yet, by the way, just talking abuot it. I know we talked about this online, so I am just recapping my thoughts here. -S]

On the stun, mum and numb spells, they aren't just for the newbies. I need to use them so I can charm and tame more than one monster in a scene. If they are made to where a hit renders them useless, then their usefulness is nil. And you won't have the satisfaction of seeing glee in the faces of monsters stunning our new inexperienced heroes. Muuhahaha!

[well, as I said above, maybe just messing with their probability of success is all I need to do. But a hit-cured stun is still not completely useless as it lets you remove the number of active monsters to worry about, so you can focus on one at a time, without giving you carte blanch to reduce all monsters to one-hit-wonders. I just feel that right now you can almost guarantee that a monster has at most one chance to hit you, and that's not good for gameplay -S]

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but I'd like to see water spells that literally freeze enemies for a couple turns. Nothing like a Thrasher-sickle. Maybe even have them turn blue?

[interesting... I turn the red while flasging, I could turn them other colors while 'diseased' I could have a paralysis disease called frozen which also turned them blue. I could do that.... Of course, that would be entirely blue, not just 'blue-toned' which is what you'd really like. Heck, you probably want them to be translucent! -S]

quote:

---

I paint the emotion-o-meter with that face color.

---

Is that what you call the face? You coulda just said face, ya know.

[heh, I scrupulously avoid saying 'face' because it is NOT the face of your pet. (People will otherwise make useful suggestions to me like: "I found a BUG! the face should look just like the specific monster involved, only with expressions")

It's your pet's "inner face" the face of your pet's inner child. It's an abstract meter customized to look like a face since humans are good at discerning meaning from that format ]

- Lurch -

1. Instead of the NPCs taking an item, how about having to physically GIVE the item to them? That way, you can just drop the elementia corpuscula on Prof J, instead of seeing *takes the book*.
   Conversely, you can see the NPC giving you stuff as well. This will keep errors to a minimum, since you could see the item being given to you. So if you were supposed to get a Soul Sword, but instead got something else, you can instantly see the result.

   [I believe you or Fox also suggested this as a means to feed yout pet life or health potions, which I like.]

   -FireFox mentioned it, but yeah, I agree. I think you yourself mentioned something about making monsters being able to heal themselves and using potions.

2. itemClass.bmp which has all the icons for each of the item classes. This would be an essential part of allowing world creators freedom to make their own weapons and items in their own classes, and have appropriate icons.

   [not sure I understand this.. I think I already did this. Give me a more specific example. A few versions ago, I added support for this extension, didn't I? -S]

   -I meant the little class icons. The ones that show up nextto the item names. You said they were hardwired, I thought it would be easier for world editors.

3. Automatic logon (toggle option, default is off), for a server running a world concurrently, insted of having to click on the only choice, just let it go through. I can almost predict a bug with this on the world selection screen at an empty server.

   [I like the pause so that you can back-out if you hate that world, or browse online if you need it.]

   -Yeah, I can see that.

4. AFK when in web browser. You've done it for Mplayer, why not in WoS?

   [it's occurred to me :-)]

   -Hehe

5. Remove the warning for the Book of Skins, since it won't change unless in solo mode anyway. I keep hittng Ok instead of Cancel, and it gets annoying having to click out of a dialog just for looking at a new skin.

   [well, it's not just a warning, it's also about the only documentation a newbie would ever encounter as to how to change their skin in the first place. If it's annoying enough, you'll eventually learn to cancel. On a more productive note, it might be easy enough to change the button labels to 'change skin' and 'exit' which I think would be nice. Only not 'change skin' since that sounds almost like 'show me another' Come up with a short wording.. oh heck.. lemme look.. OK, done deal.. the buttons are now "Use This Skin" and "Close" ]

   -Well, that would work too.

   If you NEED a warning message, have it display as a status message, "Skins can be changed only in SOLO mode."

6. Reconnect to server option. Again, it's in Mplayer, why not WoS?

   [First I need to detect the loss of connection better than just noticing everyone else got real quiet. THEN ask me about auto-reconnect.]

   -Well, this would be up to the player to reconnect. Just have an option in the File menu, under "leave this world" which is what you have to do if the connection fails, and you're the ONLY one left on the server after a massive disappearing act. It's not meant for WoS to do it, but to let the user have the option to do it.

7. Gender selection. I know, not important, but it would make more appropriate obituary messages and level names. Also, you could probably use # as a macro or denote a word to be "genderized", i.e. #he would change to she if the @ target was female. You could have a list, like he, she; his, hers; him, her; himself, herself.

   [yes, well, thank you for your suggestion But, of course, its sexist to draw gender distinctions.. next you'll want "Emperess" vs "Emperor" etc. Which just marginalizes woman, like saying "Actress" "Stewardess" etc. I'm SHOCKED to hear you make such a suggestion. aka: too freaking hard since you KNOW request #1 would be "I don't WANT to tell people my gender" and #2 would be "My gender isn't on your list!"]

   -Well, just about every RPG out there has a gender selection.

   You're shocked? I think I suggested this a few times before, including my plan for world skin dominance™. But, I do see your point. The thing about this is that in RPGs, you could make a character based on the opposite gender, or in some cases, no gender at all. Basically, this is just to be grammatically correct in death messages and stuff. And, I really don't see how it trivializes women, and BTW, you used the singular noun instead of plural.

8. A "recipe" book for the pokegotchi screen, where you store various combinations of the 3 foods, and to feed the pet, it would STILL go through the normal feeding process as if you clicked each button. This is just to make pet handling more manageable.

   [well, yes, but... when we bought you that puppy, you PROMISED you would look after it EVERY DAY. Having a pet is a BIG RESPONSIBILITY, young man, and well.. maybe you're not as grown up as we thought!]

   -At least Dog and Cat food comes prepackaged.

9. Set up a free server, or have a list of servers that can act as "skin servers" so WoS can get them from other places at full throttle. For example, Rad's skin page.

   [an interesting thought... my only immediate problems with it is that the copy of "superdude.bmp" on his server might not be the same as the one I just made for myself and wanted to share with you. And that he (owner of the server) could pre-empt skins. Other than that, it's a very cool idea. Especially, since I already have the http download technology built-in, and I even made it multi-threaded]

   -I did suggest the skin server idea before. But yeah, that thought of preemting skins had occurred to me.

   You can get free hosting at HyperMart.net for a skin server, not sure how someone besides the host can upload, I'll look into it.

   --NEW--

10. The GOTO SCENE command in the quest.txt causes the cursor not to smoke, or to change to an arrow. And it usually doesn't fix until you actually click on another button.

My inspiration train de-railed this time, but it will be back on track soon! Muuhahahahahahahahahaa!!

- Lurch -

[This message has been edited by Lurch (edited 04-14-2000).]

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 04-14-2000).]

[yeah, A37 is faster. Also all 3 colors are the same speed now - originally I had meat take longer to chew (and fill the belly more), but now that I am using color mixing, it made more sense to keep them the same. Also, I slowed digestion so it takes about an hour of real time to get completely through the alimentary system]

Exactly how much lower than you levels does a monster need to be before you can catch it, i couldnt catch a parasite (air 61) until level 67, ive got max stats and I tried many many times

[it's only impossible if they are at or above your level. If they are one level below you, you have a 3.33 percent chance of success per cast of TAME. Which ain't very high. 3 levels you have 9.99 percent, 30 levels you have 99.99 percent. Beyond that it is 100 percent]

Even when you fail to tame a monster it flashes the word 'Tamed' across the monster

[yeah, what a pain]

Major annoying bug:
what you seem to have done is made the pet invincible to all spells that were cast on nme monsters, but WoS still takes your pet into account when it divides the spell power among the monsters

Example:
Without a pet in the scene I can average 80 on each troll using tempest
With a pet in the scene I average at 50 on each troll using tempest

[dunno about the invincible part, but you're right about the ALL being divided between all monsters part. That's a bug, but I wonder if it ought to be a feature. Pets really do increase your firepower overall, maybe that's a price to be paid?]

lets take a monster 'X' for an example, i cast spell 'Z' on monster X and it kills it every time, but with two X's in the scene I cast Z again and it hits each monster with less than half their hp, is that a penalty for being able to hit both at once ?

[again, it's a bug, but I am tempted to call it a feature as pets in general are going to be seen as destabilizing if they just become 'big old guns']

you can now kill yourself
if you charm a monster and then cast an all spell on it you get hit as well (which isnt really a bug, just an interesting twist)

[cool.. though someday I think I will fix that. Your own spell really ought not to ever hurt you unless you're confused or the target has some sort of reflecting defense]

magic-users are still loaded with hp (normally i wouldnt complain), im sitting on (roughly) 1k hp and 1.3k mp at level 67

[yeah, but they have LESS :-)]

[This message has been edited by Radztjak (edited 04-14-2000).]

[well, sure, like scare everybody off, why don't you! I'm sure you'd love to point out how seldom I actually do anything to make an existing world *incompatible* (of course Josh DOES like to reorder images in his villager files...)]

Um, it's an 'homage' really. Imitation being a form of flattery?

NOTE: You can change the background image to anything you like (file "quadris.jpg" in either the ART folder or your current THEME folder)

---

speaking of mini-games... last night after losing heavily at blackjack, I went to the market and sold shares in BASH just to continue playing (and lost it all again). Bad influence

quote:

---

i.e. #he would change to she if the @ target was female. You could have a list, like he, she; his, hers; him, her; himself, herself.

---

"I can't HEAR you... nyaa nyyaa aaaaa"

--

Yes, I was kidding about the sexism (though I thought I used that successfully on you once, LG, when you made a similar suggestion :-)

--

Is it too hard in general? probably not. Is it too hard in specific? Well, maybe. I mean maybe it's just hard enough to not be important enough to me to actually do.

--

But, for the record, I like Lurch's specification, which I choose to interpret as:

1.) a special token (#) meaning 'gender word follows. You would always use the masculine form of the word after the #

2.) a gender translation file (possibly world-specific) with our favorite INI format, as in:

he=she,it
his=her,its

where you would then imagine a number over each word, like

0 = 1, 2

And each player would pick a number for their character. (of course, they wouldn't KNOW they were picking a number, they would pick a gender, also from the table:

male=female,neutral

Then the table could be as long as possible, with as many gender choices as the world wanted to provide.

---

Anyway, that's not the hard part, and that part is interesting. The hard part is going through the code and finding every place I access any text like that and adding an additional level of filter. Possibly some of this stuff gets sent in packets which I might have to translate before or after transmission.. Anyway, lots of work. And then when it's done, if world designer's don't go through their quests with a fine tooth comb and add the #s then it is work no one ever benefits from.

But I'm not actually AGAINST the idea.

===

oh, but on a related note, something I *am* against would be attempts to coerce skins/names to follow gender or character class. If someone wants to be a male archer but wear the skin of an androgyn warrior, that's OK with me.

Power to the people!

Both trolls were fully restored

---

For the record, this is the version which would have been A34 if I hadn't rushed those out to test the new installer/patcher.

Except that it's better than it would have been thanks to all your efforts in finding weird pet launch combinations.

Thanks again!