Sagas RPG.com

So I have had some major breakthroughs with DPnP in the past few weeks. Primarily, I have brought the XML back to it through some help from a friend of mine. I also had a huge epiphany in regards to handling Load Out management. Load outs were introduced with the Modern Sagas Beta. They basically came from the idea that a single static inventory sheet that listed only what I carried, but not when I carried it and what it did was more or less useless. What I decided to do was create inventory sheets that included all stats for equipped items and armor, as well as items kept in packs, worn on the body, etc. Furthermore, they are designed to be written for multiple loads. For instance, you have a light load out for travelling, which may include light armor, a lighter weapon, and a dagger or back up with everything else in a pack. However, you have a separate load out for heavy combat with heavier armor and weapons, perhaps a shield, and no packs for unnecessary weight. The difference is plain. When you are travelling you need to stay light, but also capable of quick variation. However, when you know you are going to engage in heavy fighting you pretty much know exactly what you need, and only those few things. Weapons and armor change based on situation. You can play with load out combinations, name them, and modify them away from the game. Then, when you come back to the game, you can easily and quickly pull up a load out sheet with your favorite configuration for that situation. Its all very easy to use on paper, but much more difficult to implement electronically. It has to have a very easy interface as well as provide a multitude of variations and information. As many PC and console gamers know, electronic inventory management is usually the most unlikeable aspects of most RPGs. Very few games have done this well, and fewer still would even work with my situation. I have designed and tried to code no less than six variations so far. I finally found one that worked.

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This week I am coming off of a short little vacation, mostly of the mind. In essence, I needed to take a few steps back and look at some issues from a mind that was not dragged down with progress. I escaped from the constant grinding away at the code and design elements and did next to nothing for several days in regards to working on DPnP, or E-RPG as a whole. It paid off.

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There still seems to be some confusion about the exact roll DPnP will play in your gaming. I am going to try to lay that out quickly here. I will also be compiling a PDF on all of the features concerning the release products and the potential of the system.

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I know I have been a poor blogger. I have not kept up these past weeks as I should. There are some good reasons for it, but the main reason is not important at all. You see, I found twitter not long ago, and I have been updating very frequently through there. This leaves me with very little to actually blog about. Not much of an excuse, but there it is. Anyways, onto thing you really want to know.

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I have to be really careful here as I have a bunch of stuff I want to spill, but I have to be very careful about what I can actually release information wise so I don’t blow it for the future. Let it be said that the past two weeks have been HUGE on production, development, and overall goodness. (more…)

I know, I have been quiet. I have been sick with migraines and back problems (one compounds the other which compounds the former). Anyways, I am back, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot of catching up this week. It is a busy week for myself and my daughters. So, with having almost two weeks of very little progress, it is time to catch up, right? Well, with limited time, I think I can take what little time I have and apply some little bells and whistles. I am also looking at reintroducing some features. They key feature, XML files, will allow for third party application development that I think may a good topic for discussion. Primarily because it has been on my mind for some time.

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This week was fun, pragmatically speaking. I got to finally finish off the bugs and call skill selection in the character generator complete. Plus, I got some initial rich text code done for the character sheets. Furthermore, I got to add in a new feature.

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…but that is what happened. There was a serious hiccup in skill selection when it came to selecting racial skill affinities for your character. It seems simple enough: you have skill affinities for a race, therefore you automatically get that skill at that level. Everything worked fine except for my dwarf. My dwarf has a skill called Craft (Type). The character maker allows you to use these skills by filling in the text for (Type), replacing it. This function was the cause of a seemingly infinite amount of problems. I will spare you the details of the fix (which finally occurred today) and ramble about some new things that have been happening. Some are about development, one is not.

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I don’t really have a topic. So I am just going to ramble on a bit about the development, and the fun going on with it. (more…)

I spent the better part of this week writing out a very complicated bit of controls for the character creators skill selection section of the program. The code was complicated so that the user interface would be very easy. However, there have been some problems. There is a noticeable lag in button press responses. Even after streaming down the code, refreshing menus is taking too long. The problem is that graphically there is too much going on. I went about this the same way as the CRM but there is a more aesthetic appeal in this program. Therefore, it is creating a problem.

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