It's on my list...Painted Lady wrote:IJBall wrote:I keep hoping someone will do an Ash Island mod for Book I........
Though I'll probably take a little break after I'm done building this huge Book II mod.
It's on my list...Painted Lady wrote:IJBall wrote:I keep hoping someone will do an Ash Island mod for Book I........
Wait - how would that work? Would you "rebuild" all of the Book I maps using the Book III map editor, and then add to that with the new Ash Island map(s)?...MyGameCompany wrote:It's on my list...Painted Lady wrote:I keep hoping someone will do an Ash Island mod for Book I........
Though I'll probably take a little break after I'm done building this huge Book II mod.
Uh, no. I'm just going to mod Book 1.IJBall wrote:Wait - how would that work? Would you "rebuild" all of the Book I maps using the Book III map editor, and then add to that with the new Ash Island map(s)?...
Is there anything in particular you'd like to see, other than conversion of maps between Book I/II/III formats?MyGameCompany wrote: Besides, the mod tools aren't ready yet to port Book I or Book II to the Book III engine. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before that's possible.
Well, I think before a proper port can be done, we need all the stuff on your prioritized list, including graphics, music, and sound, so we can import missing assets from the previous games.SpottedShroom wrote:Is there anything in particular you'd like to see, other than conversion of maps between Book I/II/III formats?MyGameCompany wrote: Besides, the mod tools aren't ready yet to port Book I or Book II to the Book III engine. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before that's possible.
Mod support for Book I is actually an interesting subject. Some of the game's resources are just sitting out on the filesystem, so adding new ones would be easy - maps, graphics, music, sound. The rest, however, are embedded in the executable itself, and so outside the reach of even a third party mod manager like xolotl and I have considered writing.MyGameCompany wrote: Well, I think before a proper port can be done, we need all the stuff on your prioritized list, including graphics, music, and sound, so we can import missing assets from the previous games.
But as far as my current mod goes, or a future Ash Island mod, I haven't given it much thought. The new brushes and ability to convert global maps to save game maps has been a huge help to me already. The biggest thing I'm missing are new quests and NPCs, but I know we're not likely to get those for the Book 1 or 2 engines. But I've been able to create some pseudo-quests using the existing Book 2 scripting.
The advantages of converting Book I to Book III should be obvious - better graphics (i.e. better resolution), as well as the enhanced gameplay elements. (And I think the conversion of Book I probably has to be to Book III, rather than Book II, as the former has many of the graphics elements used by Book I that are missing from the latter...)Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:Why do you have such a hard-on IJBall for rebuilding Book I and II with the Book III engine?
While aspects of modding Book I might be "easier", I think the game's lower resolution, and more primitive gameplay, etc. probably make a really bad choice for any modder to pursue. I'd advise people interesting in modding stick to working with Books II and III.SpottedShroom wrote:Mod support for Book I is actually an interesting subject. Some of the game's resources are just sitting out on the filesystem, so adding new ones would be easy - maps, graphics, music, sound. The rest, however, are embedded in the executable itself, and so outside the reach of even a third party mod manager like xolotl and I have considered writing.
Except that Book I is still my favorite to play, even with the lower resolution. And I personally didn't find the gameplay lacking in any meaningful way. I know a few other people enjoy Book I too, and for those of us who do, some new mods would be very welcome.IJBall wrote:While aspects of modding Book I might be "easier", I think the game's lower resolution, and more primitive gameplay, etc. probably make a really bad choice for any modder to pursue. I'd advise people interesting in modding stick to working with Books II and III.
Couldn't agree more. The portal outside Elderhollow, the boat near Ash Island and the locked gate leading out of Captain Morgan's area all look like great possbilities (for someone else to work on, of course).MyGameCompany wrote: Except that Book I is still my favorite to play, even with the lower resolution. And I personally didn't find the gameplay lacking in any meaningful way. I know a few other people enjoy Book I too, and for those of us who do, some new mods would be very welcome.
Rushed? No. Book 3 took nearly three years to make. If it were rushed you would have had it back in 2012.Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:It looks like the ending was changed/cut/rushed towards the end. Read this. The artist obviously didn't add the Dragon for shits and giggles...
About 1/4 of the screen actually. But it also had to be animated in 8 directions and required additional actions (meaning, more frames of animation than the standard sprites). This tended to crash many lower-end graphic cards (more of a limitation of BlitzMax rather than a hardware issue).Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:How big was Karamiklan going to be? Half the screen?
Ooh, any chance of posting these graphics? I'd love to see them.BasiliskWrangler wrote:including spending several thousand dollars for an artist to model & animate this dragon)
For the most part, this is correct. We'll find a use for unused assets if possible, so I'd rather not show everything we have archived. There are actually a number of interesting models that never made it into Eschalon that I'd like to reuse one day.Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:This thought just came to me but the Dragon model might appear in the sci-fi RPG that Basilisk Games are currently working on?SpottedShroom wrote:Ooh, any chance of posting these graphics? I'd love to see them.
Yeah, I definitely figured something like this happened. Because it certainly seemed that, originally, a dragon fight was going to be in there.BasiliskWrangler wrote:Rushed? No. Book 3 took nearly three years to make. If it were rushed you would have had it back in 2012.Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:It looks like the ending was changed/cut/rushed towards the end. Read this. The artist obviously didn't add the Dragon for shits and giggles...
What happened was I reached the limits of the engine, and some of my original design goals were cut because they couldn't be implemented. In the end, I had blown away our production budget by going a year over the schedule and I had to finish it a different way.