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Originally posted by Day:
**This problem intrigues me... I must make it work... Yes. Yes I will... more from me when I do, unless someone else figures it out first... Can't you drop an item at death and have it be the corpse? I'm not sure how animations would work with this, but-- Well, I'll play with it.:)

->Day<-**

Searching carefully through the manual, I found a statement that unmistakably states "tag" values could be used to set the location of an "NPC Control" action. Therefore, this is a bug. There are now too many indications that the game was supposed to support this. I personally tried all the variations I could think of and always got the same error message.

My guess is, BTW? The programmer very nicely put an error trap in (to keep out-of-range values from causing a crash) but forgot to allow for "tag" values to be processed first. If I am right, a couple lines of code fixes it. If I am wrong, though... this would not be the first software I've tried in which the manual documents features the programmers didn't complete in time for the release..... ^_^

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

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I found a statement that unmistakably states "tag" values could be used to set the location of an "NPC Control" action. Therefore, this is a bug.

I agree. The manual also has screenshots of windows that have blurbs with lines pointing straight to the coordinate edits saying that they support tag values.

so, anyway, where do we report this?

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jwalton
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(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by jwalton:
**I agree. The manual also has screenshots of windows that have blurbs with lines pointing straight to the coordinate edits saying that they support tag values.

so, anyway, where do we report this?

**

Oh, I do hate to harp. I thoroughly understand and approve of the need for we users to find creative work-arounds and loopholes to achieve interesting effects. As a point of reference, I've written simple games in (chronologically), BASIC, Z80 assembly language, hypercard, WorldBuilder, EV/ EVO. I've needed to construct as many as 20 pages of tightly-nested conditional statements to achieve certain effects (in the higher-order languages my solutions were more elegant; in BASIC I used parser commands to detect and manipulate an ASCII string stored in a matrix; this was a set of multi-value flags, run-time created, set for each and every grid location).

The problem I seem to be having with Coldstone, (echoed by others on this board), is that our creativity takes us only to the edges of the game; to what was already done in PoG, for instance. All the intriguing possiblities we have explored so far have hit solid walls.

I must repeat I do not expect, want, or ask Coldstone to be anything other than what it is. It is not going to handle multi-player mode, or do a first-person shooter, or support polygon modelling. I also do not expect advanced AIs, a party system, even a de-bug mode. I think we can be realistic here.

What I would hope, however, is for certain roadbloacks to greater functionality be removed in some later version or patch. Allowing certain coordinate sets to use &&tag; values, for instance. Tracking the unique ID (used for an item drop on NPC death, for instance) into NPC control. Allowing patching into certain player results (took hit, died). Those right there would solve seventy percent of the serious questions here on this board.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

-I think, as a programmer myself, that the freedom for creativity is seriously limited in Coldstone. The simple fact that you must choose the global variables from a list is a major problem here. If you could create your own variables, creativity would be a lot easier. Now, I'm not saying this is the only problem, nor am I saying I really think any of my suggestions are going to be considered, but this is a real roadblock to making an original, complex (storylines, graphics, freedom) game.

- Other problems come from the fact that you have to choose from a limited list of events, actions, conditions,(shall I continue? :rolleyes

-I don't mean to say Coldstone is bad, I think it's quite good. It's not exactlly all that I hoped it would be a year ago when I first heard that it was being developed. But I think that it is a gread achievement in game development tools. Making these tools is not an easy thing, beleive me, I know!

Sorry, I messed up a smiley, and since I'm not registered, I couldn't edit it. So, here's the updated version!!!

-I think, as a programmer myself, that the freedom for creativity is seriously limited in Coldstone. The simple fact that you must choose the global variables from a list is a major problem here. If you could create your own variables, creativity would be a lot easier. Now, I'm not saying this is the only problem, nor am I saying I really think any of my suggestions are going to be considered, but this is a real roadblock to making an original, complex (storylines, graphics, freedom) game.

- Other problems come from the fact that you have to choose from a limited list of events, actions, conditions,(shall I continue? :rolleyes:)

-I don't mean to say Coldstone is bad, I think it's quite good. It's not exactlly all that I hoped it would be a year ago when I first heard that it was being developed. But I think that it is a gread achievement in game development tools. Making these tools is not an easy thing, beleive me, I know!

you can make your own variables.... you just sorta hit that little + button that's right above the list.

hahahahaha yeah... that guy above me is right

i am as aggrivated as anyone about the &&tag; values thing,

BUT before anyone jumps to any conclusions about the engine, take a look at the small tutorial posted by Alois a few days back. I just finished it, and it really illuminates some really cool possibilities with coldstone....

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jwalton
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(url="http://"http://www.mmodule.com")mmodule is mmusic(/url)