The description for the changed Elven court bow needs work.

[lac]

I assume this is your change -- apologies if I am reporting this bug to the wrong people.

 

Description reads:

 

....The bow can embue a normal arrow shooted by itself in order to dispell all magic effect on its target or can

charge it with magical fire that will explode on impact dealing damage in a wide radius ...

 

I would change this to:

 

The bow has two additional magical abilities. Once a day it is able to magically create a special arrow which behaves like an

arrow of dispelling in all respects, and, again once a day it is able to create an arrow which behaves like an arrow of

detonation in all respects.

 

Then, I think it would make sense to add a line which says what 'to hit' values these magical arrows are

considered to have. Particularly since you have just woken up an Iron Golem (unless you have killed him already). It

did not seem to do anything when I tried it, but I am not sure I used the bow correctly. At any rate, having been

a long adopter of the 'kill the iron golem in the keep with a +3 staff purchased from the stolen goods dealer in

the Pomenade, standing just out reach of his poison' it was interesting to have to come up with a new plan.

Arrows of piercing do the job quite nicely, but I think there must be a cheaper way to accomplish this, even with

completely impoverished new characters fresh from Chateau Irenicus.

 

So thanks a lot, I am having fun.

 

Laura

[lac]

Ok, there are some more things wrong with this bow.

 

When you try to use its special abilities, you get the graphics for 2 arrows, which makes sense.

One of them is labelled 'arrow of detonation' but the other is labelled 'elven court bow +3' not

'arrow of dispelling'. And using them doesn't work. What I think happens is that you get

a dispell spell happening for each, but it is centred on your character. You cannot shoot it

at a target.

 

Again, apologies if this is not your mod that is doing this.

 

Laura

[Demivrgvs]

The bow does work, but I admit that it's not as simple as you might expect. As I've tried to block all possible exploits when you select the arrow you want to shoot the arrow is created in a "hidden" slot, right clicking on the bow's icon where you can select which one of the equipped arrows you want to use you'll find out there's also the newly created arrow.

 

The description doesn't mention the arrows' enchantment level because the just use the same one of the original arrows.

 

I'll try to make the description more "user" friendly, sorry for the difficulties caused.

 

P.S why do you start a new line so often creating that strange pattern?

 

E.g:

"Once a day it is able to magically create a special arrow which behaves like an

arrow of dispelling in all respects, and, again once a day it is able to create an arrow which behaves like an arrow of

detonation in all respects."

 

Instead of just...

 

"Once a day it is able to magically create a special arrow which behaves like an arrow of dispelling in all respects, and, again once a day it is able to create an arrow which behaves like an arrow of detonation in all respects."

[Icendoan]

Because, when typing, you reach the end of the text box, and instead of typing

normally, you start a new line. Some people do it, and I have no idea why.

 

And yeah, the bow's description should state it a bit clearer, if there is a bug or not.

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

And yeah, the bow's description should state it a bit clearer, if there is a bug or not.

There's no bug.

 

I forgot to mention...

One of them is labelled 'arrow of detonation' but the other is labelled 'elven court bow +3' not 'arrow of dispelling'

That is a "bug", though actually it's only a typo. I've fixed it, thanks for the report.

[Icendoan]

Bwuh? I typed that? Sorry, brain is remarkably inactive at the minute.I must be bored.

 

Icen

[lac]

P.S why do you start a new line so often creating that strange pattern?

 

I have a lifetime of habit which says, when entering text, you type to the end of the line and then type return.

This way of doing things does not work well with programs that want to autowrap your text. And I haven't found

a way to disable autowrapping in this forum. The result would be better if I never looked at what I typed, but

I cannot seem to do that. So when the autojustifier starts wrapping, I often do not notice, which means that

most, but not all of my lines end in a return typed by me.

 

I've been looking for a way to either disable auto-justifying in this forum, or be able to select a paragraph or more

of text and say 'remove any carriage returns you find at here' -- both of which would allieviate the problem,

but I haven't found a way. Rewiring my brain to stop putting in the carriage returns is impossible.

 

Laura

[Icendoan]

Perfectly possibly. Look at the keyboard while typing

 

Icen

[lac]

Because, when typing, you reach the end of the text box, and instead of typing

normally, you start a new line. Some people do it, and I have no idea why.

 

And yeah, the bow's description should state it a bit clearer, if there is a bug or not.

 

Icen

 

 

Hee hee! This _is_ normally for us. This is how typing worked before there even were computers,

so when the first person who had the idea 'why not skip the carriage return' and have things

automatically format themselves, created this, he was up against all of our existing habits.

 

But if we could just stop using the carriage return, and always work like this, then things would

work out. Unfortunately, if you program for a living, the times when you would be interested in

autoformatting are outnumbered by the times when you want the carriage return precisely where

you typed it, by several orders of magnitude.

 

Some people can develop modes in thei brain, and go into 'I am entering text mode' vs

'I am writing code mode' with no mishaps. But other people, like myself, cannot at all. It is related to the

reason why some people have no problems using the editor vi, and find it quite pleasant and powerful,

and others, like me, really only make it beep a lot.

 

emacs forever! :-)

Laura

[lac]

Can you explain how to use the bow's special abilities?

 

here is what I am doing.

 

First of all I click on the icon for items, and get all my items brought up. There are 2 arrows

showing (good).

 

Then I click on the arrow type that I want to shoot.

 

Then, what I try to do is target the monster I want to blast, by clicking on the monster.

 

This does not work. Eventually I get casting animation on my own avatar. I think I have

just cast dispel magic on myself, but I could be wrong in this interpretation. I haven't

shot myself in the foot -- at any rate I take no damage. Maybe this is the graphic for

'this thing fizzled in your pocket because you did not use it properly'. Then the item is

drained, and I still haven't got the shot off that I wanted.

 

So presumably the interface you have designed works differently, but for the life of

me I cannot figure out how it works.

 

Thanks for the responses,

Laura

[Icendoan]

Hmmmmm. How about grabbing that little stretchy-tool at the bottom right of the reply box

and stretching it out this way, so it always matches your posting area.

 

And yeah, I can switch to coding 'mode' whenever I like.

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

Can you explain how to use the bow's special abilities?

The "animation" you interpreted as a dispel actually indicates that the arrow has been created and put in the "hidden" quiver slot. Than you have to click on the quick weapon slot (on the left of spellcasting and thieving skills buttons, where you can normally switch from one weapon to another without opening the inventory) with the mouse's right button. A pop-up window will allow you to select the ammo for the bow, and between them there will be the created ones.

[Mike1072]

Can you explain how to use the bow's special abilities?

The "animation" you interpreted as a dispel actually indicates that the arrow has been created and put in the "hidden" quiver slot. Than you have to click on the quick weapon slot (on the left of spellcasting and thieving skills buttons, where you can normally switch from one weapon to another without opening the inventory) with the mouse's right button. A pop-up window will allow you to select the ammo for the bow, and between them there will be the created ones.

We should update the item description in-game to link to this tutorial.

 

P.S why do you start a new line so often creating that strange pattern?

 

I have a lifetime of habit which says, when entering text, you type to the end of the line and then type return.

This way of doing things does not work well with programs that want to autowrap your text. And I haven't found

a way to disable autowrapping in this forum. The result would be better if I never looked at what I typed, but

I cannot seem to do that. So when the autojustifier starts wrapping, I often do not notice, which means that

most, but not all of my lines end in a return typed by me.

 

I've been looking for a way to either disable auto-justifying in this forum, or be able to select a paragraph or more

of text and say 'remove any carriage returns you find at here' -- both of which would allieviate the problem,

but I haven't found a way. Rewiring my brain to stop putting in the carriage returns is impossible.

 

Laura

I've been doing most of my WeiDU coding with TextPad, and have gotten used to using its regular expression search and replace to do all sorts of lame formatting things. If you have a text editor with this capability (or get one), you could just copy/paste your reply before hitting 'send', do a search/replace and copy/paste back. Probably not real convenient, but if you have no other options...

 

I'm not real pro with regexes, but this should work. Replace "\(.\)\n\(.\)" with "\1 \2" (without the quotes) - this should get rid of any newlines that have a character immediately before and after them (ie. not two newlines in a row) and replace them with a space, which should preserve your paragraphs and just get rid of the extra ones.

[lac]

Can you explain how to use the bow's special abilities?

The "animation" you interpreted as a dispel actually indicates that the arrow has been created and put in the "hidden" quiver slot. Than you have to click on the quick weapon slot (on the left of spellcasting and thieving skills buttons, where you can normally switch from one weapon to another without opening the inventory) with the mouse's right button. A pop-up window will allow you to select the ammo for the bow, and between them there will be the created ones.

 

Thanks. I now am using the interface as intended, but alas have another bug to report. :-( You have the descriptions and images for the two arrows swapped. Right now I can create 2 arrows, one labelled 'arrow of detonation' and one labelled 'elven court bow +3' . The arrow of detonation dispells magic, and the ecb detonates.

 

Now as for the description for confused people like me who misunderstood the user interface, may I suggest you ammend

the description to read:

 

Abilities: When equipped, once a day, the ecb can create two magical arrows one of which behaves like an Arrow of Detonation, and the other which behaves like an Arrow of Dispelling in all respects. The arrows will magically appear in

your quiver and can then be selected as you select arrows normally.

 

This will also match the behaviour we have now, where I can use the ECB to create 2 arrows and then swap out the

ECB for a different bow, and then use the second bow to launch the arrows. Thus, right now, I am creating 2 arrows

after every rest, with my Archer who, with 5 *s in longbow can then launch them with his much inferior personal bow

with little or no chance of failure. Then I can hand the ECB to a second character, who arrives with 0 points in any

ranged weapon at all. That way he can occasionally hit something at a distance. :-)

 

Of course, you may want to modify the behaviour to make this impossible instead. I don't know how hard that would

be. Making the arrows disappear if you remove the ECB from your quick weapon supply ought to work...

 

Just more thoughts,

Laura

[Demivrgvs]

Thanks. I now am using the interface as intended, but alas have another bug to report. :-( You have the descriptions and images for the two arrows swapped. Right now I can create 2 arrows, one labelled 'arrow of detonation' and one labelled 'elven court bow +3' . The arrow of detonation dispells magic, and the ecb detonates.

The images for the two arrows are correct, only the names are a "swapped". I've already fixed it when you said one of the two was named "Elven Court Bow".

 

This will also match the behaviour we have now, where I can use the ECB to create 2 arrows and then swap out the ECB for a different bow, and then use the second bow to launch the arrows.

Actually that is what I tried to avoid! The arrows should last only 3 rounds, does they last longer?

 

That being said, I may try to change how the bow works then. If doable I'll make it so that its abilities will be applied for one round to any arrow fired from it. In that case the effects would have to be toned down: dispel should have a % chance or allow a save, detonation should deal less damage and/or affect a smaller area.