Azazello

13 hours ago, ABlake said:

Yeah, no, to me there's no excuse for the fact that no one bothered to verify this detail before deciding that a fix was needed. If you tell me, "but it's such a trivial detail, it's ok to not verify things and just go with the "safe" way", then, well, I guess we have quite different working standards. That's fine.

You're not a developer, that's obvious; (neither am I); otherwise, you would totally understand that these kinds of kludges, and similarly the oversight of minor issues [which could lead to major bug(s)], happens in software development all.the.time. In every type of application--games to major business packages to programming languages to dev platforms to desktop widgets.

These kludges pass through several levels of review- after several coders have worked on the same blocks, and after one or more rounds of testing, and a QA (quality assurance) process after all of that -- all of which, so many eyes have seen the 'fix', may know that it is yes a bandage - but if it works, and it works simply, and it doesn't break anything else... so be it.

These are not 'bad' coding or development cycle - they're simply tools used at the time to get the job done.

It could take years before someone goes back and data-mines the code to find such gems, or lumps of coal.

We can criticize all we want, from the comforts of our self-isolating chairs, years after the fact, that these bandaids aren't effective; but we can't reasonably label these as incompetent or a dysfunctional process.

It's easy to backseat-QA code and development decisions - especially after 20 years! We should be glad the game works at all.

1 hour ago, temnix said:

It brought out the patch-and-glue nature of videogame design so, these spells for the occassion and tricks. I could just imagine Bioware people running the quest and watching Tiber walk helplessly in place. And they shook their heads and put this in.  

I love these kinds of (re)discoveries and aspects of the classic BG games! Twenty-plus years onward, and there're still little treasures to be found. And more will be found!

5 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Interesting!  That place is full of terrible people, I find it hard to even read threads there.  But out of curiosity, which are Roxanne's alts there?  From a cursory glance at the link, I assume Strantar?

RPGCodex is definitely not everyone's cup o' tea. It's reminds me of the first BG-related forum I joined, back in the day. Codex is much worse, of course, but still has its own appeal.

But you can still get some useful nuggets on occasion e.g. https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/ssis-gold-box-series-thread.61389/page-48#post-2330009

I'll agree with Jarno on this one (what?!! )-- I don't want or mean to start a witchhunt - if anyone wants to learn the aliases, they can be found relatively easily.

oh yay, a(nother) Roxanne poolparty! Can I join in?

Not much to contrib here, only to note:

• 'Roxanne' is just as equally likely to be a 'he' as 'she'. We work withwhat we have-- gotta use 'she'.
• S/He still maintains at least one account here on G3 - so I'm sure s/he's reading this thread! Hi Roxanne!
• Despite past 'indiscretions', s/he still posts infrequently (at least, under known aliases) on RPGCodex. {sorry, I don't know which is the newest post}

On 4/26/2020 at 7:23 AM, StummvonBordwehr said:

Just adding my 50 cents. Sorry if I open old wounds.

What happened over the years have is a usage of other people’s work without consent. And it’s still happening in 2020. 
 

If you wish to be a part of a community, respect for other people’s work and consent is mandatory if you want to change something  - no matter how helpful you are towards people who like your work. I sincerely hope for redemption for Roxanne and her project. Time will tell if that ever comes to pass.

But until the above comes to pass, I steer clear of Roxanne and her project. Not for the lack of helpfulness, but for the lack of consent.

Hear, hear!

Can't resolve your issue but maybe you can find a solution or get assistance over at SoS's official forum: http://www.shsforums.net/forum/195-shadows-over-soubar/

On 4/25/2020 at 6:35 PM, suy said:

I would like to tune a bit the Monk class...so I'm just exploring what it's possible.

There are several mods that make changes to the class; you can review them to see how & what the modding achieves:

(Monk Remix) Details of changes to the Monk class - Sword and Fist

Monk Tweak: scaled Wisdom bonus to AC

Monks - Kit Revisions (Unreleased Projects)

"The punchy-kicky [animation] stuff monks do is their two-handed melee attack sequence (cause mfist.itm is a two-handed weapon with no equipped appearance)"

On 9/2/2019 at 2:28 PM, Arthas said:

Anyway I find Drakensang's portrait oddly accurate

And surely was done on purpose.

And Drak is now 'taking the piss' with us, already knowing the topic would be controversial.

Let's not be too serious about this. He/She isn't.

This thread turned out to be more entertaining than I thought.

Kind of surprised (and sadden) that no one else has done this yet... A post to give thanks to your work on such a great mod.

I understand that because Ascension is such an old mod, and many gaming eras have passed since its release, the current generation of players just aren't aware of its history and attempts to support and grow it. Ascension certainly has the most distinguished pedigree of any mod out there.

(Just repeating what I posted at it's former forum home...)

I was doing my monthly {translated: quarterly} review of forum posts, and I see an innocuous-looking announcement that the mod is now hosted at G3. Luckily for me, I continued to here and...what??!--Ascension joins the 21st Century!?!!! What sorcery is this!

Many thanks and congratulations for keeping alive a much-favored mod. You're one of the best in the modding pantheon to take up the task. I'm looking forward to good things in the mod's growth and stability.

A question for the annals of history: did you actually have direct contact with Weimer?! It's been ages since anyone has mentioned connecting with him.

Glad to know 'papa' is still out there and noticing the good works we do in the community.

so...?

ok, I changed it back.

Who changed the title of this thread? And why?

I'm not missing the point - and you just made mine -- casual users of the service aren't using those features.

I agree with all:

Some people either get too complacent or too lazy to mirror their code bases on :gasp: their own storage, especially the non-commercial repo user.

But we can't ignore the fact that the security of these hosting sites - GitHub in particularly - is presumed by their users to be as good as or better than a person's harddrive. I mean, it's not like many developers have lost literally years worth of work from a HD crash, ahaha-- Oh wait...

On 5/11/2019 at 4:39 AM, lynx said:

Git is a versioning system, so they can't really hurt many authors — you have a local backup automatically. Breaches like this may look intimidating, but they're easy to undo.

Git certainly is, but GitHub and those other services are code hosting sites - says so right on the package.

GitHub make its bread&butter from providing hosting services to money-paying, commercial|corporate users -- all before Microsoft invested in, bought them. This kind of breach better not have happened with those users...

Most non-paying users who haven't saved locally are safe in that their hosted code base has probably been forked anyway, already, so somebody in the world can provide a copy of that.

I wonder how much GitHub charges if you asked them to provide a restore from their backups, hmm...

29 minutes ago, Mike1072 said:

Oh, it's because your window is too small.

well, Damn! That's it!

Thank you!

A few pixels added, and all is well.

1 hour ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Well, the red 'text' witin Home and Forums is black... but that's probably to do with a GUI used to view the page. I use Firefox and can see it like the above... with a difference.

Yes, the 'text' is also the home and the half arrow/smaller than -icons, which are for me, black too...

lol, thanks for describing that!-- I should have stated that I'm using a userstyle to color Red any links I've visited.

I just did a hard refresh on the page, and still no folder tree. I see this:

FYI from the SANS NewsBites Vol. 21 Num. 036 (tech security newsletter):

Quote

Git Ransomware 
Hackers have been infecting code repositories with ransomware, wiping code and commits and replacing them with a text file ransom demand for Bitcoin. The hackers have targeted users on GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. It is not clear how the attackers gained access to the accounts.
 
Read more in:
- www.theregister.co.uk: Mystery Git ransomware appears to blank commits, demands Bitcoin to rescue code
- www.bleepingcomputer.com: Attackers Wiping GitHub and GitLab Repos, Leave Ransom Notes
- www.vice.com: Someone Is Hacking GitHub Repositories and Holding Code Ransom

 

On 4/6/2019 at 1:03 PM, Azazello said:

oh god, thanks for putting the 'forum-tree' links back at the top of each page.

 

(Hiding) showing only the current forum-link in some white blob in the upper-left was infuriating.

This version is gone again. What gives?

11 hours ago, temnix said:

Not to stray off topic in my own mod's thread...

No, let's do that...

11 hours ago, temnix said:

...what are the principled objections of people to playing the Enhanced Editions?

This has been discussed many times, over many years. Perhaps before you joined the BG community. So I don't mean to bring up bad history, but just answer the question.

I don't have links to many of the criticisms; I don't have links to the best comments -- I'll leave that to others to contribute.

I do have a link to a comment that succinctly states why some players - myself included - will stick to the original versions, despite all the valid points you make (and those points are facts, no doubt or debate):

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/54271-comments-on-bgee-bg2ee-news/page-30#entry545972

Quote

For my part, I'll simply note that I have no intention of buying BGEE because it offers nothing of interest to me that I don't already have access to.

Another statement really hits home, again despite the technical advantages of EE (and that most of the thread discussion is about other things EE-related):

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/54271-comments-on-bgee-bg2ee-news/page-45#entry550821

Quote

The bottom-line is that they released a version of Baldur's Gate (EE) which you really have to work...to find any advantages to compared to a BGT-installation with mods, yet with a number of sizeable disadvantages. ...Is BG:EE an enhanced version of the BGT install I have on my computer? No. Just no.

My own direct, point-of-view, I'll give the devil his due and say this: I would buy EE versions only if it was just the engine updated. I don't want to see, hear, or smell any EE surface content: no new GUI, no new NPCs, no changed story canon, god-help-us no new cutscenes, etc. If I can play BG1 & BG2 exactly how I've always played them--with just the game engine being EE-ified--I'll buy it.

This would give players like me the pleasure to play mods like yours. Which I would totally do, your mod sounds kickass! Pity, I guess that chance won't happen.

oh god, thanks for putting the 'forum-tree' links back at the top of each page.

(Hiding) showing only the current forum-link in some white blob in the upper-left was infuriating. For nitpickers like me.

Although I certainly wouldn't discourage any programmagical way of gaining information, there is still the valid "Lol's Kit Guide". There's alot of info in there, and a lot of effort was made to create it.

Sure, it needs updating, but that's a task for a new generation of smiley-deranged members.

Nice tool, thanks for the creation and sharing.

Call me lazy {go ahead!}, but this can be run multiple times? It would be interesting to see if a spell's description changes after installing certain mods.

Welcome back, G3 and SHS!

"Who'd a thought we need ya!"

:cough: Sorry, I'm dating myself (and others).

We're expecting it to be $45 per month.

 

Is this for G3 only or SHS and G3 combined?

Here, here! I really want to know this too.

Please give us more details on whether or not server hosting will be separated for the two sites.

And, I really-Really-REALLY hope y'all will include Patreon and similar. For both sites.

Does this have to wait til the move? How can we help, right now?

I too am ready to step-up & provide financial support. (My sysadmin days are long gone--thank god.)

Level 1 NPCs expands on Blucher's original concept by allowing players to assign any previously installed kit/class - default or customized - onto any default (and many mod-added joinable) NPCs from both BG1 and BG2 games. The mod also allows players to change the NPC's skills and weapon proficiencies, individually tweak stats, and much, much more... Khalid the Fighter/Painbearer of Ilmater, Mazzy the Paladin, Jaheira the Kensai, and Valygar the Wizard Slayer are just a few examples.

• Learn more about the mod
• Download
• View the Readme

v2 Changelog

• Now setting the correct values for Barbarian and Wild Mages in kit.ids
• Should now work on Enhanced Editions (I think!), though the new Beamdog NPCs are not covered
• Updated Tweaks detection to the new Tweaks Anthology from the deprecated BG2 Tweak Pack

Level One NPCs is some exceptionally high-level, complicated coding. I think I got everything needed for it to work on the EEs, but we'll see. Note that while it works for the EEs, I did not extend its functionality to cover the Beamdog NPCs.

A Life Renewed - At Last!

Thank you for reviving -and continuing to contribute- to this mod!

I got a peripheral request... Could future versions not preface its promotion as "Nythrun's mod...<etc>" and instead use the neutral convention that nearly all other mods use: simply, introduce it by its name.

I don't want to take away anything from Nythrun's contribution. Yes, she created this mod -- and made my and others' dream come true. All praise goes to her for that -- shared with those who added, maintained and/or corrected the code, over the years. But we who were originally there, creating & promoting the idea (and the ideal) of this mod, always wanted it to be a much-more community-adopted project. And presented as such.

I wish that it had been more so like that for much of its life. Perhaps future development will make that dream come true.

What I love most about this thread, is that CamDawg has proven there's no text limit in an individual post.

Wisp, aVENGER, CamD, and everyone who's contributed to the mod's development-- thank you! much praise!

Thanks Kulyok, we'll explore getting this option into a future release. Hope there's no rush!