I’m sharing with you some of the thoughts expressed between myself and my development team… At the moment, when objects are picked up by the pickup tool, they go into inventory as promised by the accompanying text. However, upon tossing the object back out of inventory, it tends to hang at around z=32 or so, instead of finding the floor. The script needs to read “look for the floor or top of box”.
I really don’t think a class action tool is a primary action device, meaning the entire class of objects is affected all at once. It’s rare that it will be used in tool form, and I’d rather have that specific action tied to a switch or valve that turns on the watering can and the water droplet effect, or a rain cloud that comes overhead, darkens, and rains on the crop area — that’s what I really want for this effect anyhow.
I need to know exactly how the town portal works and how to put it in for the engie. It should not transport civilians (PLAYERS), it ought to allow just engies to carry them and use them with objects in inventory carried along; so there needs to be a “reject” setting somewhere that looks for “engie” and rejects PLAYER or NETPLAYER.
In CTF games, town portals must not allow a flag to be transported. They are strictly for players, not for flags. When in “engie” mode setting up a CTF MOD, of course objects will transport, but it will be the engie’s Town Portal, not an ordinary OTELE that will do the transporting.
Activated magical orbs will require of players that they dramatize their will and intention by carrying out specific actions.
It occurs to me that we already have action steps in our orbs in the sense that one is encouraged to pick up various objects in order to activate the orb… I hope that this is the common understanding of the mechanism. Activation of the orb is accomplished by picking up various objects, carrying them, transporting other objects and of course propelling oneself in a path that is not driven by Karmic Wind.
I intend to adapt the Cosmo Street Orb as a magical studio, but it would be for Adepts only. Several classes of learning orbs would be required first.
Small Chapel style invocational studios could be built along a number of design lines. My considerations are these:
The beginner levels have to be bone-ass mind-numbingly simple. They must contain the basics, but not go beyond that in even the smallest way. Small is indicated here. with few items to deal with and just a few simple tasks to carry out at first.
The intermediate levels must be encouragingly simple, but contain the fundamental steps for advanced work. This type of magical studio should contain some form of forging tools and some type of alchemical furnace, etc.
The advanced levels will be as the name indicates.
What exactly is a Magical Studio?
It’s a place where the Operant can move about, manipulate objects, make sounds, exert mental effort, produce emotional vibes, achieve and use realizations for alteration of reality, contact alien beings and far-off worlds, learn from higher entities, come into the actual presence of God, and more.
It is, in the real sense, a control panel for the inner and outer universes — the tiny Quantum and the enormous Einsteinian universes, although the larger Einsteinian is contained within the impossibly small Quantum — through a coupling factor in the beat zero frequency phase, which happens to be, as it turns out, the 8th dimension. Go figure.
Ultimately, it’s a question of BFO, Beat Frequency Oscillation, in a continuous wave radio field, but that’s just the mechanism, not the method.
Okay, so moving things about, placing them, orienting them, activating them…. when they are active, they ought to light up and get swirly fog all around them.
Shlepping and placing aren’t the only things I have in mind.
How about special items that can only be purchased from the NPC shopkeeper?
What about items that are dropped by creatures who then vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving the object on the ground, to be picked up by the pickup tool and placed in inventory if wanted, or left on the ground if not?
Suppose we had yet other objects that not everyone finds? They could be traded, duped, sold on eBay.
How about an online shop where enhanced versions of the orbs can be purchased, or a way to insert objects into the models file, map and .ini file, such as pre-named non-specific objects that can be re-named to the new model’s specs, placed at an OSPOT point or some such, and appear in the game.
The most welcome addition would be hats.
I know. But in Team Fortress 2, you can sell a hat any day, and go begging for a sale of any weapon apart from a strange or unusual. People are finally wearing enough hats, and we need to fill the marketplace with supercool hats that folks want for their characters.
How can we set up a central server that allows us to sell real estate, place ads, sell virtual and real items in-game, and allows voice chat? This is the new model of the cyber universe, and we’re not there, not anywhere close.
I’m keeping in mind that we’re not in competition with the bot world games, we’re quite set apart, in fact. We make games with higher purposes, so they’re typically not for the millions, but for the dozens.
I maintain that balance when working on the orbs. They’re not made to satisfy the grunts, they’re for the few.
I’m working hard to get my collection of rare Tibetan artifacts into 3-D models, but this has to be done by pro model makers, and it really costs bigtime. Each model takes about a month, because that’s what our budget will allow. At this rate, it could take several years to get them all into the orbs.
I’m hoping to see the DANIEL BOT in action in CTF games. Here’s what I’d like to have happen for our CTF games in general:
The CTF game runs by itself, with BOTS on both sides. It has 12 BOTS on each side; they defend or attack as programmed.
As a PLAYER enters the game, he or she takes the place of one of the BOTS, determined by the RED or BLUE choice the PLAYER makes.
The PLAYER entry into the CHAR creates a new NAME ID for the object.
I’m interested in getting any version of the CTF game up and running. It’s imperative that I work on this aspect of our engine while I’m still able to game-test it.
All the functions of CTF seem to work when I go through a CTF orb, but I haven’t been able to test it online with a number of NET PLAYERS.
I haven’t heard from CTF folks a lot over the past two years or so, and I think I’m the only one left on TF2 at the moment of our folks. That’s okay, just a matter of note. It gives me an idea how to proceed with this particular phase of the Work Project:
All CTF games should be BOTS UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED. There should be a “switch viewpoint” to allow a PLAYER to spec the game from all participant perspectives, as well as a JOIN GAME and CHOOSE TEAM drop-down screen.
I’ve spent the past 5 hours this night working on the angelic invocation cathedral-style orb called “Angelic Guardians”, aka 88altar1.orb, and I’m just about to put in the magical items needed — ammies, super beacon, matrix, etc., along with the soundbyes and text indicators that they’ve been picked up. They will remain as OPICKUPS, not requiring the load into inventory tool.
That’s all the news from Mt. Idy — See You At The Top!!!
gorby