News from March, 2001

March 22nd, 2001

Hey.  Finals are over!  I'm off to New Hampshire/Boston for a week -- I'll be back on April 2nd.  I'll still be able to respond to e-mail and I'll have access to the Forum.  I won't be able to work on Armok while I'm away, but I'm visiting one of the Bay 12 members and we're going to get some of his projects going full speed.  Qualifying exams for my Ph.D. are coming up:  I'll let you all know about my schedule when I return.  Hopefully things won't slow down too much.

March 19th, 2001

By the way, I just discovered that the toadyone@bay12games.com email account has been disabled due to a conflict with my new server -- if you sent mail there in the past ten days or so, I haven't received it (I was wondering why I wasn't getting my spam fix!).  For now, you can send me mail at tarn@math.stanford.edu (you can also swing by the Forum).

March 18th, 2001

That should read "Math 18th, 2001" -- that's all I find time for during finals week.  I'm going to try and write out all of the structures for the corpse processing items today and tomorrow, then add in the interface.  It would be nice to finish basic corpse processing before I leave on Friday (one week vacation in New Hampshire).

March 14th, 2001

So...  I fixed some bugs today, in preparation for well...  uh...  corpse processing!  In fact, I took an orc head and beat up another orc with it.  I was playing a demon about 15 times the size of a human, so most of the force was coming from the size difference.  In case you didn't see my post in the Forum (buried in a rather sordid discussion in its own right), what I mean by corpse processing is cutting up a body and getting meat from it (or whatever else you might need).  This isn't just an enterprise in twisted antisocial behavior -- getting meat from dead creatures is how you'll eat very often, and the farmers in the game that slaughter livestock will need this machinery in place.  Corpse meat will be the first food object the game has, and it will allow me to add in some real basics like eating.  Corpse processing will have to correspond to the current wound system because it is possible that, say, someone will "process" part of your corpse prior to resurrection.  Any zombies that are animated will also suffer from any processing that occurred on their pre-animated body.  Corpse processing will also lead to "dirty" severing, i.e. the arm is not cleanly lopped off, just a large chunk of muscle.  The muscle chunk will be just like a piece of stripped meat from a body (although the latter might have the skin taken off and so on before it is actually eaten).

March 11th, 2001

I finished an abstract species editor that lets you define some simple parameters.  I'm taking a break on the full-blown motif and species editors.  The motif editor is complete to the point that you can view the complexity (there are 12 sub-editors), but you can't change anything.  That's fine for now.  I'm back to the basics (see the Plan for a list of some of the things that are in the works).

You might have noticed that I'm in the process of moving the web site over to a new location.  There might be some problems, so please be patient!  In the end, the URL www.bay12games.com will be correct, but it might be off for a while.

March 8th, 2001

The creature form editor is done.  This is one of three parts of a creature editor.  The species (human, etc.) and motif (mammal, etc.) editors remain.  It's very tedious, but the work is straight-forward as well.  I may yet make my self-imposed deadline of finishing the editors by this weekend, but as with all deadlines, this one is begging to creep ahead.

I've snipped a few months from this What's New section.  I archived them below for posterity's sake, or whatever:)

March 3rd, 2001

The item editor is up.  I'm now starting the creature editor -- the last one I'll be doing for now.  Then I can get back to the nuts and bolts of the game.  A math midterm (take-home) will cause some more delays, and I'm flying off to sunny New Hampshire for spring break (yes, I'm on crack) -- that is in three weeks.  I still anticipate finishing the editors by next weekend.  While I'm away, I'll be able to post on the Forum and respond to email.  I've taken to posting the real minor progress reports (and complaints) on the Forum, anyway...