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grobblewobble
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
The AI is standing next to an undefended city here with a paladin. There is no reason not to take the city, but the AI doesn't do it.
12-11-2007 at 12:29 PM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
The elves have built a ship on this map, but for some reason don't sail out and attack.

More generally, I'm afraid the AI will never go and attack goblin armies (maybe because there are no cities to attack?). I've never seen it happening, at least.

About the alliance: it turns out they can build in any city they take over, no matter what race. Is that intentional?

[Last edited by grobblewobble at 12-12-2007 04:32 PM]
12-11-2007 at 12:30 PM
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Jay
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I wasn’t sure where to place these, since they’re feature suggestions rather than bug reports, but here goes. First, let me say that I’m extremely impressed by the game. It has elements of all my favorite 4ex games (Master of Magic, Alpha Centauri, etc.). In fact, I found it during a recent replaying of MoM. I looked up MoM in Wikipedia, and references there eventually redirected me here! In any case, with an attitude of appreciation, here are many suggestions:

USER INTERFACE
Reading the forums, I’ve seen many rather unfocused gripes about this – it is “inconsistent” or needs to be re-arranged somehow. Further, many people ask for keyboard equivalents (only to have you point out that nearly everything HAS a keyboard equivalent). Plainly, “discoverability” needs to be improved.

With that in mind, I’d suggest a more unified conceptual model for the mouse and keyboard. First, the general goal should be that the entire game could be played with mouse only, or with keyboard only. (Hard to rename cities or name saved games, but that’s okay.) With that in mind, I would suggest:

BACK/ESCAPE: Whatever screen you’re in, this pops you out one level, back toward the main map screen. It has no effect at the main map. In any yes/no dialog box, this is “no.” Either key performs the same action.

LEFT MOUSE / ENTER: Everywhere, this is the action, the “do it”, the “YES” response. The keyboard and mouse button would have identical functionality.

RIGHT MOUSE / SPACE: This is the “give me info”, “give me details”, button. In some places, there is no deeper info layer (or you’re already on the info/details display). In that case, this has the same effect as the BACK/ESCAPE button. (Frankly, I don’t have a strong opinion about the proper keyboard equivalent here. I picked the space bar, but I think other choices could also work.)

If the dialog box is basically “Message, now click OK”, then either a yes or a no choice should work to exit.

This may seem straightforward, but the current operation often flips the left and right buttons. For example, on the build and spell-casting screens, the left mouse button gives info, while the right mouse button is “do it.”

As a lower priority, in the “nice to have” list of feature requests, I’d add some customization options to the setup screen. This would allow you to switch left and right mouse buttons (for lefties). It would also allow you to map a mouse button to “back/escape”. Many modern mice already include a back button; it would be nice to use that for the back/escape signal.

I think this would go a long way toward improving the ease-of-use, but it still leaves the problem of discoverability. The tutorial was great, but some people will skip it or forget it, and you want to make the basics obvious, while teasing users to discover more. With that in mind, whenever one of the on-screen buttons was the default left-click “action” buttons, I would highlight that button somehow. A bolded outline, or a brighter background. Likewise, when displayed buttons can’t be selected (the unit has finished its move, for example), I would make the unavailable choices greyed out. Finally, when there is a keyboard letter equivalent, I’d steal the convention of several menu systems and underline that letter.

Frankly, I think the buttons highlighting, graying, and what-not will be a fair amount of work. I think it will also be worth it in terms of usability. For example, a minor frustration that I frequently have is that an army has reached the end of its movement, but I don’t realize that immediately. Sure, I can look down and read about “0 moves left”, but that’s effort I usually spend after the fact. If, instead, a whole slew of buttons suddenly went gray, then I’d know instantly.


SAVES
The “autosave” and “autosave -2” -- these are great! I’m a terrible cheater, and frequently go back one turn to do it over. (Shrug) It’s my playing style, so sue me. By automatically saving at the end of every turn, you have in one stroke saved me a ton of effort, and the “autosave -2” is even better! My only complaint is that they aren’t immediately obvious, and without a manual I couldn’t look them up. I think the issue could be cleared up by naming them “end of last turn” and “end of previous turn”, rather than “autosave”. The new names are sort of self-documenting.


UNIT SUGGESTIONS
Wandering / invading armies have grey boarders, which has the effect of de-emphasizing them. Instead, I would deliberately emphasize them, to make it obvious that dangerous intruders are entering your territory. Nicest might be some sort of transparent red overlay that tints the background behind the unit. I don’t know the details of your programming here, so I don’t know whether that’s easy or hard. Second best would be to have a red border. Whatever solution you use, I’d then have a safe color (green?) for pact armies. Caveat: I haven’t yet played with a pact wizard, so maybe you’ve already done this.

There have been some complaints/requests about the arc of color representing the health and experience. I like your solution; I haven’t seen it before and it gives a nice flavor to the game. But… it’s hard to tell where things begin and end. At the moment, I believe that cyan means 100% healthy, green means “some wounds”. I would expand this: Cyan: 100%, Green: 99% - 50%, yellow: 49% - 25%, red: <25%. Furthermore, I would change the position of the arcs slightly. Currently, it seems to me that the health arc goes from about 8:00 --> 10:00, and the experience arc from 2:00 --> 4:00. I’d change that so that each covered the full half-circle. That is: Health: 6:00 --> 12:00, Experience: 6:00 --> 12:00 growing upward on the right side. I think the full half-circle would make it far easier for people to glance at an arc and judge real percentages: “Oh, that’s about 90%” or “That’s his last quarter of hit points.”

To further improve it, get rid of the green bars underneath on the combat screen. Every game uses a green bar for health. You used a different image out on the main display; use it here as well. Furthermore, it will aid in comprehension and understanding if people see the cyan arc shrink and change color as combat occurs. One or two fights and they’ll definitely know everything they need to know about what that arc means. There is an issue of cluttered graphics – that the arc is visually in the way. I think that will be okay. In a way, it’s sort of like a mystic shield -- their life points acting to shield them from damage? If it’s too distracting in the combat screen, darken the arcs. (Sort of an alpha blending, but since you know the background is flat black, you can just darken things.)

Continuing that theme, I would also show the experience arc for each figure. It would be nice to see this moving up as a battle progresses. I don’t know whether fleeing causes you to not gain that experience. I would suggest (mostly for visual reasons) that experience accrues on a hit-by-hit basis, and that fleeing leaves your experience of the moment unchanged.

Low priority feature request: The arrow and fireball animations are great! It would be nice to have a little dueling swords animation when figures meet face-to-face. For extra fun (and a pile of work) I’d put in different animations for many of the different effects: an arrow is an arrow, but fireballs, lightning bolts, swords and axes are all different. (Yeah, I know, too much work. Heck, I’ve given a ton of suggestions already -- I have to leave you something to cut from the list.)

Up on the main map screen, as I mentioned before, it’s difficult to tell when an army is out of movement. I understand that you need to leave the stack figures (on the right) blinking, and the map figures blinking, so that you can tell what your selection is. Heck, a lot of times you want to check details on a unit that has finished movement. But there should be a visual indicator that this unit can’t move any more. My suggestion: gray them out. Second best, down in the camp/guard/build area, display an “X” to indicate they’re done moving. Also display that (perhaps semi-transparent?) on the map figures, as well as the stack details on the right. When you have different conditions on the same map square, I would decide in favor of displaying the figure with the most movement potential: active/moving beats guard beats camp beats out-of-movement points.

Suggestion/idea: I’m not aware of all the “body” spells yet, but a quick spell (that could become instant) that adds say 2 movement to a unit or to a stack – that would be a lifesaver in some situations. (“Ack, I’m about to be ambushed! Quick, abort my current spell and burn off some movement magic!”) If the spell was low enough cost, you might cast it a couple of times in a turn. Hmmm, how would that interact with the Teleport ability? Multiple ports, I guess. Yikes!

Back to “the unit that is out of movement”. As I mentioned much early, many of the unit buttons on the right should suddenly be grayed out. When the unit is out of movement, I would change the focus/emphasis to “Next unit”, indicating that “next unit” is now the default choice for enter/left mouse click. I think this will make working through large armies much faster and more convenient. After all, we want people’s minds engrossed in the strategy and action, not the minutia of where to click.

Along the same line, when the last unit has finished moving, I would change the focus and default action to “end turn.”

Both of these leave you with a bit of a dilemma on what to do with the point reticule (the white circle with the magical sparkle in the corner). Left-clicking on the map shouldn’t perform a map action in these cases, it should (next unit) or (end turn). You can still right-click the map for info (let’s check that city), but you can’t left-click for action. Obviously, the reticule should change. Either the bright circle dims or changes color, or else the emphasizing sparkle changes in detail somehow.

One “bug” I’ve heard mentioned is the situation where part of a stack has movement left. Going to “next unit” selects the subcomponent, which you can then accidentally move, breaking up your carefully arranged stack. The suggestion above (visual markings that indicate when the stack and unit have used all their movement) would help this. When the stack (as a unit) has no movement left, the stack icon (on the map) should indicate that it can’t move, and the individual units (on the right) should have that marking applied, but some units would remain unmarked – showing that they still had movement left. “Next unit” would go to the next full stack, no longer selecting out the subcomponent, but a player looking would be able to quickly realize that he could manually divide up the stack and split it.

The detail/info screen on each unit: Many people have suggested graying out the hearts to show a unit’s damage. Likewise, I would gray out the swords or shields (or whatever) whenever something like plague had temporarily reduced that, and I would have some special emphasis (gold?) for added swords or shields or whatever due to a beneficial effect like bless.

I like the experience medals: silver and gold, and I also appreciate the name changes (grey vigilante, black vigilante). All those different names for different races and different units gaining experience – it’s a heck of a lot of work, but adds some really neat flavor. I appreciated it. I would make some more changes, building on these things. First, I wouldn’t restart experience after reaching the first (silver) level. It seems to me that 50 points puts you at silver, and an additional 100 points (150 total) puts you at gold. I would keep this just counting up and up (“Units reach their first level of experience at 50 points, and their final level at 150 points”). I would also have the purple experience bar move through a continuous arc: bottom is 0 points, top is 150. Perhaps it changes brightness or hue slightly at 50 points, or maybe the appearance of the medal is enough feedback.

Here’s a suggestion for balance: Why should all races have the same 0,50,150 experience levels? Maybe some races learn faster or slower. I would make the explanation for experience a piece of plug-in text that depending on the unit’s race. “Goblins learn quickly. Units reach their first level of experience at 10 points, and their final level at 30 points.” Well, maybe not that extreme. Now... is a race too powerful? Tweak them to be (0,60,180). Too weak? Make them (0, 30, 90). Obviously, whatever the case, the purple experience arc should cover the same half-circle when they’ve reached their final level.

(continued next post...)
12-17-2007 at 09:49 PM
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Jay
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
(More suggestions and feature requests)

CITY SUGGESTIONS
I think the “tech tree” and build screens are redundant and frustrating. I keep flipping back and forth between them. Instead, I’d unify them to use pretty much just the Tech Tree. To that existing screen, I’d add info at the top indicating city name and the number of buildings that can still be constructed. At the bottom, I’d add the build time for the current selection.

Currently, you red-highlight buildings that are forever impossible (need proximity to water or hills). I’d suggest (though I’m not 100% certain) that monolith should NOT be marked in red as “never possible”. Currently, you have visual indicators for “already built” (tan background), and “under construction” (blinking). I’d keep the red for “impossible here”, and add a new shade (greyed out?) for “not yet buildable”, which would include monolith. The “not yet buildable” would be extended to the list of units on the right side. Following the user interface conventions at the start of this post, right-clicking on anything would bring up the info on that unit or building (and then dismiss it again). Left clicking would change to build that, popping up the dialog box where necessary (“penalty for switching…”).

Lower priority suggestions: So far, I’ve only played elves. “Tech tree” works fine there, but the “tree” theme doesn’t seem to fit so well for other races. Hmmm, this is constructing either units or buildings. Maybe calling it “blueprints” or “build” or “production” is more universal. It would then get a visual icon of scroll-plans, or crossed hammer-and-sword (hammer and sickle? Nah), or maybe swords-and-plowshares. It would be nice if there was an icon showing the current construction in progress: either the unit graphic, or an illustration of an appropriate building.

More low-priority graphic enhancements: On the new tech tree page, passing over a unit name with the mouse might bring up the unit graphic, to the right. Poinless, but fun. A unit under construction would be permanently displayed. Likewise, in your copious free time, you might locate graphics for every single building of every single race. These would then be displayed (where? The left? The right?) when passing the cursor over the building oval, or permanently displayed when that building was under construction. Likewise, the graphic would be displayed on the main city screen, illustrating the construct-in-progress.

Barring the task of illustrating every building of every race, you might create one typical building for each race. So... some sort of tree-thing for elves, a typical human barn structure, etc. Yeah, unnecessary and low priority.

OTHER GRAPHIC DETAILS
I loved your city backgrounds. As I said, I’ve only played elves so far, so I don’t know if they change for different races. I was initially confused that the graphic changed between normal-select-and-modify and start-of-turn-maintenance. I can’t really see a reason for switching between the two different graphics. If there is a reason, I think that rationale is confusing, and I suggest you explain it better or create a new pattern for multiple images. For myself, I’d like something that helps me to differentiate between my different cities (and perhaps my captured-other-race cities). Depending on how many illustration you have, I might suggested changing the pictures based on: Population; terrain-hex-under-the-city; proximity to hill, mountain, river, ocean, race, or a combination. That way, when I switch from my newly founded village to my bustling metropolis, there will be a visual cue.

Just to fiddle with the city screen details, I might draw some sort of connecting lines between the resource allocation areas, and related boxes. If they have some sort of crawling/sweep effect, that would make things look dynamic without costing any actual animation effort. I would split out city-spells into a separate box. Sorcerers and mana production would sweep through city spells before arriving at a final city net mana total. A line from workers would run through the current build, yielding a date (“3 weeks”). Does the net money including building maintenance only, or the garrison costs as well? I would have this pass through one or two boxes, to finish with a net total. Right/info clicking on any of those boxes would bring up a info list (city spells are: Awesome Gleam: 3, Perpetual healing: 5). Perhaps that info box would allow spell dismissal.

OTHER IDEAS
These are all wild ideas and suggestions.

Wandering monsters. Units that no one can produce, and a few animal or undead types that also serve as units (skeletons, hydra). In the spirit of the old “gauntlet” game, I would have these “generated” at magical sites (ley lines, abandoned monasteries, occasionally just the middle of nowhere, etc.) and randomly wander out from there. Meaning that if you could camp an army on ALL the sites in your region, you’d mostly eliminate the problem (or at least have an army there when the wanderer appeared).

Ley line option: In my vast two games, ley lines have always been visible by passing near them. For a difficulty rating, you might add an option that made them “regular” (you find them like any other terrain feature), “hidden” (you need detection), or “Invisible” (you need mage sight to find them). I’d suggest that once you’d found them, you could see them forever (even in the fog-of-war display), and that other players would have to spend the same effort to find them that you did. (“I know the elves were camping right here, but I can’t see anything! And camping here doesn’t gain me spell energy.”) Main problem: creating proper AI behavior for the other sides.

Special features: I’m thinking of monasteries, arenas, crypts, etc. These are neat, but maybe they should “cost” more. Two options: making them harder to find (regular/hidden/invisible, like with ley lines above), and adding monsters to the site. Perhaps I’d make a sight “sticky” so that the first three or four generated monsters stuck around there. Or maybe an option: Monsters at sites (none, only when empty, monster generator). Naturally, if the site is invisible, all the monsters should be likewise unseen -- unless you go wandering through that hex. Five hydras! What a surprise!

Camp / guard: I find “guard” fairly useless. I don’t want my single-unit army to leap out of their safe and defensible bunker to make a suicide dash into any overpowering stack that wanders by. I use “camp” exclusively, and then try to keep a roving eye on the map, to spot incursions and deal with them manually. “Guard” seems most useful as an AI option, for the computer player. As a human player, what I’d like is options of “Camp” and “watch” (hey, the eye icon is suddenly even more appropriate). What does “watch” do? Whenever an enemy unit is spotted, it will pull attention during its cycle in the turn. It won’t automatically un-camp or anything, but it will pull up attention, forcing you to acknowledge the threat. (Perhaps there could be some subtly blinking red outline around the offending unit, to make it blindingly obvious.) If that were the case, I’d use “watch” all the time – for all my perimeter guard posts. I’d still use “camp” a lot, for interior miners and resource harvesters.

Paths: Most of your competitive turn-strategy games offer a way to take a stack and say, “move to here, don’t bother me until you get there.” I would suggest that your units lay out a thin cyan line, illustrating their proposed path. For extra flexibility, click along the way for waypoints. That way, if you don’t like the suggested path, you can fix it yourself, getting down to the point of setting every single hex. I’d suggest that any stack following a path should automatically follow the “watch” behavior from above, as well. So if it encountered any enemy units on the way, it would stop and demand attention, even if that attention was just “carry on.”

In general, I really like the intense variety between the races. So far, I’ve only played a couple of games, but I’ll want to experiment with all the races. Okay, yes, I see the point from earlier about the building being a shuffling of the same basic features. Eh, big deal. Between the different gods, the wealth of units, and the buildings, you’ve got some amazing variety. Different illustrations will help to emphasize this.

This is a great game, and I hope that you all have some plan to eventually make money off of it. While I’m not going to complain about getting it for free, considering the work and creativity you’ve invested, I hope you gain some benefit from your labor. Barring that, you could take the linux approach. As I envision it, that would be to give the game away for free, but to create an outstanding manual / strategy guide, and sell THAT.

Anyway, I hope these comments have been helpful.
12-17-2007 at 09:50 PM
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grobblewobble
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Hi Jay!

Nice to see you're enjoying this game. Many interesting suggestions you're giving, too.

Wandering / invading armies have grey boarders, which has the effect of de-emphasizing them.
I wonder if there's a misunderstanding here? Only "barbarian" troops (not belonging to any wizard) have grey borders, invading troops belonging to another wizard have the color of that wizard..

Suggestion/idea: I’m not aware of all the “body” spells yet, but a quick spell (that could become instant) that adds say 2 movement to a unit or to a stack – that would be a lifesaver in some situations.
Such a spell does actually exist: storm run, a spell requiring EEE. (three dots of energy magic)

Ley line option: In my vast two games, ley lines have always been visible by passing near them. For a difficulty rating, you might add an option that made them “regular” (you find them like any other terrain feature), “hidden” (you need detection), or “Invisible” (you need mage sight to find them).
Intriguing idea. Another possibility would be to let it depend on the type of resource. For example, oyster beds could be hidden, while leylines are invisible and monasteries are neither. That would also require rethinking the amounts of gold/mana/other all of these bring in.

Camp / guard: I find “guard” fairly useless.
Just a little note here: did you know that units with overland abilities behave differently when they have been set to guard? For example, envoys on guard will automatically try to bribe approaching armies, while priests on guard will try to exorcise approaching undead enemies.

The "watch" option sounds pretty good imo, clever idea.

[Last edited by grobblewobble at 12-20-2007 04:39 PM]
12-20-2007 at 04:23 PM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
* I used the delusion spell on a stack of units and an archon is masked as a ghoul, but in combat when i move the mouse over him i see ghoul as description

* No messages appear when my units are hit by overland spells. This means spells such as plague or frostbite can be cast unnoticed until it's too late, or force you to cycle all of your units (including guards/camped ones) at every turn.

* Insanity is not notified with a skull token on the unit icon (at least for heroes - i've never seen it on a normal unit)

* I had three heroes and the call hero option was greyed out, then one of them died in battle and the option was available again, so i recruited another. On the next turn the slain hero reappears at my capitol and i now have four heroes - but the mirror screen only show three (in the savefile)


Let me congrat for the great game as well - one of the best MoM heirs i've seen around!! :thumbsup


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12-31-2007 at 12:38 AM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I got a news message at start of turn claiming an hydra was killed by the enemy population, but the hydra was actually killed in a battle for a city the turn before (the battle was won but no militant units survived so it was only occupied, not conquered)

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12-31-2007 at 12:39 AM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I met an enemy infiltrator that was initially unmasked, then some turns later he somehow masked itself as a hero (Isolde) that was on the other side of the map and thus not visible to him - i think imitation should only works with visible units? Additionally, the unit icon appear blank.

Later on, i tried using imitation on that infiltrator and my infiltrator masked itself as a miner (?!? they are near the center of the map IIRC)

Also (and not in the savefile), when examining units in the editor all units appear as owned by the wizard for which you last placed a unit

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12-31-2007 at 12:41 AM
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GrIMAge
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
A few things to notice in this one:

* I trained a veteran runner to a jellyfish and i ended up with a grade 2 jellyfish named "veteran troops" (near the top of the map, sitting on pearls)

* For some reasons one of my heroes (Uk-Sothar) keeps becoming "impervious" every once a while and randomly loses combat stats (maybe reverting to starting values, i'm not sure - i got 3 meelee, 5 ranged, 5 defense, 5 health and 3 movement)

* I cast a mistargeted lightning strike spell that hit one of my stacks and i immediately got a message saying "behemoth was struck by an elemental spell" (it's the group north of the island city with lots of swordmen - no behemoth there) - in reloading the game and casting it correctly i get the same message with bladesinger in place of behemoth, even though no units of mine were hit (and there was no bladesinger among enemies as well)
[edit]whoops... i see this one has already been reported... sorry... :look [/edit]

* In one occasion i attacked that city and after organizing formation i pressed esc - the combat ended immediately and my attacking units passed to the city owner (raiders) - haven't been able to replicate it again though... :?

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[Last edited by GrIMAge at 12-31-2007 12:52 AM]
12-31-2007 at 12:44 AM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Oh, and also...

Well, thanks for the offer. The hero and wizard pictures are 400x480 pixels in size, and are 16-bit color JPEGs. The game's resolution is 1024x768.

If you're interested, i should be able to contribute something, just let me know how i should send them (keep in mind though, that i use an old photoshop version that doesn't handle 16-bit jpegs very well - i hope 8-bit are fine as well for you?)

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12-31-2007 at 12:47 AM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
GrIMAge wrote:
Oh, and also...
I would be interested in seeing what you come up with. You can send them to me via PM, if you want.


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01-01-2008 at 01:42 PM
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GrIMAge
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
@Radiant: Sent you a PM about images...

---
At the start of this save i receive a message telling me that i've been the target of a thoughtshatter spell, but the name of the spell that has been forgot is missing, showing only an extra space.

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01-02-2008 at 04:28 PM
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I had a stack of six nether oozes near some void hexes. When they multiplied one of the spawns appeared on the void... guess they kinda belong there, but i think they're not meant to end up there anyway... ;)

Also, Nether oozes for which i can't pay upkeep don't seem to be revolting against me as the Fanatic trait mention - instead each turn my troops, cities and myself constantly get hit by (seemingly random) offensive spells... is this an intended behaviour?

[edit]forgot to mention, but the savefile only applies to the second part - i didn't keep one of the voidwalking ooze[/edit]

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[Last edited by GrIMAge at 01-02-2008 04:31 PM]
01-02-2008 at 04:30 PM
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Third Eye
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Mh, I got an issue closing my game window instead of quitting it via "quit game" button, while I was browsing the small in game guide, so it lasted, I had to shut it down via task manager (and thus it took a reboot to make the system work well again:

http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=troublebx7.gif

Two lesser troubles playing goblins:

First one: on a random event a unit of mine leveled up and clicking "view" I got this one:

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moretroubleuq4.gif

Lacking cities, morale bonus shouldn't be operative, I guess:

http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moretrouble2wf1.gif

Regards :)...

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[Last edited by Third Eye at 01-20-2008 12:44 AM]
01-20-2008 at 12:41 AM
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Radiant
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
GrIMAge wrote:
I had a stack of six nether oozes near some void hexes.

GrIMAge - please drop me a note? I sent you a PM last week. Your portraits were very nice!


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01-26-2008 at 09:50 PM
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The Mystic
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
This latest version of Leylines works great for me, except that it keeps crashing every ten minutes or so. Here's one such message I get:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Leylines.exe
Application Version: 2.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 4750535b
Fault Module Name: Leylines.exe
Fault Module Version: 2.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4750535b
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000087d6
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 4aaa
Additional Information 2: d2e8b7898cbfe2dcbb2b892a6b0f18a6
Additional Information 3: 7a17
Additional Information 4: e37c78e91106fee46ec9b080c263124a
I also get the following message in a bubble at the bottom of my screen:
Display driver stopped responding and has recovered.
Display driver R300 stopped responding and has successfully recovered.
I'm using Windows Vista.

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01-30-2008 at 08:35 PM
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Third Eye
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Mh, a werewolf ignored an undefended city the raiders stole me until few turns ago, just to step by and head to my capital: was it on purpose or a bug or something due to my playing a novice game?

Whenever I see my warleader stats during a fight, once I win it it shows me this (oh, and see how the game image exits by some pixel from my window).

Just to let me know: is there out any roadmap for this project, would you consider making the fight screen something more like master of magic in the future and is it possible to propose the creation of some new faction (I have some cool idea for gnolls)?

In the attached file you can see my monkey-like hero having to buy again most of his most expensive skills: why is that :(?

Thanks for the awesome work anyway :)!!!

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[Last edited by Third Eye at 02-11-2008 01:34 AM]
02-11-2008 at 01:31 AM
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Radiant
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Third Eye wrote:
Mh, a werewolf ignored an undefended city the raiders stole me until few turns ago,
Got a save of that?

Whenever I see my warleader stats during a fight, once I win it it shows me
Got a save of that too?

would you consider making the fight screen something more like master of magic in the future
No. This is by design, because it plays faster that way.

and is it possible to propose the creation of some new faction (I have some cool idea for gnolls)?
I'd be happy to hear the proposal, but I'm not promising anything
:)

And thanks for the feedback!

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02-11-2008 at 10:17 AM
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Third Eye
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I miss the save for the werewolf ignoring the town I just rescued from them, I'm sorry; speaking of the warleader making a hero display bug, it happened at least thrice in my play with the file I attached, so I guess it is safe to assume that it could happen again if you engage in a fight with some of it, right click him and then end up the fight (I guess you should win keeping him alive in order to see it).

Would you please consider, once the game is fully grown, allowing the possibility of letting players decide if they can use complete or quick tactical combact? Seeing you already did most of it, it would be a pity not to have a simple fighting system allowing more challenge and a better use of factors like movement.

Just tell me if I can post general ideas on improvements or add-ons in the balance thread, if you prefer to have them as a pm or if you'd like a whole new thread to them and once I get some spare time I'll be glad to try my best to give contributions to gameplay.

Thanks for letting me pull a satisfactory all-nighter after ages I've been missing such an addictive game :)!!

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02-11-2008 at 01:35 PM
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wonkyth
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  

No. This is by design, because it plays faster that way.
two things about it: As the gameplay isn't that fast to begin with, it surely wouldn't make that much difference.
and the other thing is that, after reading "The Art Of War"I have noticed that about one quarter of the whole war is in actual battle.
I'd be happy to hear the proposal, but I'm not promising anything
:)
variaty is always good!



one other thing is that some people that have alot of time on their hand probably should do some testing of the map editor, 'cos last time I looked at it (a while ago, mind you) it looked a bit dodgy...

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03-08-2008 at 09:22 AM
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wonkyth
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
where is the chaos???

( there was supposed to be some earth shattering chaos )

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03-08-2008 at 09:28 PM
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Radiant
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
What do you mean where's the chaos, you haven't studied Chaos magic.


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03-09-2008 at 05:01 PM
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wonkyth
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
it is from the map editor.

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03-10-2008 at 09:45 AM
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Danjen02
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Version: November 30th, 2007 (not sure if this is latest on not...)
Since I updated to this, the main screen lags horribly for me. I've timed it, and it actually takes a good 5 seconds before it responds. It is such a hassle, that I need to use the keyboard to navigate the menus. If its only happening to me, I wonder if it's a hardware issue. The same thing sometimes happens with splitscreen multiplayer, and seems to be caused if too many interfaces are opened. For instance, if both players have the build menu open in a city (with 'Use Building Queues in Cities' option enabled) it will lag. If a player finishes his or her turn, and the other looks at unexplored/fog of warred terrain, it will lag. Sometimes this is mitigated by having the finished player work on the sliding puzzles.

I think thats the only bug I'm encountering, but we'll see...
-_-

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03-25-2008 at 01:59 AM
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ShiroIchida
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Not sure if this is even still being developed, but oh well - here goes. Can't hurt, can it?

Using the latest version.

When you use the herbalist to try and heal either his own army or the hero's, the game crashes. Or at least it does on my system. Using XP, if it matters.
04-17-2008 at 08:32 AM
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trinsic
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I've reached a point where the game consistently crashes whenever I try to end my turn.
I've been running it on windows 2k. The save game file is attached.

04-30-2008 at 03:07 PM
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Grammozeka
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Why battles in homemade maps are only automatic? It happens both on single-player & multiplayer maps. Could it be solved somehow?

Raiders units placed on the maps in editor disappear when the game begins.

There's no option for "detailed battles enabled" in "Mirror" menu while playing single-player map as you've written in another thread.

P.S.: version: November 30th, 2007
06-07-2008 at 06:44 AM
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raen
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
There should be just a simple "bookmark" feature so that you can mar terrain to remind yourself later of locations to place a city, a place to occupy etc. The 2 screens after "Play Game > One Player > Accept" screens, the ones called "Select Game Options" and "Create Random Map" need to be made better. Every time you come back your settings are reset, and they should remain the same.
06-08-2008 at 04:56 AM
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raen
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
Oh, found a typo and another suggestion: You should be able to choose your color, and then there could also be a "random" button and the page where you choose your spheres of magic and such that changes your color to another random one. The typo I found was that I was playing as Elves against 2 apprentice enemies, and I was going to build a monolith in my capital with (production queues on), and Wisdom Monolith was spelled "Wisdom Monolit". Pointing it out...
P.S. Love the game! :D
06-08-2008 at 10:37 PM
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The Mystic
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icon Re: Leylines: still beta testing (updated) (0)  
I have a new problem with Leylines: It just plain crashes. Here's the sequence of events:
1. I double-click "leylines.exe".
2. The Crystal Shard logo comes up, and the game loads.
3. A button marked "Continue" appears, and I click it.
4. The game crashes instantly.

I use Windows Vista; I don't know if it's Home Basic or Home Premium.

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Either I'm crazy, or everybody else is nuts. And I know I'm not crazy because the little man who lives on my shoulder told me so.
If people don't think there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with you.
Oh well. Another day, another dementia.
Click here to view the secret text

06-10-2008 at 01:36 AM
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