finished LBA1, again

[elmuerte]

So I finished LBA1 today. Haven't done that since my last lbawin bug report (about 2 years ago). And I still know the game by heart, I finished it way to soon. I didn't even make travel errors (where you have to go back to an island because you forgot something you could have done earlier). It still took me more time to complete it that the absolute minimum, simply because I wanted to listen to every line that was spoken.
When I finished it I was kinda disappointed that it was already over. But then I realised that there are a lot of other games that I finished a lot quicker the first time I played those.
Ofcourse there are games that take quite some time to finish it. Take GTA San Andreas for example, it takes really long to complete it. I was playing that game at the beginning of this summer, but I got bored. At about 60% of the game everything became so repedative I no longer enjoyed playing it. Well maybe that was because the story sucked too.
Beyond Good and Evil isn't that big too, it starts out quite large but at the end everything goes soo fast. The same thing happens with LBA1, after you destroyed the teleportation plant it's a straight line to fortress island and the peak. Some things could have been made larger. For example most buildings of FunFrock are quite small. Take his fortress on principal island for example. It's really tiny and empty if you compare it to the security outside, or even with the other buildings. They should have added multiple levels on top of eachother where you had to go up to the top floor to open the safe. Kinda like the Dark Monk statue in LBA2.

Wouldn't it be great if we could expand the scenes in LBA so they actually get a decent size. e.g. Make other people's house actual houses. Make the fortresses and factories really big. And fill in the blank areas between various outdoor scenes. Because some scenes in LBA1 don't connect well to eachother. They're missing a couple of meters between them. Sebastien has it as a TODO item for LBA1 do connect those scenes the same way as LBA2 does, but I don't think it'll work.
For example I don't think the harbor and the fortress scene on principal island can be connected directly. Or the fortress scene and the library scene, there has to be at least 50 meters between them.

(damn what a bunch of incoherent ramblings)

[Gustav Sweden]

Well, it would surely look pretty funny in some places.. An interesting idea.

I haven't played LBA1 since 2001 (except some scenes), I should do that some time.

Btw, what is your time record for LBA? I remember there used to be comparisions on the old mb22619 board.

[elmuerte]

I think it was somewhere between 4 and 5 hours.

[xesf]

Last time I finished the game was when I review the translation I made in portuguese (+/- in the begining of 2004), but that time I explore almost all actors in scene to see the translations, so it take alot more.
Anyway, alot of times I opened the game with the various ports we have to try some mods.

El, changing the scenes or create new ones to connect for example locked doors and things like that its possible and not difficult. Anyway, to do what Sébastien have in his bug track is quit difficult I think and need a totally change of the engine since each scene open 3 diferent libraries each time its loaded. Probably we'll need something like we have in LBA2 to connect separated parts of the islands in the *.ile files.

Just to finished, I really enjoy playing LBA1 much but much more than LBA2. I think I only finished LBA2 3 times and I don't tire to play LBA1, which I don't know how many times I finished that game (and I became astonished when the most people say the contrair)

[elmuerte]

Originally Posted by alexfont

El, changing the scenes or create new ones to connect for example locked doors and things like that its possible and not difficult. Anyway, to do what Sébastien have in his bug track is quit difficult I think and need a totally change of the engine since each scene open 3 diferent libraries each time its loaded. Probably we'll need something like we have in LBA2 to connect separated parts of the islands in the *.ile files.

I doubt it requires a major change to the engine. Those escene would only be rendered as a static scene (e.g. no activity). And those resource files are open anyway. Just a reminder, LBA1 is only 10MB big. And it's memory footprint is even smaller. It's really tiny for current standards. You've got a lot of room to play with.

[xesf]

You mean, playing only in the opened scene but see as background the other scene connections? I thought about mergering all together, including the actors in the others connections...

[Simon]

Like the idea, but.. who can do such a thing? I don't really feel updated about our fellow coders, but is someone capable of making it work? I guess people would have several ideas to share.

I think you get the feeling of, for example the fortress on principal island, that it's more of a symbol you know? Time and money maybe called it to an end, the plans might have been bigger in Adélines plans.

[elmuerte]

Originally Posted by alexfont

You mean, playing only in the opened scene but see as background the other scene connections? I thought about mergering all together, including the actors in the others connections...

I meant the LBA2 way. Not the LBA3 way
In LBA2 you can see the whole island but only for the current block you see the actors.

Right now these are just ideas. If it is possible at the moment... don't think so. It would require tools to create new scene and add new story code. And afaik nobody made that yet. But it should be possible. They where able to do this in 1994, so why couldn't it be done 10 years later.

[xesf]

That way will be far better.

Right now these are just ideas. If it is possible at the moment... don't think so. It would require tools to create new scene and add new story code. And afaik nobody made that yet. But it should be possible. They where able to do this in 1994, so why couldn't it be done 10 years later.

Look at my sign...

[ChaosFish]

I'm not sure that's exactly what you mean, but it is possible creating new scenes. Check this thread if you haven't yet.

[Zink]

Originally Posted by alexfont

You mean, playing only in the opened scene but see as background the other scene connections? I thought about mergering all together, including the actors in the others connections...

Don't think it's possible. Each part of the islands already fills the maximum 64x64 cells of one grid. maybe it would be possible to modify something in the code to make the game read bigger maps, but all other maps would have to be modified then. Another problem would be with scene coordinates which are stored as Signed DWORDs (as far as I remeber) which also limits maximum grid size to 64x64 (512 "scene pixels" per cell, values less than zero are allowed).

[xesf]

Originally Posted by El Muerte

Right now these are just ideas. If it is possible at the moment... don't think so. It would require tools to create new scene and add new story code. And afaik nobody made that yet. But it should be possible. They where able to do this in 1994, so why couldn't it be done 10 years later.

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

I'm not sure that's exactly what you mean, but it is possible creating new scenes. Check this thread if you haven't yet.

With LBArchitec plus LBA Story Coder (future LBA Scene Editor) or LBA Scene Manager its possible to create new scenes with a new story code.

Originally Posted by Zink

Don't think it's possible. Each part of the islands already fills the maximum 64x64 cells of one grid. maybe it would be possible to modify something in the code to make the game read bigger maps, but all other maps would have to be modified then. Another problem would be with scene coordinates which are stored as Signed DWORDs (as far as I remeber) which also limits maximum grid size to 64x64 (512 "scene pixels" per cell, values less than zero are allowed).

Yep, I know about it, thats why I think its difficult, but probably we don't need to add more cells. The other island scenes could be treated like background images and not like normal 64x64 grid cells it self.

[Zink]

Originally Posted by alexfont

Yep, I know about it, thats why I think its difficult, but probably we don't need to add more cells. The other island scenes could be treated like background images and not like normal 64x64 grid cells it self.

But it would need even more code changes, to make the engine displaying an additional image (really big image).... hmm.... what if we put another island part image as a sprite *.lsp and modify the scene to display it at coordinates that are outside of the grid?

[Assassin]

I started playing LBA not too long ago aswell. I stopped when I got to Principal Island and when I needed the syrup though, I forgot to get it and to be honest with you, the game is still very hard for me. Took me a while to get through the harbor at principal .

It would be cool to really connect everything, Citadel Island was done pretty well, but looking at for example the Principle Island or Fortress Island maps McKay did a while ago, you can really see the gaps.

[Atresica]

So this is kind of like a consistancy increase? The only thing with this is that we probably have to make up some additional content (not just graphics but also coding and scripting). Do we know enough about the LBA1 engine to do this?


Darkflame - This is a good idea, I often thought LBA1Delux could be made with all the missing content + that robot you see near the start actualy do something later + extra levels to buildings and puzzles ect.
[/dreams]

(btw, I cant be bothered to log in yet and catch up with posts, hence me hijacking atresicas post)

[xesf]

Originally Posted by Zink

But it would need even more code changes, to make the engine displaying an additional image (really big image).... hmm.... what if we put another island part image as a sprite *.lsp and modify the scene to display it at coordinates that are outside of the grid?

Yep, its a possibility.

Originally Posted by Assassin

It would be cool to really connect everything, Citadel Island was done pretty well, but looking at for example the Principle Island or Fortress Island maps McKay did a while ago, you can really see the gaps.

Yep, for ones it will work perfectly, for others no.

Originally Posted by Atresica

So this is kind of like a consistancy increase? The only thing with this is that we probably have to make up some additional content (not just graphics but also coding and scripting). Do we know enough about the LBA1 engine to do this?

We can't do it (only in TwinEngine). It need a engine modification and we can't make it by hacking the application.

Originally Posted by Darkflame

This is a good idea, I often thought LBA1Delux could be made with all the missing content + that robot you see near the start actualy do something later + extra levels to buildings and puzzles ect.

It could be made just depend of us.
About that robot, it have lots of animations that put it walking and jumping and I think Simon could be right when he says that Adeline plans for LBA1 was far bigger than the release result we have.

[elmuerte]

cool

btw, I'm not talking about making the scenes larger, but adding new scenes between some of the scenes. You would need a story code editor so the transition between the scenes will be correct. And some scene simply need to be replace (like most of the building insides).
Or is it not possible to add new scenes?


Assassin: I think those maps are simply wrong. Specially the principal island one.

[Assassin]

Originally Posted by El_Muerte

Assassin: I think those maps are simply wrong. Specially the principal island one.

yeh true, he did add a lot of stuff that wasn't supposed to be there, but without adding all that the island would have all those gaps I guess.

[elmuerte]

well that's the whole idea... fill those gaps in the game.

heh.. I'm really excited about this now after I saw LBArchitect.

(now to push the twin-e team and sebastian )

[xesf]

Originally Posted by El_Murte

btw, I'm not talking about making the scenes larger, but adding new scenes between some of the scenes. You would need a story code editor so the transition between the scenes will be correct. And some scene simply need to be replace (like most of the building insides).
Or is it not possible to add new scenes?

Yes we can do it. With Zink LBArchitect we can make the gaps you talk in the game and code the script for this scenes with my Story Coder or OBras Scene Manager. For this too last programs we just need to make the convertion of a Text Scene (with a user-friendly script) to Binary Scenes used in the game. (btw I think OBras and a friend are working on it).

[Zink]

OBrasilo told me a few days ago that he and kat12pl are working on the script compiling/decompiling, and that decompiling was almost done.

[xesf]

The right decompilation is done, now a more difficult thing is the compilation but isn't impossible. We already talk about some ways to do the thing.

[Lightwing]

But in the end, all we'll have is just you fighting through extra generic enemies.

Unless we get voice actors to do NPC dialogues.

[elmuerte]

well... text based side quests should also be possible

[Battler]

Originally Posted by alexfont

The right decompilation is done, now a more difficult thing is the compilation but isn't impossible. We already talk about some ways to do the thing.

Yeah, decompiling is now 100% done, and compiling will be 100% done very soon, and then I'll release LBA Scene Manager version 6.0.0, and with it, we will be able to change the actors' life and move scripts completely.