Help Documentation Content

[manikus]

I've been adding to the Help section, which is now about 2/3 complete.

I just wanted to mention that the "Change History" is woefully out of date and I'm aware of this. As soon as I can track down more recent information, I will update it.

[manikus]

Change History is now current through the most recent release - .914.

[manikus]

The Help documentation is now completely wikified.

[SilentThief]

My opinion on the help file would be very general for the most part (and therefore not much help to me). I think a help file should be a manual style (a short FAQ has its place, prehaps at the end???) and you could walk a person thru setting up some events with a (downloadable) tutorial dungeon similar to how FRUA originally did thiers.

The difference between FRUA and DC would force you to go thru the motions of making an example spell, as FRUA did not allow this.

A simple example of logic block would be necessary as well (even tho I understood it, the example given in the old DC help was NOT simple...)

Anyhow, thats my opinion on this.

ST
ps, wish I could be here more...

[manikus]

Thanks for the input. Your suggestions are the direction we're leaning at the moment, but I seem to change my mind every time the wind changes.

There are lots of planned mini-tutorials a la spell making, monster making, etc, and a bigger tutorial that will involve a separate download, but that will (hopefully) cover all of the basics.

We look forward to having you back here full time. This place has been too quiet as of late.

[SilentThief]

So, has a manual been designed yet? And if said help file is available, where is it? Manikus? If you are keeping something like this on your webpage, then you should post some kind of sticky that is always available that shows helpful DC links such as your web page

Originally Posted by JonnieR A tutorial on the logic block event would be nice. In designing mods you can have several different quests all with multiple stages. Can you use the logic block to test for quest stages (ie., 1,2 3, 4.....) and branch to certain interactions with NPCs depending upon the stage of the quest? In order to do it now requires mucho chain statements!

Clever use of loops and quests can give you the ability to have a manageable conversation chain. If you are interested in how to make a looping event chain go to the FRUA newsletter #14 @ these pages:

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jk9t/...looping_chains
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jk9t/...ml#more_chains

Originally Posted by Paul Stevens to modify the default chaining so that any event in the Dungeon could be specified. This would allow n-way chains. Of course, you could always use the GPDL scripts to carry on conversations with the player directly rather than via standard Events. This would provide pretty much total freedom.

Both of these (logic block to chain to any event in a dungeon, and GPDL coversations) would be nice to have available as tutorials, as well as the ASLs and Logic Block.

ST
ps just adding my 2 cents worth. I am still kinda "lurking" right now as I don't have a working copy of DC yet, and no internet other than library access So, sorry to throw out requests when I cannot help at this time (I'd love to write a looping chains tutorial sometime to add to the collection)

[Paul Stevens]

Want me to mail you a DCCD?

Nice palindrome

A CD with a working DC.

[SilentThief]

not yet. The reason I don't have a working copy is I have this new laptop, an asis notebook with linux on it and a 4 gig HD. it really is a cut down netbook, and has no cd drive. I want to buy an external cd and external hd, so I can set it up right (since the person I bought it from told me I could re-format and configure/set password info ect by using a memory stick and I don't have one)

This means that currently as the only working computer I have until I can get the older laptop fixed (which has dc) I am going to treat it very carefully and not do much other than check email and forums for now...

Sorry

ST

[manikus]

The new Help documentation is written, but it's not intended for use with version .914 of DC, which is why there is no link up yet.

As to the tutorials, I think the help section for the Logic Block is pretty good. What I think you mean by "tutorials" (and what I think others mean) is actually "examples" All of the tutorials that have been made for LB are from people asking for specifics... So, as long as people don't have anything they need help on and I think the current Help is good at explaining LBs (and no one has said otherwise), I don't see any reason to do anymore tutorials. I assume this will change when more people start working with DC in the (near) future.

For the conversation feature, Paul put out a nice little demo that shows in a pretty straight-forward way how to use conversations. It was discussed in the other forums more than here, so here's a link...
http://ua.reonis.com/index.php?topic=677.0

By the way, there is a completely online version of both the current Help documentation and a FAQ that are part of the DC Wiki - that means anyone can help and amend these documents as needed -> the link is in my signature here and in all the other forums.

@ST: If you want to try it, you can get a cheap thumb drive (WalMart had 2 GB for under $8), you can run WINE and DC off of it. I've done this with Fedora and Ubuntu, the combo of programs takes up quite a bit less than a gig so you can use the drive for other stuff, too.

[SilentThief]

One more question, about icon changing with logic block. I remember trying it and not getting it to work but I know you did get it to work Manikus, and the question I have is for you:

Does icon changing work after a combat has started? My assumption is that no, once the icon is loaded into memory, it doesn't change during combat but can and will with the next loaded combat.

The reason I ask is if you could change your icon, then you could have a shapechange ability made.

ST
ps, I'll look into the memory stick idea. Its not a bad one for what I have available Thanks.