Exult Forum

Firstly I would like to praise Donfrow for a most fantastic mod!!!!!!

I have played Glimmerscape almost to the end but have run into an unrecoverable problem. Once I have returned to the 'present' I noticed that the Orb of Focus (Connected to the Lens) has been morphed into the 'Orb of Persuasion' rendering me unable to either use the 'Flux Capacitor' or the 'Hammer of Divinity' to crack it. Hence my problem.

Is this a recoverable problem or is it a coding issue.
Thankx

First off, thank you for playing it. Glad it's enjoyable and playable up to that point.

What you're describing sounds vaguely familiar to me. I think I encountered that before but thought I had fixed it... unfortunately I guess not.

I'll see if I can look back and figure out what's going on with it and at least fix it to prevent this in the future but other than me tracking down the source of the problem and correcting it, it's not recoverable. I thought I had placed all core items in the game in the same style as original U7 but seems not (old Monitor jail is my junkhouse/dumping ground in Glimmerscape).

I would say in the meantime it's probably a better idea to use the editor to create a new one if you want to continue. It's shape 1386 frame 1 to have the lens on the Orb of Focus, or shape 1381 for just the Orb of Focus. I suspect somewhere in my coding when I deal with the inventory items it's probably not setting the frame correctly.

Sorry about that and thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Thank you for replying.

I'm wondering if anyone else has played Glimmerscape or am I, for lack of a better term, a beta tester. Be that as it may I have found other issues with the mod but unfortunately haven't written them all down. None are of the 'fatal' variety and are more annoyances than anything else. If you'd like I could send you an e-mail with the ones I remember.

Another point, since I don't know how to edit the game I guess I'll just wait for the next iteration before I continue on.

In conclusion, you've put together quite a mod. It had me going all over the world just like any other Ultima game. In fact I did curse your name a few times will playing!!!! ha ha ha ha

I suspect you are the first. Over the over the course of the many years I put this together when I added something new I tried to test everything to ensure it worked, and fixed quite a few bugs that way, but seems some slipped through or something I changed later on broke something that used to work and I never caught it.

To edit the game, if you have Exult studio installed as well it's simply ctrl-m to bring up the map editor and then go to the "Shapes" column, and you can add any shape into the game.

I would appreciate an email outlining any other issues/annoyances you've found. I'd like to try to fix them if I'm able to. Unfortunately since this entire mod was a big learning experience for me the coding is quite the mess so it can take some time to track down what's doing what. You can use my posting name @gmail.com to send the email. I don't check the one on my account listed here much anymore and I haven't seen a way to change it.

To create a shape in game it is enough to use the in game shape browser ctrl-b, btw.

Donfrow if you haven't seen already I've sent you an e-mail also I installed the latest version of Exult Studio and ctrl-m doesn't bring up a map editor in fact it does nothing that I can see.

I did look into the shapes file under Studio and could see the shapes you noted (1381 and 1386) once I 'Opened Game' then selected Glimmerscape under SI. I noticed that the problem may be a simple one. Shape 1386 has 2 frames one for the lens with the orb of focus and one with the lens with the orb of persuasion. Might this issue be simply a typo?

Dominus, thank you for the insight into ctrl-b, an interesting option, but it points to the original shapes file in the STATIC directory. Unfortunately I need access to the shapes file included in Donfrow's mod and I can see no way to get the shapes browser utility to point to this file.

Bug 1968 New Shapes Cannot be Browsed in Cheat Menu

Duke, the number should still work even if the shape there does not appear.

My mistake, it's ctrl-alt-m, not ctrl-m.

I believe I've tracked down the error in my coding that was causing it. It looks like it only happened if you clicked on it from the ground, rather than inventory. What was happening is in the scripting I was doing for the sequence I was trying to set the Avatar to a STAND frame however since it was being scripted on the focused orb itself. The STAND variable happened to be a value of 0; since the script was running on the focused orb itself it was setting it to STAND (frame 0) and changing the focused orb instead of the Avatar.

I've sent you an email with that as the updated usecode file so it can continue, and will take a look at fixing the other items you mentioned in your email as well, and getting an updated version for download so other people don't have to go through what you did.

Thanks again!

@Donfrow, let me know if you have a new version ready.
And my I suggest using a public version control system, like github.com?

I have a new version in so much it fixes the one bug that Duke of Disorder ran into, but there's a few other items he emailed me about that I will look at correcting. I guess it would be good to at least get the fixed usecode file in it so that if anyone else tries they don't run into the same issue, before I get the rest of the fixes.

I'll take a look at github. I've heard of it but never had a reason to use it, but it's a good suggestion to keep updated versions and changes documented.

I ran into an issue myself where my work on the one local copy of something made a problem worse and I had no fall-back version. Ah, Agile Development!

Good news!!!

The updated usecode Donfrow sent me has worked. Upon return to the 'present' the focused orb is now the orb of focus not the orb of persuasion which allowed me to continue on.

Unfortunately another bug was uncovered which stops my progress ... upon the creation of the orb of infinity the game freezes. I guess there's a cut scene that's supposed to run at that point but all I get is a blank/black screen and Exult locks up.

Knight Captain ... while the mod's shapes file MUST be used for the mod to work properly, the shapes browser seems to only recognize the number of shapes in the STATIC directory's shapes file. Since I cannot enter a value for the shape number, only increment or decrement the shape value (in this case around 1120), I cannot get to shape 1381 (orb of focus) as the 'count' goes back to 0 when the maximum value is reached.

I will say this ... once Donfrow works out the major issues I've encountered I hope many more will play this mod. Absolutely frustrating and ultimately enjoyable just like a true Ultima experience.

Oh, good to know that the shape browser seems to not go beyond a certain number. Will need to check that.

You are correct that that contains another cut/scripted scene, though it does work on my machine without any problems. I've sent you an email.

Are there any files written by Exult that contain traces or other information? I see in the readme information there are some debug options in exult.cfg, but I'm not sure where it saves this output? Is it to stderr.txt and stdout.txt?

Thanks!

I believe I have fixed the bulk of the issues that Duke of Despair was running into, at least the ones that I was able to recreate. Most of them were usecode changes but there were a few that required map changes to correct, so unfortunately I do not believe save games will be able to make use of these fixes. I believe the only critical item that required a map change is right at the very end.

Dominus, I have a new version available now. Should I email it to you on the email you have on your account here to get it updated?

Thanks again for letting me know about these Duke.

Sure, send it to me and I'll update the archive on our download page.

Alright, I've sent an email to you with the information for it.

Thanks!

What is this? A new mod? Is it good? Is it finished?

Stuff like this should be promoted somehow so it becomes more noticeable than a random thread popping up. Perhaps a sticky, frozen thread at the top with current mods and latest updates.

Okay, I'm a blind duck. I just noticed precisely what I was suggesting at the very top of the forum list. 8-|

For some reason the other sticky threads are green for me, whereas the one about mods was blue, like the bar above it. And I guess that confused my eyes! I can't believe I never noticed that thread.

He he, it's not THAT new but precisely what you suggested
(It only lacks the translations and maybe a list of Crowley stuff and I forgot my own mod I started last december )

As to TDI's question... it is finished but Duke of Disorder has been playing it and letting me know of some bugs/issues (thank you!).

As far as I'm aware since my latest round of fixes it's playable to the end but I wouldn't say you won't run into some issues or broken items. I know there are a few more things that are broken/not working that I already have fixed but not yet released.

One thing to keep in mind is this was created over 6 or 7 years with no planning or forethought as it never started out intended as a full mod/game so some items don't necessarily flow as one would hope. I'm trying to put a bit more more planning and thought into the next mod to avoid some of those pitfalls.

TDI ... You ask 'Is it good?' and I say YES!!!!

I have played through almost to the end and found this mod to be very much like an original Ultima game. It's most like U6 with all it's quests and sub-quests with one exception with the Glimmerscape mod it's not necessarily required to go off and do every quest you can (with a GREAT amount of discipline) follow the straight and narrow path to completion. But I suggest doing everything, going everywhere and just enjoy what Donfrow has created.

Donfrow ... still moving along with nothing major to report

The download has been updated with many fixes. Thanks to Duke of Disorder and TM for helping me identify issues.

I'm not going to say there are no more bugs in it, but at least there should be less now.

So the game halting bug is no longer?

Any game halting bugs that I know about are no longer I tried to make sure any of the fixes didn't break anything else, and from testing my fixes I don't think any did, but it's always possible I missed something.

There's a couple issues that I'm aware of but they aren't really game breaking; they all have to do with going under water to find treasure and such.

Most of the fixes that I've put together end up being usecode related so if any major issues are encountered it can most likely be corrected with an update to the usecode without having to restart the entire game.

Wow, I didn't realize how much artwork you've added. Beautiful!

Anyone is free to use anything that I have in my mod but I can't take credit for it all. It's mostly a bunch of random things I put together either from this forum, modified from other games, put together myself, etc.

Since I did not really keep track of anything as I made it I can't properly source most of it unfortunately.

Ooops, and I finally remembered to upload the last version to our download page

Thanks Dominus. No worries about the posting, I appreciate you are doing it for me.

Also some folks have been so kind to send me issues so yet again another version is in progress to fix the latest issues. Unsurprisingly 7 or so years of unplanned modding at random times isn't that clean cut and refined.

At least the current posted version should finally have working keys, until my next version when they somehow break again

Are you using version control like GitHub?

I super appreciate your work on this... I am very looking forward to it. I also would like to apologize that I am unhelpful and just waiting until it is all fixed to play. Gaming time is limited these days.

So.. is this the first full game made through Exult?

No Github yet. I keep meaning to setup Github for this but have not gotten around to it. I think I made an account so far...

A new version dated May 23 has been updated which the latest round of fixes based on the feedback. I'm hoping no more keys changed quality this round...

Thanks again to Dominus for uploading the updated version and everyone who reported issues and helped me fix them.

How did you get the flaming sails to appear? I haven't been able to recreate this myself.

I used usecode scripts to create the object 825 and set the frame a couple seconds after the lightening graphic was called. The triggering event for all the scripts was from the dialog tree.

This seems enormous thus far! Thank you! It’s fun experiencing a new adventure in the Ultima 7 engine.

Unfortunately I recently received an email about the last release having another occurrence of the key/chest bug again that seems to randomly change the quality of keys/scrolls needed for progression. I'm not sure if it's something specific to my mod or if it's somehow related to the older versions of Exult I built this in.

Sadly, I will need to update this again and hope that it doesn't change other keys/scrolls, which given the past instances I'm not confident that will be the case as it seemingly changes these at random so there's no way validate something else didn't change.

Are you possibly trying to use any Qualities above 255?

The ones changing are below 255, but I wouldn't discount the idea of a random item somewhere being above 255 in error and never used.

That said, someone mentioned to me something to check out in the Exult source that may be possible given that it always seems to be reducing it by 128. He's far better a programmer than I so I have to wait for him to be available to assist me with it as I didn't quite understand what he said when he explained it to me!

If you don't mind sending me your latest code I can take a peek too.

I can recreate a related issue, similar type of bug as "Nuclear Gandhi" in the original Sid Meier's Civilization. Exult rolls over Quality values above 255 by ignoring bits over 255. If I create a key with Quality 300, save and reload, the key's Quality will be 44.

Binary uses 1s and 0s to indicate numbers, so 255 is the highest 8 bit value:
11111111

So a value of 300 has more bits (or characters) than 8:
100101100

It just loses that first bit, so you get:
00101100

It seems odd to me it would reduce by 127 or 128 instead of 255, but the binary logic would still apply since both 128 and 256 are both powers of 2.

There are known hard limits in the Exult save format, based on the game's DOS-era limits:
Z-15 is the highest save-able height level, items above that fall below it. 15 is 4 bits, or 1111.
Quality 255 is the highest possible for items.
I believe NPC IDs (roughly NPC's "Quality") are also limited, among others.

Not sure if these are related.

The version of UCC.exe you have bundled appears to be older than the latest release, just looking at file sizes.

In odd_material_functions.uc the use of UI_add_cont_items is missing the variable for is_temporary.

In burned_soul.uc and other files, the use of UI_add_party_items is also missing the is_temporary variable.

Using the latest UCC.exe it does not puke on the missing is_temporary entries.

Since these are keys you'd want to add a 0 or FALSE to them.

Thanks for taking a look at it as well KC!

If I recall correctly (and I may very well may not be) all of the scrolls/keys I've been having issues with were between 129-255, and always reducing by 128. This has lead to the thought that it's somehow to the bits, but the strange thing is it doesn't seem to do it for every key/scroll over 128, only certain ones, and seemingly at random. I'm sure the changes are not random and only "seem" that way, but I have yet to determine the common denominator between them other than the 128+ quality.

I am fairly positive there are more instances of some of the functions missing necessary variables. Do you think that certain items like that could cause issues for unrelated scrolls/keys? For instance, I know some of the keys/scrolls have that have changed aren't related in any form to the functions you've mentioned.

Also odd that the older versions of ucc throw the errors. Whenever I compiled it I never received any errors. Possibly just something to do with various versions of UCC I used?

What are the keys and scrolls affected, quality-number-wise?

My best guess at that not having all the arguments for each UI command may not be getting checked by UCC, so weird things can happen related to that.

Looking at my previous thread on the topic it looks like I said it backwards; it's not lowering by 128, but rather increasing by

Taking a look at the latest report of scroll/key changes the following seems to have happened:

Scroll changes:

59 became 187
82 became 210
83 became 211

Door change:
44 became 172 (key to this door is created, it creates as quality 44 as expected, the door quality itself has changed)

On a previous release, the ones I noted were

Keys:
20 became 128
24 became 152.

---

In the above examples, none of these objects are created via usecode. They were all manually created and set in Exult Studio as it's part of the environment itself rather than being created through code. Some of the items, particularly the scrolls, are used in usecode to set flags when they are read, but no changes to the item itself are invoked via the code. I know there are more examples of this occurring, unfortunately I didn't keep track of them all as originally I thought it was errors in me setting the values, but at this point I am certain it is not.

Even with issues in the custom usecode itself, that shouldn't impact static world items that aren't used I would think? I'm open to all possibilities as obviously something is triggering this!

I really like this mod! Thank u for the effort in making it. My only complaint so far is that training is tedious as each trainer only consumes 1 trainingnpoint and you have to backnout of the dialogue tree to train a person twice.

Thanks for the feedback. I thought I had changed that so you didn't have to back out but it's been awhile so I'm probably mistaken!

Is there a particular trainer or was it all trainers? I can update this with the next release as I have to fix those keys/scrolls that broke regardless (and hope it doesn't change other ones because of this mystery issue!) so I can include that in it as well.

Glimmerscape is an utterly fantastic mod, and I am beyond excited to continue playing it! I just got a boat!

Quick question - Why doesn't the "F3" Key to bring up the Teleport map work? I use it to orient myself in the world. I get lost at sea very, very easily. Much appreciated!

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately it sounds like the current version for download has a couple issues you may run into with some scrolls not working properly to set game flags to properly progress. Only waiting on the download download link to be updated for it to be available.

Regarding teleporting, I didn't do anything in the mod specifically that should prevent the teleport from working. This is probably a result of the Exult cheat setting; in the menus go to the "Gameplay Options" and the 3rd option from the bottom is "Cheats". This needs to be enabled for F3 teleport to work.

Updated the Glimmerscape download finally...