Exult Forum

Marzo suggested I resurrect a U7:TFL thread from scratch since the other got closed, so here we go.

The new website, for those interested, is http://lfs.lfhost.com/u7tfl

With a shorter URL to remember, and a shiny new WordPress install, you can look forward to some more constant news postings on the project. I have a lot of difficulty getting here on Phorum, and always have, but I will be updating the news on the U7:TFL page as much as I am able.

You're free to read here and post, and I'll try to post big updates here -- I never have trouble reading here -- but I do have trouble posting. So don't fret if you do reply here and I don't respond. I read each and every post here. Yes, even the spam posts

If you check out the new site, I've posted a breif summary of where the project stands now, and you can look out for more specific updates soon.

Anyone can comment on the news articles on the page, you just need to register a nick - though your first couple of posts go to moderation to protect against spambots; anyone of the TFL team or contributors, or of the Exult team or contributors, that want's news-posting privelages there, need only ask. I'd like you, if you could Marzo, to sign up so I can give you those privs, as with the Keyring mod updates at the very least, you're the most prolific contributor to the mod

Anywho that's it for now. Read the page for updates, and keep an eye on this thread for releases!

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

As an addendum, would it be possible to get a link to the U7:TFL page on the Exult links page?

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon

I am having random erratic problems with any Sourceforge related site/page (as well as a host of other sites) from my home computer, so I will have to add the link tomorrow while I am at work (at home, I am having a very low chance -- the statistic is still ongoing -- of me being able to read or post to the Phorum without the connection being reset).

Out of curiosity: how long after registration does it take to receive the password?

It should say on the registration page if it is successful, a temporary password. You can then set it to whatever one you wish through the control panel available in the Meta sidebar. If you didn't get one, you can retrieve the password through email, presuming that you gave a valid address.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

I triple-checked the e-mail address and it is correct, but the e-mail with the password hasn't arrived yet; I guess I will just have to wait for it to arrive then...

Give me a moment and I'll manually reset the password and mail you the temp one.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

And mailed.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_IX

A good read ^^ Even talks about the plot flaws.

I'm not really interested in accounting for any of Ultima IX's (many) plot holes, to be honest.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

Particularly if it is in the wrong thread, I think

Anyways, I finished the signing up process.

You managed it? Good. You can feel free to post updates to the Keyring mod or any of the other mods you have going there.

I'm just downloading the newest Win32 snapshot of Exult after going without updating for almost three quarters of the year. Here's hopin it still works and doesn't break TFL!

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

If you have updated from the TFL CVS, then it should work without problems because I updated it whenever there were important updates. If you didn't, it will likely crash and burn...

Just as a note to the forumgoers, there have been commits to the TFL CVS and some discussion on the IRC (which I touched on the results of in a TFL page update).

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

The link, incidentally, for the post in question on the TFL page is:

http://lfs.lfhost.com/u7tfl/?p=40

Read and comment! Here or there, whichever you prefer. I am personally kinda excited about adding that kinda thing, and it actually -wouldn't- be a lot of work.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

Just a bump to the effect that I've published a couple more screenshots, for the curious.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

And another bump to the effect that soon thefeudallands.ca will be the domain for the site, though it will still be accessible through the old site as that IS where it is (the domain is just going to mask to there). thefeudallands.com will furthermore be a redirect to that domain.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

I must say, those red X'es sure look interesting...

Yeah, the gallery just ... decided to stop working for some reason. I'm going to try re-uploading the images and see if that clears it, but either way, that's what I'm wrestling with tonight.

Not sure why either. They exist. They're there. But the NextGEN gallery Wordpress plugin INSISTS on pointing them to the wrong path (hence the X's)

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

Now that the peak season at my work is past (I work retail), I will be able to dedicate much more of my time to TFL and the first thing I will be doing is migrating the site from a shared hosting provider to a server I have purchased myself and have complete control over, which will allow me the ability to set things how I need them.

I have purchased domains at thefeudallands.com and .ca which will be the new site when I migrate them (I hope to do this tomorrow).

Also, an open offer to the community I have been a part of for many years now: If you have an ultima mod, or site, and want hosting, I cant offer managed plans like webhosting providers, but if you email me at my email twicescorned gmail.com with your needs I can probably fix you up without you spending a dime as long as you're not going to be too demaning on my poor server.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

You should update the link to your page in sourceforge as well. It's currently pointing to http://www.u7feudallands.com/

Also link to Aiera in "Ultima-related" is broken (there's an extra http). TFL IRC Logs returns an error (url is incorrect and can not be loaded).

Fixed, fixed, and fixed. The IRC Logs url was actually wrong because of the "#" I had in the title. Thanks for pointing that all out.

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

Crossposted from the TFL news page:

As time's come and gone several of the people that were previously involved in TFL have since moved onto other things, opening up some positions in the TFL team. So, for any interested in helping with the development, there are a few positions open:

* Writer - We currently need a few good writers, specifically for NPC dialogue. And also for books to be added to the TFL world
* Artists - Both pixel and traditional artists would be an asset to the team. We have a lot of objects that need sprites in the game, and the manual and website could also use ome more traditional art. Think the style of the pen drawings in the U7 manuals, though I'd settle for just about anything of some decent quality.
* Coders - We have a _lot_ of usecode that we will be adding or changing for TFL, and so if you have usecode knowledge, and are interested -- or have a good solid programming background, and don't mind learning, then we could use you!

Those interested can email me at wizardry_dragon@thefeudallands.ca - reply here in a comment, or reply in the Exult thread here:

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon
www.thefeudallands.ca

What kind of objects do you need sprites for?

I actually have quite the extensive list there, which is why I am looking for people:

SHAPES.VGA
- At least 10 new generic commoner/merchant/townsfolk shapes, for variety.
- 2-3 new warrior shapes to use as warriors/knights of Virtue's Hold.
- 2-3 new mage shapes for the mage city.
- Several weapon shapes: rapier, bastard ("hand and a half") sword, warhammer, some heraldric shields for Virtue's hold, pitched arrows (ie, able to be set on fire)
- House signs of various types for the housing system.
- Weapon component pieces for the economy systems blacksmithing.
- Various other item components for the crafting subsystems of the economy, such as bolts of cloth, ingots of metal, etc.

FACES.VGA
- "SI style" faces for all the new TFL NPCs, with the exception of a few that have.
- Also, eventually I want to replace all the existing BG npc faces with "SI style" versions

SPRITES.VGA
- Some new spell effects.

FONTS.VGA
- A blackletter-ish font for use in TFL signs.

There is a sword in the pic at the top of this thread:

http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=196200#p196200

I have various versions of that, as well as a couple of warhammers, a couple of rapier WIPs, and a couple of other medieval weapons for a possible weapon mod that I thought about finishing. Perhaps I'll work on those when I take a break from The S.E. Remake. I usually take breaks from that project to draw different stuff or play games in order to not get burned out!

NPCs and portraits would be difficult at this time. I was waiting to get most of the object/building/terrain assets done for S.E. before working on NPCs, since those and animals/monsters will be the most complicated. Though commoners may be able to be done by rearranging parts from various NPCs into new ones, while recoloring their hair.

Yeah, I'm not expecting anything completely new for the commoners, or even the existing NPCs (Lady Mykellah is just an extensive rework of the lady noble shape). Anything and anything would be great.

(Id love to steal those crates from the SI thingy, though >.>)

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

Its been a while since I posted an image, lets see...



Which S.I. crate are you referring too? I threw the one in this pic which is a WIP for the rifle in Rafkin's lab in the S.E. Remake. My old yellow crates have been replaced, and need a small amount of work to finish.

S_E_ sorry, yes. And neat. I like the warhammer They'd need the full set of animations, but that's a good start. The shields would be easy to finsh, I think. (Im not really a sprite artist though, so I wouldn't know)

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

Many thanks! I don't mind if you want to use the old crates; you can rip them from the screenshots or I can try to send it to you. I can probably work out the animations for the warhammer, but not tonight The design is based off of pictures of warhammer replicas. I have many weapons that need other frames, I'll probably set aside a day or two just for weapon animations. If you like the rapier(s), I could probably work those out as well. I work on different stuff all of the time!

What do you need for the shields? The shields are basically the versions a player would pick up, and are finished as far as laying-on-a-flat-surface goes, but if you want wall-hanging ones, that may be tough for some of those designs (though I never truly consider my sprites as finished, I'm always changing a pixel or two!)! I was "in the zone" today when I whipped those out, and have no idea how to draw some of those designs (namely the griffin-style & the rose shields) in the wall-hanging perspective. Probably not impossible though!

I'll see what I can do for these and other things, off and on, while I work on sprites.

Note: The griffin's leg is off, forgot to fix it before posting; easy fix though!

Well, I wouldn't be using them for 'wall hangings', but I would need them anyways. One of the 'hacks' I'll be implementing somewheres along the line is to figure out a way to show the character shapes "holding" shields. But they're still nice! Thanks.

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

I'll see what I can do, probably not for a little bit though. I found some free graphics that I am going to modify and implement for my mountainsides for S.E., then finish up the Avatar's house assets, then I'll tinker with these medieval objects. I'll probably make different versions of the rapiers and other stuff, because I crave variety in games. I need to make different perspective S.E. shields, and will just work on all shields at the same time.

If you need anything else, let me know! I have loved Ultima for many years, and I am willing to assist the community in anyway that I can. I may have or come up with other objects that you can use.

Also am looking for texts/books of an Ultima-ish nature to put in TFL if that's more to interests.

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

I've worked on two books for the Avatar's house for S.E., one has an ankh on it and will sit on the coffee table and has some text WIP, the other is a copy of yellow pages. Book graphics are rather easy, I may whip up a few. I could come up with text for new books as well, once I contemplate some topics.

Indeed, I mean the actual text for the books (but graphics are nice too!)

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca

Maybe this is a dumb question, but anyway. Is this mod playable?

There's no real public release form at the moment, but if you can handle CVS, the CVS version should be more or less playable. When Marzo and I are done redoing the introduction, there will be an initial release.

Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca