Party icons

[theadder]

type: bug
priority: major?

The game still seems to crash when playing about with the party icons in the upper right corner. I haven't extensively tested it, but I can say that with one character only in the party, simply clicking on his icon to move his position instantly crashes the game.

[George Gilbert]

I think this is fixed now - if anyone can repeat it, please can you post the exact steps needed to re-create it (as I can't). What I need is *exactly* where you clicked and what was in your party at the time (numbers and postions only).

[Gambit37]

I have just experienced the same problem using a single character party, here's how:

1) Played Test Map and saved a game
2) Restarted RTC and chose Original Dungeon Master map
3) At dungeon entrance, selected scroll, and Make New Adventure.
4) Selected Iaido Ruty Ruty from the list of available champions
5) Made a new adventure using just this character
6) Played to the first mummy on level two
7) Clicked on Iaido's green character icon to move him to the correct side to cast a fireball t the mummy, and RTC crashed out with no warning

[George Gilbert]

Presumably you've had a similar problem independently of the importing of characters?

I still can't reproduce the problem though. Are people clicking on the very edge of the icon or somewhere else "odd" or is it just in the course of normal play? Was it when you clicked on the character for the first time, or had it worked before-hand? Was it when you clicked to "pick-up" the character, or when you clicked to put them back down again? Also did you have anything in your hands at the time?

[Zyx]

I had tyhe crash also:
With only 1 character, which was the Iaido imported from the "Test map", i clicked on him (upper-left corner)
to move him, and the game returned to Windows

Then with 4 characters, I moved the one of the backline without problem,
then wanted to move the one of the frontline: 2 Iaidos imported (archmasters both), I clicked on the left one, the game crashed the same way.

[amaprotu]

just had the party icon crash bug in v.11 .
No imported characters. Was on the first level (below hall of champions)
Party was:
Hairy guy | Lizard
Tiggy | Wuuf

Hairy and tiggy were turned sideways from getting attacked (two screamers), I turned to face the attackers, clicked on Hairy to turn him the right way and as soon as I clicked him it kicked me to desktop.

[beowuuf]

I got instant crashes twice, but they weren't realy involving the party icons. First time it was when I had just killed a purple worm in the first large room ..i steped quickly through the smoke about twoi steps, then turned to face the door and it crashed before it updated to the door view
The second time (also level 4) at the rock monster area deeper, i was attacked from the side, i turned to face the rocks and just as i saw the rocks it crashed again.

I haven't had this crash in v11, but it sounds the same circumstances as amaprotu except in each case the party turning wasn't the final trigger

[beowuuf]

I was in the inventory, and the mouse jumped when i was moving it. Holding Ghi trousers, i accidentally clicked in the middle of the front two characters icons, and the game crashed.

[beowuuf]

Another party icon crash. I was surrounded on level 8 but ghosts, gigglers and skeletons, party spinning like crazy, I tried to adjust the top right corner and crash city.

All mine have seemed to have happened (apart from the jerking mouse one) under combat, so manybe it's something to do with checking for position for damage while moving the party icon?

[theadder]

Come to think of it, this all brings up an interesting point.

Why do we get no error message when the game crashes, to help debug. I would have thought that any programming language worth the money paid for it would at least put up a dialog box saying "Syntax error at 4789: partyicon() doesn't exist" or something.

I can't believe the programmer is expected to just guess what caused a crash with no source of reference.

[beowuuf]

There is an error log that can be generated from what i remember being said ...it keeps getting forgotten about and never actively generated - we do need the option of turning it on.

[George Gilbert]

"any programming language worth the money paid for it would at least put up a dialog box "

I think you mean "any *slow* programming language..."

If you really want a language to check through every statement to make sure all the inputs are valid then that's fine. As a trade off you effectively replace every line of code with many many more. For example which do you think is quicker...

a = b + c;

or

if(a is valid)
{
if (b is valid)
{
if (c is valid)
{
a = b + c;
}
else
{
MessageBox("a is invalid");
}
}
else
{
MessageBox("a is invalid");
}
}
else
{
MessageBox("a is invalid");
}

???

It's the trade off you have between writing in BASIC (which automatically puts all the checks in for you as it runs) or ANSI C / assembler (which doesn't). The trick is to write perfect code first time; something which everyone aspires to, but few, if any, achieve

[cowsmanaut]

George, you provided me with a error log version once to help locate and destroy any bugs. Why not provide one again to get rid of this nasty little bugger.

Infact even better would be to do as suggested.. provide it all the time but have an option in Init.txt to turn on off eventlogging.

Cheers

[George Gilbert]

Fixed for V0.12