TIME'S CHAMPIONS: Finale OOC thread

[beowuuf]

Lol, yeah, ok, I didn't want to gloat, but I did get some of you guys down on the deck and pretty close to death


And thanks Ian!

[beowuuf]

Oh, I know it was mentioned to make an offline/easier to read version of the game. What I started to do with a similar forum story thingie was this format (it's reasonable easy to strip out the forum code and just leave the text body, then add back in a far simpler backsground, etc.) . Do you think that something like this would be ok? The basic format as shown is easy enough to do (labour intensive to strip out the stuff around, but brainless labour that can be done while watching tv, etc). I already have all the forum posts in the gaming threads saved to convert. Obviously, the pictures would change to an actual character picture

Anyway, this is the WIP of the conversion of the first page. Let me know if this sort of format would be ok. If so, at some point it could be created and turned in to a pdf to keep offline.

http://www.dmjump.net/Q1a.htm

[oh_brother]

Looks really good, surprsing how easy to read.

What about the branch off threads though? Coudl be confusing!

[Ameena]

Arrrgh, white-on-black...My eyes! My eyes! Omg imagine reading through the whole thing from the start...I bet there's loads of little inconsistencies where stuff got changed etc where little minor things got forgotten as they came up about three months apart or whatever - it's the kind of thing I do anyway .

[beowuuf]

Like a normal story, there can be a 'meanwhile' and perhaps move it around. If the format (not the colour scheme, text size, the basic format) is fine, I can post it in to a file and then it can be made pretty and functional off the back of that


And yeah, if I recall Ameena went from knowing what a key was to having absolutely no idea.


Hye, let's face it my first post was posting to you the players, so it's all fun

[Jan]

Congratulations on finishing your game! *envy* I didn't have the time to follow it all the time but all the parts I've read were a source of great entertainment. Thank you all!

Arrrgh, white-on-black...My eyes!

LOL, you haven't seen my boss' presentations: red-on-green!

[ian_scho]

Nice work Beo, only another gazillion pages to go?! Are you able to automate this stuff in any way? I assume not!

[beowuuf]

No automation, but it is not that bad. There are 100 pages for the main thread, and of course a few side threads of @5 - 10 pages, plus 20 pages for the finale. I was tempted to put all the other side threads in to the main thread as was done to Aurek's introduction, but it is probably easier to work them in mor3e logically as incidental blocks, like other chapters


The sections between post blocks is fine, it is basically the length of my screen, and everything is spaced so it's easy to spot (basically, look for the fist <div class="content"> tag and delete above it, then delete the stuff between the text div blocks with that content tag And the junk text between is basically almost consistently the length of my screen, so it's brainless to highlight/delete pretty fast.

I'm still recovering from cyprus (in that I'm doing laundry, unpacking bags, etc) and mum is down next weeked. However, it's a really easy process to do while passive stuff like film and TV watching, or waiting for food to cook, etc. So really I can at least strip out all the text. Slightly tricker, but not by much. Just need to intelligently place a one line of text for the right picture/orientation in between each text block.

Obviously, afetr quickly doing that, it's then easy to figure out all the presentation stuff for it, or even throw the raw files to someone else to play with and tidy up. All the maps and other graphics are automatically in sub-folders when I saved, so that should be fine to preserve any maps I created.


Anyway, we shall see, I'll let you guys know when there is anything substancial to play with/see/comment on/use




@Jan: Glad you were able to keep tabs on it every so often, sorry you could not play! Maybe some other time someone (or me) will run a slightly slower paced and easier game that people can jump in on.

[Jan]

a slightly slower paced and easier game

I'm so glad you care about me.

No, I'm joking, of course. I'd like to join, but the problem is that during school holidays and (some) weekends I've got plenty of time but during the school year and the week it's more or less hopeless. Another problem is my pidgin English, of course - I can throw in a few insults in the Sword-Fighting Arena, but writing a consistent and readable paragraph is another story, it would take me a lot of time and definitely wouldn't be as excellent as the texts of the others (which I really did enjoy).

I'm still recovering from cyprus (in that I'm doing laundry,

I told you that you should have gone to bed early and wash regularly. But you never listen to me. Anyway, I'm glad you're back and hope you enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to some stories from Cyprus (written in an appropriate thread, of course).

[ian_scho]

So really I can at least strip out all the text

Can you do a find/replace?... I suppose not if you would like to orientate alternatively left/right each paragraph.

[beowuuf]

It would be a paragraph of code, and wouln't have the alternating. Really I won't mind that part, since I have to read the start of each post, so it's a good excuse to semi-read it and recall the bits

The basic code between spaces is as easy as highliht/delete, so it really no issue at all.


If anyone has an elegant way to strip it, that's cool, but I'm sure this is one situation where coding everything needed would take more effort than getting most of it done

[beowuuf]

Stripped out all the useless code from everything but the excellent crusade and finale threads now. still need to insert the pictures of course.

[oh_brother]

Good going! Looking forward to having a nice memento of the adventure!

still need to insert the pictures of course.

Do you have pictures of the champions?!

[beowuuf]

At the moment nope, only your avatars as placeholders. Your homework, if you decide to accept it, is to gimme pictures of your characters if you ever find/make one you like

[Ameena]

I've thought on and off for ages about drawing a murafu avatar for myself but never got round to it. Maybe one day I will .

[ian_scho]

Buh. I've looked around for a few half-orcs but nothing was grotesque enough! The best way I've seen was some kind of fantasy avatar generator which I've lost the link for. Cool idea.

[beowuuf]

Lol, no hurry, even if I power though and get something done, it would be the weekend after next (my mum is down from Thursday night). Plus it's the easiest substitution


And I still need to go hunt down the saved PMs with little bits of narrative. I hope I did save them all! Certainly, they will be hard to find amongst all the archived half posts from paranoidly saving my progress incase computer/power went out (both have happened!)


If anyone has a set of PMs from me still with direct game narrative or other game stuiff, feel free to send them to me again!

[Ameena]

Erm, I think I deleted all mine 'cause my inbox was full...

[beowuuf]

Well I've lost all mine because my inbox is full...of PMs from you :p

[oh_brother]

PM'd you all I have in my inbox of relevance.

Could not find a suitable avatar yet, and I have no artistic skills, but I will keep looking!

[ian_scho]

PM'd the few messages I had.... Oh you can tell Beo is a man - after a 2 year steady relationship he just doesn't communicate enough does he?

[beowuuf]

Lol, that's cause I post it all here :p

[beowuuf]

Just to reassure you all I haven't forgotten about you, I will post the pdf stuff as and when I have substantial stuff with it. I mgiht also post the raw files I am working with, just so people can do some parallel stuff with it if the mood ever takes them

[ian_scho]

Publishing the barebones html (or whatever parseable format you have) is a good idea. It's more 'searchable' then and can later convert it to other formats.

No one is rushing you though!

[oh_brother]

If I am able to do it I will be willing to spend the time, no problem!

[beowuuf]

Hey guys! Long time no post!

Busy-ness at work, not having the comfortable computer access I counted on at Christmas to break the back of things, a two month cold and start of year busy-ness kinda knocked doing much with the game files. Also blame Ameena for foricng me to play Minecraft, which lost me like two months of free time too!


Anyway, I managed to strip all the code out of the raw files (it makes the viewed file look weird, but in notepad you still have very discrete text blocks), and I beleive extracted all the needed pictures in to the root directory, but I only got about half way through the main quest in putting back in simpler character portraits (and none of the side quest threads yet). Is there still an interest to see this done after all this time?

I still have no idea for the final presentation either, so the crude concept Q1a.htm is still as far as that got. I sort of had the structure of how it could all flow together (main quest and side quests).


Let me know if there's still interest for this, even if not, I'm going to provide the raw folder as I have it right now which includes all the original html pages saved. So even if a hiccup occurs here, all your hard work won#t be lost! It's in a sub folder.
http://www.dmjump.net/raw%20dm%20game%20files.zip


Taht was about it, more just to have an excuse to say 'hey' as anything else, since we never did get to play in another game together all together

[ian_scho]

Gosh, I really don't know how you find the time to parse all of this together. It's definitely the job of a computer to do!

While it would have been nice to have it all in one file I think just as long as all of the threads are available for all to see then that would be sufficient. This forum isn't going away any time soon I can't remember if the images and maps you made are all stored in the same place (as in not scattered around over different servers), because they are the first thing to get lost!

I'd love to have another game but I don't have the same work 'routine' as before. Things are a bit more intense now and it can be up to 12 hours between leaving home and coming back for work. We'll see. We all somehow make the time we need, move priorities to do what we want.

[beowuuf]

The ultimate plan is to string it together in to one file, or three files, just I'm still working with the source files. The images are all stored on my filespace, so while they should stay where they are, you never know when something might go 'futt'. They should all be on my harddrive, but again, paranoia


And awww, so youy won't be runnign a game anytime soon then? Yeah, that's the trouble with real life - it seems to want to stop us sitting in front of a computer. IT's like there's more to life or something!

[ian_scho]

No no. It's not "stop us sitting in front of a computer", but more like in my case "too much time in front of a computer"! I should feel lucky that I don't work on a Spanish building site I suppose.

I DO intend to join another pbp game in the future. We'll see.

On a personal level I also spend more time playing board games with my daughter now. She's only 6 but I really enjoy playing with her and will do anything to get her away from cartoons on the television or games on the computer... The latter are my own fault of course for being a tired/lazy parent

[beowuuf]

Lol, yes, there is that too. Being in a small company, hal;f the time I want to get back to my compuyer and desk, and the other half of the time I wish I could leave it Nah, not really, I might be able to finish something tomorrow in fact!


I managed to get a Mouse guard game for Ameena a while back, which sadly ended prematurely, and then the group from there managed to pull Ameena in to a pbp game that I've ended up too, even though I wasn't going to originally!

Long story short - when you have the free time, there are pbp games around, if there's any spaces in any I watch/play in, I can let you know. Or maybe someone closer to home here will launch a new one! Or maybe I'll dop one. Who knows!


Boards games sounds cool, especially given that there seems to be a ressurgence in it, which also means some great and complex/imaginative ones being released all the time. So lol, you win with your 'parentling' and your 'quality time'