Oops. Went off before I was ready. These are the current values I am using for all weapons.

Weapon SKILL penalty Damage Bonus Price
Battleaxe -3 16 60
Axe -3 14 50
Hatchet -3 12 40
Warhammer -2 12 50
Mace -2 10 40
Club -2 8 30
Fine Sword -1 10 50
Broadsword -1 8 40
Longsword -1 6 30
Shortsword -1 4 20
Trident 0 4 25
Spear 0 2 15
Staff 0 0 5

Binki
Mon Apr 2 06:47:40 2007

Hi All
Thanks a lot,Ulysses.
May be you can also advise how to calculate Damage Bonus for special weapons ( such as Holy Broadsword) in game? cause I think that Damage Bonus given in text was calculated compared with old weapon bonuses

Ulysses Ai
Mon Apr 2 11:13:07 2007

Hi Binki.

I'm not sure which version has ended up on the downloads page. But the combat system does have some teething problems.
I hope this is not scanadlous, but I would suggest assuming that you win every battle and just enjoy the story.
Sorry for the omissions.

Binki
Mon Apr 9 07:30:54 2007

Hi All
Ulysses, can you tell me - is it possible to ask Kianmay about her purposes when player discover her secret

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Ibrahim
Tue Apr 10 07:01:08 2007

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Binki
Tue Apr 10 10:02:44 2007

Hi
To Ibrahim

SPOILER

END SPOILER

To Ulysses I played your book a couple of times with new damage bonuses and enjoyed it very much, but also came to conclution that armors must be also improved corresponding to increase in weapon damage

Ulysses Ai
Wed Apr 11 00:00:16 2007

Hi Binki and Ibrahim.

Regarding Kianmay:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Heaven's Messanger
Fri May 11 04:17:54 2007

waiting for "Diamond Key" published so I can play it on games book.

Ibrahim
Sat May 19 00:18:55 2007

I think we all are. Andy will have it up and running in due course. This site is just a hobby and there are other more pressing things to attend to in ones life plus it is probably the most complex FF book what with damage bonuses and penalties, weapon classes and so on. I imagine that due to the limitations of the system a few of these things will have to be skipped or at least simplified to some extent.

I'm about halfway through now. You're right that there will be some simplification - there almost always is - although the combat system is not a major problem. For what it's worth, the main issues are the sheer size, assumptions made by the text that are not necessarily true, and situations where items are lost only to be regained later. I should point out that Ulysses has been very helpful, asking in advance what would cause problems for the software, and even providing an edited version when I was concerned about there being too many objects.

Shadow Dragon Tue May 22 15:20:49 2007	Sounds like a massive Midnight Deep to me, and that book didn't really seem to be simplified. I'm looking forward to this one though, I've always liked being able to equip different weapons and such.
	There were certainly simplifications in Midnight Deep - the one that springs to mind is that there was originally a restriction on the number of items that you could carry, plus I think I removed some unnecessary or unreachable items and weapons.

Phil Sadler
Fri May 25 12:43:31 2007

Hey everyone I have a very strange situation with The Diamond Key. Whenever I try and read it it resets my entire PC within minutes! I don't understand why this is because I have many other Word documents and nothing like this happens with them.

Does anyone know what's going on?

I've noticed in the past that there are some compatibility issues between certain versions of Word that cause the effect you describe. But I have no problems with The Diamond Key myself, nor have I heard of anyone else seeing this.

I have now used my own version of Word to save the document and uploaded the result to the site. My suggestion is that you download it again and see if you still have the same problem.

Phil Sadler Sun May 27 06:13:16 2007	Thanks for this but I tried to download it again and it wouldn't let me?
	Sorry about that, it should be OK now.

Phil Sadler Sun May 27 10:44:30 2007	Thanks for trying but it still reboots my PC! I guess that my old Word 97 is now just much too ancient for modern use :(
	I'll see what I can do.

Diamond Key
Tue Jun 12 07:00:40 2007

The Diamond Key is amazing. Kudos to Ulysse, seriously.

A marvelous piece of art.

There's a few typos here and there however.

But beside that, wow, a really good read.

Question Wed Jun 13 08:33:19 2007	Hello Andy, I understand that you will provide the diamond key online eventually. Now this boom has some special mechanics as far as combat is concerned. Does it mean that you're willing to implement different combat mechanics? I always did think that FF combat were boring... Thanks.
	The combat system in The Diamond Key isn't really very different at all, so I didn't have any issues with it. In general, I am not keen on different combat mechanics. By far the most important aspect to me is how good the writing and the storyline are, so I'm not going to be overly motivated to deal with a gamebook with a completely different system when it could more easily be adapted to FF.

Question
Fri Jun 15 02:37:29 2007

Al,

What mistakes have you learned after writing your gamebook?

Are there any things you would've done differently?

If so, what?

Ulysses Ai
Fri Jun 15 09:27:32 2007

Hi 'Question'

Here are my views for your consideration.

I think it's best to write a short gamebook to start with. Only a complete fool would write a long story first.
The Diamond Key was originally intended to be only 500 references long, but I was running out of references as the story progressed, so I expanded it to 600, then 700, and so on until 1000.
There is nothing wrong with a 1000-reference story in itself; but being so large makes it very difficult for you to look through and refine or make changes. The Diamond Key was my first attempt at a gamebook, and it has turned out to have numerous problems that could have been easily identified and corrected in a short gamebook.
That role of identifying problems is something that should definitely be shared with at least one other person just to get different perspectives on things. I didn't do this before I submitted my works to this site and so readers have had to point these things out, spoiling their experience of playing the gamebooks.
With regards to combat systems, the traditional FF system has one unparalelled virtue: simplicity. My reasons for altering this system as seen in The Diamond Key was to allow a meaningful variety of equipment options. I also designed it with this site in mind. For a text-only gamebook, I would not have bothered the readers with such a tedious system. Whatever your system is, just be mindful of the complexity of it. I think few people want to do a page of mathematics to see if they win a fight or not.
The most important thing is for your story to have a good plot and be well-written. Good luck, hope we can all see your work soon.

Question
Sat Jun 16 06:58:07 2007

Hmm... I guess I'm a bit of a fool as I'm going to go for a full 400 references... 0_0

I completely agree with your view as far as the combat system is concerned. My format is also with this website in mind so as far as the player's experience is concerned, it will be as simple for them but also more exciting. Or so I hope at the very least.

This is also my first serious attempt at a gamebook after giving up countless time because my projects were too ambitious and I lost my steam halfway through.

But I'm confident about the plot and I think the writing itself is of good quality.

I'll keep in mind to send my "manuscript" to someone else first to play test it, probably Andy.

As I've said before, any other suggestions and ideas would be very welcomed.

Age of Fable
Sat Jun 16 10:29:59 2007

suggestions re writing an adventure:

I didn't do this with my site, but now wish I had - start with an ultra-short (eg 10 paragraphs) complete adventure, then elaborate from there, rather than starting from paragraph 1 and trying to write 400 (or whatever) paragraphs in one go.

If nothing else, if you only end up writing 100 paragraphs, you'll have a complete 100 paragraph adventure rather than a quarter-finished 400 paragraph one.

So you could start by having a 10 paragraph adventure which is: you start by being given your mission in your home town, you can go shopping or set out straight away, if you set out straight away you can go via the mountains or the main road, if you go via the mountains you need the item you bought when shopping or you die, if you go via the road you fight somthing, either way you get to the end where you fight the main villain, the end.

Then you could elaborate by saying in the mountains, if you don't have the item you can test your luck, and if you succeed you don't die but just take a lot of damage.

Then you could elaborate by saying on the main road, there's an inn you can stay at, and if you do something happens which makes the final combat easier, but it requires gold which you will have spent if you went shopping.

Then you could come up with a way of getting enough gold to both go shopping and stay at the inn - perhaps something happens to you at the city gates...

and so on.

Age of Fable
Sat Jun 16 10:31:40 2007

Also, if I can do a shameless plug: my Adventure Ideas Generator might help you think of ideas - it's at www.apolitical.info/webgame/ideas.php

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