Third Act Beta! - SOTW 0.8.38

[Troyen]

I bought a new retina Macbook Pro, which means I get to experience all the funkiness that comes with retina displays.

In this case, I have scaled my normal desktop resolution to 3360x2100 (so really displays as 1680x1050), which means when I launch the game in full-screen mode, I get this.

Going into preferences (which is made a bit more difficult, since my mouse is something like 500 y coordinates lower than the menu visual) and toggling full-screen -> windowed -> full-screen will fix the game, but every time I launch I'll have to do this.

[yayswords]

actually I already did - if you did a quest and you didn't rest a day the tavern/forge will just show the normal "vendor screen" but no more quests. So since there are 9 quests you should at least use 9 out of 50 days because of that.

Revisiting this since I believe it wasn't properly addressed and it could be an issue.

What I did was take three quests, then complete them all. Now it seems to me every time you complete a quest, the bathhouse becomes available for rest. But if you complete several in a row without resting, that's still just one bathhouse talk gained. Instead of some funky mechanic to stack bathhouse sessions (because this cost me Rowinda's flashback), and instead of something dumb like not being able to have more than one quest at once, how about if you try to go on the Albatross after having just completed a quest, you also get the complaint that the party needs to rest? Like if you would try to take a quest.

So the first three quests can be done like this: Take all three, do one, try to board the ship to do another nope gotta rest. Rinse repeat till all three done. Or you take one, complete it, try to take another nope gotta rest (like it is now).

Lore question: Isn't the planet supposed to be Aravorn? The Empire guys talk about Aravorn like it's a continent, but isn't the continent Zoltar?

[Troyen]

I have scaled my normal desktop resolution to 3360x2100 (so really displays as 1680x1050), which means when I launch the game in full-screen mode, I get this.

Going into preferences (which is made a bit more difficult, since my mouse is something like 500 y coordinates lower than the menu visual) and toggling full-screen -> windowed -> full-screen will fix the game, but every time I launch I'll have to do this.

I think this is a RenPy bug (hey, can you tell the creator if he's busy updating the engine?), since I get the same effect in Royal Trap/Magical Diary.

However, another mac-specific bug I've only seen in SotW so far (or perhaps the new version of the RenPy engine?): if I have the game in full screen and hit Command-M (minimize), the OS X genie animation plays where the game is minimized to the dock, but I'm left with a black screen covering my view and have to force a quit to escape. The expected behavior when playing full screen is the minimize action is blocked - mashing Command-M should do absolutely nothing. (Side note: it would be nice if there was a keyboard shortcut to toggle windowed mode. Some games use Command-F, some use Command-M, not sure if there's an official Apple standard, but I end up toggling a lot, even when not writing notes during a beta.)

[Troyen]

Now a few minor things that are probably easier to fix:

Save Chalassa achievement - should read "a happy ending". "An" if the next word starts with a vowel sound, "a" if it starts with a consonant sound. (Writers, correct me if I'm wrong? This a British English thing?)

This is OUR story (love the icon!) - shouldn't this be "Win five boss battles" instead of "Defeat"? (Also, it reads as if I can use Shea or Althea but not both to get this, is that correct? If not, I think it needs to say "Shea or Althea".)

There's a blank fourth page of achievements, I assume Season 4 stuff is going here?

The credits look like they start a little bit into the credits animation, with both Celso and Götz on screen. Not a big deal, but at the end of the credits, it starts to loop again for a half second and then kicks back to the main menu, so maybe the timing is slightly off.

Character creation attribute screen - "Click on any attribute above to read more information..." (no s).

At the very beginning of the game, I have 0/100 EXP, but my bar is completely red. When I gain my first bit of experience, I have 28/100 experience, but the red bar is 72% full (the right side is 28% clear). This looks backwards from what I'd expect, where a red bar fills up instead of goes down. Level 2 is worse, 102/200 exp is something like 35% full?

[Taleweaver]

Lore question: Isn't the planet supposed to be Aravorn? The Empire guys talk about Aravorn like it's a continent, but isn't the continent Zoltar?

My goofup. In the heat of writing, I sometimes got the names wrong.

[Troyen]

The game music for Season 1 seems to stop playing after a battle. Battle music plays when I start a new battle. I get the music on the victory screen but it stops a few seconds after returning to the map. Sometimes I even get static (trying to reason with the Ratmen).

Also, no music plays after Morran heals and wakes up the next day.

When does stagger kick in? I have a wolf at 5/5 but no stagger debuff.

Why can I visit the forge after selling pelts to the tanner (very opening part of the game), but I can't go to the general store or the healer because I have to hurry back with dad's cash? My druid needs some starting gear upgrades!

The bandit quest gives me level 4 rewards, but I'm only level 3. (Wish I could see the gold value, because all three options kinda suck.)

[fabulaparva]

@yayswords

Spoiler:

Yes, Deceit is the smug bastard you have to fight after unlocking the CG to get AltheaxChalassa happy ending later.

Regarding the bathhouse turns and quests to be completed...the situation is slightly unfair now. Yesterday, I finally got 12/12 quests done, but this was because of the extra Chalassa quest that also seems to count toward the quests completed.
I didn't have enough turns to max up hearts on her + get Rowinda's quest + get Vaelis' quest . So those who go for the AltheaxChalassa romance will have the advantage of getting extra xp while those who go for , say Jariel, will spend 4 + 4 turns at the bathhouse to unlock the 2 personal quests and then are left with 1 chance to talk to Jariel there? I know you can talk with him twice during act 2, but the other option is only offered to you if you make a right choice towards the end and is easily missed. I've spotted 2 opportunities to talk to Jariel privately outside of the bathhouse in Act 3. I really don't have all my ducks in line yet (because in the save I started this Act 3 from, I had talked to Jariel only once in Act2), but I'm starting to doubt if it's even possible to be able to complete 12 quests in Act 3 AND complete a romance (other than Chas).

+Bug:

Spoiler:

You can fight Deceit multiple times, the location stays open after you've beat him.

EDIT:

Spoiler:

Actually I turned both Deceit and Jul into normal challenges by using manticore poison on them. I guess that's allowed since it's an ultimate item :D

EDIT2:
12/12 Quests completed (not Vaelis') 14/15 areas found. End levels: 21(Krimm), 20 (Vaelis, Althea, Riley) and 19. The game was played with a team that was mostly level 15 at the end of Act2.

[jack1974]

Many stuff to answer! Let's start from first post
Fixed various bugs reported by fabula. About the hearts, you don't actually need to have the maximum relationship right now. Since you could answer badly earlier in the game I didn't want the players to feel frustrated because they can't reach romance. You need 75% of relationship (not sure exactly how many hearts it is). On a related note, I definitely want to move away from this "pick right answer" system for RPGs. But this is another story !
I don't understand the staggered tooltip bug, but the crash was fixed at least.

New Mac Retina bug: hmm interesting, is something I need to report to the Ren'Py coder himself. Also the other bug you mentioned. Will do it today!

About the rest/ship idea: yes is a good idea, probably better since people NEED to use the ship to go on. Will add this now

I've fixed the Aravorn/Zoltar confusion in the Empire dialogues. Fixed achievements texts too.

There's a blank fourth page of achievements, I assume Season 4 stuff is going here?

Yes, I might also add some more "global" ones like the "this is our story" and such

The credits look like they start a little bit into the credits animation, with both Celso and Götz on screen. Not a big deal, but at the end of the credits, it starts to loop again for a half second and then kicks back to the main menu, so maybe the timing is slightly off.

Haha I've tweaked that a lot of times, but when I add a new line of credits (for example forgot about a GUI artist) it goes off. I'll do it as last thing

At the very beginning of the game, I have 0/100 EXP, but my bar is completely red. When I gain my first bit of experience, I have 28/100 experience, but the red bar is 72% full (the right side is 28% clear). This looks backwards from what I'd expect, where a red bar fills up instead of goes down. Level 2 is worse, 102/200 exp is something like 35% full?

You're right, I thought I fixed it, but is still off. Need to check again.

About the musics, I haven't changed that code, so I think was always like that. Here seems fine, I wonder if is some Mac only bug of Renpy... hmm.
The "static" sound was supposed to be a cold wind, but seems is not good (other people said that). Will try to find a better SFX!

[jack1974]

I didn't have enough turns to max up hearts on her + get Rowinda's quest + get Vaelis' quest . So those who go for the AltheaxChalassa romance will have the advantage of getting extra xp while those who go for , say Jariel, will spend 4 + 4 turns at the bathhouse to unlock the 2 personal quests and then are left with 1 chance to talk to Jariel there? I know you can talk with him twice during act 2, but the other option is only offered to you if you make a right choice towards the end and is easily missed. I've spotted 2 opportunities to talk to Jariel privately outside of the bathhouse in Act 3. I really don't have all my ducks in line yet (because in the save I started this Act 3 from, I had talked to Jariel only once in Act2), but I'm starting to doubt if it's even possible to be able to complete 12 quests in Act 3 AND complete a romance (other than Chas).

A clarification about this. As said before, you DON'T need the full heart/relationship, because you could have answered badly in a previous talk earlier in the story (they count towards the relationship build). I think you should be able to get any romance if you do all the bathhouse talks and answer correctly to all of them.

BUT you can't do BOTH Vaelis+Rowinda+a romance! this is on purpose, spoke with the writer about this when the game was in the works, I anticipated some people would be upset but that's how we ended up thinking the game. The idea was actually that you could do EITHER a romance or Vaelis/Rowinda. So if you already get a romance+one of the Vaelis/Rowinda sidequests is already an unexpected bonus

Fighting Deceit multiple times is a bug

12/12 Quests completed (not Vaelis') 14/15 areas found. End levels: 21(Krimm), 20 (Vaelis, Althea, Riley) and 19. The game was played with a team that was mostly level 15 at the end of Act2.

Ah yes I wanted also feedback on this, if people managed to get all the quest/location bonuses. I assume you didn't unlock the "secret lavastorm area" then? that one is hard since requires some specific stuff to do (I wanted to put something more challenging in this act since finding all the location before was trivial ).

[Troyen]

I'm reasonably sure I had music on the map in the act 1 betas because I recognize the song that plays occasionally. Now, it's just really quiet, even during some of the story scenes (almost all the time I'm outside battle/leveling there's nothing playing). Maybe something broke in the new RenPy?

Do you have an older build I can check? The Act 2 thread has .18, but that's already on the new engine, so I think I'd need .16 or before.