Pentagram still alive?

HungryManDinner · Post by **HungryManDinner** » Sun Sep 26, 2010 9:22 am

Hi everybody. Is Pentagram still being worked on? I've replayed U7 like 2 times now in Exult and I'd love to replay U8 at some point. I know it's not as good as U7, but it's got its upsides (amazing 2d graphics being one of them).

The current builds freeze too much to be playable and it looks like development has pretty much died. I know I could use DosBox but... the expanded view distance in pentagram makes the game so much more epic and easier to traverse.

Eris · Post by **Eris** » Sun Sep 26, 2010 7:40 pm

I'm curious to know what the status is, too. After playing Ultima 7 for the first time ever a few years ago (using Exult - thanks for making it a great experience!) I started to play U8 on a real DOS machine, but then put it off. Pentagram was very active then and it seemed at the time like it wouldn't be long until it was ready. But that was years ago.

I see that the Changelog was last updated in January. Has development stalled since then, or is stuff going on behind the scenes that isn't obvious?

More to the point, can I help? I was a programmer in the 90's, but drifted away from it in the 00's. lately I've been getting back into it and trying to learn about game programming: learning C++, SDL, and OpenGL. I'm still getting up to speed, but maybe this is a chance for me to actually do something real.

I see lots of open bugs listed. Are there any that might be easy enough for someone unfamiliar with the code to try and tackle?

Eris

Post by **wjp** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 1:10 pm

We haven't spent much time on Pentagram this year, unfortunately. But, on the plus side, things should be working pretty well overall. I personally would be interested in getting back to Pentagram to get rid of the remaining game-stopping bugs and any instability, but it would help a lot if I'm not the only one working on it.

So if you want to help out, that would be very welcome

The first thing that needs to be done is (play)testing to see which bug reports are still valid, and if any new bugs crept in. I don't recall any freezes, so those may have been introduced (relatively) recently. The last few changes likely didn't get enough testing to be entirely stable. After that we can determine how tricky the various issues will be to fix. Some of them will likely be accessible to someone not yet very familiar with the code.

Post by **Colourless** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:24 am

Personally I've lost a fair amount of interest in Exult and Pentagram. It is hard keeping up interest in something for periods of time this long. That said I have been working on Exult a little fixing up problems for the 'upcoming release'... yeah after Duke Nukem Forever doesn't look like that much of a joke anymore.

WRT to Pentagram it mostly just needs lots and lots of polish. Most things work mostly correctly now. The things that dont work properly will probably manifest themselves as really annoying bugs. So it's not dead, just no one is interested enough in doing to 'slow boring' work of just bug fixing.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 2:39 pm

Well, personally I'm deep in Ultima VII in my Ultima playthrough, but I intend to play Ultima VIII with Pentagram once I get to it - so I'll be happy to mention any annoying bug I might encounter at that point.

-Sergorn

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 11:10 pm

Id love to beta this game, please send me the info on how to get it. thanks

Matty · Post by **Matty** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:58 am

I would be interested in beta testing this game for you guys.

amazedchili · Post by **amazedchili** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 3:59 am

I never played any of the ultima games (But i'm curious), I will provide you with a beta tester free of any ultima preconceptions!

C'mon lets do this!

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:39 am

Pentagram can be found at http://pentagram.sf.net

Matt Hubert · Post by **Matt Hubert** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 8:24 am

Need anymore beta testers? I'd love to help out.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:45 am

I did this 4 years or so ago, and found a bunch of stuff that got fixed. Guess I can take another run through things.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:05 am

Geesh, you have to log-in to report bugs now? That's a drag.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:52 am

OK, I spent an hour throwing myself off cliffs, running into things, and throwing molotov cocktails at peasants, and reported a bunch of bugs. I'll start progressing further into the game at a later date.

GuJiaXian · Post by **GuJiaXian** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:23 pm

I tried playing U8 via DosBox not long ago, and what stopped me from playing much were the controls. Movement was so twitchy, and I hated the need to stop moving to turn. Is there any way Pentagram to improve the movement in the game?

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:03 am

No there has been no change in that respect - Pentagram plays pretty much exactly as UVIII does.

-Sergorn

GuJiaXian · Post by **GuJiaXian** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:40 am

That's unfortunate...the controls are what's keeping me from playing through the game again.

TDI · Post by **TDI** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:01 am

> That's unfortunate...the controls are what's keeping me from playing through the game again.

Compared to U7 the Avatar in U8 does move very clunky. But you get used to it. Moving around quickly isn't that important in this game either, as monsters are just as slow and clunky. Anyway, if you want to play U8, I recommend getting over this. U8 is definitely not enjoyed for its movement and combat. But its dark, moody plot and mystical world make up for it.

Korneluk · Post by **Korneluk** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:48 pm

^^yeah,
I just replayed it. 3rd time through, and especially enjoyed the mood+music. There are some awful dialogues and a sore lack of NPC's, but the movements, while occasionally frustrating-where you get pinned against a wall or go for a swim, are secondary to the creepy feeling that surrounds you. I recommend playing at night.....
You're hopefully not playing without the patch. My first time through there was no auto-target on the jumps for me! That was evil.

I didn't use Pentagram as their site seemed to indicate some lack of playability and I didn't find the extra features implemented worth the trade off.

BansheeX · Post by **BansheeX** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:32 pm

The problem with U8's movement mechanics are well known and could probably be rectified as an "enhancement" option. Basically, just look at what Ultima Online does for movement and copy that. You can move in 8 directions, and if you're changing course by more than 1 direction, you should not have to stop or see the inbetween animations. Creep mode triggering when your cursor gets too close to the avatar is infuriating, particularly when you're going through close confines like houses. Creep and run mode should both be triggered by holding down a key like shift and ctrl respectively. Finally, there should be an "Always run" mode.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 3:24 pm

Heh, personally while I had issues with Ultima VIII - I don't think I never had any issue with its movement mechanics.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:12 pm

I've been fiddling around with Pentagram, and I'd say the movement mechanics there are improves. I sometimes have problems getting through doors though.

Post by **wjp** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:29 pm

We've tried to tweak the movement a little bit, but it's quite tricky.

Typical things are holes in the floor you have to be able to fall through: if we adjust the movement too much, the Avatar will walk around the hole rather than fall through. Then there are stairs... I think going up stairs is walking quite well, but running down stairs is still a bit of an issue.

I'd be open to adding different approaches to movement to Pentagram (selectable with a config option), but I'm personally not going to implement it.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 11:20 pm

I've been well abusing your bug-tracker the last few days, hopefully that gives you another person's opinion on the whole thing. I wish some of the others from this thread would get on there and start abusing pentagram too.

Post by **wjp** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:52 pm

Yes, I noticed

Thanks; it's very useful. I've taken a first look at a number of them, but haven't had much time yet this week.

What's your overall impression? How far in the game did you get?

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 1:52 pm

Well, I've only just entered the catacombs at this point, so I'm about to start talking to the deceased necromancers. Gameplay is stable, and I haven't managed to crash anything that didn't crash in the original. I have managed to crash the original Ultima VIII dosboxed though, twice. As far as I can tell, everything is supported.

Movement, well, despite the bugs I've posted, I'd say it's compares to the original. Going through doors can sometimes be troublesome, since you need to line the Avatar up just right. I also find the Avatar has a nasty habit of throwing himself off ledges with far more gusto than he did in the original.
This is especially noticeable when trying to walk up thin staircases that don't have railings on either side, one wrong move and the Avatar slips off.

I do miss the graphics and sound settings that are present in Exult. It'd be nice if I could adjust things from the in-game menu. I'd also love to see an expansion of the savegame menu, like you did for Exult. Maybe just offer me two or three more pages, and a screenshot, so I can remember where the savegame was.

I'd love to see a release.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 3:17 pm

Well personally I'll hopefully be beginning U8 through Pentagram in a few days - altough my intent is to play it "normaly" to see how a normal play through goes.

I'll report any issue I find, but I won't be seeking ways to crash the game though heh.

And yeah I certainly hope garphical options comparable to Exult down the road - I'd love to able to run it in 1360x768 HQ3X like Exult someday heh

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 7:09 pm

Aww... it's fun. You'd be surprised what a well-placed molotov cocktail can do.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 8:20 pm

Heh - to be fair I never went crazy with the stuff even in the original game, so I probably wouldn't be able to detect any weirdness on Pentagram with this stuff.

-Sergorn

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 11:24 pm

Gah, WHO thought it was a good idea to just stick pit traps that instantly kill the Avatar randomly throughout the Hall of the Mountain King?

BansheeX · Post by **BansheeX** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:10 pm

I don't know how it's so stable for you guys. I'm running on Win7 64-bit and it freezes all the time. Sometimes it freezes within 5 seconds.

Post by **wjp** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:14 pm

BansheeX:

Is there anything in stdout.txt/stderr.txt after a freeze?
Could you try without audio? (midi_driver=disabled in pentagram.ini)

Post by **wjp** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:49 pm

I've just done something I should have done a long time ago, and made the menu display 96 savegame slots instead of U8's 12. I didn't test it extensively yet, so let us know if it works

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:02 pm

96 save spots? SWEET! I'll try it out when the new snapshot gets uploaded. You stick an image on there somewhere too to remind me of what I was doing at the time, and I'll never complain about the savegame feature again.

I've now saved Devon, met Lithos, and retrieved the Heart of Earth. Still haven't had a crash yet that wasn't present in the original.

I'd also love an option to enable and disable the cheat menu. It's a fantastically useful tool for trying to break the game, and I use it all the time in dosbox too, but it's super annoying how often I turn it on while trying to climb ledges that are too close to me.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:39 am

Well I've finished Serpent Isle so I'll be starting UVIII with Pentagram soon. I'll report any issue I come across.

-Sergorn

Post by **wjp** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 3:20 pm

Please do

Gruck has submitted enough bug reports to keep me busy for a while, but more testing is always welcome.

We don't have hq3x though.

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 4:03 pm

We should have...

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 5:40 pm

That would certainly be awesome.

One question: I assume the answer is a "no", but is there a way for the minimap content to be saved when leaving a zone? I love this gump, and it's very useful for exploring an area, but since it becomes black again it renders it a bit pointless.

I've only played an hour or so - but one thing i've noticed is when I have a chest exploring due to a trap, it jumps up, but don't seem to get back down. I think it happened in U8 as well but I had it with every chest I tried here heh.

Also I attacked Corinth north of Tenebrae and oddly enough Beren didn't come to kill me. Which I thought he was supposed to do there. Not sure (it's been too long since I played U8 to spot all possible differences)

-Sergorn

Gruck/Dungy · Post by **Gruck/Dungy** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 7:13 pm

Confirmed in the original. You can kill peasants with wild abandon north of Tenebrae. What I have noticed in Pentagram is almost everything from the original works beautifully. I think I've only reported one plot-related bug, and that turned out to not actually be a bug at all, but a quirk with higher resolutions. Mostly it's gameplay issues I've been reporting.

Post by **wjp** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 7:25 pm

Stuff sticking to walls/ceilings: one of our more annoying long-standing open bugs. I've spent some time on it tonight, and got about halfway through fixing it I think.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 7:36 pm

May I ask what's the quirk with higher resolution?

(I'm not using such a high resolution - merely 800x600 but I wonder.)

-Sergorn

Gruck/Dungy · Post by **Gruck/Dungy** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:30 pm

Don't want to spoil all the details on here, so this explains it quite well. https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=d ... tid=471709

Gruck/Dungy · Post by **Gruck/Dungy** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 12:15 am

Finally finished Ultima VIII. All of the major quests seem to be working, and I only had one actual crash occur the entire time. There just seems to be a lot of little niggling gameplay issues which I've been reporting, and I plan on doing some major screwing around with the engine over the next couple of days. Still, I'm quite impressed. Good job folks!

Post by **wjp** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:31 am

Great! Thank you very much for playing through Pentagram, and with such attention to detail.

Two more known hi-res bugs:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=de ... tid=471709
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=de ... tid=471709

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 10:08 am

One issue I'm onticed, which my be related to the one about falling in Holes:

The hole east of Tenebrae where you to the Slayer Mace - on first try I couldn't fallinto the all. I didn't fall "naturally" by just staying on the hole and walled over it - after that however I couldn't seem to the avatar to fall down.

I solved the issue by reloading a save and having my Avatar stay right ine the center while the hole is collapsing, but I felt it was worth mentionning.

-Sergorn

Post by **wjp** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 2:06 pm

Yup... that's exactly the thing I meant in my 10-07-10 21:29 post. So in some cases we "jump down" too soon (stairs) and in others not soon enough (holes). It needs more fine-tuning, it seems.

Thanks for pointing out a specific troublesome location.

Post by **wjp** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:22 pm

I think I've fixed the items getting stuck on walls/ceilings, but since it's a rather low-level change, I hope it doesn't break related things. Please pay special attention to this when testing.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 6:25 am

I'm now at the Obsidian Fortress.

Everything works very fine thus far!

One bug I've noticed - being closed to the Mandril when they make sound on Argentrock Isle slow the game to a crawl. I do seem to remember this happening in the original UVIII though.

I've noticed the issue about holes on other occurence too - I do feel that's the realy major issue here - since there are a couple of mandatory holes you need to fall through, so you can get stuck.

Also it seems the Changeling never appear to change to the appareance of the Avatar.

Other than that, I really can't think of any issue - I didn't get the hi res related bugs either - it's very much like I remember the original U8

Post by **wjp** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:10 am

Do you still have the coordinates of the troublesome holes? (Either in numbers or a description.) For testing purposes such a list would be good to have.

Changelings: You're right; I think we never got around to implementing shifting to the Avatar. Looking at the code they'll only shift to a tree currently.

Dungy/Gruck · Post by **Dungy/Gruck** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:17 am

Geesh, did I forget to report Changelings. Yeah. They refuse to turn into the Avatar.

Sergorn · Post by **Sergorn** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 9:39 am

The exact coordinates no, but I can tell you where they are:

* The hole leading to the cave holding the Slayer Mace, east of Tenebrae.
* The hole in the Catacombs leading to the are with the first dead necromancers
* The hole you need to dig with the "Open Ground" spell in the Shrine of te Ancient One

This kind of let me to think that that this issue should come up with any hole with size, though I can't quite think of another one to test.

-Sergorn