Arcadion's big mistake

[Crowley]

When I try to use Arcadion's death power on the stone harpy on Spektran, I get the "Not worthy of my trouble." -reply from Arcadion. Say what?! That thing is invincible to nearly all weapons and spells, and this demon in my command claims it's just a little bug that I should be able to crush easily on my own! I really don't see the logic. Any possibility for any kind of fix for this in Exult?

[Paulon]

Try killing it with nonmagical weapons. It's easy then.

[Soul]

The swords "Death" power is intended to work only on special NPCs, and will not work on any monster spawns. Try using it on your own companions

[Earthquake Damage]

Actually, I believe you're wrong...
I have approximately the latest version of the 1.1 branch of Exult (haven't downloaded anything here for over a week, so it's theoretically possible for things to have changed), for the record.
I can use Arcadion's wonderful Death power on liches, dragons, that big red fucker in the Tetrahedron generator (ethereal something-or-other), randomly spawned mages (anything with the old, grey-haired mage shape to be honest), and probably a large number of other things I have not attempted. It works on specific NPCs and specific creatures as far as I can tell. I do enjoy using it on both Batlin and Hook at the final battle (I think it works on that Batlin anyway -- I don't recall clearly -- I'm pretty sure Armageddon wipes that one out if nothing else).

On an ever-so-slightly-though-not-entirely off-topic note:
There is a small difficulty in using it on dragons and other large creatures. As you know, you have to stand next to the target. With large targets, you have to stand next to their absolute 'footprint' (whatever specific coordinate at which the game considers them to be standing). I haven't played it in a week or three so I forget exactly which corner of their body is the target, but I think it's the lower right.

[Soul]

The odd thing is, you can see the parallels from the U7 engine in the UO engine. UO was actually based off of a hack from Ultima 8, and yet the engine is almost identical to Ultima 7's. If you've messed with 3rd party server software and have also messed with exult studio or know U7 quite well, it's almost scary how similair they are. At it's heart, a tile-based system, no "item" actually takes up more then one tile - no matter how "large" it is.

I wonder, someone experienced with exut studio tell me, can an objects bounds extend into other tiles? Say those pieces of wood, they seem to lay across more then one tile, yet they still exist at only one location (drawn differently?) How exactly does the game check for objects near X that may extend into X ?

[Wizardry Dragon]

Very haphazardly, as all the clipping issues I've had point out.

~ Wizardry Dragon

[drcode]

One thing I'm pretty sure Exult does wrong is to calculate distance by using the location (lower right tile) of an object, instead of the object's perimeter. It's also something I'm afraid to change, since it will take a lot of testing.

[Earthquake Damage]

Soul:
Interesting remark. The use of the tile-based system and overhead view in U7, U8, and UO is fairly easy to create and handle (as opposed to, say, a first-person 3D game engine). Also, as Ultima fans are familiar with such a system, I imagine UO was created thusly so it looked like an Ultima on the surface, thereby earning more buyers from the Ultima fan base and netting Origin and (probably primarily) EA more cash. I think it was a smart design move as far as marketing is concerned, but that's as far off-topic as I can possibly go.

DrCode:
Well, you'll probably have to address that at some point. By you I mean "someone on the project," as I honestly don't know how many people are involved nor do I know how many are, more specifically, coding.

[MV]

I always thought that the blackrock sword said that since the harpy isn't a living thing, (It's stone), that his power won't work on it.

[Achile Dragon]

That's right if i am rememeber in the original

[Colourless]

I wonder, someone experienced with exut studio tell me, can an objects bounds extend into other tiles? Say those pieces of wood, they seem to lay across more then one tile, yet they still exist at only one location (drawn differently?) How exactly does the game check for objects near X that may extend into X ?

Soul, let me tell you this, you really don't want to know. It's far more complex then you'd probably have imagined.

-Colourless Dragon

[Skutarth]

"I can use Arcadion's wonderful Death power on liches, dragons, that big red f***er in the Tetrahedron generator"

Dude, you're probably the first one to say anything that dirty in a LONG time. Keep it clean, a lot of readers here, myself included, are not very old. My parents would never let me come back here if they saw me reading that as they came in.

No offense.

P.S. I'm 14

[Soul]

Colourless: Heh, try me. I'm developing a tile based system of my own that does that, although my methods I keep fairly simple (albeit at the loss of a lot of functionality.). I'm actually more interested in how the original game did it moreso then exult, but eh...

If you don't want to explain that's fine

[crypt]

i'd be interested in how it works also....