Shora, Explorer-Fellows... I've got a "new" problem editing marker games.
I am working on a marker game leading through several ages with detailed descriptions in marker's texts.
What I want to do is create a set of markes in a visual surrounding and then(!) edit their texts in edit-mode.
Game starts in Relto and then first switches to D'ne Aegura, and so on...
As far as i remember, this worked well until last week. Then I realized, that I can see markers in edit-mode in Relto, only(!).
Markers in D'ni Aegure (or other ages) are invisible...
I can play (an incomplete ( ) quest) and then(!) all(!) markers are visible.
Edit mode keeps them invisible, though editable; but this won't help

Any Idea for helping me?

Otherwise it will take me at least 4 times longer to prepare and create such games (and might lead me to give it up), because I have to switch to text-editing (F2-F2-F2-select marker from list (scrolling(!)) after each creating marker (F7), 'cause it is not possible to move the avatar while KI is BIG (

btw. Is there ANY chance for editig markers (texts) on any OS outside MOULa (KI)


NekkoRyu KI 17617038 MOULa

NekkoRyu wrote

Quote:

I am working on a marker game leading through several ages with detailed descriptions in marker's texts

the issue is somewhat highlighted

The only solution I can think of is to change markers' description when you change age.

Instead of having a bunch of "NekkoRyu marker game's marker"

entitled them with the age you are in or do the edit as each new marker is placed.

The markers are only visible in edit mode in the first age you placed them. Usually if you are planning to put 60% of markers in a specific age, it would be clever to lay them first then go to smaller ages to place the remaining, this way you can see at least 60% of your markers in edit mode.

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On MOULa shard:

Annabelle 03632553 & Sophie (aka STA1) 15112736 - main public avatars
Annabot 209XXXXX - the bot

Not sure if it will help but this is my workflow.
I end up making the game a few times with a few different accounts.

First a make a scratch game (no text)
I just place the markers close to where I want them. Usually this done pretty quickly as I'm exploring.

Next with a second account I make a private game (just for me:)
This time adding a short description and numbering every marker. If the game goes to three different ages I'll make three different private games. That way I can see all the markers in edit mode when I need to go back and edit.
These private games will become the backup if the published one brakes. That's why I use a second account.

This point I have say three private games. All markers are numbered and have a full text description.

Finally I make the marker game that will be published.
Starting on the first marker. Going in order cloning every marker and it's text from the private games.

This can be done a lot faster running two avatars or having a good friend help so you don't have to keep switching between all the games.

Wonder if that helps at all. I'm thinking I could be a bit crazy.
Well thats the best way I found to work with a large number of markers that are spred throughout the ages.

Good luck

_________________
Stone -- 01141040

Stone opened up a breach

Quote:

I'm thinking I could be a bit crazy.

hmmm... YES

_________________
On MOULa shard:

Annabelle 03632553 & Sophie (aka STA1) 15112736 - main public avatars
Annabot 209XXXXX - the bot

Stone. wrote:

Not sure if it will help...

Finally I make the marker game that will be published.
Starting on the first marker. Going in order cloning every marker and it's text from the private games.

This can be done a lot faster running two avatars or having a good friend help so you don't have to keep switching between all the games.

1. It looks like it might help, if
you tell me, how "cloning" of markers is done. Or do you mean just setting them where they belong by visual comparison.

2. Then I would like to know,
a) how to "clone" an avatar, if possibe ... )
b) how to run the game with two avatars simultanously (on one PC ...)

3. Yes, looks like we all are a little crazy. Must come from the microbes in the cavern's lake

_____________________
NekkoRyu
MOULa
KI 17617038

Human beings make life so interesting.
Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?
(Death/Hogfather/Terry Pratchett)

@ NekoRyu:

Even if I'm not "Stone." ...obviously I can answer at least at the 2nd part of your questions.

1. I will let Stone. developped his thoughts.

2. a) cloning an avatar just means to create a new avatar for your usage. For example, "Annabelle" & "La belle Anna" are 2 of my numerous avatars. "Annabelle" could be seen as the clone of "La belle Anna" and vice versa.

2. b) 2 avatars runned simultaneously means at least 2 different accounts.

Now... 2 avatars on the same PC. How can it be done? Stone. and I are using a virtual PC on our respective computers. You have to run 2 MOULa installs at the same time.

It would be easier with 2 PCs side-by-side, you would then have to own 2 PCs (expensive option).

I'm using the Cadillac of virtual PCs (at least for Windows users): VMWare. It has a good virtualized 3D rendering graphic card.

Stone. (as far as I know) is using Mac. I think Mac users have better virtualization options than Windows users.

3.

_________________
On MOULa shard:

Annabelle 03632553 & Sophie (aka STA1) 15112736 - main public avatars
Annabot 209XXXXX - the bot

ha microbes in the lake, yea lets go with that

NekoRyu wrote:

1. It looks like it might help, if you tell me, how "cloning" of markers is done. Or do you mean just setting them where they belong by visual comparison.

yep i mean a visual comparison.
With one avatar i stand in the marker of the private game. Then switch games to set the new marker. (takes forever)
So i usually use a second avatar to play the private game. He just stands in his marker. Then the first avvie stands where he is, to set a marker for the new game.

NekoRyu wrote:

2.a) how to "clone" an avatar, if possibe ... )

guess i use clone pretty loosely..
I made a second account for all of my accounts. Then made avatars with the same names adding a 2 on the end.
Stone is my main avatar so i made Stone2 as a backup. He holds and makes all of the private games that Stone will rebuild into the games that get published. This has two main advantages. I can Log both of them into the cavern at the same time. Plus when either of the games brake i still have the other for backup. I call him a clone because he has a duplicate of all my main avvies games, tho they may be broken up into many smaller games.

NekoRyu wrote:

2.b) how to run the game with two avatars simultanously (on one PC ...)

like Annabelle said " 2 avatars runned simultaneously means at least 2 different accounts."
which also means you need to run two installs of the game. (i know i had to say it)
On a mac you could do this pretty easily but on windows i don't know how to tell the os they are two different programs. (Hopefully someone could chime in here if they know)

Im thinking the easiest rout is a VM like Annabelle mentions above.
There is a free one at "https://www.virtualbox.org/" i have know idea if you could get MOULa running using it tho.
Basically its a second PC that lives in your PC.
Install windows into it. Then the game into windows and it all lives in a window on your desktop.

NekoRyu wrote:

3. Yes, looks like we all are a little crazy. Must come from the microbes in the cavern's lake

oops i was warned.
Warned by many others and i still continued to do zip jumps into the lake. Its a rough landing, going to get a mouth full every once and a while. I think i usually pass out… well the world goes black then after some spinning. I wake up in Relto.
Strange thing is i keep going back to do it again

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Stone -- 01141040

Thanks to Anabelle and Stone.

Although the answers were not the ones I hopefully expected.

But that is the never ending story of wishes and reality, two worlds, seldom to be combined finally.

So I will spend some time to complete my next game and then send it to you, if you like ...

(This will show you, why i came to ask those silly questions)

btw., again.

If in edit mode, (and after playing and hitting them, in the KI ) markers show as:
(Age-Name), Torantee, Shahfeetee, Elev, Text
So, every marker is described well, at least in all ages, where KI gives Torantee, ... values.

So it should be possible to export (and later re-import) marker(group)s for external editing.
Could this be managed, somehow and sometime?
(I read a little about WhoM, with which ---LOADING--- Error games could be deleted
Is this the only "way" for external editig ?!?!)

See You in the cavern
NekkoRyu

_________________
NekkoRyu
MOULa
KI 17617038

Human beings make life so interesting.
Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?
(Death/Hogfather/Terry Pratchett)

NekoRyu wrote:

btw., again.
So it should be possible to export (and later re-import) marker(group)s for external editing. Could this be managed, somehow and sometime?

Marker Missions are stored on the Server - not on the game maker's computer. So there is no legitimate way to edit them out of game. It is a security issue. If you could upload something to the Server you might damage something unintentionally or maliciously.

_________________
The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea. - Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)

I know what answer you are looking for. The same i was looking for. Its a nightmare to edit markers the way it is.

My understanding is that it is posible to build something to do this. The markers are controlled by a Python script. But like Mr.Mikel said the markers are stored in the vault. Editing the vault can be very dangerous and can/will effect many players in the game. If it ever became corrupted we would all have to start over. So we are not allowed to edit the vault.

WhoM as far as i understand it. Only gets info from the server it doesn't edit anything. Plus its only getting things from your personal account.

I excited to hear your still moving forward with your game..
YES please send it over… I love to see what others have built…
It is the only new content to play/explore in the cavern…
Thank you for spending the time to create something NEW :))

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Stone -- 01141040

Hello, Anabelle, Stone. and others.
Yes, I will continue, although there are heavy bugs in my KI .

Just this morning I "killed" a 60 markers piece in ... no, no Hint

but this lead to two thoughts.

a) possible reason for ---LOADING --- error games.
when I edited markers texts, I did this by copy-paste from Word
"" just because this resulted in characters like " ' or TAB included in RAM, but not (visibly) being transferred into the marker's text. AND. Those markers caused the game to create the ---LOADING --- Error.
After deletion of those texts, loading finished as before...

Unfortunately (not prooved yet) a TAB (or something similar imported by "bulletpoint text passages") seams to crash the marker and the list itself. So I got a game with two "playable markers" at the end of the list, but those never appeared in the markers list while editing.
Trying to restore by deleting markers set earlier, up the list, killed the game to ---LOADING--- Error

b) If we may not upload things to the vault, what I do appreciate for security reeasons absolutely,
why not take over the "Stone." idea of "combining" games "inside the vault"

Let us set up marker games within each age, then put them together into one marker game.

That just needs (hehe, "just needs" is something, we programmers hate, I know) a marker game being set into the address window, where ages, explorers, imagers, ... appear to receive messages, pictures, (hehe) marker games.
So , editing could be done in small portions, risk of destroying games would be minimized, editig of small parts would show up easy as hell, ... think of more ????

Happy exploring

_________________
NekkoRyu
MOULa
KI 17617038

Human beings make life so interesting.
Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?
(Death/Hogfather/Terry Pratchett)

Copy-pasting issue...

I finished all my quests before the implementation of the copy-paste function. I can't help much here.

The only thing I know after having talked to the programmer behind this new feature, boq, is that you should try using MS Wordpad instead of MS Word. In game we can only use the standard ASCII characters. Even on my version of MS Word, the ' isn't the english ' but the french ' (<--- apostrophes) making it hard to paste text from Word.

Let's take this sentence: It's a really nice sunny day, isn't it? <--- it would give me an error message

I have to write: It is a really nice sunny day, is not it? <--- this one passes the test of pasting

_________________
On MOULa shard:

Annabelle 03632553 & Sophie (aka STA1) 15112736 - main public avatars
Annabot 209XXXXX - the bot

Annabelle wrote:

Copy-pasting issue...

I finished all my quests before the implementation of the copy-paste function. I can't help much here.

The only thing I know after having talked to the programmer behind this new feature, boq, is that you should try using MS Wordpad instead of MS Word. In game we can only use the standard ASCII characters. Even on my version of MS Word, the ' isn't the english ' but the french ' (<--- apostrophes) making it hard to paste text from Word.

Let's take this sentence: It's a really nice sunny day, isn't it? <--- it would give me an error message

I have to write: It is a really nice sunny day, is not it? <--- this one passes the test of pasting

Thx, Annabelle

THAT hits the SPOT

(So, DNi Technique is used, I guess, not the modern NOWADAYS Human One ( )

Nevertheless, I will continue, and will have FUN )))

_________________
NekkoRyu
MOULa
KI 17617038

Human beings make life so interesting.
Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?
(Death/Hogfather/Terry Pratchett)

lol... yeah, I was working on a series of 'answer-sheet' marker games, where there would be markers that explained the solutions of each puzzle.

One of the things I tried to do was have a marker game that went from the beginning of Kadish Tolesa, into the Kadish Gallery to show the puzzle solutions on the walls there -- I ran into the same problem.. any of the markers I placed after jumping between ages, wouldn't show up in edit mode.

I just gave up on including the second age.

I ran into this problem very early on in making Quests that run through different ages and it taught me to work everything for my Quests out in advance.

I posted my own developed ideas on this topic long time back.

OVERVIEW:
1) Plan out your Quest Story or Mystery marker text and theme in advance. Write & plan it out first.
2) Create and use a dual numbered Markers list to track and organize Quest Text with.
3) Create a dual Marker Tracker list for Quest markers of top Marker 1: Age/ location ID & difficulty and the other below Marker 1: for the actual marker text..
This way you can go back into the Quests markers you put down and know what text to put into what marker according to marker location & difficulty or for marker text that you want read in or by a certain sequence.

Simplest solution I found was: I learned to work out in advance on my MS WORD processing program to write out what my Quest's Story, Mystery style & theme for the marker text would be.
[You can also use Notepad, WordPad or any other program you like, but having the ability to set up columns with set widths can make making Quests much simplier to do.]
ADVANCE preparation before you create the Quest and start putting down markers for it first is best.

NOTE: [If you want explorers to enjoy and play your Quests, you MUST learn to make them so playing them is reasonably simple to do or solve.
The more clever and harder you make it, the less likely explorers will like it or finish it. Discovering the right balance is the trick.
Multi-Explorer Quests I found, don’t really work so well in URU.
Most explorers prefer to play Quests alone and that just seems to be the nature of URU Explorers.

SIMPLIFIED: I created a simple WORD file of Marker 1: Marker 2: Marker 3: etc. . . set to columns formatting those columns width to match a Quests Text Ki read back screen width.
I then use this basic Marker Numbering Tracker file to manage marker text over and over again for each Quest I make.
SHARE: Something I learned early on about, was that marker text displayed when playing the Quest in-game wasn’t the same as that left on the KI playback window for each marker gotten. Long Text line sentences simply got cut according to every explorers set Ki screen width limit.

I found that according to what the Quest Theme was to be, the level of set up and writing it out dictated the requirements.
Note worthy: MY Clue Quests as they developed, required me to use dual Marker column lists. One for the marker's Age & ID location with assigned difficulty level for getting the marker and the other for the actual marker text.
This lead to me making hard to get markers text as confirmation information text and leaving medium and easy text markers for the rest.

Example: Story Quest straight forward write story first and then insert text into Quest.

Example: Mystery Clue Quest with marker text of clues to sort out and solve required much more advanced planning.
Marker 1: City-Library back 1 barricade Lt Med.
Marker 1: K1 King took thrown in 3654

To make all the marker text available to read from off the Ki, I worked out what the cut off KI play back line sentence length was and set my word processor column wide to match it.
This allowed ALL my marker text to be available to read without loss from the Ki screen playback limitation.
By doing so, my Quests were easier to play in the sense no marker text got lost to explorers to review.

Yes Yes Yes I know about chatlog, but not all explorers do and so explorers . .
a) either didn't know about chat log or if they did, didn’t know how to use it
b) and often just didn't remembered to turn it on or off when play a Quest and . . .
c) and if they did use it, forgot to save chatlog file before losing it to the default from numerous start/ stops

I since in QUESTS Hood did a Imager Posted instructions to Chatlog use.

Complex Clue Quests: I simply use the Ki title line to ID my marker text with.
When you leave and go to a new age, type in the title line Initials of Age and maybe if needed what area like City :Tent or
City Library - back of

For mine. I would text ID markers according to difficulty so I didn't put critical need to know text clues in those too hard to get. Also,Explorer Stone told me there is a way not to get a Quests markers and put the text into them into a NotePad/ WordPad file to edit in all the text and upload it to the game? Still looking for where the how to do that thread is at. But felt it noteworthy to mention.

Hope this helped some. Jahmen Myst