Aslona

I more or less finished a new main quest in the kingdom of Aslona, so now I need help with properly testing it. Please report any bugs, typos, balance issues or how you brok ethe game (JoKe ), so I can fix that.

Notable change was to stop new quests from always requiring the dev to deal with the encrypted scroll, so now you always need to talk to Petrus first to give him the scroll, and then you can choose to talk to other quest givers for new quest. To activate GC, just talk to Petrus again; talk to the necromancer for TX and to Sir Lancelyn for Aslona quest.

Some notes on Aslona that you might or might not want to discover on your own:
SPOILER ALERT. Click here to see text.


See NEWS for more details on all changes.

fejoa, could I ask you for a Windows build, please, so it can be properly tested by everyone?

Well Happy Atavus day to us! Thank you red, this sounds awesome and I can't wait to try it out.

Yeeeeeeeeeee

Great work red-kangaroo. Before I can make a windows build, can you

1. Go through all the .sh files and change their permissions back to 755.
For example, in the diff on GitHub we have:

.devsPrefs/prepareUser.sh 100755 → 100644    

Means the file permissions for this shell file have changed from 755 to 644.
Follow this link to see exactly how to do it: http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_lts0090.php

After that just commit to your branch and push. I can't remember if there are any special git steps for changing file permissions.

2. Compile the code with wizard mode deactivated. Do this by omitting the

-DWIZARD

flag in

CXXFLAGS

. Then fix the compile errors you see there.

After these two steps you will see Travis light up green for all the build configs. In the first case, the release configs rely on being able to execute certain shell scripts for packaging purposes. When the file permissions change to read only, then the containers cannot execute the commands written in the scripts because that user (Travis?) no longer has permission to do anything other than read the file.
In the second case this is just a regular compile error

I ran into these problems once before, ages ago when I first started messing with this CI business. I found the chmod thing to be quite handy Linux knowledge.

Also, you should be able to build your own windows build on your personal fork by creating, for example, a release branch, and building "manually" on Travis (i.e. log on and press the button)
or even changing the yaml file to tickle up your own containers on Travis. That's how I drafted the build system without working on the live repository
Any build artifacts will just appear in the red-kangaroo/ivan releases page.

Oops, now it should be working OK.


Hm, I was able to trigger a build on Travis for red-kangaroo/ivan branch Aslona_travis_release, it built successfully, but I'm not sure if it created a release. I'll have to see the docs. Thanks about the info.

I think the second-to-last build config is the one that will get you a windows build. It's currently configured to release on tags, so you'll need to do something to circumvent that.

Sorry about the wait, I'm back and here is the test release. I'd like to hear about any bugs or balance issues.

That Travis auto-release thingy is really great!

I had a pretty intense game.

Everything was normal until about halfway down the fungal caves, when Loricatus gave me an angel and I decided to dive quickly to take advantage of her before she disappears. She destroyed Fusanga and even killed the dark mage on the last level, even though here I was very lucky to be wearing an amulet of life saving, because he got me before she could reach him.

But when I was recuperating, suddenly my brain was constantly on fire and mind worms started to appear everywhere. I had some healing potion from Mellis, so I survived, but with no tin helmet, I had to hightail it out of there.

I went to the goblin fort, and once again mind worms started to appear. It was an utter infestation, and I still didn't have any tin helmet. I ended up retreating to UT, doing the spider quest for a scroll of wishing, and getting a SOCM to get a full tin helmet. Then I finished fungal caves and went down through the goblin fort, killing mind worms left and right. Have a look at the kill list!

Unfortunately, on the last level of GF, I managed to nick prince Artorius with an explosion, making him hostile. No problem, I had a wand of resurrection, so I killed him and revived him friendly once again. Except because he was made hostile, so were both Castle of Aslona and rebel camp (which is a bug I'll fix, they should be OK if you bring the prince in one piece).

I tried to take on Lord Regent, and well...

Gonna go give this a try right away! Expect a second post later on my thoughts.

So to start off, I'd like to give a small note that I haven't had a completed run yet through out my entire time playing. Though I hope that doesn't stop me from having my thoughts on what I experienced so far with this beta.

First off, I ain't sure if it's just me but the game sure got allot more harder then usual. Hedgehogs seem to be able to kill me in a swift second in new playthroughs. As well as Genetrix being able to one hit kill me with a swift decapitation. Which before, was very uncommon to happen even with a weak helmet on. Though the game is suppose to be somewhat hard so I can't really complain with the new rise in difficulty.

Though I haven't gotten that far besides the pyramid, I feel like the new quest is great so far! It adds allot more options to the already good amount of different places to go to. My only problem was when I was trying to find the pyramid after leaving Aslona. I assumed it was outside the island I'm on since I'm given a ship which allows you to go to other islands that you would originally couldn't access (I also found out today that the world map is allot more bigger then I expected). I had two runs where I starved to death trying to find the pyramid. Like I said though, the game is meant to be hard so I can't really say much.

So far, my only issue with the game is the strange rise in difficulty (which is probably just a me thing and not any fault of the game). One thing that I hate though is upon getting at least one leg severed (which for some reason is very easy to happen in later places), I end up getting overloaded even if I don't have that much in my inventory. Though that may also be because of my armor or whatever I have equipped on me. And it's in the worst place since it usually happens when I'm under attack. And since I'm overloaded, I cannot move nor attack since I'm also stressed and thus, I have to accept fate and die. Since if I do anything else (like dropping what I have), I'm only putting more risk since that may involve removing my armor. Overall, the only complaints I have is the difficulty, which I feel like is more of a me thing rather then the game at fault. But besides that, this is pretty good so far! Can't wait to see what the future holds for this update.

No worries, I also have only a precious few wins in IVAN.


That's really just bad luck. Nothing was changed in UT, but sometimes the game just feels as if it's out for blood. Jenny can be pretty dangerous when she lands a crit.


Great!

I would advise to start with the quests in goblin fort or fungal caves. Myrddin even says in his quest speech that pyramid is the most dangerous of the new dungeons.

Yeah, the dungeons unfortunately can sometimes end up rather far from each other. That's also the reason why you get a boat, I couldn't figure out how to nicely pack that all onto a single continent. But when looking for a dungeon, you should generally first (l)ook for it and only get going once you know where to. Otherwise you waste too much nutrition on the worldmap.


Your leg strength gets cut in half when you loose a leg, thus you being suddenly burdened/overloaded. Good boots help prevent loosing a leg, and I always try to have a source of teleportation in my open inventory to get out of trouble immediately should I loose a limb.

Thanks for clearing that up! I'll be doing the other quests too eventually.

Just had a pretty fun playthrough through the fungal caverns this time. During my trip through the underwater caves, I somehow stumbled upon a thunder hammer. Which practically got me through the whole playthrough. And I might've won if it wasn't for that slice of bad luck at the end where the bolt bounced back at me. Getting through Jenny was a literal breeze!
SPOILER ALERT. Click here to see text.

tl;dr so far this beta is great. Can't wait to see what it has to offer in the future! So far, I haven't seen any issues though. But I'll make sure to update you on that if I do. Though I doubt I will.

So far haven't gotten very far, but it's awesome to have a brand new quest and worlds to explore again. Makes it feel like a new game!

Lots of minor changes that have been made that make a huge difference as well.

I love the rebel camp, the castle, and the fungal caves. The caves especially are a really unique feel.

Awesome work RK!

Still only down to FC3 so far but I have to keep praising the level design.

RK

Thank you.

Can we get the really nasty guys (aranea spiders, nurphe bats) in a different color? Purple or blue?

I don't like that they look exactly the same as their less harmful brethren. Even for IVAN that's pretty brutal

I can't think of any other monster in the game where the nastier versions aren't visibly different. Maybe golems but since those are completely based on material it at least gives you an idea of which ones to check more closely

They have a different color, bot maybe not different enough. Nurphe bats are pale with purple eyes, maybe I could make them bright purple? And aranea spiders are reddish, so I will make them deeper red.

I actually did notice the nurphe bat color later, but the spiders look the same to me. I think a bright purple + deeper red would be nice. Thanks!

Is it just me, or are overpowered materials like UKKU_STEEL, DARK_MATTER, and ARCANITE spawning far too early? Like on the first floor of the underwater tunnel?

This is bad I.M.O. because if an enemy gets their hands on these they can one-shot you, or vice versa. You can easily cut down the first boss without trying.

I don't think there's ever been a limit on how early a material can appear

Rare materials & items appearing early on is a blessing and a curse, sure you can chop down Genny, but then your danger level goes up and next thing you know you're encountering small dark frogs and rookie dark knights in GC1

I have noticed in the later versions that high power materials appear significantly more often than they had in .50. Im not sure how the rarity of a materials generation is regulated , but I think it should be reviewed. This is all anecdotal by the way - I have no actual data to support this.

I'm comparing this from the 0.56 and earlier versions. I don't know if I'm getting lucky, but I almost always acquire a weapon that's way better than I should right the first or second floor before "Genny".

By the way, from debugging while making my ongoing weapons and armor overhaul mod, I found that being made of Valpurium is far worst for danger level than having Valpurium gear.

I will gladly rebalance the material chances when I get to making my material list.

P.S. I already miss the starting fanfare when you start the game.

I've gotten a bug a couple times where it crashes when I try to descend into one of the new Aslona areas. Twice with the tower, and once with the goblin place. Fungal caves have never had this issue

Debug shows:

0   ivan                                0x000000010457e363 _ZN18globalerrorhandler22DumpStackTraceToStdErrEi + 51
1   ivan                                0x000000010457e600 _ZN18globalerrorhandler5AbortEPKcz + 320
2   ivan                                0x000000010415ca0e _ZN8bugfixdp16ValidatePlayerAtEP6square + 462
3   ivan                                0x00000001043a2930 _ZN4game4LoadERK8festring + 4048
4   ivan                                0x000000010439fec6 _ZN4game4InitERK8festring + 1270
5   ivan                                0x00000001044cb2b7 main + 2039
6   libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff669ee7fd start + 1
Player can't be found anywhere! Try to restore a backup if available.

Sadly the save files don't work at all anymore, it crashes immediately when I load the save (presumably it entered the new area, and autosaved there)

Can you still load the backup file? When you try loading the game, it should prompt you to use either the backup or the autosave, maybe the backup will not be corrupted.