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[ThreeToe]

You jerk Alanor!  What's your source?  I've been trying to figure out what a kobold was for years!

I have a great idea for kobold eyes:  They are black- all pupil.  And because they can see in the dark like cats, when you are in a cave their eyes will shine red before you get close enough to iluminate thier bodies.  You will never get that close because they hate light so the whole time your are in the kobold dungeon you will be surrounded by spooky glowing red eyes.

This will turn out better if all the 3D monsters turn thier heads toward what they are targeting- that way you will see the spooky eyes instead of not-seeing the back of thier spooky heads.

[SkeleTony]

I think kobolds should be cute and cuddly like care bears or smurfs.That way I will get deep satisfaction from throwing them against walls or into combines.

[spelguru]

Not even the prince of darkness him/herself can understand how much I hate those cute teddy bears and the smurfs (and summer too)!!! When you attempt to create something, how will you do? Is it like choose number if legs/arms and more things like that? Or do you have to build them piece by piece?

[Toady One]

Right now using the creature editor is a hellish process that you will grow to hate more than summer itself.  It is fully functional, but probably hard to use.

At first, it will probably be easiest to use the editor on the human file (just copy the file or save under a different name).  Once you get comfortable distorting the human and given it new limbs and so on, then you can move on to constructing a creature.

One I put the editor release out, I'll take suggestions as to how people might want to set it up to make things more easily, but I don't want to try to guess before then, or at least, I don't want to spend anymore time on this damn release, because it has taken so long already.

Speaking of which, I just added in most of the code for model deformations and posture -- these are for kobolds at the moment, and for variations in human faces.  I think that's all I need to do, aside from adding some kind of lizard or something.  This is officially the reptile release, after all.  Hopefully I'll have the game up by this Sunday.  That is the tentative release date: Sunday, July 21st.

Demon -- how did you and California do on the math contest!?  Did the post the results yet?  It will influence the release time.

[Demon]

Turns out the lazy bastards only posted the top three:

Related Technical Math (High School)
Gold-Jennie Schiffman, Chapel Hill HS, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Silver-Christopher Nelson, Ben Lomond HS, Ogden, Utah
Bronze-Matthew Smith, Carroll Co Career & Tech Ctr, Westminster, Maryland
[Fourth]-Me, PA

So, as you can see, I beat California!    I have the e-mail address of the test administrator, so I'll find out from him what I scored and what the Cali. kid got.

[Toady One]

More than 20 million people in California and they couldn't find a single one to represent us properly.  Losers.

I've switched the forum over to Eastern Time.  All future message times should be appropriately Distorted.

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Captain_Action]

Whew! I finally recalled my password.    
Man, Toady. Do you sleep?
Slaves to Armok is looking great!

I was wondering how are you going to simulate "demi" humans. Will they be just funny looking humans or will actually go deeper in depth and add real differences (Physical, not cultural) to each race?

Something like the dwarves being unable to swim because their bones and muscles being more dense. How would such a race fare in melee combat? Would their low centers of gravity be a boon in battle?

Enough rambling from me for now.

"<Logan> I spent a minute looking at my own code by accident.
<Logan> I was thinking "What the hell is this guy doing?""

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Captain_Action ]

[Alanor]

Minor request Tarn....
since there are going to be no random races for a bit (or i thought you said that)
but whatever..

Humans are (mostly) done..
kobolds are coming
are you going to pop out a few extra races for this release or are you going to let us have a go at it...
the REALLY BASIC requests should be (i think)

a lizard (hehe)
a dog (naked mole dog?)

Orc
lizardman (to get the lizard context)
gnoll (to get the dog- men in.. if kobolds arnt!)

thats about it..
that covers a bunch of variations.. from which we will be able to make LOTS of new ones..
with the differences between a few..
we should better be able to extrapolate to new creatures :-)

[Ashelus]

Mm.. Piccies!
Mm.. Naked Mole Dog!

[Demon]

So, basically youre attributing my victory to a mistake on your states part as opposed to my crazy skillz?  California never stood a chance; you're all too busy being hippies!    :p

[Toady One]

Did you see the contestant from California?  Hippie freak?  At least I'll be starting the de-hippification of the human model legs tomorrow.  I think I'll give them different faces too.  I should also finish kobolds tomorrow, and maybe a few other critters.

Whatever "demi"-human races I add will not just be altered humans...  I guess there's not much point in that.  People can fight about dwarf and elf design like they fight about kobolds.  Maybe I won't have them.  He he he.  There should be some physical differences -- the most important ones (like lifespan) aren't in the game yet, so they'd probably be boring for now.  Didn't Tolkien dwarves have stone skin or something, since they were born from the earth?  If I increased the durability of their skin/muscle/bone material, it would make injuring them a lot harder.

Low centers of gravity will probably help with wrestling and stability, when that goes in...  right now, being shorter will just make you hit titans on their feet rather than their lower legs.

For stock races in the next release, I was definitely doing:

---

flesh balls

humans

kobolds

leaf-tailed gecko men (if you saw the pictures I posted of the leaf-tailed gecko, you know they can't be denied)

a dragon or large lizard

some disgusting monstrosity

----

if people want dogs or orcs, I can do those too.  I shouldn't take too many requests, since the release is long overdue and I want to get on to vegetation and ecosystems, but whatever.  Now that the basics are in (I completed posture and model deformation code today), stock creatures don't take long to make.

[ergasiophobia]

Goodness me. The dwarves didn't "come from the earth"! They were created by Aule, disobeying Iluvatar, who wished the Elves to be the first born. And no, they did not have skin of stone, though one can see why such a myth might have evolved around them due to their skills at making Mithril chain mail armor.

[Toady One]

The Silmarillion:

"It was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet this is not their own belief..."

Looking through the chapter in which Aule creates them, I got the impression that they were wrought from the earth.  I believe there was another passage that refers to the hardness of the skin in particularly (nothing to do with mithril), although I could be mistaken.  It has been a while since I've read the whole book.

[ThreeToe]

I think dwarves are made of stone the same same Adam is made of clay.  Though dwarves are only fit to be tossed.  Elves too.  Down with Magic Cards!  TSR can L*** my C****!  Token's was a good book, but not the only book!

[ July 19, 2002: Message edited by: Kurtulmak ]

[Demon]

I think that the Tolkien dwarves are very tough, but not to the point of being stone.  They should definately have harder body substances than the other races.

Also Tolkien elves could survive wounds that would be fatal to the "lesser" races.  Is there a way to make creatures shock/death resistant without making them hard to injure?  Less affected by the same injury as usual, I mean.