Jim Norris

Mr Price, If you are still around, I was wondering if you could talk about what it was like to work on Alternate Reality the City before Datasoft got involved. I've read you were homeless and know you managed to team up with Gary Gilbertson, but I'm wondering if any memories you have of that time were happy ones? For some reason I'm thinking about the story of Pandora's box...

I pretty much just play these two games. I only play games I have a legal license to play which kinda limits things. I bought a license for Seven Cities of Gold a few years ago from the Ozark people so sometimes I play that. I'd really like to play Eastern Front. Someone let me play theirs a long time ago and really liked it but I never got it myself. I see Chris Crawford is on here sometimes, so I think I'll try to buy a license from him sometime soon if he's the current copyright holder. I also play the Ultima games but I do that on the PC since I went and bought that all in one PC version. I forget what other ones I have.... I bought a bunch off some guy for $50 around 10 years ago which had Eidelon and Lode Runner I think. There were a bunch of cartridges too like Donkey Kong I think... but I don't really play those either. They are all sitting in storage. I kinda wish I had the Eternal Dagger series. A borrowed a friends and played it and it was a lot of fun.

If the monsters and characters use the same calculation, which I think it does, then: bits 7-5 are special flags used to modify stuff. I'm not looking directly at the disassembly soo I could be making mistakes... 001 = double character's attack 010 = halve character's attack 000 = no modifications if anything else then if wearing monster armor, character's attack is set to 0 otherwise monster's armor is set to attack value. This is the archmage case I think. bit 4 is the cursed armor flag. If it is set then character's attack value is doubled. bits 3-0 are used as the base armor value, (which might actually be added to any previous modifications) archmage armor pattern is 1110 0000 soo it's the set armor value to attack value case which probably has the effect of nullifying the attack. dragon's armor is 10 soo maybe the attack/damage roll for that category has to be higher than 10?

Specter's stats: ---------------- Specter ( directory entry 5684) ---------------- karma penalty flag = YES (3) alignment flag = evil unused flag = true ability to surprise = 100 base strength = 3 random strength = 1 base skill = 6 random skill = 3 base chr int = 7 random chr int = 7 base speed = 3 random speed = 9 base hitpoints = 8 random hitpoints = 8 player missiles used = 2 armor defense 0 (sharp)? max = 96 armor defense 1 (blunt)? max = 0 armor defense 2? max = 64 armor defense 3? max = 0 armor defense 4? max = 64 armor defense 5? max = 0 armor defense 6? max = 0 armor defense 7? max = 32 A specter has high armor against sharp, but no blunt defense. Try bare hands or a blunt weapon. Also I'm not sure how the armor values are used... could be 9d6... or 96... or high bit set could have special meaning... Arch Mage's stats: ---------------- Arch-Mage ( directory entry 55B0) ---------------- karma penalty flag = YES (3) alignment flag = good unused flag = false ability to surprise = 120 base strength = 8 random strength = 7 base skill = 18 random skill = 7 base chr int = 18 random chr int = 7 base speed = 4 random speed = 7 base hitpoints = 35 random hitpoints = 7 player missiles used = 2 armor defense 0 (sharp)? max = 224 armor defense 1 (blunt)? max = 224 armor defense 2? max = 224 armor defense 3? max = 224 armor defense 4? max = 224 armor defense 5? max = 224 armor defense 6? max = 224 armor defense 7? max = 224 a weak spell select roll level 25 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 3 attack roll random max 2 strength difference affects attack roll a spell select roll level 45 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 3 attack roll random max 3 strength difference affects attack roll a enchantation select roll level 65 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 4 attack roll random max 3 strength difference affects attack roll a strong spell select roll level 85 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 4 attack roll random max 4 strength difference affects attack roll a dazzling spell select roll level 95 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 5 attack roll random max 4 strength difference affects attack roll a over-powering spell select roll level 100 base antiparry 255 random antiparry max 255 number of attack rolls 5 attack roll random max 5 strength difference affects attack roll animation frame 0 lasts 240 vertical blank interrupts x=119 y=117 Not sure what 224 means... but if it's really 224 out of 255 then it would be almost impossible to hit an arch-mage in melee. Dragon's stats: ---------------- Small Green Dragon ( directory entry 5605) ---------------- karma penalty flag = NO (1) alignment flag = evil unused flag = true ability to surprise = 40 base strength = 25 random strength = 15 base skill = 10 random skill = 15 base chr int = 20 random chr int = 7 base speed = 9 random speed = 7 base hitpoints = 40 random hitpoints = 31 player missiles used = 3 armor defense 0 (sharp)? max = 10 armor defense 1 (blunt)? max = 3 armor defense 2? max = 3 armor defense 3? max = 3 armor defense 4? max = 3 armor defense 5? max = 3 armor defense 6? max = 3 armor defense 7? max = 3 it's Claws select roll level 40 base antiparry 12 random antiparry max 15 number of attack rolls 2 attack roll random max 3 it's Teeth select roll level 70 base antiparry 12 random antiparry max 15 number of attack rolls 3 attack roll random max 3 it's Tail select roll level 80 base antiparry 12 random antiparry max 15 number of attack rolls 4 attack roll random max 3 a scorching breath of fire select roll level 100 base antiparry 12 random antiparry max 15 number of attack rolls 4 attack roll random max 5 animation frame 0 lasts 240 vertical blank interrupts x=109 y=83 Looks like a blunt weapon will work better against a dragon than a sharp weapon... but again I'm not sure how the armor values are interpreted.

Another AR Dungeon character that has never died. I was rolling for high intelligence but missed and he started with an intelligence of 8, which is the lowest possible I think. But he had a high dexterity so I kept him. He had a very hard time getting crystals, including getting 0 off the ancient wyrm... so his weapons weren't enhanced like Pinky's weapons. In spite of that he seems to be very good at dishing out damage, especially unarmed. Phil also managed to hang on to the amber staff and razor ice. Unfortunately a master thief managed to get his winged sandals. Somehow losing the winged sandals didn't leave Phil with the stat boost. Phil currently is wearing 2 crystal belts, and has strength, and dexterity active.

Here is a more complete list of pokes for Alternate Reality the City for the Atari 8-bit: Alternate Reality City Character Stats address stat 0x8900 d1d2 os game file 1 init address 0x8902 d1s2 os game file 1 load address 0x8904 d1s2 os game file 1 end of load address 0x8906 d1s2 os game file 1 start sector 0x8908 d1s2 os game file 2 init address [called if not 0] 0x890C d1s2 os game file 2 load address 0x890E d1s2 os game file 2 end of load address 0x8910 d1s2 os game file 2 start sector 0x8912 d1s2 os game files 1 and 2 run address 0x8914 ability to surprise or notice 0x8915 encounter rareness [player must roll 0 out of this number for encounter] 0x8916 hour [0-23] 0x8917 day [0-29] 0x8918 month [0-11] 0x8919 year low byte [0xA8 is 0 and 0xA7 is 255] 0x891A year high byte not used in inns 0x891B wind blowing counter 0x891C current soundtrack playing shadow I think 0x891D weather flag [1 = raining] 0x891E no wind blowing flag when not 0 0x891F old random character id [2 bytes] 0x8921 new random character id [2 bytes changed every save] 0x8921 temporary character flag [0=no 0x54=yes] 0x8923 character save slot [0-3] 0x8924 current location y 0x8925 current location x 0x8926 last location y 0x8927 last location x 0x892A fractional location [0x24 - 0x48] 0x892B direction you are moving [0-3] for position calcs 0x892C how big character steps are 0x892D auxilary hour counter [0-23] 0x892E strength1 0x892F strength2 0x8930 strength3 0x8936 fractional strength 0x8937 intelligence1 0x8938 intelligence2 0x8939 intelligence3 0x893F fractional intelligence 0x8940 wisdom1 0x8941 wisdom2 0x8942 wisdom3 0x8948 fractional wisdom 0x8949 skill1 0x894A skill2 0x894B skill3 0x8951 fractional skill 0x8952 stamina1 0x8953 stamina2 0x8954 stamina3 0x895A fractional stamina 0x895B charisma1 0x895C charisma2 0x895D charisma3 0x8963 fractional charisma 0x8964 speed1 0x8965 speed2 0x8966 speed3 0x896C fractional speed 0x896D evilness level [0-3] [0 = 0 1 = <3 2 = <0x1b 3 = >0 0x1b] 0x896E evilness 0x896F rounds of paralysis left when not 0 0x8970 poison resist - [monster attack chance for effect must be >= to have any effect] 0x897D potions 0x897E active poisons flag [each bit represents one entry in poison table] 0x897F poison table [8 entries of 5 bytes per entry -- +00=time between damage applications +01=damage - +03=count down timer - rest unused] 0x8A0D 2 byte counter flags 0x8A0E 8 entry table of 0x0a bytes per entry [ [+00 +01]=2 byte count down timer -- rest unused?] 0x8AA6 current experience points [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AAA current level 0x8AAE experience needed for next level [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AB2 experience needed from previous level [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AB6 hit points [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8ABA maximum hit points [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8ABE gold [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AC2 silver [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AC6 copper [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8ACA jewelry [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8ACE gems [4 bytes hi to lo] 0x8AD2 character magical defense values 8 bytes I think 0x8ADF currently readied armor name string 20 bytes 0x8AFF armor stats 8 bytes 0x8B08 not wearing armor when not 0 flag I think 0x8B09 armor cursed when not 0 flag 0x8B0A pointer to primary weapon name 0x8B0C pointer to primary weapon stats 0x8B0E which weapon is primary [0-4] [4 is bare hands] 0x8B0F pointer to secondary weapon name 0x8B11 pointer to secondary weapon stats 0x8B13 which weapon is secondary [0-4] [4 is bare hands] 0x8F1D disease name table [16 bytes per entry] [character 0 is set to inverted space to make name invisible] 0x8F1E disease name [15 bytes long in table 8 16 byte entries] 0x8FA2 intoxication level 0x8FA6 treasure finding level 0x8FAB food packets 0x8FAC water flasks 0x8FAD hunger - visible at 7 0x8FAE thirst - visible at 4 0x8FAF fatigue - visible at 0x11 0x8FB1 saved character file checksum low [8900 - 8EFF] 0x8FB2 saved character file checksum high [8900 - 8EFF] To melee the small green dragon I think you just need massive strength and a lot of hit points :-) or... invulnerability sharp, invulnerability blunt, and invulnerability fire and time. The chance to get a weapon/armor of any kind is all that is in the monster tables and it rolls for that first. This chance seems to go up every time you get that monster until it resets somehow but I'm not sure about that... Once the game determines you are getting a weapon or armor, the roll for the individual item seems to be the same regardless of which monster initiated the roll... which means there is a small chance to get these items. If I have time I'll look at the weapon/armor roll code again and see if I can figure out the true percent chances for each individual item. Just from my experiences playing it seems knights drop a lot of weapons/armor.

I've always been too scared to get more than what I listed above before leveling beyond level 0. Maybe I'll make a character where I try for the crystal plate on level 0... I've found level 2 to be the hardest level.... so I use the doppleganger in the well lit area to get through it as quickly as possible. I unready my weapon first though :-) I gotta agree with you on the gradually adding more monsters thing. It would have made the lower levels of the game a little less ridiculous. Or at least have grouped the monsters by area a little better.

Maybe I set the bar too high... But honestly, if your character survives the run for the amythest rod and the amber staff, it will probably survive to get the golden apple. After that he/she just needs to make it back to the well lit area and figure out a way to get enough levels and cash to get the shield spell. Once your character has shield up and some armor... it probably won't fall to a critical hit from something like a mercenary or sage swinging at your character's legs.

I'm still here. I started a thread in the high score club for dungeon characters that have never died and posted a character I made that is currently level 10.

We have a topic for Alternate Reality the City characters who never died, why not one for Dungeon characters? In that spirit, here is a Dungeon character who has never died. I also did not knowingly use any cheats, except a master thief surprised the character and stole a silver sash and got away clean. This left the character with a silver sash's worth of extra dexterity. I say knowingly because it's so easy to accidently gain free stats from spells and magic items that don't terminate or drop normally. I rolled for skill. Everything else was average or lower except for strength. I got lucky on the strength roll and liked that the character matched it's name. Pinky made a run for the saurian brandy, amethyst rod, amber staff, golden apple, and whetstone. After Pinky had those, he made a run for the razor ice. He avoided fights as much as possible during this run because while your character is level 0, you get easier encounters. Then Pinky stayed in the well lit area and only fought the fights he could easily win. When he had enough gold, he would buy armor from the D&P. Fortunately, a full set of armor was available for Pinky. Unfortunately, a couple of sages showed up and knocked the razor ice and amber staff out of Pinky's hands. Since sages were beyond his abilities, he ran and was never able to find these weapons again. So he had to make due with lit torches and a staff from the D&P. As soon as Pinky found an eye, he challenged the valkyrie and 3 wraith thingies near the well lit area to obtain the winged sandals and Morganna's tiara. (Note for anyone wanting to try this: the valkyrie is invulnerable to one of the eyes... the amber eye I think.) At this point things were looking better for Pinky. He stayed in the well lit area and leveled to 6. At this point Pinky made a run to the thieves guild and attempted to learn the luck spell. Unfortunately Pinky had already helped too many paupers and was turned away. He was a little disappointed but immediately headed to their arch enemies, the guild of law and learned some important spells like shield, strength, and vigor. Then, except for a run to pick up an ice axe and the sword of the adept, it was back to the well lit area until level 8. At level 8 Pinky would be able to learn the protection spell from the light wizards guild and have enough levels to have 8 base spells. After getting 8 base spells, Pinky obtained the all important temporal fugue spell. Then he spent his time training his spells up to near 95%. He also achieved a level of great goodness and was invited into the garden where he obtained St. Percival's mace and the dispell evil spell. After donning a couple heavy leather jackets from the D&P, along with Morgana's tiarra and the winged sandals, he headed over to the enchantress and gave her nearly all the crystals he had to add some extra damage. In hindsight, increasing effectiveness might have been better... Once that happened he ventured out and began completing the quests, including getting the mirrored shield, killing the basilisk and the ancient wyrm. Killing the ancient wyrm was worth a crazy amount of xp and put him well over level 10. In hindsight, Pinky probably should have done the ring quest before killing the dragon because the Oracle gave Pinky 5 stamina which would have translated into some more hit points. Somewhere before the ancient wyrm, a devourer showed up and slurped up his crystal plate armor. No problem though, the truesilver coat guarded the by the dwarves near the well lit area was still available. After killing the dragon, Pinky grabbed as many jewels as he could, put on the heavy leather jackets again and headed to the dwarven smithy. They were more than happy to take Pinky's 1200 gems and jewels to make him the Pinkinator sword! He made two more trips to the dragon's lair to carry gems and jewels to his guild locker and then went on to other quests. He probably could have kept grabbing jewels since he knows that the Dungeon remembers 16 things on the ground. If he doesn't drop anything or kill anything that drops something, for some reason the dragon's lair seems to stay full of loot.... Or maybe its based on time? Pinky went on questing, returning the remaining staff pieces and obtaining the portal access card. He also defeated the undead knights wielding the ebon blades for some additional stats and hit points. Once Pinkinator was ready, Pinky took it and the crystals obtained from the ancient wyrm and had the enchantress increase it's effectiveness. Then Pinky went on to complete the game. The robots and alien sentries on the bottom level fell easily to the mighty Pinkinator as evidenced by the puddles of green goo and piles of gears strewn about the hallway floors. Feeling invulnerable, Pinky ran around gathering further items, including cloak of levitation. Then Pinky ran into a doppleganger and quickly came to the realization that if the Pinkinator could crit for more hit points than Pinky had, a doppleganger holding a Pinkinator could kill him. Pinky lived and after this kept St. Percival's mace as his primary weapon and only pulled out the Pinkinator when absolutely necessary. Pinky Muscles still lives, searching for a way to escape.... Alternate Reality. On a side note, when I first played this game on version 1.0... I seem to remember surviving the alien control room without the mirrored shield and having to fight an alien outside the room just like the ancient wyrm.... If you are wondering how I got past Acrinimiral's puzzle in version 1.0, I edited the map... Did anyone else have a similar experience?

The ribbon connector to the keyboard on the Atari 130-XE wears out where it rubs the metal shroud unless you put something there to protect it... like electrical tape. Newer 130XEs came with a piece of plastic to protect the ribbon cable I think.

If Phillip Price had a box of those lying around his house, he could autograph them and they'd probably sell for a lot more. Maybe in the thousands?

I did some more checking and it looks like the character status flag is thrown away when you make a new character... The flag is in the section used to init character disks I think. Maybe if you abort making a new character and then init a character disk the sanction would be used for the whole disk?.

I did some more disassembling and came up with this: "Master of Chronos": allows user to use two of [select option start] keys to affect speed of something during character roll... Im guessing hit points stats roll. There may be a cascade effect... so that multiple stat wheels are affected. "sempiternal": changes character's second status flag in directory header to S which will make character display as status Immortal on character selection screen. "cela saute aux yeux": changes character's second status flag in directory header to D which will make character display as status Demo on character selection screen. "unseen": changes character's second status flag in directory header to I which will make character not display on character selection screen. (You should still be able to choose character and play it.) I have not been able to determine if the character status flag gets passed to the game after the character selection screen or how it is used during game play.

Well it looks like the guidebook is right on good and evil creatures, and starting off good (0). It's wrong in that you can attack, trick, or charm neutral creatures and the game treats them as evil for the purposes of alignment penalty. In the City code, good is '0'. If you interpret 'alignment 0' as an evilness of 255, then the guildbook is right on that too. I disassembled the 'Hail Master of Chronos section, but did not know what the variable is changed did. I'll look again sometime soon.

Well, a simple solar powered radio transmitter with a computer to hold a days worth of broadcast would be easy. You'd just upload your next days broadcast when the moon was in position over you. The biggest problems are probably: 1) What language would you broadcast in? 2) What frequency of AM would you use that wouldn't conflict with what's already in use and/or regulated? 3) How do you teach everyone to make the simple radio and/or give them an AM radio? 4) How much power would it take for a radio signal to reach the earth from the moon that was spread out over your target area? I'm guessing you would use a cone shape to reach the earth soo the power level would probably drop at the distance squared... well... with a narrow beam you might get 1/distance but realistically you could expect something proportional to distance squared power loss.... There really isn't any convenient way to do interactive internet. The travel time of the signal... i.e. ping would be horrendous and the power requirements would be enormous on both ends. I think it's 30 seconds one way... I mean if you just wanted to do downloads, you could have a bunch of info up there but there is no way you could get it to Earth I think without some serious power on the moon for the transmitter, and the people receiving it would need computers. If they already have a computer, having them build a crystal am receiver would be more difficult than buying something ready made that interfaces with the computer. The difficult part in being... 1) obtaining a crystal for the 'diode' (much easier to obtain a commercial diode nowadays) and 2) converting the am radio signal into a digital signal the computer can use. And 3, and probably the most important part.... what power level would it take for the earth based transmitter to reach the moon? Laser would be the lowest power but very difficult to aim and probably hard to build.... I can't see people building a transmitter with that power in their back yards... and then not getting cancer or fried innards from it. You could make the antenna very directional... have to actually or use a satellite dish but those are hard to build and position too. It would be interesting to see someone actually figure out the engineering for all this along with detailed instructions which include how to obtain and build the parts from scratch. If you do it, please include safety information. If you use lead solder for the connections keep in mind it is very toxic. Radio crystal rocks are not found everywhere I think soo you'd have to actually research where to find them and put that in the instructions too. Making the parabolic reflector at the frequency you are talking about is a challenge also.... I mean even at 10cm wavelength.... it's gonna be huge. Need lots of careful measurements. I wonder if the cost of printing the instruction book for making this thing would be more than the cost of a satellite wifi connection? It would have to be in a ton of different languages too. Good luck. P.S. Probably the most practical way (and this is just a wild guess) to exchange information with a moon based repository is to use a satellite in orbit above the atmosphere as an intermediary. That way the satellite could use a low power laser to reach the moon. If the satellite was in a geosynchronous orbit, it would also simplify positioning the ground based satellite dishes. Only the satellite in orbit would have to track the moon. But if you are gonna do that, why not just have the information on the satellite... except for the fact that the satellite will eventually fall and you could probably build a much bigger repository on the moon.

Wow, a lot of questions. I never go to the side of the town near the death traps soo... That will likely not happen. I never trick or charm 'good' creatures, or attack them. I do trick or charm humans that are non good such as warriors, fighters, and the like. In particular I will attempt to trick warriors since it seems to work. (Although the code shows there is a 50% chance of failing on next charm automatically.) The official cluebook is wrong on tricking and charming always being an evil act, unless as Phillip Price said, I might be misinterpreting the code. Tricking and charming non good creatures is actually a good act 1/256th of the time. The rest of the time tricking and charming non good creatures has no effect on your goodness levels. In the Dungeon, I think tricking and charming is always evil. So is attacking neutral creatures before they attack you. Does anything besides thief/fighter types attack? I'm guessing you mean during the day when it's not raining, and the answer is no. All the other stuff plays the good music and does not attack unless you attack first or are evil. I could look at the hail code. If I see anything interesting I'll post it. From playing, it doesn't look like it has any effect. On the diseases, I'm not sure how the 'you've been already diseased' thing works. There are only 5 creatures with a disease attack, and it looks like after you've had each disease, or even just rolled for the chance to get the disease, the chance drops to 1%. I'd have to look at the combat code again. I disassembled that section years ago for Acrin1. On the wilderness disks, you had me secretly hoping you were Phillip Price in disguise and you kept working on AR and really did have a set of wilderness disks prototypes lying around. LOL. I looked at my character's evil level in the emulator and it is at 0.

Wilderness disks? I didn't know such a thing existed. Is this for the Atari 8-bit version? Where did they come from? On the hit point rolls... you get a random amount between 0 and your stamina added to your max hit points each level up... So if you have around 20 stamina, you should get about 10 hit points per level on average or in 9 level ups you would get around 90 hit points added to your starting value. Thoreandan got a little less than average. Daodan got way more than average and is about 3/4 the way to the max possible hit points for his character. About brown mold... from the disassembly project brown mold works like this: ---------------- Brown Mold ( directory entry 562F) ---------------- karma penalty flag = YES (3) alignment flag = evil unused flag = true ability to surprise = 30 base strength = 15 random strength = 15 base skill = 6 random skill = 7 base chr int = 0 random chr int = 0 base speed = 1 random speed = 2 base hitpoints = 20 random hitpoints = 31 player missiles used = 1 armor defense 0 (sharp)? max = 96 armor defense 1 (blunt)? max = 0 armor defense 2? max = 0 armor defense 3? max = 32 armor defense 4? max = 0 armor defense 5? max = 0 armor defense 6? max = 96 armor defense 7? max = 64 a burst of spores. select roll level 100 base antiparry 3 random antiparry max 3 number of attack rolls 1 attack roll random max 1 A hit with this attack has a chance to disease character. first time %chance - 1 (10=11%) then its 1% 99 base incubation duration high byte 0 random incubation duration high byte 0 to 0 base incubation duration low byte 0 random incubation duration low byte 0 to 0 unknown 100 time between damage applications (fixed) 8 damage to random of hit points or stat (fixed) 1 unknown 100 disease name Brown Mold animation frame 0 lasts 240 vertical blank interrupts x=123 y=134 So if I interpreted it correctly, the disease affects a random stat or your hit points every application. I'm not sure if that is your max hit points that is affected... but it probably is. Looking at the monster stats I'm tempted to dig into the disassembly more... I see there is a 100% chance of being infected the first time brown mold hits you. After that, the chance drops to 1% I think. Is that for the life of the character? Or for all characters? Or until you enter an establishment? Or just until the fight is over? Looks like it takes affect immediately. Ohh another interesting thing. It looks like it is very hard to hit brown mold with a sharp weapon. Probably better off with a blunt weapon or your bare hands. P.S. I have never seen plaid. Although I also never go into the shops... so technically I never see any of them :-) P.P.S. Going into shops could get me killed. I went into that Sunset Shop on N Main and when I came out.... it was sunset! I coulda sworn I had plenty of daylight left so I'm wonderin if there was some sort of time warp involved. I have not been able to duplicate the effect.

Awesome, I now have something to do :-) As far as dying goes... with the elfin chain Newbinator has permanent invulnerability sharp. This renders him invulnerable to all the daytime opponents as long as he does not lunge, charm, or trick, or get sneak attacked. He is unlikely to get diseased as he does not go out at night. If it rains there is a chance, but a trip to the healer will fix it before it sets in. A bad potion could do it, like deadly poison, but with the decent wisdom he has, I think he would identify it before he drank it. And hopefully he'd make it to the healer before it got too bad. What he could do though, is just not drink potions unless he does get poisoned. About the only way he could die is a sneak attack by an assassin that hits and delivers a one shot kill. But those only come out at night I think... I'd have to check the encounter tables but I'm guessing that encounter is pretty high difficulty and to get it, it probably has to be night, raining, and you probably have to be standing on the more difficult squares. About Thoreandan's strength: I'm guessing he doesn't melee and relies on trick and charm to dispatch foes. P.S. My character is good.

I heard Skyrim's world changes. Rivers wander. Trees grow? That sort of thing. I was wondering what that was like. If I ever get a better job so I can afford it, I hope to play it someday.

No trolls on this one. Just straight fighting. This is the highest I've ever taken a character. I wish there was more stuff to do. After level 6, all there is to do is stand around and wait for encounters.

That should be 'about 64k characters' instead of 64 characters.

Phil, how do you feel about the Kickstarter idea? Making games has not been financially rewarding for you in the past and it looks like there might be a legal fight. In addition, you have a fiance. Game programming is very time intensive and could cause some work versus personal life balance issues. Also, wouldn't Gary Gilbertstein have to be involved too or at least give his permission? I wonder how he'd feel about giving games another try. I just had a thought... what if you switched roles and instead of being the programmer, you were the game company, where you did the math for the team of programmers working under you?

I have no idea. Looking at the data tables for the monsters is not a problem. I made a script once that printed out all their known stats... if I can find it I could add stuff to print out the base probability and number of items found for each monster. On the potions and weapons, what I see in the code up above must not be the whole story. The potion handling and weapon handling code is not disassembled yet. Maybe something in there does further modification of the chances to find those items, otherwise you'd get to a point where you can't find them at all. The asla instruction shifts zeros in from the right... so eventually all the ones shift off the left and you end up with 0. There may also be some tinkering with these values in the main walking around code but that doesn't seem likely. Also, the inn and tavern code is not disassembled. Might be something in there that adjusts things while you eat and sleep? Maybe Phil remembers.... Also might be stuff in there like the Beta Lyra game where is remembers from game to game. I think there is a section on disk 2 side 1 that is written back to disk. I also found some code where the monster's armor value is adjusted from one combat to another... might be more things are adjusted too...

> You pose an interesting theory about loot being close to banks. I think I might do some loitering soon. ***SPOILER!*** Stop reading if you don't want to know :-) I disassembled the treasure calculation and came up with this: roll for treasure multiply chance to find potion for this monster by 4 (I think this will eventually get set to 0) 819 ldy 1B 81B lda(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo 81D asla 81E asla 81F sta(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo roll for potions found 821 jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 824 beq 82E 826 jsr 8E5 draw potions found and do potions submenu gain 78 exp 829 lda 78 82B jsr 2C1B gain experience in register a multiply chance to find weapons for this monster by 2 82E ldy 1D 830 lda(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo 832 asla 833 sta(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo roll for weapons (and armor) found 835 jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 838 beq 83D 83A jsr 1450 draw weapons found and do weapons found submenu roll for jewels found 83D ldy 1F 83F jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 842 beq 84C 844 jsr 1DD1 draw message jewels found and add to inventory gain 255 exp 847 lda FF 849 jsr 2C1B gain experience in register a roll for gems found 84C ldy 21 84E jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 851 beq 85B 853 jsr 1E0C draw message gems found and add to inventory gain 128 exp 856 lda 80 858 jsr 2C1B gain experience in register a 85B ldy 23 not currently used, was probably going to be 'chests' roll for gold found 85D ldy 25 85F jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 862 beq 86C 864 jsr 1E5E draw message pieces of gold and add to inventory gain 9 times gold found exp I think 867 ldx 09 869 jsr 887 roll for silver found 86C ldy 27 86E jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 871 beq 87C roll for coppers found 873 jsr 1EA8 draw message pieces of silver and add to inventory gain 1 exp for each silver found 876 lda() 8D9 number of items found 879 jsr 2C1B gain experience in register a roll for coppers found 87C ldy 29 87E jsr 895 roll for treasure using monster table value at y 881 beq 886 883 jsr 1EF4 draw message pieces of copper and add to inventory 886 rts roll for treasure using monster table value at y 895 jsr 8DA roll 0 to 100 add treasure finding level to monster's base chance of finding this treasure 898 lda(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo 89A clc 89B adca() 8FA6 treasure finding level 89E bcs 8A4 if you roll less then you find treasure (carry flag backwards on 6502... always confuses me) 8A0 cmpa() AE result of roll = [af] + rnd 0 to [b0] 8A2 bcc 8D6 get max number possible to find for this monster and item 8A4 iny 8A5 lda(()+y) 83 monster subtype data ptr lo 8A7 sta() B0 roll max 8A9 lda() 8FA6 treasure finding level 8AC beq 8B8 if you have treasure finding, you automatically get the max number of items but your treasure finding level goes down 1 8AE dec() 8FA6 treasure finding level 8B1 lda() B0 roll max 8B3 sta() 8D9 number of items found 8B6 bne 8C0 otherwise roll for number of items found 0 to max 8B8 jsr 2C30 roll -- [ae] <= [af] + rnd[0 to [b0]] 8BB lda() AE result of roll = [af] + rnd 0 to [b0] 8BD sta() 8D9 number of items found if you found treasure, you always get at least 1 8C0 bne 8C7 draw treasure found screen 8C2 lda 01 8C4 sta() 8D9 number of items found draw treasure found screen 8C7 lda 92 8C9 sta() 8C ar game script pointer 8CB lda 1F 8CD sta() 8D 8CF jsr 2C06 init screen and do script [8c 8d] points to return number of items found (and set/clear z flag) 8D2 lda() 8D9 number of items found 8D5 rts What this means is, your chances of finding treasure are based solely on the monster you fought and your treasure finding level. It is not based on wisdom, character level, or your character's location. Each monster has a data table containing values for each treasure type of the chance to find that kind of treasure and how many you find. If you have treasure finding, your chance to find treasure is increased by your treasure finding level, if you find that treasure you will get the maximum number of items possible for that monster, or at least 1 item in the event the maximum possible is 0. Then your treasure finding level drops by one. This means with treasure finding you have a chance to find stuff on monsters that normally don't have a chance to give that stuff, but you'll likely get only 1 :-) I may not be interpreting this next part correctly :-) It looks like the chances to find potions and weapons on monsters is modified during the game, but if it's already 0, it will always be 0. However, I'm not sure if this data is saved back to disk and it looks like the monster tables share the same area as tavern and guild songs... so going into taverns and guilds may reset the chances of finding potions and weapons back to the original values. Probably other places too. I think what this means is, lets say you have a 1/100 chance to find a weapon off a thief to start. If you stay out all day and get several thieves, on thief 2 the chance is 2/100... up to thief 8 which has a chance of 128/100 which means you will get a weapon. But on thief 9 the chance goes to 0/100 and stays there.