A searchable database of custom 4e classes made by people around the world? That’s what dnd.playwrite-blog.net aims to be – with your help!

Version v0.5 of the 4e Power Toolkit is the first step towards this objective. Along with a boatload of general improvements, including proper class feature support and feat powers, you can now upload your classes and allow people to comment and vote on your work.

A lot has been crammed into v0.5, so I’m expecting it to be a little rough around the edges. But I have spent the last week bug-testing, and I’m feeling confident.

Here’s a complete list of changes:

* Added class upload. Visit dnd.playwrite-blog.net for more details or try out the feature in the Class Creator

* Added class feature support

* 4EC and 4EP files can now be opened directly by double-clicking on them

* Increased the size of the class modifier dialog

* A few miscellaneous tweaks to various dialogs

* Cancelling a Save dialog for the Class and Power Creator will no longer save a file to the application directory

* “Feat” is now available as a power type

* Switched order of “Keywords” and “Action” modules in Power Creator

* Fixed issues with newlines not being correctly converted and displayed in HTML and XML

* Class Creator and Power Creator windows now resize their controls in a more useful fashion

* Added new version update window with changelog

* Corrected version typo in changelog

* Merged EXE and DLLs into single file with ILMerge

* Added DotNetZip v1.8 (dotnetzip.codeplex.com)

Check out the 4e Custom Classes website (it’s a little empty right now, but I’m sure that’ll change soon), and be sure to download v0.5!

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Dungeons and Dragons, Tools and utilities

Tags: 4e, 4e power creator, 4e power toolkit, d&d, tools, vb .net

Totally did not see this coming. ZeniMax, owner of Oblivion developer Bethesda Softworks, has picked up id Software. I’m used to id being independent and publishing via Activision, so this change will take time to sink in. At least for me.

Incoming Carmack quote:

“We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

It’s the usual stuff from a press release about an acquisition, but it’s weird hearing it from the mouth of the straight-shooting Carmack. I think it’s unlikely ZeniMax will sit on id Tech 5, with titles like Oblivion and Fallout under its belt, gagging for new tech. I’m sure Bethesda’s brand of Gamebryo is nice, but it has its roots in NDL, the same engine that powered Morrowind many moons ago.

In the back of my mind I can’t help but think that id has suffered under the pressure of the financial crisis. But that’s just speculation on my part. Would make a great interview question – if you could wrangle an honest answer.

ZeniMax Media Acquires id Software [ZeniMax]

Posted in Industry news

Tags: bethesda, fallout, id, id tech 5, john carmack, oblivion, zenimax

Don’t be put off by the point-one – there’s a couple of nice features in this incremental update of the 4e Power Toolkit:

* Added Expand/Hide, Edit, Delete and Save options to powers in the Class Creator
– You can now edit powers directly in the Class Creator, and save powers from a class to a separate file

* Version check module will now timeout, which should speed up program loading when the download server cannot be contacted

* Improved attack range and type options, now includes spirit. Note that selecting ‘None’ for attack range on certain powers will default to ‘1’

* Powers can now have names up to 128 characters long, and the power HTML template will correctly display names of this length

* Added effect keywords from Player’s Handbook 2

Of course, v0.4.1 is available from apps page.

Right now I’m working on improving the resolution of the power card PDF output. Unfortunately, it looks like that while this can be achieved, you won’t be able to use custom templates for it – unless someone knows of a good and free HTML-to-PDF library (iTextSharp doesn’t cut it). Custom templates for power card HTML output won’t be affected.

If you’re willing to install PDFCreator, you can always just print the HTML output to PDF!

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Dungeons and Dragons

Tags: 4e, 4e power creator, 4e power toolkit, d&d, tools, vb .net

Found a few hours to pour into the 4e Power Toolkit. After my brief tangle with integrating 4ePT powers into CrawlNotes, I decided to make the process easier. As a side effect, it’s also cake now to post powers into blogs and forums (where HTML is permitted).

A full list of improvements below:

* Added right-click menu to power preview window. Menu options will show windows for the original source, inline source and image preview. Both the source text and image can be copied from these windows.

* Added new power HTML export options:
– Embedded CSS, when the power will be displayed by itself on a single web page
– Inline CSS, for use in blog and forum posts and CrawlNotes

* Added new power image export options:
– BMP, provided for maximum compatibility with other applications
– PNG, for web use and reduce file size. Note PNG is a lossless format, and should be the one used most of the time

* Changelog window now uses Courier New font for improved readability

* Fixed an additional bug with the Class Creator window that would cause it to scroll when it shouldn’t

* Fixed some error checking quirks with Save/Load dialogs

No need to dilly-dally now! Pick v0.4 up over at the apps page.

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Dungeons and Dragons, Tools and utilities

Tags: 4e, 4e class creator, 4e power toolkit, d&d, tools, vb .net

This video (which looks to be one of a future many) is an attempt by myself and fellow designer Rob MacBride to review Resident Evil 5 – humour added where appropriate (or wherever the heck we pleased).

We were prepared for zombies. We were prepared for the axe-wielding crazy dude. We were more than prepared for the boob camera. What we were not prepared for was launching a split-screen multi-player game.

Watch. Enjoy. Comment.

Posted in Zombies

Tags: clips, humour, resident evil 5, reviews, rob macbride, uudd, Zombies

Update: No need to go to all this trouble! The process has been streamlined from version 0.4 Beta of the Power Toolkit.

A handy feature I’d like to build into the Power Toolkit and CrawlNotes. Until I find the time, here’s how you can do it manually:

1) Load your power into the Power Toolkit, and export it to HTML.

2) Open the HTML file in Notepad and look for a line starting with <style type="text/css">. Copy this line, and all the lines below it until you hit </style>. Alternatively, copy the below text:

 <style type="text/css">
    .InternalPowerContainer {
    text-align: center;
    width: 375px;
    margin-left: -10px;
    margin-right: -10px;
    margin-top: -16px;
    }
 
    .PowerContainer {
    text-align: center;
    width: 375px;
    }
 
    .PowerHeader {
    height: 18px;
    text-align: left;
    padding-right: 4px;
    padding-left: 6px;
    color: #FFFFFF;
    }
 
    .At-Will {
    background-color: #669966;
    }
 
    .Encounter {
    background-color: #993333;
    }
 
    .Daily {
    background-color: #404040;
    }
 
    .PowerHeaderLeft {
    padding-top: 1px;
    font: bold 10pt Verdana;
    float: left;
    }
 
    .PowerHeaderRight {
    padding-top: 4px;
    font: 7pt Verdana;
    float: right;
    }
 
    .PowerText {
    color: #000000;
    text-align: left;
    padding-top: 2px;
    padding-left: 6px;
    padding-right: 4px;
    padding-bottom: 2px;
    background-color: #FFFFFF;
    font: bold 7pt Verdana;
    }
 
    .Flavour {
    background-color: #E6E3C9;
    font: italic 8pt Times New Roman;
    }
 
    .Alternate {
    background-color: #E6E3C9;
    }
 
    .AlternateNonPrimary {
    background-color: #E6E3C9;
    padding-left: 14px;
    }
 
    .NonPrimary {
    padding-left: 14px;
    }

3) Open “main.html” (found in the CrawlNotes directory) in Notepad. Paste the text you just copied just below the line that starts with <title>. Make sure the entire pasted region ends just before the line that starts with </head>.

4) Go back to the HTML of your power. Copy everything below </head> (but not the tag itself).

5) Remove the whitespace from the text you copied using this website. Copy the cleaned text.

6) Paste the text into any of the room description boxes in CrawlNotes. When you export as HTML, your power will appear correctly formatted on the page.

There’s no reason why CrawlNotes and the Power Toolkit shouldn’t have better synergy. Something else on the giant list of things to code. :P

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Tools and utilities

Tags: 4e power creator, 4e power toolkit, crawlnotes, d&d, tools, utilities, vb .net

Sekrit forum’s Mike once again dived into the depths of Zafehouse to weave a tale of, um, thirsty horror. His previous adventure ended in tears, and sadly, this new journey fared no better.

In fact, I think it went worse.

Head over to Sekrit to take a look at the now-unfolded story, especially for quotes such as:

I’m just going outside. I may be some ZOMBIES.

And:

Andrew: Church doesn’t matter because extra survivors are now just dead weight.
Sinny: Mercenary bastard.

Enjoy.

Posted in Zafehouse

Tags: adventures, forums, horror, stories, survival horror, tales, Zafehouse, Zombies

Matt, a user of the 4e Power Toolkit, was kind (and brave) enough to send through a link to his take on the Necromancer class. The output was created entirely within the app (with some tweaking of the class description).

Thanks Matt for showing just what can be accomplished with the program. I desperately want to get the Upload feature of the Toolkit working so there’s a central repository of user-created classes and powers, but I need to do some work on the backend. My knowledge of PHP is a little, well, disappointing, so it’s taking time.

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Dungeons and Dragons, Tools and utilities

Tags: 4e, 4e power toolkit, d&d, necromancer, tools, vb .net

This is one of a few incremental updates to the 4e Power Toolkit – rather than release a massive update after a long delay, I’ll just get the juicy bits in and push out new versions quickly. Mind you, this is the grand plan. It might be a little less grand in practice.

Anyway, here’s a list of changes:

* Added class modifiers to Hit, Effect, Miss and Sustain boxes. A class modifier can be used to include modifiers to powers based on classes, feats and other factors

* Fixed a bug with the Class Creator window that would cause the scroll position of the left hand window to constantly reset while a power was being dragged

* Added Melee 2, Melee 3 and Melee 4 to possible ranges

* Added scroll bars to a number of text boxes

I know it’s not huge… I’m working on it as I can.

If you’d like to grab the latest version, just head over to the apps page. Again, thanks to everyone who has made suggestions and reported bugs!

Posted in 4e D&D, Advice/Tools, Dungeons and Dragons, Tools and utilities

Tags: 4e, 4e class creator, 4e power creator, 4e power toolkit, d&d, tools, vb .net

Larger version can be found here.

I’ve been working a lot on Zafehouse 2 in the last few weeks, mainly on the UI and technology. It’s starting to look quite slick, and is a vast improvement on the first game. For instance, the main window fills the whole screen and can be scrolled, allowing for a larger playing area. Above is a screenshot from a build about three days old – since then I’ve added a minimap and limited zombie support.

The design aspects are still being nutted out, but there are plenty of great ideas fuelling this project. I should also note all the graphics are currently placeholders, so don’t be surprised if you’ve seen them somewhere else.

Posted in Zafehouse 2

Tags: survival horror, vb .net, Zafehouse, Zafehouse 2, Zombies