Phoenixsong

Not for a programmer. :(

You were totally watching the online list and cackling when you saw my indicator going from "Viewing Thread" to "Viewing Error Message," weren't you? So terrible. >|

OI. You open that back up. I wasn't done with that!

omg changing forum software on me like that not cool bro

Super late reply, go, go, go!

"At least it's theoretically a little less work for you individually, though...?" – You'd think this but I find that I've actually had to pick up for other people's slack in a lot of circumstances... (There was me worrying about being the slacker, too).

Most otherwise, people did pull their weight. It's just all too taxing because I have exams looming around the corner. :(

Fair enough! I'm not going anywhere, if you're interested later.

Uh, I'd say probably I'd expect a post from you every three to five days, perhaps? Kusari still isn't done with its character sheet, to give you an idea of how snappily it's been moving so far.

I told pathos and Kusari that I'd run them a little one-off scenario in Kutho against the swamp pirates. You can get in on it too if you'd like; it should be pretty low-commitment, because I'm decreeing that it's low-commitment, and just a short little adventure.

I feel the need to thank you for giving your Pokemon in ASB such awesome names. I've done a lot of word puzzles lately and the number of times I've needed a Don Quixote character's name makes reading through your profile very worthwhile.

Then I'll be content with what I've got for now!

There's an official wiki? Is that not open to the public yet?

Well, if it works, it works--no big deal. Should be no problem for me to set something up that you could just stick on your server if you wanted.

That's the database I'm working with, yeah, although if you're talking about this stuff, then I got it.

Makes sense. And I'm doing this in Python; given the nature of the larger project it's a part of, Javascript really wouldn't make sense at all. Are your other tools all hosted on your site or something, or are they actually on ZB? I can provide a human interface to the final script if you just wanted to be able to give a link to it or something, or I can convert the logic to JavaScript if that's what you want. How are you handling database lookups for your app at the moment? I'm guessing you just must have everything stored as JavaScript objects, if you have any persistent storage at all (technically you wouldn't need to, for a damage calculator, but it would be convenient), but this script would require a fair amount of persistent stuff hanging around--it needs to know what all the pokémon are, at least the "special" moves they can learn (for the purpose of generating higher-level trainers), and what items are available, at the least, and if you wanted to put those all client-side you'd soon be downloading one pretty porky JavaScript file whenever you wanted to use the thing. I'm just running everything I need out of a SQLite DB (building the app's primary database was in fact the first step, which as you recall is done now), and I think you can do SQL stuff with JavaScript in HTML5, but that's the primary hurdle I see in you using this thing for yourself, if you wanted to.

Makes sense. :P And I think they took just about the right amount of time! It's been less than thirty posts... ingame, that boat trip was really short-lived.

Haha, no worries. I am pretty excited, but I know you're busy (and not entirely in control of when things actually get done). Take your time!

Hmmmkay. I think I can make that work, more or less. And trainers being more strategic than wilds makes sense; great. Trained pokémon more likely to have special moves than wilds?

PMO, sorry. Since I know you'd read some stuff I wondered if you'd made an account for lurking and maybe to eventually play. (:D?)

Ehh, fine. How's about we put up dem mod apps, then, get this over with. >>

Well, I'm going to need it, so it's happening whether other people find it useful or not! And, hmm, should teams still not be 5-6 even if the trainer has a full 5-6 themselves? (Likewise, more than one opponent even if the trainer only has one?)

Yeah, it's true, a generally slower pace makes it more attractive to use trainers that are fairly easy to beat. Are the pokémon's attacks chosen by the mods at random (obviously avoiding stuff like poisonpowder if the target's actually poisoned), or are they actually trying to use "good strategies" on the player?

(Haha, yeah, okay, that method of choosing wilds makes little sense.)

Meh, didn't think so, but I thought I'd ask. It would be a weird username for you, but I'm never quite sure what to expect, and the online patterns appeared to overlap with yours fairly well. So, just thought I'd ask.

Hmmm, c'est gut. Are these mod tools available for download from somewhere... handy?

I can totes make a trainer generator for you real snappy; in the absence of any other guidelines I was just going to set it to draw random pokémon for a trainer, probably eventually with a set of general trainer "classes" (i.e. if it's a swimmer, they should have all water-types), with the number the trainer has drawn from a Gaussian (to start with; I'd like to experiment with some other distros, too, to see which gives the most interesting results in practice) centered on the number of pokémon on the trainer's team at the time, and the level of the pokémon also drawn from a Gaussian centered on the mean level of the trainer' team and variance equal to the trainer's team variance--the idea being that in general you face a trainer that is more or less equal in strength to you in terms of level and #pogeys. Because the type balance and suchlike is liable to be off relative to a real trainer's team, though, this might make trainers too easy (although they appear super-easy on OI, wow, so who knows), but it would be easy to adjust the parameters to tweak encounters towards "easier" or "harder." Eventually the idea would also be to implement the occasional special egg or TM moves on certain 'mons as well. But yeah I can (and am going to) do that, if you want the code I come up with.

(And yes I've seen those ridiculous star-lists, haha, though I don't know how they translate into actual encounter rates. Images seem to be working fine for me, tho.)

Edit: Also, are you Ich Mag Keine Narren?

I'm just writing some utils so that I can become the BEST MOD EVAR, which is obviously a thing that's going to happen as soon as mod apps are available.

Which means that what I'm most interested in at this point is pretty straight mechanical stuff that I imagine is more or less worked out... how damage calculation is done, how rarity (as described in the Phoenixdex's location notes) maps onto actual % chance of encounter in various areas, the rules for trainer generation, how EXP is distributed and leveling up happens, etc. You know I'm going to know all these things eventually, you could just save everyone some time and tell me now.

it's cool that's the last you'll be seeing of it for a while

tell me what UR doin and I might let you in on a thing or two

testin a thing

Haha, wow, sounds like an adventure in poor planning, that trip. Although I'll admit that aside from the dramarama bit it sounds like I would have enjoyed it a great deal. Mmmm, seafood. :) But my Dad feels your pain, since he grew up in Maine but is allergic to shellfish and therefore really can't touch lobster.

Granted, granted. Making characters' lives hell is pretty much the point of any writing exercise, whether it's RPing or solo writing. I hope my characters get the opportunity to be driven out of their minds by yours at some time in the near future, then. :P

(y halo thar replying to my own profile, hadn't missed you in the slightest. I think I definitely need to write a plugin that will send me a PM like "hey moron you replied to your own profile instead of the other person... again." it keeps happenin :( )

Senior trip from hell? Sounds like there's a story to be had there! XD

My, someone Pam would like even less than Hannibal? That's gotta be quite the character you're sitting on, there. :P