Got my email today. I'm kinda busy with work at the club tonight but i'll start testing as soon as I can. Thanks.

Also, nice work adding XP Theme support. I downloaded a module from PS Code, but the buttons don't work properly over frames and such.

1 thing I didn't like so much, was the big blue picture of a huge office building thing. The building wasn't the problem, it was just a little "Distracting", so I made an adjustment.

http://www.chronicalgames.com/hosted/qdk-background.jpg

Fair enough...

It's one of my own photos by the way, rather than a stock photo. I took it from the top of a tourist bus in Brussels. Fact.

I love the way the new quest is set up, it is so much easier to navigate and I don't foget which rooms I put things in because I can see them all at the same time lol. I especially like the toggle to code view feature, that makes it much easier for me to go back and forth instead of having to worry about did I save qdk last or was it in text pad. It keeps me from saving over my hard work. I actually think the picture is pretty good, though it is a bit distracting, I must admit.

Anyways, thanks alex, it is great!

I'll post these problems I've been having with the beta release here I suppose, hopefully Alex will see 'em.

Problem #1 - QDK, I can't open it. Doesn't work, gives me a runtime error like below once I have clicked continue, after waiting for the 3 second trial countdown.



Problem #2 - Inventory/Object Tabs, I loaded up the default Arena.asl in Qnetserv.exe and clicked on the tabs sorting the Object interactions, I can't make it passed 4-6 clicks without getting this error and a crash from the Quest game client. I think it may have to do with the "Speak To" option and non-player objects for this problem.



Problem #3 - No property viewer! This was typically the most useful tool in debugging games and it is awful to see it gone from Questnet. It should definitely make it back into the applications.

As to the 429 problem, redownload. (A file was missing from the original release, which has been fixed.)

Heya Alex,

It would also seem that there is still a problem with how Questnet saves rooms and properties. Without a property viewer option I can't tell for sure, but I know that...

1 - Exits added to existing rooms are not saved in Questnet.

2 - It appears that rooms created dynamically in the game are saved, and even better, properties for those rooms are indeed saved as well. Unfortunately, exits created for dynamically created rooms are not saved either.

3 - Using the frames command, still leaves a navigation compass in the bottom right hand corner, this is probably a design decision, but seems a bit out of place.

I've played around with the new version for a bit, although I haven't had a chance to really try out all the features. From what I've been playing around with though, everything seems to be working great. I really love the ability to see the code; I don't really code, but sometimes it's easier to tweak something through the code, or to look at the game through there, and this makes it a lot easier than having to keep reopening the file in notepad. I also love how the tree setup works.

I did notice that there is only a 'look' and 'speak' verb...is 'examine' going to be added in in a future release, or do you plan on leaving that out? Because I really liked that aspect.

ITID's problem #2: I've reproduced this and will look into it. It also happens with Quest 3.53...

ITID's problems #3: The Property Viewer has become much more powerful and is now called the Object Debugger. It does make it incredibly easy to cheat though, which is why it's not displayed if your game's asl-version is less than 390 (the current pre-release ASL version 400) - although I realise this is more useful for single-player than multi-player. I've not updated arena.asl yet so its asl-version is still set to 350. If you update it to 390 you will see the Object Debugger.

Second batch of ITID's problems: Noted, I will look into these. Not sure about number 3 though - can you send me some example ASL and a screenshot? Sounds like a bug.

Note that the ASL Code Viewer in QDK is just that, i.e. a viewer - you can't edit code using it (yet).

As for "examine", this has been taken out of the default list, but have you tried playing with the new Verbs feature yet? It makes it very easy for you to add "examine" back again - or "eat", "drink" or any command you could possibly want.

I'm not sure if this is due to the new quest, or if I just never noticed it before, but when I run it then close it, it continues to run in the background. I had been wondering why my computer was slowing down so much and I had like 50 quest.exe in the process tab. Just thought I'd let you know.

Shadow*

Can you send me the ASL file you were using and tell me if you did anything in particular that caused Quest to keep running after you closed it? This will help me in reproducing the problem.

darkgoddessnight wrote:I'm not sure if this is due to the new quest, or if I just never noticed it before, but when I run it then close it, it continues to run in the background.

That's not a new thing. I noticed it since I've been using quest, years ago. It doesn't always happen though. After closing QDK, it usually completely closes; I think it sometimes stays open after actually running a quest game.

I find it does this too, and end up having to end the process tree to get rid of the stupid things.

PS: I am currently unable to test the beta as my home computer has died, I have the money of a new hard drive but it may be some time before I can get it, and re-install windows and so forth.

Alex wrote:As for "examine", this has been taken out of the default list, but have you tried playing with the new Verbs feature yet? It makes it very easy for you to add "examine" back again - or "eat", "drink" or any command you could possibly want.

I've written a blog post explaining the new verbs feature: http://www.axeuk.com/blog/

When testing a game from the QDK window, it loads QuestNet instead of Quest. This could be a file type error on my behalf (Not looked yet), but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't do this anyway, besides what the main program for running .ASL games is set at.

Another thing also, with this beta release, people can take advantage of the CAS compiler for free. I assume people will be able to use this version of QDK over and over forever. Well they can use it to compile their games for free, unless this is now a free option in the free version QDK.

Most likely, the compiler will only work until Dec. 31, like the rest of the beta.

Even so, I don't think it matters that much any more whether games are compiled; I have a working Quest decompiler, which removes most of the advantage to compiling a game, and from that and the preprocessing steps (which I think I've completely worked out), somebody else could build a compiler.

I think it would make more sense if Quest was free anyway. Might attract some more people to use it.

GameBoy, you have the Quest Compiler because you are testing the beta of Quest Pro, which is only available to registered Quest Pro users.

oohhhh, I thought the Pro version was released to anybody so they can view the full potential. Thanks for clearing that up

I think Im Dead wrote:1 - Exits added to existing rooms are not saved in Questnet.

2 - It appears that rooms created dynamically in the game are saved, and even better, properties for those rooms are indeed saved as well. Unfortunately, exits created for dynamically created rooms are not saved either.

I've tried to reproduce this, but everything is working properly. I've created exits both for existing rooms and for dynamically created rooms, both in Quest and QuestNet Server, and it works properly.

Can you please send me an example ASL file that exhibits this problem?

Sure thing Alex, here's an example of the code I was using to create the dynamic room and exits, then I just save in Questnet, try and load up again, but the exits aren't there.

	command <example> {
		create room <$name(player%userid%)$>
		property <$name(player%userid%)$; look=This is $name(player%userid%)$'s room.>
		create exit south <#quest.currentroom[userid]#; $name(player%userid%)$>
		create exit north <$name(player%userid%)$; #quest.currentroom[userid]#>
		msg <You created a room called $name(player%userid%)$ to the south.>
	}

I was also noticing that in QDK when you make a goto exit, you can't really name it there, this would be a good feature. Don't know if it was never really like that, I always made my rooms in ASL, but being able to drop down and say I want it to go to this room is nice, the prefix could be useful, but more useful would be being able to give the exit an alias, like go to hallway or go to double doors, etc.

Intriguing. I've managed to reproduce this using your code, but when I was testing it using simpler commands like "create exit <room; room2>" it was working fine. I will take a look into this.

This is in response to Quest continually running in the background after closing it....

I experienced this several times while developing my game. I took the time to examine when it was in the background and when it wasn't in the background. I discovered that when ASL code for a game is not complete, as an undefined flag name, or is wrong, if an error is displayed or not, Quest will remain in the background. If code is perfect, Quest will close properly. I've never had a problem with the editor remaining open, just after closing the Quest interpreter.

Dang it, I always miss out on these things. I sent an email a day or two after the beta request came out and apparently, Alex had enough testers... oh well. Back to my cave...

Dang it, I always miss out on these things. I sent an email a day or two after the beta request came out and apparently, Alex had enough testers... oh well. Back to my cave...

Eh? I haven't turned down anybody... I sent you an email on Monday 6th with download instructions. I'll re-send it.

Really? To stevethemagicguy@yahoo.com? If you have now sent it twice, I still didn't receive it.

Can you send it to my inbox in this forum?