Ambrosia Software Web Board: My dream house in Cythera - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Could someone please make a plugin for me? I can send you the blueprints via email, but it involves a basement, occasional ruffian attacks, a replenishing stock of chickens and goats, a kitchen, ect. Please tell me if you are feeling up to it. Also, feel free to put in your dream houses on Cythera.

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That wedge of cheese
can't hurt anyone! So
don't dread it - it even
says not to

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say..is this even possible? I have my doubts..


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Siena College- Like Yale, only not!
"Anything is possible, except skiing through a revolving door."

It's not possible without decrypting the Cythera datafile - and access to the Delver editor would be essential.

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"This programming language has the power of BASIC, the readability of Perl, the simplicity and ease of use of Assembly language, and all the efficiency of ADA! Why, it's as reliable as Microsoft Windows!" - Glowing software review from another dimension.
  
   
Where do you want to [url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/tricks/rJade.htm"]teleport[/url] today?

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It's not entirely impossible. Just hire some free-lance data-pirates to crack the Cythera source codes and reverse engineer a Crippled Level Editer* to imlement things. And finaly to create a program to 'Patch' it on to the Cythera apliacation itself. I warn you now that doing such an act is expensive and evil.DO NOT ATTEMPT UNLESS THOU IS VERY DESPERATE!

*It is called a "crippled" editor because it does not function at 100%

Such a process is also dangerous. Both to your system/game and to your health.

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"There is a time and a place for everything."

As far as I know, Cythera doesn't support third-party plugins like the EV games do. But if you want a house, there's a nice little cottage in the middle of Odemia that doesn't seem to have an owner, so I stay there when I need to. Just don't actualy leave anything there, or it will go away. There's also a spare room in House Attis that I stay in when I'm in Cademia, and if you kill off the ruffians in the encampment in the mountains, you can stay there.
I guess you could also kill one of those families of farmers and take over their farm, but that's not very nice, and there's the farm to tend to.
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I have run out of quotes for my signature. Please give me suggestions at bigjoe_512@yahoo.com

[This message has been edited by Big Joe (edited 04-06-2003).]

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I thought about this, but:
(a) I decided that it would be too much effort (Both to decrypt and to reverse engineer) for something that is several years old and you could never sell,

( Mr. Glenn Andreas (Hereafter identified to by the shortened form 'Glenn' ) has never told us the type of encryption - for all we know it could be only the names of the characters that are encrypted, and the scripts are just in a symbolic compiled code (Ala Java), or there could be different encryptions on different parts of the data, or any number of clever things. This compounds reason A, which would probably apply even if it were a pathetic ASCII shift. (Yes, i tried that last idea, but that was before the DMCA.)

© It might even be illegal just to distribute anything you make with it for free, and Ambrosia would be rightly incensed if you made it to work without the user giving them money. Granted, if it did require giving some money to register, they'd be idiots to turn it down unless it somehow slandered them ('Cytherian Goat Lovemeister IIV anyone?'), but still...

(d) Delver's (the Cythera engine's) scripting language looks about like C, but different enough that it would probably take a lot of effort to learn. (This would be compounded by lack of documentation.) Further, Glenn's comments on Delver indicate that, to paraphrase, 'Objects are clusters of related scripts with a graphical presence.' In other words, objects are mostly just containers for scripts, a way to let the code behind them interact with the player. A Door is not a door, it's an object that changes its appearance and opens up (as well as making a noise) when you do the right thing to it. (Including the possibility of a key). Thus, with no documentation, it would be hard to make new objects. (Then again, a talented programmer could probably figure it out, but the thought of trying to learn a complex new programming language with no manual scares me. It's hard enough with a manual, thank you very much.)

I admit it could be fun just to use the objects and graphics provided, but at the end of the day you've made something you can't sell or probably even give away. Do you think an all new Cythera with an island ten times as big (Possible because of modern computers) and a whole new plot wouldn't hurt the sales of the original? The best it could do is stimulate interest in its predecessor, but still, it's a risky gambit.

Maybe, if all these things have not swayed you, there are other options other than a reverse engineering. First and foremost, write your own game engine. Better yet, email me and offer your services to the Lithocast project.
You could also ask the Ambrosian powers to open-source it, but It would compete with Clodstone. (Yes, even though its going on several years, it's still more flexible than clodstone ever was, (Or probably will be...) and as open-source it could receive a carbon makeover and be up and happy again. Granted, the graphics probably would still be 256 colors, but according to a survey I once took, most CRPG gamers don't care about graphics that much, 'as long as the plot is really good'. Also, the Delver interface is wonderful, so perfect and non-modal... who wouldn't want to play it over a clodstone-spawned game?

Finally, even if it were open-sourced, for all we know the only documentation for it is in Glenn's head. (Or scrawled on a trio of note pads like the preliminary docs for Lithoclast currently are.... :embarrassed: )
The editor itself is reported as buggy (I can't testify first hand), and also reported to be poorly documented.

So, it's all kinda unknown... not the best situation... that was a weak conclusion... and a long post...

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#include <stdio.h>
main(void){char a[22] = {0x4a,0x75,0x73,0x74,' ',0x61,0x6e,0x6f,0x74,0x68,0x65,0x72,' ',0x43,' ',0x68,0x61,0x63,0x6b};int b;for (b = 0;b < 23;printf("%c",a[b]),b++){};printf("...n");}
/* Not just for perl. */
  

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I think something with 256-colors would seem rather out of place in OSX. However, if a few colors had their shades adjusted, you could fake higher-quality graphics. Either that, or force Cythera to be full-screen, so it doesn't contrast sharply with other applications.

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"There is a time and a place for everything."

To: the Staff of Ambrosia

Why not consider making a retail version of Delver, only sorta like Coldstone but better. I can think of several billion (sadly, this isn't an exaggeration) uses for it.

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Welcome to the boards, Raistlin

But about the retail version of Delver, you forget about it. It just isn't going to happen. We all know that a game development tool based on the Delver engine would be far more versatile than Coldstone, but Ambrosia really doesn't have the time, money, or desire to undertake this project. We've asked, begged, and pleaded, but it just won't happen. Ambrosia feels Cythera is done and out of their hands, they just collect the registration money at this point.

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Inventor of the "Analytical Engine", the first computer.

Do you think maybe if we started a petition, begged constantly, hired celebs to come and make speeches, and even bribed the Ambrosia staff, they'd consider thinking about doing something with Cythera? (I'm desperate, does it show?)

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I think if you can get a massive mob of at least a thousand different people that honestly care about the game to peitition Ambrosia through various means, they might do something.

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."

Well, I've started a petition, here's the address: [url="http://"http://www.petitiononline.com/z1y2x3w4/petition.html"]http://www.petitiono...4/petition.html[/url]
If anyone here wants to try and make a difference, start here. (Please?)

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You do realise that online petitions mean absolutely nothing, don't you? There's no way to keep a person from signing it multiple times with different names. They have no credibility whatsoever. And why would Ambrosia have any reason to pay any attention to it, anyway? Cythera is three years old, is not Carbonized, uses low-bit graphics, and upgrading it would cost them a whole lot of money. They would essentially have to rewrite it from the ground up, including the Delver engine. Of course, they could do it cheap and use the Coldstone engine, which is already Carbonized, but then it wouldn't be Cythera anymore, just another version of PoG. They couldn't make much profit either way, being that the first option would cost the company too much and few people would purchase the second. Ambrosia is a business, which means it has to expect a decent profit in order to be willing to do something. Now, if you have super-duper programming skills, you can go [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/support/techworks/"]here[/url] and offer your services as a developer to revamp Cythera. That would decrease their costs, especially if you did it for free. But an online petition is not going to be any more successful than whining about it here on the webboard.

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Inventor of the "Analytical Engine", the first computer.

If it offends you, don't sign it. But can it hurt? Who knows, though it may be a 100/1 chance, a 1000/1 chance, a 10000/1 chance, there's always the possibility that Ambrosia will reconsider their collective opinion and remake Cythera. If one doesn't have hope, one doesn't have anything.

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Those numbers are backwards, the odds are certainely not 10000 to one that ASW will listen.

But, as I said, if a significant crowd (as in, far more than just us on this webboard) asked for further development on Cythera or Delver, Ambrosia might listen for the reason Big Joe pointed out: if they could make a decent profit out of the time and effort they put into whatever they do. As a company, its usually not a good idea (actually, it depends on your company's values) to spend months working on enhancing an old product to a small crowd if there's no real return on the investment. Sure, they gain a loyal band of followers, but they don't make money just because people who have already registered like the game, they'd have to come out with something big and new.

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."