[projectaon] Re: More errata.
- From: Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: dewi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:22:02 +0100
pamail.cgi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The following was sent from the Project Aon contact form
From: Dewi Morgan
Date: 00:02:39 on Thursday, August 28, 2008
Subject: More errata.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even yet more niggles and nitpicks!
Thanks for your fast response and kind words to my earlier reports: it warms
the cockles of my heart to see bug reports being acted on.
Here are a few more typos spotted, and a few mumblings about possibly unclear
passages:
1) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/04tcod/sect44.htm
The fishy "amulet" is a gettable item here, so should probably be capitalised.
2) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/04tcod/sect12.htm
Is there a clarification whether "choice of" means "choose one" or "pick what you
can carry"? Realistically, they'd give you what you need, and not quibble about you taking both some
provisions AND some rope: but game-balance-wise, it might be a problem. Also, should the rope take two slots,
or one? (I remember when playing the books years ago, I rationalised that some ropes are longer, thicker and
heavier than others, hence why some ropes take two slots, and others don't).
3) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect75.htm
"If you wish to refuse in climb the path towards the archway, turn to 169."
I... can't even make a suggestion for that one. I blame the typesetters!
4) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect133.htm
"If you decide to turn round and return to walkway, turn to 64."
Poss replace with "...to the walkway,..."?
5) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect33.htm
"The Sharnazim are climbing up to stone steps."
Poss replace with "...the stone steps."?
6) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect136.htm
"If you want a close the door and take the other passage, turn to 93."
Poss replace with "...want to close..."?
7) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect58.htm
If feasible, given the automated page generation from XML, I'd suggest a link
to the list of numbered pages be given, possibly in the footnote. It's possible
everyone reading will figure how to edit the URL, or go via the contents page,
but I've worked enough tech support to know for sure that not everyone will.
8) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect246.htm
"If you possess the Kai Discipline of Tracking, turned to 220."
Poss replace with "...turn to..."?
9) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect207.htm
Unless stated, I generally assume that all items collected (eg the silver comb
from earlier) are magically unable to fit into pockets, and are always pack
items. However, I'm unsure about the Brass Whistle here: it's around the
rider's neck, and it seems sensible that you might wear it the same way.
10) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect397.htm
If you wish to ask her if she is Soushilla, turn to 307.
and:
"http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect358.htm";
"She is not Soushilla the widow"
Far as I know, the above will only make sense to someone who rolled 3-9 at
section 247, and decided to enter the cave, and happened to have some oede
herb, and wanted to give it away free, and afterwards decided to stay and chat.
Me, I rolled a 2, and got drunk in a goatherd's shack instead, so the above was
a bit meaningless to me: I had no call to ask if she were Soushilla, and no
call to feel scammed by her pretending to be her, since I never selected the
option to ask if that were her name.
11) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect331.htm
Same as 7: a link to the list of numbered pages would be a nice touch here for
people who only know how to navigate by clicking links.
12) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/06tkot/discplnz.htm
"...you will have opportunities to acquire weapons during your adventure. For every
Lone Wolf book that you complete in the Magnakai series, you may add an additional weapon
to your list."
Slightly unclear, maybe. Probably clear enough, given the following paragraph, which
clarifies that it means you can check off another item on a "Weapon List" of
weapons you've mastered, rather than add an item to a list of weapons you own. I think.
13) It's not made clear whether you'll be penalised for not taking the weapon
mastery in the first book (that is, if you take it in a later book, will you
only get 3 weapon skill picks, or a number equal to your rank?). Later it's
mentioned that the power of some skills are dependant on rank, but this one is
not elaborated on, Might be in later books, perhaps...
13) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/06tkot/equipmnt.htm
"You can only carry a maximum of fifty Crowns, but any over this number can be left
in safekeeping at your Kai Monastery."
What about other items, one wonders? If you have the magic spear, and you want
to both keep it and replace it with a bow, would it be legal to leave it in the
monastery? Maybe it's a really small monsatery, with only space enough for a
few coins...
14) One of the things that bugged me when I was a kid was that there was no explicit note about
whether you could layer your armour for multiple bonuses. It never says "If you already have
armour, you must discard it if you want to take this." I kind of feel it should. Or maybe it's
one of those "leave it up to the player" things.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Dewi
Of course we act upon bug reports! ;-)
We want these books to be as good as they possibly can be, so we fix things as
soon as we can find the time to do so. Of course, outputting to HTML is quite a
time-consuming process, so we prefer to make as many changes as possible before
generating new editions of the books.
It's also the most efficient way we've found of doing things. If we don't fix
them ASAP, bug reports tend to get lost, or buried under a deluge of other
materials.
Below are comments on your reports.
1: Actually, after some discussion, we've decided that the amulets are probably
not supposed to be gettable. They are never referenced again, and they are not
capitalised in the text of this section, or Section 149. We've reordered the
sentences to show this:
A search of the bodies reveals 12 Gold Crowns and enough food for two Meals. You
notice that both of the men wear amulets on chains around their necks. They are
wooden and shaped in the likeness of fish. If you wish to keep any of these
Items, remember to mark them on your Action Chart.
->
A search of the bodies reveals 12 Gold Crowns and enough food for two Meals. If
you wish to keep any of these items, remember to mark them on your Action Chart.
You notice that both of the men wear amulets on chains around their necks.
They are wooden and shaped in the likeness of fish.
(We also fixed the incorrectly capitalised "these Items" as well!)
2: We have added a footnote here: "You may take as many of these items as you
wish."
As for the rope, unless the text states otherwise, each item takes up only one
space in the Backpack. See the Project Aon Readers' Handbook entry on Rope:
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/ReadersHandbook/TopicalR#Rope>
3: An official Project Aon Typo! "refuse in" -> "refuse and". Fixed.
4: Another one of ours. "to walkway" -> "to the walkway". Fixed.
5: Another mistake. "up to" -> "up the". Fixed.
6: "want a" -> "want to". Fixed.
8: "turned to" -> "turn to". Fixed.
These all came about because Book 5 was an experiment in acquiring text from the
book: voice recognition software was used instead of scanning/OCRing the text.
Funnily enough, it was an experiment we never repeated, as we're still finding
errors with the text to this day!
7: We used to link to the Numbered Sections page, but the text didn't make any
sense at all in the single-page editions, or if we ported the books to PDF
(another item on our ever-growing wishlist). While it might reduce a little
confusion, we did decide it was easier to remove this text than maintain
multiple versions of the XML source files.
Software solutions such as Seventh Sense
<http://projectaon.proboards30.com/index.cgi?board=seventhsense&action=display&thread=1373&page=1>
also render this point moot.
9: Yes, that's a good point. We've added a footnote here: "The Brass Whistle is
a Special Item worn on a chain around the neck."
10: That's quite irritating, since there's no clear fix to this problem. We've
made this change: "If you wish to ask her if she is Soushilla" -> "If you wish
to ask her if she is Soushilla, if you have heard that name before". While not
the most elegant solution, it should fix any jarring continuity problems with
this section. Well spotted, by the way!
11: See #7 above.
12: See the Project Aon Readers' Handbook section on Weaponmastery:
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/ReadersHandbook/TopicalW#Weaponmastery> It is, in
one sense, a penalty for not taking Weaponmastery in an early book; but weapons
are easier to come by, any you get to decide which weapons you are proficient in
(not like the random pick used in Kai Weaponskill), so this shouldn't pose too
much of a problem.
However, your other point about the confusion over the word "list" is valid: we
have changed "your list" to "your Weaponmastery Checklist" in Books 7-12, and
have made similar changes to the xml for Books 13-20. We are still in discussion
about how to approach this in Books 21-28.
13: Clarification on the rules for safekeeping can be found in the Project Aon
Readers' Handbook:
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/ReadersHandbook/TopicalS#Safekeeping>
14: The Project Aon Readers' Handbook covers this quite comprehensively. The
Armour chart here:
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/ReadersHandbook/TopicalA#Armour> lists what
combinations of armour are acceptable. Basically, all armour can be worn
together except the Chainmail Waistcoat and the Bronin Vest (from Book 12). (See
this excerpt from a Lone Wolf Club Newsletter:
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/ReadersHandbook/NewsletterExcerpts#lwcnss85>
Compare this with The Masters of Darkness sections 63 (Kagonite Chainmail) and
159 (Bronin Vest): <http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/12tmod/sect63.htm> vs.
<http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/12tmod/sect159.htm> Hopefully that
clarifies any questions about the use of armour.
Respecting Points 12-14, we are looking for ways to make the Readers' Handbook
more "discoverable" on our site, since it was primarily designed to keep the
number of footnotes for each book at a manageable level.
Please, keep these error reports coming. We definitely appreciate all help to
make these books even better.
For Sommerlund and the Kai! (And for eagle-eyed contributors as well!!)
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon
~~~~~~
Manage your subscription at http://www.freelists.org/list/projectaon
Other related posts: