Getting REALLY Frustrated

[TheCoruptWarlord at aol.c]

I have been trying to get my card authoring kit to be of some use to me,
especially if the L5R database is not going to reflect the Diamond changes until
October, even though the information is already out. So, after much thought, I
figured I could simply change the database with the "easy to use" Authoring
Kit. I even talked to the guy at the booth at GenCon and he assured me I would
need no special knowledge to get this done.

Well, in a nutshell, how the hell do you do it? The "manual" that
accompanies the kit might as well be written in Wookie for all I can understand it.
Granted, I'm not a Computer Major, but I was told I wouldn't need to be.

Christ, I had an easier time learning BASIC when I was 8 screwing around at
the local Radio Shack on a TRS-80.

A tutorial for the authoring kit would be nice. I guess it might be with the
generic Card Vault tutorial but I'm too damned pissed too look right now. If
it is, it would be nice if it was seperated out. If it isn't, it would be
nice if there was one.

Rant off, going to take my lithium and prozac cocktail to calm down.

Any help is appreciated.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[rob]

First of all, the Diamond data will be released very soon now. As mentioned
previously on this forum, I'm trying to release ACCURATE data for L5R
instead of QUICK data. Adding Diamond requires a fair amount of extra work
and it all needs to be done correctly. At present, preliminary data for
Diamond is being reviewed by a few people for accuracy. Once I've received
their feedback and folded in the appropriate changes, Diamond will be
released. Based on the progress being made, my best guess is a few days.

As for using CVEdit, I'm sorry it hasn't been as easy as you expected it to
be. Assuming you have read the Authoring Kit documentation, CVEdit is just
a graphical tool that simplifies the things you otherwise would need to do
manually. However, using CVEdit clearly assumes you have read the Kit
documentation and are familiar with it. If you are trying to jump straight
in and use CVEdit without having read the Kit documentation, you will
definitely be in trouble.

There is no tutorial currently available for CVEdit. We considered writing
one, but the folks already familiar with authoring data files found the
tool to be quite simple and intuitive, so there didn't seem to be a
compelling reason for a tutorial. Now combine this with the fact that we
are a TINY company and don't have enough time to do everything as quickly
as we'd like. We have a LONG list of features that users keep clamoring
for. We also have lots of data files to keep up on for a LOT of game
systems. So we opted to spend the time adding other features in V1.2
instead of writing a seemingly unneeded tutorial for CVEdit. It's all a
guessing game on this end, based on inexact and incomplete data.

Clearly, there would be value in adding a tutorial for CVEdit. Now we have
to figure out what features would need to be dropped from the upcoming V1.3
update in order to make the time to write the tutorial. Or we have to
decide that adding the features to V1.3 is overall more important than the
tutorial. There's no good answer.... :-(

Now to address your situation more concretely. As a starting point, you
need to load a data file into CVEdit to start editing it. Or, you can
create a new data file using CVEdit and then start adding cards to it. For
each card, you can edit the contents, just like a database tool. The exact
contents will vary from one game system to the next, depending on the
characteristics of that game system. This is where you need to familiarize
yourself with the Authoring Kit documentation, so you know what all the
characteristics are. In addition, you'll want to take a look at existing
cards in the L5R data files to get a sense of how things everything is
structured for that specific game.

Once you've familiarized yourself with the above, please outline the
specific things you're having problems with in using CVEdit. I'll be happy
to provide answers and point you in the right direction on things. There
are also a fair number of other data file authors in this group, so you'll
be able to draw on their expertise and ideas as well. Just let us know what
answers you're looking for and we'll do our best to provide them.

Thanks, Rob


At 04:35 PM 8/12/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>I have been trying to get my card authoring kit to be of some use to me,
>especially if the L5R database is not going to reflect the Diamond changes
>until
>October, even though the information is already out. So, after much
>thought, I
>figured I could simply change the database with the "easy to use" Authoring
>Kit. I even talked to the guy at the booth at GenCon and he assured me I
>would
>need no special knowledge to get this done.
>
>Well, in a nutshell, how the hell do you do it? The "manual" that
>accompanies the kit might as well be written in Wookie for all I can
>understand it.
>Granted, I'm not a Computer Major, but I was told I wouldn't need to be.
>
>Christ, I had an easier time learning BASIC when I was 8 screwing around at
>the local Radio Shack on a TRS-80.
>
>A tutorial for the authoring kit would be nice. I guess it might be with the
>generic Card Vault tutorial but I'm too damned pissed too look right now. If
>it is, it would be nice if it was seperated out. If it isn't, it would be
>nice if there was one.
>
>Rant off, going to take my lithium and prozac cocktail to calm down.
>
>Any help is appreciated.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (559) 658-6995
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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[zepro at comcast.net]

try a good book on xml and take a close look at the files. it really is not
that hard.

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