Thanks for the transcript, BW!

It's opening in a separate window for you because the .rtf file downloads and gets recognized as a TextEdit document by your system. You can disable automatic opening of downloaded files to avoid that, so it would just go to your download location and you could choose what to do with it. That's considered a little more secure but wouldn't change much otherwise.

To avoid the Rich Text version download, here's a plain text version which will open directly in most browsers:

cythera_20_transcript.txt

@Pallas-Athene said in Someone was really mad at Andrew...:

1. Looks like the forums are sorting topics by start date instead of last post date, which buries long threads (like the Officer’s Club Bar).

That's very odd. Last post date is tracked inside the topic entry and a supplemental "event" entry in the database. Both those fields get updated by the importer script and seemed to work correctly when making the Cythera forum.

But I can't get the new one to sort properly no matter what, so I'm guessing the latest version of NodeBB has some changes. Well, it certainly does since I had to alter the source to get profiles showing post history—they'd changed the way viewing permissions are handled. If I get a chance to track down the change, it may be possible to fix with a re-import.

2. Is there any reason not to incorporate ATT? I can send you my backup.

Mostly laziness on my part 😛. Although I did think about asking you, I decided there'd be edits to make for the slightly different link structure and that an external link might be a good way to reference your archive.

You're welcome to send your backup! If I can find any other archives about, a re-import would definitely be worthwhile.

3. Since this is in the interest of preservation, would you consider putting a database dump somewhere so others could easily back up your server without writing their own scraper? :)

Yes! I would like to do this and will put up a copy on Google Drive soon. Since media isn't included, the DB is not too big.

A quick update on this topic:

Recent discussion on /r/evnova reminded me that others may benefit from an ASW forum archive. I elected option 4 because NodeBB's searching is just too good to pass up for something that will be used for reference:

asw.forums.cytheraguides.com

It's read-only to preserve the integrity of the archive. Plus, until I see what the usage stats are, I'm not sure there's much of a community who would use it for posting; even us Cythera folk have migrated a lot of discussion to Discord these days.

Being a separate subdomain also protects the integrity of these boards and makes it easier to fill in missing ones should we ever manage to locate another archive. I've pondered emailing Andrew to ask if he'd switch the server on for a few more days or share the database so we can convert it, but I'm not sure anything would come of that.

Anyways, it's not much but seemed worth sharing since this topic had been left hanging.

I did some updates to the forum yesterday (the default theme is slightly different now). Somehow, all file uploading got disabled, even images, which had been working. I've re-enabled image uploads and turned on generic file uploading for registered users.

cythera_test.txt

P.S. @453 you can surround text with three backtick marks before and after to denote code blocks, like ```. You probably tried that, but I wasn't completely sure. I was also toying around with plugins that would allow collapsible and expandable blocks. Some of the plugins which add spoiler tags claim to do this, but I can't get any of them to work. Some of them are fairly old, so maybe they're not compatible with the new version yet.

The event has been saved to YouTube: https://youtu.be/gLCl7elzN-s. We ended up completing the full game in a somewhat leisurely speedrun, with frequent interjections to look at things like side quests and characters, bug fixes, and hacks/mods.

Thanks for getting this started, @Pallas-Athene! It was a lot of fun.

Glenn Andreas did join us in the text chat, and he offered some interesting points for discussion. I feel satisfied that most of the technical details and leftover in-game content have been addressed, with the most cryptic responses relating to things that would tie into a Cythera sequel. Who knows, maybe we'll see that one day?

Just a reminder that the livestream is coming up tomorrow night. There's a possibility of Glenn Andreas and/or Richard Moss stopping by!

@Buzzzzy said in Cythera Speedruns:

Music and fading have never worked on my SheepShaver build for some reason.

This is a symptom of pre-2013 Sheepshaver builds which lack support for the gamma ramp functions frequently used for fade effects. The main indicator is the screen being visible instead of black during sleep (you can see how the time & location pane updates live). Those older builds were also more likely to stumble over audio, and a number of games like EV Nova and Ferazel’s Wand will crash.

E-Maculation’s forum has a nice collection of recent builds if you’re looking to update. 🙂

Wait, so if I had just been standing in the doorway, that might have worked?? I'm both frustrated and thrilled to know that!

@453

Here's the relevant portion from Ake's dialogue script: (I've added a few comments denoted by semicolons)

ConvNext0580:
    conversation_response "more" else ConvNext0808 
    if_not
        call_resource 0xF02
            arg Arg30
            byte 1
        end 
    then Conditional05B1 ;if not talked about Comana, branch down to 05B1
    '"You know, House Comana..."' ;else fall through to this response
    branch Branch0805
    Conditional05B1:
    if_not 
        sys IsInParty
            short 30 ;Milcom
        end 
        sys IsInParty
            short 35 ;Hebe
        end 
        or 
    then Conditional060E ;if Milcom & Hebe not "IsInParty", jump to 060E
    'She looks around nervously...*"Ah, I don\'t know what you\'re talking about."' ;else fall through
    branch Branch0805 ;branch away if fell through
    Conditional060E: ;Milcom & Hebe not around?
    '"I can\'t speak of that now - meet me in our @garden after dark - wait until after my husband goes to bed"'
    call_resource Resources.SetCharacterFlag ;check if character has Persuasion
        arg Arg30
        byte 2
    end 
    if_not 
        sys GetSkill
            global Globals.PlayerCharacter
            short 203
        end 
    then Branch0805
    sys TalkParticipant
        short 1
        byte 2
    end 
    '"I understand your reluctance, but I\'m not sure if I can make that meeting."*'
    sys TalkParticipant
        arg Arg30
        byte 0
    end 
    call_resource 0xF01
        arg Arg30
        byte 2
    end 
    call_resource Resources.SetCharacterFlag
        arg Arg30
        byte 1
    end 
    'Ake lowers her voice to a whisper, glancing nervously around.*"Well, this might just be a rumor, but I\'ve heard that House Comana was behind Ariadne\'s kidnapping."*"I can\'t say anymore, but seek out Halos of House Strymon in Cademia"'
    sys AddQuest
        byte 10
        word 0x021A[0]
        byte 10
        add 
    end 
    '*"Please, I\'ve said too much..."'
    Branch0805:
    branch Conditional01CF

What DDASM labels as "IsInParty" is a call to function #188 in Delver byte code. I'm sure it does some checking for in party, but it looks like it's doing something else as well. If I had to guess, it's being used here to get a distance measure of some kind?

Whatever the case, it looks like you only have to make sure neither Hebe nor Milcom is around to get her to speak with you, which is good to know. Bryce really has equipped us with a powerful set of tools with delvmod! 😁

@Pallas-Athene said in Cythera Speedruns:

I don’t think that a “False (Hacks)” category is interesting.

I agree with that for the most part (although, who wouldn't want to see a chicken rogue run? 😛). I guess that's why I liked the idea of a third category; many of the exploits are interesting but could otherwise be buried under much shorter False times.

It''s a moot point now though. The running madness of new videos every few hours has slowed way down!

The any% rating is a nice idea. It could be a little tricky to measure because of Cythera's huge amount of optional content, but I can imagine many variations on that. Actually, I think BW's play style is a 100% speed run if you just click through the dialogues quickly.