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Old May 9th, 2006, 05:03 PM
Porter235 Porter235 is offline
 
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Virtual Valhalla (Play Heroscape Online)

This post will always contain the latest info about VVV and the second post should always contain the latest README info.
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Old May 9th, 2006, 05:04 PM
Porter235 Porter235 is offline
 
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==================================
Virtual Valhalla for Vassal (VVV)
==================================
Thanks for downloading VVV.

------------------------
Installation of VVV
------------------------
Make sure you have JAVA and VASSAL!
Visit http://tinyurl.com/sx9lg

Follow all instructions!

Please read the rest of the Getting Started Guide for Vassal BEFORE continuing. ANY questions related to the information in that guide will go unanswered by me!


Get VVV!
Visit http://tinyurl.com/rycgz

Download the virtual_valhalla_PKG_X_XX.zip file.

Contrary to what is stated in the Getting Started Guide, that I know you just read, this file IS A ZIP FILE, and NEEDS to be UNZIPPED. The reccommended location for windows users is in C:\Program Files\VASSAL\modules\virtual_valhalla\ Wherever you unzip it to, remember where you put it, I will refer to this location as the "installation directory".

------------------------
Starting VVV
------------------------
There are a couple of ways that you can start VVV.

1) The 'standard' way
Open Vassal

Click "Play Module"

Browse to the installation directory

Choose virtual_valhalla.mod

Click Open

2) The 'quick start' way

Preparing the 'quick start'
Unfortunately the 'quick start' way may require you to hand edit an XML file to get it to work. If you are a windows user and installed VVV to the reccommended location then you may be able to skip this step.

Open a text editor (notepad for example)

Browse to the installation directory

Open start_virtual_valhalla.jnlp

Near the bottom of the file you will find a line containing "EDIT:" with the following instructions

replace insides of the following <argument> tag with the full path to the virtual_valhalla.mod found inside of your installation directory

Follow those instructions and save it.

Using the 'quick start'

You should be able to just click the newly edited start_virtual_valhalla.jnlp file and if all is well, vassal will start up and automatically load VVV.

Now that VVV is running you should see a chunk of text like the following:

- Virtual Valhalla version 0.95
- Extension masterset v0.3 Hasbro's HeroScape Master Set (c) 2005 loaded
- Extension map_maker_assist v0.4 loaded
- Extension masterset_cards v0.1 loaded
- Extension personal_cards v0.0 loaded
- Extension virtualdice v0.1 loaded
- Extension virtualdice_sidemap_addon v0.1 loaded

If you do NOT see any Extension messages, then you have done something WRONG and you will NOT see any figure images or maps etc.
NOTE: your numbers may be different than those listed here!

------------------------
Playing VVV
------------------------
Loading a Map
File -> Maps -> Master Set -> <Map Name>

Choosing Pieces
4th button from the right, looks like the Tarn Vikings. Click it, it opens the Pieces window. This has a set of embeded tabs containing all of the various pieces used in the game. Simply pick one and drag it to the map.

Available Pieces
Figures: all of the miniatures. Blank figures can be used to play any figures that are not provided (custom or yet unreleased virtual waves).

Glyphs: As the name suggests you can find the glyphs here. There is also one named ` (single back tick) This is the custom glyph and can have its name and effect set.

Etc: These are the odd pieces that don't fit anywhere else. Of particular notice is the Dice Tray (more about this below).

Terrain: All terrain elements are here, including one named - (dash) which can be used to load premade maps that are accessible online.

Turn Markers: The "shield" markers from the game along with a Player # ID and Name tag.

Using Pieces
Pieces have a lot of various abilities built in. Instead of writing out all of the options available for every piece, I will tell you how to discover them. Right click on a piece! A menu will show up with the options. Beside some options will be a keyboard combination that can be used as a hot key to activate the given option when the piece is selected. Learning these will greatly speed up your game play.

Side Table
The blue shield with a ? in it in the toolbar when clicked will open the Side Table. This is a place where you can keep all of your administrative information without cluttering the map. It contains a box labled Randomizer. If you put a collection of items into the randomizer and then draw them out, they will come out in random order.

You can put an extra copy of each type of figure on you side onto the side table and then you can place turn markers on to or beside them in order to indicate your choice of figures to use each turn.

Turn Markers
Found in the Etc tab of the piece pallet, these are the "sheilds" used to indicate your choice of which figure(s) to activate on a given turn. Each player will need thier own set of turn markers dragged to the side table.

When you flip a turn marker (right click and choose Flip or CTRL+F) it will appear RED for you. This is to indicate to you that it is now "HIDDEN" and you opponents can no longer see the value of it. Instead your opponents will only see a BLUE shield with a ? symbol on it. When you flip it back over, it will appear GREY and show your number to both you and your opponent.

When placing turn markers it is suggested that you put all of them into the Randomizer first and then draw them out so that your opponent will have a harder time guessing which is which! (They will appear BLUE in the randomizer, but will become RED when you draw them out) Just make sure that only one player is using the randomizer for this purpose at a given time! Don't want one player getting three #1 turn markers.


Dice
The D20 (and a D6) can be rolled by clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar.

There are two types of attack/defence dice: text only and graphical.

Text only dice can be found on the main tool bar under the menu TextDice. It opens up a drop down, choose the number of dice, and you will get a report such as:

*** 4 dice = Skull,Skull,Shield,Shield *** <Porter>

NOTE: the Dice tray should now appear with dice already placed in the Dice tray by default! (you will still need to go through these steps if you want it on the side table)

Graphical dice require a little bit of setup prior to each game. First decide if you want to roll your dice on the side table or on a separate little window just for dice. If you want to use a separte window, click the Dice button on the main toolbar to open the window. If you want to use the side table, click the blue shield icon (?) to open it. Now open the piece pallet and goto the Etc tab. Choose the Dice tray and drag it to the selected window. Once there, hold shift and then right click the dice tray. This brings up its only option "Place dice". Select it to place the 15 dice into the dice tray. Now you can press the numbered buttons on the window to roll the indicated number of dice. In addtion to being able to see the dice, you will also get a report in the chat window such as:

Porter************ ROLLING 4 ************
* Roll Dice Tray: Die 4 SKULL X *
* Roll Dice Tray: Die 3 blank - *
* Roll Dice Tray: Die 2 SKULL X *
* Roll Dice Tray: Die 1 SKULL X *

Turn Tracker
The button with two shields and a little green arrow when pressed will open the turn tracker. It is an easy to use way to keep track of the current player (initiative) turn, and round throughout your game. Before you start your game, you should open the turn tracker and then right click on it. It will pop up a menu, choose Configure -> Round -> Turn -> Configure Player. Here you should ensure there are only check marks beside each of the players in the current game (turn tracker supports up to 6 players). So if you have 3 players, then there should only be checks next to 1,2, and 3.

Now when you click the + buttton it will advance the turn tracker to the next turn. You can see an example of a three player game sequence for one round.

* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 1 Turn 1 (Round 1) to Initiative 2 Turn 1 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 2 Turn 1 (Round 1) to Initiative 3 Turn 1 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 3 Turn 1 (Round 1) to Initiative 1 Turn 2 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 1 Turn 2 (Round 1) to Initiative 2 Turn 2 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 2 Turn 2 (Round 1) to Initiative 3 Turn 2 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 3 Turn 2 (Round 1) to Initiative 1 Turn 3 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 1 Turn 3 (Round 1) to Initiative 2 Turn 3 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 2 Turn 3 (Round 1) to Initiative 3 Turn 3 (Round 1)
* <Porter> set turn from Initiative 3 Turn 3 (Round 1) to Initiative 1 Turn 1 (Round 2)

I suggest that when you roll for Initiative you take a numbered counter (available in the ETC tab in the piece pallet in order to keep track of player order for the round)

Notes
5th button from the left that looks like a notepad and pencil when clicked will open the Notes feature. Some of the included scenario maps include the scenario informaiton in a public note for easy reference while using VVV. See the VASSAL documentation for all of the details regarding use of public, private, and delayed notes.

Targets
In order to easily identify attacker and defender, targeting markers have been implemented. Choose the attacking figure and either right click and choose Target or use the CTRL + T hotkey. This adds a new piece, a targeting site, to the selected piece. Do the same to the attacked figure. This saves you from having to type in the name of the attacker and attacked for every attack.

Once the attack is completed, you can click the button that looks like a target with a red circle and stroke through it or use the CTRL + ALT + T hotkey to instantly remove all targets from the board.

Extra Tokens
Some pieces require the use of additional tokens to keep track of things. (Airborne Elite for example) To keep track of these tokens, right click an figure and choose Change Extra Tokens or use the CTRL+E hotkey and then type in number of tokens. If a figure requires you to keep track of multiple tokens, simply use #/# type of notation.

Load/Save Customs or Entire Armies!
The "Randomizer" found on the Side table, now has two new functions available via its right click menu: Save and Load. Now you can drag a units into the randomizer (including custom characters!), right click the randomizer and choose save. You will be prompted for a location and a file name. Then at some later point you can right click on the randomizer (preferably when it is empty) and you can choose load, pointing it at your saved file. All of the units that were in the randomizer at the time the file was saved, will reappear in the randomizer.
These save files can be posted, shared with others to allow the community to start to build out that which I have obviously not had much time for. Entire Waves can be created, your favourite customs etc.


Well, at this point I have run out of time. Sorry, but there are some out there that DO know. Ask around.
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  #3  
Old May 9th, 2006, 06:05 PM
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Hex_Enduction_Hour Hex_Enduction_Hour is offline
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Porter, zip file is great. When I was struggled with loading the module, I didn't know if it had to do with all the separate files I had and if I'd placed them in the correct folers, etc.. This is much easier for me - AND IT WORKS.

Btw, will we see figures from the expansions?
Maybe I'm ignorant and they're already in the program?
Or is that information something we must put in manually? Or perhaps someone is working on them?

Thanks again.
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Old May 9th, 2006, 07:39 PM
Porter235 Porter235 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hex_Enduction_Hour
Porter, zip file is great. When I was struggled with loading the module, I didn't know if it had to do with all the separate files I had and if I'd placed them in the correct folers, etc.. This is much easier for me - AND IT WORKS.

Btw, will we see figures from the expansions?
Maybe I'm ignorant and they're already in the program?
Or is that information something we must put in manually? Or perhaps someone is working on them?
Yea! Folder structure for the extensions was the single largest source of frustrations for users and therefore also for me. I am glad that the single zip is helping.

Waves are currently not available, but now that I am mostly happy with what we have, work can start soon. I have been holding off on doing the work on the waves as I want to make sure that what we have is solid. Changes made to the core could mean redoing all waves in the future so I want to make sure I, and most users, are happy with the core.

Wave 1 is ready in all ways except graphically. I have been hoping to leverage Floydski's work on the photo cards, but I take it "REAL LIFE" has been interfering for Floydski as much as it has for me. I can start putting graphics together if someone can send me a set of high quality photos of the wave 1 figures. 1 figure / photo, nice and close, plain background, and good lighting. I can do the resizing and putting on the background etc. pretty quick. (Or even better, if someone wants to send me wave 1 I'll shoot them myself )

Till then you CAN recreate ANY 1 or two hex figure in vassal using the blank figures. But it is a bit of a pain in the butt as you have to recreate any blanks you want to use prior to each time you sit down to play (unless you save them in a game file!).
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  #5  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 02:31 PM
reapersaurus reapersaurus is offline
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is anything going on with this?
I was hoping this had advanced and progressed, in ease of use and numbers of people who have adopted it.

Did this never reach critical mass?
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  #6  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 02:41 PM
0rbital 0rbital is offline
 
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How is it? Worth playing?
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  #7  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 02:42 PM
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netherspirit netherspirit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0rbital
How is it? Worth playing?
Its better than NOT playing.
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  #8  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 02:47 PM
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gibberish_47 gibberish_47 is offline
 
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gibberish_47 Woo who?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 0rbital
How is it? Worth playing?
Heck yeah!

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  #9  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 03:10 PM
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Parduz Parduz is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reapersaurus
is anything going on with this?
I was hoping this had advanced and progressed, in ease of use and numbers of people who have adopted it.

Did this never reach critical mass?
Talking for me only, i've never found anyone in the "room"....
....but i've at least 7 hours more than most of you all.

Would you like to listen to my music?


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Old June 23rd, 2006, 03:19 PM
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gibberish_47 gibberish_47 is offline
 
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gibberish_47 Woo who?
Well, I'm on right now...

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  #11  
Old June 23rd, 2006, 05:22 PM
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Parduz Parduz is offline
 
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Parduz knows what's in an order marker Parduz knows what's in an order marker Parduz knows what's in an order marker
right now, me too
...
And i see you
...
Sent a Wake up
...
Tring to chat....

...

You're nort really here

Would you like to listen to my music?


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  #12  
Old June 26th, 2006, 01:45 PM
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gibberish_47 gibberish_47 is offline
 
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gibberish_47 Woo who?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parduz
right now, me too
...
And i see you
...
Sent a Wake up
...
Tring to chat....

...

You're nort really here
Yeah, sometimes it actually does weird stuff. I was on for about an hour, but no one showed up so I left. Sometimes it doesn't log me out, though. I've signed out before, then signed back in again, and there are two of me in at once. Really weird.

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