The Bard's Tale

[AmigaBruno]

I'm just returning to playing The Bard's Tale with lots of knowledge at my disposal from the Internet, after being totally defeated and all members of my party killed back in the day. I never even made it into any dungeons!

My latest attempt to play this game is using one or two versions (PAL and NTSC) from an EAB Workbench with Scalos and WHDload installations, which I bought from a well known Amiga dealer on eBay.

I've taken the time and trouble of converting, transferring and printing out a text file of hints which is 8.75 A4 pages long from my Amiga formatted CF card onto my MacBook, then printing it out, as well as printing out the original EA manual and the map of Skara Brae, which originally came with the game.

What I've found out of the last 2-3 days is that I had lots of saved characters, which either came with these copies of the game (The A-Team, including Brian The Fist and El Cid), or I made up over the last four years, but then forgot I'd played the game during that period.
These characters were all marked as DEAD!

Over the last 2-3 days, I've made up some more characters. I created them from inside the game. The 8.75 pages of hints say that it's a good idea to make up some characters using Ultima III, then transfer them into The Bard's Tale, but I don't know how to do that, because the files are of different types. I made up six characters, but then realised I'd forgotten to include a Bard or a Cleric, so then I made up a Bard and a Cleric, deleted some characters from my party, then saved them as another party and entered the city. 

In spite of all the knowledge gained from the 8.75 pages of hints, my party, or even two parties, were soon all killed by a combination of spiders, dogs, a mercenary, etc. I couldn't always run away and I got totally lost in Skara Brae as well! I think this happened in less time than it took me to create these characters. I think the problem was that they didn't have enough armour, unlike The A-Team. It also looks like my copies of The A-Team are all DEAD!

I looked round for a character editor which could bring my characters back to life. I've found two of these now for the Amiga. Unfortunately, one of them requires AmigaOS 3.5, while the other one requires Kickstart 3.1. I think the AmigaOS I'm running is a version of Workbench 3.0 with some add ons, but I'm not sure how to check the version number because of these add ons, including Scalos. Don't forget that these are for editing short Hex files for a game that was released in 1986!

I thought I might be able to edit the C source code for one of these editors so it doesn't check for AmigaOS 3.5, but I'm not sure I can.

Can anyone help me?


 

[Minuous]

If you are referring to MCE, hacking out the version check is not going to help, as it actually requires OS3.9 ReAction components for its GUI.

IIRC the option to import Ultima 3 characters may not have been in the Amiga version of the game.

If you want to send me your chars I'm happy use MCE to resurrect them for you and whatever other changes need to be made and send them back. Or the raw info needed for doing it yourself in a hex editor is at http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/ami-form.txt

[AmigaBruno]

If you are referring to MCE, hacking out the version check is not going to help, as it actually requires OS3.9 ReAction components for its GUI.

IIRC the option to import Ultima 3 characters may not have been in the Amiga version of the game.

If you want to send me your chars I'm happy use MCE to resurrect them for you and whatever other changes need to be made and send them back. Or the raw info needed for doing it yourself in a hex editor is at http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/ami-form.txt

The source code I'm referring to is for a program called BTCE (Bard's Tale Character Editor). It checks for at least AmigaOS V3.5, NOT V3.9. The source code says...

/* These libraries are used:
    asl, dos, exec, gadtools, intuition, resource, version

    We are happy with any versions of asl, listbrowser. */

Why do you think this is? What's it trying to do that can't be done under Workbench 3.0?

At the moment, it seems I'll have to send you some copies of my character files to get back into business with this game. However, I'm worried this may not work, depending on whatever else is in the drawer. I copied The A-Team over from somewhere else. I renamed the old drawer OLDMEMBERS and the copied one MEMBERS. What do I need to do to get the game to read them and ignore what's happened before?


 

[AmigaBruno]

BAD NEWS! I've just found out that I have no way of sending you this data through this forum. I think it used to be possible in Personal Messages, but not any more. I've also looked at the options for attachments in the forum posts, but I'd have to send lots of files. Also, the file types I need to send aren't supported on here. It looks like we'd have to exchange email addresses via personal message. I've just checked and it says that my registered email address is one that I stopped using several years ago. I'll try to change that as well.   

[AmigaBruno]

I've just managed to change my email on here. I hope you can see what it is or at least that if you send me a personal message, I've get a copy via email.

[Minuous]

Haha, BTCE is the very earliest predecessor to what eventually became MCE, I wrote both :-D

>What's it trying to do that can't be done under Workbench 3.0?

It uses the ReAction GUI which was not part of OS3.0.

I will send you a PM...

[AmigaBruno]

OK, I've sent you some character files and some party files. I think it's a shame that your software requires AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9. I'd accept any GUI so long as it gets the job done.

[AmigaBruno]

GREAT NEWS! I feel I must let everyone on here know that last night/this morning, using characters edited by Minuous, I managed to have a session playing The Bard's Tale, which I really enjoyed for the first time in my life, instead of getting some characters or even my whole party killed quite quickly. It looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time playing this game, then I'll probably move on from there to the other two games in this trilogy!!

I also think I'll upgrade my Amiga A1200 to AmigaOS 3.9 or the later 3.2, so I can use the software MCE to edit various games. I think the upgrade just involves fitting Kickstart 3.1, as well as inserting a pre installed CF card I can buy from Etsy, since all media with anything recorded onto it has been banned by eBay! 

Thank you Minuous!!