Legends I tips?

[S1500]

To think I met the man who made this game. Heh. He lived a couple miles from me. Knew him when I was a kid, through the TI user group meetings.

 

Yeah, sadly, the wandering monster encounters killed the game for me. That, and once you hit a spot(I think this was Legends II) on the map & go further south, the program just naturally ended.

 

I remember seeing an earlier beta build of Legends II, where the battle screens were different. It showed a magnified monster on the left-middle section.

[Opry99er]

Does anyone have a Classic99-compatible dungeon disk they could post here? I cannot use the one I DLed from the gameshelf in Classic99 for some reason.

[+adamantyr]

Does anyone have a Classic99-compatible dungeon disk they could post here? I cannot use the one I DLed from the gameshelf in Classic99 for some reason.

 

I'm testing out my copies now... by the way, my bad, the dungeon is one screen away from Wizard's Rock. And I had no problem getting there... how WEAK is your party? You're not playing version 1.0, are you?

 

I got to the dungeon, but when it attempted to load the dungeon, it immediately crashed with an error "SUBPROGRAM NOT FOUND IN 3001". This has the looks of an emulation failure; it may have wiped out a machine language subroutine. Tursi, if you're around, can you look at this?

 

Legends for Classic99:

LEGENDS.zip

 

Adamantyr

Edited January 15, 2011 by adamantyr

[Opry99er]

I reveived similar errors... this problem came up with the ToD editor by Asgard. Asgard liked to use direct sector access for reads and writes... something I have had trouble with in emulation.

[+adamantyr]

I reveived similar errors... this problem came up with the ToD editor by Asgard. Asgard liked to use direct sector access for reads and writes... something I have had trouble with in emulation.

 

I know Legends runs fine in MESS, but I've never fully tested it in Classic99. It IS accessing a file before loading the dungeon using a machine language subroutine, so it's possible that's what the problem is.

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Here's the problem I get... It says "entering ruins", and then THIS screen

 

[+adamantyr]

Here's the problem I get... It says "entering ruins", and then THIS screen

 

 

Interesting, I had a failure at a different line... Tursi, if you're around, can you investigate this? This definitely doesn't happen in MESS or on iron.

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Here are the files I'm trying to use... Give this a shot and see what I'm working with. =)

LEGARKS.zip

[Tursi]

Thanks guys.

 

Okay, so I started with the files Owen posted there. Unarc'd inside Classic99 to two (different) empty disk folders. (As I assume they are different games).

 

Made the Leg11 folder into DSK1 (via Classic99.ini) and launched Extended BASIC. I got the Legends 1.1 title screen, then an I/O ERROR 25 in 17990, with the debug saying:

 

Read 0xFE bytes drive 1 file GENERATE (Variable record 65) to >3F02                                                    
Seek past end of file GENERATE                                                                                         
Failed reading max 254 bytes DSK1.GENERATE on drive type FIAD                                                          
Setting file error 5 on file buffer 9

 

Attempting to LIST the program to see what it was trying to do crashed the console.

 

I disabled the auto-LOAD and used OLD to get it into memory so I could see what was going on. It's a Systex file so there wasn't too much I could do there either. However, it seems that GENERATE is a program file, since the last line of the LOAD program is RUN "DSK1.GENERATE".

 

I tried a "OLD DSK1.GENERATE", and I also get the I/O error, so it's probably unrelated to the SysTex code.

 

I loaded TI99Dir to look at the files that Classic99 generated, in particular GENERATE. It seems to indicate a valid header but is definately corrupt. To that end, I opened up the ARC file and used Ti99Dir to extract GENERATE, then viewed it again. This sequence crashed Ti99Dir! So I tried to load the newly created GENERATE file in Classic99 instead, and got the same I/O Error.

 

There may be a Classic99 bug there still, but since I tried extracting the file two different ways, I'm leaning towards a program with Leg11Arc.

 

I then switched the Legends 2.1 folder to Disk1 and re-launched Extended BASIC. It seems there is no LOAD program in here, so I wasn't quite sure what to do! Both LGDN/MON and LGDN/TXT ('/' I am assuming, Classic99 inserted '~' as per normal) look like XB programs. /MON loaded for me but gave a syntax error in 300 (CALL LINK, so CALL INIT never happened). /TXT did the same thing.

 

Then I thought maybe they were all one program, so I copied all the files into the same folder. This did not fix the problem loading GENERATE. (Should have read the whole thread )

 

Lastly, I wiped all the above and tried Adam's zip file. This successfully got the game loaded and started, so I went ahead and left Wizard's Rock. It just keeps sending me into monster fights. Where I tend to die. I'm not sure how to get to the ruins. Maybe a sample from the debug log when it fails would explain it?

[+adamantyr]

Lastly, I wiped all the above and tried Adam's zip file. This successfully got the game loaded and started, so I went ahead and left Wizard's Rock. It just keeps sending me into monster fights. Where I tend to die. I'm not sure how to get to the ruins. Maybe a sample from the debug log when it fails would explain it?

 

Heh, yeah, it's one screen to the left to reach the ruins, but a bit difficult with a low-level party.

 

Here is a zip containing a new PDATA file that should make it MUCH easier. Characters are max level, lots of gold and potions. Drink stealth potions and you're temporarily able to avoid monsters. They wear off unexpectedly, but it should get you to the ruins. Also, these characters are strong enough even with starting gear to not have much trouble with anything on the way.

 

PDATA.zip

 

Adamantyr

Edited January 18, 2011 by adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Tursi, when you get to the dungeon on the first screen to the left, it will prompt you to insert the dungeon diskette. At this point, I inserted DSK2 (Or Leg12 as it is designated in that zip I believe). It starts to load, then gives me some horrible I/O error. It's a bit frustrating, but hey... =) I'll jump through hoops for this one... I even contemplated DLing other emulators. I'll go ahead and tell you that I've tried to install others, and have had ZERO success with them. Win994a LOOKS nice, but getting it to work is a bi*ch.

 

I also tried the ToD Editor on the new version of Classic99 with no success... It kicks out the same kinds of I/O errors. That problem is most decidedly a sector-access thing... and I don't believe it's possible in the current version of Classic99. Unless I have a corrupted disk.... That's one I've wanted to use on Classic99 for a LONG while... but can't seem to ever get it going. Guess it'll be a hardware-only tool for me. Which is okay. =) ToD work SHOULD be done on real iron

 

 

[S1500]

What's weird with the pirated version of the ToD editor on the real hardware was that it locked up on first bootup, do a soft-reset, boot it up again(xb autoload) then it DID work.

[Tursi]

Owen, how are you inserting disks? Classic99 doesn't let you switch disks on the fly (ie: editting the Classic99.ini while it is running does not reload the configuration). I have both disks copied into one folder from Adamantyr's zip and see no issues with that.

 

Okay, with this file I made it to the ruins (once I figured out they were the skull and crossbones! ) And I got the SUBPROGRAM NOT FOUND error. It's trying to load LGDN/TXT and failing to find it - this is the filename munging issue. I put in workaround code to try and deal with it, but apparently it's not doing the trick here. Remember that Classic99 doesn't like the V9T9 name munging system. Rename LGDN@MON and LGDN@TXT to LGDN~MON and LGDN~TXT.

 

I've checked the code and it doesn't account for this particular filename replacement. According to the documentation I have, V9T9 should change a forward slash (/) character 47 to overline (¯) character 175 (OR-ing 0x80 into the value). The at-sign (@) character 64 is a legal TI character in its own regard, I wonder whether it is a translation error of some sort? Can you check your original files and/or other emulation files?

 

I tried the overline characters, but it did not work. It is possible that Windows used a unicode encoding rather than the old DOS one. Tilde worked. So, with that in mind, rename them with tildes (correct for Classic99). This is the primary reason I am trying to discourage use of V9T9 files going forward. But if it turns out to be correct somehow, I will put some thought into fuzzy filename matching and checking headers.

 

I know this filename munging is confusing, but the old V9T9 method of doing it is just not appropriate for modern filesystems. Classic99 treats the tilde as a wildcard for that reason, to provide backwards compatibility with programs that expect to use those characters while still being legal on all filesystems. The best way to deal with it is to let Classic99 create the files (ie: extract from ARC files -- but this doesn't help when the ARC file itself is corrupt, as appears to be the case with Owen's files.)

 

The alternative requires Classic99 to enumerate the folder and map any V9T9 headers to existing files - it can be done but I don't like it much. (And the final alternative is disk images, which I do recognize I need to support.) Anyway, drop these files into the complete folder that Adamantyr provided, and it all works fine (all I have done is rename them on the disk).

 

LEG21Renames.zip

 

I think I've already investigates the TOD Editor and there's nothing to be done there till disk image support is in.

[+adamantyr]

Owen, how are you inserting disks? Classic99 doesn't let you switch disks on the fly (ie: editting the Classic99.ini while it is running does not reload the configuration). I have both disks copied into one folder from Adamantyr's zip and see no issues with that.

 

Okay, with this file I made it to the ruins (once I figured out they were the skull and crossbones! ) And I got the SUBPROGRAM NOT FOUND error. It's trying to load LGDN/TXT and failing to find it - this is the filename munging issue. I put in workaround code to try and deal with it, but apparently it's not doing the trick here. Remember that Classic99 doesn't like the V9T9 name munging system. Rename LGDN@MON and LGDN@TXT to LGDN~MON and LGDN~TXT.

 

AH HA! I remember running into this before! And yes, that is the problem. The forward slash is an illegal character to use for filenames on the PC because they're used for folder separators.

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

What I usually do is just have my Classic99 folder pulled up--/ change the names of the disks... For instance, in this case, when it prompts me to switch disks, I simply rename DSK1 something else like @DSK1. Then I took DSK2 (the dungeon disk) and re-named it DSK1. Then hit "enter."

 

It works---- brilliantly, I might add--- I've done this hundreds of times while working on games and such.

[+adamantyr]

What I usually do is just have my Classic99 folder pulled up--/ change the names of the disks... For instance, in this case, when it prompts me to switch disks, I simply rename DSK1 something else like @DSK1. Then I took DSK2 (the dungeon disk) and re-named it DSK1. Then hit "enter."

 

It works---- brilliantly, I might add--- I've done this hundreds of times while working on games and such.

 

For Legends, you can just copy all the files into a single disk folder. They even say this in the instruction manual, that you can copy the whole thing to a single disk if you had 180k or 360k drives, or all to a single RAMdisk.

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Yea, I mentioned that in post #23... I just didn't want to do it because I KNEW my gamedisk was good, but was unsure about the dungeon diskette. With the Classic99 file folder pulled up, it's easy to change the config by just re-naming the actual DSK folders, thereby eliminating the need to have all the files in one spot. Once I get a working set of disks in Classic99, I will be combining them into one and saving it. =)

[+adamantyr]

Yea, I mentioned that in post #23... I just didn't want to do it because I KNEW my gamedisk was good, but was unsure about the dungeon diskette. With the Classic99 file folder pulled up, it's easy to change the config by just re-naming the actual DSK folders, thereby eliminating the need to have all the files in one spot. Once I get a working set of disks in Classic99, I will be combining them into one and saving it. =)

 

Err... posts #28 and #38 have all the pieces you need?

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

I'll be giving that a shot here in a few. Thanks for all your help guys. With any luck, I'll be tearing a** through Edonland in no time!!!

[Tursi]

What I usually do is just have my Classic99 folder pulled up--/ change the names of the disks... For instance, in this case, when it prompts me to switch disks, I simply rename DSK1 something else like @DSK1. Then I took DSK2 (the dungeon disk) and re-named it DSK1. Then hit "enter."

 

It works---- brilliantly, I might add--- I've done this hundreds of times while working on games and such.

 

Yeah, that won't do any harm. Classic99 doesn't make any effort to track the file system so you are free to change it underneath it as long as no files are open. (And in truth files are only open during the opcodes OPEN, CLOSE, LOAD and SAVE - they are otherwise cached). I do this myself sometimes for testing (just never thought about doing it during gaming!)

[+adamantyr]

I'll be giving that a shot here in a few. Thanks for all your help guys. With any luck, I'll be tearing a** through Edonland in no time!!!

 

While I was creating a high-level party for Tursi's debugging efforts, I did notice a few things that are useful to know:

 

1) Never NEVER take the first set of statistics you roll up. It's a random system and each class has their own variant range for each attribute

2) Charisma affects how much it costs to train in a BIG way. A score of 9 here will cost you a fortune later

3) Gold and assets are party-based, and remain even with a brand-new party

4) You'll probably run out of gold before you run out of experience; only a few monsters have high gold return for XP

5) This game is all about grinding levels old-school fashion. If you dislike this kind of gaming, just cheat to get your characters up high enough level and go exploring

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Here's the PDF of the manuals for this game. It has the "Magic" book, the standard game-manual, and the addendum. If anyone wants to play this game, you'll need the manuals for understanding how to cast magics, understanding classes, etc.

 

Click this link to begin automatic download:

 

http://www.opry99er.com/resources/Legends.zip

[Opry99er]

 

 

Works GREAT. Thanks alot for your help, guys... And Adam... your party is pretty wicked. =) Mine's nowhere near that strong... I blew through some battles and had plenty of HP left over. I think I'll be spending some time on this game tonight. =)

 

 

[+adamantyr]

Works GREAT. Thanks alot for your help, guys... And Adam... your party is pretty wicked. =) Mine's nowhere near that strong... I blew through some battles and had plenty of HP left over. I think I'll be spending some time on this game tonight. =)

 

You mean the stock party that's level 1, right? You didn't use the PDATA file I had above that has them all at level 15?

 

Adamantyr

[Opry99er]

Yea, your level 1 party. They're much stronger than my Level 1 party... and it's FAIR... =) I won't be invincible. Thanks... I think I might try your wicked party later, but only to see how ridiculous it is. =) Thanks man.