Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

The frames and JS don't work in Mozilla 1.5 for some reason, but do work in IE 5.5 (my 'old' browser). It's not that they are 'broken' but that they don't appear at all! No frames. Just blank space. This is a puzzle, since it's Mozilla which is 'standards compliant' while IE has all sorts of quirks. But then... nearly everyone has learned to use the IE style quirks so maybe that's why Mozilla can't understand the code. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit:

Actually, it doesn't work in IE either. All I get is that title graphic that Primitive is so impressed with. The navigation bar doesn't update to show the chapters so you can't access them.

[ March 14, 2004, 01:35: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

I can't get any of the multi-page stories to load. The javascript loads the summary page, but none of the chapters will load. I have IE 6.0 and have tried full permission for all JS, and still no dice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif And I'd looked forward to this update for a long time, too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

I was getting script errors whenever I tried to click into one of the chapters; permission denied for something.

After switching browsers back and forth and lots of reloading and random clicking, it suddenly started working.

Great new chapters!

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

dammit... i see what you all mean... sometimes you click on a chapter number and it works, sometimes it throws an error at you.
EDIT: Strangely, it seems to work pretty reliably if you play around with the quote-o-matic first. Click a few new quotes until you get one that refers to O&C, then click the link in the quote. The chapters will all be available.

I've no idea why this should be. I'll try to get it all fixed.

And Primitive, thanks. It was originally an entry for Fyron's image contest but then SE.net went down for a while and the contest never came back up, so I decided to reuse it here. I'm not sure we'll ever get to see that scene in this story, but it looks pretty cool=-)

[ March 14, 2004, 13:11: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

*BUMP* Just for all you ppl who don't log on over the weeked.

A new chapter of O&C is now available on my new website - http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction.
I've also rehashed some of the more recent chapters and expanded them, so I recommend re-reading from at least chapter 23. There'a a neat new "Story so far" feature to help you recap.

Comments about the site, the story or anything else in this thread, please. I hope to start work on Chapter 27 today. Hopefully I can start being productive again with this story, for a while at least.

EDIT: Puke- I think I know what "grey patches" you are talking about- it's down to "dirty" jpegs- the price we pay for high compression I'm afraid. Maybe I can improve them, but right now I'm afraid to touch anything=-)

[ March 15, 2004, 09:02: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Hooray! I seemd to have fixed the problem. Not sure how- I just deleted everything off the ftp site and then copied it all back up- but the chapter listings and the Courier stories now seem to be working fine. Wierd.

Enjoy, everyone=-)

That URL again:
http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction/

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

no, its not dirty jpegs. its the background screen color. my desktop is black and my default background window color is light gray. this reduces contrast and makes my screen easier to stare at for hours on end. in fact, all my windown colors are 'muted' to make it easier on the eyes.

I have little rectangles of background color inbetween "change" and "Othaglor&Cane", between "A Texrak Tale" and "Influences" and another larger grey rectangle from below "influences" to the bottom of the left hand bar. its because you set the background color to white on the rest of the screen, but not on that lefthand bar.

I see what you mean about the compression artifacts on the JPEGS. it is not those that I am talking about. Set your own background window color (the color that you want to appear in text boxes and explorer windows and such to a light grey (or any other color besides white) and you will see exactly what I mean.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It still doesn't work in Mozilla. The story buttons are just graphics on the page, there is no 'clickable' link behind them.

But at least it does now work in IE. I had checked the JS error Last night and it said 'access denied' so I guess there was some permission problem with JS versus a simple HTML connect. I manually typed the file names reported and read the chapters Last night, though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif At least for future chapters I can now just load-up IE to read them.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Puke: I'll sort that tomorrow, should be simple enough. two words in the stylesheet should do it.

Baron: I'll see what I can do, I should be able to fish out a couple of decent web resources on cross-browser compatibility. Bear in mind though that it's something of a miracle that it works as far as it does, given that (a) This is the project I used to teach myself javascript and css from scratch (b) I approached it without any kind of planning other than "that would be cool" and (c) like every other kind of code I produce, it's wierd, kludgy, eccentric and probably about 3 times bigger than it needs to be. (But it's mine) But yeah, I'll see what I can do. Maybe I'll even try browser testing it myself rather than waiting for you to do it=-)

Anyway, now the site is fully functional in at least one browser, do you guys have any comments on the content as opposed to the container?

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

It doesn't work either with Firefox 1.7 (former Firebird, so based on Mozilla and one of the latest Version around), but the mothballed IE 5 or 6 (the one who ships with Windows XP) works fine. I think Mozilla handles layers in another way than IE, so it might be the cause of the problem as clicking on the buttons doesn't do anything.

As for the stories, I have just started reading Othaglot and Cane, and I do enjoy the read so far. Not much more to say for now, as I have only finished the first two chapters.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Hell we should all get together and start our own sci-fi book publishing company.

Book for the fans written by fans. Include fan fiction from many games, both sci-fi and other.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

we'd have to get permission from the owners of those universe's.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Owners of those universes... Man I'd like to own a universe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Be a ***** to redecorate though, and as for the heating bills.

In theory, puke's complaint should now be fixed. Now for the difficult bit...

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Just Downloaded Opera 7. Damn, when did Opera go from being a neat, tidy little browser with a few cool features to a cluttered, confusing unusable monstrosity?

BTW, my page doesn't seem to work in Opera either. This is ridiculous. What's the point in having standards if the different browsers won't honour them?

I'm sure Microsoft's to blame somehow.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Dogscoff, I just took a quick look around with Opera and had no problems whatsoever with your site.

[edit] Oops, I take that back. The fiction page isn't showing any titles.

What software are you using to create the pages? I've heard that some programs put a lot of unnecessary junk in the code.

[ March 16, 2004, 17:47: Message edited by: capnq ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IE doesn't impliment the standards ussually. Since its also the most popular browswer, most sites code for it instead of the standard.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Well, today I discovered that the links in the 'quote-o-matic' actually work in Mozilla. They didn't before. So one more thing has been fixed. But the buttons that are supposed to give main entry into the story still don't work, nor does the list of chapters appear when you get into a chapter using a link from the 'quote-o-matic'.

The content seems pretty good. It's been so long since I read the previous few chapters that it's hard to compare them to the revised stuff. I don't remember the old Version clearly anymore. But there is a sense of a new direction in this material and that's good since the story seemed to be petering out before. Changing the tone of the story at this point is actually a good move. Othaglot is moving into a completely different world now.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IE doesn't impliment the standards ussually. Since its also the most popular browswer, most sites code for it instead of the standard. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If the most popular browser and most websites don't use the "standard", it doesn't really fit the definition of a standard does it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

standards? peh. how long have you all been working with technology? of any sort? standards are always a long and painfull process, and firm ones take ages to congeal into anything truely standard. by and large, standards are defacto rather than whatever cutesy bullpoo standards committees come up with. no matter how good the paper standard might look or be.

anyway, the problem i reported is fixed. I have also noticed that I get a white space on the left verticle pipe when i click on the change quote button. it stays until i roll the cursor off of the button. seems to be a one cell gap that is created as the image expands and then contracts.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Notepad.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, they weren't working too well in IE either. Most were OK, but it turned out that by copy/ pasting text from the main page, I was including "" marks that weren't part of the standard charset, and somehow that was stuffing up the hrefs on a minority of the quotes. I think I got them all fixed now.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I just don't get that. The code that generates those buttons is pretty quirky, but it doesn't use anything contraversial as far as I can tell.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The chapter list thing is probably down to my use of the "innerText" property, which was invented by MS and shunned by everyone else. However, I have yet to find an alternative: If you're dynamically creating a link that in html would look like this: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">&lt;A Href=&quot;X&quot; ALT=&quot;Y&quot;&gt;Z&lt;/A&gt; </pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">then adding X and Y is easy using the DOM- you create the A element, attach it to a parent node and then use something like element.href="X", and element.alt="Y" to fill in those properties.
Unfortunately there appears to be no way to put the Z in there without using MS's innerText. I could easily attach a gif or something, but that pretty much defeats the whole object of an easily maintained, dynamically generated list that can be restyled using css.
If anyone can come up with a more widely-accepted alternative to innerText, I'll gladly make the changes.

Remember that all my knowledge of javascript is self-taught from various tutorials on the web. I have no books, tutors or universal references to go to for help. The answer's probably there, but I just can't find it- all these tutorials are so keen to tell you how to dynamically create a link with an image that no-one ever tells you how to create one with just text.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is what I was afraid of. It's a pretty complex plot (or at least, there's a lot of stuff to remember) and I haven't done anyone any favours by taking so damn long to update it. That was the idea behind the story summaries. If you're really feeling lost, plot wise, and you don't have time to re-read the entire story it will only take a few minutes to skim through all the "story so far" chapter summaries. That should be enough to bring all the pertinent bits back to your memory.

[ March 24, 2004, 09:17: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Good news: I have the next two chapters written.

Bad news: I haven't uploaded them yet, they are still being proofed, polished and padded. Hoping to upload before Saturday.

Good news: If you go to my website and the O&C main page, you'll see that I've uploaded a couple of maps you may find interesting.

Bad news: The site still isn't working in mozilla, opera, firefox or netscape.

Good news: It works beautifully in Internet Explorer, so come on everyone, take a look!

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

ROTFLMAO @ http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/propresp.htm

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Ah yes, the mighty Texrak battlecow. Those aren't guns, you know, they're mustard dispensers. Download the proportional response pack and you can rotflyao every time you invade their puny pink homeworld.

Awww, but you gotta feel sorry for them, don't ya? Have you read A Texrak Tale ?

[ March 24, 2004, 10:12: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Texrak Tale is one of my favorite shorts. Great job on that one.

I had not seen the battle cow before, thats great.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But you've got the guns pointing in the wrong direction. Shouldn't they be oriented properly for use in the usual tactic of Texrak troops? Aren't the Texrak related to the Pierson's Puppeteer? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 24, 2004, 18:09: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Just a quick *bump* for all you US ppl coming Online now who might have missed the minor update a few Posts down: Maps to support the O&C story have been uploaded to my fiction site.

http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ROFL!

[ March 26, 2004, 12:45: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Chapter 27 is up at http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction! I know I promised it Last week (or the week before..? I lose track) but it needed a lot of rewriting and I got very distracted by Slashem. Also, the site is still not working in non-IE browsers. Sorry.

Anyway, here it is. Not much plot this chapter- more sightseeing really, but believe me the next chapter will be extremely plot-heavy. Many of the big questions still outstanding will be answered in chapter 28 and by the end of it people should (finally) have enough information to start making reasonable guesses as to what the hell is going on and what everyone is up to. Assuming you can remember what the hell was going on back in chapter 2, anyway.

Therefore if you have been thinking of re-reading from the start, I strongly suggest you do so soon, Chap28 is mostly written and could be released in a matter of days.
However if you have not been thinking of re-reading from the start, I strongly suggest you do so soon, Chap28 is mostly written and could be released in a matter of days. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
If, on the other hand, you haven't read any of the story yet, I strongly suggest you do so. Read it all, now!

Everyone got that?

Comments, suggestions, criticism, typoes & praise are all welcome here, as always.

http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

ooo, time to re-read.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Uh-oh, someone's actually re-reading. I'd better get chapter 28 finsihed, sharpish...

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ROFL! </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I wish to purhase the movie rights. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm... I like that idea. I suggest we save money on casting by having you guys act most of the parts, then we can splash out and have a few big name stars to fill in the female roles=-)

-Cane: Atrocities would be perfect
-Othaglot: State of the art CGI, voiced by Geo.
-Enyemin Cane: Mac and Growltigga can fight over this role. The loser gets their legs amputated for the role of Captain Frasier.
-Loorl: More CGI, but voiced by Rollo.
-Loorl's Vikings: More CGI, all of them voiced by Narf.
-Sloo: Milla Jojovich sprayed purple. She might look a bit odd compared to the state of the art CGI on all the other Cappans, and she'd actually be far better as Chell, but it's Sloo that gets the shower scene=-)
-Actually, if Sloo is played by Milla Jojovich, I'm playing alongside her as Cane. Sorry Geo. ;-)
-Amda Blaze-Stout: Hmm, tricky, this one. has to be someone quite powerfully built and with real authority & presence. Kind of like a female Patrick Stewart. Most popular actresses seem to be too wet and girly imho. If Whoopee Goldberg was taller, she'd do.
-Dr Singh: Phoenix-D
-Dr Ollaroo: Voiced by CapnQ
-Commander Lock: S_J
-Erik the Shed: Puke
-Stevv: Krsqk
-Wolf & Ve: Rags & Timstone.
-Director: Baron M

Did I miss anyone? We still have plenty of parts open: Glooloosl (Gla boss), the security team on the mining colony, Othaglot's colleague from the homeworld police force, Cappa Loog, the 6 Orros from the cargo container, Wilm (murdered on the marilyn before he gets a line), Cracktooth the barman, the gun-dealer (be aware that this part requires nudity), the bouncer at the Atlanti (next chapter, be aware that this part requires surgery), Olric (be aware that this part requires decapitation), various nameless crew members on the Endeavour & Marilyn, a Sergetti waiter and Tor Hammer (both next chapter) and, of course, about a million drunken vikings, city dwellers and bystanders...

[ April 07, 2004, 16:00: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

shameless **bump**

Come on guys, that makes 3 Posts in a row in my own thread. Help me out here...

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Chapter 28 is up. Last chance; If you have been thinking about re-reading from the start, I advise you do so now. This chpater refers back to a lot of stuff that happened a while ago and answers many of the questions that have been hanging about for a long long time.

of course in doing so it opens up a whole bunch of new questions, but you expected that, right?

http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

good stuff, I can't wait for more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I was happy to see the Bifrost Lodge a few chapters back. When will we see Madame Oogle's Tentacle House? (perhaps in one of the courier stories).

about the movie: Milla is an excellent choice, but I demand some changes to the plot. Loorl needs some scenes with Sloo then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif . And I want to do the motion capture also http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Very interesting but it doesn't answer all of our questions yet. Sloo is not confirmed dead. The ultimate 'Oh ****!' moment is still lurking out there if she should turn up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Also, the Vikings on earth must be a rather large organization, and operated like an intelligence agency, if he could have known so much about Sloo while never having met her. That makes them an organized crime syndicate similar to the Mafia. Wouldn't they have attracted more attention from law agencies if they were that dangerous? And don't they have rivals?

[ April 09, 2004, 16:54: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or a power-hungry freemason's society of the future... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh, just you wait.
*dogscoff supresses an evil chuckle.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">She was a member of Jormungund's Earth Chapter, which Hammer used to run. Then he handed it over to his second in command and came to found the PLenty chapter. Presumably he kept up with current events in his other chapter. This is all in chapter 25 (?) The one with Othaglot's briefing from Cane Sr.
I hinted, but perhaps didn't specify in this latest chapter that she was the one to provide information about the Cue Cappan technology and how it could advance the mysterious project Asgrd. That alone would be enough for him to become aware of her.

Anyone got any guesses as to the nature of project Asgard? THere are plenty of clues in there, especially if you were to go back to some of the earlier chapters...

[ April 10, 2004, 08:47: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

I'd say the nature of "Project Asgard' is fairly obvious even without the clues. The name gives it away. Asgard is the home of the Norse gods. This guy is plainly a megalomaniac who wants to found his own empire. The details remain to be revealed, so I can't guess if he plans to over-thrown the whole 'Terran' government structure and rule all of the human-inhabited planets, or if he just wants to carve out a smaller domain for himself. Maybe a nice remote planet like Plenty could be taken and held more easily, especially with outside help, than taking on the whole Terran navy?

The next question, of course, is how straight would his 'foreign' allies be playing? I suppose the 'Puppet Political Parties' intel project shows us that sometimes a government will support an independence movement just to screw with another government. (Amusing thought -- this whole story is about a PPP intel project... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) But in the real world a revolution is just as often sponsored as a way to open the door to intervention. I'd expect to see a Sallegan and/or Sergetti invasion fleet before this thing winds up.

[ April 11, 2004, 00:26: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Oops, I forget to mention that while speculation is welcome, I will not be confirming or denying anything anyone guesses.

Still, whether he's right or not, Baron M is clearly paying attention. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Good story. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Thanks At, I really respect your opinion.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

think he's founding a p&n empire?

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

I just reread all 28 chapters, and I've got to say, fabulous job, Dogscoff. Can't wait till the next one.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Chapter 29 is up. Might need to come back and rework it a little, but it'll do for now.

http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Got any information about revising your javascript yet? I don't like having to load Internet Exploiter just to read your story. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Not yet. I had a quick look a while back but couldn't find any useful links.

After that I figured you'd rather I spent my time writing O&C than writing javascript http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

But I will get back to it one of these days, I just don't really know where to start.

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

Why not just post the story in a non-java form on the website as well with a link for those that wish to read it that way?

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

OK, I've tweaked the java to (hopefully) make it a little more compatible with other browsers. Any testing by you folks would be appreciated.
EDIT: No change under Opera 7 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Geo: I could, but that's just more work for me, and you know how lazy I am=-) Seriously, the whole point of this new design is that it's a lot easier for me to maintain (Ha!) and it generates a lot of stuff automatically, thus eliminating many of the errors that would creep in if I were doing it manually. It also seems kind of counter-productive...

In other news: I'm currently well into Chapter 30, but I'm kind of writing it alongside 31 and and 32 (A bit like filming the LotR films=-). Hopefully I'll be able to release at least one chapter in the next 7 or 8 days.

[ May 27, 2004, 09:17: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
 

After looking at the source I'd say the first thing you have to do is provide proper references for the source files. ../general_functions.js is not gonna cut it with any decent security model. Give the full http: URL for the files. I still can't even load your fancy menu in Mozilla and I suspect that's why. Once I can actually load it we'll see if it works.