perk points would primarely be used for alocating them into your stats, or buying ability captsules, cause nearly 95 % of the rpgs in the world has some sort of perk point

@Fred, I see what you mean now. I actually had a system like this in mind when I coded the new reward system currently in Sable which now allows you to reward abilities to players. I wrote the code so that it could also be used in other places  to give other ways of players gaining new abilities. Although I never added it, one of my reasons for merging the merchant and Npc objects into one and giving the creator the  option to set trade was  so that I could add further trades to NPC’s in the future. One of the trades I wanted to add would be a trainer who could teach the player new skills. Since its not something we’re using in Crimson the idea just got pushed onto my future ideas list, but since it just uses a combination of the existing NPC code and the current ability reward code it wouldn’t be difficult to add in. One of the other reasons it didn’t go in was that I would need to add a perk system, so players could earn points to learn new abilities, as at present the code only allows them to be learnt by levelling up, being rewarded or purchased, but I think allowing creators to specify how many perk points (or whatever the user wants to call them) are earnt per level would be fairly straight forward too. So its another  thing on my future possible additions list, I agree it’s a good idea and there is usually some type of mechanic like this in most RPG’s.
@Brian, really pleased to hear you liked all the additions in the change log, although it  took me longer to get the latest update done, I’m pleased with all the additions and think status affect   usage, creation and editing process all feel slightly more polished now. I started work testing abilities today and that’s going a  lot faster as there’s a little less work/polish needed here , so hopefully the next change log won’t take quite as long for me to put  it out.

Paul Lemm

@fred, thanks for the kind words, its great to see people still so excited about Sable, I know I’ve said it before here, but its peoples excitement about the project that keeps me motivated and up into the early hours of the morning sometimes coding away at Sable   As for demos, we haven’t made any definitive decision on that just yet, nearer to release we’ll be able to confirm more details around things like this.  although i can't confirm when it will happen, i do know that we plan to release some short video  showing off Crimson eclipse before it is released.

Paul Lemm

Hey Paul!!

Thank you for the changelog. Again, this is awesome! I cant wait for the game and the Sable.

a few more sugestions
1, when people buy sable, they should get a registration key, registered with your online servers, to make it as secure as possible
one thing, however, the key given should be able to be used on 3 devices, like, really, forexample, if this were added, I'd probably have one device registered so I could use it at home and one for scoole, so I could continue on my project in breaks, as I am pritty antysoceal
2, it would be nice if sable got a feature that devs could toggle so their projects could have multyclassing, as that really is a cool aspect

you need to add a way for people to download other peoples project if thats not implimented yet, perhaps a projects downloader?

@Brian, pleased you liked the rewarding abilities option. Threeblacknoises is to thank for that, since it was an idea he came up with. Although it didn’t get added to Sable until the Alpha, its been in there for a while now. I think in the video I posted in December, when I’m going through all the new speech options with the first NPC I create, I briefly show off rewarding options, although I don’t set an ability  reward you see the option in there.
@dragons, thanks as ever for the continued support, pleased to hear you liked all the additions in the change log we posted earlier this week.
@fred, I’ll answer your questions below, as Brian said though most of what you Aare asking for is more likely to be stuff for gen 2. I’m currently doing a final play through of the prototype and then going to take a little break whilst the game design team work on Crimson Eclipse, so I’m not really at this stage looking to add more features to the prototype. although there are a few additions I’d like to add before its release, most major changes will probably be more likely to appear in generation 2. Although I could keep constantly adding new features to the prototype, it would just push the eventual release date further and further back, plus I’ll never actually get started on gen 2 anyway, answers to your specific questions below:
1.    Enemies speaking something when they reach a certain HP. Recently various posts have suggested stuff similar to this,  where an enemy would do something based on certain criteria, or actions. As mentioned, I’d like to add more advanced  battle systems into generation 2, including a trigger  type counter system , where the creator can specify specific actions/trigger points where the enemy would perform a specific action, or group of actions, following certain triggers. It’s a really good idea and would add lots of flexibility, but its outside of the scope of the prototype, so sadly this would definitely be a feature better suited to gen 2
2.    A building exploding when you get close: you could simply add this in from a storyline/game  or sound design standpoint. If its going to explode when you get near, technically it doesn’t ever have to be there in the first place (since it’s going to explode before you get there. So, You just set the scene through audio queues or cut scenes to imply to the player that there is a building in front of them, . as you get close, you have an invisible event trigger which causes an explosion  with sounds of a building crashing down in some cut scene, as the player moves forward they then encounter all the rubble, making it seem like the building exploded. This is  definitely an Advantage of coding an audio game  instead of a graphical game,  as with clever game and sound design you can make your player feel they are experiencing something , even if that’s not really what’s actually happening, even graphical games do this to a degree, this is part of the art of game design. Take the  video I created where I made a pit  which the player had to swing over using a whip, the end result in the play through video made it seem exactly as if the player was swinging over the pit Indiana style   but in reality as you saw  in the making of the video it’s in fact actually something totally different happening. This is where careful sound and game design become really important as a game designer and where some out of the box thinking can really add to the projects that people create. An alternative , is there  is an event trigger which can change terrain types, although you couldn’t do it on  an actual building, there are ways  (again with a little out of the box thinking) you could achieve this, by for example  creating a blank object the size of a building, then manually adding in walls and other terrains and sounds to make it seem like a building. You then set an event trigger somewhere which triggers an explosion cut scene and at the same time alters all the tiles to rubble, making it seem like the building suddenly explodes, allowing the player to walk through debris where the building previously was.
3.    Allow creators to set exp progression. I did add an option which allows creators to specify stat progression style for each class, based on some pre-existing  stat progression types. My intention was always to extend this to allow users to create their own stat progression styles and exp growth. Again though, this might end up being more of a gen two thing.
4.    Online activation. I don’t want to get into specifics about security at this stage, but I can confirm we already have an online activation system. its not the one we used for the alpha, as we’ve moved over to a more secure  solution.
5.    Sadly multi classing almost definitely won’t make it into the prototype
6.    Downloading other peoples projects, As dan pointed out, this isn’t the type of thing Sable has been designed for, it’s been specifically created for people to create their own stand alone RPG’s. I want to avoid getting into specifics about distribution at this stage though, since it’s too early to confirm anything like that before we have even released our first game title  and seen how successful that has been.
Hope that answers all the questions, sorry that so many of them have the ‘probably a gen 2 answer’, but I think its important to remember this first version is just the prototype, a proof of concept if you like, so we could find out if the community wants a set of tools like sable, if it’s successful  then I can go on to  make something bigger and better, with more advanced features and flexibility

Paul Lemm

Morning Brian, sadly due to how I have class’s set up in the prototype, multiclassing  just isn’t possible. One of the advantages of writing a prototype is you learn a ton of ways not to due things in the future (and I’ve learnt a ton of those hahaha), there are lots of things like this in the current version  where I could have coded it in a more flexible style to allow more customisation. As mentioned though this is really my first full coding project, so its been a huge learning experience for me. The issue is that abilities are currently directly linked with class’s, not players, therefore although I could add an event trigger to change class mid game, this would mean the player would lose all their currently learnt abilities, not to mention their stat progression would be all wrong, as say you wanted to change a mage to a warrior , they wouldn’t have any stamina and very little strength. The other issue is its currently hard coded to only allow one class per party member, although I could go in and amend the code to allow two class’s, it would be a huge job, as would need changing in so many places  throughout the code, due to how ingrained the current class system is into the current code base, ultimately based on the amount of work and hours it would take, I just don’t think it would be worth it for the prototype, since it’s probably quicker to code in from the ground up, rather than trying to jimmy it into code  which wasn’t ever built for that purpose. All that being said, you could still  use your previous suggestion to create a kind of multiclass  in your project, if I end up adding in the previously mentioned NPC trade  to create trainers, you could as you mentioned just have class’s purchase/learn new abilities which would usually be outside the scope of what their class would naturally learn, therefore creating a very basic type of multiclassing. I appreciate that this isn’t by any means a substitute for actual multiclassing, but I think your suggestion does at least give a possible solution using current prototype features, it’s a great example of what I was talking about in my previous post about the art of game design and that how thinking outside the box can really extend what you can do with a tool like Sable and some of the possibilities you can create.

Paul Lemm

Hi, just chucking out a potential idea that might be interesting for a possible sable version 2. Would you think that a system for modifying gear would be something that could fit in with a second iteration of Sable? In the prototype, there are already items which can change the player’s stats, so what if you could have it so you could create items which could modify armor or weapons, like increasing damage and things of that nature. May be you could create items, like bayonets or rail mounted grenade launchers, which could provide the player with new abilities when installed onto a weapon. I just think that a system like this would make combat loadouts a bit more tactical, cause you could just modify any weapon how you like it, and even turn your starting weapon into something you could take along in even late game stages.

Sorry for the double post, @Samuel, sorry your post  came through just after I’d sent my previous reply. It’s definitely a good idea and I’ll add it to my possible future additions list for gen two, as I definitely want to add more advance battle mechanics to add more strategy to games, specifically into battling.

Paul Lemm

Certainly. You could have someone work on music, another on sound effects and maybe someone to help with story.