Just a quick drop in to say hi and see how things are going.   I like the effect for missile magog.    It'll be nice to get rid of the rainbow color test particle.  :)   I haven't had a chance to play in 1 1/2 weeks, if I get a chance I'll look at the self targeting stuff and see if anything got changed.   

Keep up the good work!

mqpiffle - Sounds great.   Anytime we can get more spells it is better!   

@ Magog: That looks great, I like the shapes in the emitters, I think it reflects the new painting very well.  My only feedback is the color of the effect; currently it looks white and that has usually been associated with the Air element.  Could you make it more purple to line up with the painting?  Purple also has the advantage of not being strongly typed to any particular book or element other than a general sense of Arcane.

Ok I will try to purplify it.

It is purple already actually but the intensity of the particles makes it look more white.

Here's a more purple one. Not sure what I think... I'll let you guys decide.

I think it looks really nice, I like the interplay of the white core with the purple outside effects. The purple trailers coming out of the back as it flies looks really nice.

My only feedback would be to try and increase the area of purple and relatively shrink the white core in the large ball form of the effect (appears in casters hand and occasionally as it flies).  And only do this if you feel like refining it again, otherwise I will happily integrate this into a beta. 

Great job again!

Thank you. I tried the increasing the purple just as you suggested before I came up with this version, but it didn't look good. The purple is very dark and the effect becomes nothing more than a purple blur.

So lets go with this one. Here's the xml.

Please add this in Murteas_StartingSpells.xml:

        <SpellCastEffectName>Arcane_missile_M7</SpellCastEffectName>
        <SpellCastEffectScale>1</SpellCastEffectScale>
        <SpellCastProjectile>1</SpellCastProjectile>
        <SpellCastProjectileSpeed>800</SpellCastProjectileSpeed>

Howdy,  I am not dead yet, despite any appearance to the contrary.  Bout of nasty illness, business travel, personal projects and loosing interest waiting on 1.3 to drop are all to blame.  But I am back with a beta that includes Magog's awesome new missile graphics.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/1zsrfg8wt65s1of/MG_Beta_A2.zip

Hopefully when 1.2 is released Murteas will come by to update the OP. 

@ Magog_AoW: sorry this took so long, you have done awesome stuff and I apologize for a bout of internet duechiness.  Cheers everyone.

No probs. I've been trying to open up the cauldron to work on some more stuff but I just can't find enough time and motivation.

1.3 might change that.

Yea, I think lots of people's time and motivation is waiting on 1.3.  Hard to get excited working on improving something when you know a better one is coming  soon and might make your work a waste of time.  Less of a worry for your awesome art content, hard to get excited to spend the hours on code. 

X-Com: Enemy Unkown has also entered my life for the first time.  Just as well I did not play it when it was new, otherwise I might not have graduated highschool. 

Had some inspiration. Poor Janusk froze his arse off though.

Looks nice Magog, I like the mix of lines and  drops / flakes in the effect.  Do you think you could thicken up the amount of effect so it looks like there is more precipitation?  Idea is supposed to be bucketing down water to cover everything and everyone in the tile in ice.  I also thought adding some blues as highlights in the particles and lines could bring out the icy feel of it. 

I believe you mean something like this:

Now it fits the water spellbook better.

I wonder if it is possible to mod that effect text into a smaller font. It's driving me nuts...

awesome that looks fantastic!

Thank you!

Here's the final version I think. I took the liberty of darkening the "slippery ice" graphics as well, I hope that is ok with everyone. It looks better when it's not so bright imo.

That looks great Magog!  I really like what you did with matching the color space of the ice tile to the rest of the effect, and that increase in the downpour was exactly what I meant.  This one is done & ready to integrate, just post up the details when you have some time.

Glad you like it.
Here's a zip with all the stuff:

http://www.shell.linux.se/dsk2293/ewom/freezing_rain_and_more.zip

I made some changes to Grasping vines and Sheltering hands.

For those interested, I figured out what "Enable depth bias" does and enabled it for these two effects. This option makes it possible to have effects on the same level as the ground without them being distorted or invisible, something I actually had problems with when I made the Grasping vines... For example, if you cast vines on a tile with a hill, half of the effect would have become invisible (under the hill). With depth bias enabled, the whole effect is shown regardless of the terrain.

still waiting on the release of 1.2 and 1.3 before putting out a new version? or did I miss something lol

@ Magog: Nice work sorting out the "Enable depth bias"; I will try and roll these into a beta and test them out today. 

@EternalRequiem: Murteas is the one who controls the OP, and he had to focus on RL for awhile.  We have been working on effects and other stuff, idea is when he wander back can just update the main thread (likely for 1.2).

hmmm I just thought of spell, I'd love to see more spells that take the elemental shards into affect. Like spells that affect tactical battles but you cast them before hand before going into battle. Like how you cast the spell that gives life to the land if your Kingdom and thus gain a bonus or if you cast the Desolate spell which favors Empire.

Idea here is to make use of the elemental shards you have in possession, a lot of them I've seen don't have many pre-battle affections.

Example: if you have a Water Shard, you gain use of a spell called Torrential Downpour and can affect yes both armies on the field. How many armies have lost or won a battle due to weather? LOTS, far too many to count, the Torrential Downpour could affect a certain number of squares on the field, whether they be your lands, neutral lands or enemy lands. You see an army with siege engines heading towards your territory and want to plan ahead for the attack, so you cast this spell, what it does then is slow the enemy down and also makes them incur a defense penalty because they are bogged down by the rainy and muddy terrain.

It's just an idea but I think it would bring even more tactics into the game if such spells were implemented more.

If you're still having trouble with the Sheltering Hands spell, is there any way to force the target to cast a spell (since casting a spell uses up all of the action points, and all you would need is some sort of dummy spell that does nothing, and your target would not take any actions this turn, and you already have the no action next turn part of it)?

Ok, I've posted the latest beta I could find MG_Beta_A2.zip as version .40 of Murteas_Grimoire in the OP.    If there is a different version that I should be posting let me know.   

Thank you guys for continuing the great work.  I wish I could have had more time to mod and make this even better.   I really haven't dropped the game, I just haven't played any games for about 3 months,  I am hoping to play with 1.2 soon, and or get the 1.3 beta when it comes out.   However, getting the FE beta is much more likely later this month for me.

Unfortunately, no there is no way to force a spell to go off.   You can remove the movement, just not in the same round as the spell is cast.   Hopefully, with the changes in combat for FE, this will be a much more likely possibility.

I seem to recall forcibly moving a target could cause it to lose its remaining AP, you may want to play around some with that.

Interesting...that might be something that I could look at doing.   We would have to change the description of the spell and "justify" the movement somehow.

Have 'Sheltering Hands' grab the champion and drag them back to safety (as in move the champion to an open tile next to the caster, killing two birds with one stone - it protects the champion from attack, and removes them from immediate danger)?