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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Scotty

NP: Wednesday January 25, 2017

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4 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Kitty's sleeves are expanding to accommodate her arms in the next part of the transformation.

That step will commence when she eats spinach.

Nah, the ends of her sleeves are going to become oversized kitty paws, her hood will be up of its own accord, and only her (glowing) eyes and a grin will be visible.  

Rhoda obviously plays BlazBlue and is turning Kitty into Taokaka.  

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12 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

...and a spellbook.

Where would she get the spellbook from?  Would she want Tedd's dad, and thus the DGB, to know about her abilities?  What we really need is for an Immortal to hand out a big stack of spellbooks.....Rhoda, Justin, hopefully eventually Sarah and Catalina, maybe a special one for Tedd or maybe he doesn't need one....

Although, in my head canon, Justin discovers a book on his shelf disguised as an elaborate third-party supplement for a gaming system he's not all that fond of, and it turns out Pandora had already linked a spellbook to him and just didn't tell him.  Whether he finds it by accident, or Ed tries to link a spellbook to him and discovers he's already got one, leading to a search for it, is up to the reader/writer.  :-)

11 hours ago, Scotty said:

Because Kitty needs to be seen beyond "Escape from the Mall".

I'm picturing her showing up at, say, school (college?) with genuine cat ears and tail. and her classmates all just assuming she got more elaborate fakes than her current sweatshirt.

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Just now, CritterKeeper said:

I'm picturing her showing up at, say, school (college?) with genuine cat ears and tail. and her classmates all just assuming she got more elaborate fakes than her current sweatshirt.

If Pandora did mark her despite her frustration at name based affinity, what are the chances of Kitty being one of Luke's friends?

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9 minutes ago, Sweveham said:

I like that Rhoda is too nice to even make Kitty trip and fall. There is something touching and cute about that.

I said she was an effective combat mage, which doesn't always mean damage causing.  Unlike Nanase who doesn't seem to have any non damage causing spells she can use.

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I said she was an effective combat mage, which doesn't always mean damage causing.  Unlike Nanase who doesn't seem to have any non damage causing spells she can use.

Depends on application. She could make her clone of herself and tell it to immobilise someone with a grapple or hold, for example.

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17 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I said she was an effective combat mage, which doesn't always mean damage causing.  Unlike Nanase who doesn't seem to have any non damage causing spells she can use.

Depends on application. She could make her clone of herself and tell it to immobilise someone with a grapple or hold, for example.

Nanase's colour clone spell can also be used as a distraction. Aside from her fairy's fae punch and Fox, she doesn't seem to have any other offensive spells that I can recall. She has illusion based spells which the colour clones are part off, several disguise/stealth based spells. Fox is considered a multipurpose spell really, she does have offensive value in that she can fight like Nanase, but she can also be used as a distraction or to mislead someone.

Using the fairy in a situation like this would be risky, first, Nanase would have to get out of line of sight of the person chasing her, create the avatar, then fly back into the chaser's view and hopefully lead them away from her body, after a bit, Nanase would drop the doll and return to her body to sneak away. Of course there is a chance that the person would still peek around the corner and find Nanase's body standing there, and there's also the fact that Nanase would be leaving a doll behind, so it might not be worth it.

The Guardian Form is extremely situational and so not considered for this.

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6 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Where would she get the spellbook from?  Would she want Tedd's dad, and thus the DGB, to know about her abilities?  What we really need is for an Immortal to hand out a big stack of spellbooks.....Rhoda, Justin, hopefully eventually Sarah and Catalina, maybe a special one for Tedd or maybe he doesn't need one....

Isn't there a magic shop at the Mall?

Tedd could probably make a phone or tablet that displayed or read the user's spells.  Then make Elliot carry one!

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Using the fairy in a situation like this would be risky, first, Nanase would have to get out of line of sight of the person chasing her, create the avatar, then fly back into the chaser's view and hopefully lead them away from her body, after a bit, Nanase would drop the doll and return to her body to sneak away. Of course there is a chance that the person would still peek around the corner and find Nanase's body standing there, and there's also the fact that Nanase would be leaving a doll behind, so it might not be worth it.

Susan's version of Nanase's fairdoll has offensive uses.  It's a tiny little flashbang with wings.

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3 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Tedd could probably make a phone or tablet that displayed or read the user's spells.  Then make Elliot carry one!

That's assuming Edward lets Tedd watch him create a linked spellbook and if it's possible for Tedd to duplicate his insight with magitech.

Hmm, the latter would be pretty foreboding in terms of how many people could learn how magic works and such.

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7 minutes ago, Scotty said:

That's assuming Edward lets Tedd watch him create a linked spellbook and if it's possible for Tedd to duplicate his insight with magitech.

Hmm, the latter would be pretty foreboding in terms of how many people could learn how magic works and such.

Ed Verres might not have a choice in the matter.  All that might be needed is for Tedd to watch someone gain a spell and see what happens with the spellbook.

I don't think Tedd could mass-produce tPhones in bulk if he wanted to.

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Just now, Vorlonagent said:

Ed Verres might not have a choice in the matter.  All that might be needed is for Tedd to watch someone gain a spell and see what happens with the spellbook.

I don't think Tedd could mass-produce tPhones in bulk if he wanted to.

How the book responds to someone using magic seems completely separate from the actual creation and linking of the book. Tedd could figure out how a book expands it's database, but he'd have to see how it's linked to be able to create a proper alternative.

What I think you're describing, is a device that would constantly "ping" a person on the magic level for any changes to spells or if a new spell is gained, and then notify the person and provide a detailed description of the change or new spell. That's all well and good and equivalent to the notification system of these forums. But linking the device to the user would be the equivalent to account creation which is a different beast on it's own.

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Just now, Scotty said:

How the book responds to someone using magic seems completely separate from the actual creation and linking of the book. Tedd could figure out how a book expands it's database, but he'd have to see how it's linked to be able to create a proper alternative.

What I think you're describing, is a device that would constantly "ping" a person on the magic level for any changes to spells or if a new spell is gained, and then notify the person and provide a detailed description of the change or new spell. That's all well and good and equivalent to the notification system of these forums. But linking the device to the user would be the equivalent to account creation which is a different beast on it's own.

With an idea how the book updates, Tedd might be able to reverse-engineer the rest.

What if binding a book to a magic user creates a function fall which updates the book?

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1 minute ago, Vorlonagent said:

With an idea how the book updates, Tedd might be able to reverse-engineer the rest.

What if binding a book to a magic user creates a function fall which updates the book?

Sounds like the equivalent to having to recreate the account each time something changes. Which I'm pretty sure in software development, that's considered bad programing. ;)

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14 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Sounds like the equivalent to having to recreate the account each time something changes. Which I'm pretty sure in software development, that's considered bad programing. ;)

Not at all.  the Spell book simply has an UpdateSpellText(CasterName,Password,SpellName,SpellText,NewSpell) It's straightforward object-oriented programming. 

Getting a new spell calls UpdateSpellText with appropriate data.  A polling scheme is unlikely in any event.  In Sister2 we see a spellbook update in real time.

Designing a complete function call would be more complex since we'd have to deal with adding/updating spells that contain other spells, such as Fae Punch for Nanase's fairydolls or adding Elliot's Secret ID forms to his Cheerleadra spell.  A generalized function would probably have to deal with multiple levels of spell containership (Imagine one of Elliot's Secret ID getting one of more of their own specialized spells)

All this raises the possibility of hacking a spellbook or setting up a second independent spellbook connection and downloading a caster's entire catalog of spells.  It might not let a Wizard learn them (but it might!) but knowing exactly what magical options an opponent (or even ally) has is extremely useful. 

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... is that to say that the spellbook defines a callback, and then registers a reference to it in the mage (for an onUpdate event or whatever)?  I guess Tedd could work out how to register his own callbacks (say, from a watch) in that case, but he might have to watch a spellbook as it is created (to see it being registered) and when a spell is being gained (to see it being invoked).  In this case (a) a cloned copy of the spellbook would remain static and not update, unless/until its callback is sepeartely registered, (b) if the spellbook is destroyed the mage may run into an unmatched dependency upon gaining a new spell (unless magic works such that the reference is also destroyed), which could be anything from silent to fatal (knowing Dan, more likely the former).

The diametric alternative, of course, would be the spellbook acting as a client, actively re-downloading the information from the mage intermittently.  An more efficient possibility is intermittently querying the timestamp and, if it's newer than the one it has stored, re-downloading the information.  These are less elegant but avoid making the spellbook a dependency of the mage (they instead make the spellbook dependant on the mage).  Also, an exact clone of the spellbook would work as is, unless the mage has some mechanism to prevent a given revision being downloaded twice, in which case it would be a race as to which spellbook gets a given update and which one does not.  If not, then the mage is essentially a queriable API, which Tedd could study by gazing at a spellbook as someone gains a new spell.


"the mage is essentially a queriable API" never thought I'd say that.

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9 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
22 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

...and a spellbook.

Where would she get the spellbook from?  Would she want Tedd's dad, and thus the DGB, to know about her abilities?

... good point.

9 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

What we really need is for an Immortal to hand out a big stack of spellbooks.....Rhoda, Justin, hopefully eventually Sarah and Catalina, maybe a special one for Tedd or maybe he doesn't need one....

Tedd probably doesn't need one and also wouldn't be possible to pair with any. DGB already knows about Justin, so he can get one from DGB ... and Tedd can watch.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

That's assuming Edward lets Tedd watch him create a linked spellbook and if it's possible for Tedd to duplicate his insight with magitech.

Spellbooks, just like wands, already ARE magitech.

9 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
21 hours ago, Scotty said:

Because Kitty needs to be seen beyond "Escape from the Mall".

I'm picturing her showing up at, say, school (college?) with genuine cat ears and tail. and her classmates all just assuming she got more elaborate fakes than her current sweatshirt.

And note that the same would work for Catalina. Only people they need to avoid are Otaku, because they would ask where she get those.

6 hours ago, Scotty said:

Aside from her fairy's fae punch and Fox, she doesn't seem to have any other offensive spells that I can recall.

Agree. Her non-damaging and damaging offensive options are both limited. Unless she gets another spell based on battle with Not-Tengu.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Susan's version of Nanase's fairdoll has offensive uses.  It's a tiny little flashbang with wings.

Yup. Susan has more damaging offensive options than Nanase, if we don't count guardian form because it's hard to activate.

1 hour ago, HarJIT said:

... is that to say that the spellbook defines a callback, and then registers a reference to it in the mage (for an onUpdate event or whatever)?  I guess Tedd could work out how to register his own callbacks (say, from a watch) in that case, but he might have to watch a spellbook as it is created (to see it being registered) and when a spell is being gained (to see it being invoked).  In this case (a) a cloned copy of the spellbook would remain static and not update, unless/until its callback is sepeartely registered, (b) if the spellbook is destroyed the mage may run into an unmatched dependency upon gaining a new spell (unless magic works such that the reference is also destroyed), which could be anything from silent to fatal (knowing Dan, more likely the former).

The diametric alternative, of course, would be the spellbook acting as a client, actively re-downloading the information from the mage intermittently.  An more efficient possibility is intermittently querying the timestamp and, if it's newer than the one it has stored, re-downloading the information.  These are less elegant but avoid making the spellbook a dependency of the mage (they instead make the spellbook dependant on the mage).  Also, an exact clone of the spellbook would work as is, unless the mage has some mechanism to prevent a given revision being downloaded twice, in which case it would be a race as to which spellbook gets a given update and which one does not.  If not, then the mage is essentially a queriable API, which Tedd could study by gazing at a spellbook as someone gains a new spell.


"the mage is essentially a queriable API" never thought I'd say that.

Instead of object paradigma, you may want to consider relation database one.  With database, magic user can easily update all books which contains reference to him without any risk when spellbook is destroyed, whereas destroying the magic user can cause cascade delete to destroy or empty the spellbooks.

On a different note, based on how the books can change (new spell, new section of old spell but apparently also change of existing spell, based on Nanase's "simple outfit" change) and taking into account need for change in formating (re-dividing content into pages), I suspect the book is actually overwritten with every change. Or, possibly, some sort of rsync-like protocol is used.

10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

or Ed tries to link a spellbook to him and discovers he's already got one

What makes you think magic user can only have one spellbook?

 

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4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

What makes you think magic user can only have one spellbook?

Because the cost like 500 GP per book and higher level spells eat up lots of pages.  Granted having a back up or traveling spell book is a good idea.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

DGB already knows about Justin, so he can get one from DGB ... and Tedd can watch.

It's possible they believe he's still dreaming, since everyone else does. Spellbooks are for those that are awakened.

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20 minutes ago, Scotty said:
29 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

DGB already knows about Justin, so he can get one from DGB ... and Tedd can watch.

It's possible they believe he's still dreaming, since everyone else does. Spellbooks are for those that are awakened.

Unless the spellbooks from DGB are tapped/bugged, trying to hide he awakened from DGB is probably not worth the effort. It's much less important that Rhoda and Catalina, who are not yet in DGB's database at all, not speaking about Sarah who not only isn't in DGB's database as magic user yet, but also have rare and very useful talent DGB is likely to want to use.

And, you apparently missed it, but I proposed Tedd would use the opportunity to learn how to make spellbooks, which would totally be worth it.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Unless the spellbooks from DGB are tapped/bugged, trying to hide he awakened from DGB is probably not worth the effort. It's much less important that Rhoda and Catalina, who are not yet in DGB's database at all, not speaking about Sarah who not only isn't in DGB's database as magic user yet, but also have rare and very useful talent DGB is likely to want to use.

And, you apparently missed it, but I proposed Tedd would use the opportunity to learn how to make spellbooks.

You said DGB already knows about Justin, I said they believe he's still dreaming. I would think that if Edward suspected that Justin was awakened, he'd had scanned him with that analyzer wand and either say he'd have to give him a spellbook or say "nope not awakened". As it is, Justin's only very recently been awakened by Pandora and no one else knows yet.

I can't even guess at how spellbooks could be "bugged", but again, one would have to be awakened for a spellbook to be linked to them, so it's not like Edward would have secretly linked spellbooks to all of Tedd's friends and is keeping an eye on them in case someone dings.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Instead of object paradigma, you may want to consider relation database one.  With database, magic user can easily update all books which contains reference to him without any risk when spellbook is destroyed, whereas destroying the magic user can cause cascade delete to destroy or empty the spellbooks.

On a different note, based on how the books can change (new spell, new section of old spell but apparently also change of existing spell, based on Nanase's "simple outfit" change) and taking into account need for change in formating (re-dividing content into pages), I suspect the book is actually overwritten with every change. Or, possibly, some sort of rsync-like protocol is used.

On the object model of spellbook, in most object-oriented languages there isn't a problem with destroying an object that used to receive events from another object. When an event happens, the triggering fails (for that receiver) silently. (In fact I don't know of an exception to this.)

As for reformatting when a spell is acquired/updated, the maximum that is ever truly necessary is reformatting the one affected spell. Just have each spell start at the top of a page, with the other side NOT being a different spell, and there's no problem. The book will sometimes have new pages added...

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Unless the spellbooks from DGB are tapped/bugged, trying to hide he awakened from DGB is probably not worth the effort. It's much less important that Rhoda and Catalina, who are not yet in DGB's database at all, not speaking about Sarah who not only isn't in DGB's database as magic user yet, but also have rare and very useful talent DGB is likely to want to use.

And, you apparently missed it, but I proposed Tedd would use the opportunity to learn how to make spellbooks.

You said DGB already knows about Justin, I said they believe he's still dreaming. I would think that if Edward suspected that Justin was awakened, he'd had scanned him with that analyzer wand and either say he'd have to give him a spellbook or say "nope not awakened". As it is, Justin's only very recently been awakened by Pandora and no one else knows yet.

Yes. I agree that they believe he's still dreaming, but telling them he awakened wouldn't really be problem. (Assuming Justin or someone else realize what happened, of course.) They EXPECT him to awaken sooner or later.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

I can't even guess at how spellbooks could be "bugged", but again, one would have to be awakened for a spellbook to be linked to them, so it's not like Edward would have secretly linked spellbooks to all of Tedd's friends and is keeping an eye on them in case someone dings.

I hope they can't, but I mentioned this possibility for case someone thinks they can.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

On the object model of spellbook, in most object-oriented languages there isn't a problem with destroying an object that used to receive events from another object. When an event happens, the triggering fails (for that receiver) silently. (In fact I don't know of an exception to this.)

Naive implementation can crash whole application. You're lucky you never meet system with such bug.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

As for reformatting when a spell is acquired/updated, the maximum that is ever truly necessary is reformatting the one affected spell. Just have each spell start at the top of a page, with the other side NOT being a different spell, and there's no problem. The book will sometimes have new pages added...

Yes, IF each spell would start on top of a page and the page wouldn't be numbered, then it would work like this.

(Actually, even if the page would be numbered it would need to be stupid implementation to not being able to update them without rewriting whole content.)

 

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13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

(Actually, even if the page would be numbered it would need to be stupid implementation to not being able to update them without rewriting whole content.)

Or, since they are magical anyway, a spellbook could be an ebook display device using a decent ebook format*. Everything is being reformatted to fit the display every time you read it anyway, page numbers are determined at viewing time, so there's no change in behavior when a spell is added or revised.

* PDF is not a decent ebook format - in fact it isn't an ebook format at all. It's a printing format.

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3 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:
30 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

(Actually, even if the page would be numbered it would need to be stupid implementation to not being able to update them without rewriting whole content.)

Or, since they are magical anyway, a spellbook could be an ebook display device using a decent ebook format*. Everything is being reformatted to fit the display every time you read it anyway, page numbers are determined at viewing time, so there's no change in behavior when a spell is added or revised.

You mean decent ebook format like HTML? :)

But, yes, it can work like this too. Or, the fact the book needs to be reformatted doesn't mean it needs to get whole content again, it just receives the changes and then reformats itself.

5 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

PDF is not a decent ebook format - in fact it isn't an ebook format at all. It's a printing format.

Obviously. Whereas PostScript is not a decent ebook format nor a printing format, it's programming language.

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