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akbattlegrounds.net

Unread postby icycalm » 08 Sep 2020 19:26

Big updates to the site today. The entire upper part of the site has been redesigned, with a lot of new content and info and helpful links added. Check it out.

https://akbattlegrounds.net

I have appropriated the covers of the 5E Special Edition covers for my Ultimate Edition. Aside from being the coolest-looking rule book covers ever, the great thing about them is that they don't include an edition logo. So they can be used for any edition. On top of that, they were sold in limited quantities, so many people are not even aware of them. Any way you see it, these are the ultimate covers for the ultimate edition. Maybe sometime in the future if I have a few grand to spare I will commission new covers, but for now these should do splendidly.

The next update will focus on the settings, adding all the missing ones, and categorizing them into Spawnable, Transitional, and Extended ones.

After that I'll have to REALLY buckle down and populate the Dark Sun and Pathfinder settings, the latter of which is hilariously prolific. I don't think I'll be able to finish that any time soon, but I should be able to get a decent bulk of material up for it to get us going.
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Unread postby icycalm » 12 Oct 2020 17:45

Really cool update on the site today, check it out: https://akbattlegrounds.net

Five of the settings now have theme music: Planescape, Ravenloft, Pathfinder, Dark Sun and Birthright. You can play the tracks with the embedded music players placed to the right of each setting's description text. Note that the controls are a little fiddly, and the "hitboxes" for the buttons are all over the place. Just click around and you'll figure it out. Worst case, just refresh the page. It should work on most browsers, but I've only tested on Firefox; if all else fails, just use that.

Note that these tracks will play at the climactic fight of every adventure that takes place in the respective settings, so when you hear them you know it's make or break time.

More cool stuff coming soon, but for the time being enjoy the tracks, and let us know if you have a favorite.
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Unread postby ChevRage » 12 Oct 2020 18:56

Awesome!

It's so hard to choose a favourite, but at the moment the Birthright track resonates well with me. The Dark Sun track is a close second.

The music players work perfectly on Chrome too btw.
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Unread postby Archonus » 12 Oct 2020 20:40

Yeah, it all sounds great. Birthright's "Victory" sounds fantastic, I agree Chev. Very nice build up with the vocals in the background, the female especially, she really belts it at the end lol. Dark Sun's theme is cool, too. It starts off desolate and somber, then ramps up quickly. I think my favorite is Pathfinder's theme, I love how strong the strings are. Good stuff!
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Unread postby icycalm » 13 Oct 2020 05:19

Added a bunch more stuff: https://akbattlegrounds.net

First off, Council of Wyrms! It's right at the bottom, check it out. Including its theme.

And then I also added themes for the Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Greyhawk, all picked with my impeccable music taste, as always.

Only two settings remain without themes, but I am planning on adding a few more settings as well, mostly minor ones, and group them into categories, etc. Then a bunch of logos need to be touched up, and I also want to do something about that Greyhawk map because it's ugly and gives the impression the setting is crap, which it isn't. Unfortunately that's the only one I have found that covers the entire planet, so I don't know what I'll do.

I am definitely getting very close to a state that I'd be happy with to start playing. Very, very close now.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Oct 2020 06:16

Two new settings are up today, Ravnica and Ghostwalk (the latter with a theme music up already): https://akbattlegrounds.net

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Ghostwalk is pretty cool. If you die, you continue the game as ghost. Plus it has cover art by Brom. The book also includes seven adventures from levels 1 to 12, so it's quite playable even though nothing more has been released for it. It will make for a perfect bonus/extended setting in-between more epic adventures.

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Ravnica I used to have up, then I took it down, then I took another look at it and put it back up. It's pretty cool too: a city extending to an entire world. It also has no material for it, but there should be enough hooks in the book to make another bonus/extended setting out of it.

There are still a handful of settings left, and I am examining them. All the major ones are done though. It's only minor ones left now, but I am taking my time because I want to vet every one of them carefully. I think I'll be leaving at least a couple of them out, because they seem low-quality.

Beyond the above, I am preparing a very cool update that, among other things, will explain the differences between Ultimate, Mythic and Epic mechanics. Hopefully tomorrow it will be ready, otherwise in a couple of days.
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Unread postby icycalm » 08 Dec 2020 09:40

Tons of updates to the site today, so let's get started.

1. At the top of the site there is now the official Ultimate Edition banner that I designed, and that Beakman made for us (he's put a lot of work in much of the graphics, btw). Also note that this banner can also be found on Insomnia's frontpage in the Cult Events section on the left sidebar. However, both versions need some work on the logos, because they use the wrong font. We're working on that.

2. I've added music themes to the three settings that were missing them: Spelljammer, Dragonlance and Ravnica. There are more settings to be added, but they're not a priority. We can start with what we have now.

3. Pathfinder has become the starting setting for ALL groups, the ground zero of D&D Battlegrounds, for reasons I'll explain at length elsewhere. The rest of the settings are all locked now, and each of them has been populated with ONE adventure (or campaign, as the case may be). The EP cost for all of them is listed. Once a group pays it, they unlock the adventure or campaign, and once they beat that, they unlock the setting. P.S. If you're having trouble finding the little circles in all the locked settings that signify the adventures, let me know and I'll tell you where they are. I made some of them white and some red depending on the background, so they'd stand out. P.P.S. I recommend that before you click on the adventures, you press play on each setting's music theme, and read the descriptions while listening to the appropriate theme. That's how you'll get the full experience I am trying to create. If I could make an app out of this, the setting's music would kick in once you selected something in it.

4. Unlockables have been added to many existing adventures and campaigns, so check them all again to see what's been added. I'll make a thread where I'll list every update I make to the unlockables.

5. You will note that, along with adventures and rule- and sourcebooks, I have made also RPG/rule systems, VTTs, novels and computer games unlockable. Sometimes you'll see several adventures unlocking the same thing: e.g. the AD&D 2nd Edition rules are listed as unlockables under many adventures, because they need them to run. Obviously this means that whichever gets finished first will unlock the rules, and the entry will disappear from all the rest.

6. The various EP costs are subject to change. I'll make another thread to talk about that soon, where I'll explain in detail according to what criteria I set the costs.

7. The Pathfinder setting now has two maps on the site, the old map that you knew of the central continent of Avistan, and above it now there is a very rough and inaccurate map of the entire planet. And on that new map there is now one campaign on another continent. Meanwhile, I've populated the main continent with tons of new campaigns, so check them out. I need groups 1 and 2 to pick their campaigns asap, because I need to buy your choices on Steam and start preparing them. Please don't take more than 24 hours to choose, and I would prefer 12 or even less. If both groups make the same choice, we'll go with the earlier timestamp, and the other group will choose again.

8. You will note that three of the new campaigns—two of them in the older map, and one in the new one—offer scant information on their contents. I did this deliberately by shortening the back cover text, and even rewriting it in places. Those texts are spoilery, and shubn was right to prefer to go in as blind as possible in his Dark Sun pick. That said, I must give you SOME information, because these campaigns lock you in for months, so you might as well pick something you think you'll enjoy. But perhaps these brief, enigmatic texts will suffice to give you a general idea of the flavor at least of these campaigns, and you'll appreciate the spoiler-free experience. In one case I even withheld the names of the books it unlocks, again to avoid spoilers, and in another case I withheld even the cover and the precise location of the dot (I placed it in the general vicinity). So you can tell me if you prefer this method, or the full descriptions, or something between the two. Remember, this project is new and experimental, so we'll try all sorts of things until we figure the ultimate setup. But I think that fewer spoilers is a direction we ought to move towards.
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Jan 2021 02:43

Lots of updates to the site today, and more coming tomorrow: https://akbattlegrounds.net

  • Added Theros setting, including theme music. Logo is a rough first attempt by Beakman to lift the logo from the book, and he'll improve it further soon. The map will also be improved. More info on the setting coming soon in another thread.
  • In the Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, in the Pathfinder Adventure Select screen, I marked that D&D1 has unlocked the Harrow Deck accessory (more on which soon in other threads).
  • Updated Dark Sun logo with a cleaned-up touched-up version Beakman made.
  • Clicking on the setting logos now takes you to the respective setting threads in the Battlegrounds forum, as long as they have threads (if they don't, it does nothing).
  • Related to the above, the setting threads in the forum now come with rules tags, e.g. Dark Sun has the 2E and 4E tags, Pathfinder has the 3.5E, PF1 and PF2 tags, etc. I've also invented a 0E tag for the original/basic D&D rules used in the Mystara setting and its subsettings (Blackmoor, Hollow World, et al.)
  • The UE Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide have been updated with all the latest chapter-threads I've been posting recently.
  • The version of the Pathfinder music theme I had up was an extended one that lasted over six minutes and was a chore to listen to because of all the repetition, so I replaced it with the normal version that lasts a couple of minutes like most of the tracks. We will use the extended version in the climactic Pathfinder fights, but for the website the normal version works best.
  • The Fantasy Grounds banner has been updated with a Fantasy Grounds Unity one made by Beakman.

+ a bunch more updates too minor to bother listing.

Another setting coming tomorrow, plus a host of smaller updates, and then I am updating the overworld, which I've been procrastinating on because it's a lot of work.
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jun 2021 09:30

Monster akbattlegrounds.net update!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/52980901

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icycalm wrote:I have a tremendous update for you guys today. Stayed up all through the night to finish it, could not possibly sleep while listening to epic music all day.

I had always meant for the campaign selection maps and the overworld of my Battlegrounds to play each campaign's theme music when the player moused over it, and now I finally managed it! Sort of.
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jun 2021 21:25

Made a change to how the forum works. Before, the forum was named D&D Battlegrounds. Now it's named D&D Ultimate Edition, and I made a subforum inside it that's named D&D Battlegrounds and can be found here (which is the same way the GOTY subforum works in the Reviews forum, with both of them being accessible from the forum index without having to go into their respective parent forums): https://culture.vg/forum/forum?f=36

The new subforum now contains all the threads that we'll need to play the game: group threads, player threads, campaign threads, soon enough timeline and bloodline threads, and others, plus threads with resources like portraits or name generators. (P.S. All your player threads are currently hidden because I am working on them. They'll reappear soon.)

This change reflects the fact that Ultimate Edition is the name of my game, and Battlegrounds is my personal world. Other people can make their own worlds and name them whatever they want, but if they're using my format they'll be playing Ultimate Edition.
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Aug 2021 22:55

The campaign selection maps are back online. They were down for a few days due to an administrative issue that's now been fixed.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2021 00:00

Battlegrounds Start Screen
https://www.patreon.com/posts/58947826

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icycalm wrote:The Battlegrounds site now has a start screen, check it out: https://akbattlegrounds.net

Click on PRESS START to hear the Battlegrounds theme: "None Shall Live". Besides the start screen, it will play at the final fight of each campaign. Campaign, not adventure. I.e. for the Pathfinder campaigns, it will play at the end of the sixth adventure. It won't be used for standalone adventures or side-adventures of any kind. When you hear this track, you know shit's about to get as real as it can get. It's magnificent music, I can listen to it all day.

P.S. I've tested this page on a bunch of browsers, but let me know if yours has trouble playing the music. Remember you have to click for the music to start. And don't bother with phone browsers, it doesn't work for the time being.

The rest of the Battlegrounds site meanwhile has been moved here: https://akbattlegrounds.net/main.html

I need to place a link to that page on the start screen, but until then you'll need to type the address manually.

That's it for now, more soon.
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Dec 2021 23:04

I've updated the Battlegrounds banner on the Cult Events section of the frontpage with the latest design. Also updated the Cult Schedule with the next session. Small updates, but they make everything look neater. I'll try to keep the schedule current from now on.

The new version of the Battlegrounds site powered by World Anvil is live btw, but there isn't much there yet and the design isn't finalized.
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Unread postby icycalm » 18 Dec 2021 18:49

Lots of files linked in this forum stopped working when I ceded control of the Battlegrounds site over to World Anvil. The most urgent to fix were the chatlogs, and I've done that now. Instead of directing you to dndbattlegrounds.net, these links now send you to a new subdomain I made called the "Vault", at the address http://vault.dndbattlegrounds.net

I was going to go with "Trove", but I didn't want people confusing the projects, so Vault will do just as well.

Note that the Vault has no frontpage currently, so going there will get you a 403 page. This will be fixed eventually.

All chatlogs now should work. If you find any that don't, report them here.

No other files on the old site work yet, and I'll let you know when I fix them.
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Re: akbattlegrounds.net

Unread postby icycalm » 15 Mar 2023 23:48

Some small progress to this project today.

1. First of all, I moved from "dndbattlegrounds.net" (now defunct) to https://akbattlegrounds.net with the "ak" standing for Alex Kierkegaard's Battlegrounds.

This was something I've been thinking about doing for a while, for two reasons. One, it just looks and sounds cooler. And two, I don't want to be hit with a takedown request by WotC when this thing blows up as the second-coolest thing on the internet (no prizes for guessing what the coolest is).

I've switched as many links to the new domain as I could find on Insomnia, but I am sure I've missed a bunch. Don't bother alerting me about them for now, save it for when I've gone through everything carefully and need help catching the last few.

So that's the first piece of progress I accomplished today.


2. The second piece you can see by going to the site. It is the quote with which my "Ultimate Edition Core Rulebook" will open. All my books open with a quote, and this one will be no different. It's just that this quote will be mine because no one else has written anything that conveys the scope I am going for with this project. I am quite literally going for the best artwork ever, so the quote must be megalomaniac to the point of insanity and I think Orgy §1464 does the trick, if I may say so myself (and I may, since the internet is deaf and dumb to everything I am doing). So keep in mind that that quote will NOT stay on the site's frontpage forever, it will eventually be moved to the book. The frontpage will of course be written all in-universe for maximum immersion.


3. And finally the third piece of progress is a semi-final background for the frontpage which, if your screen is high-res enough, should look something like this:

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I mean... have you seen a more epic start screen ever? And it's not even done. Nowhere near. Try to imagine it when the "Ultimate Edition Core Rulebook" cover goes on, and proper lore text, and maps and illustrations from the campaigns, the game's soundtrack CD (called Battlecry btw, which matches Battlegrounds perfectly) etc.


P.S. If your screen is low-res, the background will be screwed. I am not sure if I can fix this, but I'll try. Ultimately though I will optimize for 4K if I have to pick a res for best results. Problem is, I am not working on a 4K screen right now, just 1080p, so I can't yet test this properly. I will be able to soon though, so don't bother showing me how it looks on your screen. (If your screen is 1080p, you can probably see the site in its proper dimensions by zooming out to 50% with your browser... That's how I took that screenshot.)

P.P.S. More coming soonish. And it will blow your fucking mind.
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Re: akbattlegrounds.net

Unread postby icycalm » 22 Jan 2024 17:58

Some tips on how to navigate the overworld now that I've added some hefty content today (details of which will be posted in a moment in the Alien Season 1 thread), and will soon be adding a lot more. Here's how to explore it optimally:

  • Hit F11 for your browser to go full-screen (it's F11 on Firefox, might be different in other browsers). This way first of all you get more screen space, and you'll need it when you see how monstrously complex and detailed the overworld will get. But more importantly, when the browser navigation bar is gone you feel like you're playing a game rather than just browsing a website, you feel like you're really in the ultimate overworld. And at least on Firefox you never lose browser functionality because if you mouse to the top of the screen in full-screen mode, the navigation/tool bar appears, so you can use it as normal (for example to go back to the previous page, if your mouse doesn't have a back button, etc.) This feature is usually called auto-hide and you might have to enable it yourself depending on which browser you use. I think they all have it.
  • Scattered throughout the pop-ups on the overworld are embedded music tracks, usually in YouTube embeds, but sometimes in other ways too. Click on those when you see them and let them play in the background while you explore, or while reading the Codex pages (the Codex is the Battlegrounds encyclopedia). This will massively increase your immersion and enjoyment, especially in combination with the aforementioned full-screen browser experience. At that point you really do feel like you're navigating around the biggest videogame overworld ever. Note that the reason I can't make overworld music autoplay on the maps themselves and you're forced to click on pop-ups to turn it on is because it's not possible to add autoplay music to Cult Engine 1.5 because Dimitris made a poll about it and all the homosexuals that support him voted against allowing music when browsing maps. Why do homosexuals hate music so much? No one knows. Scientists are still trying to figure it out. Some homosexuals have even installed programs on their browsers to kill the music, if some website dares go against homosexual doctrine and play music. The upcoming Cult Engine 2 btw can play music anywhere just fine, and that's browser-based too, so we could use that. It has also many other advantages over CE1.5 (for example you can move tokens on it, or add animation and fog of war, it's unreal). But the problem with CE2 is that it's not made to be viewed publicly on the open internet, it's only made for a few people—the actual players—to log in and play the game. Even worse, it's not made for vast amounts of content to be available simultaneously, and advises putting old content in "compendiums" (a kind of cold storage) to avoid slowing the server down, and only making live whatever content you plan to currently use. So it's not good for a massive and ever-expanding and always-online overworld. But it allows all the cool videogamey bells and whistles because the playerbase doesn't have a lot of homosexuals I suppose, so it was a very hard choice for me to decide which engine to use for the overworld. In the end I went with CE1.5 because it does the essential overworld stuff better than CE2, even though it lacks the bells and whistles. Ultimately, Cult Engine 4 should offer the best of both worlds and be the ultimate overworld engine, but that's at least a couple years out, especially considering the first implementations of its overworld tech probably won't allow the level of deep customization that CE1.5 allows. So we'll likely have to wait for some time until its overworld tech matures and we can move over to it. Until then you'll just have to be proactive and click on music embeds wherever in the world you see them.
  • Regarding pop-ups, those are cool to mouse over to get a quick idea of what information each marker contains, but when you want to actually view that information it's far better to click on the marker and get the full-resolution sidebar to scroll through. I never scroll and read the pop-ups, I always click on them and view them on the sidebar, and I advise everyone to do the same.
  • Now that the overworld will be flooded with content and the maps will be loaded with markers, you might want to occasionally remove some markers to see the maps behind them. You can do that by clicking the Layers button at the top-right of the screen, which, below the layers, houses all the Marker Groups I've spent a lot of time programming into every map specifically so that you can turn them off and back on at will.

This is what it looks like in full-screen, and with the Marker Groups window extended: https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... 1effd269e9

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Click on a pop-up to bring up the sidebar and start a music embed from within a sidebar that has it, and now you're fully immersed in the greatest game overworld over: Alex Kierkegaard's Battlegrounds'.
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