(TFT) character generator

[David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

> From: hulkasgt@yahoo.com
>
> Speaking of mini-games, I love your character generator program. Is there a
way to input user-created jobs? That is, if I invent a job with a salary and
risk profile, is there a way to include it?


    Ah, trying to make me cry in front of everyone aren't you.  So I post the
program back in 2001.  Along with it I write this nifty little accessory that
fails completely and utterly.  Its a special web browser built into the
program that will go to any web page you want, or some preset pages like Cas
Liber's lists of new spells, and with the click of one button it does the
following.

    a) reads the page and parses it identifying every single new spell,
talent, or language.
    b) comprehends if the new item is a spell and one type, or talent and cost
to learn. And if it is a talent or language if there is a prerequisite to
learn it.
    c) parses the description for clues to if the ability qualifies for
"weapon" for dangerous or job requirements, or "combat" for dangerous wizard
job requirements, or language for scholar requirements.
    d) automatically add the new ability to its proper listing by IQ and
qualify its recipient for the available jobs it can apply too.
    e) if a saved character is emailed to a different program that doesn't
have that spell, it calls up the web browser with the page that has it and
asks if you want to add them.

    I ran the web parser against these pages and it successfully identified
and added every talent, language, and spell flawlessly.  I was excited.  I
figured if people could just keep creating and posting new stuff to their own
web pages as they always had been then the program would be a success.  It
asks nothing extra from the user.  It encourages and rewards the contributions
people are already making.  I even naively imagined a boom in new spells and
creativity on the news group.

   From my computer these pages scored 100%
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~casliber/tft/spellist.html
http://www.weirdrealm.com/tft/skill.html
http://www.reese.org/tft/Combat.htm
http://www.reese.org/tft/ElemSp.htm


    I emailed the program to Cas Liber and jokingly asked him to run it and
"tell me how it's broken and not working"  Turns out it was broken and not
working.  Windows on any other computer but mine would not recognize the
legitimacy of my custom web browser and denied it access to the internet.  I
never did figure out how to make a single one of the wide variety of auto
registry programs I wrote actually work and after wasting weeks gave up.

   So the next step was going to be an armory, job, and monster lab.  I still
have all the working programs for those but never integrated them.  I gave up,
disillusioned by Microsoft's tyrannical oppression of independent developers.
So, no, there is currently no way to add custom jobs.  And no one is more
sorry about that than I am.  None the less I apologize.  And thank you for
listening to my whine about it.

David Michael Grouchy II

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