Wyrm Tools / News: Recent posts

We are pleased to announce release 0.13.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release focused on implementing support for prepared spells in the d20 game system plugin. Scripts were added to all SRD classes reflecting the number of daily spell slots a character receives at each level. The d20 character editor Spells page now has a functional Prepared Spells tab that allows you to allocate your available spell slots based on the contents of your known spell list. A few other minor enhancements related to spellcasters were added to the character editor, including the ability to filter your available known spells to show only those spells that you can actually cast.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.12.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release split time between features and architecture. The d20 character element now has support for known spell lists. A character's known spells can be edited on the newly-enabled Spells page of the character editor. Several bugs have been fixed thanks to community contributions.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.11.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release focused on pretty much one specific task: the addition of spell, domain, and school elements to the d20 plugin. (The large number of spells in the SRD simply overwhelmed us this release, and we weren't able to address many other features.) All spells, domains, and schools have their full SRD description (including all tables), which is displayed in the Summary view when any of those elements is selected in any other window. Integration of spells with the character editor will be in a forthcoming release. A few minor improvements to the feat editor related to minimum ability score prerequisites were also added.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.10.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release contains a major new feature: print support. Using the Apache FOP package, Wyrm Tools now supports printing directly to PCL- and PostScript-based printers, as well as printing to PDF files. Only the d20 character element supports printing at this time, and then to only a limited extent, but we expect future releases to continually add to the printed information until a full-fledged character sheet is achieved. Unfortunately, the inclusion of Apache FOP has increased the size of the Platform download by another 4 MB.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.9.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

The first thing everyone is bound to notice in this release is the increase in size of the Platform download by almost 4 MB. This is an unfortunate side-effect of upgrading to version 3.2 of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. The extra pain to download the Platform will be worth it, however, as there are many new features in RCP 3.2 we hope to take advantage of in the coming releases.... read more

There have been many changes since the last round of screenshots were posted. As we approach the 0.9.0 release, I thought it would be a good idea to showcase some of the newer features. The first new screenshot is simply a top-level view of the entire workbench with the d20 character editor and the Summary view visible. The second new screenshot is of the Dice Bag tool in action, including the new ability to define your own variables.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.8.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

Although about half of the new code in this release is related to architectural improvements, several new features were added to the d20 game system. Most notably, all skills now have their full SRD description (including all tables), which is displayed in the Summary view when a skill is selected in any other window. Minimum ability score prerequisites were added to all feats and are enforced in the character editor. Finally, the feat prerequisites which were added in the previous release are now editable in the feat editor without having to manipulate any scripts.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.7.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

The principal focus of this release was improving support for d20 feats. Various new features were added including the enforcement of feat prerequisites (i.e. feats a character must have acquired before selecting some other feat). The SRD has been updated to include all standard feat prerequisites. The d20 character editor has been hooked into the Summary view making it easier to get information about your options when editing a character. The most noticeable addition to the platform is the addition of all new graphics, including the splash screen, icons, and the About Box image. Lastly, the first official "tool" for the Wyrm Tools suite is now available for download: Dice Bag, a relatively simple dice rolling calculator.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.6.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

The principal focus of this release was improving support for skills and feats in the d20 character editor. Several bugs were fixed, and a few new features were added, which are reflected in the updated SRD. Also new in this release is the Summary view, which is used to display an HTML summary of the currently selected element in the workbench. It will be developed further in future releases to provide the type of quick assistance that users expect of a feature-rich character editor.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.5.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

The most notable feature in this release is the completion of the import/export subsystem. With this feature in place, we can now begin distributing sample data for the platform and not rely on individual users to create their own basic data in order to play around with Wyrm Tools. The first data set to be authored was, not surprisingly, the d20 3.5 System Reference Document. In addition to a few minor bug fixes, custom editors for d20 feats and skills were added.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.4.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release focused mainly on refactoring and bug fixes for the benefit of the Wyrm Tools developer community. However, some new end-user functionality was implemented, as well. Most important, DiceScript now supports user-defined functions. This feature led to the addition of the "4d6, drop lowest" ability score generation rule to the Generate Ability Scores wizard. Also, the d20 character management process is a bit more robust -- more constraints were addded to make the level-up process friendlier. The Skills and Feats pages of the d20 character editor saw a lot of additions, most notably you can now actually remove skills and feats that you previously allotted.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.3.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release focused mainly on adding new features to the d20 character editor. Two new wizards were added: the Generate Ability Scores wizard and the Add Level wizard. Rules were defined to govern how initial ability scores are generated, how ability score points are awarded during level advancement, and how hit points are generated at each level. All this new functionality is integrated in some form or another via the new wizards and subsequently the character editor.... read more

We are pleased to announce release 0.2.0 of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This release contains many architectural changes and bug fixes. The most significant new feature is the addition of editors for all model elements. Previously, property sheets were used, but editors offer richer functionality and offer full transactional support (i.e. a save command). Much of the architecture of Wyrm Tools has been improved, including an upgrade of the persistence layer to JPOX 1.1.0 RC1.... read more

In anticipation of the 0.2.0 release, I've replaced the d20 race property sheet screenshot with one of the new d20 race editor. Almost all editor property sheets have been replaced by an equivalent editor in order to provide a better user experience. Property sheets are now reserved for meta-data only.

--Rusty

We are pleased to announce the initial release of Wyrm Tools, an RPG tool platform built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

Wyrm Tools is currently being distributed in two packages. The core package is the Platform itself, which represents the foundation on which all game systems and tools are built. The second package is the d20 3.5 game system, which is the first game system to be targetted by the team for development, and serves much as a reference implementation for other game system and tool developers.... read more

In preparation for the launch of version 0.1.0, the Bugs and Feature Requests trackers have been opened. Please use these resources to help improve Wyrm Tools.

--Rusty

In preparation for the launch of version 0.1.0, a new mailing list has been added to the Wyrm Tools project.

WyrmTools-Users is used for general discussion among Wyrm Tools users. Users should initially seek support from their peers on this list.

In addition, the WyrmTools-News list has been modified to direct all replies to WyrmTools-Users.

--Rusty

The Wyrm Tools technology preview as of 2006-02-24 has been released.

This release is primarily a preparatory step before the first binary release of Wyrm Tools.

The major platform change involved finalizing the Eclipse product/application definitions. This was necessary to define the custom workbench view, rather than using the default Eclipse IDE workbench. In order to increase usability, the model was modified to more elegantly handle the case when an element cannot be located. Users will now be prompted to search for missing elements. This removes the burden on users to remember exactly which order sources/repositories needed to be loaded in order to correctly resolve references.... read more

Three new public mailing lists have been added to the Wyrm Tools project.

WyrmTools-News is a read-only list which will carry all project-related news and announcements. At a minimum, you can expect all Project News items to be repeated on this list.

WyrmTools-Commits is a read-only list which will carry all commit notifications made in the project's version control system.

WyrmTools-Developers is used for general discussions among Wyrm Tools developers. Only project developers may post to this list, although everyone is welcome to monitor its content.... read more

The Wyrm Tools technology preview as of 2006-01-20 has been released.

Christmas and the New Year came and went. I took the opportunity for some well-deserved downtime, but I still managed to make good progress with some new major features.

The majority of changes in this release were related to product architecture. Specifically, the script system saw quite a bit of work. The script variable support added in the last release had several defects that have been corrected. The chain of script variable dependencies has been closed, which basically means if one script variable is dependent on another, it will monitor it for changes and propagate signals up the chain to its parent, which may be yet another script variable. Another architectural change was the addition of Null elements, a pattern that avoids the use of null references in favor of an actual object that represents "no instance".... read more

I've updated the d20 character editor screenshot to better reflect the current state of affairs. This sample demonstrates the alert system in action, as well as the implementation of various quantities such as armor class and saving throws.

--Rusty

The Wyrm Tools technology preview as of 2005-12-04 has been released.

It was a good thing I got the previous Technology Preview uploaded before Hurricane Wilma arrived, because I did get hit hard with respect to power outages. However, I was raring to go once the juice was flowing again.

Although, it should have gotten a news item of its own, I made significant changes to the Wyrm Tools website. Specifically, a blog was added where I've been publishing forward progress about the product every few days. Check it out if you're interested to read about the product evolution from a developer's perspective.... read more

The Wyrm Tools technology preview as of 2005-10-23 has been released.

I'm rushing to get this done as Hurricane Wilma crunch time is about 12 hours away. However, I'll accept a few days without power because I'm satisfied that the d20 character editor is finally taking off. It still has (very) limited functionality and a few bugs, but the infrastructure is there. Implementing the alert system took me longer than expected, but it was worth it (see http://wyrmtools.sourceforge.net/screenshots/character_editor_alerts.gif for a peek at it in action). I eventually want to move to Eclipse markers, but that will have to wait for now.... read more

The d20 character editor available in the latest technology preview is more of a test harness than a functioning editor. I've spent several days implementing the skeleton of the "real" editor and wanted to provide a glimpse of where I'm going with the design. Subsequently, I've added a screenshot of the first page from the new d20 character editor.

--Rusty

The Wyrm Tools technology preview as of 2005-09-18 has been released.

An extended power outage due to Hurricane Katrina and a project closedown at the day job didn't interfere too badly with my free development time. Unfortunately, there's nothing sexy about this release in terms of new features added. I pretty much just slogged along with the d20 game rules implementation, hitting a few snags with some of the more esoteric aspects of the d20 3.5 rules.... read more