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How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Selwyn - 04-03-2014 06:38 AM
Hey guys, I am new to the forums but have been following Balrum's development for a while. I made this thread for people to use as a quick and easy access point to find answers to common questions. Mark Rushow has been doing this around the forum so I will collect any answers of his I can find and put them in here first.
As for how to contribute, add any questions you have to the thread, and when they are answered, I will put them into the OP. Also, if you know the answers to any of these questions, please post them!
Thanks everyone!
How do I _______?
Technical:
Get the game working? Something's Wrong!
"Balrum needs the java runtime environment to run. (minimum JRE version is 7)You can download the java runtime environment (JRE) from oracle: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/j...33155.html
If the above link does not work simply visit:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/j...38363.html and press the JRE 8 or the JRE 7 download button and select your platform.After installing the java runtime environment a restart is recommended.
Now that you have java installed on your machine you can run the Launcher.jar by double clicking it. Press the Launch button and Balrum will start to load. The first startup will take a little more time because the engine is creating the needed caches.
If the Launcher.jar does not work you can try to run Balrum with the following files:
On OSX: start_osx.command
On Windows: start_win.bat"
-Mark Rushow
Report a bug?
If you get a game crash click the 'send debug.txt' icon from the Launcher window.
Any other bugs you notice e-mail to Balcony Team at: info@balconyteam.com or at: balcony.softworks@gmail.com
Combat:
Attack?
"You need to put abilities/spells into your main bar (at the bottom of the screen). You can find your spells/abilities in your spell book 'S'. You can select one melee ability and one magic to be your main attacks (left click is the melee, right click is the selected spell). There will be tooltip informations everywhere in a future update." ~Balcony Team
Use a bow?
A bow is used by first equipping it (this can be done even if you already have a melee weapon equipped, and then by equipping arrows (right click on a stack of arrows, as the paperdoll slot does not glow like it does when you hold a weapon, to show you what slot it goes in), and then dragging the "Shoot" ability icon from your spellbook to your hotbar. From what I understand, right clicking on this icon in the hotbar will set your right-click attack to your bow, so it shares an autoattack slot with your magic abilities (as in, you must choose one or the other to be your right-click attack). To fire the bow, just right click on your target with the shoot icon active. ~Rafa
Some people may experience a "Spell is not ready!" message when they try to use their bow. There is no known fix for this currently, and it is likely a bug. If anyone finds a workaround please post it here.
Survival:
Drink something?
You can drink directly from a well (although not the one with the red roof on it in the middle of town, that has a different purpose) to slake your thirst. Additionally, there is an item called a "water sack" that you can make with two bear leathers, or find in the world, which apparently will be able to hold water, though no one is sure how to fill it yet. Also, you can eat fruits and vegetables, or drink potions to stop your thirst from overwhelming you, though this is the least efficient way to do so, as you lose the items that would otherwise be put to better use. Food and potions both only work until you get the "Full Belly" Debuff, which stops you from being able to ingest anything for a few turns (if in combat) or a few seconds (if not). ~Mark Rushow
Eat something?
Right click on it in your inventory. You can eat (And drink) things that are in different sections of your inventory, not just the "Food" tab. Eating medicinal herbs can heal you for about half as much as they would if you turned them into potions, but I have found Rosehips (the pinkish bushes that you can gather from) to be the best source of non-potion, non-food healing, as I have not found any recipes requiring it, and they are fairly plentiful.
Set up camp?
At the bottom right of your hotbar, there is an icon that looks like a camp fire. Click that, and you will be able to choose to place a tent or a campfire. They both happen immediately, and you can then click on your tent to rest until morning.
Put out my torch?
Click on the torch icon at the bottom left of your hotbar (it's tiny!) This will toggle your torch on or off, and is a useful way to conserve torches during the daylight hours, as your stack of torches will slowly be used up as the burning continues. ~Mark Rushow
Crafting:
Use the crafting stations?
Each station is slightly different, but they all follow the same principle. They have multiple components to them, such as, for the anvil: "Smelter", "Anvil", "Cooling Barrel", and "Wood Tray". Each component part has its own space to put items in, and not all components require use for everything you can make at the station. For example, if you want to make leather gloves, putting the required leather in the Anvil's "Anvil" component slots and then clicking "Create" will work fine. Whereas if you want to smelt iron ore into glowing iron bars, you must add the ore to the Anvil's "Smelter" component slots, then add wood to the wood tray. As long as the fire burns, the smelter will melt through your stack of ore automatically, providing you with iron bars.
"You must hurry when crafting if you need glowing bars. They cool very quickly. Don't try to do too much at once else you must re-heat the bar. 'Iron bar' when re-heated becomes 'glowing spotted iron bar' and 'spotted iron bar' when cooled. It is unusable for anything requiring just 'glowing iron bar' or 'iron bar'.
An entire stack of ore all smelts at the same time. Be sure to split the stack and only smelt what you can use at once if you require 'glowing'." - Mark Rushow
Play around with the options and see what you can come up with. If anyone wants to test the differences between smithing a sword with and without using the cooling bucket, that would be cool! Post results to this thread, and I will add them.
One last note to this answer is that often the crafting stations can get weird and buggy. You will open an oven and be greeted with a mess of icons and windows showing you the contents of containers that you cannot see in the world (like a skeleton corpse or a blueberry bush). This makes it very confusing to see what is going on, and if the UI looks crazy to you, it is probably bugged. To fix this, save the game to a new slot, exit the game, and relaunch... oh, and cross your fingers.
Gathering:
Gather materials?
Your character automatically carries and uses the tools he needs to gather resources. All you have to do is get into an adjacent tile from the item you want to harvest, and then click on it. Your character will display a quick animation, and the results will cascade into your backpack. You can also often find good materials in the crates, barrels, and bookcases around the town.
Quests:
Feed the pigs some corn?
Take the 4 ears of corn that the farmer gives you, and place them all in a stack into one of the pig troughs. Then go back to the farmer and inform him that you have done so. He will give you two sausages, which launches another quest to go share one with your Grandpa. ~Chris Chen
Training:
Train in a skill?
In order to train in a skill, you simply must use it. You will gain skill points quickly in the beginning, and soon enough "fill up" your level 0 at that skill. You will then need to find a trainer who can teach you the level 1 version of that skill. The trainers are scattered about town, and you will run into most of them in the course of doing your quests. They will charge you one "Learning Point" and some Thalers in order to teach you, so learning points will be very valuable, as you only get one each time you level up (through combat or questing, not the kind of leveling you get by building skills)
Another item of note is that training in combat techniques seem to be bugged in a few ways. Some people are unable to get the training at all, and others, myself included, are able to purchase combat skills that they already know if they happen to visit another person who also teaches the skill.
Farming:
Plant Crops?
Drop a seed onto a patch of dirt prepared for farming
Water Crops?
Click on your seedlings and choose "Water" from the menu. You must have a bucket of water in your inventory, and you can keep an eye on the plant's "Moisture" level to determine if you should water it or not. *hint* If it is raining, don't water your plants.
Fertilize Crops?
Click on your seedlings and choose "Manure" from the menu. You must have a pile of manure in your inventory (You can find these around the farms in the area), and you can keep an eye on the plant's "Fertilization" level to determine if you should fertilize it or not.
Harvest Crops?
Click on the fully-grown plant and choose "harvest" from the menu. Also, pick them when they're ripe.
Get Seeds?
Mystery! I wish I could get them from the harvest itself.
Items:
Use traps?
Apparently, you can just click them and place them on the ground ~Mark Rushow. I was not able to get this working. Any help testing this and an explanation of how you did it would be appreciated.
Useful Hotkeys
E - Take All (from container/harvest node)
F - Zoom in (kinda fun, good for people with small screens)
I - Inventory Toggle
C - Character Info / Skills Toggle
S - Spell/Ability Book Toggle
M - Map
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Jalister - 04-03-2014 10:52 AM
Nice beta guide. Thanks for putting it together. I've had a rough month, especially this last week. I did load up the beta, and run around for about 30 minutes. Hopefully I can put several hours into Balrum this weekend.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Rafa - 04-03-2014 11:00 AM
Nice!
Regarding the bow: did you right-click to use it? AFAIK, melee attacks are left-clicked, spells and bows are right-clicked.
And about training skills: I managed to get my sword skill to maximum, and then went to talk to a NPC with "train sword" option in conversation but... it was greyed out, so unable to choose that option. Also, it seems I am not leveling up. It shows that my character is gaining XP, but the level meter isn't filling out.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Chris Chen - 04-03-2014 11:15 AM
Also, do you know which NPC that can train me in Archery? I'd like to be able to use the Tense Bow I crafted!
(04-03-2014 11:00 AM)Rafa Wrote: Nice!
Regarding the bow: did you right-click to use it? AFAIK, melee attacks are left-clicked, spells and bows are right-clicked.
And about training skills: I managed to get my sword skill to maximum, and then went to talk to a NPC with "train sword" option in conversation but... it was greyed out, so unable to choose that option. Also, it seems I am not leveling up. It shows that my character is gaining XP, but the level meter isn't filling out.
To finish the Feed Pigs quest, you need to put all the Corn that is given to you in only one pig trough. Click on the trough, and it will open an item space. Put the corn in the space, and then go find and tell the farmer - I forget his name... and he will give you some sausages.
Also Edmund & Winnie's second quest after you give them the deer meat can't be fulfilled AFAIK. I've got over 20 bees and nothing comes up about the quest whenever I visit them.
(04-03-2014 06:38 AM)Selwyn Wrote:Quests:
Feed the pigs some corn?
Great question... I have no idea. I have tried putting the corn ON the pig, which results in a "are you sure you want to destroy this?" message, and I have placed the corn in the slop bucket, hoping that was it, but I was not able to figure this out.
Training:
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Mark Rushow - 04-03-2014 03:02 PM
@Chris Chen is correct that is how you complete the feed the pigs quest.
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Bows work the same as spells you can only have one ranged ability toggled on at once. Some times it is necessary to toggle off the previous ability first before you can toggle on the new one. In order to use the bow you must have arrows equipped. If you run out of arrows the game does not tell you.
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Hunger and thirst are weird. When you drink it make you hungry and when you eat it makes you thirsty. Even if you are hungry you can still be full! This gets real difficult to manage especially with no "how full am I" meter. It is a bit of a guessing game to get both your thirst and hunger satiated. There is a food I ate once that actually just ended up making my hunger meter go down! lol. (antifood) the easiest thing to do is just Save and Load. Your hunger and thirst will be full.
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Upon Loading all experience gained is lost. There is no leveling yet!
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While crafting if you are smelting anything the little torch icon next to the wood tray must be toggled on to begin the smelting process. It is on a timer. Once your ore is a glowing bar it is on a timer and will cool in just a few seconds to not glowing. All the other ores I've come across thus far can be reheated to glowing again just fine. But if you reheat the iron bars to glowing they turn into glowing spotted Iron bars and can not be used for anything that requires plain iron bars or plain glowing iron bars. Put buckets of water in the barrel and it changes to blue color. This is for putting your hot smelted ores into to cool quickly but it does evaporate the buckets of water.
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Traps I was able to just place them on the ground similar to how you build your house.
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Good to know the bees quest isn't completable yet.
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There is an icon in the lower left of your action bar it is your torch icon. This is the dame icon used in crafting station nest to the wood tray. If there is a flame you are burning a torch if there isn't a flame it is supposed to be a stick and you are not burning them. There will be a glow about you more noticeable at night but you will not actually carry anything. If your torch is lit you are using them up. So make sure you don't waste them during the day.
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The empty space next to your torch icon in the action bar is your turn based combat timer. When you are in combat it will briefly show and hour glass flip over to signal a move has been made. As far as I know that is all it does.
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It should be re-worded that right click is ranged attack that is toggled on (not just spell).
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If an action is toggled on there is a slight glow to the icon. You can only have one melee and one ranged action toggled on at once. You can toggle them all off so as to not accidentally attack the pigs for example.
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Stealing: Only a couple of NPCs will give chase if they catch you stealing from curtian containers in their house. This is not fully implemented yet. If they aren't in the house they don't see you and you don't get caught. I'm not sure if they are standing just out side the door looking in. They will give chase and try to kill you.
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Lockpicking: dunno yet but I have broke a few picks trying. I think it may be combination based.
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'F' key will zoom in. Pretty much useless.
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split stack: Hold shift when left-clicking (may be a right-click) an item stack to bring up a window enter in how many you wish to hold.
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'E' key takes all.
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Put this at the top of your list:
If you get a game crash click the 'send debug.txt' icon from the Launcher window.
Any bugs you notice e-mail to Balcony Team at: info@balconyteam.com or at: balcony.softworks@gmail.com. Which they prefer I do not know they just say to e-mail them with bug reports and explain how to replicate the bug if you can.
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"Balrum needs the java runtime environment to run. (minimum JRE version is 7)
You can download the java runtime environment (JRE) from oracle:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/j...33155.html
If the above link does not work simply visit:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/j...38363.html
and press the JRE 8 or the JRE 7 download button and select your platform.
After installing the java runtime environment a restart is recommended.
Now that you have java installed on your machine you can run the Launcher.jar by double clicking it. Press the Launch button and Balrum will start to load. The first startup will take a little more time because the engine is creating the needed caches.
If the Launcher.jar does not work you can try to run Balrum with the following files:
On OSX: start_osx.command
On Windows: start_win.bat
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Saving!
Select an empty save slot. While highlighted you must type a save file name. Then click Save. Load works after a save is created. You must rename the save every time you wish to create a new save. You can keep the name same but it must be typed before selecting save.
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Rest Icon
Located at the bottom right of the screen (looks like a camp fire):
Build a camp fire,
Make a tent,
or Place a torch.
You can also rest in your own bed at Grandpa's and pass time.
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"We updated the beta to version 002. If the window title says 002 than you have the newest version. If it displays Balrum_v0.0.85_beta instead of Balrum v0.0.85_beta_002 than you have an old version so please re-download the game. This is an important update so please make sure you have the 002 version." ~Balcony Team
Just re-download the game files from the same link that was e-mailed to you and launch it from the new files for the update. The in-game updater is not used for 'this' update!
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right-click an item from a container to have it automatically drop into your inventory.
or
left-click-hold to drag it manually.
Inventory auto sorts categories. Dragging items over will automatically bring up the proper category for the item to be dropped into.
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some food items that can be consumed as food or potion will actually go into other categories they are mainly associated with. Just because some items are not in potions or food tabs in inventory doesn't mean they can't be consumed.
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So far as i know Coal can not be burned or used as a fuel even though it technically is a fuel. And it can not be smelted though it is an ore and it can be placed in the furnace with other ores.
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You must hurry when crafting if you need glowing bars. They cool very quickly. Don't try to do too much at once else you must re-heat the bar. 'Iron bar' when re-heated becomes 'glowing spotted iron bar' and 'spotted iron bar' when cooled. It is unusable for anything requiring just 'glowing iron bar' or 'iron bar'.
An entire stack of ore all smelts at the same time. Be sure to split the stack and only smelt what you can use at once if you require 'glowing'.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - PMIK - 04-03-2014 07:42 PM
(04-03-2014 06:38 AM)Selwyn Wrote: Use a bow?
I equip my bow and try to use my "shoot" spell, but I receive the message "Spell is not ready!" ... anyone know how to fix this?
You need to make sure you equip arrows in your inventory also. Just right click on the arrows.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Selwyn - 04-05-2014 03:55 AM
In regards to the bow:
I had the bow equipped, I had the arrows equipped, and both left and right clicking on the 'Shoot' Skill resulted in the same "This spell is not yet ready" message. The first game I played through, I was able to use my bow, but this game, I am not. It must be some kind of bug.
In regards to the bee collection quest:
I was actually able to complete this no problem. Strange. Another bug, I suppose.
In regards to the pig feeding quest:
Thank you! It worked. 4 corn, stacked, into one trough, and then talking to the farmer completed the quest.
In regards to leveling:
I am currently level 1, which is up from 0, is it not? I have the memory of getting a "you have leveled: you have received one learning point" message. Since then, though, all of my experience goes whenever I quit the game. It would be interesting to edit some files in the install and see if I can affect this. One thing that I hope will be implemented is gaining experience from skill increases. It would be nice to be able to steadily level up your farming, cooking, and woodworking for a while before adventuring out into the depths of Darkwood.
In regards to lockpicking:
Yes, it seems to be combination based (as in, to open chest X you must turn the lock in a certain order (R,L,L,R,L,R) to open it. I have not yet succeeded, as the last time I tried to open a chest, my woodworking teacher murdered me. I thought that was a bit of an overreaction.
In regards to save games:
Something else that I have noticed is attempting to type a capital letter in a save name results in an 'r' being used instead for some reason. So "Savegame" would be "sravegame" No capital letters yet, I guess.
I will update my OP with all the new info. Thanks guys!
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Mark Rushow - 04-06-2014 05:34 PM
(04-05-2014 03:55 AM)Selwyn Wrote: In regards to the bow:
I had the bow equipped, I had the arrows equipped, and both left and right clicking on the 'Shoot' Skill resulted in the same "This spell is not yet ready" message. The first game I played through, I was able to use my bow, but this game, I am not. It must be some kind of bug.
In regards to the bee collection quest:
I was actually able to complete this no problem. Strange. Another bug, I suppose.
In regards to the pig feeding quest:
Thank you! It worked. 4 corn, stacked, into one trough, and then talking to the farmer completed the quest.
In regards to leveling:
I am currently level 1, which is up from 0, is it not? I have the memory of getting a "you have leveled: you have received one learning point" message. Since then, though, all of my experience goes whenever I quit the game. It would be interesting to edit some files in the install and see if I can affect this. One thing that I hope will be implemented is gaining experience from skill increases. It would be nice to be able to steadily level up your farming, cooking, and woodworking for a while before adventuring out into the depths of Darkwood.
In regards to lockpicking:
Yes, it seems to be combination based (as in, to open chest X you must turn the lock in a certain order (R,L,L,R,L,R) to open it. I have not yet succeeded, as the last time I tried to open a chest, my woodworking teacher murdered me. I thought that was a bit of an overreaction.
In regards to save games:
Something else that I have noticed is attempting to type a capital letter in a save name results in an 'r' being used instead for some reason. So "Savegame" would be "sravegame" No capital letters yet, I guess.
I will update my OP with all the new info. Thanks guys!
Oh, the save game 'r' thing I thought was me miss-typing all those times. lol
I am lvl 1 and did have a learning point at one time, I must have spent it one something. I haven't kept any experience since or been able to gain a lvl either. Good catch sir.
Do you know how many bees it took to complete the quest?
I only ever got the 'spell not ready message' when i ran out of arrows or mana. But if you are getting it anyway it must be a bug.
To lay traps all I do is left-click the trap from inventory (this grabs it) then I just drag it out to the game world. A 3X3 grid appears around my avatar and I can lay the trap in any adjacent open space within the grid.
I did find a treasure map that was never added to my inventory. I couldn't notice any change on my normal map.
Oh for map quick access is 'm' key.
When You toggle a spell on your magic meter will reflect the cost showing how much mana you would have left after you cast the spell one time. toggle it back off without using the spell and it displays how much mana you actually have.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Selwyn - 04-10-2014 10:51 AM
Mark Rushow Wrote:Do you know how many bees it took to complete the quest?
10. Maybe you need to have EXACTLY 10 bees.
Mark Rushow Wrote:I only ever got the 'spell not ready message' when i ran out of arrows or mana. But if you are getting it anyway it must be a bug.
Yeah, I have the arrows equipped, but nothing is working.
I'll add that map tidbit too, thanks Mark.
RE: How do I ______? The beta guide to Balrum. - Chris Chen - 04-12-2014 12:11 AM
If anyone needs to level up their Archery skill, you need to find Fox the Huntsman, who is somewhere to the South-East.
Fred the innkeeper will level up Swordsmanship.