[Fluid]

[Morrus]

Just received the press release for Fluid's new mapping software:

[bq]FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 30, 2004
Mill Valley, California
Discounted Pre-sales of Dundjinni Software Begin Monday, May 3

Fluid Entertainment today announced that it would begin discounted presales
of its Dundjinni map and adventure making software on Monday, May 3. The
software is slated for release a few weeks later, in late May.

Presale purchasers can expect a $5 discount off the silver and gold
versions, reducing their prices to $34.95 and 54.95 respectively, and a $10
discount off the platinum version, dropping its price to $69.95.

Dundjinni software permits DMs to create and print professional-looking maps
and adventures. Via an intuitive point and click interface, DMs can create
beautifully detailed maps and populate them with a variety of objects,
obstacles, NPC's and monsters. Room descriptions, text and d20 stats can
then be added, or imported from the XML character format (as used by eTools,
for example).

Dundjinni also includes printable character and monster tokens licensed from
Reaper Miniatures, as well as stat blocks and other content from Green
Ronin's Book of Fiends, Privateer Press' Monsternomicon, and Monte Cook's
Arcana Unearthed (and its supplements) and Eldritch Might series.

In addition to the presale offer, a demo of the product, as well as a weekly
sampling of maps, objects and adventures can be downloaded for free from the
company's website, www.dundjinni.com.

About Fluid Entertainment
Fluid Entertainment is a developer of entertainment software and based in
Mill Valley CA. The talented team at Fluid has been honored with numerous
industry awards, including two nominations for the Software Publisher's
Association for Best Title of the Year. Their love for D&D has resulted in
two titles for the PRPG community; the 3E Character Generator and eTools.
Their latest title, Dundjinni, is an independent effort to fall under the
D20 label.
[/bq]

 

[Cergorach]

It looks and sounds really kewl, but i'm not getting my hopes up. Fluid has a bad, bad track record, i really hope they changed a bit, but i'm not gambling my money on it. I'll wait untill i see a couple of decent reviews, wait a bit until the bugs have been hammered out, and then i'll see if i'll cough up the money...

 

[Parrothead]

I've been testing the demo version & liked it well enough to pre-purchase the platinum edition.

 

[DaveMage]

I would want the platinum version, of course, but after the e-tools fiasco, $69.95 seems a bit too pricey for me to take the risk.

Maybe after Davin makes Dundjinni helper...

 

[Monte At Home]

For what it's worth, I saw the program in action in March and was totally wowed. I agreed to let them use my stuff with it almost immediately.

Incredibly easy to use (far, far simpler than similar programs I've seen) and yet still possessing the ability to create maps that look like they came from a professional cartographer in very short order. (And then key the maps with all the relevant encounter info.)

 

[trancejeremy]

Heh, well, I thought the character generator with the 3.0 PHB was pretty neat. And the final results of that was, er, baffling.

I also wish they hadn't written it in Java. While it's true it's multi-platform, that also means it's incredibly slow on all platforms (the demo is sluggish for me, anyway). It also locks up quite a bit (again, just for me, though admittedly, I seem to have problems with certain programs).

 

[Bad_English]

About JAVA...somewhat

I have found that JAVA runs better if you uninstall the MICROSOFT Virtual machine (JVM) and install the latest SUN version.

And before doing this please back up you registry and even though I run XP PRO, reboot after the install of the SUN JAVA. Your machine should run some pages on the internet better and respond to JAVA based applications faster. As conflicts in changed libraries requests due to new developement in JAVA and parameters of code statements, make this a must.

Considering the value of Open Sourced software that is JAVA based and of use to gamers on a tight budget, for instance "Free Mind" which was discussed in this forum as an example of Open Sourced software.

*rattle rattle*

I rolled less than my blather skill, time to paste and go....

Although court cases are still draggin on, Microsoft has removed its Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1). Recently Microsoft released Service Pack 1a, which is the same as SP1, but then without the Java VM.

You might want to remove Microsoft's JVM, since it will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

If you want to remove Microsoft's JVM, and install the latest offering from Sun, here's how:

Select Start > Run
Enter RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection java.inf,UnInstall in the Open box, and click OK



Click Yes to confirm that you want to remove the Microsoft VM

When prompted, reboot the computer
Remove the following items:
The \%Systemroot%\Java folder
The file java.PNF from the \%Systemroot%\inf folder
The files jview.exe and wjview.exe from the \%Systemroot%\system32 folder
The registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Java VM
The registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ InternetExplorer \ AdvancedOptions \ JAVA_VM
Note I: With \%Systemroot%\ is meant your Windows directory.
Note II: To delete a registry subkey, start the Registry Editor, and navigate to the key by clicking on the + signs. When you have the correct key selected, right-click, and select Delete from the menu.



Microsoft JVM is now removed. You can download Sun's JVM for Windows from the Sun Web site.

I am a novice at this sort of thing so..

http://www.Windows-Help.NET/WindowsXP/howto-21.htm

I hope this helps some.

Peace

 

[Derulbaskul]

Is someone from Fluid going to drop by and convince us that this won't suck as badly as e-Tools?

I realise the demo looks OK, but so did the demo chargen that came with the original PHB. Also, will the release date be Iron Kingdom-ed?

 

[Ranger REG]

For what it's worth, I saw the program in action in March and was totally wowed. I agreed to let them use my stuff with it almost immediately.

Incredibly easy to use (far, far simpler than similar programs I've seen) and yet still possessing the ability to create maps that look like they came from a professional cartographer in very short order. (And then key the maps with all the relevant encounter info.)

I'm still skeptical. BTW, can it interface with e-Tools (Code Monkey's improvement version)?

 

[kingpaul]

BTW, can it interface with e-Tools (Code Monkey's improvement version)?

Well, Fluid has stated that Dundjinni will be able to import eTools PCs.

However, CMP is working on re-writing eTools, and its unknown, at this point, if the import will work or not.