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Post by Misscreant on Jun 19, 2008 19:31:21 GMT -8
Ah, nice to meet you TemptedSaint... how do you feel about death and dragons? Speak to Lathariel in-game if you are interested...
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Post by Charles on Jun 21, 2008 23:54:46 GMT -8
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Post by Charles on Jun 25, 2008 6:44:00 GMT -8
I fixed the thing about wolf hunting. Now you won't see yourself dying for no reason. Also, you can get meat and wolf hides by killing wolves and you can sell those in the market.
So now there are at least two ways to earn income in the game.
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Post by Charles on Jun 25, 2008 20:18:31 GMT -8
In addition to adding the wolf hunting thing, I have changed the startup sequence so that new characters that are acceptable character types bypass the pit and automatically start in an appropriate location with an explanation of how the character came to be there.
Characters that die will still go to the pit and stay there until and unless resurrected.
I also think I've fixed the problems with both gates to port town.
There are a few other changes as well. I hope nobody had a character who was an "Elf Defender" or a "Dwarf Mercenary". If you did, start a new character. Those two have been deleted and it may cause problems if you try to log in.
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allort
Junior Member
Posts: 95
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Post by allort on Jun 26, 2008 3:49:37 GMT -8
....
i changed from elf mage because it was broke to elf defender... so im going to have to remake again? Is there an elf character i can safely use?
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Post by Charles on Jun 26, 2008 8:46:55 GMT -8
Yes. Elf fighter. You would have had to remake your character anyway. Remember Dreamora's Prophecy? Prior to the start of this session, all accounts will probably be erased to try to deal with some of the technical issues we've had.
EDIT: Looks like we won't have all the accounts deleted today. There's too much else that needs to happen and we're trying to stop making changes right before a session. On the other hand, since you have an Elf defender and that has been deleted, I'm going to delete your account, Allort, so that it doesn't cause some kind of error. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please just recreate your account and character.
If anyone else has an Elf Defender or Dwarf Mercenary character, please login and delete those characters and start over. The Elf fighter is basically the same as the Elf Defender and the Dwarf Fighter is basically the same as the Dwarf Mercenary. That's why we're deleting those, they're redundant.
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allort
Junior Member
Posts: 95
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Post by allort on Jun 26, 2008 12:46:23 GMT -8
hmmm maybe it was elf fighter i had... not defender.... oh well, if my account is deleted ill re make etc and go pester tronor for my items and abilities
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Post by Charles on Jun 26, 2008 13:55:05 GMT -8
hmmm maybe it was elf fighter i had... not defender.... oh well, if my account is deleted ill re make etc and go pester tronor for my items and abilities I didn't delete your account. Go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work, delete that character and start a new one.
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allort
Junior Member
Posts: 95
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Post by allort on Jun 26, 2008 14:21:43 GMT -8
character works, must have been a fighter, in game and working fine too
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Post by Charles on Jul 5, 2008 22:20:12 GMT -8
Most of the changes we've been working on lately are things that won't show, but will reduce errors and make the game easier to administer. We're almost through with what we're trying to do on these and have already started on some changes that are noticeable.
As part of this we are planning to delete all accounts before the next session and everyone will have to recreate their characters. Sorry, it was unavoidable.
Here are some changes that have been made:
(1) The last of the flat floating trees are gone. They have been replaced with realistic 3-D trees and some more of these trees have been added on Punkett Island in a more realistic distribution instead of all the trees in one clump like it was before.
(2) The new money system has been implemented. Now actual money consists of coins that are items like any other item. We still don't have a 3-D model for the coins, but hopefully that will be worked out soon. We could have reprogrammed Thoreg to accept the new money directly, but instead he will give you store credit for each coin and only sells items for store credit. But you can buy coins for store credit. He can also make change. For example, if you have one silver piece, you can get a hundred copper pieces for it by trading with Thoreg.
(3) The gates bug has been fixed for both of the Port Town gates. Please let me know if you have any more problems at the gates.
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Post by Charles on Jul 5, 2008 23:04:44 GMT -8
Back in the Fifth Session Feedback thread here www.onlinegamemaker.proboards82.com/index.cgi?board=mogdiscussion&action=display&thread=29&page=2(Scroll down a bit to get to the ecosystem talk. Also, it continues on the next page) We had a great discussion about ecosystems and how I'd like to have a very realistic ecosystem where animals don't just automatically respawn in the same place, but instead wander around and their numbers actually decrease when you kill some and slowly increase again if they have sufficient food, habitat and not too many predators. As I said then, I know how to write a program like that, but we didn't know how to get the game software to integrate with such a program. Well, now we do. That doesn't mean we're going to run off and start doing ecosystems instead of other priorities, but it does mean that we could do ecosystems like that when we have the time. It also means we have a huge amount of flexibility to easily do things that previously were too difficult. For example, we now have the ability to have creatures and NPCs only spawn once. If they are killed, they are gone forever. We also have the ability to have random spawn points for new creatures. How many spawn can be the result of an ecosystem type program and the random spawn points would make spawn camping impossible. That's a good thing since such tactics and the game systems that make them possible are utterly unrealistic. I'm sure there's a lot more we can do with this capability. We're just starting to figure it out.
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Post by sunshine on Jul 6, 2008 3:35:24 GMT -8
Well done, Charles. Do you have any idea when we will get the chance to try these things?
I am not trying to rush you. I fully appreciate that it takes time. I'm just missing tramping around the place.
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allort
Junior Member
Posts: 95
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Post by allort on Jul 6, 2008 10:25:15 GMT -8
a living eco system sounds fantastic well done
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Post by Charles on Jul 7, 2008 19:18:13 GMT -8
The reason for the big delay is Dreamora's Prophecy. Dreamora says we'll never get all the bugs out without starting over, but he said that in the meantime we needed to do three things. One of these has already been done. The other two are to erase all the .DAT files and convert to a server that runs on MySQL software.
Both of those two things require us to erase all player accounts. Every single character will have to be restarted. If we do those two things separately, that will mean all player accounts will have to be deleted not once, but twice. That's in addition to needing to do it again when we start over to fully correct the problems identified in Dreamora's Prophecy.
We also have some big changes coming when the new graphics are available which is looking like it will be pretty soon.
I was thinking you guys might have been getting bored with this and the game needed some new players and new content to liven things up. The problem is that I don't want to recruit any more players until we have finished with deleting accounts. No need to expose new people to that if we can help it.
So I'm trying to get the server redone with MySQL. That way the MySQL conversion and the erasing of the .DAT accounts happens at the same time. THEN we recruit new players.
Then we play for a while until the new graphics are ready and have the new graphics and the new world at the same time. That would also be the start of the Second Age. Although this would again mean that all players would have to start new accounts, at least there would be an in-game reason why all previous characters are gone. It would be the result of some sort of terrible calamity that destroys just about everything and ends the First Age.
The delay is that I don't know much about MySQL and neither does anyone else on our development team. We're learning as we go and we haven't got it properly configured yet to even start the conversion of the game server. When we do convert the game server, we have software that will do that as an automated process and will take only a few minutes. Configuring MySQL is the only serious hurdle remaining. Well, that and the fact that I changed a bunch of scripts while trying to trying to figure something out and need to fix some of them.
You guys might be interested to know what I was working on. I'm trying to create a teaching ability that will let any player who has that ability teach any ability they have to any other player. I have also been working on a leadership ability which will allow players who have it to command groups of NPC troops in battle. It turns out to be quite tricky to get it working right.
I really don't want to have another session until we have gotten the MySQL server conversion done and erased all the accounts.
Once that happens, though, we'll be ready to bring in a lot of new players and we're working on two significant in-game events that will be pretty important. One of them is likely to be a military expedition by sea by the Port Town Militia and any adventurers who want to help to strike back at the ogre raiders. This will involve going by ship to islands that only one or two of you guys have seen and nobody has had any chance to really explore. It's even possible the expedition may discover new lands that aren't on the map. We may not have all that ready by next session, but it will be pretty soon. Most of the work on that is already done. In fact, most of it was done before the first session.
I really can't estimate how long it will take to get going again. I didn't think it would take this long. I'd guess a few days or a week, but I don't know. Sorry for the long delay. We will be back.
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allort
Junior Member
Posts: 95
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Post by allort on Jul 8, 2008 0:46:51 GMT -8
the delay seems more then justified i dont mind deleting my characters a few times and the start of some big cataclysm is just too exciting we specilise in catacylsms hopefully there will be a session sooner rather then later for my part as im off on holiday for a week starting this weekend but im sure i can wait more if needed
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