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[J-M v2.5.5]

3) Replacing rare items (*cough*runeshieldfromdarkcavestofrozensummit*cough*) sucks.

Rare items will find their ways to more appropriate locations as the opportunity arrises.

4) Nerfing boss rewards (*cough*Keledros*cough*) sucks.

Keledros still twice as likely to drop goodies than he was in 1.0 - and has more to drop. (More than he should, really, since he drops spells he never uses against you.)

The above two points come down to the same thing: alot of players (including myself) got alot of rare items when they were still easy to get. The best example I can give you is the volcano scroll. I just wasted Keledros and got it (when the chance he dropped it was still one in six). Right now, people must waste their time in the dangerous pass, killing Ji-ax over and over to get the volcano scroll, which has a spawn chance of about 5% at most I think.

I'm not the one getting screwed here, but alot of other people are. Sir_Killerlot has been looking for a volcano scroll for over a month now. If he'd just have an old patch, he could waste Keledros and get it, which would be much easier.

6) Giving certain monsters illogical immunities sucks.

Such as?

Ice elementals, greater ice elementals, and the ice bone lord.

 

[Thothie]

Ice Elementals are not immune to anything but cold (well, and poison, see below).

Greater and Elder Elementals are always immune to their opposing element as well as their own. (So for Greater Ice Elementals that means cold and fire)

All Elementals, being made up of nothing but their own element and a standard Texas sized sh*tload of magic, are immune to poison.

Da Infamous Queen of Ice is immuned to fire and cold for the same reasons the Greater Ice Elemental is, and immune to poison, for well, should be obvious reasons on sight (been dead for a really, really, really long time). Dun think she's immune to anything else though.

 

[Thothie]

The above two points come down to the same thing: alot of players (including myself) got alot of rare items when they were still easy to get. The best example I can give you is the volcano scroll. I just wasted Keledros and got it (when the chance he dropped it was still one in six). Right now, people must waste their time in the dangerous pass, killing Ji-ax over and over to get the volcano scroll, which has a spawn chance of about 5% at most I think.

I'm not the one getting screwed here, but alot of other people are. Sir_Killerlot has been looking for a volcano scroll for over a month now. If he'd just have an old patch, he could waste Keledros and get it, which would be much easier.

Just because it was too easy for you to get, doesn't mean I'm going to make it too easy for everyone else in the future. I can't promise the Volcano scroll will stay with Ji-Ax either. As it is with every MMORPG, those who have been playing longer will have characters that took advantage of the various game imbalances and exploits, and short of a character reset (which, again, I am not doing), there is no way around this save leave them all unaddressed (which, I am also, not doing).

 

[PBarnum]

yea, what thothie said.

we just got lucky with keledros but now, since the game is advancing into better updates and more complex levels, why should any thing be easy? it should be a challenge to get items

 

[HumanSteak]

Exactly, I agree with that. I'm not playing MSC just to get an item that came out last update, I'm playing MSC to rediscover it everytime a nice update comes out. That's why I always start new chars I'm probably the only old player enjoying the game as much as any newcomer and that's the way it should be. Also, with my 7 previous chars I kept raiding mscave to get a rune shield and never found any even though I did about a thousand runs, but I got it first time on ms_snow! It's more exciting to get new stuff once you have no idea where it is now that it's not at the same old spot .

 

[Thothie]

And... the betapack for the month:

October 1st 2006 Public Changelog

New Stuffz
Summoned Skeletons now upgrade armor/weaponry based on your SC level.
Helmets actually do something now! (stun resistance %)
Future helmets may do more interestin stuff.
The Light XBOW is in - seek and ye shall find (prob needs some balance/bug tweaks still)
More XBow types to come... All bolts are in game too, but you'll have to hunt them down. (Scattered)
Snake Staff - available, but not officially in yet
Bone Blade - ditto
The Spiderblade - New sword for eight legged creepies

New Beasties
monsters/snake_sidewinder
- poisonous rattler
monsters/snake_gsidewinder
- same thing, but bigger
monsters/snake_gcobra
- giant cobra... Similar 'trap' concept as the regular cobra, but harder not to set off. (sleeps coiled)
monsters/snake_lord
- Silthar (level 25 miniboss), snake summoning bastard and apprentice to Venevus
monsters/snake_cursed
- One-shot snakes summoned by snake summoning bastard.
monsters/skeleton_poison_bolter
- "Envenomed Bones" shoots poisoned bolts (same as Horror's but < damage). Unlike the frost bolters, he only shoots at the player he is facing, rather than all enemies in a radius.
monsters/skeleton_poison_vamper
- "Vampyric Poisoner" has a Bone Blade that lets him regen per-hit
monsters/skeleton_poison_bomber
- "Poisoned Spore" explodes into a poison cloud if struck hard enough or low enough on HP
monsters/skeleton_poison_sworder
- "Envenomed Blade" for two types of extra damage (non-roamer)
monsters/skeleton_poison_rager
- "Enraged Poisoner" on crack with poison axes - not quite the same quality of crack that the Enraged Ice Bone is on, but still fast
monsters/skeleton_poison_guarder
- "Poisonus Guardian" slow moving, low damage, high armor skeleton that periodically surrounds himself with poison fog. (non-roamer)
monsters/skeleton_poison_random
- picks one of the above 6 at random - not a bad idea, as they tend to complement each other, and it adds to variety per map visit. Guardian and Sworder will go roaming if spawned through this random script.
* Poison bone series intended for levels 20-30 (depending on how many you use at once)
bloodrose/venevus
- "Venevus the Corruptor" yet another necro modeled after Keledros (just to piss off davidos.)

New Mapper Toys
shards / key / and related NPC for Crow's map
dq/findlebind <-> kodiak -> slithar -> venevus bloodrose quest package worked out
go_roam - ms_npcscript event, makes a non-roaming monster start roaming
no_roam - ms_npcscript event, sets a roaming monster into guard mode

BugZ Squashed + Odder stuffz
More optimization for the new AI (no longer high-cycles vs. mons/sounds)
Old AI given the 'alert allies on struck' ability (but not on spot)
Pot tweakage
Bandit screwups from September fixed
Orc Flayer screwups from September fixed
*some* improvement to the flyer AI (currently affects most bats and Horrors)
No more invulnerable low-flying horrors (sadly, horror death sequence also nerfed) [includes model fix]
BS BD mitigated, but something odd is still going on there
Sembelbin High Priest chat fixed, and much more chat added.
Forsuth chat fixed and his constant nodding (hopefully once and for all)
Default NPC menus - wander around and F11 on some random NPC's - ye may even learn somethin new!

...and the usual 10,000 minor changes I'm not bothering to list...


...sadly didn't have time for the Daragoth/Goblintown/MSCave opts this month - but I think the AI tweaks should fix it (indeed, near as I can tell, the new idle AI uses far less CPU than the old).

Speaking of Goblintown... Remember when I said the Goblin's use the Orc AI? I was, apparently, on crack - they were still using the old AI. So if Goblin Town is lagging, I dunno why. Just for the fun of it - I have now actually moved the Goblins to the new AI to see if that helps any.

Also updated:
AMX Package: http://www.thothie.com/ms/msc_amx.zip
This does not include the PVP vote I eventually intend to add, but it includes all the previously discused features, and one or two more. It also has some utilities mappers may find useful (although they are disabled by default)

Map Updates: The maps themselves haven't been updated since September 20th - but I moved Goblintown to the HLCSG updater, as it seems it may have produced a corrupt map last time, and I made some minor improvements to the update system. I do intend to release another minor map update in the next few days (to get some more items into the game).

 

[Jelly]

Nice job once again Thothie I'm gonna get a helmet again ^^

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I need to get this and host BoU #2 again

 

[Gurluas]

thats nice
will november pack have the elf commoner? :roll:

 

[Thothie]

If you downloaded the beta-package before the time stamp of this notice, so sorry, please clear your internet cache and download again.

Well, my friends, I'm afraid the time has come and we have hit that proverbial wall: we've hit the item limit.

I had to remove 6 yet to be in-game items. If you have any items that you should not have, you should dump them before you install this patch or you will not be able to play.

These include:
The leaked light crossbow
Fake Felewyn's Light
Potion of Forgetfulness
Wooden Shield
The Lost Blade
Venevus's Note

After removing these items from the SC.DLL I was able to startup Thornlands again. Seems none of the other maps are affected, thus far (Thornlands prob has more ents than any other).

Now, I realize we have a LOT of useless items, but I can't just go axing items at random, as anyone who has any item I remove, will not be able to load their characters.

So... Unless I manage to get this hard code to compile (unlikely) and fix the limit (even more unlikely) or someone manages to make a script that we can run across FN to remove items due for removal from game from characters (also unlikely, and has potentially dire consequences), we are SOL, and this is far as I can take this thing.

thats nice
will november pack have the elf commoner? :roll:

Not until i have a map that needs them and is worthy of inflating the betapack for.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Crap.

But then again, it was coming.

 

[Thothie]

Host_Error: PF_precache_model_I: Model 'sprites/c-tele1.spr' failed to precache because the item count is over the 512 limit

We're at the absolute limit for Thornlands, warn me if another map is affected. I'll strip some other stuff we've not implemented yet if need be. MS_snow, Daragoth, Highlands_msc, calruin2, and Lostcastle_msc are not affected, and, aside from Thornlands, I can't think of any maps more ent heavy than those.

To clarify, the xbow is now in-game, and functional. It's just if you got an xbow from the Bloodrose leak, ya gotta dump it before applying the patch (It would otherwise turn into an apple anyways).

 

[evilsquirrel]

news has been posted on moddb, waiting for them to auth it and mebbe frontpage it

 

[PBarnum]

cant wait to see it

 

[Thothie]

*sigh* And again with the clearing of the caches, and the redownloadingz of the betapack.

Although if you're getting as sick of this as I am, you can just zap the SC.DLL alone here:
http://www.thothie.com/msc/Oct1stFix.SCDLL.only.rar

Seems removing a certain item stopped bluejet1.spr from getting precache'd elsewhere it needed to be... This also means, I had to axe the Rune Axe. So if you got one of those (and you shouldn't) - you'll need to dump that too.

Hopefully no more surprises like that - but this does at least have the benifit of making me aware that it's not the #items per say, but the #of files they precache. Meaning - I may be able to squeeze in some more items by consolidating some of the existing sounds/fx/models where we can get away with it. Might be worth it to get the Lostblade and Rune Axe back in.

I was hoping, even if I couldn't get the hard code - that it'd be possible to complete the world, even if the game were to still be buggy. This new limitation puts a stake in that idea's heart. If I can't get this thing to compile and/or can't find away around this issue - I may call it quits here, and start assembling the MSC 1.1 package, insofar as is possible.

 

[Jelly]

Is this the end of MS:C?

 

[evilsquirrel]

well...if this is the end of MS:C ..i may see if i can move to source slightly sooner than planned...

of course, still gotta finish bloodrose and foutpost

 

[Crow]

No you nubs, its release-a-big-patch-time, meaning thothie has to tie up loose ends and fit what he can into 1.1, and what cant be done in time for 1.1 will be worked on afterwards, not "The end."


__________________________
Artwork by Adam Phillips
http://www.biteycastle.com/html.shtml

 

[Hush]

Woohoo! Can't wait to get a crossbow, rebuy/find some nice helmets and slay some foes

Well, my friends, I'm afraid the time has come and we have hit that proverbial wall: we've hit the item limit.

Damn, is there a chance to solve this problem or will it mean some kind of dead-end?

 

[HumanSteak]

Maybe remove some useless items like heavy hammer (as much miss chances as great axe and sux) keep only one kind of warhammer..? maybe we could list many useless items then make a warning to all those using these to drop before a new patch to remove these.

 

[Thothie]

The remove item bit is rather limited. The impact of client flow would also be enormous. Not everyone who plays visits the forums, so we'd likely loose all of them in the process. Additionally it's cruel to the nubs, as they'll be all "I killed 50 spiders or paid XXXgp to get this dull crafted knife - why do I gotta toss it now?" Then there's the issue of keeping a server running on the old patch so the various people who can't start listen servers can dump their stuff.

However, since it's the number of files precached, and not the sheer number of items, I may have a solution... But it maybe a painful one. Namely: consolidating as many files as possible.

I can't consolidate sounds, as there's no way to tell the script engine where to start and stop playing a sound (I suspect, this is a limitation of the core engine itself as well). *Some* sprites I may be able to consolidate by changing them to animated sprites and calling specific frames. But that's still limited. But the models...

I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* we can consolidate all the world and p_models into one huge submodeled file (similar to misc/p_misc.mdl or weapons/swords/p_swords.mdl). Could free up about 20 model spots that way. That's a lot of notepad modeling work though. The only person I know who can do that sort of thing for sure is Orochi - and I'm sure he'll run away screaming at a task like that. I think I could figure it out, but it'd take me quite some time to get it all done.

Any volunteers?

If there was a way to consolidate view models as well, we'd be golden, but I don't think there is.

The complex submodel creations that we have already make working with this game a pain in the ass though, but as much as I despise them, I suspect there maybe no other way to continue.

I'll get a list of all the media files used by items, weather, and effects (as those will count too, being pre-cached before map load), and centralize them all in a single script. We'll be able to figure out exactly how many pieces of media we can consolidate and free up then, and exactly how many more we can add afterwards.

I figure if we can get 100 pieces of media consolidated total (that's of, apparently, 512), we can have 50 more items (assuming 2 pieces of unique media per item). And I think 50 more items would be enough to carry the world to fruition.

I think we'd still be able to have an infinite variety of weapons that used the same media files though. It's just unique sound/sprites/models is where the problem lies. There'd also be no cap on NPC's or monster variety. Mostly just in stuff you can carry, and inventory sprites... *Maybe* on spell fx as well. (/me cries as he looks as his 75MB of models in future_materials/msc/models/magic )

 

[Thothie]

Minor Bug with this October 1st Patch

This only affects clients who have not updated:

If you see Flesheater and you do not have the Oct1st betapack - you will crash. The server, and everyone with the patch, however, will be fine. This is due to an update to the Flesheater model and client<->server not matching up.

Most common place to run into Flesheater is the Ripented version of the crap-map known as unrest2_beta1 [remind me to add that to the map updates / front page ]. He should also be making a cameo in the final Bloodrose when it's released.

PS. If someone wants to expand on unrest2_beta1, I have the source - I'll try to get Jester's permission - maybe someone can make a real map out of it.

Item Limit News: I'm making progress on consolidating sprites and sounds where it's not too obnoxious [ie. pruneing uneeded and merging similars], and I managed to strip a few superfluous models. I'm going to setup some 'generic items' to test how many more pieces of media/items we'll be able to add after these changes. I'm also waiting to hear back from Orochi about model merging.

 

[Gurluas]

i want to expand on unrest_beta1

 

[Thothie]

<_<... I've been unimpressed with your judgement in the past... But it is a simple map, probably very good for a beginner to work with. Just be sure to let me get a look at it before you release it on Custom Content, so we don't have any "surprises" this time. I'll send Jester a PM now.

 

[Gurluas]

good, as for kray eldorad, shall i send it through rapidshare or msn?
id rather send it through msn, and id rather send it because id like to know if its worth expanding