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[Evaan]

Excellent work, Thothie, and others who might have contributed.

I like the idea of promoting group play, but I think instead of restricting certain items to soloplayers, instead increase the chance of getting it when with a group, as you already have and some items (which is great).

You could, however, have certain areas inaccessible to solo players.

Let's say someone has to turn a wheel, and has to keep the wheel turned, so that a door remains open, and another player can get in, get the item and get out. Release the wheel and the door instantly shuts (reopenable form the inside, so people aren't locked away).

 

[Thothie]

You could, however, have certain areas inaccessible to solo players.

Fail to see the difference if a unique item is on the other side... Some mappers have made an effort in that direction though. But basically the tiny few weapons we have requiring multiple players, only applies to FN. Basically, to put an end to obsessive compulsive people who solo sploit the same mega boss to death over and over again on their pass worded servers, and stress out the central servers needlessly. Join us, you might learn to have some fun.

Again, should have a single player variant of this game in the near future, but it's not something that I worry about. More interested in the on-line community that's willing to play with one another, and luring the loners out of their closets.

 

[Evaan]

It makes a difference because one is required to group in order to reach the new/other areas.

Aye, the item is still restricted, but it would make more sense as to why.

 

[Thothie]

Ah, yes... I do like that... Sadly it's also a lot more work. We seem to pull in about one new map per month, at best. Certainly something for future mappers to take into account though, as it's also less work on my end.

Granted, the downside of that is, unlike this system - that can't be used in single player mode... But I maybe able to implement some special map event so mappers can have their maps "adjust" to the other mode.

 

[Evaan]

Well, yes, I realize this would be difficult to implement on existing maps, but it could be a thought for future areas.

Provides more co-operative play and not just hack and slash.

For single player, allow mercenaries (that doesn't get blocked by monster_clip), and assign them to use something. Scientists and Barney in HL could. I don't see why NPCs couldn't

 

[Gurluas]

Maybe the boss area in Nashalrath may require multiple players to properly activate?(its a portal, thats as much as i can say

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Awesome update Thothie, and I mean it, despite everything I said in this thread (I still want a reaction on this, though ).

Also, I have three questions.

First one is:

• monsters/ice_troll_lobber
- Throws balls of ice that burst into massively damaging spikes, upon hitting the ground. Designed to soften up level 40+ characters
• monsters/ice_troll_turret
- Same thing, don't move

• monsters/troll_ice_lobber
- This troll lobber tosses giant snow boulders that break into fields of deadly ice spikes
- Good for juicing up level 40'ers
- Demon faction for easy placement (gets along with both undead and orcs)
• monsters/troll_ice_lobber_turret
- non-roaming variant of same

These look exactly the same, but the script names are different. Did you make a slight duplication mistake here, or are they different somehow?

Second one: Did you change the names of any old monsters? I suggested a while ago on MSN that you should change the names of all hard bandits to "Trained Bandit <something>", just as the "Trained Bandit Archer". Did you change any names? I'd love to know that for the monsterscript list.

Third question:

• Fixed bug where bandit archers (first three types) sometimes caused server crash

There are only three types of bandit archers, right?

• Cut down on lag during black slime splits
• Drastically reduced lag caused by mass monster spawnage

 

[Dridmar]

Is the ring even out yet? Care to give us a hint of where to find part 1 Thothie?

 

[xxxcoldmanxxx]

hey thothie i dont seem to be able to find the march patch u know. the one for nova blade and stuff. i tried ur site and clicked the huge dl button and did all the right stuff like extract and things but still wont work i get crashed everytime i see someone holding a nova blade or some other new stuff *}{3|Pz! P|()X!*

 

[Thothie]

Ya don't need previous patches. The latest betapack always contains all previous patches. Older patches get removed from the site eventually to cut down on h4x attempts.

Troll Ice Lobber

Ya know, I was THINKING he came in when MAY was out... Oh well. I suppose it was worth noting the race switch though, which was new (was originally orc faction - which made him throw snowballs of death at undead.)

There are only three types of bandit archers, right?

Four, if you include the boss. (His script ends in _archer too, so I thought best to say "first three".)

: Did you change the names of any old monsters? I suggested a while ago on MSN that you should change the names of all hard bandits to "Trained Bandit <something>", just as the "Trained Bandit Archer". Did you change any names? I'd love to know that for the monsterscript list.

I dun think I got to that... Always reluctant to do so - seems everyone has a reason to complain about every name, and then when we change the name, they complain about the new one.

I might get to it for consistency though... Just got much bigger fish to fry right now.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Troll Ice Lobber

Ya know, I was THINKING he came in when MAY was out... Oh well. I suppose it was worth noting the race switch though, which was new (was originally orc faction - which made him throw snowballs of death at undead.)

I can't tell wether this does or doesn't mean that the ice trolls from the MAY2007a patch are in-game. Could you please rephrase that (yeah I just woke up)?

 

[The Man In Black]

Troll Ice Lobber

Ya know, I was THINKING he came in when MAY was out... Oh well. I suppose it was worth noting the race switch though, which was new (was originally orc faction - which made him throw snowballs of death at undead.)

I can't tell wether this does or doesn't mean that the ice trolls from the MAY2007a patch are in-game. Could you please rephrase that (yeah I just woke up)?

They came ingame in may, but he's changed the race in this patch (he forgot he added them in may to begin with)

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Ah, thanks.

 

[Thothie]

Well, they arent "in game" (ie. on any existing map) but the script is placable and functions.

 

[BioRage]

JUN2007a PUBLIC CHANGELOG:

pic of the month


Most of this month's stuff is scripts for new maps. This bumped pretty much everything else over to next month.

New Stuffz
• show_health - settings for show_health now save to character (Vista disease spreaders rejoice)
• summon_help - forgot your summon commands? Type this in chat or console to list them in console/combat hud
• Improved shields a bit
- Shields can now deflect most any incoming attack, even fire, poison spit, etc.
- They cannot, however, block the DOT from such effects
- (ie. shield may deflect a fire ball's impact but not the ambient burn damage.)

• Seperate gold tiles in chests (finally)
- When there are multiple players, pouches of gold now appear in groups inside chests (rather than just one huge wad)
- Like potions, they can stack, so ya might want to check the same chest again after taking one
- These do not add to your inventory, but add gold directly to your character
- You must have as double the hp as there is gold in the to pick it up (PL prevention)
- More players = more gold pouches per chest
- Only applied to a few chests now, soon to be everywhere
• Health bars!
- Health bars appear over players heads
- Health bars appear over monsters heads, with a special ring
- Monster health bars scale based on total monster total HP, like so:
Orc Warrior = 60 total hp
Djinn Ji'ax = 3000 total hp
- Known bug: sometimes monster healthbars pop up "inside" monsters due to improper or false height defines
- This bit also needs some aesthetic work
- I've made the system dymamic, so we could use a sprite with more frames (up to 100)
- health_bars 0 in console to disable player health bars (this setting saves to character)
- To disable monster health bars: put away the ring. ^_^
• New flight AI
- Bats move almost realistically, and if you thought Horrors were annoying before...
- Giant bat got a bit of of a "revamp" too (semi re-write)
• Ring of the Bloodstone (in game)
- Allows seeing health bars over the head of monsters when they are struck
- Result of an insanely complicated 13 step quest...

New Beasties
• monsters/uber_reaver - Ice Reaver Patriarch
- A gigantic ice reaver, enhanced by the magics of Maldora, level 40'ish mini-boss
- AOE stun, lightning attack, massive perpetual blizzard attack, quadruple freeze sphere attack, big ol bag of hp
• monsters/skeleton_crystal1
- Invulnerable escort for the uber_reaver, comes and goes
- Must be tied to the a repeatable monsterspawn named "summon_skels" with 1 life for proper function with uber_reaver
• monsters/troll_ice_lobber
- This troll lobber tosses giant snow boulders that break into fields of deadly ice spikes
- Good for juicing up level 40'ers
- Demon faction for easy placement (gets along with both undead and orcs)
• monsters/troll_ice_lobber_turret
- non-roaming variant of same
• monsters/sorc_chief1 - Runegahr, Shahaddar Orc Chieften (WIP)
- Semi-functional, but not quite ready for prime time. Can actually fight, but want a few more abilities.
- ATM he has various lightning attacks, a vampiric sword, and the ability to teleport
• monsters/sorc_telepoint1 (monsters/sorc_telepoint2,monsters/sorc_telepoint3,monsters/sorc_telepoint4)
- Places these on the map with Runegahr, or any other Shahaddar orc, and they will periodically teleport to them and/or their spawn point
- Creatures near teleport points will be catapulted away just before the orc arrives
- Multiply orcs can be used as each teleport point as a built in "cool down" time
• NPCs: "NPCs/james" and "NPCs/tao" for Dridge's upcoming map

New Mapper Toys
• Script error reporting - pop-ups tell ya when you spelled a script name wrong

BugZ Squashed + Odder stuffz
• Fixed bug where Maldora was vulnerable to demon blood and a few other magics
• Fixed Blacksmith "swinging at air" and similar range issues
• Fixed a bunch of anim errors
• Fixed some crashes involved with gold bags spawning
• Some more no free edict control
• Eight hours of "doing olypmix" brain death prevention (cross fingers)
- Also revamped the Ice Djinn a bit while I was at it, as he made a good test subject
• Better ***mod<->FN detection
• Fixed dibilitating poison immunities
- Also reduced poison time on g.poison arrows for mercy's sake
• Tweaks to the chain lightning effect (still uses wave effect though)
• Cut down on lag during black slime splits
• Drastically reduced lag caused by mass monster spawnage
• Fixed client-side health sprite corruption (possibly... maybe...)
• Improved ice wall responsiveness and agro trigger
• Improved poison cloud responsiveness
• Some improvement to the elemental resistance system
- Removing a resistant item for one element will no longer cancel the resistance of another
- Combining two items that resist the same element still causes wierdness though
• Fixed some more PVP issues
- including bit with the bone blade not working on players, I hope
• Guards no longer constantly turn to face players
- Wasn't a bug so much as an unintended feature, but it had potential issues
• Fixed bug where bandit archers (first three types) sometimes caused server crash
• Fixed bug where Voldar and Maldora would sometimes not start convos when players near by
• Watch yer step on Bloodrose, fall damage is on (by Foamy's request)
• Fixed up skele dead-by-holy fade effect
• Holy magics determine valid targets by vulnerability instead of race (new dll function)
- There were a few creatures who wern't vulnerable and should have been, this should fix that
• Lots, and lots, and lots of anti-cheat stuff
- This includes, most importantly, the fact that FN will no longer accept connections from older DLLs, as they are HIGHLY exploitable

- Anti-Whore(/ninja/pirate/cannibal/viking) -
• Switched gold bags to spawn by x#bags/player present
• Gold is split into multiple tiles base on players present*
• Gold multiplies based on #players presnet*
• Increased rewards for multiple players*
• Increased spawn chance of rares by # of players present*
• On some chests, if there more than a certain # of "worthy" players present, extra random items will appear
• "random bolts" chances increase based on # of players present
• Some rewards exclusive to multi-player games
• Chests can only be opened by the same player once every two seconds
• Some items require a player with certain attributes to appear in chests
- Meaning, if yer a nub, let the vets get the first pick, and maybe something better will be in there
• Artifiact Chests appear and determine most worthy players for some high end items
* = only some chests in some areas, to be applied to all chests in the future

- AMX Changes -
• AMX Map vote now activates when ANYONE presses [enter] on a transition
• AMXmodX adaptation pending...

- MAP Updates -
• The Keep
- Removed sounds from rotating doors to prevent crashes when they are jammed by monsters
- Caused fist bandit door to be more dependable (monster spawn there is spawnstart 0 = this is BAD)
- Addded future transition place holder to prevent sploit
• Wicard Oven
- Added monsterclip to prevent Voldar from vaulting over the gate where you can't get to him

- Installer Changes -
(nadda)

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

Bumped to next month (in order of priority):
- Crow's skycastle2 scripts (almost done! ><)
- Helena NPC post invasion award (complicated, and likely made pointless by Helena2)
- AMX vote re-write (now part of the AMXmodX project)
- Alter chain lighting to work more like, well, chain lightning
- Shahaddar revamp, and Shahaddar orc backstory (bumped for fifth month in a row)
- New Swim AI (really people, just put monster clips on the water, tis how HL1 monsters work)
- Mining System (doesn't look like Vomica wants to work on his map anymore )
- Single Player Mode (adjust for single player + not on central server)

* Known bugs:
• If you remove your armor, and replace it, you will be invisible in third person.
- Type 'vis' to remedy. If you do not type vis, your armor should appear correctly to other players.
• Warning: Unable to open sound/npc/RND_SAYX.wav for transfer
- Server message, bug with how the "say" script command works in MSC, no worries
• Sometimes you can look up and see your own health bar
- Also sometimes health bars show up inside monsters, as noted above

So tempting... must... not... come ... backk.... ahhh!

Edit: did we fix that little homo red man ?

 

[The Man In Black]

Quoting the whole changelog = ow.

There is no "gay little red dude". There's a "useful little red dude" that has a cvar to turn him off, but I've never heard of a gay one.

 

[Blasto121]

well I always thought the little red dude was happy

 

[BioRage]

Gay = Happy.

 

[Thothie]

Edit: did we fix that little homo red man ?

I am uncertain as to his sexual preference, but we made him vanishable back in January, I think it was...

ms_lildude 0 in console.

 

[Tull]

Gay = Happy.

You actually typed "homo". Oh, and I prefer to imagine that my dude is homosexual. It makes the game so much more interesting.

 

[Evaan]

I must've missed something here... Little red man? Is he a "tutotrial" or something?
One of those ingame characters that says "Press Enter to continue!" through dialogue?

*shudder*

 

[The Man In Black]

Middle of the bottom of your screen holds a little red guy. If you haven't noticed him, that's just sad.

 

[Evaan]

Oh... Well, I always thought of that as a representation of my character in third person, in other words - me, not some "red little guy".

Useful for indicating which hand is left click and which is not, but I must say I miss the old left and right hand indicators. Much easier to make out.

 

[The Man In Black]

It is a representation of you, but it's come to be known as "the little red dude", or names similiar.

 

[Thothie]

It's also become known as "Omfg wtf 4000 more e-poly's to render!?" - among several low end graphics cards.