INFO Latest Update News

[Drathamus]

Hmmm... my crest makes me take 3x more damage. What's up?

 

[Thothie]

...I was experimenting with that this patch, and *thought* I undid it before release... Meh, fixed next patch, along with the offensive descriptor.

 

[Keldorn]

I'll add it to perpetual, as sadly, it isn't going away anytime soon, lest we find a better way to deal with various related cheats.

Could use a delay on making unowned, unreserved items available for pick up after they are dropped on the floor instead of disabling inventories/menus. In combination with the new feature of unowned, unreserved items poofing when players leave the server, it should still address cheat related problems.

 

[Borya]

...I was experimenting with that this patch, and *thought* I undid it before release... Meh, fixed next patch, along with the offensive descriptor.

>implying it was accidental

Say, once you fix the crest, is there any chance you could add an item available to all that would give increased damage like that? I think it might help spice up lower level maps for higher level players, if they choose to wear it.

 

[Coffein]

Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the hard work you still put in, after all the time
Thanks!

 

[Keldorn]

Any news on the patch?

 

[zeus9860]

Keldorn be impatient. This is new.

 

[Thothie]

Still trying to fix some of the security issues that leaked. Bloodshrine boss and minions need to be finished up as well. All going very slowly. :\

 

[Thothie]

 

[Red Cell]

When will then be now?

 

[Thothie]

I call your Dark Helmet, and raise you one vague musical reference:

....or, for those in Europe...

Real-Time "Final Countdown" Progress:

Alpha HLDS Testing Checks
Finalize Version Tags
Compiling Package
Testing Package Integrity
Uploading Package
Updating RKS servers
Updating FN
Updating Front Page
RELEASE!
(post release) Setup Mirrors
(post release) Finish Changelog
(post release) Post Changelog

 

[Thothie]

Go get it!!!
http://www.msremake.com/download.php

Now, give me a bit while I finish up the changelog...

 

[Thothie]

Just gonna start with this... And do the spoiler section in a sec...

I know it doesn't seem like much for a two month wait, but sadly, most of this shit was exploit fixes that ate quite a bit of trial-and-error coding time.

NOV2011a PUBLIC CHANGELOG:

"Boo! ... Whaddya mean it's too late for Halloween?"

New Map
• Bloodshrine by Joe! (Very Hard, Disconnected)
- Yet more ancient ruins to explore... But what's this, a surprise?

Updated Maps
• The_Wall2 - Once he hits the staircase, Forsuth will follow you, even if he has to cheat to do it.
• Aleyesu - Various sploit fixes, post-boss spawn teleporter, and various optimizations
• gertenheld_cave - Various fixes

New Stuff


• Status Icons (With Timer Bars)
- We've finally dared to implement these. In order to assure they are not causing any new issues, we're currently implementing just two: Ice Shield and Stun - most of the other effects are visually indicated (either in the event hud, or otherwise), or last until death, so these two seemed the most critical.
- They can be disabled with the client cvar: ms_status_icons 0


• liblist.gam is now included with the betapack installer - this provides a default client edict count of 1500, to help keep modified -num_edict servers in sync with clients.

Nerf Log
• Heavy Crossbow Reload Time reduced 25% (now 3 seconds)
• Steam Crossbow Reload Time reduced by half (now 5.8 seconds)
• Volcano no longer provides fire DOT for all weapons (oops)
• Lots and lots of various exploit and cheat fixes

New Mapper Toys
• test_scripts/player_externals and test_scripts/game_master
- These two test scripts can be used to add additional externals or systems to the game_master or players accordingly
- Remember, any trigger script event prefixed with "gm_" is called against the game_mater, rather than the character that crosses it. Also remember, that only triggers with the "Monsters" spawnflag checked affect NPCs other than the game_master.

Other Stuff
• Fire Staff aimer now ignores NPC collision boxes for easier aiming - but the aimer will also go through solid map entities - such as func_walls - though the spell itself will not
• Fixed various chests/bank issues (including reports when inventory full)
• Some fixes and optimizations for Maldora
• Cleaned up pet teleport system a bit (less likely to go into walls)
• If you die, your pet will automatically "egg" - preventing him from following you into a pit
• Teleporters now select from destinations sequentially, instead of randomly, reducing likelihood of players getting stuck in one another, so long as there are multiple destinations provided.
• Fixed BoU crest ^_^
• Lots of misc optimizations
• The usual 100,000 minor tweaks and changes I'm not bothering to list

Mind you, we've not fixed every reported exploit, even among those we can fix, but we got most of the recently reported ones. Those of you who reported exploits can collect your rewards from Sembelbin at any time. (Jeeze, so many in that list now - gonna have to make it an array, instead of a token set).

[SPOILER SECTION BEGIN]


New Items
• Lance of Affliction (Req. Polearms: 35+, Affliction: 30)
- Abilities: Charged_Thrust, Block, Push, Backhand, Power Throw
- The Lance of Affliction does heavy Acid damage coupled with Poison DOT effects.
- Throwing the lance, and landing it at sufficient angle, without striking an enemy, causes the projectile to emit a spiral of poisonous gas for fifteen seconds. This gas does 75% of your affliction skill per second for 5/seconds.
- If you're in a hurry to make one of these death sticks, toss the lance directly at your feet and back off.
- The lance is also capable of emitting a poison burst with a large radius.

• Potion of Swift Blade
- Increases speed of primary melee attacks by 50%
- (This does not affect bows, spells, or secondary charged attacks)
- Lasts until death.

• Lesser Potion of Swift Blade
- As the Potion of Swift Blade, but increase is 25%
- Note that the effects of these potions do not stack! (Indeed, drinking one will cancel the effects of the other.)

New Beasties / Scripts
• monsters/burning_one - Burning One [very hard]
- Whipped this up in a bit of a hurry - works, more or less, like the Cold One / Hollow One, except has a golden mask and is fire themed.

• monsters/lumbering_dead - Lumbering Dead [hard]
- Big hulking skeleton. Can jump. Multiple slashing attacks. Throws skullcrabs (see below). If two or more skullcrabs are already deployed, it will instead toss gobs of acid at distant targets (favoring hugs, if possible).
- Note that the Lumbering Dead on Bloodshrine have an XP reduction, as they spawn infinitely. (Actual default value is 1000xp)

• monsters/skullcrab - Skull Crab [medium]
- This operates, more or less, identically to the Half-Life Head Crab - save that it'll crawl over and bite you for a few moments before flying off.

• monsters/shadowform_boss - Ancient Shadowform [very hard]
- This is a stationary boss made up of a dark cloud with whips of electricity dancing throughout its mass. It'll strike opponents within 700 units with either lightning or dark energy (alternating randomly).
- If an enemy nears within 384 units, it will manifest its eye. It is only vulnerable when its eye is manifest - and even then, only to Holy or Dark energy. Once manifested, it will attempt to seal a single enemy in a magic shell, slowly damaging him, and neutralizing him, for 15 seconds. It will then de-manifest 5 seconds later, and be once again rendered invulnerable, making solo'ing difficult.
- Since it isn't vulnerable unless a target is in attack range, it doesn't require some of the usual exploitation prevention seen with other bosses, however, as it is also stationary, it will require some sort of permanent escort.
- Externals: gm_bloodshrine_boss_fx - triggers with this script event update the monster's client fx (through the game master). As the cloud FX only update every 30 seconds, it is recommend to have such a trigger near entrance(s) leading to the monster - though there is always a field of lightning, helping to indicate the monster's position. (This system will not work if there is more than one ancient shadowform present.)

• monsters/snake_gcobra_metal [medium]
- Giant Cobra, made of metal. As per usual with the metal subtype critters, has major damage reduction, with a slight vulnerability to holy magics and a severe vulnerability to lightning.
- Note that the one debuting on Bloodshrine has very high multipliers, the metal cobra's stats are actually identical to the regular giant cobra's, save for the damage reduction and vulnerabilities.

• joe/bartifact [n/a] - A Bloodshrine Artifact
- Special script for opening the Bloodshrine entrance.

• bloodshrine/sorc_warrior_friendly
• bloodshrine/sorc_warrior2_friendly
• bloodshrine/sorc_shaman_friendly
- Special scripts for the friendly Sorcs on Bloodshrine

Additional Bloodshrine Notes:
• A group of friendly Shadahar orcs will aid you towards the end of the map, if you have a Blood Drinker as proof of your aiding Chief Runegahr. If you lack such proof, however, they will be hostile.
• The allied orcs are MUCH stronger than your average Shadahar warriors.
• (Bug) Don't let the shaman wander off the cliff in the room with the large crystal. Unlike the warriors, he cannot jump - you'll have a very hard time getting him back out.
• The allied orcs will usually attempt to follow the nearest player at a respectful distance, but they are quite large. If they accidentally "trap" you, merely push up against them - they should move aside.
• The Shaman has banishing magics, and thus, unlike the warriors, he can affect Shadow Forms.
• Successfully completing the map will result in minor rewards from the warriors, should they survive. The Shaman, additionally, can increase a skill of your choice by 5,000-10,000xp (+25% per player present). He will do this once for every player in the top 75% damage point tier.
• The orcs will NOT reward you, if you did not let them fight. They will feel that witnessing their humiliation, as they sat by helpless during a battle, was reward enough for you. They must have each done a fair amount of damage, and have each been damaged by the final boss.


[SPOILER SECTION END]

Ye Download Link

 

[Thothie]

Neglected to update the FN hashes - should be done now.

I also forgot to add bloodshrine to the "disconnected" list - so it wont show up in votemap help - but you can still vote for it - save maybe on servers with restricted map voting settings (don't see any out there these days though). Will fix.

 

[Caluminium]

• Status Icons (With Timer Bars)
- We've finally dared to implement these. In order to assure they are not causing any new issues, we're currently implementing just two: Ice Shield and Stun - most of the other effects are visually indicated (either in the event hud, or otherwise), or last until death, so these two seemed the most critical.
- They can be disabled with the client cvar: ms_status_icons 0

Awesome

 

[Thothie]

Yeah... That ice shield status thing is actually a bit of a game changer. ^_^

It doesn't give you an icon for ice shields you've cast on others (not even friendly NPCs), but as you usually cast on yourself at the same time, it works well enough to monitor them as well.

Spoiler section up. If you are having trouble with Bloodshrine, it maybe wise to check the end of it. (hint: Let the orcs fight.)

 

[zeus9860]

Time for some criticism, hell yeah!

//Rant
I'm dissapointed with this patch because of 4 things.

First thing that makes me say this is the fact that i keep seeing everyone with 0 dmg points or around this value, getting the new potions countless of times from the new map. While the person who is in top dmg points keeps getting lances once in a while, random potions or crap loot. I've done about 10 runs now on this map, to try and obtain the new potions and guess what, all i see is players with 50-300 hp getting the damn things and i still haven't got one, which is pissing me off big time.

Second thing that supports this even more is the experience reward from the orc, all 3 orcs are likely to leech way more xp than the one they give in the end... Value is not really reasonable unless playing in huge groups on that map. I say either give xp rewards for everyone (top dmg points gets highest value, the ones under will get smaller values) or make the xp reward higher for that one player, but it has to be alot more reasonable.

Third thing is about the new polearm, its nice and all that. But i don't see any use for the throw ability since its really short, the gas ability it does looks nice but its nowhere to what i would consider to be good and usefull. Not to mention the aura, it's rather useless unless you get cornered by a bunch of things, but who's stupid enough to do this anyways...?

Fourth and final thing is the issues that the boss room causes to my game, that boss battle is nicely planned and i like the result but it's way too laggy that ends up crashing my game if the boss isn't killed fast enough or if there is too much going on at the same place... Of course if this happens, by the time i get back to the server, i'll be completly ignored by the chests, meaning i cant get any loot. What a wonderfull idea this is, making me waste my time clearing maps so that people with 13k dmg points get the loot i earned. -_-'


//Suggestion
Since i've mentioned here the xp reward from the orcs, how about doing this samething to all other maps that contain friendly npcs that must be escorted/protected? Could always adjust the xp rewards based on the lvl tier of each map...
But there are a series of maps i would like to see this put in, and these are:
-Gertenheld_forest;
-Foutpost;
-The_wall;
-Islesofdread2;
-Oceancrossing;
-Lodagond-4 (runegarh);
-Old_helena.

Of course adding these xp rewards could always be a 2nd option, so that the player could pick either loot or xp in an interaction menu.

 

[Thothie]

First thing that makes me say this is the fact that i keep seeing everyone with 0 dmg points or around this value, getting the new potions countless of times from the new map.

Hrmmm.... They are in the quality section of the chest (lest you mean just mana/hp pots, which are in general). So unless something is going wrong with the dmg point average finder in the individualized chests, it should only be handing them out to folks in the top 75%. No one with 0 dmg points should be able to qualify.

The lance requires that you also be the player with the highest damage points. So yeah, you could easily wind up with the lance but no pot with some bad rolls. Hrmmm...

Second thing that supports this even more is the experience reward from the orc, all 3 orcs are likely to leech way more xp than the one they give in the end.

Well, they are at the end of the map, and between the skeles, the two shadowforms, and the boss, there's about 5,000xp to be had, if you divide among three players. The shaman will (or *should*, note the bugger I'll get to in a sec) grant 7,500 to 15,000xp to a single skill of your choosing in that situation. If you're solo, he'll have less to dish out (5,000xp to 10,000xp). In that case, it *might* be worth it to trap them somewhere and forego the reward, unless, of course, you want skill in a specific stat that the monsters at the end of the map aren't going to help you train. In any case, the reward is designed specifically to offset the potential XP loss and then some.

But the bugger up, at the moment, is that it is near impossible to get the reward with more than say two or three players, because the average isn't divided proper, and thus the orcs will most likely think you - or perhaps even everyone, fails to qualify. I've fixed this, but I've not put out a patch for it.

Third thing is about the new polearm, its nice and all that. But i don't see any use for the throw ability since its really short, the gas ability it does looks nice but its nowhere to what i would consider to be good and usefull.

I thought it was very useful for orc siege maps, and for Shad Palace / Villa (as Sorcs are extra acid/poison vulnerable). I dunno what I could do to make it more useful, within reason - maybe make the emitter poles last longer... I could raise the damage maybe too - although they already do nearly double what poison cloud does - dunno if I want the item to make the spell obsolete. An all-acid variant, however, would be insanely overpowered, unless I rigged it to do maybe a quarter of the DOT.

Not to mention the aura, it's rather useless unless you get cornered by a bunch of things, but who's stupid enough to do this anyways...?

*sheepishly raises hand*

It also applies poison DOT for a ridiculous radius. Although maybe the DOT should more closely match the emitters, tis true.

Suffice to say, better that a new item be under powered, than I should have to nerf it later. Though I did buff it quite a bit after initial alpha tests.

Of course if this happens, by the time i get back to the server, i'll be completly ignored by the chests, meaning i cant get any loot. What a wonderfull idea this is, making me waste my time clearing maps so that people with 13k dmg points get the loot i earned. -_-'

I've yet to get dumped at the end battle on that map, but it should restore your damage points proper. Only risk is that the chests might spawn while you're out, in which case, yeah, you won't be on the loot list, regardless of damage points. :/ Can't really think of a way around that, save maybe spawn the chests when the boss spawns - which would be doable, given that they are in an inaccessible room... Hrmmm...

 

[zeus9860]

Related to the polearm, i would just like to see it with a better throw, make it go further in distance. Perhaps the cloud ability should get a minor boost in duration and perhaps damage.

I've yet to get dumped at the end battle on that map, but it should restore your damage points proper. Only risk is that the chests might spawn while you're out, in which case, yeah, you won't be on the loot list, regardless of damage points. :/ Can't really think of a way around that, save maybe spawn the chests when the boss spawns - which would be doable, given that they are in an inaccessible room... Hrmmm...

There was this one time, when i joined a Phlames run, the group was on that one part with the 2 undead guardians right before boss... When i joined, i randomly tried looting the chests, and it worked, so i dont really know if this was suppose to happen because they spawned when i wasn't there, even though i got crap loot.

Also, if a chest spawns before i get disconnected from the server, it won't help because if i try looting a chest after being randomly dc'd, it won't let me, this happened a few days ago with me and avacado.

 

[Thothie]

Also, if a chest spawns before i get disconnected from the server, it won't help because if i try looting a chest after being randomly dc'd, it won't let me, this happened a few days ago with me and avacado.

Shouldn't be the case with individualized chests - they determine legitimate users when they spawn. They've no function for removing you should you disconnect or any such. :\

Although... Crap... It maybe they use your entity index, in which case, yeah, that would change after a disconnect. I thought I was using Steam ID's + Char slots, but I can check that over and see.

As for the rest, I'll have to look it over again and refresh my memory - I don't recall rigging a special function for allowing general loot regardless of being on the initial list (ie. resupply pots, some gold, and possibly random bolts), but maybe I did... Hrmm....

 

[Thothie]

"So Thothie... Where's my patch? Or at least your latest lame excuse as to why there's no patch?"

Eh...

Okies... I'm *hoping* for a patch sometime this month. It may not contain an actual new map, but if it doesn't, I shall make sure it *will* contain at least one *very* special surprise (that I am currently working on.)

There are four maps in the WIP list, however, and one may come down on me at any second (indeed, there's at least one far enough along, going by the source, that we should probably be writing up some scripts for it...) That may delay the patch a bit more, but at least it'll include an actual new map then (rather than just the pending super-sekrat surprise). Patch will also contain various fixes for the issues on Bloodshrine and some of the XP issues on other maps, etc. etc.

 

[zeus9860]

I'm actually more worried about the spellcasting update than getting a new patch... so how's it going? Any progress or was it put on the waiting list?

Special surprises uh? Let me guess, there will be a santa npc somewhere ingame and we must find it? >_>

 

[Thothie]

There's so many maps in the WIP pipe that I've been avoiding the spell update - plus I expect that to take several months... I did work up a system so I could work on a separate items folder without messing with the current patch, and swap my spell system efforts into the current patch and out again, but as things got more complex, it became less effective, so I gotta work out something else to keep them modular - so I don't wind up putting the whole game on hold for it.

As for Santa, while that's a thought, the plan calls for something much more impressive than that, perhaps even game shattering, lore wise, at least... It is a shame, however, that I didn't get the November patch ready in time for Halloween though, as I was going to do little Jack o' Lantern hats for all the NPCs and skeletons that you could get...

 

[Fegged]

As for Santa, while that's a thought, the plan calls for something much more impressive than that, perhaps even game shattering, lore wise, at least... It is a shame, however, that I didn't get the November patch ready in time for Halloween though, as I was going to do little Jack o' Lantern hats for all the NPCs and skeletons that you could get...

Santa's Minion Hat
Resistance to all classes (5-10%)

- Looks awesome
Works only on December / Christmas

wouldn't be that awesome

btw, almost 1 year since polearms has been in the game

 

[Caluminium]

Christmas crackers that are found in chests, use it on a player to both get gifts (like 10k Gold or 5k XP in a random skill)

btw, almost 1 year since polearms has been in the game

That was quick.