Suggestion: spell duration

[ReBoot]

I'd like to see the duration of my current spell in the HUD, eg replace the small banner between the HP and MP flasks with a duration meter.

I would also make the sprite artwork, if that suggestion is to be implemented.

 

[The Man In Black]

Not worth the time it takes to make it..

 

[ReBoot]

Don't judge, it would be my time to make this damn sprite. Do you even know what I mean?

 

[Thothie]

It'd require a client side patch to put it on the hud. It'd eat CPU doing it's count down. Plus there's which duration you want: that of the applied spell, or how long you have until you have to recast it?

 

[ReBoot]

How long til re-prepair it. A duration of persistant spells working (ice shield) would also be helpful, but the other one seems more important.

If that's an idea, should I begin making a sprite?

 

[The Man In Black]

I was judging it by the time it would take to fix the gui, code in how it works, and make it work properly without lag just to know how much time you have until you can "re-prepare" the spell

 

[Thothie]

There'd have to be an all new server<->client function that could start indexed count down bars on the client hud, basically. You could have quite a few sprites done before we figured that out.

 

[The Man In Black]

And it begs the question of "Why bother?"

Is anyone other than ReBoot in favor of this, knowing how much it would take to get it done?

 

[evilsquirrel]

not rry

 

[Thothie]

Well, it WOULD be nice to be able draw to timed progress bars on the client hud, but I think it's beyond what the current coder crew can handle.

 

[ReBoot]

A question: why does the server have to start the bar on the client? The client could start it itself and when neccessary, correct it with the server's data about the duration of the prepared spell.
Of course, I don't have a clue about coding, I just have theories.

 

[Thothie]

and when neccessary, correct it with the server's data about the duration of the prepared spell.

That's the same procedure as having the server tell the client when to start. Server gets a message when the spell begins and that determines when the spell will end.

Either way, it's a client side patch. I'm not sure if I could rig up a client side effect via scripts that would *look* like it's on the HUD, but actually be projected into the client's lower left vision or something... It wouldn't be dependable, anyway, as the placement of various objects on the player's HUD varies with resolution, thus it would likely get obscured on some displays.

 

[ReBoot]

Could at least the "Connection to central server lost"-message we currently have STAY THERE as long as the connection is lost?

Btw a question: are you going to patch client sided DLL sometime, or don't you have the source (or don't you want to)? I'd just like to know.

 

[Thothie]

We have the source, but when we patch the client side none of those people who download 1.0 will be able to play, and the message they get doesn't tell them where to update. So trying to avoid a client side patch until we have enough things together to make it worth doing, and then we want to replace the 1.0 download with a 1.05 or something that includes it. (Thus, no alienating the nubs)

 

[evilsquirrel]

ummm...thothie...wouldn't they not be able to play anyways...because...didnt the dev_a-h edit the client.dll?

 

[Thothie]

ummm...thothie...wouldn't they not be able to play anyways...because...didnt the dev_a-h edit the client.dll?

I think that's included in the current 1.0 download. Or at least I can join my server with a 1.0 install, for some reason.

 

[ReBoot]

Thanks Thothie. I don't have a clue about coding, but I somehow believe that some of the things MSC is currently doing serverside will work better client side (=less network communication and less CPU usage->less lag).

Anyway, is such graphic timer likely to be included then? If yes, I'd like to make a sprite in a shape of, let's say, a ball that is displayed in your inventory when u have a spell prepaired.

 

[Thothie]

Again, I dunno, ain't touched the client side code yet. It may just be easier to make a script function that lets the script draw bars on the client screen similar to the stamina and weight bars.

Client <-> Server interaction in HL is very screwy. Client uses a completely different entity index and can't easily pull vars the server is using, so it's all very haphazard. This is why we have a lot of weird client <-> server related communication bugs (skills%, health, etc.)