Brad's Journal

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Brad's Journal

Post by Brad »

Current things im vegging on

- Working on making scroll/book pages know how to display their page numbers when examined
- Put a RFQ out for conversion of the drakkar creatures to 24 bit artwork through a
professional firm
- Working on NL final encounter still, more complicated than i though
- Working on a simple channel 0 profanity filter for chat
- Looking for a good CS program to change help@drakkarzone.com to a ticket based help system, so things stop falling between the cracks.

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04/05/2005

Sorry for my lack of presence recently, i was bitten by a bat, and have had to undergo rabies vaccination. Humerous, i know, .. but not really humerous when your the one on the end of the month long vaccination series.

Thanks to mars and the sysops for holding down the fort.


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Yesterday was my last booster shot, i'm done with the series.

Been working on the crit ghosting problem, all started when I *DARED* to touch the ancient and hallowed creature display code, that I wrote about 1992 or so. Still has version checks for the mac version, wow it was old and spooky.

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- Crit ghosting is solved! ( finally )
- Exploring one of flisks' scenario ideas, am going to recruit him to work on a new area for aleria
- Got the first facings of several creatures back from my artwork outsourcing company, very happy.
- Gonna do a conference tonight to let people fuss at me some, but more importantly look for some fresh ideas about new content.
- Talked to our sound guy at work about outside work to make some neat music for drakkar. He said he'd think about it ( smile )
- Almost finished with the final encounter of NL, decided to make it more of a reward encounter than a challenge encounter. Gonna link the reward to the person finishing the quest directly, so no chance of KSing ( trying to link it anyway )
- Toying with some tech to have a "land grab" scenario with some form of guild vs guild interaction. Maybe have indirect PVP ( where players can't fight players but can have their creatures fight some one elses creatures ). Would be fresh, and be a diversion from coining/skilling.
- Toying with some player ideas to make cobrahn the "pre 30" skill area, while not affecting post 30 skill gain in nameless. One good idea was to not apply nameless bonuses to pre 30 gains, pretty neat idea.
- Thinking through some of the outstanding party skill gain/exp gain abuse bugs, (off screen healing, hooking, etc). Will make a pass at fixing them all at once.
- Toying with making alt1 a place where players can't damage other players
- Toying with making alt2 lair crits spawn randomly level restricted.
- Thinking through putting some new lair crits in nork, with some new medium level equipment
- Really want to add some "quirk" abilities, things people can buy seperatly from the normal system ( yes, i liked champions ( smile )). Or perhaps award event points people can spend on stuff.
- Just for fun i copied the drakkar libraries over to my linux box and got them compiled. Now if only i knew how to convert inline masm code to inline at&t format code. ( and how to work with xwindows )

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Got some good feedback from conference, a couple of workable ideas included

- Have areas in NL for high level coining
- Adjust skill gain for pre 30s to a normal level in NL, ( how to handle secondary skillings? )
- Perhaps change the merkon combat ring to a combat amulet
- Compare lich difficulty vs reward with merkon
- Make cobrahn pass seller look at highest level EVER obtained not current level
- Generate more artwork for macro buttons and effects. Perhaps get the community involved
- Add the glowing quest for NL killers
- Monthly events ( will take some planning )
- Consider making offensive FOCUS replacements into tiers for the paladins
- Adjust the max bank balance a player can have, giving a bonus to guild hall members

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- Trying to find the "lobby disconnect" bug some installations have when they go from scenario to scenario
- Doing some research on the "quirks" system with players.
- Finishing the network reconfig
- Waiting for PROPERLY FORMATTED ( nudge nudge ) document from mars ( cough )
Last edited by Brad on Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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07/13/05

- Accepted first 80 creatures of new artwork. Very sweet looking, will make a build with them when more of the generic town NPCs are redone.
- Working on the "green dragon hatcheries" expansion for NL. A modest sized hunting and quest area
- Continuing to hunt down old issues with crashes and "lockups" on the lobby/drakkar.exe. New versions going up alot ( if your bleeding edge you can get them at beta/drakkar.exe and beta/DrakkarLobby.exe
- Finished design document for the new quirks system. Its going to be fun and probably the biggest game expansion since multi servers came out. Gave it to the sysops and a couple players to look at for feedback.
- Rethinking the F/M's advancement a bit, got some good feedback from players.
- Found out that a 12 year old thief discipline, VENOM is *NOT* actually in the game ( cough ). It was put in with MINOR_RESTORE, but apparently never made it to a trainer.
Also checking on adding a DISEASE based DoT for thieves ( preprimal ), and also for healers. Will add them to creatures also.
- Got Mar's CORRECTLY FORMATTED event idea. Poor players.

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07/14/2005 -

Got some great feedback on the quirks document. I'm making it available here
for comment.

http://www1.drakkarzone.com/beta/quirks.rtf

Its important to note that these are still "proposed" and the document will continue to change.
Last edited by Brad on Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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07/19/2005

In an effort to keep everyone up to date on what i'm working on. (Note I do work on some stuff that doesnt make it in)

What i'm up to:

This next version i'm trying to stamp out as many bugs as I can, in preperation for the quirks system. Its taking a bit longer because I foolishly was working on both at the same time, so have some broken code.

- I found an enormous bug in post 30 melee skills where I was giving TEN skill adds for every skill level into the combat equation instead of TWO (yes the numbers are different, but im getting old and misread it). This is in the part of the equation that deals with hits/misses and armor blocks ( not weapon blocks ). Net effect is we may need to retune some areas if its too onerous of a change. Normally I would leave a pro player bug in like this, but considering skill 31 becomes skill 41, 32 becomes 52, 33 becomes 63.. you can see the problem.

- Also removing the armor / adds calculation from items in the left hand that arent designed for the left hand.
- I think i found the "guild hall" problem where some guilds dont get guild halls, we will test that
- I'm correcting healer primals to do "assault" damage instead of "enmiss" damage, that was a slipup!
- I'm making the healer quirks for ASSAULT boost both PSICRUSH and ASSAULT based damage types
- I'm adding VENOM and DISEASE to thieves, ( as early skill level disciplines )
- I'm giving DISEASE to healers ( hmmmm maybe not thats kinda twisted.. let me know what you think)
- I'm working on fixing the bug with adv discipline timers on the FE ( trying to get them to refresh )
- I'm removing the reduced skill gain that F/Ms get in their weapon skills completely. They will be considered their own class, as the paladin is.
- Im making it so items can never be "destroyed" they will just go "unusable" until repaired.
- (small thing) i fixed the color swap on floating HPs on the 24bit FE
- I found a few "scenario hangup" problems when changing scenarios, and will have a new lobby and drakkar.exe (drakkar.exe is available now), and if your bleeding edge you can stay up to date on that and DrakkarLobby.exe in beta/
- I've reduced the "aging" effect of a death
- I'm adding a "rot" penalty to your equipment, if you let a rot to occur, or "quit" without a critcure.
- I'm trying to come up with a way to change barbarians into a class that "desires" large zoos for combat. To give them a bit more flavor, and perhaps some "decisions" to make during beserk to flush them out a bit. I've considered also giving them a percentage more defensive blocks for every opponent they have on them ( just chatting outloud here )




There are more, i'll update it tonight when I get back to my notes.
Last edited by Brad on Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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- About 80% done with quirk coding
- Have a solution to try for the "evil npc vs friendly fealty" bug. Will have that up on test soon. Evil factioners rejoice!
- Have a good set of changes for mormar to account for the bug fix on skill ( see previous msg ). Also being tested.
- Targeting about 1 or 2 more weeks to get some of these bug fixes up

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aug 2 2005
-------------

My goals for august (in case anyone is curious) (I'd like to see them all, we will see)


- Get the big set of bug fixes and patches in previous talked about
- Get Mar's Event coded and online
- Get at least one small non linear areas up in NL ( green dragon hatcheries for one )
- Get Quirks online for live game testing by at least GH members
Last edited by Brad on Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Almost have a version for some player testing. I'm considering a launch of both a test cobrahn and a test NL server.

Also add: Random armor/transmutable stuff in NL encounters.

Side note: Flisk producing some new terrain for us, looks pretty wicked! Everyone give him a thanks!

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- Have had some great feedback on the quirk gains, good logs to work with. I have a few problems with gain im working through, shouldnt be long now.
- Working a bit more on some of the "requirements" of the different quirks, but i'll have the first round of players help with that.

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My current priorities are:

- "Barb" additions to make them more diverse and less boring to play
- "Green Dragon Hatchery" Addition to NL
- Continued bug fixes

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Some quick updates:

- Primary work now is on GDH of course. Strayed a bit and added two new major game features (TBA) instead of just working on the scenario. I think they will add a lot to the new area (and the game in general)
- Fixed the EMAIL feature of the game (signup, etc) so it will abide by all the rules of the major providers (yahoo, etc). You should be able to retrieve your password now.
- Couple big changes to the frontend to account for two new game features. (Thanks flisk for the artwork help once again)

More info soon

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For you adventurous types, looks like end of this week/early weekend i'm going to open up the first section of GDH for some game and play balance testing. You need to not
be a whiner to attend (seriously). You also need to be able to express concerns clearly and in detail. (I'll have a section in the forums).

I'm shooting for the first area to be early primal in difficulty, set to challenge the way people "routinely" play.

Things we need to be looking for

1 - Creatures not doing anything
2 - Creatures who just dont seem to have effective attacks
3 - Creatures who hit way too hard
4 - Effects that dont seem to do anything
5 - Broken lair crits/puzzles
6 - Crits dropping their claws/bites/stings/etc.
7 - Crit hit points too high/too low

(etc).

You will need a new FE (i'll have it up asap, i'm trying to get one last pass of art from flisk first),

I'll have it up for a while, get some test data, take it down, etc. (be prepared for that). This also means nameless land itself will be up and down alot this weekend during the test.

Look for a portal in the UGH (maybe an NPC) friday/saturday'ish, depending on how things go tonight in my coding.

Some fun things i'll reveal

- There is a new item slot (new class of item to find)
- There is a new skill (and associated game functionality)
- I have the ability to put primals on weapons for proc'ing purposes now (including crits! woot woot!)
- As with any foreign land you visit, don't drink the water!
- Creatures can now be "specialized" in weapons

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GDH Area 2 development
----------------------------

(I'm posting my personal log here so you guys can follow the progress. Note that game code changes aren't in the game yet)

10/02 - added user suggested treasure ideas into area 2
10/03 - three more quests done, drops placed on crits. Added questers in
- Wrote up an event to give a new character ability. (need to code ability)
- Fixed a bug that caused clicking on a ground item for an item description to "lock" the item from other people viewing it

10/04 - Got the primal quirk page showing up in the FE.
- Got a new ability coded (primal ability received from quest?)
- Fixed a placement bug and a quester response bug
- Added a brew barrel in the opening area
10/05 - Coding chef event
10/06 - Debugged some brewing receipes for the glaive quest, fixed an dragon who was trying to sell you "nothing"
10/16 - Have scenario variables for wackamole working.
- Got primal quirk screen showing up
- "Free" primal quirks now stored seperately
10/23 - Finished wackamole
10/24 - Added protection cloak quest
10/25 - Added 3 new "potion" types as random treasure
- Made the "power" ingredient for the first 6 levels of brewing drop off
as randoms on a couple treasure tables.
- Got the brewing section of the protection cloak quest working
- Reduced the skill level of most of the area 2 recipes
- Got all the new items showing at least the "bottle" icon
10/26 - Fixed a bug which caused the old FE to get the primal quirk info (and crash),
upped the protocal version # so the new FE can receive unspent primal quirk
count.
- Tossed out one of my primal quirk ideas, stuck in one of darge's
- Renumbered some new item descriptions so they are contiguos, so we can
(we = flisk) get some artwork made for them.
- Added the ability for quirks to provide constant buff like effects
- Worked through a way to have some quirks require other quirks be toggled off.
- Tested a new brewing check, where the advanced discipline on an item can be
checked in a recipe (so i can require a bottle of something with an advanced
discipline on it)
10/27-11/09 - Added the final hunting area
- Added the ability for creatures to "cast" up to two primal disciplines (woo hoo hoo haa) as older discs are cast.
- Added quest rewards for all but one quest
- Added two additional primal disciplines per class, at the high end of the
scenario.
- Added more brewing recipes for quest items
11/12 - Finishing touches on crits, added keys to appropriate creatures. Added some
primal psionics to some creatures to spice up combat.
- Got the first artwork request list finished and sent off
- Made "dense" trees in one area block view
- Beefed up the effect damage on the consorts
- Monday/Tuesday night maybe for a field test with the users, up a few hours/down a few hours like GDH.
Last edited by Brad on Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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02/04/2007
-------------

Exciting days for drakkar!

- I've purchased four new (used) servers so that we can replace the aging aleria/cobrahn/chat servers. This should allow us to increase creature count on cobrahn. These should be delivered this week sometime (not sure about how long its gonna take me to remember how to configure a linux server though)

- One of these servers will be tagged for the anniversary server. Flisk has agreed to help me set this up (assuming we can keep chasing his changing IP address). One side effect of this is we will have a server freed up for him to play with aleria on also.

- Tuesday 2/6, I'll be putting up an update to nameless that will have one the quest lines finished, and also have a couple first passes at the two consort quests (translation.. danger danger will robinson)

- Our talented budding drakkar artist (Darge) has provided me with some very promising item pictures for the nameless land GDH artwork. Lets all cheer him on as he takes his time to produce some new visual experiences.

Brad
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02/05/07

- Assembled and installed linux of 3 of the 5 machines. Took all night, should have made 5 cd1s 5cd2s, etc. (smile)
- This afternoon/tonight I'm going to be on the nameless test server seeing if the changes are solid enough to put up.

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02/06/2007

- Have all 5 new boxes with linux installed, may take them to the data center tonight
- Have the "Trapper" quest functional (yeah.. right) for GDH2. That will go up tonight
- Holding off on the consort quests till the above is in.

Brad

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Just a heads up, as some of you know GDC is killing me right now (my real job), thanks to the faithful sysops who stand in the gap during times like this.

Also, got some great artwork from darge.. i'm going to bug flisk to combine the best of all the pieces and try to come up with an official "first pass" at the GDH artwork.

"Cob Insanity" Server - When i got to work on it last friday, all was well. I have the fake characters rolling, the stats being "spoken" from an NPC, etc. Even have the NPC in nork2 to roll the characters and send you there.

"Fliskien Aleria" - Its going well but the something about the game version keeps kicking me out. I think its the same problems I'm having with the other alternate realm server (cob insanity).

I feel like i am one good solid coding session away from the physical issues with both. I hope i get that soon.

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03/14/2007

- Got all the issues resolved with the "seperated" character/character data servers concept. Because of this:
- Flisk has his own box now to make his aleria expansion on. Can upload files/restart/etc.. so pester him now
- I can put characters into the new cobrahn server.

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Current active projects:

- Adding name search capability to scoreboard
- Studying adding a nork server to the anniv cob cluster, to complete the experience, and remove some of the gaps in play there.
- Laying out the "black dragon consort" adventuring area in GDH, and mapping out the quests; going for another original experience.
- Trying to find a fix for the problems that exist with charged primal items.. its not trivial

Others
- Try to come up with a general solution for armor repair
- Come up with a "two week free" subscription plan for previous customers who want to participate in the anniversary game.
- Write a program to grab the username/class/player name/level of the highest level inactive character on an account, and send a personal email to the account owner asking them to come play them in the anniv area. (should be fun.. spooky but fun)
- Think up a silver dragon consort theme

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- Got a special area up for Mars to try out new forums software.
- Added the ability for primal disciplines to offer direct resistances to damage types, instead of having to go through the old system. This means i can have discs that protect directly against acid/fire/etc.
- I'm close on a version of the scoreboard with a named searchbox field. Still have some wierdness with it though
- Have the map roughed in for the black dragon consort quest line. Primary quest and creatures are roughed in also. Working through a new feature set for the area.
- Have a box setup for "anniversary" nork 1, but it, like its predecessor must have a memory error because it reboots alot. Trying to work through that.
- Wrote a binary to text filter program to dump the drakkar terrain descriptions into a flat text file so they can be edited in a word processor. Mars is going to take a stab at fixing all the school descriptions. Will write an importer after that.
- Working on overcoming an old code issue which prevented the guild hall trainers from training up to skill 40.

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On BDC quest:

- Got the maps in
- Have most area descriptions in
- Have most named areas drawn out
- Place holder generators and creatures in place (not spawning)


On forums:

- Working with mars/flisk to convert the forums to phpbbs

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