themuntdregger

Thought I was pretty much the only person to make vials. I always use an indicator beforehand, and only make them on good astro days. Could be my imagination, but it certainly seems to reduce the breakage rate.

Like any software project, there's usually no shortage of dev ideas from users. What is almost invariably in shortage are the ppl able and willing to code code, test and implement those ideas. Yup, the server-side code is all closed-source and only available to the game's operator, but not all ideas require server coding. Quite a lot can be achieved simply through the client-side, which is open-source and can therefore be *hacked* by anyone who fancies a go. Hence, its not so much a matter of prioritising radu, more one of encouraging others in the community to get involved in turning ideas into code. Yup, not everyone knows how to code and, yup, not everyone wants to (especially in 'C'). However, there's still lots of ways that ppl can help and encourage those that do, eg : a ) Offer an incentive to a coders to turn an idea into reality (just as with guild maps). b ) Recruit guild members who know how are able to code and develop ideas as guild projects. c ) Bite the bullet and learn to program.

Agreed. From the viewpoint of a guild that focuses on recruiting new players, a follow-me command would be (at least imho) a very helpful and useful facility, particularly for those of us with an interest in helping and encouraging new players. Aside from the 'guided tour' aspect, there's plenty of other aspects where the facility would be a great aid in supporting others undertaking quests, teaching them where and how to harv/mix, or simply showing ppl the best way to get from a - b. I'm guessing there are also potential applications to both pk and hauling ings, besides the obvious 'fun' aspect. I'm no expert on the el comms protocol, but given that the position of a 'lead' char can be determined from the client-side, it would seem possible that a simple facility could be implemented purely through the client side code. However, i'm guessing the limitation would be that the chain would depend on the leader remaining in sight of the follower. Yup, that could be minimised by automatically reducing the distance between follower and leader to the shortest possible, but it seems much more fun simply to let players decide the distance, as well as to select an offset from 360 degrees of the leaders position. Dunno if the latter might give rise to some interesting possibilities for group based pk. Perhaps one of our many residents experts could suggest. Not sure how a facility simply to follow another player might be used for illegal reasons (as has previously been suggested), or whether the risks are such that the facility is impractical. Perhaps that poster would like to expand on this as his reasons are not apparent (at least to me). With regard to another poster's suggestion that the idea should be ignored simply because it comes from wow, irrespective of EL being (at least imho) far and away the superior game, that's not to say that there aren't aspects of wow which might work just as well (if not better) in EL, or which might provide a seed idea for further innovation.

If I understand Brusu's idea correctly, what she proposes is to increase the number of ethereal points given by an srs in relation to the total number of srs's mixed by that player. Its a great idea if you're a mixing srs's for your own benefit, but perhaps not so great if you simply mix srs's to sell them. As such, the appeal of becoming a master mixer is likely to apply more to those who consume rather than mix srs's. If the effect of the incentive is to encourage players who'd otherwise purchase srs's to start mixing their own, then this would then reasonably seem to depress the market for those who mix srs's to sell. Hence, an award which is intended to benefit mixers, may actually work to the disadvantage of all bar a minority. A solution might be, rather than to increase the ethereal points given by an srs, to increase the number of srs's that can be mixed from a single set of ings. This could be facilitated through a random factor linked to the number of srs's mixed by that player, eg the more srs's that the player has mixed, the greater the chance of getting a random bonus each time another srs is mixed. Linking to existing achievements relating to mining and plant harving seems completely nonsensical, if only because the latter activities are unrelated to the intended focus of the reward, ie mixing. Whilst I guess you could extend the achievements facility to include mixing of srs's, I don't see any reason to favour srs's over say he's or pof's. Indeed, I guess it could be argued that both of the latter have a wider appeal than srs's.

lol Rip. Cool contest and great post. Well done Gonna think very carefully before I make my guess though

Firstly, thanks to radu and Aislinn for intervening on chan 6 yesterday on behalf of the (real) mcb, and for everyone who supported their decision to return the stolen char to its rightful owner. We didn't expect you to get involved as the matter was neither your fault or your problem, however we're extremely grateful that you did. For those who weren't on-line, mcb's char was stolen a week or so back by someone masquerading as a moderator on the 'test server'. The player (known variously by the char names Pandemic, Invoked and Flux, used the test server to hijack the char name of someone ('Violater') from the 'main server', using this as cover to launch a password phishing exploit against other players. Having gained the password to the mcb char, the player then proceeded to use its rank 19 status to delete members from the guild, seemingly for no better reason than to cause maximum possible irritation to as many people as possible. Then, having been caught and stopped, proceeded to harass the char's real owner and demand money etc. Whilst everyone at TKN is grateful simply to have recovered mcb's char, regretfully it seems that his sto (including a $90 sword that the guild bought him for his birthday) will have been lost. Under the circumstances, its ironic that the scammer turns out to be someone that many in TKN trusted and previously gone out of their way to support and help. In many respects, its the last person we would have expected, and its therefore equally concerning to have heard others in Pandemic's guild admit, not just of being aware of his recent 'activities', but that he had previously managed to acquire and misuse passwords for a TKN bot !!!! Whilst other guilds can necessarily take their own view on whether 'brown tagging' and bot banning Pandemic/KO'd guild is reasonable, necessary or desirable under the circumstances, I think most reasonable players will understand why TKN now feels bound to do so for its own protection. In addition, why its appropriate that the wider EL community should be forarmed and forwarned in any future dealings they may have with Pandemic/KO'd Guild.

I guess the post is no less interesting for being "uncivilised", and i'm inclined to view its content more as an opportunity, than an irritant. Necessarily, I'd also reassure Caliphear, with regard to any concerns about being hunted down and 'brod tagged', that the worst she should expect from TKN is to be 'politely avoided' in-game. We're not the kind of guild that's inclined to start attacking others, let alone luring their members, scamming their bots, stealing their chars, or indeed getting undesirables to do our dirty work, simply due to some petty minor grievance. As far as flaming is concerned, i'm not inclined to dwell on matters that are clearly off-topic, and which I doubt anyone is interested to hear in any case. I'll simply make the obvious point that, if someone posts something 'silly' then its possibly not unreasonable to expect others to let them know, particularly if they insist on doing so with such monotonous regularity that reminding them becomes a 'ritual'. However, the answer is really quite simple, just stop being 'silly'. A good example of the latter would be a post in which someone appears to gloat over how a lot of ppl spent a lot of time and a lot of effort, plus not an inconsiderable amount of irl money, to build a guild only to then have a greater part of it stolen and pointlessly destroyed through entirely no fault of their own. It's not so much that the post might appear crass and insensitive, more that its not helpful to anyone, least of all the writer. Consider that here we have a situation in which TKN gets repeatedly and seriously scammed by a player who is a member of a guild where the GM has a fairly well publicised grievance against us, and is on record as encouraging her members to take unrestricted reprisals against us. Consider also that the particular player is not some recent recent junior recruit, but a long-standing, senior and integral member of the that guild who, on making his admission on chan 6, appeared to enjoy the whole hearted support of his GM (at least up until it became apparent that things were not about to end happily for him). Given the above, you can perhaps understand why taking satisfaction from such a cowardly and pointlessly spiteful act looks rather like a proverbial 'smoking gun', and is hardly the wisest strategy for someone who'd really like to convince others they really didn't 'pull the trigger'.

Have just upgraded to Ubuntu 10.4.3 (lucid), alas EL gives up the ghost and dies on startup. Output of relevant parts of error log indicates : Output from "lspci | grep -i vga": 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G96M [Quadro FX 770M] (rev a1) Output from "glxinfo | head -5": [10:44:59, engine/logging.cpp:301] Log started at: Thu Sep 1 10:44:59 2011 BST [10:44:59, engine/logging.cpp:304] version: 1.9.2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'server_address = game.eternal-lands.com ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'server_port = 2001 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_vertex_array = 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_mipmaps = 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'text_filter_replace = smeg ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'compass_north = 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'near_plane= 0.1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'transparency_resolution_fix= 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'dim_sounds_on_rain= 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'anisotropic_filter= 2 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'render_skeleton= 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'render_mesh= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_display_actors= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_actor_bbox_check= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_render_mesh_shader= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_set_transformation_buffers= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_build_actor_bounding_box= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_model_attach_and_detach_mesh= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_render_attached_meshs= 1 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'use_ext_gpu_program_parameters= 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'skybox_update_every_frame= 0 ', type 2 [10:44:59, elconfig.c:1460] Error: Can't find var 'seconds_between_shadows_updates= 10 ', type 2 [10:44:59, gl_init.c:351] Error: Couldn't find a hardware accelerated stencil buffer. Shadows are not available. [10:44:59, gl_init.c:361] Error: Couldn't set GL mode: Couldn't find matching GLX visual Output from running EL in a console is : basename: missing operand Try `basename --help' for more information. Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Error: couldn't find RGB GLX visual or fbconfig Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0". Any ideas would be appreciated

Thanks for responding guys. The system had been running smoothly for nearly a year using the proprietary 173 driver under Jaunty. However, once upgraded to lucid, it simply resulted in a black screen once xserver started. Swapping to the current driver resulted in a blank white screen with some gray banding. Interestingly, the generic vesa driver appeared to load just fine, although EL seemed not to like it, which sort of suggested the problem was software related. Alas, having examined the xserver log, the issue turned out to be that the xserver simply couldn't find the edid of the monitor. Having used get-edid to try and read the info, I get : get-edid: get-edid version 2.0.0 Performing real mode VBE call Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f00 bx=0x0 cx=0x0 Function supported Call successful VBE version 300 VBE string at 0x2110 "NVIDIA" VBE/DDC service about to be called Report DDC capabilities Performing real mode VBE call Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x0 cx=0x0 Function supported Call successful Monitor and video card combination does not support DDC1 transfers Monitor and video card combination does not support DDC2 transfers 0 seconds per 128 byte EDID block transfer Screen is not blanked during DDC transfer Reading next EDID block VBE/DDC service about to be called Read EDID Performing real mode VBE call Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x1 cx=0x0 Function supported Call failed The EDID data should not be trusted as the VBE call failed Error: output block unchanged My guess was that the 'call failed' relates to some kind of corruption of the edid data for the lcd screen. That seemed to be confirmed when I ran the Dell diagnostics program for the laptop which suggested that there was a hardware problem. Further research indicates that the particular video card (when used with linux drivers) appears to be prone to corrupting edid data. However, given that winXP continues to run just fine and Linux under the generic vesa driver, i'm not sure that the problems with EL are necessarily related to the driver/hardware issue. Still, not much that can be done now until the lappy comes back from Dell.

Vanyel - I take your point about discussion re dongles - apologies if you feel it strayed so far off topic. Also, be aware also that I am anxious not to push you, or any other moderator, to the point where you feel your only recourse is to make threats and insults. If you really have (as you seem to suggest) wider and more serious issues with my general style of posting on these forums, by all means pm me to resolve rather than us both being seen to stray any more off-topic than we already seem to. @Aislinn - I take your point entirely, also the difficulties involved in dealing with monetary issues outside of EL. Your decision with regard to the mcb incident was very fair and i've entirely no issues whatsoever it. Apologies if i've suggested otherwise, or have seemed to let my frustration with Shultz run away. Regarding rules, yes it would be nice to have a separate discussion as it is a matter of genuine concern to me, as well as professional interest.

Thats a v good idea Learner. Not sure what the cost of producing dongles might be for radu but, imho, Eternal Lands is far and away a good enough game to warrant it, and I would have no hesitation in buying one (possibly more). Selling dongles need not affect EL's 'free' status. Players could still be set up chars in the traditional manner, and I guess thats how most would start. However, as a char develops, so the inclination of players to want to protect that investment is likely to increase, particularly in the case of char bots which may have costs hundreds of dollars. I'd assume, if the dongle is designed such as it can be specific to a users pc, then it provides a means through which Eternal Lands can not only ensure the security of chars for dongle holders, but a source of potential revenue in relation to any transfer of chars between players. EDIT: Security dongles ain't exactly cheap, and seem somewhat an overkill given that they're intended to provide full-blooded copyright protection over software. However, an alternative may be simply to use an ordinary high-quality usb key, most of which encode a unique serial number into firmware. This can then be used as the basis for authentication between the user's computer and the EL server. The following link illustrates the basic underlying coding needed to capture the serial number http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2432759/usb-drive-serial-number-under-linux-c I'm guessing that amending the EL network protocol to cope with authentication is not a major issue, ie simply record on the database if a char is "registered" and, if so, implement a call back request to the client to authenticate using the key serial. Similarly, as far as the client side code is concerned, i'm guessing its simply a matter of coding for usb key detection and reading the serial if an authentication request is received from the server. However, I ain't no expert, and I merely propose the above as a suggestion in the hope that one who is will say 'yup - its feasible' and maybe take it forward. If so, then you have yourselves a super cheap, fully functional, shultz defeating machine. Assuming you aren't going to hand over keys for the love of it, no doubt you'll take every opportunity to take full advantage of those of us who are fully able and willing to pay a premium to support the game they love. I'd guess you could call that 'win win' for whole community (except for poor dear Shultz ofc).

Under the circumstances, 'TheMuntsaurus' would seem more apt, given that it brings to mind a large carnivorous reptile given to picking off the weak and injured from the large herds of propositional fallacies and faulty generalisations that appear to roam these plains unchallenged. Alas no. What you've made is the mistake of confusing 'argument' with 'fact', ie your belief that Shultz's activities arise exclusively from players recklessly sharing passwords is merely a point of view which is open to dispute. God forbid that anyone would, but Dilly's concern didn't relate to a perception that anyone is actively encouraging him, rather that the failure to actively sanction him amounts to pretty much the same thing. Explain please Wizzy, as its just not clear. If only Shultz's impressive repertoire of tricks simply began and ended with phishing passwords from "over-trusting noobs". Maybe then, just 'trotting out' the password sharing mantra would surely solve all our problems. However, just because we tell children not to accept sweets from strangers, doesn't mean that a simple dose of home spun wisdom is all thats needed to protect them from vile old reprobates with sweaty hands and unsavory intentions. Under the circumstances, it would seem unwise to doubt the same thing in EL. :disclaimer: This post was written by an entirely unsympathetic themuntdregger who's not quite as dumb as to underestimate your ability to google or give as good as you get

so when is anything gonna be done about the bolded part? Sure, EL isn´t responsible for out of game 'deals' about characters, and players have their own responsibilities but this isn´t the first time this person is involved in practices like this. How many more accounts (and players, not even necessarily linked to the chars in question) are going to be lost before the real cause gets dealt with? +1 Dilly for question and the anwser is: never ... I guess Eternal Lands will do something about the same time that players figure out "not to share your password" The statement 'Eternal Lands will do something once players figure out not to share your password' seems rather strangely conceived, if only because it appears to suggest that EL will do something in circumstances where passwords are not shared. However, on the assumption that you intended something just a little more prosaic, I think it fair to say that Dilly was already pretty clear in accepting that players do indeed have responsibilities. In fact, the issue she was alluding to was poor dear Shultz. Under the circumstances, I share her concern that this 'paragon of perversity' seems yet to be awarded the accolade he truly deserves.

Thx for that info bb. Seems that more revelations in this saga are come to light all the time. Shultz's involvement doesn't really surprise me. On the assumption that he wasn't dumb enough to buy the password (although i may be wrong), I'm assuming that Pandemic simply gave it to him. If that was simply a way of getting someone dumb and greedy enough to do his dirty work, then i'm still left wondering what the point was ?

Maybe make #day of Jane Fonda for female chars only lol

I like both brusu's and korrodes suggestions. Maybe we could have a day of Jane Fonda in which we could have half emu of items carried, followed by a day of Gordon Ramsey where items carried get double emu.

Thats a fair point Norm and well put. Obviously it pays to be prepared and to accept the risks before going into a pk map. That said, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong in non-pk guilds actively using the deterrent factor of posting in this forum as part of the wider range of sanctions that should dissuade errant pk'ers from using them as target practice.

6 is the devils chan.

lol Rip. Its less a case of "bag jumping" and more recovery of stolen goods. Gratz and well done on a good job. Not sure what might have caused karma to take her revenge on Izu in such a delightful way (possibly the pk'ing of innocent harvers in kf for no apparent reason). However, =PI= guild are good allies of TKN and you are a particular friend. Hence we'll fully support you in any action you want to take against this player and his guild.

Our guild has spent a lot a time developing a fairly sophisticated website for its members, which does all sorts of useful stuff, from running lotteries, skill leagues, to recording who's in-game. Something we're currently working on is a simple bot, the purpose of which is to periodically log-on to EL and spam guild news from the forum to #gm, (plus other static tasks such as checking the game-day, guild list etc). The bot is coded in php and hosted on the guilds web server, hence its only designed to be in-game long enough to complete its tasks and then leave. So far, we've worked out how to connect to the EL test server, log-in and send simple commands. That part (at least) works well. Whats not so great is deciphering what the server sends back. Having studied the available EL Network Protocol information, we understand that the server response is provided as a stream, where the first char is the server response code, second and third chars are used to calc the message length, with the subsequent message being terminated by a null char. However, whilst this works well enough for sending messages, trying to apply it to the server response doesn't seem to result in any sensible output. Whilst decoding server responses isn't exactly vital for sending news messages to #GM, and we could just grep the response to the #day command, we'd kind of like to do things 'properly'. Therefore, any help, pointers or comments would be very gratefully received.

Messages from the server are NOT null terminated! If you need null terminated information you need to use the length information to determine where the end is. Thanks for that Learner. My problem is determining length information from the stream, ie the initial packet from the server looks something like �Test Server! in which case, my assumption was that the ord of the first char () would be the server message, and the ords of the two subsequent chars (�) would be the length information. However, this seems not to be the case.

Try this instead

In which case, maybe lucky for you (assuming you are from Caliphear's guild) that I don't interpret 'brod tag' the same way. Last time I checked, it was just a meaningless threat thrown around by minor league outlaw guilds and 'pk weenies', involving a weapon that has entirely no effect outside of pk zones. If you're saying that the definition has since been extended to include drunken idiots abusing #ig, it's hardly going to make my 'el life' a misery. However, I doubt if getting themselves (and the rest of their guild) brown tagged and bot banned as a result is going to improve their 'el life' much. Edit: for appalling typo and radar signature

I'll confine my comments here as Aislinn does indeed have a point. However, I think it fair to say that your statement does gives rise to some fairly legitimate concerns which, (I hope) she'll understand and forgive me for airing. As far as brod-tagging is concerned, by all means "brod-away". Regardless of whatever strange and perverse reason you might have for targeting an entirely peaceful non-pk guild, its still perfectly within the game rules. However, TKN is large and diverse guild which you (of all ppl) should be aware includes players under the age of 16, and others whom its neither fair or appropriate to have exposed to a drunken tirade of four letter sexual expletives. Surely, brod-tagging does not justify that ???? If you really feel the need to encourage members of your guild pass on "birthday greetings" to me in that manner, far better that you ask them to use PM for obvious and sensible reasons. However, tbh, i'd really rather you resisted the temptation to give out my birth date to members of your guild in the first place.

Interesting idea. Not sure if tokens are the best way forward, but i'd certainly consider paying 1000gc to watch a pr0 instance.