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DarkGuard

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About DarkGuard

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  1. Wrong door colors...

    Thought I would post this since its still around for me. The secret area on Kusamura map, has 9 rooms each with 4 doors. The far right door is meant to be YELLOW if i recall, because that was the color I remember many years ago, when using ATI linux blob driver I think, but I only see greenish ones via mesa drivers since forever. I've tested it with three mesa v10 drivers today, the basic software renderer driver, plus the gallium llvmpipe and r600 radeon drivers. Also under the mesa radeon driver I turned off lots of graphic features just to see if entering the rooms would change the door color. But that has no effect. So are these mesa drivers wrong or is the client code doing out of spec opengl that the OLD binary blobs are ok with? or is the 4th door meant to be green now? Anyone want to check the door colors with their drivers? PS: The door was yellow on a machine that had a Mobility Radeon 9700, for anyone that wishes to check using binary drivers with similar graphics.
  2. I would like to see at least an el.ini config option to change overhead experience to just oa: xxx instead of seeing each individual skills experience. This would give players experience feedback for capped skills like a/d on pk server. But might be handy on Scholars Day as well?
  3. 5 serpent stones auction

    67kgc
  4. 5 serpent stones auction

    62kgc
  5. Also an interesting method, but being time based it would screw people that were away during that month unless they could pay the npc with specified item at any time of the year to pay for the consecutive year of game play. But also how do you pay if you got locked out if you didn't pay on time?? Unless something like an automated character management system was in place it could work, if character is locked out for not paying their 5 Rostogols in time. The system would post a message upon attempted log in, about needing to play 5 Rostogols for another year of gameplay, so they are given a link to shop to buy 5 for their character, next time they log in the character management system checks account for at least 5 rostogols and deducts them, the system then allows for continued log ins.
  6. Note: Server code update are more a feature extension. The descriptions do not presume implementation is right way or sane. So along with the new automated character management code. These are the pk server updates i think are good or acceptable in no particular order. 1. New automated character management code/scripts etc, (could be done in future some time, see description further down). 2. Same cooldowns as main, except fruit/veggies 3. A/D cap increase to 120. Or +5 cap increase per year until parity with main, would keep players longer term i think. 4. PvAnts experience seems fine. 5. PvP experience from arena, but consequence of Rostogol not working. And maybe capping experience up to about 50 a/d?. Maybe even up to 20a/d PvP experience cap for all non arena areas?? Just for new players if that's what they want to do.. 6. Possible #Pki under 130. 7. Some Idaloran outsides non pk, to stop abusing c2 hell exit. 8. Rare essences/stones/some capes from shop at a higher price compared to mains pricing. (not attrib/nexus though) 9. Game Server Selector upon launching EL (with short description about each and when they went live). 10. Rename the servers to something like EternalLands and EternalLandsExtreme or similar. 11. Add dung events if they haven't been added i.e. do binding stones and giant rats spawn yet? These ARNT mini events??. 12. Retain multiplay (pk everywhere compensates for this especially if population gets high) 13. Retain cost to play but implement 1. to extend pk servers reach and population. 14. Retain no minievent (counter to multiplay with pk everywhere) 15. Retain missing weapons/armor NPCs. (new shop purchases would compensate this) Update: With point 8. DHT thought attribute stones should be available as well. We both agreed on it as long as they are expensive i.e. no less then $15 or more. Since it helps respecs for a price, and also supports the server financially. I also like the idea of evanescence perk giving experience in PvP as part of its bonus, and maybe overhead experience as a different colour to let the player know when it triggers so it is useful on main server too, but would need a client/server update for that part. Lastly if the automated management code was sufficiently more advanced it might do things like linking shop purchases and kick chars offline with a message about receiving new shop items and add items automatically (if full inventory then delete lowest value/quantity slots as needed), or integrating with some future token system which Handyman mentioned in general chat forum. Now I could envisage the server set up like above, with some extra work on Radu's part to get feature 1. implemented, but the effort seems worthwhile I would think. Also the pk server seemed more a supplementary to the main server essentially. Main server funds pk servers existence, but why not let both servers be independent and self sustaining in their own right? The hard part is Radu must consider some extra coding work being added to the server code, to really help the pk server in particular. This code addition should be made to be easily disabled where on severs it does not make sense, i.e. disabled for test server. This code would mostly be for character management. And one of its purposes is to increase accessibility/exposure to the pk server without needing inherent exposure to main server first. The code should have some flexibility to allow for easy adjustments to certain parameters etc. So Joe Blogs hears about EL and decides to try it, downloads the game (in incomplete confusing parts which is a total turn off for new players, as they either play with no music and sound since as its too complicated to set up if they are even aware that the game has audio ? and therefore having a lesser experience of the game then what it could have been) and installs it. At the moment Joe blogs doesn't realise there was 2 EL games servers to try and gets sent to the main one by default. But pending is a game server selector which rectifies that part where new players become aware of the different servers choices to play on. Although I would suggest clumping the main and pk ones separate from the test and gateway servers as it would simplify the choice for the new player, the other choices are for special circumstances. So now Joe Blogs picks the pk server to try first. A red messages comes up saying you have to buy a char for $5 before playing on here, and attempted character creations fail. Great so now you have totally rejected a new player from trying the pk server. Joe blogs doesn't want to spend $5 yet because he wants to see if he likes it enough first. So Joe's only option is to try the main one instead. Since pk server is almost akin to a premium version of main hence the initial cost to access this exclusive server. Some here thought making characters free or just allow one free one per ip address etc. These are flawed in that they disregard the exclusive nature of the pk server or it becomes a constant maintenance keeping track of ip addresses etc. BUT with the new code implemented you can allow anyone to create a character on the pk server. Joe blogs now gets to make a character or a few on the pk server. The new code will check if the name exists (also in the trash folder), if it doesn't, then creation of character goes ahead (the character has UNIX file attributes arranged to indicate temporary status). Upon login a server text message shows up, saying something like.. WARRING! you have 7 days 2 hours 21 minutes left to use this character before it will be disabled and 14 days 4 hours 42minutes (or use the future date) before permanent deletion. To keep your character permanently please purchase it for $5 before the permanent deletion date..!!!, go to ...url... for payment instructions..!!. The code disables (i.e. moves character file to trashcan and therefore appears to not exist anymore to the game server) the character file if no payment has been made by the first time frame. Joe Blogs has another week to decide if he wants to buy it still. The code automatically has moved the char file to the pending deletion folder (i.e. trashcan were they get another week of life) after a week. This could probably all be done with UNIX file attributes for simplicity? (i.e. the new code creates two scripts for that particular character file for running as a cron job pending 7 and 14 days from creation, (better then the server code constantly checking characters file dates?). One script MOVES the character file to deletion pending folder if it meets certain predefined UNIX file attributes that indicate a temporary status, the second script DELETES the file if it meets certain predefined UNIX file attributes that indicate a temporary status. So if Joe Blogs bought the character within 2 weeks then Radu would log into server run a maintenance script say called "perming" and pass the character name to it, which would then check where the file is located, once found it would move it if back out of trashcan if there, and also change the file attributes so they indicate a predefined PERMANENT STATUS like all the other currently existing permanent character files, lastly and possibly delete the remaining cron jobs for that character name if they still exist although that wouldn't necessarily be needed if the cron job scripts only did their action if the character file meets certain predefined UNIX file attributes that indicate a temporary status. So each time Joe Blogs logs in it will show how much time he has remaining to play and purchase it. And all this is automated, with only the job to run a script to make a character permanent when a character is bought within 2 weeks. Now Joe blogs could keep making a new char to play every week, but he would get sick of that quickly losing any work leveling them, he could only get a week of gathering stuff to transfer to the next one he made. But since its pk everywhere and multiplay anyway and no rules its abusive effects would be minimal. So with these type of changes the pk server can now have players start off trying it first and external sources can directly recommend trying the EL pk server now that there isn't a direct monetary barrier before making a commitment to it. This may have an effect of diverting more new players from going to main. And since main server is the current gravy train, it would suggest the pk server needs to increase its earnings power to make up for diverting more players from starting on the main server. So it would probably be prudent to offer other things like rare stones/essences maybe some capes?, in turn allowing for a flow of gear to be made by mixers, the fear of breaking good stuff will become less so, and hence more combat in better gear. Since less items are purchasable from the shop compared to main, rare stones/essences might be better priced if 2-3 times dearer then they are for main server?? to make up for the lack of weapon/armor etc for sale?. So with the new character management code etc, it might offer unique or useful settings for main as well. Using new parameters like creating a new character to have one month play time, and cost 20000gc to make it permanent by paying a npc in game or it gets deleted after one month, or you could use it to auto delete characters that haven't been logged in for 4+ years. Plus other interesting ideas I'm sure. Many other games have some level of automatic character management without administrator intervention. I think with the limited man power eternal lands has at its disposal, investing in some initial work may pay back 10 fold in man hours and income, and in turn gives more value to game players. Hope this is worth some consideration. Cheers.
  7. Fixing the server

    hmm, what about this idea. MMORPGs are rather community driven and are attractive for their social aspects, as part of their feature list, and having a game that is PK everywhere can be somewhat a counter weight to this basic feature. So when we hear people say that there isn't enough people playing which is the reason they wont play, then it affirms the idea that games need to be supportive of social interaction and communal game play participation by careful design to keep the player base high. Is this why Total War feature on main server never stays active for long or even used at all? And that is only a subset of what pk server is.
  8. It's possible we're all (us and Entropy) are too limited in our thinking about this. We asked if we could get cooldown on just some stuff and Entropy said: no, all or nothing. OK, so what if we had cooldown on everything, but changed the duration of the cooldown on food to something small (1 or 2 seconds). After all, shrooms are listed as having no cooldown, which may mean 1 second like everything on PK (Ref: CEL site). So Entropy could enable cooldown on everything and change the duration on fruits/veggies to 1 second. That would take care of all the pots and rings, but still permit the mixing friendly environment. OK, that sounds like a possible compromise he might do. If he won't then can we get back to what I suggested.
  9. I'm sure there would be a bunch that won't like the idea of food cooldowns, it definitely would slow down mixing/increase costs. But are they all 100% against it or are there many willing to give it a try in the name of improving the servers future overall? Since we can't be selective with what gets cooldowns, so either on all or on nothing, we are force to either try it or get stuck in a rut with the status quo, so we should probably talk to many of the pk server player base explaining this proposed change and see whether they would be willing to give it a go (knowing that it would be possible to revert back if everyone complained alot after playing the game with cooldowns). Also about this poll I mentioned above, what if it showed that 50 new players would be motivated to start a character on pk server if these changes happened? is potentially 50 new players coming over worth upsetting maybe 10 to 20 existing players?
  10. I'd be interested to see the results of a poll on the main forum asking.. Would you be motivated to start a new character on pk server if it had ALL the cooldowns of main server? Yes No
  11. I concur with Handyman. The other posts are skirting around core combat imbalance issues. Radu thought deeply about all this and added appropriate cool downs on main server for a reason. Yes pk server was started with different intentions, but its obvious that it is not working out as it was intended If people think no cooldowns on pk server is one of its special unique features and not a gameplay imbalance then maybe just try to grit your teeth and accept that cooldowns will be better for the game overall in the long term. Cooldowns are common feature of many online games, because of the unintended gameplay distortions they create on various skills etc.
  12. We can't ask for these types of changes that differentiate the two servers. Mostly just switching something on or off, new way or the old way etc. Anyway even if we decide to have cooldowns on everything (yes mixers will hate it, but I mix alot too), it isn't a catastrophe if it doesn't turn out like we hoped for, unlike a mass character transfer would be. Radu could easily revert back to no cool down in a months time if everyone hated it that much (so we just suffer with some inconvenience/time if we wanted it back), but once there is mass character transfers happening, if it screws up the server in some unforeseen ways, it will be almost impossible to revert/rollback due to various inertia.
  13. I kind of like the idea of having the combat mechanics in sync with main server for balancing purposes. If we have cooldown like main, baring the food cooldowns as some have mentioned, it would make life harder (ie invasions/instances/higher level montsers in particular) but that's how hard players on main have it anyway. If we die easier and quicker, then more Rostogols will be needed, therefore more shop purchases would probably result. PvP would be shorter but I think it would add extra strategy to survive PvP. Existing players may need to devote more points for ethereal points, but that includes myself too. It would make some magic great swords have more meaning too (part of why it might be best to keep combat mechanics in sync between different servers and maybe less headache for radu, and why making srs non stackable would be a balance regression)
  14. Final Vote: Main->PK Char Copy Proposal

    I'm not that keen on this idea even if I could benefit myself from it. Speculation: Maybe a load of highish characters will get copied, but once the new comers get bored they will dump their chars selling them left and right. So now existing players don't have to work at it, they just buy from an array decent cheap characters. It also feels like it would make a mockery of the hard work existing players have done on pk server, all while sacrificing the large player population main has for interacting with. Rant: Why did I spend over a year on pk server leveling when I could of continued to play on main instead, and advance my non a/d skills while I wait for THE CHAR COPY to come around one day? Anyway if it has to go through then let it be: Copy Allowed IF [(A+D)/2<=90 & A<=100 & D<=100] Instead of just IF [A<=90 & D<=90]
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