ttlanhil
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Posts posted by ttlanhil
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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you read the previous posts (even though it seems to be the same as the quoted comment below), so what's your suggestion to deal with this problem?Maybe an option like we have for the "humor on/humor off"Npc dialogue on or Npc dialogue off.
That does nothing to help the problem that the dialogue window may, for some NPCs, have additional options in it...How about making it switchable feature in client? So that those, who would want it can turn it on, the others would still have the dialog window... -
Yes, there are valid reasons why one person can have several accounts on at once.
No, this will not stop people, and will not slow down the more serious cheaters (who are probably more of a problem than the newbies who think they can do whatever they like). Just look at how many people passed around illegal clients to see that (and the resulting mass-ban or level wipe, or whatever, several such events in the forums).
You can call me a cheater if you like, but that's just going to prove you don't have enough clue to make suggestions about anything except the interface (the one thing new players are better at seeing problems with).
And for those in doubt, you can see that I'm one of the developers on the website; I often have reason to use multiple clients, and suggesting there be another version for the people with a reason to have several (like, anyone doing events) isn't going to work well either, there's just too many of them to assume someone won't give it to someone else who shouldn't have it.
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Well, I should qualify, it's just a matter of what time of day and all that to see if I'm going to be available
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Okay, the OSX/url change is in CVS now, thanks
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That does nothing to help the problem that the dialogue window may, for some NPCs, have additional options in it...How about making it switchable feature in client? So that those, who would want it can turn it on, the others would still have the dialog window... -
Yay, it works!I just re-read my code fix. What I said is wrong. What I meant is right. Get rid of the -(first_person?35:0) bit and leave the rest of the line in place.That takes 2 of the big ones off my list.
The shaders not working I'll have to talk to Xaphier about; I think he said he knew what the problem was and would fix it before, but doesn't seem to have done it yet.
I think I'm going to roll horizon_fog, stars, moon, and sun into show_sky; I don't think it's worth showing the sky if any of those are disabled.
And mouse-grab (alt+g) is going to have to be disabled properly when SDL cursors are used (currently it doesn't warp the mouse, but does pan/pitch according to mouse movement).
Well, looks like it's only artist work, shadows issues, and the rest I can do (until more bugs/requests come up)
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It could be done as a config option or as a hotkey (as in, one keypress to open the bag under your character).Auto-opening a death bag has been discussed before, and rejected; you really don't want things popping up obscuring your screen when in hostile situations.
Perhaps we should have use-with auto-open storage and deposit item, and trade-with open storage, while the traditional talk-to acts as it does now. Either of those would take server-code though.Skipping the NPC dialog for storage is appealing, but it would prevent that NPC from being used for a quest or other purposes. I think all NPCs have a common interface for this reason? -
That works when there's only a short list of commands... Which there isn't. The list in ctrl+h could be turned into a much shorter list by moving the descriptions into links (and having only really short descriptions), which may help... The other thing is to use ctrl+space to autocomplete commands (and channel names and player names) when you only remember part of it (and as long as you're quick enough, you can ctrl+space again and again to cycle through completions).
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Are you, possibly, using a CVS or other non-release client? (If so, there's another place to look for logs, which it'll tell you when you start the client).
Otherwise, does your account have permissions to write to the EL directory? (Vista finally has some of the security from the *nix world added).
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That's how I had it, with ext-cam being about the head-height (but not exactly, at least not as far as I could tell with my char), which made non-ext-cam around the navel, which is not too useful. Roja wanted ext-cam to be above, so it is (seems to make sense to me, although being able to toggle ext-cam on a keypress may be useful. But I'll make that easy enough to do later when I work on the general key-press code)[*] The FPV camera is too high now (with extended camera on. The height is correct when it's turned off.). The original height had it centered right behind the bridge of the nose: precisely where your eyes would be if you were your character. Now it looks like it's just above the top of the character's head. I know there was discussion about this... just my thoughts. One reason why the camera looks odd when its lower is that some of the objects in the game are oversized compared to the players.
Due to the lack of as-good clipping in non-FPV low-angle, I left some limits in... If someone wants to improve the clipping/FPV so that over-the-shoulder and behind-the-back works, then I'm happy to look at it.[*]Turning extended camera on without using FPV should be close to but not quite the same as the early client I sent Roja. I don't quite remember what values I used for that - I tweaked them so that you could grab the mouse and click just in front of the character. Probably changing the magic number in draw_scene.c:218 from -1.6f to -2.0f will make it match her memory - a little higher than the classic EL and a little lower than what I delivered. This screenshot is with -2.0f.
Like, ohmigosh! Thank you! That's probably 2 of the 4 bugs I had listed that I knew were beyond my ability (the others being damage to shader reflections, and skybox reflection being pass-through instead of reflection, neither of which is quite as bad).[*] The sky in FPV in CVS right now is tilted 35 degrees... horizon fog is in the wrong place and shadows are all wrong. The offending line is draw_scene.c:270glRotatef(rx-(first_person?35:0), 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
That line shouldn't be there at all. Removing it fixes the bug for me. Sorry. I don't generally use the trinary operator so I'm not sure how that got there.
The other remaining bugs, apart from with shadows, on my list I can probably manage... The coding ones, anyway. Things like map-bugs (eg creases between ground parts being more obvious at a lower angle/height) and 3d-object bugs (like when you look from below a house, the eaves are invisible, since they aren't designed to be seen from below. Until now, you couldn't).
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Yup. Because I asked Ent for permission to add it to vakana (I guess the coders of others bots that had this feature before didn't, or something. If you need multiple warnings, just contact multiple bots, I guessThere's a client feature for this, ya know... ) and he said it was a bad idea because it was spammy, and it should be in the client instead (which it now is, although it only allows one warning per {hour, day, sunrise/sunset}, which may not be perfect for some people. Maybe we'll also have a new-hour chime some day and it'll cover the two-time warning)
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The server knows many things. A few it will even tell the client.
Unfortunately, who's fighting what is one of the things the server doesn't tell the client.
The counters check direction/distance and the end of a fight through death; in order to be able to get a reasonably accurate list (yes, it could be better, but server coding is a lot rarer for security/other reasons, so working around problems in the client is simpler).
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As far as catching mis-spellings... No, it doesn't have to.
All it has to do is catch one or two matches (with or without space) and remind the user of the rules. Yes, this will miss accidental misspellings, which is a failing, and also intentional misspellings which is not a failing.
Note that the end suggestion has no new censorship, it's only intended for the high-population areas like storages/beam (maybe) and channels 1-19 (1-6 would also work, since 7-19 aren't really used yet, but they are reserved for official use, so only 20, where people are sent to talk about it (and then they get irritated because they can't tell the difference between a mod telling them they can talk about it there, and why people there don't want to, which has been an issue before) of the official list has a reason to allow it).
This would not be a new restriction in any way, and the mods would still have to deal with anyone attempting to get around it... However, we're all familiar with the luser who doesn't even read the rules (on the other hand, the channel rules are not listed in F5 either), and having the server inform them that it's not appropriate for that channel will probably deter/remind a reasonable percentage.
That reminder/informing, not control/censorship, is where this idea could be, IMO, quite useful.
If the idea of server-side filtering is not appreciated, it could also be done on the client side; although the client then needs to be updated to know where not to allow certain words to be sent, and what errors to give (swearing in which channels, bad topics like RS in a few fewer channels, whatever else). This would prevent people from sending messages containing these words until disabled (and it would be in options so it can be disabled, but default to on. By the time they know how to disable it, they should no longer have the excuse that they're too new to have heard of channels rules).
There are a few cases where it's appropriate to talk about other games in channels 1-19, perhaps, such as when discussing how features of EL could work... But even those tend to get derailed as soon as people start talking about the other games.
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Because (1) it's not just about the list, it's also about EL's market, and (2) because many of us have a dislike of Usl's practices, including that some of what he's said has, IMO, been misleading about the opinions of other bot owners, which he did know about.I guess listing prices could cause a lot of heat with owners, I just don't see why someone just can't ask politely to be removed from the list, rather than getting worked up over it (although I can see both views of this thread).
Personally, I prefer just the list of bots and purpose so players still have to interact with the bots (we don't want the bot to play for us, just do some of the filtering, right?), but just the items (and removal of prices on @@3) wouldn't be too bad IMO.I feel the bot wouold be a success, if it just listed bots that have the item that was searched. Not both that and prices. -
Ahh, right. Well, setting the camera to spin back once you release middle could work... Although I think if you want to look around, mouse-grab (middle-click when not using SDL cursors) will probably be more common, and won't work with that.
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Only if you don't move them the same as normal (the further away they are, the larger the co-ords of movement could seem to be, but that'd get harder to implement). Otherwise, well, add_command_to_actor messages (pain, move_nw, attack1, and so forth) are a large part of the bandwidth EL uses. Even if you assume it's limited to sit/stand/walk commands at range, that could be a large increase... For most players it won't be that bad, but people on dial-up will probably suffer (plus it may as much as double traffic, which matters more for the server; nor only network costs, but I recall reading that interrupts to get network traffic were one of the slower things on the EL server)Whats the minimum information needed to put a low-polygon representation in the distance? Say:{ uid, x, y, [ z?, ] facing-sitting, body-type }
Less than 8 bytes? Have a message as a vector of these. Body-type would map to a lower-polygon model, covering all entities -- basic form, size, and colouration. Body type could even be designed to degrade with distance (if lower bits give more detail, mask according to range).
ThanksI stopped using FPV after I was sick of wanting to use the keyboard. Click movement is age-old as it is - it'd be really nice to have freeform movement using the keyboard instead of click-click-click-click, crap missed the rabbit, click-click-click...I won't go into that here though
Uhm. Do you mean ctrl+o->sky&cam->follow camera? I know it needs tuning and you have to play with the numbers, but it generally works (when in follow cam mode, spinning camera adjusts the offset from forwards of your character, which may be unintuitive to players for a while, but is useful)What I did notice with 'Follow Cursor', is the need for it to have a 'snap back' option, that allows the player to move/rotate the camera without having to readjust the view to behind the character (as it'll automatically move back to the back-view). Otherwise, you end up clicking to move instead of rotating the camera because you don't want to have to keep readjusting the view to behind the char... (Well, at least I do...) -
Theoretically that's entirely a bug, and will get fixed (preferably before 1.5), and hence won't be a big issue. Heh, yeah.
the server and the client still disagree on the the current orientation of an actor sometimes
I don't know if it will ever be good for playing. Perhaps if zoom/mouse-wheel became a height adjustment (so you can look from different heights as well as pitch/yaw with the mouse) it might be a bit more usable, but I don't think so. FPV is okay for distance work and for looking around. Not close-in playing like EL is designed for.c) quite frankly, at the moment, gameplay in FPV just plain sucks. It looks awesome, but the interaction with the world is a lot more difficult than in 3rd person.However, once the rendering and actor distances, and all the other issues are fixed... We'd then be ready for more camera positions. Over-the-shoulder may work, we can add a string camera (when you move, it tends to go behind you, but doesn't move when you don't), we can allow for greater freedom of zoom/pan in the current camera, the FPV client has a follow-cam (which, if you adjust settings, isn't too jerky to be unusable, although I think it still needs a bit of tuning), and probably many other options.
Nyah nyah!EDIT: ttl beat me to it
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Perhaps. But consider where that list came from... I posted on the forums for discussion and opt-in. It's fair and people know what's happening (had Usl done that from the start, the grumblings that some of us have might not have even made it to the forums. I think a dislike for his way of doing things is a part of the problem).While you might still consider this misuse, I believe Usl was accessing the list so that he could go actually ask each bot owner for permission to have Rraisa access them.
Also himself and his guild (and his isn't the only bot I've seen trying tog et prices from vakana, some of them even less willing to admit to what they're doing, so there's one point for him), but yes. Although I believe what he's doing is a bad idea, and I think he should have discussed it openly, I don't and didn't think anything was done with malice or ill-intent.In many cases this is an after the fact request, but I do believe that Usl is honestly trying to provide what he sees as a benefit to the community.
One could also suggest that the channels in EL are getting overcrowded, and would do so without any bots on them at all. EL's chat system worked well at the start, but I don't think it's scalable enough. At some stage, we may have to split some things up; have channels that are officially listed as, for example, Seridian or Irilion market (and keep one Draian one for the really big trades for when people are willing to travel a long way). This has, to some extent, happened already unofficially, although many players simply don't know about it.However, the number of bots continues to grow and has (IMO) already outgrown the existing interfaces. If we don't like Usl plan, we need to come up with a better one, stop bickering, and implement it.Yes, we do need other approaches... But some have been developing already. EternalBroker is an example where people can get involved in trades without botspam (if more people did that, checked what was available or wanted, and gave realistic prices, it might help).
I suggested adding a location list to vakana's bot list (so she'd be able to tell you which bots traded in PL and wished to be listed, and you then checked prices, exact location, any other relevant details then), but I only had one person (IIRC) contact me wanting to add a location entry.
We do need to work on this problem. But increasing price-competition at the same time is, to me, not a good thing. Developing it in private without anyone but Ent knowing about it, and bot owners seeing what looks very suspicious (even Ent said it was to be public, but we see bots talking to our bots in PM without knowing what's going on... I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be suspicious), and slows down development (heck, if the bot owners, as a group, went for an idea of bot-listing, it could be done so much faster and easier...).
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I tend to agree, but the minimap may supply that sense of knowing what's going on around you. *shrug*The FPV is looking nice. Really need that over-the-shoulder perspective though; it gives about the right information for a game, giving you a sense of peripheral vision.
This has been a problem ever since perspective was added to the client (before that it was only modded clients (or perhaps rare cases with height differences)). It's just a lot more obvious in FPV. The problem is that you can see a long way, perhaps as far across as Whitestone City is, before LOD cuts too much out... Now, some people's computers won't be able to handle many maps in FPV, but some will... The increase in bandwidth needed, on the other hand, will be significant, especially in populous (not just people, but also critters) areas. I don't know how much of a problem dial-up would be today, but if the view range for actors went up that much, it'd be a lot worse (plus, how do we deal with the perception-difference? just crank that up at the same scale? People will see each other from so far away anyone has time to check stats before fighting?). It seems like there's some serious design issues to be consideredWith a far-field view, it looks odd that there are no actors in the distance, but they appear from no where at quite a short range. How much information would be needed to send a "distant actor" message vector?
Yeah, it seems like we have an uncorrected sphere instead of a corrected one or a skyplane... Unfortunately, I don't know if I have the technical ability to fix it (I could probably add another layer of clouds that'd be seen as higher, but adjusting what sort of sky rendering view is used is trickier). Plus the amount of time that would be needed... Between university, all the other things on my TODO list for EL, work on related projects like my bot or movie-server, time off when people in-game make me wonder why I bother putting in all this work, etc, I don't think I have time to do more than fix the bugs and adjust some of the less tricky things.On the clouds -- their appearance is okay overhead clouds, but not for clouds towards the horizon; it looks more like smoke/fog. Clouds occupy one or more plains with perspective, and do not appear homogeneous on the sky sphere.I'm hoping someone with OpenGL experience will be able to help out, but the two people I know who have experience also have their own projects taking up time
No, given how fast you can pan the camera (and although in mouse-grab mode the client auto-turns the character, it's still way too slow). You'd need at least 120 degrees to be able to deal with only minor turns of the head, and turning your head (IRL) side to side means you have a range of vision of something like 270 degrees within part of a second (certainly less than some people's ping time on EL). Plus calculating the different ranges and angles may be more CPU intensive than just a circle.If we went just to FPV, then perhaps the server could send actor data for what is in front of the actor, instead of a (assumed) circular radius around the actors current position. ie. move that circle X units in front of the person. That would increase the forward view distance and reduce the vision to the rear (which is realistic), mimicking natural perspective. Just a thought, but it would require server side changes. The server already knows what direction the user is pointed so it should not be too difficult. Just a thought.It's an interesting idea (and certainly, come up with more
) but I don't think it will work out as well as we need. -
Please don't use terms you don't understand. The basis of capitalism is exploiting everyone else for your personal benefit. The community in EL suffers enough attacks as it is without the hype on price.Everything that helps comparing prices will help free competition, it is capitalism.
Don't be silly. Capitalism benefits the haves and penalises the have-nots. Bot owners will often be the haves, and their customers from the full range.Ofcourse capitalism and free competition are good for customers (players) and not necessarily bot ovners so I understand that not everybody likes it.In a hyper-capitalist society, the few haves control nearly all the wealth, and the have-nots have trouble, not only competing, but even having enough money to be customers... You don't have to do much study to realise that if the few wealthy people exploit everyone else they will slowly destroy the market for many items (basics like food will always be needed, of course, although IRL people can and will grow their own... without employees getting good wages, they can't afford to buy the non-necesities companies are putting out... Now, who's going to point out that this won't happen to this extreme in EL? Heck, I will. Because comparing RL and EL without a strong enough understanding of what you're talking about is stupid. But there's enough similarity to see that, like IRL, an overly capitalist market is not good in the long term (IMO, hyper-socialism is a bit nicer, although the lack of goal from striving to be the best means most people will slack off and society and the economy stagnates through lack of innovation and work, rather than lack of money and exploitation... But lets not get too political))
The difference is that people will rely on the prices from a central register, and that information will be wrong, not just on prices, but also quantities/availability. And if a bunch of bots have a hundred or more people who get better prices (and with some of the larger guilds in-game, you should believe that it's feasible), many people will get better prices from some bots.Special prices for special people ? As already Usl said, those special people must know that they have special prices - current market channel advertises contains normal prices for normal people so what a problem with another advertise ?What if there's a list with locations that people can check? They then check those bots. If they don't already have their own list of bots they normally deal with (and many people do). What if the central registry gives false information, the person running it doesn't consider courtesy or make concessions that cause half the bot-running market to block them; and then spins their posts to make it sound like less people had a problem? Real issues of distrust, frustration, and dislike.
It doesn't necessarily take a lot of RL money, you can also invest a lot of time, and working smarter can help... But that takes a lot of investment in research, planning, etc... That's not what a game should really be about, IMO. Other than that, I agree except that you missed that people will make stuff in the hopes of getting rare items (like the great swords) and then dump, below-cost, the normal version to recover most of the costs.In RL, free markets are the optimal means for exchange of goods and services because all players are trying to profit from it. In the IG market not all players are intent on making a profit. Some grind to get xp and sell their goods for a fraction of cost. Bot owners are at an advantage in this because they are (as evidenced by their investment in the bot fees) "richer" than the average player.This is a giant step into having a bot-controlled market. Once this happens, the casual players (that do not want to invest real $$ into the game) will find it very difficult to make any gc at all except at the Portland bl bush.
Vakana offers a lot of services to the players of EL (possibly too many, since some people find the list of commands a bit overwhelming at times, but oh well). Notice, services to players. Not bots.but where's stealing if you give a public service and somebody simply uses it? Nobody is using your bandwidth for they purposes but to communicate with you, that's what you're for on EL and why you've got one or more bots, and what YOU have decided to pay for: letting others use your bot. There is no one stealing anything. If some users are unwanted do anything you want to block access to them.
Control of the powerful, gee, that goes so well with exploitation of the masses... Nothing like bringing up visions of explosions and violence to put across your point, eh?The only one that wants to tell others how they should act is you. Maybe when there are explosive weapons in EL you'll be more effective in exporting your democracy. In the meanwhile hold on.
Well, it's not at me, but I'm at university, I've studied economics, marketting, and a heck of a lot of other stuff... I've been given awards for acheivement, they've been chasing me to do further study, etc... I have some idea what I'm talking about.Do you have any real life market experience? Or is everyone pulling their game experience outof their ass as valid proof? (I've been buying stocks since I was 13)
It's time you learn something. The best service or product is not what succeeds. The public, as a group, are stupid (people individually are often, though not always, clever. Groups are often stupid. Many things people would never do alone, they'll do in a group. Peer pressure, wanting to show off, trying to demonstrate social dominance, laziness because the issue doesn't affect just them, so obviously someone else will think for them, etc)if he start blockong/blacklisting people informations from rraisa become useless and other person can create beter bot that don't blacklist anyone, people will choose beter - complete information source.
Well, if it were even true information... Did you not read the market/economic analysis about what happens when you increase the importance of price as a competition point? Prices dropping from bots does not help the (low level) players who try to compete. Bot owners like myself who have the levels to make nearly everything in-game with a decent to high success rate can afford to sell things like HE for a lot less than a low level player who fails regularly. Unlike IRL, there's no labels (and hence social status) or quality issues, so we don't really have a reason to sell for more just because we can (and hence allow the lower level players to compete... Which, BTW, is a socialist action, allowing competition and a wider marketplace, the capitalist approach would be to kill any competition any way possible, including selling below cost in order to drive out the smaller competition... Big business does that IRL too).How would freedom of information possibly hurt the market, or anyone? If you believe that making your prices public would hurt your business then that means you are probably a con man anyway.As for banning guilds because of the actions of one player, I don't agree with that... On the other hand, I did see Usl scanning vakana's list of bots, and I considered a ban there... But then, unlike IRL, it's harder to spot people who hide behind false names to get around any block I put in place, and he'd be able to misuse the list of bots eventually anyway (on the other hand, they're also all in the relevant forum post, it's not that private). And yes, misuse, since it's provided mainly so people can find contacts if there's a problem with a bot (which is an issue, as AFAIK not even the mods know the contact details for all bots).
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Well, it's been a while, so time to update, I guess...
That's pretty much how it is in CVS now (zoom is the same with or without ext-cam, do you want that adjusted?), although it's likely the changes I made allow the non-ext-camera to move another degree up/down, etc... Ext-cam now allows you to go almost straight up/down (I don't like straight up/down, as that looks perculiar when you pan, but I can add another 5-10 degrees if needed)Default Camera = EXACTLY as it is in the client nowExtended Camera = camera with extended rotation where you can look up and see the sky, look down at your feet, rotate it all around, zoom in/out...as shown in the screenshots I posted, and like almost every other RPG, and tons of MMORPG's out there.
Grum's done thisOr we can just Auto it to a "default inside view camera" where you're not going to see other house insides.
I took a few screenies wandering around in VotD today... FPV isn't that great for playing, but it's good for looking around
http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/ttlanhil/FPV/Bugs/TODOs/related issues:
- ctrl+o descriptions
- the lightning is seen on clouds (at least in -DNEW_WEATHER, where the flash is more noticeable), which isn't really going to be correct.
- fix follow cam in FPV
- the shadow system in EL only works for a certain distance; after that the shadows look funky. The new view here will make players more likely to be looking long distances, so it is becoming more of a problem.
- actor animations, when viewed from a low angle (such as horizontal) seem a lot more robotic, no bounce, etc. Note: in FPV, head bobbing will be visible to the player as the screen moves, so while it would look okay to increase a little, it shouldn't be too much
- again with being able to see further, you can see when actors disappear. It might work okay if we alpha blend people in/out at a certain distance, because currently they just pop in/out on actor add/remove from the server.
- shaders don't seem to work
- clouds, stars & sun go from north to south when looking north or south; west to east when looking west or east. funky.
- skybox and shadows roll when panning camera.
- reflection of skybox is pass-through, not a proper reflection
disable reflect_sky, and only on high angles is anything shown (is the horizon misplaced?)
All 3 seem to indicate that something in the OpenGL code is wrong, a mis-translation or rotation or something... I just don't know what/where
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So now I should point out how it's disgusting and I don't think it's at all appropriate for the forums of a game that families play?
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At the risk of getting this thread even further off-topic (Maybe someone could move this thread to help-me or similar? preferably with a name change?), it also does the opposite. Network-hardware grade firewalls can do traffic management in both (or more than 2) directions, and firewalls on workstations can also manage outbound access. For example, I know zonealarm has the ability to allow/deny access from programs on your computer to the Internet. And if you have any dubious programs on your computer, that can be handy too.All a firewall does, is block outside programs from talking to programs running on your computer.That said, firewalls generally serve as part of a proper defence, and while temporarily disabling them to test something is probably okay, removing/disabling for longer than necessary is not a good idea unless you really know what you're doing or are working with someone who does.
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And we can summon them with 20 needles? (I've been wanting to do this for a long time, I've suggested it a few times before, I think it'd be funny
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Eliminate storage chat window
in Suggestions - General, Misc.
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