Friday with Means - January 29th, 2010 - Explosive database

burmese

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Friday with Means - January 29th, 2010 - Explosive database

German Character Transfer

The character from the German dimension, despite our best efforts, is obviously delayed. Waldgeist has sent me a list of the most commonly asked question concerning the transfer and I have sent him the answers to the best of my ability. The questions and answers should be found on the German language forums. I imagine he will add a link "HERE" when he translates this one. For everyone else the rules and conditions of the name/character cleanup will be posted next week.

Moderated by Waldgeist

Ninja edit, to add a link here

forums-de.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php

This week

There is always something that generally gets in the way and slows us down...the amazing part is that it is something new every time. If this job provides anything it is "variety" in every day life. It is amazing how many things can go wrong in a completely new way all the time. As most of you are aware we have been putting together the next version of the Daily Mission system after putting the very first version on TestLive last week. This is an unusually ambitious update that involves updates to almost every single playfield on Rubi-Ka as we are also doing our best to resolve all the old issues concerning Alien pathing in player-made cities. The "build/export" process for this takes up to 2 hours per playfield and has to be done twice each time (once for the Free version/small client and once for the All expansions/full client. With about 40 playfields being "fixed" in this update (including some new areas for the Daily Missions) this process can take a LONG time to put together. At 11:30pm on Wednesday night the last of the "data" playfields were being added to the exported data...at the exact same time our Database administrator in the United States took the whole database down to upgrade the software. "Boom" is a good word. As the build process takes for granted that it is receiving the data it needs...we ended up with a version on Thursday morning without a few pieces of information...like "What are professions" and "What is health?"....pretty much all the information the servers needed to determine whether a character should be alive or not was missing. Logging into this server put characters into an immediate and never-ending death loop.

That version will unfortunately NOT be coming to the live test dimension.

Unfortunately the only way to be sure the data is "ok" is to run the complete set of data exports...again. When our Vice President of Patching returns from his long weekend vacation (and hopefully recovers from working ALL night the day before his vacation in hopes of salvaging the data disaster.) we will have another go and have hope to get the next version on TestLive next week.

Such VARIETY!

Engine Variety

Work of course continued this week on the engine...this week CLOTHING/ARMOR seems to be in and complete. This seems to be almost the last (crosses fingers) of the integration work...everything that "should" be there is now actually there. SO some work began this week in the OPTIMIZATION phase of this little project.

It was discovered that in the conversion process between using AO ground and using DreamWorld/Cheetah ground that the ground file increases a bit on the way. Up to about 290 Megs PER PLAYFIELD. As AO has about 100ish playfields at this point I required a new pair of shorts and smelling salt noseplugs. The coders managed to get this down to 8-32 Megs by the end of the week...so the sky is no longer falling...and I'm sure they can make it even smaller as we go.

The clothing looks better...less pixelation of textures as you "move" away from the character either with the camera or with your character...was nice to see those smooth edges.

Meetings occurred for arranging for the full production of the new heads by the Chinese office...I am amazed at the level of quality produced by their team. Astounded is a good word. I can't actually remember at this point if we showed you the test head they did for us of the Atrox...they are currently reworking one of the Nanomage heads to futher estimate timelines..when we get that I will post it here. Damn are they good. I'm really excited about it. Our artist Flaptoot is even more excited about it as he will likely get to spend some time in the Chinese office during the process..as a martial arts afficianado he is looking forward to practising his art in the parks in the morning with the locals before going to work. I'd love to go myself but unfortunately he'll do a better job with ensuring the heads are as amazing as they should be...and I know what generally happens when I leave the office.

Questions from last week

People being brought out of sneak by AOE effects. Yes this is intended. If you resist the nano you will NOT be exposed. There will no longer be a "message" when you appear or disappear that will notify everyone in the area of your presence. It should also be noted that these AOE nanos are not going to be "spammable" as they are now. AOE effects will have a cooldown...so randomly spamming these tools will not be as efficient a way to detect hidden players as it is now. Either way...any hostile effects that hit you in sneak will likely continue to expose your position in the future. Players concealing will have to watch out for AOE professions as much as they have to watch out for concealed players...the advantage is still on the side of the concealers. Please check out test to try out the new conceal code..looks pretty good.

Have a great weekend!

__________________

This "Means" Cake

Game Director

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"

In followup comments:

RE: Grand Theft Humidity: "There will be changes to the way this nano works. We are not ignoring the elephant in the room."

RE: patch crash: 'I should clear that up...it isn't the DBA's fault...he didn't know we would be building at 11:30pm at night. He was doing a good job as always taking care of the systems..Just bad luck nothing more nothing less."

RE: Fr00bs entering AI buildings: "Froobs being able to enter some AI buildings is one of those things I desperately want to get done...but never seem to find the time to get to.

Yes.."Death Loop" would be an awesome name for a Funcom Staff only death metal band. If I had any talent at all I would love to do that (the ability to sing without causing internal injuries in others would be a plus). The previous lead designer before me went on to be the bassist in a band called the Trash Can Darlings...I don't think the band still performs but they were a lot of fun to see live."

hobo9766

"People being brought out of sneak by AOE effects. Yes this is intended. "

What a load of crap that is is. Someone with no ip in perception can give someone in sneak the shaft.  It should land on you but not unsneak you so you would rooted but still concealed.  Cheating the perception vs concealment check with what would be considered an exploit is real grand fc. What else can I do now without IP in the needed skill , do tell me the future  plans failcom?

burmese

The counter to AoE is NR.  The effect of AoE should unconceal you, just as a nearby mortar would knock over a concealed agent and expose him if he couldn't maintain his balance from the shockwave.  Concealment and Perception skill isn't even part of the equation here.  It always has worked this way and changing it to be any other way would create a big mess.

 

Of course the whole discussion is a bit silly - as pointed out by one of the Agent Professionals, no one ever killed anyone while sneaking and many of the best PvP agents in the game have zero IP in sneak, anyway.

 

 

hobo9766

Originally posted by burmese


The counter to AoE is NR.  The effect of AoE should unconceal you, just as a nearby mortar would knock over a concealed agent and expose him if he couldn't maintain his balance from the shockwave.  Concealment and Perception skill isn't even part of the equation here.  It always has worked this way and changing it to be any other way would create a big mess.
 
Of course the whole discussion is a bit silly - as pointed out by one of the Agent Professionals, no one ever killed anyone while sneaking and many of the best PvP agents in the game have zero IP in sneak, anyway.
 
 

 

It has always been screwed up but now we have a game director saying it is a sanctioned design to root thyself to expose nearby concealed players.There is the problem.. Its common practice vs principle. A root is not a mortar if it were I would expect the dead agent's corpse to pop out of sneak.... It should still land and have an effect but not break sneak same for aoe nukes and everything else but the player should still be concealed. Since you mentioned the agent pro the former pro Ebondevil is actually taking the same position. Its a sad day when I actually agree with one of them..

burmese

Thursday with Means - Promised new Atrox Head render

I mentioned last week we had an example head (Atrox) that I was unsure if I had posted here. Here it is. Putting it in this weeks update would be cheating.

Please note: the transparency of the Atrox hair does not display correctly in this Max render but is correctly displayed in the new engine.

Attached Images

File Type: jpg atroxhead_china+old.jpg (300.7 KB, 141 views)

forums.anarchy-online.com/attachment.php

__________________

Colin Cragg

This "Means" Cake

Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"