Darklight -- Saigo Gets Persistant

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Tue Dec 10, 2002 11:01 am

The discussion board is up!

http://pub46.ezboard.com/bdarklight84665

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Mon Dec 16, 2002 1:38 pm

The server was updated this morning with a huge addition. My goal is to have the rest of the city proper populated by the end of the week. The city underground is complete, the atmosphere of the whole module has been deepened, and xp and gold may finally have been balanced. Although the module is still in a test status, I believe it's playable at this point.

The HakPak has been downloaded 37 times to date,

but I have not seen anybody other than Demis on the server. My guess is that "Darklight" sounded cool, so a lot of people have downloaded the Hak to see what it was.

If you looked for the server this weekend, it was apparently down for maintenance. Sorry.

I have big plans for this module, but the most important element is a good group players, so I need you guys. I want this world to be as entertaining as possible, and I think that means an even split between a great setting and great characters. The setting is my job, and if I'm not doing it well enough, let me know -- I'll do what I must to make it better. The characters? Well, that's beyond my control. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 12:30 am

Originally posted by Saigo
<snip>The HakPak has been downloaded 37 times to date, but I have not seen anybody other than Demis on the server. My guess is that "Darklight" sounded cool, so a lot of people have downloaded the Hak to see what it was.
<snip>

Lack of gaming time is my main problem these days

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 9:07 am

I'd love to play it bt I haven't gotten around to reinstalling NwN yet. (damn windows

)
I'll do it in the holiday!

average joe · Post by **average joe** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 1:28 pm

Well, Saigo, I've been on a few times, but NwN is just damn frustrating. First of all, everytime I log on, whether to Darklight or Argyle, crappy lag immediately dampens my gaming experience. I'll click on a spot to walk, only to have my character wait a few seconds, begin to move towards the spot, then jump back to where he was originally, and finally begin walking. It always takes several seconds to bring up EXAMINE info, or anything else for this matter.

Then not to mention I'm often dead within five minutes of logging on.

I just can't say playing NwN gives me a very enjoyable experience. I don't understand why lag is such a problem. I'm on my university network, which is faster than dial-up for sure, but NwN just doesn't really play like it.

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 4:17 pm

AJ, I'm not surprised by your lag issues on Argyle...it's one of the reasons I quit going there. Argyle's lag is excessive -- I've been in much larger modules with one tenth the lag they had.

I am a little surprised that you had major lag problems with the Darklight server. Demis is playing from Greece and he has had few complaints. He and I experience nearly the same lag (mostly because of a few encounters that I'll be fixing tonight), and I'm in the same city as the server.

We are still looking into changing the server OS to Linux, but we will need to resolve some issues with auto-restarting first. Once that's done, the server will be as efficient as we can make it. Already, we've resolved all of the game engine issues that we can control (except for the encounters mentioned above) like minimizing the impact of respawns, destroying leftover loot, and spreading merchants out so that no one merchant should have a gross amount of inventory (opening a store with pages and pages of inventory will cause a whole server to slow almost to a halt).

I'm sorry you've had problems -- I agree, excessive lag can put a huge damper on the NWN experience -- but I hope I see you online now and then, anyway.

average joe · Post by **average joe** » Wed Dec 18, 2002 12:47 pm

Oh, I always come back to see if I can have an enjoyable experience. I just rarely do. And it's quite possible the lag is from my side, though I really can't understand why it's so bad.

CM · Post by CM » Thu Dec 19, 2002 3:30 am

Morning folks....college and argyle have been taking up most of my time. I will try to download your hak sometime over the break Saigo.

As for the lag, i rarely get lag and i am on 128 ISDN - which is pretty crappy. I see people warp some times, but i usually am lag free. They are planning on getting a dedicated server and the like that should cut down the lag.

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Thu Dec 19, 2002 1:49 pm

Great, CM, I look forward to seeing you.

For everybody, I've started topics on the Darklight board that have brief notes on racial characteristics. If you are planning to play, you might want to read what's there and add comments if you like. I will continue to fill in history as I am able.

Also, look for a Vispera-specific Blades history in the near future. i'll post it in the "Our bio" thread in this forum.

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Sat Dec 21, 2002 1:09 pm

Hey Saigo, I've got the hak pak, I'll be trying out the world soon, it's 19:08 GMT here, so I'll be on at around 19:30 if you're here. I look forward to it, the map looks awesome man...

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Sun Dec 22, 2002 9:31 am

Sorry, Nippy, I spent all day Saturday working on content. I never even checked the boards. Also, I've been told that the first Saltmarsh area is FUBAR, so expect that to be fixed by tonight.

average joe · Post by **average joe** » Sun Dec 22, 2002 4:38 pm

I'm not sure why, but when I try to direct connect through your IP address, it takes me to the Nordock module, or something like that. What's up?

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 12:19 am

Um, maybe because rainwalker has Nordock loaded instead? My guess is that he's trying to stress test his server, and Nordock's tradeskill system, combined with it's many other custom whizbangs, will stress the hell out of a processor.

I haven't talked to him today, but I'll certainly ask him in the morning.

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 12:31 pm

Hey Saigo, did you get my message on XP? I sent the e-mail through Gamebanshee...

And it is very good by the way, nicely designed. Do all your NPC's have conversations, or are you still waiting to do those? (I tried to speak to some, but they just looked at me. Tsk, the rudeness!

)

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 4:53 pm

I just checked -- yes I got it. I had 57 e-mails in my box! That's what happens when you do most of your communication on message boards. I need to remember to uncheck "E-mail Notification."

If you want to make sure I see something, your best bet is to post it on the Darklight board. That's my new homepage, so I see it every time I start IE.

For the rest of you...Nippy was pointing out a respawn exploit. If you die at first level and choose to be respawned, you are sent back to the Prime Material plane with 401xp, no matter what you had to begin with. This may seem like a worthwhile exploit until you realize that you still have to get 600 more to reach level two and you now have exactly zero gold, one food ration, and one white robe (I had to start giving the food -- it sucks to be a mage or cleric and come back with most of your spells gone and no way to rest.)

I only did it the way I did because I am still not familiar enough with scripting to have the script check to see if you're first level and, if you are, to dump you back to 1xp...at least I'm afraid to tamper with a script that finally works and risk breaking it.

When I get the first chunk of the module completed, I will go back and refine some of my crude efforts, and the respawn exploit will be at the top of the list.

And, yes, Nippy, it is a pretty cheesey exploit, but I'm sure you'll agree that the cheesiness belongs entirely to those that abuse it. I'm sure those players will not be happy in Vispera for long, anyway.

Kudos for pointing it out!

Thanks for the compliment. Those townsfolk really are rude, aren't they? They will continue to be uppity until I get everything in place. Then, I'll give them all a little more life. They will talk to you about how worried they are about the kobolds and the goblins that seem to be gathering in the countryside, the strange dispearances around the sewers, those scary Silken Cord thieves on the west side of the bay, and many other things. If I don't die by aneurism over the scripting issues, the quests will be very complex and will be pieced together through interaction with several NPCs for each story line. If I can get it all working the way I want, the stories will also tend to weave in and out of each other, making you choose to follow one thread or another.

For right now, though, I've decided to get a complete region built before I get sidetracked any more with scripting issues. The region itself holds plenty of adventure and should keep everybody busy until the NPC rumors start flying.

Demis · Post by **Demis** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 6:10 pm

Saigo, i am still getting the Nordock module, like AJ, when trying to connect on the server.

CM · Post by CM » Mon Dec 23, 2002 6:44 pm

Hey can i get the hack pack with a download manager or what? Because 121 mb is too much for me, on 128 ISDN.

Demis · Post by **Demis** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 10:09 pm

Originally posted by CM
Hey can i get the hack pack with a download manager or what? Because 121 mb is too much for me, on 128 ISDN.

Yeah CM, you can get it with a d/l manager, i got the file with netants. Either right click on the link and choose the manager to download it (most manager have this option) or copy the URL into the download manager.

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 11:57 pm

I finally managed to talk to rainwalker. He was testing Nordock vs. Ankara for memory leaks. He was having a problem with Ankara using more and more memory the longer it ran and wanted to see if it was his server or the module. Nordock has been up for over 24 hours now with no growth in memory usage, so there may be a problem with Ankara. He is supposed to update the module tonight, and I have made substantial changes to it, like eliminating the saltmarsh areas, so we'll see if he continues to have problems.

Sorry for the confusion.

Saigo · Post by **Saigo** » Fri Jan 03, 2003 10:55 am

Wow! Sorry about the long down time. I have been doing a ton of very boring revisions, changing and updating every creature in the module, creating new scripts as I go, attempting to solve the memory leak problem. Tonight, we'll find out if all this tedium pays off. Darklight will be up this evening for testing. Hopefully, it'll be up all weekend.

On the plus side, all that work resulted in a personal accomplishment I'm very proud of -- I am now an official HCR cotributor. Two of the scripts I helped develop are being integrated into the core HCR ruleset.

One is a simple respawn script intended to circumvent the overhead required by encounter triggers; the other is a trap xp script. 3e rules say you're supposed to get xp for traps, so we put it in HCR.

Keep your fingers crossed for the test tonight. See you later.