P4Ns Dev Log

[pro4never]

So much for working on new source. Got pulled away to work on a C3 tool.

Big learning experience for me mostly because it forced me to review my (limited) knowledge of linear algebra.

Models all load and display as they should
Model parts can be rotated, scaled, moved and re-exported
Effects can be attached to a model to preview it much how it would look in game (not perfect but 'close enough)

Pretty happy with how it turned out although I'm sure I'll end up revamping it some more as needs change.






Eudemons

So much progress on the C3 utility! Here's a preview of a weapon I've been able to import, rotate, re-size, etc including effects from eudemons.



The reason that this is 'useful' is because before this there was no public tool to rotate effects so there was no simple way to import weapons from other TQ games. They'd be held wrong and if you rotated them then you lose any effects they have.

[Ultimation]

c3 tool looks nice, but its still a long way togo, i hope you are not just importing the functions from c3_core.dll.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by Ultimation

c3 tool looks nice, but its still a long way togo, i hope you are not just importing the functions from c3_core.dll.

I'm manually reading the .c3 structure into the program, storing it in a way that XNA can display it/modify it and then re-writing it back to files. Not using any conquer related libraries. I'm using some partial c3 documentation you and others posted years ago + the eudemons client source code to get the file structures + a lot of trial and error.

So far the only thing it's really missing that I need from it is the PTCL and PTC3 format so that I can reposition/rotate those emitters or make other changes to those effects.

At this point I'm pretty happy with the tool because it did what it was supposed to do for me, it unlocked eudemons assets for use in the conquer client. It's not intended to be an actual editor (I dont have any real plans of letting people create their own effects or models inside it, that'd be kinda pointless).

[Ultimation]

the problem is now, on the newer clients tq use alot of bone blending techniques. This is how they can get away with adding new body tracks without updating all the animation files (im sure you have come across there indexing system). The eudemons source does not have that, so you may run into issues when it comes to displaying animation and mounts etc.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by Ultimation

the problem is now, on the newer clients tq use alot of bone blending techniques. This is how they can get away with adding new body tracks without updating all the animation files (im sure you have come across there indexing system). The eudemons source does not have that, so you may run into issues when it comes to displaying animation and mounts etc.

Interesting! All my client work is based around patch 5017 so mounts and modern stuff doesn't really concern me. Still useful to know though.

[turk55]

Originally Posted by pro4never

Interesting! All my client work is based around patch 5017 so mounts and modern stuff doesn't really concern me. Still useful to know though.

What about the modern one tho ? :P

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by turk55

What about the modern one tho ? :P

My new source is patch 5517, he's referring to current TQ patch as far as I know.

I have neither the time nor experience with modern to be able to compete with Play Conquer (nor the years of logging and reverse engineering they did through conquer AI) so targeting current patch would be a massive waste for me.

Basically 5517 in my mind will be the 'new classic' for conquer. It's old enough that it's still nostalgic without being as obtrusive for new players as conquer 1.0. There's a lot who hate wings and auto hunt and chi and all that but still want some of the newer classes so that's sorta what that project is targeting.

[Ultimation]

since tq added garnments and mounts thats sort of the patch im talking about, they had todo alot of engine modifications to support the animation groups for them.

[L1nk1n*P4rK]

I don't check ePvP (nor this section) a lot lately, but when I do... whatever it's a borring story anyway.... I think I just had an e-******! Keep up p4n!
Not sure why, but you made my relaunch C# out of nostalgia (and after instantly close it and go back to WoW).

Bookmarked the topic, so keep pouring info, I love readying it!

[pro4never]

HD Classic

Misleading term but w/e! One of the major complaints from players is that the old client old supports 1024/768. As time goes on those complaints only get larger and larger. We're gonna be working with our client protection creator to override the limits in the client to create support for larger screen resolutions.

There's been a few issues in that button positions need to be manually calculated based on screen size but here's a quick preview.



Obviously a ridiculous test at a screen resolution of 2560x1440 but shows that things are working nicely so far.

Next step will be sending the screen resolution in the login packet so the server can re-calculate the dynamic button locations and then increasing the max draw range to increase it past the 18x18 grid. The hope is that by increasing the max draw range, the frustration of 'offscreen shots' will be reduced while also making the game age a bit better for our players and be less clunky.

We will of course be including interface options to allow for classic 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions.

Cross server madness!

Last Saturday was the first cross server guild war test. There were some issues found in it but overall the event went smoothly. We'll be running another test this Saturday (this time using the NA node to host from) and will be continuing to test and expand.

It's not finalized but Shannara conquer has also shown interest in joining this system. My job today is re-structuring the interserver so it handles the different client version smoothly and handles all of the proper entering/exit logic without interfering with the existing playerbase on either server.

Warriors: CRUSH

So, last week launched the update to warriors in our server. They went smoothly until our guild war at which point the water taoists of the server seem to have rebelled and voiced some concerns. For the most part the changes were a huge success but there are some edge cases where damage is a bit high. We'll be adjusting and tweaking this week to find a proper point for them to sit at.

Sadly in conquer when not using battle power most damage boils down to sockets and bless. This means while dmg might be perfect when comparing full 2 sock -7 characters, as soon as you throw in a -5 set things can be a bit wonky.

First step will be decreasing the base damage on dash skill now that it crushes armor slightly. We dont want warriors out damaing trojans except in situations where they are chaining hits or hitting extremely tanky targets (ooh no you hit 2k instead of 1.5k!!)

Likely tweaking this base dmg will make a big difference for the health of the class but we dont want to have any knee jerk reactions on this as a lot of the complaints are just people who arent used to seeing warriors played and are scared of change. Nothing wrong with that but having an extra class as 'viable' is never a bad thing, just gotta make sure we dont push them too far.


Garments?

We really need to get a few new garments into the game so that's gonna be my job late this week. The last set of souls proved quite popular but we dont want everything to be about weapon skins! Time for some recolors of old garments, new garments and some fancy ones with effects.

[pro4never]

Ok so the last week was spent on fine tuning the new demon box system. I've posted all the info in the advertisement thread so no need to repeat it all here...


Today though I was doing some advertising on the TQ facebook page (so many angry ppl ******** about how classic was better lol) and I noticed this...



I'm the only page not run by TQ that they've liked... I'm assuming their staff thought I was a TQ page? Either way I thought it was pretty funny.

[pro4never]

Most of the work the last week or so has been devoted to the new source. Thankfully that also means lots of work has been done on the interserver system (it's the same project)

No Relogging

This obviously wont apply to Shannara as I have no way to control how their source handles things but players from Apex/Triumph who want to leave the interserver now do so without having to go back thru and relog into the game.

This is a huge quality of life change as it makes the system more seamless to the average player who (when finished) shouldn't even notice the transition. It should just feel like you're changing maps.

Assuming the system continues to gain in popularity I may even add portals that transfer you between servers. For now though commands and npcs will work fine.

New Source Features

Grunt work... lots of grunt work. Trying to finish up the playability of the new source so that's meant things like sky pass, moonbox, 2nd reborn quest, garment trader, subclass system, etc. Lots of work has been completed in the last week or two but no one cares about what npc scripts I've written so lets just gloss over that.


Cosmetics

As shown in the above video, been working on pulling assets from TQs latest client. A few nice new garments but mostly I've been working on tweaking old stuff such as the pirate armors which are not used in our game to give them a unique feel.

Pretty happy with how my abilities at client mods have developed in the past few months. I'm still BADLY lacking in artistic talent but I've gotten much better at nudging things in the right direction to create something new


Duel Ranks

Duel rankings have been up for a few weeks on apex now. Next step will be introducing rewards for those who place highly each month. Currently I plan to use the new "BladeMaster" garment and create versions each with their own halo (#1 Blademaster, #2 Blademaster, #3 Blademaster). These would be bound to whoever earned them and could not be sold. They would expire after 30 days (when the next winners are chosen)





Small set of updates I know but ppl keep telling me they're interested in what I'm working on so I guess I'll keep posting :P

Event Invites

So I've been frustrated with how to properly convey information to new players concerning events. It's been suggested before that we do custom invite windows and while that's possible, we had a lot of issues with it in the past. I've gone ahead and re-written some stuff so that it can be supported easier and here's what I've come up with.




Each invite will consist of a main window with hardcoded text (way easier than trying to format the strings thru packets) with static join/refuse buttons. The server will then check what interface window you have open at the time and do all of the normal join logic.

Starting off with larger less often events like ladder tournaments and cross server guild war and then will expand from there based on player feedback.

I'm also considering re-skinning the entire client to fit the same theme. That would only be for the new source though.

[pro4never]

I had a bit of free time the last few days and have been looking into re-skinning the client.. my art skills are non existent but I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far.

I've prototyped most of the main windows (aka painting ontop of a ingame screenshot with various photoshop elements)

Here's the 'finished' version of the inventory window in game.




My major issue I'm having right now is getting the client to handle horizontal hp bars... So var I've tried gui.ini edits (which overrides any conquer.exe changes), conquer.exe resource editing and looked into the structure of the ProgressHP.rgn file and so far no luck...

Without being able to fully re-design the HP bars I'm not sure what direction I want to take the client interface. Ideally I would switch to a more 'modern' style of having your hero's information show in the top left corner of the screen with a nice container for the hp/mana/stamina/xp bars as well as client buffs/debuffs. Without that it limits what I can do to the rest of the interface as I'm forced to work around the existing HP bar style (although vertical bars would work, it limits screen real estate)


Note: This is a PROTOTYPE (just painting ontop of the existing screenshot) but this is the direction I'm thinking for the equipment/stat window. Leave the structure the same just give it a fresh coat of paint. Obviously the 'hero' would be the ingame 3d model, just needed a placeholder.




Other then that I've been working on the new 5517 source. This week has been focused on the arsenal system, guild ranks and a few other things. I'm pretty happy with the guild system for now and gonna go back to the content side of things and finish up some more bosses/events/quests such as the CTF window.




<edit>

I'm now finished with the warehouse and inventory windows. Pretty damn happy with how they look in game. Admittedly these haven't involved any major re-structuring, just moving a few buttons + re-doing the art assets.




The more I work on this, the more I'm inclined to dig deeper and do more. I'd really love to re-visit some of the hideous old spell effects and give them a fresh coat of paint as well. My goal for this new project is to have it feel more 'modern' in terms of game design than current official conquer does while not actually running a modern patch. That way it doesn't feel old and clunky but can still fill the void that many players feel by not having a mid range server to play.

[Santa]

Originally Posted by pro4never

Grunt work... lots of grunt work. Trying to finish up the playability of the new source so that's meant things like sky pass,

That moment you realize you added sky pass to your new source but not Apex

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by StarBucks

That moment you realize you added sky pass to your new source but not Apex

It's a **** ton of dialogs. My new source at least designed with proper inheritance for NPCs. No one on apex would want to bother with 'classic' sky pass because the rewards suck. In newer conquer though TQ revamped it to give things like study points which will make it actually useful.

Less work, larger audience, better rewards. Kinda a no brainer to write it there.