Lomshir Progress Thread
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
[quote="Amnath"]I was thinking about that, so the way I made it, it will only do the callback if it doesn't find the leader:
Spawns/LomshirPlain/TrainedCackler116075.lua (ID 7069)[/quote]
That works only for initial chunk spawning. If the leader is then killed, the follower will just stand there forever. Also if the pet is killed and then the leader more than 5 seconds later, once they spawn the pet will check for leader, not find, wait 5 seconds, not find, and then just stand there.
[quote="Amnath"]The Broken Fang one looks like it does the callback every second that it is up.[/quote]
Where'd you get that from? The only callback is in the spawn() function, which only gets called once on spawning.
[quote="Amnath"]I'm thinking that the Cackler spawn will look for its leader one time, and if it misses, then it will repeatedly check until finding it. Is this not correct?[/quote]
That's just more work on the server than needed. That's why our setup has the leader calling it's followers on spawn as well as the followers looking for the leader once. No matter who spawns first, the followers will start following.
Spawns/LomshirPlain/TrainedCackler116075.lua (ID 7069)[/quote]
That works only for initial chunk spawning. If the leader is then killed, the follower will just stand there forever. Also if the pet is killed and then the leader more than 5 seconds later, once they spawn the pet will check for leader, not find, wait 5 seconds, not find, and then just stand there.
[quote="Amnath"]The Broken Fang one looks like it does the callback every second that it is up.[/quote]
Where'd you get that from? The only callback is in the spawn() function, which only gets called once on spawning.
[quote="Amnath"]I'm thinking that the Cackler spawn will look for its leader one time, and if it misses, then it will repeatedly check until finding it. Is this not correct?[/quote]
That's just more work on the server than needed. That's why our setup has the leader calling it's followers on spawn as well as the followers looking for the leader once. No matter who spawns first, the followers will start following.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Trust OncaLupe on this one. He's the one I go to when I need help with scripts. He knows them pretty damn well.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Well, it was my first attempt in a learning process. By analogy, I thought, since for example a quest Npc has ProvidesQuest in its spawn function, it doesn't just...check the status of players in the chunk when it spawns, it updates them continuously, so if a new player enters, the Npc will update its icon from yellow to blue to green in real time. That is why it seemed to me that having a callback in spawn() would mean that it keeps doing it. But if it really only does it one time, then it makes sense that having each check for the other one time would be enough to do the trick.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Ok, adjustments made so the pet followers are in an unerring double bind with the Morduma Trackers.
And, the Haekemish Excavation is set up. This is a cave/mine type place, which I think sometimes has been called an "expedition", but an expedition is more like a safari. Corrected the misspelling "Haekemesh" seven or eight times. "Haekemish" sounds like an adjective, but that's the guy's name, Goagner Haekemish. His direct followers are humans and gnomes. The dungeon isn't vast, but it's easily twice the size of Lair of the Green Witch. It has a Scorpion Cavern, an Earth Elemental one, and farthest in are a bunch of Skeletons they seem to have exhumed in their labors.
So. Can you get some single pulls here, yes, here and there may be a few, but you mostly are going to get doubles or more. You will bump into a boss in the first room. There are multiple nameds, and since there are only about five caverns, they are not hard to find. Temporarily, in the case of Acarak the Crusher, I've left him up in two places. Basically, the Scorpion area has two branches, and he could be at the end of either one, so it would be a 50/50 guess on your part. Right now he is at the end of either one, so it doesn't matter which way you go. When eventually we get the tech to spawn uniques by location, then it will go back to the intended version.
As a kind of gimp compromise, Eulys the Pernicious has a few possible locations tied in with multiple placeholders, so, chances are, you'll find her one time, but it is technically possible she might show up more than once. I think the rest of the nameds are standalones in particular places now.
After taking a closer look, it's starting to seem like the quest "Kill the Sentries" does not refer to the Haekemish Sentry mob that is inside the dungeon, but is talking about Haekemish Elite Sentry which are outside, and, yes, were more powerful until I turned them down. So, if we change it that way, it would be something else you could probably solo, and then we would be down to two traditional dungeon quests, neither one of which currently have any text. Neither one is of a mass killing nature, just find one item that shouldn't be too hard, and kill Goagner Haekemish, which shouldn't be too easy. Again, there are multiple quests originating from inside, but there could easily be more of the traditional kind.
Plenty of room to add some material with the Primer, and with those things, which, are not exactly spheres, it kind of reminds me of a macaron, the French meringue sandwich cookies, which mostly people want to call a macaroon, which is neither what that cookie is, nor what these objects look like. The one the statue holds, is a sphere, but it's not exactly a globe, it's more like a marble. What looks like a pile of rocks behind it, is actually the top of the statue's head and the bridge of its nose. That's what Haekemish is excavating, even though the people called Haekemish Excavators look like warriors and are at the opposite end of the place.
Not the biggest dungeon in the world, but it should keep you busy for 2-3 hours I would think.
And, the Haekemish Excavation is set up. This is a cave/mine type place, which I think sometimes has been called an "expedition", but an expedition is more like a safari. Corrected the misspelling "Haekemesh" seven or eight times. "Haekemish" sounds like an adjective, but that's the guy's name, Goagner Haekemish. His direct followers are humans and gnomes. The dungeon isn't vast, but it's easily twice the size of Lair of the Green Witch. It has a Scorpion Cavern, an Earth Elemental one, and farthest in are a bunch of Skeletons they seem to have exhumed in their labors.
So. Can you get some single pulls here, yes, here and there may be a few, but you mostly are going to get doubles or more. You will bump into a boss in the first room. There are multiple nameds, and since there are only about five caverns, they are not hard to find. Temporarily, in the case of Acarak the Crusher, I've left him up in two places. Basically, the Scorpion area has two branches, and he could be at the end of either one, so it would be a 50/50 guess on your part. Right now he is at the end of either one, so it doesn't matter which way you go. When eventually we get the tech to spawn uniques by location, then it will go back to the intended version.
As a kind of gimp compromise, Eulys the Pernicious has a few possible locations tied in with multiple placeholders, so, chances are, you'll find her one time, but it is technically possible she might show up more than once. I think the rest of the nameds are standalones in particular places now.
After taking a closer look, it's starting to seem like the quest "Kill the Sentries" does not refer to the Haekemish Sentry mob that is inside the dungeon, but is talking about Haekemish Elite Sentry which are outside, and, yes, were more powerful until I turned them down. So, if we change it that way, it would be something else you could probably solo, and then we would be down to two traditional dungeon quests, neither one of which currently have any text. Neither one is of a mass killing nature, just find one item that shouldn't be too hard, and kill Goagner Haekemish, which shouldn't be too easy. Again, there are multiple quests originating from inside, but there could easily be more of the traditional kind.
Plenty of room to add some material with the Primer, and with those things, which, are not exactly spheres, it kind of reminds me of a macaron, the French meringue sandwich cookies, which mostly people want to call a macaroon, which is neither what that cookie is, nor what these objects look like. The one the statue holds, is a sphere, but it's not exactly a globe, it's more like a marble. What looks like a pile of rocks behind it, is actually the top of the statue's head and the bridge of its nose. That's what Haekemish is excavating, even though the people called Haekemish Excavators look like warriors and are at the opposite end of the place.
Not the biggest dungeon in the world, but it should keep you busy for 2-3 hours I would think.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Adjusted mobs outside the dungeon/towards the Crimson Legion camp. The Scouts will walk all the way over and then despawn. At first, they kind of come in a wave, but, I think after a few go rounds, there should be enough random variation to make them distribute more smoothly. There are also a few holding back that won't come over.
I also believe it may need some adjusting, this may be the world's most ridiculous loot pinata. As it turns out, for Kill the Scouts, and Kill the Elite Scouts, you only are asked to kill three of each. I tried it, and, when the rewards came up, as a plate wearer, for the first I got boots of 92 AC, and on the second I got leg armor of 230.
Now, I know the level for this was originally something like 18-19, but, those armor pieces are actually pretty good for a level 30-32 tank. If you actually went in the dungeon, the plate legs you could get from Ten'drayl are only about 138 AC, which is more reasonable for this level. I could understand Captain Julian offering decent rewards on his inside-the-dungeon quests, but for something you could blow by and be done in fifteen minutes, these current rewards seem to nerf the next fifteen levels of your existence.
I also believe it may need some adjusting, this may be the world's most ridiculous loot pinata. As it turns out, for Kill the Scouts, and Kill the Elite Scouts, you only are asked to kill three of each. I tried it, and, when the rewards came up, as a plate wearer, for the first I got boots of 92 AC, and on the second I got leg armor of 230.
Now, I know the level for this was originally something like 18-19, but, those armor pieces are actually pretty good for a level 30-32 tank. If you actually went in the dungeon, the plate legs you could get from Ten'drayl are only about 138 AC, which is more reasonable for this level. I could understand Captain Julian offering decent rewards on his inside-the-dungeon quests, but for something you could blow by and be done in fifteen minutes, these current rewards seem to nerf the next fifteen levels of your existence.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Going into sort of a housekeeping phase. I noticed that whoever created the Kill the Elite Scouts referred to them as "these men", despite the fact that they are all female. Changed that to match. Same with respect to Shar Mordual which goes out of chunk.
I made an attempt to make the horse race come to life, but there were issues so I disabled it. The guys that have a line of dialog, they're supposed to be in the outer lanes with their horses on cooldown. As it turns out, horses do not have a trot animation, and if you speed them up just a little bit more than walking, they gallop, which kind of makes it look like maybe they're underwater. So they're ultra slow granny nags right now. For the ones that go fast, the refacing thing done by a mob the size of a horse, and done frequently due to the speed, was unbearable. So they're stopped. This was just for appearances, they never did anything besides go round and round.
Started setting up some of the on-screen messages for outposts and dungeons and so forth. This is not something we can check on the fly, so, if they wind up wobbly and off kilter, they will get hammered into place by degree. As I started on these, it occurred to me that possibly a better way to achieve the proper effect on a large area, is to use the edges as a measurement, and then use those to define the middle, because it doesn't matter where the middle is, but it does make a little bit of difference where the edges are.
I made an attempt to make the horse race come to life, but there were issues so I disabled it. The guys that have a line of dialog, they're supposed to be in the outer lanes with their horses on cooldown. As it turns out, horses do not have a trot animation, and if you speed them up just a little bit more than walking, they gallop, which kind of makes it look like maybe they're underwater. So they're ultra slow granny nags right now. For the ones that go fast, the refacing thing done by a mob the size of a horse, and done frequently due to the speed, was unbearable. So they're stopped. This was just for appearances, they never did anything besides go round and round.
Started setting up some of the on-screen messages for outposts and dungeons and so forth. This is not something we can check on the fly, so, if they wind up wobbly and off kilter, they will get hammered into place by degree. As I started on these, it occurred to me that possibly a better way to achieve the proper effect on a large area, is to use the edges as a measurement, and then use those to define the middle, because it doesn't matter where the middle is, but it does make a little bit of difference where the edges are.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Set the Morduma Horses to leave when you do the quest Horse Wrangler.
They move properly, however, I don't know of a way to tell them to quit interacting. Because of this, you have a sparkly horse traveling across the plain, which, you can go and click it again, and that will make it turn around and go to its first movement point. All the credits can be had from the same horse.
They move properly, however, I don't know of a way to tell them to quit interacting. Because of this, you have a sparkly horse traveling across the plain, which, you can go and click it again, and that will make it turn around and go to its first movement point. All the credits can be had from the same horse.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Right now there are two ways I can think of to deal with this kind of situation. Swapping spawns and using hidden objectives.
Swapping spawns is how Live tended to handle this. Basically there are two versions of the spawn. First is the clickable one that interacts with the quest, then when clicked it spawns a non-clickable version (or clickable version that just ignores clicks) that then reacts as needed for the quest. If you go to the Isle of Dawn and do the chicken wrangling quest in Sun Village, you'll see this in action.
The second way is using a hidden objective for each object the player needs to use. Each spawn is set to interact with this hidden objective, and when clicked it updates both that specific hidden objective as well as the visible counting objective. This also has the side benefit of the player not being able to wait on respawns, as they're forced to find the other objects to interact with. You can see this in action with the "Gateway Termination" quest on the Isle of Dawn. For things like searching crates or whatever, this also allows the object to respawn quickly for the next player. If there are more objects than needed for the quest, then when the visible objective is complete you can have a function run to set all hidden objectives as complete so the quest can be finished.
Swapping spawns is how Live tended to handle this. Basically there are two versions of the spawn. First is the clickable one that interacts with the quest, then when clicked it spawns a non-clickable version (or clickable version that just ignores clicks) that then reacts as needed for the quest. If you go to the Isle of Dawn and do the chicken wrangling quest in Sun Village, you'll see this in action.
The second way is using a hidden objective for each object the player needs to use. Each spawn is set to interact with this hidden objective, and when clicked it updates both that specific hidden objective as well as the visible counting objective. This also has the side benefit of the player not being able to wait on respawns, as they're forced to find the other objects to interact with. You can see this in action with the "Gateway Termination" quest on the Isle of Dawn. For things like searching crates or whatever, this also allows the object to respawn quickly for the next player. If there are more objects than needed for the quest, then when the visible objective is complete you can have a function run to set all hidden objectives as complete so the quest can be finished.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
I was thinking of a swap, and either that was not what was used here, or nobody collected the quest progress. There is only one kind of the Morduma Horse recorded. I suppose you could make additional spawns, and then instead of having the interaction on the Actor, it would be per location, so the swapped spawns couldn't do anything but run away. If they had done it that way, there probably would be...more horses lined up headed away.
Hidden objectives sounds superior, actually, if it means you can get credit for Crate #4 one time, then it would be the same as using Horse #4 one time. The slight difference here is that, instead of being strewn hither and yon, more than enough horses are in each pen. So once you kill a few guys standing nearby, you spook the horses almost all at once. There's not much chance of them respawning while you are standing there, but, if it will turn off the interaction on an individual basis, that would prevent anyone from making the same horse go in a circle clicking it repeatedly.
In which case, we should perhaps consider pushing that method into a majority of these kind of quests. Not 100%, I would think for example you could be allowed to pick the same Horseberry plant later on. The tradeoff would be in the respawn, so that plant would go up to 30 minutes, versus an exclusive crate/crystal/horse or whatever, it can come back in a minute. I'll read up on the quest that's using it.
Hidden objectives sounds superior, actually, if it means you can get credit for Crate #4 one time, then it would be the same as using Horse #4 one time. The slight difference here is that, instead of being strewn hither and yon, more than enough horses are in each pen. So once you kill a few guys standing nearby, you spook the horses almost all at once. There's not much chance of them respawning while you are standing there, but, if it will turn off the interaction on an individual basis, that would prevent anyone from making the same horse go in a circle clicking it repeatedly.
In which case, we should perhaps consider pushing that method into a majority of these kind of quests. Not 100%, I would think for example you could be allowed to pick the same Horseberry plant later on. The tradeoff would be in the respawn, so that plant would go up to 30 minutes, versus an exclusive crate/crystal/horse or whatever, it can come back in a minute. I'll read up on the quest that's using it.
Re: Lomshir Progress Thread
Brings me to the odd subject of Hag's Coastline.
Why is it odd, because, as you can see, when they made the map, they missed and put Lomshir Coast completely out in the ocean. So, because this is the coast of Lomshir Plain, it really is Lomshir Coast, and, even though the coastline is dominated by Kazduma Treasure Company, somehow the Hags still managed to get it named for them. Good job, Hags.
It's also quite small and doesn't have much to it. I'm trying to go with the concept that, as you get finished up with Dark Horse Downs, you will get simultaneous leadouts to the Crimson Legion and to Hag's Coastline. There won't be much left to solo in the southern part of Lomshir Plain and then you have a full group dungeon; here, there will be a little bit more to solo, and then what looks like a small group dungeon (Grotto of the Sea Hags). I say this because it is not very big and has limited amounts of mobs in it. It has a worm chamber, an undead chamber, and the Hags chamber, and if you are not careful, you will just go in circles or spit yourself out an exit. So it's about like Lair of the Green Witch, with leaks.
It just needed to be hooked in with the quest flow better. When I played through here in the Live game, I never heard of any of this stuff, reached about level 15 and came up empty handed, so I left the area completely. With its level set too high, there just...isn't really anything to bring you back to Dark Horse Downs later on, to see what you can get from a level 8 outpost when you are 22. So this can probably help you get through the late teens instead of sitting there unused. I generally found that 18 and 28 were pretty dry spots, until you reached 20 and 30 respectively.
Why is it odd, because, as you can see, when they made the map, they missed and put Lomshir Coast completely out in the ocean. So, because this is the coast of Lomshir Plain, it really is Lomshir Coast, and, even though the coastline is dominated by Kazduma Treasure Company, somehow the Hags still managed to get it named for them. Good job, Hags.
It's also quite small and doesn't have much to it. I'm trying to go with the concept that, as you get finished up with Dark Horse Downs, you will get simultaneous leadouts to the Crimson Legion and to Hag's Coastline. There won't be much left to solo in the southern part of Lomshir Plain and then you have a full group dungeon; here, there will be a little bit more to solo, and then what looks like a small group dungeon (Grotto of the Sea Hags). I say this because it is not very big and has limited amounts of mobs in it. It has a worm chamber, an undead chamber, and the Hags chamber, and if you are not careful, you will just go in circles or spit yourself out an exit. So it's about like Lair of the Green Witch, with leaks.
It just needed to be hooked in with the quest flow better. When I played through here in the Live game, I never heard of any of this stuff, reached about level 15 and came up empty handed, so I left the area completely. With its level set too high, there just...isn't really anything to bring you back to Dark Horse Downs later on, to see what you can get from a level 8 outpost when you are 22. So this can probably help you get through the late teens instead of sitting there unused. I generally found that 18 and 28 were pretty dry spots, until you reached 20 and 30 respectively.