Friday with Means - December 18th, 2009 - Busy day and Leet infestation

[erozc]

Uber screenshots

I was wondering why those pics were so small... Then it hit me that the world's moved on in 15 years, and 320x200 is something you don't really appreciate these days.

Btw, I wish we had grappling hooks in AO.

It would definitely make BS more exciting.

To Nick: How about the 'turbo' key combinations at bootup... I think it make my 286 go from 8 to 10 mhz, yes I'm that old.

[Nistrum]

Which ones are still wrong? PICS!!!!

Some pics of my atrox MP with tier 2 shoulders, as you can see they look quite bad.
(and the shield isn't properly aligned either)

Screen 1
Screen 2

[Alternity]

Since this has diverted into a nostalgy thread, in before someone metions Turbo buttons on PCs.

I'd be careful mentioning historical facts if I were you.

[Tazalanche]

Since this has diverted into a nostalgy thread, in before someone metions Turbo buttons on PCs.

When I saw the descriptions of the core i5 & i7 processors, that's the first thing I thought of... turbo buttons have returned, but they're automated now.

To Nick: How about the 'turbo' key combinations at bootup... I think it make my 286 go from 8 to 10 mhz, yes I'm that old.

I fondly remember my Commodore Colt with an 8088 running at 4.77 mhz (or 7.16 mhz in turbo mode) & 640k RAM. So many hours spent playing Test Drive III & Dungeon while trying to connect to Compuserv at 2400bps with constant disconnects, yet I thought it was the best $350 (bought used probably around the time Eroz got his 286) I had ever spent at the time.

[Chrys]

To Nick: How about the 'turbo' key combinations at bootup... I think it make my 286 go from 8 to 10 mhz, yes I'm that old.

Yeah srsly my 386 goes from 8 to 20 MHz PWNNNWTTTTTNTNN!TT!!!!11

[Namiru]

Holiday Party Details and Times:
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/an...&table=CONTENT

The last issues:

Characters are "naked". Meshes (like shoulderpads) and weapons are displayed but the textures on the character are not "swapped" to display the correct armor. This is a feature missing from the new engine and we are waiting on work from the Montreal office for this feature to come it. This is not complicated but has been delayed by the expert in our Canadian office somehow breaking his leg horribly while actually IN the Canadian office...I don't know how he did it...but I am sure he was "compiling" at the time. He is back on one leg now and this work should be coming along soon.

Say, Means, any chance that while you are reskinning characters for the new engine, can you change what Solitus and Nanomage default outfits look like? It's not an overly large issue, but I've always found having to wear arm tattoos to get the "bare arm" look to be seriously annoying. Any chance for a new sleeveless look for "naked" Solis and NMs?

[meatybtz]

What is missing:
The last issues:

Characters are "naked". Meshes (like shoulderpads) and weapons are displayed but the textures on the character are not "swapped" to display the correct armor. This is a feature missing from the new engine and we are waiting on work from the Montreal office for this feature to come it. This is not complicated but has been delayed by the expert in our Canadian office somehow breaking his leg horribly while actually IN the Canadian office...I don't know how he did it...but I am sure he was "compiling" at the time. He is back on one leg now and this work should be coming along soon.

Was pondering this point for a while and now firmly believe that this is a great excuse to get rid of the textured equipment from characters and push your chinese slave workers harder and go for meshes for all armor and most clothing.

[Technogen]

Was pondering this point for a while and now firmly believe that this is a great excuse to get rid of the textured equipment from characters and push your chinese slave workers harder and go for meshes for all armor and most clothing.

The amount of work that would be is crazy large. 7 texture/mesh per item, and the db has thousands of visible items. Even "same" items would require 7 texture/mesh components for it. The size of the DB would blow up to 7 times its current size, since there would have to be a texture for each sex/breed.

[mes]

The amount of work that would be is crazy large. 7 texture/mesh per item, and the db has thousands of visible items. Even "same" items would require 7 texture/mesh components for it. The size of the DB would blow up to 7 times its current size, since there would have to be a texture for each sex/breed.

No.
Even in most current-gen games with a choice male/female, and even other races/species, one armour texture is enough for all of them. Should there be a total clothing/armour revamp though, if FC switched to actual meshed clothing items (I really reeeeaaaallllly with this would happen one day), what WOULD fill up the DB quite a lot would be the different meshes for everything. This could be made a little easier by removing the amount of body type variation between races ie. use the same body shapes for slender/medium/heavy across Soli/Nano/Opi instead of the slight variations we get now.
However, every other modern MMO has pulled this off, and I don't see why AO couldn't, either.

[Technogen]

AO does currently use 1 mesh/texture for all body types then stretches it out.

[omegahealer]

Mes, you stated it yourself... CURRENT GEN...AO has not been build with that idea in mind s it seems. Technogen has a rather valid point

[meatybtz]

Its a definite point. However alot of the don'ts are focused on the idea that doing such and such would be too hard in AO. Yet most of our modern upgrades to AO have always been considered in the past to be "TOO HARD" or "TOO MUCH WORK". That does sort of invalidate the stance that it is too hard or too much work. This being a stance Technogen likes to hold to. I dissagree. NOW is the time since we are moving into a new age of AO to really take a frank look at things and go for the revolutionary activities. Should the new engine be delayed over this... hell no! But it defintly should be something on the list of the "upgrades over time". After all ART PEOPLE work on ART. Putting the pieces into place for meshes for ARMOR NOW with the eye for actual implenetation later. The reasoning being.. you already are deep into the muck might as well fix all the other out of date plumbing while your at it. As for size.. there is a ton of stuff that should be removed from the database, that is completly of no use what so ever and just wastes space.

The AO team has consistantly pulled off miracles dispite their size issues. I would expect no less from them in the future. They have become the Mr. Scott of MMO Devs. Its impossible for everyone else.. but not them.

[Snakebite]

The AO team has consistantly pulled off miracles dispite their size issues. I would expect no less from them in the future. They have become the Mr. Scott of MMO Devs. Its impossible for everyone else.. but not them.

What you're saying is: Having said it will take months, they're actualy about to launch the engine on Thursday???

[Ebondevil]

What you're saying is: Having said it will take months, they're actualy about to launch the engine on Thursday???

Of course, I can see the future:

Friday With Means on the 25th December 2009.

New Engine is released, we hope you all enjoy your Christmas present from all of us at the AO development team.

P.S. There needs to be another 3.3 Million posts before that link works
I'll fix it when Means posts what I quoted.

[Technogen]

I'm just saying, they have 2 full time artist, and 1 part time artist on the the primary team. No idea how many people that are in the china group but they have 1 full game they are working on and 1 expansion they are working on. Both Rise of the God Slayer and TSW are supposed to go live next year in some way shape or form, so I dont think the china team has to many people free right now.

[Phixalicious]

so I dont think the china team has to many people free right now.

They can easily hire more. Thay all work for WoW gold, and the markets cheap right now.

[meatybtz]

I'm just saying, they have 2 full time artist, and 1 part time artist on the the primary team. No idea how many people that are in the china group but they have 1 full game they are working on and 1 expansion they are working on. Both Rise of the God Slayer and TSW are supposed to go live next year in some way shape or form, so I dont think the china team has to many people free right now.

I was more thinking on the technical side rather than the actual meshes. Design the solution to the texture loading problem to also incorperate the future concept of going for an "all" or "nearly all" mesh based solution in the future. Otherwise later on it would be terrible to shoot one self in the foot and go crap.. we would look better, be nicer, whatever excuse but cant because we effed up and the code only allows for our funky texture based armor.

The meshes and textures can come later (the art stuff) but the code base should support it from the get-go... or at the least not remove the option.

[gimpmasta]

*thinks this discussion is partly related to btz having done some 3D modelling today*

[Technogen]

The meshes and textures can come later (the art stuff) but the code base should support it from the get-go... or at the least not remove the option.

Yeah, but the system would have to support both types, *shrug* idk. Just don't go praying for some cloth effect system :P

[Apothis1]

I am currently in prison and cannot currently log in my characters...please don't delete them!

I spoke with some people on RK1 the other night and I confirmed that "When we do a character wipe...you will need to log on your low level bots to make sure they are not removed.". Let me be clear...This is not happening soon. We will not be up to any such nefarious activity over the Christmas holidays (The next two weeks) and we certainly will not do it without any notice. There will be notices in the launcher for weeks before...notices on the forums...and we will likely send mails to everyone in the interest of making sure nobody loses anything they are even remotely interested in. Lots of notice. You will all be sick of hearing about it when we do it.

On a personal note to the person who wrote me from prison. Best PM I have ever received. It is going on the wall of my office. To be clear: It is not the policy of my team to delete the characters of people who will be out of prison soon. (Please don't hurt us!)

LOL, Means im not in prison, im in county jail, its a little different but thank you for acknowledging my message sir. They let me out on GPS surveillance on saturday so im at home again finally. I thought you'd get a little kick out of my situation, but ill be more than happy to have my request posted on your wall :P. But i'd like to take this oppurtunity to let you all know ill be back ingame inside of 2 weeks
and be playing quite a bit again, i built my new rig and the motherboard bricked on me so i have to wait for my RMA.

Thanx for the laughs sir,

The Ever Incarcerated
Apothis