Tracking Progress.

[Glarundis]

Thanks to pestering on auto map chat

<3
Thanks for the work

[Vulcan]

- Fictional and certain historical names will be restricted. If you've any ideas on names for this list please let me know. I'll try to include the big ones. (Dridzt and variations there of, the baggins names, other chobbit names from Tolkien, I've never and revise to read the Game of Neverending Thrones so if anyone is a die hard fan feel free to submit names, Adolf Hitler, Vassili Zaitsev, Ho Chi Minh, miyamoto musashi, Alger Hiss, Obama, the Clintons, Trumps, Bush's. I mean the list might not get this long but the point is be creative

There's no need for a list. Each player needs to be rational and make sure to create a name on their own. Any obvious name like that will be renamed to the character's prior name and lose the name change all together.

[GM Oden]

Meh, I've already started on. We should put checks in because to be perfectly honest the shard should run with as little staff intervention as possible so you put in checks before things get out of hand to cut down on staff intervention.

I don't know, call it laziness but I want to police players in real time about as much as I want to have socialized medicine, which is not very

[Edward Sinclair]

I wouldn't call it laziness, but one more minute spent policing names is a minute taken away from more important tasks such as making quests or spawning 20 iron elementals when someone is mining empyrean...

[GM Oden]

I wouldn't call it laziness, but one more minute spent policing names is a minute taken away from more important tasks such as making quests or spawning 20 iron elementals when someone is mining empyrean...

Lol I don't run quests anyways, I type too slow and don't setup macros as staff.

I can write storyline for a quest, I might even be able to handle scripting some AI for a quest but when it comes to running one, I can't micro manage swaths of players very well.

As for the iron elementals, I don't need to spawn them I'll just pop it in the script that:

if acctname == <insert acct name here> && vein == "empyrean"
Then spawn your coveted iron elementals.

You sound bitter like this just happened.

[GM Oden]

Going to wrap up my Christmas stuff this week so that we can get them in and work out the kinks.

- I'm redesigning the present Gump, so it looks nicer imo and easier to add stuff to the list of goodies in future.
- Replacing the pouch graphic with a proper present which will then be a usable container once charges are depleted.
- Moving away from the 5 different yearly color scheme to random 20.
- Rings are now candy canes, thus easier to find.
- Working still on the auto holiday starter, ran into issues grabbing the date, specifically the month mainly a byproduct of not being under 099.
- Some extra goodies if I can figure out my date issue.

Along with these there are some general bug fixes:
- Finally fixed the mount bug!
- .Flip and double click of new Halloween stuff will be fixed if everything goes in as it should.

There's a couple other bugs I think I've fixed but can't remember.

[GM Oden]

Triple post or is it treble post?

On the religion front, as I know you're all anxious.

A new strategy has been discussed and new short to long term goals laid out.

I've been tasked with three main things in the short term and in the interest of moving forward it's been agreed upon to get things going so the plan is to shoot for the following:
- Assess and fix Guard AI, they like to openly attack certain or all religions.
- Assess and re-implement the old religion package.
- Move forward on upgrading Pangaea to the latest core pol core. This will be a struggle I fear as there are missing files I will need to hunt down or re-engineer but if I can get these source files the task at hand will be made immensely easier. With this update I hope to move in my own personal work on a massive item database update which includes a ton of new deco some of which will be craftable at some point and some of which will be treasure from MiBs and/or chest picking.

When this is completed, the fun will really begin, I'm shooting to move over our current attributes stuff to a more up to date one which will be a mammoth task to be sure and to push for new crafting system implementation.

Somewhere in here and not all of this I've run by the crew, I'm going to resume work on the new religion stuff as well. I will not give deadlines or promising but know that as for me, as the active scripter this is my goal sheet. I tend to get side tracked with various things but will try to remain vigilant.

Note: if I can not properly re-engineer at least two of the source files missing, I'm seriously considering replacing the housing system with my own. If this happens I will make every effort to make it as smooth as a transition as possible with minimal loss to the player base. Right now I can foresee only one main issue, friends and Co-owners being wiped from houses. But I will try my damnedest to get the current housing stuff transitioned over and only resort to using my personal housing system as a last resort.

In this transition as well there will be a re-evaluation of dot commands that probably won't affect player commands but for sure staff commands will be sorted through and hopefully we can sort out the whole lot to where at the maximum each command level has thirty commands. Right now GM command level alone have over 300.

(If you're wondering why the old religion stuff you can contact me privately and I'll explain.)

[Striker]

thumbs up ;]

[GM Oden]

Various changes pushed this morning much later than I had intended.

Code: Select all

	- Config/
		- equip.cfg updated.
			- Added new npc dress for a holiday npc
			- Removed cloaks from Bankers so that when they are sitting in chairs they don't look funky.
			
	- pkg/
		- items/
			- evilHomeDecor/
				- Try for another time to fix the Halloween stuff I introduced. Everything compiles fine and
				  assuming everything included in this update is dropped in everything should work.
				
			- nameChangeDeed/
				- This is the long awaited name change deed.
					- Does a full name check reference against already existing players except the user's in the event
					  he wants to keep his old name but change his appearance.
					- Does a full name check against excluded names, a number of mainstream fantasy and scifi names, along
					  with a few real life names of famous people.
					- Does an individual character by character check to check for excluded characters, these being things
					  like numbers, @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) etc.....
					- Does an individual word breakdown of the name to check against a list of excluded words, these being
					  sexually explicit words or racial slurs and a few other quote "bad" words.
					- Does a character limit check, 4 being the minimum and 16 being the maximum despite the fact I limit the
					  characters able to be entered into the text entry field, more on this later.
					  
		- npcs/
			- townfold/
				- holiday_folk/
					- Includes a new entry for a new holiday npc. This will be a launch board for future holiday npcs that we may
					  want to add. I know I intend to add more Christmas npcs so we can add one to each town which players can visit
					  to collect new and interesting deco and other items or goodies.
			- npc_util.inc
				- Mount death animation bug fixed, it is a two file fix so you will also need to include tamed.src when pushing this
				  updated which I have also included.
				  
		- Systems/
			- holidays/
				- The long awaited holiday pkg which allows us to setup holidays to auto start via a cfg file and a start and control script or
				  be triggered on character login. There is a readme doc for this in the pkg and might seem a little wonky at first to setup.
				  
				- Note: There is an issue if the StartDay is greater than the EndDay of a holiday and likewise for StartMonth and EndMonth, it will
				  be fixed but for right now it works if you do not have like start 12 24 / End 01 09. I plan to fix this soon but wanted to get this
				  out to you as it is integral to the new holiday stuff I put together.
				  
				- Note: Christmas is already setup and ready to go with this so if you get this in within this week and compiled, DO NOT turn on Christmas
				  unless by the 17th or 18th I think it is set for, people logging in do not get their Christmas presents. I tested this and it works but
				  there is obvious issues that could arise.
				  
				- Note: Halloween is also setup in here, I do not remember the dates but if you check in config/holidays.cfg it lists the dates, this pkg
				  is written for annual events not hourly, minute or seconds type events. As such, that might be something I would consider adding in the
				  future but only when we get to 099 as the "StrFormatTime" makes dealing with time just so fucking easy. By Halloween being setup already
				  it is setup to give something out on login as I used it as a test base for the login script, however, if you leave it where it is and pull
				  the Halloween message from the main login script and want this pkg to only handle the login message, that would work but if you change it to
				  an auto start event which the start and control script will then check the date and auto start holidays setup in this fashion, we can change
				  Harry the Handyman to automatically read the global property for Halloween starting and he will just automatically do his thing when the time
				  comes, similarly for the guards to ghosts control script we could do the same thing.
				  
				- Note: This should use UTC time and so when I was testing that is like 6 hours ahead of me and I am fine with it using UTC as it is the
				  perfect standard.
				  
				- Final Note on This: I know it is likely rather a clunky looking thing, it was my first attempt at scripting calendar event system, I plan on
									  improving this overtime so go easy on it. Plus I plan on releasing a 099 version of this on the pol forums so it gets
									  as much exposure as possible. I am big into giving back to a community that has helped me when I needed it.
				  
		- Utils/
			- distroGumps/
				- This was updated yet again and is integral to any gump work I do in the future, I use gumpstudio and it exports to this format so and
				  it is the gump package I am most familiar with as it is the one located in the distro and in my shard which is running under 099. As such
				  I did some rejiggering to get it to work under 096, wasnt too hard but I also added additional features which were not present in it and
				  are not present in the gumps pkg in the main pkg folder and I would like to suggest as soon as we can moving over to using this gumps pkg
				  as I am more than willing to keep it up to date as things are added or I hear about new goodies. I scour servuo quite frequently and talk
				  to the pol devs on a regular basis and have had feature requests added which in this case I know would not help us but if we are serious 
				  about and to be clear, I AM SERIOUS, about moving up to 099, it is nice to stay up to date with functionality and features added to the
				  many systems pol offers, including gump design.
				  
				- Update to GFAddHTMLLocalized:
					- Allows for arguments to be sent if the cliloc allows for it. I use clilocs a lot more on my shard than I have on Pangaea but if we get
					  to 099 which is one of the big goals in the coming few months to start work on, I plan to incorporate them much more in my work.
				
				- Update to GFTextEntry:
					- Added the ability to limit the amount of characters allowed in a text entry box. This is a very important to my name change deed so let's
					  be sure this pkg is updated and present on the live shard (read my initial comment on this pkg).
					
				- Added GFAddButtonTileArt:
					- Allowing us to create gumps with tile art where the tile art is the actual button and there is no need to underlay a button beneath the tile
					  art or next to it in anyway. I do not foresee using this much but it is nice to have in the distro gumps pkg.
					  
			- itemUtils/
				- In an effort to try to get the Halloween stuff working and the new Christmas stuff working properly, I am including this again which contains what
				  I suspect was the missing include file you received an error on when trying to compile the Halloween stuff. Try to compile the new evilHomeDecor after
				  this and maths.inc are in place and it should compile fine.
				  
			- timeUtils/
				- Because 096 does not have access to the "StrFormatTime" function I had to draw a lot on this pkg and the clock.inc file present on Pangaea for the holidays
				  pkg. Please ensure this is put in.
				  
		- world/
			- christmas
				- I wanted so much to capitalize the folder name but did not.
				
				- Added 6 new item definitions for hand outs.
				- Christmas Present now becomes a usable container after charges are used up.
				 - Changed the rings to Candy Canes for easier finding in player's backpack.
				- Completely redesigned the Christmas Present gump to use the distroGumps pkg included above.
				- Changed the Christmas Present so that on creation it randomly is colored one of twenty colors found in a cfg file in the config folder of this pkg.
				- Added an additional 20 charges to the Christmas Present, I do not see any harm in it and it gives a little extra to the players without being game breaking.
				
				- Note: The old christmas present definitions and script is present still for obvious reasons, however in the future it would behoove us to remove the old definitions
				  and scripts from the shard to cut down on any confusion.

	- Scripts/
		- AI/
			- tamed.src
				- This and the npc_util.inc in pkg/npcs/ will fix the stupid death animation when mounting, tested and it works!
				
		- include/
			- math.inc
				- Added two functions that when you send it a min and max number it returns a dice roll value, this is needed for the evilHomeDecor stuff and I am sure additional things
				  I script in the future until we move into 099 where I have more functionality. Plus they are just fun little functions I rejiggered for eScript from the POL Random Dice
				  Generator at the permission of Nando, a POL Developer.

		- misc/
			- chrdeath.src
				- Removed changed reference to "ring" in the ring of revival function to "candy cane" as they were changed to candy canes.
				- Added two new neat on death effects.
		
		- textcmd/
			- Admin/
				- Propedit.src
					- a new admin command, it is very powerful and I would not advise lowering it's command level. IF however you escalate it to test, MAKE ME A TEST LEVEL STAFF. I am getting
					  rather annoyed at our shitty getprops command and there is no reason to even have such a shitty command. Anyone scripting should have access to this command and in it's current
					  form, no one else. However, I will be writing my own version of this command which will allow us to setup priviledges tied to the command, at which point we can make it available
					  to seer command level and up as long as we make sure the command based priviledge system is setup properly. Likewise I will also be working on a similar command for Global Properties
					  with a similar priviledge structure.
			
			- GM/
				- Changed createat to auto lockdown the item when it is created at the behest of Hayabusa who is doing some mad decorating for us.
				- Added MPX which works just like PX however this will lockdown the item automatically.
				- Added MPY which works just like PY however this will lockdown the item automatically.
				- Added MPZ which works just like PZ however this will lockdown the item automatically.
				
			- Player/
				- flip
					- Including this yet again as I guess you had trouble with the last version of it. IF itemUtils is dropped in, it should compile just fine and will allow for new items I have added and will add
					  to be rotatable. When we move to 099 I plan on moving over a large item database I am working on which will only work with the new functionality I wrote for this. Any new items I add will use
					  the new functionality as I to be honest about it, can not be bothered to edit the rotate.cfg file to add new items to it. If no one else wants to do that much then I can not be bothered to do 
					  it, a bit childish I know but it is how I feel.
					  
Final Notes:
	- I have a new lead on possibly recovering our missing source files, IF this pans out and I am able to recover all or most or even any kind of hint
	  as to what the ecl files that we are missing the src files for, the next course of action along with getting old religions in is buckling down and
	  moving to 099. It will not take a year but if I can not get any kind of indication as to what these ecls do, there will be a long term need to monitor
	  how the shard runs and operates as I will have to guess at what is in some of them and scrap others such as start.ecl stuff. I am hoping for the best
	  but it pays to keep in contact with POL Devs :D
	  
	- If you have any compiling errors get back to me ASAP, everything was precompiled under Pangaea and should compile no problem. I do however use a pkg template folder structure so you may run into issues occasionally
	  where you get a message about the pol core required is an issue. If you do just go to that pkg and open the pkg.cfg and change the core required to 96 or before. But everything was compiled and working on my end so 
	  if an issue arises please let me know. If you would prefer me to include the ecl files I need to know as well, which will mean I will need to include additional pkgs in this as I have changed folder structures on a few
	  pkgs and they will need to be reflected as the includes for some of those have changed folder location in anticipation for moving to 099.
	  
	- Also after redoing this changelog, because I accidently perma deleted the original folder I intended to send you I know there are some minor bug changes I intended to send you but alas they are relatively irrelevant and
	  will make them into the next update I push.
	  
Enjoy and hope you have a Happy Christmas!

Oden.

[GM Oden]

On a day of potential bad news server wise, I have a glimmer of great news!

As some of you may know, Pangaea is running with missing files. To put it simply, the programs we call scripts consist of to keep it really simple, 2 file types; <file>.src and <file>.ecl, the .src files are what we edit and are in plain text and ecl files are what the pol core reads in and runs. We are missing the .src for a number of key files and have been for quite sometime since Blckfire was given the shard.

This meant no bug fixes or additions to these files and impossibility to move forward without rewriting these files which would have been a long and winding road because we have no real idea of what is going on inside them and what they hook into so it'd be a nightmare to have to rewrite.

In the last week or two I've been trying to decide what is going on in some of these files and in incredibly basic scripts have had what I now know to be 100% success hexediting the ecl file, however in more complicated scripts it's nigh impossible, until now.

I have spoken with a POL Developer on and off again and with the aide of him and two other person's smarter than I, there's now a strong chance I hope that while we might still have a few hurdles with these files in the future, the POL Dev who I won't name only to keep him protected from future begging, has had success in decompiling one of the more complicated ecl files back to a src file which means we have the ability to bug fix and add to these files. He is hammering away at other ecl files I've sent him and am hoping we'll get the same results!