Jump to content

Arthurdent

Content Developers [CDEV]
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    444

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Donations

    20.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Arthurdent

  5. Posted

    When the V'rix overran Primus planet, Var was evacuated elsewhere .. you don't have to go. August 8th Patch/Hotfix notes :

     

    Gratis Augustus Var, recently rescued from the V'rix incursion on Primus, awards honors of the Republic to the two responsible for his safe evacuation from the planet. In a moment of clarity, he called for medals to be given to Gatekeeper Memnon and Praefect Hadrin Gurk for assisting him to an escape ship and piloting them back to Arx Tiberius.
    "If not for these two, I would be ashes. They are loyal, and brave Progen, unlike one craven fool who ran at the first sign of battle"

  11. Posted

    Normally, I would not discuss content in order to allow players to develop stories on their own as missions progress, and if asked the correct questions, would only give minor hints, or very circumspect answers. I generally would NEVER discuss content before releasing it. However because of the discussions already floating around regarding this mission and walkthroughs available to anyone who remembers where those things were hidden in another galaxy, far, far away, I'm going to describe the problems addressed and the solutions implemented here, JUST THIS ONCE. As usual, save your swearing for the end.

     

    The original game client / server interface allowed players to build specific recipes outside their build skills after blueprints were awarded via a device activation. (IE. Installing the «cookbook» and activating it while outside a station and then having the 'print available). This mechanism is not currently coded on the emulator, nor do I know if it ever will be. ATM my «job» is to implement the content, with the resources available, with the current code constraints, and keep it as close to the original game content as possible.

     

    This means I get to work with the following to achieve the goals; To demonstrate, we will work backwards from the end.

     

    The goal is to build shields, reactors and devices.

    This means the following seven classes will have access to the recipes (three more than in live) :

    JE for devices and reactors

    JS for devices and reactors

    JD for devices

    TS for devices

    TT for shields and devices

    PS for shields and devices

    PP for shields and reactors.

    The missions leading up to the goal all contain component builds which the following classes have access to the recipes : TT, PP, and JS.

     

    In reverse order, the missions are Legend Of Great Pappy, Solar Energy For The Layman, and Blood is Thicker, preceded by Homesick For Biscuits.

    So four classes cannot continue presently after the first mission, and now we begin to move forward again while 'fixing' things.

     

    So the first goal is to eliminate the TE and PW from the overall mix. This will be accomplished by a mission exclusion following the 'Homesick For Biscuits' mission. If you are one of those two classes and have the mission 'Blood is Thicker' (possible because the exclusions weren't there), finish it if you can, but it's pretty useless for you.

     

    Blood is Thicker can be completed by receiving a little help from your friends, guild mates, or an alternate 'toon. This was achieved at the first implementation of the mission by making the Small Solar Panel a drop item so any character can obtain it. While this was not the optimal solution, it has worked over the last several months, and I'm not going to mess with it at this late stage in the development. The other refines and builds are all tradable, which allows non-component builders to complete the mission.

     

    Solar Energy For The Layman however is another kettle of fish, however. All the comps were designed as no-trades (as they were in live), and the mission was written before we committed to completing the series, hence the lack of foresight regarding the items and stage completions. And no, making them tradable is not the solution. While it screams 'SIMPLE', it also pretty much means you're repeating all the builds on another 'toon and just transferring them over, or having one of your guildies stand there while you feed him resources. You're not really doing the mission on that character. Nor can you do it alone.

     

    Neither is the solution to make them devices as someone tossed around in chat the other day (entirely out of the question, because then they acquire properties for being equipped and/or activated, along with a whole other bunch of crap that complicates things way more than it solves) which would also eliminate the Privateer as a contributing builder, despite having the Build Shields skill.

     

    So, how to make the mission progress, logically and without the aid of others for those classes that cannot build components?

     

    Enter the companion mission, aka The Achy-Breaky Mission Fix.

     

    What we CAN and HAVE done is design a mission for those classes that cannot build comps (JE, JD, TS and PS) that allows you to bring the parts that are required to an NPC designated by Zachariah and receive in return the non-tradable item required to advance each mission step. In other words, a sub-contractor who builds it for you, preferably one with experience in glass-based technologies related to lensing and stuff. For each non-trade item required in a stage, there is a companion stage in the other mission.

     

    The subsequent mission (The Legend Of Great Pappy) is/was never an issue, that one was designed to be completed by a group effort, up to and including the combat stage. There is obviously another (at least) still to come, as the culmination of this series is the Day O' Reckoning and the associated raid content.

     

    No, I don't know when.   :P   When it's done.

     

    For now, the Achy-Breaky fix will be online as of the next content patch. G'nite.

     

    • Upvote 4

  12. Posted

    It's not really more work, I'll just have to finger the bottlenecks in the build process.This is part of the problem of not being able to recreate the ability to "use" the Solar Projects Manual as a device and allow players to construct the items regardless of their skills and bypass the terminal's build list. Unfortunately, the items were recreated with all the properties recovered from the lists from the original game, and don't take into account our coding restrictions.

    • Upvote 2
    • Popular Post
    • Popular Post

    Posted

    Since my name was mentioned here (as good an excuse as any other to stand on a soapbox and preach to the masses) I'm going to supply a few comments from the flip side of this discussion (not representing the EMU team as such, but as a volunteer that steps up to do things for the project). Please save all your swearing for the end of the post.

     

    Tickets are looked at and responded to by GM staff ONLY, of which there are 3 (Blacklung, Plateau and Woodstock) who examine the consequences surrounding the event, evaluate the intervention level required, and make a decision based on what information is available to them. To understand this process, you have to consider what information can be accessed, such as :

    1) your immediate character profile, live at the moment.

    2) your recent character's transaction history of all types (trades, loot., etc)

    3) recent server logs (by developer intervention only, after the fact)

     

    From what information I can gather (secondhand), the GM's decision to not replace the buildable items is pretty normal. There can be arguments made for some buildable items to be replaced when "lost" like this if the build is extremely difficult or might involve raid parts (like a bile launcher or cannon). The player was then set to a mission step to re-obtain one of the unique items, which is fine, and then did not replace a looted unique which is from a timed spawn and not raid related (where it might have been won on a roll). Both of these items did not have any recent trade or loot history on the player logs, unlike the case recently where a Steingard's was dropped and replaced because the log showed it being removed from the inventory. Note that a lack of evidence here does not imply that anyone is lying. It implies there is no evidence.

     

    Up to this point, if I had been "helping" .. I'dve probably made the same decisions the GM did. Depends how much coffee I may or may not have consumed.

     

    Now, after the player has been helped by a GM, in this case not to the player's satisfaction, can this be changed? Sure, that's part of the head GM's (Blacklung) role.

    The GM is already helping / has already helped you, just maybe not the way you want. Or expected (we'll come back to expectations in a moment). There are options available to everyone here to contact various people on staff, of which you all avail yourselves regularly, via e-mail, messaging on the forums, and including poking one of us on TeamSpeak, even if it's just to ask "is this fair?". Someone may decide to change it after the fact. Or not.

     

    At that point in the discussion to say in short terms "fix it or I'm gone" is provocative, and premature, considering the options.

     

    I won't address Plateau's response. That it might be not politically correct from a player's standpoint is valid. Whether he could have pointed out that if the player isn't happy, he could always talk to his "boss" is also valid. But because he didn't when faced with an ultimatum from an upset player will possibly be a learning experience for him. Other than that, if the player is determined to leave, none of us can stop him. The response mentioned is basically the equivalent of wishing an unhappy person "Have a nice day".

     

    So I'm here this evening and I'm reading the forums. And taking time to compose this. And I regularly keep a chat log from the server running.

    And a bunch of other things, all related to the emulator. My personal dedication level to the project is maybe a little higher than others. Or maybe not.

     

    Should you expect me to do this every day? (ah see expectations time). Should you expect this from all staff? .. The answer is no.

    Catch me on a day when I'm not awake yet, have had no coffee, and the effing phone doesn't stop ringing when I'm -trying- to work on the emulator, and I can be a real asshole. Some of you know that from the last several years. Some of you may find out tomorrow sometime before 8am. Such is life.

     

    Lots of people see me regularly jump in and fix things. Thanks for noticing that, I appreciate it.

    Others do also, sometimes just not as publicly. Sometimes something I "fix" is a group effort, but because I actually jumped on it, I'm the visible solutionist.

     

    Back to expectations, now .. the other comment here about ticket response speed. Let's compare :

    A player puts in a ticket on Wednesday and receives a response Thursday. Issue : missing items (important!)

    A player puts in a ticket and receives a response a week later. Issue : nick change (not important and as a rule not done!)

     

    Obviously two different priorities. And while it may seem trivial to just fire off a response, the priority tickets get time first.

    All of this taking into account the time that the GM staff is actually online during that period. And if this is the same ticket for a name change that the DEVs were approached about recently, then the GM took the time to verify whether it should actually be done or not to be certain before replying. Could a "will verify" response be sent and then a later reply, certainly. Is this also a learning experience? Definitely.

     

    Again here, the question is asked "should I continue to donate money to the emulator" because of something that does not happen the way you expected it to.

    The answer is entirely up to you. However, here is the part that I warned you about saving your swearing for.

     

    You are not buying anything. There is no "customer service".

    This is not EA where there are paid operator drones named Steve standing by at some switchboard in a third-world country imitating a Texas accent tinged with Hindu to make you feel like a piece of crap, after taking your money and then thanking you at the end of the call for playing Earth & Beyond. (yesssss .. this is familiar ..) Steve would then assign your ticket to a paid GM on staff during the next available shift. The paid GM would then make a decision you also might not like and then send you a standard form-letter ticket reply (that also reminded you that you were a numbered account) stating that there was no recent logs supporting your issue, and the ticket was closed. Oh, and again, Thank you for playing.

     

    So what's the difference?

    You are DONATING monies to a group that has pledged to run an emulator. Which we do, in programming and content development.

    Alongside of that we OFFER our time to the players to help them resolve issues, and some contribute only by doing this (the GM staff).

    We could do all of this invisibly, and you would never know us. Several games do that. We feel that doesn't suit E&B.

    We do this when we can; there is no schedule, there is no punch clock. There is also frequently no reward, except for the people we meet and the shared love of the game.

     

    You donate because you wish to support our efforts, and keep the game running, paying the server expenses and other development costs.

    You donate because you love the game, not the people who run it.

    We donate our time to better the game along the way for you, the players. Not always successfully. But we try.

    Somewhere in the middle, we all meet, and share. That's the payoff.

     

    Now I've spent all my playtime tonight donating my time to this post. :P  Good Night.

     

    • Upvote 8

  17. Posted

    Step 7's text is : You return with the fragment and a small reward. Outstanding, young Jenquai! You have gone beyond all of my expectations to find the Inspirations and fragments.

     

    I see no mention of a reactor. He mentions a "small reward", which refers to the Novice's Ward.

     

    No change required.

    This also should have been posted on the bug tracker under Mission Bugs.

  19. Posted

    1) Run the E&BConfig.exe as administrator. Set the compatibility mode to Windows XP SP2 or Windows 7.

    2) Set the test to run in windowed mode at it's highest resolution.

    3) This should solve the problem. Most likely you are trying to run it in a full screen and that particular refresh rate isn't supported.

     

  22. Posted · Edited by Arthurdent
    I prefer black or white personally ...

    I believe that part of this discussion happened in General chat last night.

    To answer the easy part : EA has the rights to all intellectual property as regards Earth & Beyond.

     

    As far as the actual streaming of gameplay goes, I do not think this is an issue; no more so than fan and user videos that are posted to websites as tutorials or general game reviews or even cool combat stuff with music remixes. However, monetizing the stream and profiting from a free service provided by a non-profit organisation like Net-7 could jeopardize the emulator and our current status. As Mimir pointed out, the boss (Kyp) would be the person to decide, as he is more familiar with the NPO rules.

     

    Why not just run this particular stream free of charge and eliminate the question and any subsequent problems?

     

  24. Posted

    Check to see if you are running as administrator and in compatibility mode under Windows 10.

    The compatibility settings should be set to Win XP SP2 if available or Win 7.

    This is for the game executable (client.exe) as well as the net7proxy.

×
×
  • Create New...