Code Work Log

-- New place for the code log.
== TODO: add in the last four months or so of work.

Combat Messages: Varying messages for misses, blocking and parrying, more weapon-strike types, better critical messages.

Strike: can now target individual bodyparts. Command only works once in combat, and has a hefty delay, but otherwise is very effective.

Bodyparts: torso upped to 55% chance from 44%, legs downed to 15% from 25% chance, arms and legs only give .8 damage now, instead of 1. Changes average damage to 1.65 from 1.61.

===

Multi-Variable Objects 75% done:

We now have up to three variables for each object, and a whole slew of new variables are in place as well.

What needs to be done is the following:
+ allowing staff members to load up specific variables
+ allowing crafters to make specific variables and add them to the objects
+ allow people to order specific variables
+ some error testing and save testing

Code:

<****** / ||||||> load o 8
A yellow, stag-marked tabard trimmed in dark purple wool appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 8
A black, airborne dragon-marked tabard trimmed in dark yellow wool appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 8
A yellow, mountains-marked tabard trimmed in dark orange wool appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 8
A grey, howling wolf-marked tabard trimmed in dark yellow wool appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 8
A red, clenched fist-marked tabard trimmed in dark red wool appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 3
A willow shield painted with a grey arrow appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 3
A alder shield painted with a yellow stag appears.

<****** / ||||||> load o 3
A hazel shield painted with a blue notched axe appears.

===

+ Staff can now define variables when loading up objects.

+ Crafts can now take multi-variable objects: you add each object in turn, and end up with awesome.

Still to do:
+ ordering multi-variable objects
+ some final testing and data saving.

I think one more day and this will be out of the way.

On the plus side, the mysql problems have been fully resolved, meaning player data now saves. Huzzah!

Code:

<#****** / ||||||> load o 3 'oak' 'red' 'dragon'
A oak shield painted with a red dragon appears.

<#****** / ||||||> load o 3 'ash' 'yellow' 'eagle'
A ash grey shield painted with a yellow eagle appears.

<#****** / ||||||> make sword
You decide to make a sword.
You get a serrated blade, and bash it against a beech hilt.
To your surprise, a serrated sword with a beech hilt pops up!

<#****** / ||||||> make sword
You decide to make a sword.
You get a narrow blade, and bash it against a alder hilt.
To your surprise, a narrow sword with a alder hilt pops up!

<#****** / ||||||> make sword
You decide to make a sword.
You get a straight blade, and bash it against a maple hilt.
To your surprise, a straight sword with a maple hilt pops up!

===

Couldn't remember what the criteria needed for having objects appear in the order list is, so that aspect of variables is left on hold, as well as a minor bug in which the multiple variables MUST appear in the same order every time (e.g. name, sdesc, ldesc, etc.). There's an easy fix to this, but I'll fix it up when I fix up ordering objects.

Today, I cleaned up the entire skilllist, deleting lots of superfluos ones, putting in new languages and scripts, completely removing swim, scan, climb, listen, search and subdue, and reverted weapon-skills to the old Harshlands style. There still is some work left for the swim/scan/climb/listen/search functions, as well as lots of work left on the weapons, but I'm done for today.

===

The total-skill-cap is in 95% full force: room-progs adding skills, and staff adding skills, still need to be accounted for, but otherwise it works exactly as the link described. With it, the focus command, both fully functional.

How it works is...

Your "skill total" is 600 + (40 * (10 - intelligence)), with a lower limit of 600 and an upper limit of 920, e.g. 10 intelligence and 18 intelligence. This limit doesn't include your native tongue, Sindarin (being the defacto common speak), or any skill 10 points or less. If you're at this limit, and gain another point through skill loss, you first lose a point at random from a skill, except your native tongue, Sindarin, or any skill 10 points or less OR any skill you "focus". You can focus as many skills as you want, and if you've focused all your skills, you can no longer increase any skill at all. Doh!

Finally, 40 or so races have been added, including a dozen that will eventually be player-selectable. For now, they're all blank, but it'll allow me to modify character-generation and so on to allow for orc-only skills, elf-only skills, and so on.

===

+ Some more fiddling with skills. Added in what skills certain races can select from character-generation, what skills count to your total, so on on, and so on.

+ Redid all the skill-caps, both to make some sense and to allow for caps of between 80 to 100 for most skills that need them.

+ Started going through and changing stats to have an effect. Strength, agility and constitution are done, but I need to test this.

===

+ Continued testing changes to strength and agility in combat, making some minor corrections for balance reasons.

+ Offense now measures a composite of skills -> your best attack, style, and defense skills.

+ Your defense roll in combat is modified by your knowledge of the enemy's weapon. If you have absolutely no knowledge of their weapon, and your offense is sufficiently low, you'll suffer a disadvantage to your defense roll, but if you know how to use their weapon better than they do, your defense roll will be improved.

===

+ Weapon styles now affect your chance to hit someone, much the same as weapon skills do. Aggressor subtracts his style from defender's style, difference is used as a percentage divided by four to multiply the offense roll. Not a big determinant, but having a high weapon style helps: their major use will come in when I code in the style-specific commands.

+ Eyes, feet and hands are now added in as their own individual wear-loc locations, finally giving a purpose to wearing armoured boots and gauntlets. These areas can also be targetted. Eye blows are crippling. Also, the second wear-location for arms, legs and body has been changed to "about".

+ Piercing weapons now cause bleeders more easily, but I'm putting off doing crushing-location-specific damage for overall somatics. This means I need to write up some basic herbalism system before I can make progress on this.

Combat is probably good where it stands: archer and infantry/skirmishers are the only changes that need to be put in. I'm going to focus on groups and NPC AI for the next week.

===

+ Yet to do entering groups, but leaving groups now shrink the spam. If you have six or less individuals, they all show, otherwise the following happens:

Code:
<****** / ||||||> comm all follow bob
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.

<****** / ||||||> comm bob n
Ok.
Bob begins walking northward, a party of elves and dwarves following behind
him.


Code:
<****** / ||||||> comm all follow bob
Joe falls into stride with bob.
Joe falls into stride with bob.
Joe falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.
An elf falls into stride with bob.
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
A dwarf falls into stride with bob.
Ok.

<****** / ||||||> comm bob s
Ok.
Bob begins walking southward, a party of humans, elves, and dwarves
following behind him.



=== edit

After beating my head against the idiotic code for hours, I finally got the other end of the equation sorted out - viola:

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> comm bob n
n
Bob begins walking northward, a party of humans and dwarves following
behind him.
You begin walking northward, a party of humans and dwarves following behind.

<#****** / ||||||> You blast northward.
Walking Trail [13: Light Inside]
Exits: north south

A looped trail for testing movement speeds and other such
nonsense.

<#****** / ||||||>
Bob is entering from the south, a party of humans and dwarves following
behind.

Some time in the future, I need to clean up people leaving groups, as well as looking as groups half in and half out of the room, and do some testing involving sneaking and all other sorts of nonsense, but for now, this is done.

===

Did most of the basic tests with group movement, and a few more changes and limitations came out of it:

+ if you are in a group, and move away from it, you are automatically set to no longer follow the group. Required to avoid a long workaround for people sneaking off from groups and not screwing up the message. It's a 50/50 situation: often it's annoying when you're in a group and leave, forget about the follow, only to have the group leader run by and drag you along later. Likewise, if you're in a group of scouts, it's easy to cheese the code by following one another, hide, then sneak away and be able to see your group members hidden in a room if you ever meet back up.

+ Hidden and sneaking people don't count towards the group totals.

+ "Command group" now works to command people who are following you, and not everyone in the room under your authority. Useful.

+ If the group leader starts spamming movement, he'll lose the cool group movement messages. It's a bit messy, but it makes sense - you run up ahead, and leave your group behind.

Still to do is changing the gold-styled look messages, e.g. when you look and see "A dwarf is entering from the north". People halfway through a group entering the room will see these messages.

===

+ I took a look at the Somatic code, and found it to be more or less complete, needing only a way to put somatic affects on to players. I've tidied up the backup of the code a little and added a few coded shortcuts, and now the task of assigning somatic affects to where it makes sense lies before me.

The first task I'll try to complete is adding in somatic affects for blunt weapons fracturing bones. With this, I'll need to add in the ability for the heal command to treat somatics.

===

Code:
<#****** / ||||||>
Joe suddenly cringes in pain, as his right upper arm twitches.

<#****** / ||||||>
Joe twitches violently, limbs spasming as he collapses on the ground.

<#****** / ||||||>
Joe suddenly cringes in pain, as his abdomen twitches.

<#****** / ||||||>
Joe clambers on his feet.

Joe got bitten by a spider in combat, and now he twtiches, cringes, and occasionally collapses to the ground.

The back-end for adding venoms to animals and having them affect combatants is in place, and now the following is required:
+ specific conditions for getting poisoned (and not just every bite)
+ resisting conditions
+ guideliens for adding
+ not just animal venom, but poisoned weapons
+ a whole lot more poison and venom affects
+ cures - both preventative and remedial

===

Another daily grind...

+ You can now make poison-type objects, and apply those poisons to weapons, arrows, food and water. Poisoning skill affects a number of things.

+ Poisons have doses, and you can apply the poisons to items until they are used up.

+ Poisoned weapons work in combat.

LEFT TO DO:
+ Poisoned food, drink, and arrows all having an effect.
+ Poisoned weapons saving over reboots, and reloading.
+ Never-ending poisons, for fun and profit.
+ Modify healings to be able to treat poisons.
+ Add in preventative herbs and leaves you can chew to mitigate poisons.

That will be the entire back-end of somatics done, and then all it will need is effects.

===

Still working on poisons, pace is simply slowing.

After poisons, I'll be spending the next couple of weeks giving object, mobile and room files the final changes they need to eventually accomodate 2-dimensional rooms, then put the server in cyber space for some general building from all.

===

Taking a break, the past three days and the next three, to avoid burnout. Been spending time trekking across mountains, lazing about at the beach, and tabletopping. Got a bunch of motivation so far, and after a week should be able to burn through all that is required to prepare for building.

===

Back in action.

Leaving poisons alone for the moment, as I don't want to break my head on getting the object data saving right. Instead, I've been working on lumberjacking.

Now in, you can scout trees with a forage like command. Not only can you simply type "scout" and hope for the best, but you can pick out specific trees and look for them. Additionally, zones can be set to have only certain types of trees.

Furthermore, you can scout for trees anywhere you could forage (with the exception of fields), but doing it in other than a forest or a wood attracts more delay timers as you look for the best tree.

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> l
Dorthonion Forest [10001: Light Forest]
Exits:

This is a Dorthonion pine forest.

<#****** / ||||||> scout
You begin looking for a tree to cut down.

<#****** / ||||||>
You find a tall pine tree, fit for logging.

<#****** / ||||||> scout larch
You begin looking for a tree to cut down.

<#****** / ||||||>
You find a tall larch tree, fit for logging.

<#****** / ||||||> scout ash
There are no such trees in this area.


Code:
<#****** / ||||||> goto 5
Fields of Depth [5: SafeQuit Light Field]
Exits: north east south west

These fields are for general purpose testing, such as combat
testing or anything that might need range.

The air here carries the subtle aroma of impending rain.

<#****** / ||||||> scout
You begin looking for a tree to cut down.

<#****** / ||||||>
You find a tall pine tree, fit for logging.

<#****** / ||||||> scout ash
You begin looking for a tree to cut down.

<#****** / ||||||>
You find a tall ash tree, fit for logging.


Tonight or tomorrw, I'll add in coded logging.

===

Today, I moved the code over to Meth's server, and monkeyed around with it until it worked. It's up and working, and so Wednesday I'll finish logging changes, and then hopefully get object and mobile data crushed over the weekend ,opening the way up for general building. Huzzah!

===

The lumberjack side of the game is almost done. A review of the features to date is at the end of the post.

Most importantly, there are now two broad types of trees: young ones, and tall ones. Young ones are those to be used for making spears or bows. Tall ones are for sawing up in to logs or planks. You must specify which one you're searching for.

Once you've felled the tree, I'm going to make some unskilled, general crafts to turn the tree in to usable products. It might take skill to successfully identify what's a good tree to log in a position so it can fall easily, and to make it fall without killing someone, but not to just apply an axe to dead wood laying on the ground.

Those general crafts, one for young trees and one for tall trees, will cut away the branches (which can then be used for arrows or other sticks) and section up the tree as may or may not be appropriate. Sectioning up a big tree with take quite some time, and leave you with a whole heap of wood that you can't really make use of just yet.

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> scout survey
You can see the following trees in this area:
pine
fir
larch
oak
birch
willow
rowan

<#****** / ||||||> scout young pine
You begin looking for a tree to cut down.

<#****** / ||||||>
You find a young pine tree, fit for logging.

<#****** / ||||||> exa pine
This pine tree is rather thin and short, looking the
ideal shape and size for a spear or bow shaft to be fashioned
from it.

<#****** / ||||||> logg pine
You need to be wielding an axe of some sort for cutting down trees.

<#****** / ||||||> load o 4 kith
A scratched axe with a ash haft appears in your hands.

<#****** / ||||||> wield axe
OK.
You wield a scratched axe with a ash haft.

<#****** / ||||||> logg pine
You take up position by a young pine tree and make the first cut with a scratched axe with a ash haft.

<#****** / ||||||>
You work on cutting a diagonal section near the base of the tree trunk.

<#****** / ||||||>
You continue to cut in to the trunk of the tree, widening the diagonal cut.

<#****** / ||||||>
With a tearing and cracking, a young pine tree finally begins its slow
descent.

===

Logging is complete, and I've started work on learning how to get object data to save properly, so we can begin building in earnest.

So far, it's slow work, but I'm definitely learning what not to do. Once I get the hang of it, the following things need to be implemented before building can begin:

1. Saving the memory structure of object positions,
2. Saving the memory structure of mobile positions.

The data in 1 and 2 won't mean anything at all for a while, but will be able to be saved and read from the mobile and object instances, to allow for easy adaptation when things do go on.

3. Adding in north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west exits to rooms, and allowing them to be saved.

Likewise, 3 won't be used for a while, but putting them in now will save a whole lot of hassle later on.

===

===
This was all a lot easier than previously suspected.

When the server is back up (currently being afflicted by the US ice storms), I'll make a few changes and then declare us ready for building.

===
All three of the above are done, and we're good for building.

Fixed a long standing bug that disallowed the night versions of weather specific descriptions to make an appearance. You can now have individual descs for rain, snow, storms, blizzards and fog at both night and day.

===

You can now set zone-specific dawn, sunrise, dusk and sunset messages, with the zset <zone> command. zset <zone> will display any messages currently present.

A sidetracking little hack, but I've a stomach flu and it's all I felt up to tackling tonight.

Code:

<#****** / ||||||> zset 10
Zone: [10] Dorthonion Wilderness
Project Lead: Kithrater
Dawn: Faint light begins to shine past the peaks of the eastern mountains.
Sunrise: Anor belatedly rises over the eastern mountains to shine its pale light upon Dorthonion.
Dusk: The weak light of the sun begins retreating beneath the western mountains.
Sunset: Finally Anor disappears behind the western mountains, darkness racing across Dorthonion.
Jailer: [ 0] Undefined vnum
Jail: [ 0] Undefined room

===

To deal with the absolutely massive size that the Dorthonion worldfile had grown too, I've made a new command.

rxerox <sourceroom>. Any room that has a rxerox value will copy the descriptions of the source room, without writing them to memory. Useless for most people unless you're building a thousand room zone and don't want to take up megs of memory or risk having to correct 1000 rooms to fix a typo.

The rcap command has also been scraped, as it sucked.

===

Cleaned up some hang-overs from the group mass movement stuff: now the "X is entering/leaving" golden look messages display the proper group affiliations, and in doing some uncovered and quashed a bug.

Also, back on track with the coded goals, have begun work upon group formations. At this stage, you can properly create, order, assign, and dissolve group formations, but there still needs to be some functionality, bells and other assorted whistles added to them. For now, as a teaser...


Code:
<#****** / ||||||> as joe group appoint 4.joe rear
You command joe to the rear of your group's formation.
Joe commands joe to the rear of his group's formation.

<#****** / ||||||> as joe group
Joe [******], leading:

joe [******] (rear),
joe [******] (rear),
joe [******] (rear),
joe [******] (front),
joe [******] (front),
joe [******] (front),
joe [******] (front),
joe [******] (front),
joe [******] (front).

===

Continuing to clean up mass group messages and formations. Simply need to add in functionality to formations now, then bug test the hell out of them, and then add in lots of nice options and features so using the command isn't quite a big a pain in the ass as it is now.

Give me till the end of the week, and this should be done and prepared.

===

Group formations and group mass messages are done for now.

As of typing the changes are being uploaded to the server, and include:

+ a new "group formation" command. If you have at least 10 people following you, you can arrange them in to a formation with a rear and a front rank.

To attack someone in the back rank, there must be someone in the front rank who has less than 3 people currently engaging them.

People in formation receive a straight out +5 to their defensive rolls, the equivalent of a 5~10% overall combat bonus. It is also a lot easier to rescue someone in a position.

People in formation move a lot slower, and formation cannot be held over rough terrain such as woods, forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, and mountains

Only the group leader can use "group formation" and it takes group size / 2 seconds to form your group up.

+ a new "group appoint" command. This is used to put people in positions once you're in formation. You can either appoint someone to the front, rear, or "switch", which reverses their current position.

These two commands are scheduled for some overhaul and streamlining, particularly "group appoint". It gets very tedious to "group appoint" everyone yourself, so I might allow players to nominate themselves, and add in some "group appoint all.spearman" type functions.

+ lots of cosmetic changes to how big groups look. The only thing they remain for is scanning, because I haven't quite decided how I want to resolve that yet, e.g. when you scan north you should just see a mass of goblins, or specific groups of goblins?

(Also, I need to make all of this work for mounts. Alas, I'm utterly sick of group code, and it will need to wait till next year.)

===

You can now pick between 4 to 8 skills in character generation, the more skills you pick the lower all your skills will be.

===

Stringing and de-string bows is 75% complete. You can string and destring a bow, a strung bow can't be worn or put in to containers, you can't fire an unstrung bow, and dropping your bow in combat has a 50% chance of destring it, a 25% chance of breaking the string, and a 25% chance of notrhing.

TODO:
+ add in restringing: backend is there, just need to write the command.
+ when I was re-doing weapon skills, I changed bows from single-hand wield to both-hands. That needs to be changed back to allow firing without a quiver.
+ add in the chance for your bow to get mangled in straight out combat.

===

Merry X-mas everyone, hope you had a good time.

Stringing goes along well.

Todo:
+ allow bowstrings to grant additional damage and accuracy mods to the bow.
+ testing

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> eq
<wielded in right hand> an unstrung wooden warbow
<carried in left hand> a silk bowstring

<worn over shoulder> a brown leather quiver bearing arrows

<#****** / ||||||> exa warbow
It is an unstrung wooden warbow.

<#****** / ||||||> exa bowstring
It is a silk bowstring.

<#****** / ||||||> string warbow
You strain as you bend a wooden warbow in order to string it.

<#****** / ||||||>
You successfully string a wooden warbow with a silk bowstring.

<#****** / ||||||> exa warbow
It is a strung wooden warbow.

This bow has been strung with a silk bowstring.

<#****** / ||||||> load
You nock an iron-tipped, ash-shafted flight arrow, drawing back upon a
strung wooden warbow.

<#****** / ||||||>
You finish loading a wooden warbow.

<#****** / ||||||> exa warbow
It is a strung wooden warbow.

This bow has been strung with a silk bowstring.

This bow is nocked with an iron-tipped, ash-shafted flight arrow.

<#****** / ||||||>

===

More archery changes:
+ Warbows take an innate 20% difficulty to hit things, but on the other hand, they deliver an extra pre-crit rolls 1 point of damage and do an extra point of damage against armour compared to Shortbows.
+ If you shoot at a group, every person in the group adds a further 2% chance of your shot striking, so firing at a group of 20 people gives you a 40$ chance of hitting.
+ Throwing weapons are no longer affected by weather mods for archery fire, so firing bows through rain brings large penalties but throwing weapons are fine.
+ Removed most of the terrain-modifiers as they were simply dumb (-5% chance to hit if you stand on a road! -7% for a heath!). Now, penalties remain if your target is in woods or a forest and you're not in the room, but otherwise removed.

===


+ Made a shield more effective against blocking arrows by removing the dex test you had to go through before using the shield. Now, it's straight out shield. This should improve the chances of blocking an arrow with your shield by 90%.

+ If you move whilst holding a loaded warbow, the bow unloads itself. A minor nuisance to prevent warbow stalkers. Shortbows remain unaffected.

+ Redid the damage archery causes to specific body locations. As it stands now, hitting limbs with arrows is about as half as effective as a melee strike, but you do more damage in torso, neck, head, and eye shots. Also removed the dumb oversight that made arrows do more damage to the arms.

===


Carried out some combat testing, and made a numer of little changes to weapons vs armor to balance them out. Additionally, hitpoints are no longer determined by 50 + 3*CON, but 40 + 4*CON. With an average con of 13, the max changes from 89 to 92, but more con delivers greater increases, the overall effect being to make the constitution stat slightly more valuable than it was previously.

===


Movement and movement speed is now affected armour. Here's how it adds up:

furs and quilted are worth 1 point,
leathers are worth 2 points,
scale and plate are worth 3.5 points
chain is worth 3 points

The armour on your legs, arms, body and about is counted, with points given as above.

If your total is equal or greater than 10, you're considered heavily armoured, and have a rank of 4.
else If your total is equal or greater than 9, your rank is 3.
else If your totial is equal or greater than 7, your rank is 2,
else If your total is equal or greater than 4, your rank is 1,
else nothing.

Your rank is added to your total movement time, and the amount of movement points you lose is increased by your rank - 1.

Thus, people in full chain will be either 9 or 10 depending if they go fur additional fur armour, people in full scale will be 10, people in half-chain/scale and half-leather will be 7, and people in leathers and quilteds will be either 0 or 1.

Additionally, scan has been changed to be instantaneous, with no skill roll save for three rooms away. All room-echoes for scanning have also finally been removed. Two additional important features have also been added:
1) objects will not show up in a scan 2-rooms away unless they weigh more than 10 lbs or are notake, and likewise will not show up in a scan 3 rooms away unless they weigh more than 25lbs or are notake.
2) If you do a directional scan, there is a slight chance you will be able to see people who are hidden in the next room.

===


Continuing along with combat related changes, there is now a new "watch" command, watch works like this:

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> watch west
You will now watch the west exit.

<#****** / ||||||>

To the west, you see an orc arrive from the north.

<#****** / ||||||>

To the west, you see an orc leave southward.

<#****** / ||||||>

Far to the west, you see an orc arrive from the south.

<#****** / ||||||>

Far to the west, you see an orc leave northward.


Watches persist for a long time, and over movement. Additionally, you can "watch <person>", which produces:

Code:
<#****** / ||||||> watch orc
You will now watch an orc.

<#****** / ||||||> comm orc hide
Ok.
An orc begins to conceal himself beneath your watchful gaze.

<#****** / ||||||>
An orc vanishes from your sight.
[Orc hides]

<#****** / ||||||> set mortal
Now playing in mortal mode.

<#****** / ||||||> l
Fields of Depth
Exits: east south

These fields are for general purpose testing, such as combat
testing or anything that might need range.

<#****** / ||||||>


I decided against letting you see the target once hidden to give sneakers/hiders some chance. The "Watch N/PC" function is designed to prevent people cheesing off by constantly hiding, so you can instantly attack them if they do start to hide.

===


Error finding and bug fixing here and there:

+ you can now purge strung bows and zsave them okay, but they still act weird. What I'm going to have to do is say if you want permanent archer-mobiles, you need to give them the bow and string seperately in their hands, and then code in them stringing it themselves (much like they load bows currently now).

+ need to fix watch to take it to account changes in position, engaging in fighting, and dying/knocked uncon.

+ got auto_fire half up and running, but need to fix it up since the data structure only refers to a single PC, unfortunately.

===


+Watch now reports changing positions, fighting, but not getting knocked un-con.

+ Autofire and the amazing-npc-ranged-missile-fire-bug has been fixed.

+ Arrows in the legs now slow you down a little and take more movement, as well as giving you a pain message if you fail a willpower test if you move.

===


At Erebus' suggestion, if you damage someone in combat to an amount less than their armour value, that damage will most likely translate in to blunt damage,

e.g. someone is wearing a mail hauberk with an armor value of 8, and you do a 7 damage sword slash to them. Rather than the wound being a "slash", it is transformed in to a "crush".

Designed to reflect the shock and blunt-force trauma that is most combat, instead of clean cuts and bleedings.

===


A few new things here and there:

+ Fixed up a bug that prevented clanning from being saved over reboot.

+ "aggro" and "sentinel" are now NPC only commands. Players or immortals can command NPCs to execute either command, and the effect is that it trips the flag on them. PCs can now also see whether a NPC is sentinel or aggro by examining them.

The idea is PCs with soldiers and followers can set them to behave as they want to guard their locations, e.g. you can set your guys to be aggro and non-sentinel in your longhall to patrol it and chop people to pieces who don't belong there and are trying to sneak in, or set them sentinel and non-aggro when you take them out in public.

===

Also quashed another small bug that was causing zone weather messages to duplicate in some zones.

===

Don't want to make another post, but fixed a major combat exploit. It used to be that initiating fighting removed your combat delay, so you could "stop:hit:stop:hit" to your hearts content if you had someone else fighting for you. Now, this no longer works, and instead combat delay is reduced every 10 seconds if you're not fighting, as opposed to every 8 seconds if you are fighting.

Spent the last few days updating commands to work better with various things in a behind-the-scenes manner, and working on improving group travel strings to take in to account mounts and all that rubbish.

Related to that, you no longer have to follow someone's mount if they're leading the group: you can just follow them instead.

After I finish up group spam, I'm going to reintroduce room-caps in a different light, and then work on mounts: different bonuses, different penalties, making mounted-troops an all-together different kettle of fish to infantry combat.

===

Got a whole heap of stuff to transfer to the server, should get on that Sunday...

Room-caps for individuals are done. How this works, is you do "rcap x". That is the amount of people that can easily fit in the room. Players can try to "force" themselves in to a room, which costs them stam and makes str and agi checks. The more people in a room the harder it is to get in.

I'm going to also add in group-fortifying and group-pushing, but am feeling sick and tired of movement code after the past week, so now moving on to the horsies.

===

Some horse work done today:

Shooting at a mount or a mounted person has a 50% chance the arrow will hit the other person. If the arrow hits, there's a good chance that unless some ride skill checks can be made, the mount will buck and throw off the person riding it.

You can no longer ride a mount in thick forests or swamps: you need to dismount and walk by foot. Also, ride checks to mount and bridle have been greatly reduced.

Todo:
+ Add in a ride check for continual movement. Most likely it'll be easy to no skill check to ride a horse at a slow speed along grass, but the faster you go over more difficult terrain, the harder the checks get.
+ Continue work on the charge command: need to graph it out by hand first.

===
And here we go: the ride skill now has a purpose.

Riding a horse at a walk is easy, and has no check. Riding the horse at a trot, canter, or a run is difficult, and carries many dangers. The faster you ride a horse through more difficult terrain, the greater a chance that the horse will stumble and fall, and if the horse stumbles and falls, so too can you.

E.g.:

Code:

<#****** / ||||||> n

As a spider gallops north, it trips and stumbles, legs scrabbling for a
moment before regaining its standing. You are flung forcefully from its back,
landing with a sickening crunch.


Code:
<#***** / ||||||> n

As a spider canters north, it stumbles before falling to the ground. You
are jolted forcefully from a spider's back, landing with a painful thud.


Code:
<#**** / ||||||> w

As a spider trots west, it trips and stumbles, legs scrabbling for a moment
before regaining its standing. Despite being jolted and shaken in the
commotion, you manage to stay atop a spider.


Code:

<#**** / ||||||> w

A spider attempts to gallops west but trips and smashes in to the ground.
You are jolted forcefully from a spider's back, landing with a painful
thud.


The lesson, kiddies, is that unless you've got a good ride skill, stick to walking and trotting, and stay out of forests and roads.

===
Updated the code today, made backups, etc. etc. etc.

Additionally, Japheth has granted me the updated room-prog files from SoI, in return for some bug-squashing work from me. Thus, we're operating off the most recently updated SoI room-progs.

+ Fixed a bug where predator mobiles would chase their prey in to fall and climb rooms -- as much fun as it might be to lure spiders off of cliffs, it just isn't OK. This should also solve the problem of soldiers on walls jumping off them to attack their foes below.

+ Change the movement rates for a lot of mobile persuing from sprint to run or jog, to give you a bit more time to react to mobiles charging wildly across the wilderness. Likewise, aggro mobiles now only charge you from two rooms away, not three, given you a chance to at least spot them before you get charged.

+ Fix the "stand around and watch our friends die" bug - needed to fix the way mobiles bind their fallen team-mates, as it is currently directly them to bind to the prototype keyword which on variable mobiles is replaced by the racial keyword -- but if we do it by that ,they'll try binding the first mobile. Probably just hack the bind command to accept CHAR_DATA in one of the arguments.

+ Memory now works - attack a mobile, it remembers you and attacks again in the future. Memory mobiles will also now track people they remember, which means taking potshots at bears means a quick and painful death via teeth and claws.

+ New fallback command - admins can set it so a mobile will fall back to a certain room upon losing a certain amount of health. Going to set it up so players can use it too - flag their mobiles to retreat to a certain room when wounded. Will be good for mass combat to make sure you don't lose NPCs.

+ Tweaking variable messages a little to better show off your skill - still a little too random.

+ Added in more description death messages for combat than "x expires raggedly". Based on weapon types now, and also displays the slayer, so in mass combat you see who is killing whom.

+ You can't kill or knock someone out by hitting their hands or feet. Need a final body-blow to kill people now. Put in mostly to stop the above looking silly "Bob is cut down by Joe's savage slash to his foot!"

+ On that note, hitting feet by accident is rarer than hen's teeth now. Can still aim for them, which might be useful as foot armour is seperate from leg armour now, and extra weight.

+ Fixed some bugs in the treat function to make it run smoother.

+ Added in fracture-type damages. A mod-blunt effect causes some annoying things, such as dropping your weapon, falling you temporarily, winding you a bit, and so on. But severe effects are nasty - cracked ribs, splintered legs, concussions, and so on. Blunt damage no longer causes bleeding wounds, but instead a whole new level of agony.

+ Bleeders no longer show up for mass combat. In 100 v 100 tests, most of the spam was bleeding. So, if you've set it to reduce combat spam, you no longer see the bleeding of other people in the room who are not fighting you or fighting someone you are fighting, provided you're fighting as well. Likewise, when people are knocked unconscious it doesn't display them dropping their weapons - everyone knows that peopel knocked uncon drop their stuff, so no need to spam up the room with the messages.

+ Fixed up group retreat - works reliable to make everyone in the room run away together now.

+ Ambush bonuses - if you attack someone whilst hidden, you get a bonus to-hit for your first strike. If you pass a sneak or a hide test, that bonus is bigger ,and you get a damage bonus. If you pass both your sneak and hide test, the bonus is bigger again. So, sneaking-types finally have something on their side. Note, that almost all of the bonus is in your too-hit, and only lasts for a few seconds. So you're unlikely to cause an awesome one-hit backstab, but are likely to get in a few good strikes.

+ Tidied up how weapons are assigned to hands.

Resource and Trade is more or less complete.

Basically, you have resource objects, packanimal mobiles, and bulk trader shopkeeps. You use packanimals to pick up resources to sell to bulk traders. But the price at which bulk traders sell and buy depends on how much of that resource they already have, and the amount slowly fluxes depending on whether they produce the resource or buy it.

The aim is to allow "merchant" PCs to have something to do - buy cheap, sell large, whilst all the while having to shephard their ultra-vulnerable packanimals over dangerous terrain without becoming victim to bandits or wildlife. Which means hiring PCs to be mercenaries, and paying them.

Will be interested to see how this plays out, but hopefully it should open up an interesting sphere of gameplay, and finally give PC "merchants" and PC "mercenaries" something to do other than sit in a tavern all day and not do anything.

All that remains to be done is:
+ allow people to sell resources from the ground to the bulk trader, rather than just from the pack animal to the bulk trader
+ change groups to allow a setting to move at the rate of the slowest person - which will be the pack animal
+ add in movement and combat penalties for pack animals when hauling resources, so they're extremely vulnerable (as a mule carrying 300 lbs of goods on its back would be)

Been mostly working on the building side of things, but a slew of minor changes:

+ Defining races, creating body prototypes for spiders and ghosts, tracking through the code to make sure the right races are affected by the right things, and so on. Also changed it so small animals don't call hide or sneak checks, so stumbling across a bird or a stoat in the wilderness isn't a potential death sentence.

+ Made some modifications to scan - you'll have a hard time seeing small things at distances now. Major impact on that is you're unlikely to see single arrows from three rooms away, or marmots unless you're a room or so away. Makes hunting a bit more time-consuming, as far it goes for looking for animals. Additionally, wearing an enclosed helm severely reduces your search and listening abilities, or being rugged up in a mask - enclosed helms offer more protection, but at a cost to convenience.

+ Begun working on smart NPC combatants - the group-rescue routine is up, so grouped and clanned NPCs will rescue those in their group who have a lot of fighters on them. Thus, instead of the old trick of being able to gang up 4 at a time on a sole NPC, smart NPCs will rescue and guard to ensure a more even distribution.

Again, lots of small changes that aren't really worth posting about: been play testing hunting extensively, and making sure it works without any major dramas.

+ Deer now react in a very different (and according to my hunting buddies, semi-realistic) fashion. Me and a friend spent a good 10 minutes chasing down a buck before we finally caused a bleeding wound and tracked it down via the blood trail.

+ Throw and sling'ing in a direction now takes precedence over finding a keyword of a mobile, i.e. previously if you went "throw spear e buck", if there was someone in the room who had a keyword begining with "e", you would hurl your spear at them, instead of hurling it east. Now, you'll throw it east at the buck.

+ Scan and aim can now be done whilst you're still "moving", and scanning doesn't reveal you if you're hidden. As scan is now instantaneous, it just becomes a hassle to get the "you're still moving", and aim is important because deer are damn hard to hit with a bow.

+ scan now also reveals the room-name of adjacent rooms if there's light in them, which means you don't need to spam "exit" as well as spamming "scan".

+ a dozen or so little things tweaked that are mostly for my peace of mind in pursuing hunting perfection.

+ Put in Japheth's room-prog changes, and a half-dozen little bug fixes from the SoI forums. As everything else in life, the prog patch doesn't work as packaged, but it's relatively to fit it in.

+ Finished off the butcher command, so instead of having to learn three dozen butchering crafts there's a handy all-purpose command that will give four different types of objects to varying amounts from any carcass.

+ Decided on how I was going to divide poisons: got a simple "paste" vs "liquid" poison going. Can put pastes on to weaponry or smear it in to wounds, whilst liquids can be directly ingested, or used to poison food or liquids. It now needs is to allow for multiple poisons to be put on the same object, and for more poisons to be coded in. Then, when the forage command is overhauled, we'll finally have players making poisons.

Again, more building rather than anything else:

Code:

<#****** / ||||||> show s

  Described Rooms:  1446
  Total Rooms:      1570
  Total Mobiles:    28 
  Total Objects:    274 
  Total Crafts:    1   

  Total Characters: 6   
  Total Accounts:  5   
  Player Writings:  0   

  Stayput Mobiles:  0 

+ Figured out how the whole SQL business works, and so poisons / somatic effects can now have various text messages soft-coded in, which means unique messages for ingesting each type of poison, for getting stabbed with a poisonous weapon, and for each somatic effect ending.

+ Objects can now be set to be innately poisonous, which means deadly foods and fun weapons. One of the amusing things is that all somatics are lumped together, so we can have a biscuit that causes your ribs to break, or a sword that induces headaches. Fun and profit!

+ Realised that stackable objects and poisons are a major source of exploitation, and that I'll need to rewrite object stacking to solve it. Oh well. Players can exploit it for the time being, and it'll prove a nice reward to anyone who bothers to read this.

+ Touched up archery, throwing weapons, slinging, etc.

Slow going due to chest infection, but a few things:

+ A long time ago, it was conceived to be a good idea that blocking or dodging missiles from hidden people would be difficult, so a check was added that sapped your defensive roll if the aggressor was hidden. Unfortunately, firing a bow or throwing a weapon reveals you, making the whole procedure rather self defeating. That, and the modification to the roll was actually a -bonus- to your defense. Oh well.

NB: the reason I went in to this rant about six lines of changed code is to highlight how very ODD the code is. Not only does something not work, but it turns out that it is beneficial for it to be not working, because if it did work it would do the -exact opposite- of what it was intended to do. Which means at some point in the development of the code base two different people had to make two independent mistakes, once again proving that whilst two wrongs may not make a right, they do cancel each other out.

+ Began work on character generation modifications, making professions a lot bigger part of the game. Rather than being a skill-set, they'll be an important tool for newbies or lazy people to select character templates that give backgrounds, skillsets, and attribute choices, letting people jump in the game without needing to do much more than read the quick40 questions and their profession templates.

Professions are just about complete. There will be five professions to begin the game, and the an aim of beta is to hopefully make each profession fully functioning, and bring the number up to an even 10. Here below is text from character generation:

Code:

To assist in your creation of a character, Lost Tales allows you to select a
profession from the list below. This profession gives your character a base set
of skills and attributes, and allows you to make further decisions to customise
your character. Furthermore, a passage of text demonstrating the likely
background of your character is provided, allowing you to better understand
their role in the game world.

Any options, skills, and attributes set by a profession can be changed before
the application is submitted, and if you do not wish to choose a profession,
select 0 and create your own customised character.

1.  Hunter                2.  Outcast              3.  Sage                 
4.  Trader                5.  Warrior             

Your Desired Profession: 2

Profession:  Outcast

Whatever your life may have been before becoming an outcast,
it was meaningless the instant you were discovered. Your
former friends helped chase you out from your hamlet,
village or town, and your family disowned you. Whatever it
was you did, it was enough to earn you an informal
banishment from the place you used to call home.

Since that time, you have been living as an outcast in the
wilds of Beleriand, occasionally on your own, at other
times teaming up with other dregs of humanity. You have
had to fend for yourself, nearly freezing and starving
every winter, and desperately bartering and begging for food
in summer. Despite this, you have none-the-less acquired an
interesting set of talents: it is merely a shame that the
trees and rocks hold no appreciation for them.

Are you sure you wish to play this profession?[y/n] y

What means or skills were responsible for being cast out from your previous life?

1: Sticky fingers and the inability to outrun a mark who caught you out of the corner of their eye.

2: A tendency towards violence and a proficiency with a pair of knives.

3: The concoctions of weak poisons and other vile substances that was uncovered before your plans could come to fruition.

Make your selection [1, 2 or 3]: 1

How did you elude capture, and how have you survived cut off from society?

1: Your excellent sense of hearing tipped you off to approaching retribution, giving you ample time to flee.

2: You fled without any supplies and thus a head start, confident that your knowledge of plant life could sustain you in the wilderness.

3: You managed to steal a horse as part of your escape, and although it is long gone, you still remember the thrill of riding the beast to freedom.

Make your selection [1, 2 or 3]: 1

That then grants the character the appropriate skills and attributes as benefits their choices.

Latest round of things completed:

+ The Battlefield! Still early days, but it gives people something to do in the guest lounge.
+ New money objects are on the test port, and look to work without causing major catastrophies.
+ Fixed up something for dreamer - mkeys in containers work now.
+ prototype brawling code for taverns: in certain rooms, you can attack other PCs or staff-animated NPCs without getting flagged wanted, so long as you don't use weapons and don't beat people to death. No doubt many loopholes still in it, but I'm sure the player will find them.
+ Rend for immortals, so we can custom implant daggers in to your eyes.
+ Fixed up a lot of stuff with lodged objects, so they save properly over reboots and you get the same object you back that your threw at someone.
+ A new variable, beorart, for pottery decorations and whatnot.
+ the nomination system for the reward points, so you can let the staff know if you think a PC is doing a particularly good job.
+ the creation process of characters fixed a bit to work with the new money and objects.
+ tidied up auctions a bit, namely making them cheaper so people will use them.

Next round of things:
+ bug fixes of all the above people will find for me
+ the ability to specificy which variable colors you want in stores, so you can "buy tunic wolf green" and get, "a green tunic marked with a wolf".
+ fix up broken arms, and give blunt damage stuff some new echoes
+ do away with the "specify keywords" part of chargen and have it done automatically
+ look over tripping/stumbling etc. and see if there isn't a better way to handle them
+ let immortals set affects and poisons via code
+ get the reward system working for purchasing attribute upgrades

+ IMPORTANT: block and parry have become one skill - AVERT. If you do not have the avert skill, petition up immediately so you can be set it at a basic level. At the moment, nothing else has changed apart from block and parry rolling against the same skill, but in the future how the skill is handled, and block and parry in general, will change.

+ the ability to specify which variable colors you want in stores, so you can "buy tunic wolf green" and get, "a green tunic marked with a wolf".

The store also identifies what objects can be variable, and will also display the origin of an item upon preview.

+ did away with the "specify keywords" part of chargen and have it done automatically

Also, there is now a "set keywords" function, where any argument after keywords will be added to your list of keywords, in addition to your short-description.

+ got the reward system working for purchasing attribute upgrades

+ some more changes to mobile behaviour, especially fleeing to a safe location.

Last couple of weeks have been a whole lot of bug fixes and code changes:

+ Fixed a bug in slinging.
+ You can now use bracketed emotes in whisper and shout.
+ Very small things don't pick up in scan at all.
+ Fixed a problem with concussions causing people subdued to fall - they now don't.
+ fixed a naked-character bug to do with orkish heads.
+ increased the amount of objects shopkeeps will buy
+ increased the efficiency of virtual buyers for shopkeeps, as shopkeeps will no longer sell items they "stock", freeing up cash to buy things players sell them.
+ fixed butcher and forage, so they now produce variable slices of meat, with the higher your skill the more you get.
+ you won't get the "you recognize a clan member" for the Guest of Hules clan anymore
+ wolf and bear furs upgraded to also grant further protection to your arms and neck, not just your body.
+ fixed an echo problem with automated weather descs - should now format properly in cases with no cloud cover or precipitation.
+ removed a lot of "annoying" socials, like ss and scre.
+ char-gen now picks up if you've got too many skills, and asks you to deselect some
+ you can no longer sneak and move with six or more people following you, nor be the leader of a group of ten or more people
+ fixed a bug where people sitting caused others in your group not to move
+ you can no longer follow whilst sitting or resting
+ foraging, gathering and identifying now reveal you from hidden.
+ mobiles now flee from danger properly, instead of occasionally fleeing right back in to harm's way.
+ throw messages now display properly to the targeted rooms.
+ probably a couple dozen other things here and there that won't be noticed.

Updated the forage command:

Code:


Amidst the Sparse Pine Forest Beneath a Mountain Peak
Exits: north east south west

  The daylight sky is obscured by a coat of clouds that is
easily visible past the ancient pines that rise up from a blanket
of needles and lichen. One is able to walk without unnecessary
difficulty through the sparse forest, hindered not so much by the
trees but by the uneven, sloping ground, occasionally exposing a
dull boulder or a network of tree roots. Other trees can be
spotted amongst the pines, most commonly fir and larch, other
shrubs or plants are scarce.

<#****** / ||||||> forage survey
You believe you could find the following plants here...

Very Common Plants:
  1: (unknown)  a circle of yellow-capped mushrooms
  2: (unknown)  a circle of dusky-red, spotted mushrooms
  3: (unknown)  a cluster of mottled green toadstools


Elsewhere, with a slightly higher forage skill...

Code:


<#****** / ||||||> Open Moorland Dotted with Felled Trees
Exits: north east south west

  The clouds obscuring the sky block much of the sunshine,
casting the moorland in a grey light that does little to warm the
bones. Despite this, unruly grasses have spread far and wide
through this low lying part of Dorthonion: tufts of tussock
grasses, sedges, gorses and bunches of heather occupy much of the
ground. An unbroken range of snow capped mountains occupies the
eastern, southern and western horizons.

<#****** / ||||||> forage survey
You believe you could find the following plants here...

Very Common Plants:
  1: (edible)  a series of bushes adorned with reddish-blue berries
  2: (unknown)  a small, thorny bramble bearing red berries
  3: (unknown)  a prickly-leaved, sharp-thorned bush with blue berries

Common Plants:
  1: (herb)    a small, thorny bramble bearing red berries
  2: (unknown)  a large, spindly-branched bush bearing black berries
  3: (unknown)  a large, spindly-branched bush bearing black berries

Uncommon Plants:
  1: (edible)  a bird nest
  2: (edible)  a small tree with prickly green leaves
  3: (unknown)  a series of bushes adorned with reddish-blue berries

<#****** / ||||||> forage common 1
You begin searching the area for useful plants.


<#****** / ||||||>
Your rummaging has revealed a small, thorny bramble bearing red berries.


And, when the game port comes back up, the following will be in effect:

+ Reduced general forage time, but increased time and difficulty to forage for particular items
+ You can also attempt to forage twice per room now, to allow for group foraging.
+ Fixed a bug in movement that was causing some characters to not lose movement points at all.
+ Likewise, increased movements times in some terrains types.
+ Fixed a tracking bug for mobiles, so they no longer attempt to track over water.
+ Allowed stayput mobiles to keep following one another through reboots, to allow wolf packs and orc bands to stick together.
+ Fixed it so only one person can be binding another at any one time, and fixed mobiles so they don't all try to bind the same person at once.
+ Lynxes now stalk wounded people.
+ Fixed a re-occuring bug where mobiles would just sit in a room and do nothing. They should at least move about now.
+ You can only be attacked by a maximum of 4 people now.
+ "hard" and "very hard" etc. messages are now relatively damage, not absolute: so, a "hard" on a bear is different to a "hard" on a fox. In short, hard = moderate, very hard = severe, extremely hard = grevious, incredibly hard = worse. This was done to cut down on combat spam.
+ a few more changes to whisper and shout.

A couple of changes I've been struggling with, hence the delay:

+ We now have an Elvish calender. I'll make another post explaining it, but huzzah for over complexity.
+ "set highlight" now works: it highlights the attacks you make, and attacks made against you, in combat.

+ The throw bug is fixed - integer division sucks. Should be able to hurt things with your thrown weapons again now.
+ Added in some special commands for those skills in combat styles: if you're adroit, you can try bash for shield-use, ward for double-handed, and feint for dual-wield.
+ Tweaked smallgood objects a little bit, so examining them displays some useful information.
+ Made a few backend changes to allow for some upcoming ideas for caravans and trading.

+ Hide skill changed - you will -always- succeed in your hide test now, but it takes longer, the time determined by your skill.

The rational for this, is that there are dozens of ways to "cheat" and see if you are hidden or not. Even if you don't know one, you can simply type "hide" a half-dozen times until you do succeed. This way, everyone has the same advantage, but those with a high skill can hide much quicker.

+ It's now much harder to increase the sneak skill, bringing it more in to line with other stuff.

+ In general, you can now LEARN SKILLS BY DOING THEM. For some things, namely herbalism, languages, literacy, and cooking, you can't learn them, but weapons, styles, hiding, foraging, treating, lumberjack and so on can be learned by doing. It takes a long time to increase a skill you learn from nothing, and it won't show up in your skill list until you have it to a certain level. Prerequisites are still required, so, you can't sneak until you have hide visible on your skill list, nor steal.

+ Literacy is easier, and the caps for literacy, scripts, and languages have been lowered to be more balancing: seventy points in literacy is a waste of 20 to 30 skill points.