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Thothie

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kroush_centerfold.png
Well, two years without a patch, which just about breaks our record, so... We're givin ya a little something to tide ya'll over while we continue to beat this thing into shape.

Kroush is a mid difficulty FN approved map, now up on the RKS servers. It can be downloaded directly from them (which maybe a bit slow), or from here:
http://www.thothie.com/msc_dev4/kroush_NOV2017_01.rar
(Requires Winrar or 7z.)

The extensive multi-level map, while obeying NOV2015a compatibility, features an incremental dynamic treasure system and integrates a few clever features to give it a fair amount of replay value, all while providing a few puzzles and surprises along the way.
NOV2015a PUBLIC CHANGELOG:
Patch of the Spiders
centerfold_NOV2015a.png
Italian Spiderman says, "Respect da women!"

Hopefully not a turkey of a patch, this near Amer-Indian Extermination Day patch (originally slated for Halloween), focuses mainly on bug fixes, but also puts in place yet more of the framework for more fundamental changes down the road, and introduces us to yet another segment of the expanding underworld.

Bug Fixes
• Fixed the sticky thing with the bludgeon hammer, again.
• Fixed a bug that could potentially result in some flying mobs becoming invulnerable.
• Goblin Latchers should no longer prevent you from healing/shielding victim, and damages against the victim should pass to globlin.
• Yet another stab at the 5hp character delete bug.
• Self adjusting chests should no longer mess up their names.
• Lightning Forged Skeleton will no longer acquire targets through walls. Effects moved client side for optimization. (Less lag.)
• Fixed Golden Axe quest completion and some other potential bugs with item related quests.
• Abyssal Worm giving arrows a miss chance.
• Boinking yourself in the head with the unholy blade in PVP (still lots of other PVP issues though.)
• Sorc Villa Medal now improves itself, if you complete quest with greater achievement level.
• Orc poisoner / Voldar sending poison cloud to targets he can't see and stunning with it.
• Crystal Phase Spiders teleporting to targets they can't see.
• New shield base script (hopefully kills the shield lag).
• Changed speed effect system for Ravenmace and Urdualian Shield (may port to more later.)
• Fixed bug where Forsuth would "shortcut" to the wrong point.
• dmgmulti no longer applies to scaling DOT effects.
• Fixed bug where skeletons/mummies struck by holy weapons would sometimes get up again.
• New client side fx arrows should make for more dependable hits, while retaining aesthetics.
- Projectile is now server side again, though the model is still client side - happy medium.
• ...and the usual 10,000 others...

New Maps
• Undercliffs by Fredrikli and TheOysterHippopotami (connects from Bloodrose, self adjusting, hard to v.hard)
- This hazardous series of underground tunnels may provide an alternate surface root to the Underkeep.
- Also spiders, spiders everywhere.
- (By request, this will be flagged hidden next patch.)
• Gertenhell by Dridge and TheOysterHippopotami (disconnected, hard)
- This lava filled nightmare variant of Gertenheld Cape offers many a spooky surprise.

Map Fixes and Tweaks
• b_castle - Body guard room now has multiple destinations.
• bloodrose - Connection to Undercliffs is at the old ms_snow location - ms_snow moved to higher elevation.
• deralia - Removed clone of Cathain.
• deraliasewers - Boss teleport now has multiple destinations.
• dragooncaves - Boss room now has multiple destinations.
• Fmines - New spawn system, additional puzzle.
• gatecity - Connection to Underpath, optimization (beware that the bar has moved), minor tweaks and fixes.
• mscave - Finally resolved the mystery of the stuck orcs.
• Nashalrath - Tuned piano.
• orc_for - Fixed potential fubar with hpreq battle troll spawns. Boss now has xp spin up time (15mins).
• rmines - New spawn system, more explosions.
• shender_east - Portal to Fire Giant now opens, regardless of worthiness.
• thanatos - Glitchy scorps and exploits.
• the_wall2 - Navigation aids, Forsuth teleport fix, chest fixes, minor aesthetics, expoits, Valend's long term memory.
• underpath - New spawn system, and some alternate lower-level route options.
• As promised, Underpath, Rmines, and Fmines are now all flagged hidden.
- (Underpath is accessible from Gatecity, Rmines from Underpath, and Fmines from Rmines.)
• Gatecity is no longer flagged hidden.

Misc Changes
• Mouse wheel now scrolls on inventory/chest/shop UI screens.
• Demon shield will now use firebreath if you attack with the other hand while the shield is held up.

New Mapper Toys
• trigger_once/multiple new parameter: reqtouchtime ("Required Touch Time")
- Requires trigger be consecutively touched for this many seconds before firing.
- Leaving trigger untouched for >1 second resets timer.
- All other touch requirements must be met for timer to begin.
- Do not combine with individualized cooldowns.
• ms_monsterspawn / msarea_monsterspawn properties
- New Property: reqhp (require hp, min/max/avg) and nplayers properties, similar to the msmonster_xxx property
- New property: params ("Pass Parameters").
-- All these additional parameters are applied to all the monsters tied to it, in addition to any defined on the individual monsters or in the map's global parameters.
• msmonster_xxx
- reqhp ("Require HP (min;max)") property can now be set to use the average HP on the server, instead of the total, by converting any token after the first to "avg".
- eg. 500;avg = require average hp be >500. 250;750;avg = require average hp be between 250 and 750.
- As with other player-related spawn requirements, only active players are counted.
- (Sorry for the convention change, rather than a new parameter - lazy - and the dern has way too many parameters as it is.)
New Add Params
• For individualized chests only:
- set_req_pick;[%chance] - set this chest to require a lock pick to be opened - chance defaults to 100%. (the related item name is: item_lockpick )
- set_trap;[explode|gas] - sets either an exploding fire trap, or a poison cloud trap. Can be disarmed with lockpicks, whether the chest requires them to be opened or not. If no trap type parameter is provided, or is invalid, chest picks randomly. (Trap fires once.)
- set_chance_trapped;[%chance] - has a chance to be trapped, trap type picked at random.
- set_chance_haspick;[%chance] - has a chance to have a pick inside. Each chest dishes out a max of one pick. Chance increases by 10% of base chance per player, if there is more than one player (on FN only).
- set_req_key;<key_name> - require key of this name to open (lockpick has no effect.)
-- See mapping tutorial's "- Keys -" entry for a list of keys.
- set_locked - remains locked until receives ext_unlock event (keys and lockpicks have no effect.)
• monsters/snake_gcobra additional parameter "set_nosleep" - causes cobra to patrol on spawn, instead of acting like a somewhat buggy trap.
• monsters/dwarf_bomber additional parameter "set_drop_tnt" - causes dwarven bomber to drop acquirable unlit TNT quest item on death.
New Dev commands
• devcmd teledest <targetname>
- Teleport to a specific entity by its targetname.
- Only works on point entities, and brush entities with origin brushes (intended primarily for use with info_teleport_destination).
- Beware, depending on entity's position and solidity, you may get stuck (in which case, use "tospawn").

=========================================================================
BELOW THIS LINE THAR BE SPOILERS
=========================================================================
(Not masking spoiler sections anymore, as some folks who should be reading stuff, haven't been.)

New Monsters
• traps/fire_burst (self-adjusting trap, self-removing)
- Creates a fire burst that repels targets at ground level of location on spawn, doing a self adjusting amount of damage to all those in the aoe (default 256)
- takes addparam set_aoe;<radius>
- Damage can be adjusted upwards with dmgmulti, but beware the base DOT is determined by a percentage of the target's HP (initial blast based on global average HP)

• traps/poison_gas (self-adjusting trap, self-removing)
- Similar to the above, save it creates a self adjusting poison cloud, applying DOT to all those in the aoe (default 256). Cloud persists for 20 seconds.
- takes addparam set_aoe;<radius>
- Damage can be adjusted upwards with dmgmulti, but beware the base DOT is determined by a percentage of the target's HP (unlike the fire trap, there is no initial blast)

• traps/quake (self-adjusting trap / fx event, self-removing)
- Creates an earthquake at origin 512 units in diameter, doing damage for 10 seconds.
- Damage can be adjusted via dmgmulti, even below 1, but scales as % of victim's maxhp. Setting this to 0 creates an earthquake "effect" that hampers movement, but does no damage.
- (Provides quite a bit more FX than simply using env_shake)
- Takes the following addparams:
-- set_noslow - no slow effect or damage
-- set_nodamage - still slows, but does no damage (same as dmgmulti 0)
-- set_global - affects all players on server
-- set_aoe;<rad> - change radius (max is 1024, use set_global for larger)
-- set_dur;<seconds> - change duration

• monsters/djinn_troll_lesser_fire - Lesser Fire Djinn (medium demon, 100x150, 2000hp, baseXP 250)
- Firey troll throws giant exploding rocks and does fire DOT. Otherwise identical to troll_lobber.

• monsters/horror_fire2_ecaves - Flaming Horror (medium demon, 32wx32h, 1000hp, baseXP 400)
- Different model, otherwise identical to horror_fire2 (fire balls, fire burst, fairly good navigation/monsterclip obedience, flaming trail effect.)

• monsters/elemental_earth1 - Earth Elemental (medium demon, 32x96, 500hp, baseXP 300)
- Earth Elementals have several abilities, including:
- Summon rocks from the sky, that fall with an AOE crash, after a slight delay.
- Open fissures in the ground that damage and stun targets. These do additional damage to enemies who are push immune.
- Create a temporary shield that protects them from all forward facing damage, though they cannot attack while in this state.
- They have a freakish amount of armor and reflect electrical attacks.

• monsters/elemental_earth2 - Greater Elemental (v.hard demon, 32x96, 2500hp, baseXP 1000)
- In addition to the above, all with greater damage, Greater Earth Elementals can:
- Create an Earthquake, that will slow all enemies in a wide radius, doing greater damage as they near the source. This does additional damage if you can't be moved by it.
- Summon a rock storm.
- Attack while their shield is active.
- Additionally, their summoned rocks have a push effect, and they actually gain energy from electrical attacks.

• monsters/hydra_fire_lesser - Lesser Fire Hydra (hard demon, 96x96, 5000hp, baseXP 750)
- So we mixed some dragon essence with an elemental and, whoops...
- This three headed beast has the following attacks:
- Fire aura (constant), enemies near the fire hydra are constantly burned.
- Rapid fire projectile attack (left head).
- Cone of fire (middle head).
- Slow, but high damage, guided fire projectile (right head).
- Plus three long reaching bites, and a nasty tail whip, all of which also apply damage over time.
- Due to this creature's limited elemental repertoire, one must take care on placement and escort.
- This is also very high poly monster (over 8k), so you may wish to be careful where you place it and what you escort it with.
- Other flavors pending (possibly also multi-element variants.)
- Thank Hush 2.0 for purchasing purty model.

New Stuffs
• Lockpicks
- Lockpicks stack, and can be used to disarm certain traps and open certain chests.
- To use: Equip, point at chest, and hold left click.
- It takes about 10 seconds to disarm and unlock a chest. Taking damage from enemies will intrerrupt the process, but not expend the pick.

• The Chaos Axe (Axehandling 30, All Magic Skills: 10, MP 100)
- This weapon choses random element types over time and with each strike, applying related damage over time effects.
- On right click, it can create a burst that repels enemies while applying random DOT effects.
- The axe will avoid using elements targets are immune to, determining said after the first strike.
- Only applies effects to targets not already under a damage over time effect.

• Shadow Lance (Polearms 35, Affliction 15, MP 10,100)
- From Echo717's media contest entry (finally).
- This sinious lance does dark damage, and can apply a defile effect that reduces enemy's damage output (50%) while doing damage over time (15 secs).
- This can be applied with a power attack, by throwing the lance, or by using the third charge, providing a large burst that also repels nearby enemies. (req Affliction 15)
- (Creature's current health must be less than x4 your maxhp to be repelled.)

• Spider Axe (Axehandling 25, Affliction 5,10, MP 5,200)
- This web encrusted red amber axe does triple damage to spiders and applies a strong defiling effect on them (75% reduced outgoing damage) for 30 seconds. Additionally, it can ensnare your enemies.
- Right click fires a weak web projectile (req Affliction 5). Each additional application of webs will slow the target until they are ensnared.
- Once ensnared, they will remain immobilized for 30 seconds, or until the cocoon of webs is broken.
- The third attack creates a persistent web trap (req Affliction 10), that applies additional webbing to all enemies crossing its bounds for 30 seconds.
- Additionally, while the weapon is drawn, the weilder is immune to negative effects applied by spiders, including webs and damage over time.
- Otherwise, this behaves similarly to the Axe of Balance.
- (Creature's current health must be less than x3 your maxhp to be webbed, large creatures are immune.)

• Felewyn Shard (Holy Wave, Divination 10, Swordsmanship 34, MP 20)
- Not a new weapon, obviously, but in addition to having its original model properly restored, the final charge attack now creates a rolling wave of holy light.
- The holy wave does your double Divination skill in holy effect damage to enemies caught in its wake, and applies a holy DOT effect for 50% of your Divination skill for five clicks, to enemies vulnerable to such.
- Additionally, allies caught in its wake will be healed for three times your Divination skill (This adds to the caster's damage points when healing players and critical NPCs).
- Holding +use during the final charge will instead apply the classic Felewyn Shield (severe damage reduction from frontal attacks, plus repels attackers when in holy mode).
- (Something I intended for FEB2015d, but didn't complete in time.)

DOWNLOAD AT THE USUAL PLACE

Also, sorry if your model donations didn't get in yet - didn't want to put this off until Christmas. Next time! (But you get your Halos now!)

...and the previous update convo continues for posterity...
 
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=HELLION=

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also noticed

also i noticed the timeout issuses. for those who havnt done this you might want to change cl_timeout to a number higher then default... it is the command that automaticly disconnects a player if there is no response from the server... its helpfull to some when there is a mass lag spike...

i remember a long long time ago during one of hl's many patches that they screwed up there net code and i turned this number up to around 1000 or so and it would with a good amout of luck remain connected to the server until the lag spike went down..also day of defeat had problems like this at one time , enabling it is not going to fix anything it just helps try to stay connected longer for the server to re-establish connections
 
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Thothie

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sv_timeout changed to 120 (from 60), done.

I need to make the leeway interval adjustable on the restarter to help, but I wont be back until midnight tonight to work on that.

Fuznet seems to be in maintence, so my server's client side until then anyways. Connection lag and restarts won't be such an issue with client side chars.
 

FuzzyFish

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The current issue wasn't caused by maintance. Apparently the backup server puked when I attempted to VNC in to get the characters updated.
I'll restore new chars tonight.
 
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Thothie

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That's maintenance.

It's just maintenance with complications. ;)
 

=HELLION=

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question

just a thought,
after testin out on client side , i did notice a jump in the fact that the server didnt have to update with central to that aspect , and with 3 players its hard to test . we changed levels from edana and thorn, back and forth like 3 times ... it was a pain to upload the charactor, thinking about this , does the player info goto the server, then from the server to central ? or does it just go to central
is it possable that the level switching timeout is caused by the server having to upload all the data for N number of players all at once ? that could be why it takes so long to swich levels
actually i dont see how it would take that long to upload the player info , it shouldnt be that much information should it ?
 

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me and thothie also figured out that healing other players causes even more lag than healing yourself (no clue why) while beating keledros... i got a blizzard scroll!
 

=HELLION=

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rejuv lag.

yea its like every time you do 1 rejuv it adds 25ms ping , and if you got beat down bad you want to heal fast.. well heh each time you do it , it not only spawns a Whole bunch of sprites, but tacks on more ping

some suggestions might be to

-give rejuv a hit miss ratio like attacking, slowing the constant updates a bit

-make the rejuv do block health like a quick shot of 10hp or more, instead of the groovy fill up effect

-make it suck mana like nobodys business

-limit spawning of the sprites to 1 big sprite

-limit to once only health addition instead of the constant adding of health
 

Thothie

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I thought, balance wise, Rejuv was fine... I just dun wan it to lag the server so much. I *assume* it's trying to update the health on the Central server for some reason.

And sorry my server went down for so long today... Seems I checked the pause autorestart box before I left without unchecking it. ><

edit: On second thought, I think I'll just leave it down until [FN] comes back up, and take this opportunity to do some much needed uploading.
 

=HELLION=

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/

well i wanted to test out rejuv on a client basis to see if it still added lag but my client side charactor has less health then a commoner heh so i wont be testing the rejuv spell for a long time... i hope fuzznet gets fixed, he said it crashed , must have been some crash.. oh well i still have a hdd with win98 on it but i havnt used it in a LONG time heh its a wonder just to think that it was working as long as it did
 

Thothie

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Seems to be a result of the move... Fuznet is up, but the data is two days behind, so I dun wanna run it. People will either bitch about losing two days of data, or bitch about it when their characters get restored, and they lose the data they gained during the outdated period. Either way, tis a lose-lose situation. So client side only for a bit longer I'm afraid - and play anywhere else with that in mind.
 

=HELLION=

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****

people do tend to like to **** to express there feelings... i just read the intire vote thread to player resets.. it was like a total **** fest lmao.. bah loseing a few days is ok i didnt realise i gained 4 levels in 2 days..
 

Thothie

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Screw it, going back to [FN] before 50,000 central servers show up and destroy the whole system - screw the two days of data... My char doesn't seem to have lost anything in anycase, so maybe Fuzzy's estimate was high (or he updated without posting). Effing brats can't even wait more than a day before they setup their own.
 

Thothie

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Gonna take the server down for a few days. Otherwise someone in Riverside is going to chop into a gas-line when the city tells them to build somewhere they can't with their outdated gas and sewer maps... Amongst other things

In otherwords - I gotta upload and host a bunch of work related stuff, and it'll take awhile. Plus I kinda would like to have this laptop in the feild again... Dunno if it's good for a laptop to run 24/7 at full load like this - it's making clicking noises... WTF is this clicking noise? :?

Meanwhile, play at J-M's, or some such... I did what I could to try to make sure everyone has access to all my server's features, so you should have an equally good experience somewhere else - probably with a better ping. ;)
 

natranr

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my comp makes a clicking noise when it starts up, i think its the CPU fan, not sure bout that :?
 

dRkILL

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Could be, but in my experience, clicking noises indicate a failing hard drive. I'd get that checked out ASAP.
 

natranr

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i only hear it when i start up, its my CPU fan couse I messed with it, i think its hiting the thing holding it in place
 

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Rejuvinate shouldn't update every time it heals a health point. Basically it should alert the server and client that it was cast, and the client prediction should automatically handle updating health. The server doesn't need to send it to everyone each time it heals a point of health.
 

Thothie

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The lag says otherwise... I suspect it has more to do with the character's updating to Central as a result of the health change. I carry a bunch of pot around just due to that issue, despite the fact I've got like 200Mana and Rejuv at my disposal. Lagging the whole server kinda kills the usefulness of the spell.

Still, it's not so bad provided server is nearly empty, and I use it sparingly (no more than two or three applications at a time).

As for the clicking sound... Still not sure... It seems to be a fan turning on though - as when the laptop is idle or in reasonably normal operation (say, web browsing, or Word - ie. not being hounded by the 90%+ CPU usage of the MS:C HLDS) - it doesn't make this noise. The internal fan only kicks in when it gets fairly hot.

It worries me a little, however, as it's almost the same noise my older DEAD thinkpad makes - and in that machine's case, it's some mechanical thing trying to engage the battery. It's dead in the sense that it will only operate while plugged into a wall now (can't connect to any battery). I'd use it - but it's only a Pentium 60.

Feh, I've all the parts I need for a new puter here, save for a P4 533/800FSB CPU to stick into this box. I gotsta stop giving puters away. ><
 

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Won't matter if I hook the HAL9000 up to this thing - it'll still lag like this until the issue is resolved. ;)
 

Thothie

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It be back up... Nothin new on it, yet.

Sadly, improving the crash recovery plugin seems to require migrating to AMXmodX - and AMXmodX does not like MS:C. (AMXmodX can be rather finnicky)

Working on an MOTD and restricted votemap plugins, so I can get rid of those annoying flashers.

Server may have to go down for short periods of time over the next two weeks or so, but otherwise, should be up 24/7 until further notice.
 

Thothie

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...and now it be back down. Same reasons.

Tis a tad worrisome, as I see no other regular [FN] server out there, atm.
 

Thothie

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...and up again...

Although maybe temporary, may need that laptop this weekend.

EDIT: Laptop needs to go on quick journey... BBL
 
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