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Author Topic: Alpha 2.5 Publish  (Read 10483 times)
Calandryll
Developers
Posts: 335

Would you kindly produce a web game.


on: October 20, 2005, 02:11:31 PM

The Alpha 2.5 update is live. You can read the patch notes in the launcher window. Also, if you get a bug where your launcher appears to hang (as if it crashed) - read the instructions in the launcher window (the red text). This is a known issue that will be fixed, but it's not a crash.
Xilren's Twin
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Posts: 1648


Reply #1 on: October 20, 2005, 02:21:13 PM

The Alpha 2.5 update is live. You can read the patch notes in the launcher window. Also, if you get a bug where your launcher appears to hang (as if it crashed) - read the instructions in the launcher window (the red text). This is a known issue that will be fixed, but it's not a crash.

Read the patch notes, some good stuff in there.  I did get the patcher bug but it restarted fine.

BTW, here they are....

User Interface

Maps in dungeons are now accessible again with a fog of war effect - you'll only be able to see areas on the map that you've already visited. The maps will reset every time you do the dungeon.
Multiple shortcut bars are now available. Click on the button on the shortcut bar to "undock" new shortcut bars - repeat for however many bars you want.
Added another button to the shortcut bars which toggles them between a horizontal and vertical orientation.
Lots of swimming changes - we think we're just about done now:
The jump key (space bar) now moves you up, no matter what direction you're facing.
The camera now stays on the same side of the water as your avatar - if you're underwater, the camera's underwater.
The underwater camera can now pitch to a full 180 degrees.
You now swim faster than you used to when moving up or down.
/r can now be used as a shortcut to for /reply
The banking window will now close automatically if you walk away from the banker.
Gameplay

By popular demand, characters will once again grow darker while sneaking. The darker you are, the harder you are to detect.
Made a number of changes to ranged combat to make it less "uber-broken":
Reduced general rate of fire for missile weapons.
Added a penalty to hit while attacking with ranged weapons while moving.
Reduced the movement rate while attacking with ranged weapons while moving.
If you're holding a shield and you attack while holding down the block key, you will now perform a shield bash.
Increased the swimming breath meter by five seconds (ten for Warforged).
When you get to the bottom of a ladder, you'll now automatically get off of it.
Increased the damage caused by lava considerably. It seemed kind of weird that you would often drown in it before it burned you to death.
Whirling blade traps now have an easier time hitting things.
Fixed a bug where resurrection location would reset on logout.
You now have to actively use city gates and teleport pads in order to zone to a different area of Stormreach.
Fixed a bug where the search skill triggered a "noise" event which would alert nearby monsters.
Content

You will now receive XP for optional objectives as you complete them.
Added a Dungeon Scorecard (working title) that can be accessed from the dungeon panel. This screen gives you real-time statistics on the number of objectives completed, creatures killed, chests you've found, traps you've disabled, etc.
Added more optional objectives to the Harbor and Marketplace dungeons.
We'll do the rest of the dungeons in a future update.
Reworked the initial set of Harbor quests (Miller's Crossing, Gambler's Den, etc.)
No more randomly exploding barrels! We're still committed to traps in general, but we want them to be more intentional and intelligently-designed.
Newbies can't fall off the newbie ship anymore - whether it was your fault or ours, we can all agree that drowning 10 seconds after character creation wasn't good for anybody.
Added new animations and movement to many NPCs in the city wards and tavern.
The Aurum has been successful in their campaign to legalize gambling in Stormreach. Don't lose your shirt!
Changed the music in the Harbor and in taverns.
Retouched the Graveyard (Delera) adventure area.
Changed the official name of the harbor from "Stormreach Harbor" to "Harbor" to address text cutoff issues.
The barbarian trainer in House Jorasco will no longer move each time someone talks to him.
Made numerous dungeon tweaks to address floating objects, visible seams, places where you could get stuck, etc.
Made numerous text changes to various NPCs and quests.
Characters

Emotes have been expanded and cleaned up. Type /emotelist for a list of available emotes.
Sorcerers now cast their spells faster.
Significantly increased the effectiveness of the Lay on Hands ability.
Clerics now have an extra spell slot per spell level which is auto-populated with the appropriate healing spell. This is our implementation of spontaneous healing.
Feats now have much better descriptions.
Increased the frequency of certain armor appearances and colors in order to increase character diversity.
Fixed a bug where several racial feats were not actually applying their bonuses as described in-game.
As per D&D rules, classes other than rogues and bards can now purchase cross-class ranks in the Use Magic Device skill.
Spells

Lots of general spell effects polish.
If you destroy a monster via disintegration, incineration, or cold-shatter, it will have no chance of leaving any collectables behind.
Scorching ray now shoots multiple rays at higher levels, as per the Player's Handbook.
Slowed down ray spells and increased the speed of freezing spells.
Mind fog now affect creatures in its radius.
Holy smite is now working correctly.
Items

Reworked the treasure system to greatly increase your chance of getting "good" drops from chests.
The quality of treasure drops in a dungeon will now degrade the more times you do it, similar to XP awards. Unlike XP rewards, degraded treasure drop quality will restore itself after a while.
Increased the overall amount of gold drops based on player feedback.
Added NPC pawnbrokers to numerous city areas and taverns. These pawnbrokers will pay more than regular vendors for your excess magical items, and will sell back a selection of items that have been sold to them.
Timer for collecting items reduced from five seconds to two seconds.
Renamed several collectable objects.
Items and objects that are used in the world now generally have an animation attached.
Vendors will now buy back arrows, bolts, and thrown weapons.
Bartenders will no longer repair items.
Crossbows now work correctly and look normal.
Thrown weapons now work correctly.
Reduced the price of thieves' tools.
Reduced the price of magic arrows.
Shaagh's Helm is now appropriately assigned to the head slot.
The light pick no longer counts as a light weapon, as per the Player's Handbook.
Crates will no longer show up as "Invisible Stalker" when inspected. They're just crates. Really.
Monsters

It should now be harder to avoid monster attacks entirely by strafing around them.
Monsters move faster now in general.
Made more improvements to monster pathing.
Monsters who spawn near you (from a sarcophagus, etc.) should now be ready to attack as soon as they appear.
Fixed visual blips on monster spawns.
Fixed a bug where the damage caused by dwarven and female NPCs was too low.
Fixed a problem where large and huge sized rust monsters had problems hitting things.
Known Issues

Logging out while in an adventuring party - especially if some or all of the party is in a dungeon - can result in your character being unable to log in. While this problem usually resolves itself within a couple of hours, we strongly recommend that you disband your party before logging out.
If you quit the game while you are a ghost, you will die again when you log back into the game.
Your other party members do not currently show up on the mini-map or full map in dungeons.
You can get stuck in a jumping animation by jumping on top of a monster.
Rest shrines are not removing the secondary damage ticker from poison affects when used.
As a general reminder, if you are stuck you can always use /suicide as a last resort to die and return to your bind point.
You can tumble while climbing a ladder.
If you are a non-spellcasters and you multiclass into a spellcasting class, you will not see the number of spell points listed on your spell point bar.
Character generation screens do not scale correctly to 800x600 resolution.

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
schild
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Reply #2 on: October 20, 2005, 02:51:39 PM

I can not complain.

Quote
When you get to the bottom of a ladder, you'll now automatically get off of it.

I promise I'll stop jumping from the top now.

These changes sound like combat should be getting there.
HaemishM
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Reply #3 on: October 20, 2005, 03:06:44 PM

Multiple shortcut bars are now available. Click on the button on the shortcut bar to "undock" new shortcut bars - repeat for however many bars you want.
Added another button to the shortcut bars which toggles them between a horizontal and vertical orientation.

Good stuff.

Samwise
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Reply #4 on: October 20, 2005, 10:05:38 PM

Seems a little laggier than it was yesterday.  Am I on crack?

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Signe
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Reply #5 on: October 20, 2005, 10:29:22 PM

It was laggier.  I even had some teeny weeny rubberbandy bits going on. 

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Xilren's Twin
Moderator
Posts: 1648


Reply #6 on: October 21, 2005, 08:25:08 AM

Few quick things after playing yesterday.

Quote
If you destroy a monster via disintegration, incineration, or cold-shatter, it will have no chance of leaving any collectables behind.

Would this include the chest they normally drop too?  I ask b/c we did the Irestone Isle run and a fighter with an acid greatsword killed him, no body and no chest....
I can understand it for the collectables, but not bosses/named mobs who should drop chests.  Was that intentional?

Quote
You will now receive XP for optional objectives as you complete them.
Added a Dungeon Scorecard (working title) that can be accessed from the dungeon panel. This screen gives you real-time statistics on the number of objectives completed, creatures killed, chests you've found, traps you've disabled, etc.

Was interesting to see the extra experience you could earn from things like killing a lot of monsters, or even breaking a lot of chests barrels (the Vandal bonus), and how many times you had done the quest.  But, on the whole, I don't think you want to give quite this level of detail to the players; makes it turn into a much more numbers crunching game;  "how can i get max exp" stuff instead of being story focused.  I think it's fine to let players know that optional objective can earn bonues, but you probably want to hide the math.

BTW, can you get a bonus for completing quests with MINIMAL killing (sneaking, bluffing and such)?

Also, using objects has changed.  Now when you use and object (like a lever), after the progress bar stops and your character finishes it's animation and is just standing there, the action still has not occured. So if so start to turn or move, the action is interrupted and nothing happens.  This is a change, b/c it used to be the action occured simultaneously with the progress bar ending, but no more.

Annoying b/c it slows you down for an extra second or two just standing there doing nothing or redoing actions if you move too fast (even things like resting) and made dodging chest traps a little harder too - you now have to wait for the sound and see the top start opening.  It just flat doesn't feel right.  If you didn't know any better you could easily think this is lag of some type in the game.

Also, some sitting NPC's in taverns are not synched up with their chairs and thus are floating midair, or through the chair graphic.  Saw this at the tavern "something Arms" in the family house area that's Fighter based (I haven't gotten the house names down yet).

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
Signe
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Muse.


Reply #7 on: October 21, 2005, 09:00:22 AM

I did come across a quest where you had to kill less than 6 something or others, which I found kind of interesting.  Of course, being a fighter, I can only fail at that... unless I want a mob following me around and bitch slapping me while I try and finish the quest.

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #8 on: October 21, 2005, 09:49:51 AM

Quote
I can understand it for the collectables, but not bosses/named mobs who should drop chests.  Was that intentional?
Don't think like a mmog player.

Don't use Disintigrate on something you want to loot :) This /is/ supposed to be AD&D, foremost.
Quote
ut, on the whole, I don't think you want to give quite this level of detail to the players; makes it turn into a much more numbers crunching game;  "how can i get max exp" stuff instead of being story focused.  I think it's fine to let players know that optional objective can earn bonues, but you probably want to hide the math.
I like having that kind of info at my disposal. If people want to munchkin, let them and don't let the game design reflect that particular brand of oddity (like most mmogs do, later eq expansions in particular).

If players learn how to use enchanters to trivialize every encounter, let them use it and ruin their own fun. They've got nobody to blame but themselves for resorting to the path of least resistance. Shit, I say penalize people for playing that way ;)

Then again my favorite groups in EQ were an all-wizard group and a mostly hybrid group (monk(me), ranger, paladinx2, rogue).
Signe
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Reply #9 on: October 21, 2005, 09:53:22 AM

Who should we think like?

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Xilren's Twin
Moderator
Posts: 1648


Reply #10 on: October 21, 2005, 10:17:28 AM

Quote
I can understand it for the collectables, but not bosses/named mobs who should drop chests.  Was that intentional?
Don't think like a mmog player.

Don't use Disintigrate on something you want to loot :) This /is/ supposed to be AD&D, foremost.

Um, I wasn't thinking like EQ player smiley.  There's actual DM text that appears when some of these mobs die and says things like "SO and So call's your mother names as he expires...and a chest appears at his feet."  Only sometimes is not a chest, sometimes is a poison gland or stinger or something else that is used in the completion of a quest.  If that stuff goes buh bye and players can't complete quests....

Besides, they need to know this stuff from a marketing standpoint too.  It's all about expectation setting.  If you don't tell people up front and spin it as a good thing, it would naturally be perceived as a negative by current MMORPG players and that IS their target market...

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #11 on: October 21, 2005, 11:16:53 AM

Quote
Who should we think like?
Like yourself, of course. But approaching new things without the expectations of it being like old things.

XT- I didn't specify EQ :P But I see where you're coming from - the DM text needs to be altered in case you vaporize the thing you were supposed to get. And it's too bad that you're correct that this would be perceived as a negative by the mmog crowd, that's what I was referring to. But c'mon...how can people expect to look a poison gland from something they just disintegrated!?!

That's why I mock their expectations. It's silly. It's also one reason I tend to like ddo: they are trying to be different than every other goddamned game on the market. Take your dingratz to WoW is my kind of thinking.

I feel the game will be watered down and the mmog crowd will be fully catered to and thus eventually will be unplayable by me :) Just because suits will be involved.
Samwise
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Reply #12 on: October 21, 2005, 11:22:12 AM

I agree with differentiating oneself from current MMOGs being a good thing.  Then again, I really dislike MMOGs for the most part.

As for the disintegration thing, I agree that it's a very nice touch, but having it inexplicably wedge a quest is going to be annoying (having gotten wedged on a few quests now through no fault of my own). 

Perhaps the quests could take "quest object destroyed" into account and either put it somewhere else in the room (who carries a chest around in their pocket anyway?) or instantly fail the quest if you destroy a particular NPC (and perhaps mention in the quest text that he's carrying the thing on his person so players will have a clue that disintegrating him is a bad idea).

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #13 on: October 21, 2005, 11:40:57 AM

I'd say making it pretty well known when you receive an object or spell that destroys npcs/pcs/items is a high priority. Failing a mission is definitely an idea, but maybe to be less harsh maybe you could just make them retry the instance.

I also agree about the chest dropping - very EQ2 and also very dumb. Poof - a chest appears! Huh? Much better to integrate it into the gameworld or have it on the corpse.
Xilren's Twin
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Posts: 1648


Reply #14 on: October 21, 2005, 12:29:05 PM

I'd say making it pretty well known when you receive an object or spell that destroys npcs/pcs/items is a high priority. Failing a mission is definitely an idea, but maybe to be less harsh maybe you could just make them retry the instance.

I also agree about the chest dropping - very EQ2 and also very dumb. Poof - a chest appears! Huh? Much better to integrate it into the gameworld or have it on the corpse.

I'd rather go with a seperate chest ... course now we've open the doors to stealthed rogues cruising in and looting said chest.   Which can be a good thing, until EQ boy starts farming the instance over and over. See, you have to think like the LCD. smiley

Seriously, they need to at a minimum market this well b/c else your asking players to put away their most powerful gear before fighting the most powerful monsters so they don't screw themselves over; that is what's known as a "tough sell".

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
Samwise
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Reply #15 on: October 21, 2005, 12:40:10 PM

I'd rather go with a seperate chest ... course now we've open the doors to stealthed rogues cruising in and looting said chest.   Which can be a good thing, until EQ boy starts farming the instance over and over. See, you have to think like the LCD. smiley

There are a number of quests that a rogue can breeze through pretty easily; they already take this into account pretty well by having diminishing returns the more times you do a quest, and making sure that any really cool loot you get only ever spawns in that quest once - I had one quest that included a chest full of nifty magical gear, which I ended up failing and coming back to.  Everything else was still there (including the chest that contained some junk items), but the chest with the cool stuff wasn't there at all, which seemed to me like a good idea.

I'd have to say that if the sole goal of a quest is to retrieve an item, it's perfectly right for a rogue to have an easy time of it.  Just like if the sole goal of a quest is to destroy an undead thing, a cleric or paladin should have an easy time of it.  Or if it's to smash up a bunch of kobolds, a fighter... you get the idea.

(edit) For that matter, even if the item was on the bad guy's person rather than in a chest, a perfectly valid tactic in ordinary D&D would be for the rogue to sneak up behind him, pick his pocket, and sneak back out without anyone ever knowing he was there.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2005, 12:41:50 PM by Samwise »

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #16 on: October 21, 2005, 01:44:07 PM

Stealthed rogues should have good gameplay! (says the guy who is mainly interested in rogues) Of course, the LCD is what utterly destroyed thieves/rogues in UO...but to XT's point...wouldn't you be grouped with said rogue? That's another reason I like instancing, it allows for more advanced gameplay while severely limiting the potential for abuse. Don't group with greedy rogues (though it would sure fit some rogues alignment...remember to check alignments, too! :P).
Quote
Seriously, they need to at a minimum market this well b/c else your asking players to put away their most powerful gear before fighting the most powerful monsters so they don't screw themselves over; that is what's known as a "tough sell".
I understand where you're coming from, but I think people need to be less whiny about things like that. I mean...it's an acidic longsword. Great for hacking up kobolds, but you really should have something else for carving up the wizard wearing a bit of magic gewgaws you want to scavenge....it just makes sense. I think it would be a nonissue for a lot of folks, at the very worst it could happen once to folks who don't know any better (breaking mez and causing a total raid wipe, for instance). Just carry another decent weapon for those kind of fights and use your brain.

I reject the LCD and I wish more people would do so as well. There are plenty of games for them without watering every game down for the whiny dipshits :) Then again, Darniaq always yells at me for ignoring fiscal considerations - I just look at the best possible gameplay. I do the same thing with music, which is why I'm a /former/ pro musician :P
schild
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Reply #17 on: October 22, 2005, 07:40:38 PM

I'm getting hard crashes. Have to reboot. Not playing until next Alpha push.

For your peeps at Turbine, Calandryll:

p4 2.8ghz
ATI 9550 256MB variety running the latest Omega Drivers
Soundblaster Live! Audigy (1)
Windows XP Professional (up to date, SP2, etc.)
DirectX 9.0C (whatever the latest is)
Etc etc. It's a good machine, this shouldn't be happening.
Samwise
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Reply #18 on: October 22, 2005, 07:58:32 PM

See if you can get a Dr. Watson log, schild.  System specs by themselves usually don't tell you much about why something crashed (although it'll definitely raise red flags like "ATI"), but the Dr. Watson log never lies.

Go to Start>Run and enter "drwtsn32 -i".  Next time you crash, it'll generate a Dr. Watson log instead of the usual "email Microsoft" thing.  Send that thing to Turbine and they'll have a pretty darn good idea why DDO went boom.

</techsupportmonkey>

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Shockeye
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Reply #19 on: October 22, 2005, 08:47:25 PM

Don't places like the dxdiag.txt file as well?
Samwise
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Reply #20 on: October 22, 2005, 09:43:11 PM

dxdiag.txt is also helpful, but it's really just a more detailed version of your system specs.

The reason that a Dr. Watson log is helpful is that it tells you exactly what was going on at the time of the crash (i.e. what line of code it was executing, what was on the stack, what DLLs were loaded, what other applications were running, et cetera).  In some cases it'll turn out the crash was in some external DLL that your app called into (like your graphics drivers), and that's where the dxdiag.txt comes in handy.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
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