Bi-Weekly Update for 11/17/08

[Ramsey]

1) Update Overview: (TOC)

• Developers Chat
• Crunch Time
• Major Stress Test
• Bazaars
• Creature Changes
• Crafting Updates
• Structure Manager
• Resource Mapping Project
• Combat Core Updates
• Missions

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2) Body:

Developer Chat:
Thanks to everyone who participated in the developer chat! Quite a few questions were asked, and it was a great success! We will continue to improve the Question Bot and hopefully be able to answer more questions in the next dev chat.
If you'd like to read the log of the chat, it can be found here.
We will be holding developer chats on the second Saturday of each month, so if you have a question that you would like answered, feel free to join in next month. If you do not know how to be a part of the developer's chat, read the instructions found here.

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Crunch Time:
A ton of bugs in Core3 from the past few months have been fixed thanks to the feedback we've gotten from the Test center. So for the rest of the year, the entire SWGEmu team is kicking into "crunch" mode. We'll be adding in a plethora of features into the game at a faster speed without sacrificing the functionality or quality of the code. The game will be coming together at a much faster pace, and we really need people to sign onto the test center AND get involved in the community. We highly encourage you to peek around the forums and look into out of game opportunities to aid the project. Data collection in general is an area where simple man power is needed to crunch the numbers and research of PreCU.

Stay tuned and participate in upcoming stress tests we have planned for the rest of 2008. Our BiWeekly Updates on December 1st, 15th, and 30th will continue to have information on where we stand with this end of the year push.

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Major Stress Test:
We will be holding a VERY important stress test sometime during the first weekend of December. We need a phenomenal turnout. Our record so far has been 452, lets do better this time . MUCH better. I (Ramsey) should have the entire mission ensemble finished and stable in time for the test. We'll be able to have stress test specific missions that can be accomplished solo or in groups, this will hopefully make the test much more goal oriented.

THE DATE/TIME OF THE STRESS TEST IS SATURDAY DECEMBER 6th, 2008 @ 6PM Eastern Standard Time, 5PM CST, 3PM PST.

This stress test may not be our last for 2008, but it will definitely be the BIGGEST event we will hold to date. Every single developer on the team will have something that will need to be tested. Please, please, please spread the word about the stress test. Do anything to get people involved and on for test time. We have compiled a list on ways you can get new people involved with the stress test.

-Dig out your live SWG guild contacts and let them all know
-Introduce younger siblings to the game. Group with them on the TC and explain how basic combat works.
-Install the client on multiple computers, or multiclient. There is no important ingame economy yet and in this case, it will only make the game better
-Get KOTOR players interested in the project
-Alert your personal server communities and form groups ahead of time.
-Bring SWG veterans into the project
-Use this opportunity to connect with an old e-friend
-Talk about the project with other gamers
-Write articles about the project on other online portals you are a part of

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Bazaars:
After discovering that numerous bazaars across the galaxy were disabled, Saromus set out to activate all bazaars in Core3. This problem has since been resolved and all bazaars in the galaxy are now fully operational. Please pass on your thanks to Saromus, Kellina and Kyle for their fix.

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Creature Changes:

Kellina and Hashman have been cranking out fixes for the loot table, so keep looking for those to improve galaxy wide. We also recently recieved an impressive script package submission from Kaigeos where he completed almost all creature spawns and skills for Dathomir! It's great to see people from the community helping out in big and small ways

If you are unsure of how to get in the game, like Kaigeos did, just follow the development environment setup guide at http://public.swgemu.com and experiment with the scripts / code. Developers and public contributors hang out in #opendev on IRC, so drop by sometime as well. Learn by DOING!

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Crafting Updates:
Kyle has continued his work on crafting, one of the most exciting facets of Star Wars Galaxies, over the past two weeks. The most recent batch of updates include many defining crafting features such as the ability to craft vehicles, tweaking of crafting ingredient slots, amongst others.

Some of Kyle’s recent crafting updates can be viewed below:
Vehicle Crafting(Rev 915) Crafting: Slots and Customization(Rev 919)

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Structure Manager:
McMahon’s exceptional work on Structures has began to pay off over the last fortnight as his brand new Structure Manager was launched. The new and improved manager includes an interface for creating and updating player structures (houses and harvesters). With this now operational and in testing, Player Housing is nearing completion! Be sure to thank McMahon for his continued and intricate work with Structures.

For more information: [color=blue]Rev 912 (containing new structure manager)

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Combat Core Updates:
Dannuic has been hard at work on the Combat Experience (XP) System. Since commencing his work on the Combat Overhaul system, he has added many new features and improved on old ones. Trainers are now beginning to use the correct dialogue when training skills and they also require the correct XP quantities to train skills (currently only those not on the Blue Frogs). Dannuic has also recently added functional Entertainer XP. Stay tuned as testing continues.

To see more: Proper Trainers(Rev 916) Entertainer xp types(Rev 918)

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Missions:
I (Ramsey) added a "hardcoded" mission called "The Box", which should now be on Test Center. If all goes well and Test Center doesn't crash while players are doing this mission, then the rest of the mission features can be rolled out. This mission was specifically added to test for crashes, and obviously did not focus on content. I purposely left out the following features; Mission Saving (so a mission can be run multiple times on relog) and Mission Waypoints. This was committed in Revision 910.

Over the past few days, it seems like the mission manager and action npc's are stable enough for the addition of scripted actionnpc's, actions, and missions. To finish up missions I will be adding in the scripting components, writing an easy to follow mission scripting document, and planning to record a voiced video walk through for mission scripting. What I really want a lot of community members to be able to do is script creative missions. Stick to the forums for more updates on this area.

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3) Developer Perspective: ("Round Table")

Ramsey:

Finishing up the scripting components of Missions which will hit SVN as soon as Oru releases the SVN lock. With mission scripting in place, new missions will appear almost overnight. Scripting makes the process of adding missions and interactive npc's a breeze. I'll be pushing a lot of tutorials out for mission scripting to make it easier for anyone to jump right into content addition for PreCu. All original mission text for SWG is stored in the client, and instead of rebuilding each mission exactly the way it was on live the community as a whole can do much better and deliver creative missions.

Check for new testing missions that'll be integrated with other developer's testing needs later this week

Thoop:
Right now, I'm helping kyle finalize the ResourceManager. Lots of boring math involved but resources are now weighted and spawn based on their type and subtypes. Also, I am currently converting the shape of the resources spawns from circular to a polygon shape and introducing veins so that there's more than one spot that contains the highest %.

After I finish with that, I plan on helping kyle get some more crafting schematics in-game so start looking forward to that!

Oh and I almost forgot, I started preliminary work on pets. Got most of the droid engineer components working for crafting droids. Got a dewback spawned from a deed and got him to learn and obey to some commands! BUT I've put it on hold because making sure resources and crafting are 100% are priority right now. But know that some progress has been made on pets

Uli:
Stuff i've done:

Well around there been 2 programs released, one that changes your Frames Per Second cap and another that lets you boost your settings over the max to improve viewing distance and appearance.

Locations:

FPS Cap:
Here or Here
Settings "Overrider":
Here or Here

Ultyma:

Hey Everyone. I've started to get back into the game, and familiarizing myself with the 'newer' structure of Core3 again.
Right now I am working on the new player tutorial and possibly the In game CSR ticket system.

As usual if there's any packet information that you need, don't hesitate to ask.

Go Banana!

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4) Closing:

CSR Announcement! - Letter from the CSR Team

Greetings fellow forum users! As you may have noticed, the forums have undergone a restructuring! We have several new forums of interest, including:

• CSA (Community Service Annoucements): Here will be points of interest for day to day important community notifications and information. Check here for the latest on Test Center, IRC status, and forum information!
• Bug Discussion: This is a place finally for those of you that want to discuss your bug findings on the forum with fellow community members! Feel free to post what you find and review with your peers.
• Community Support: Yet another place for support! Here you can post your troubleshooting issues for the forum community to help with. We're hoping this alleviates the random postings in multiple forums requesting help. [Please note! This forum is NOT fully supported by the staff. It is intended for peer to peer help!]
• Computer Help: Pretty self-explanatory, but here you may post your computer technical support questions for the community to assist with. This again should centralize these popular topics into an organized forum.

Also, the Profession Forums have been moved to a more top-level location, in hopes you will use them to discuss issues related to professions openly so that we may all benefit from this community's extensive pre-cu experience. Please post what you know! The more help we get, the closer we can emulate pre-cu which, in the end, is what we all want.

Please look through the forums and get familiar with the new structuring, and feel free to PM a staff member with any questions or suggestions you have. This community is strong, and our cooperation and communication will allow us to stay that way!

SWGEmu Community Service Team

--Team SWGEmu

[Ramsey]

reserved

Devs/Staff, feel free to add to the round table.

[Dame]

awesome news! 1st

[MikeCool]

2nd.

Nice update, keep it up devs & admins.

[MrBlonde]

Worth the wait obviously.

[feroxfire]

yess!!!11!! ive been waiting for this forever!! great update!! cant wait for the event!

ohh and i will gladly help make missions....i cant code at all but Ill come up with storylines? is that needed? i would like to help yall out since ive been following you since your inception...

[eapeih]

7th woot

[toro45]

WOO nice job guys!

[Vrej]

I am borging every computer in my house and telling everyone who will listen to log in for the event! BRING IT ON!

[wookiesniper]

Nice job guys...can't wait for the stress test!

[matt71tx]

It is really amazing to see how far this project has come along! Everyones efforts are appreciated!!

Nice to see Ultyma getting back into things again. Welcome back!

[Araiti]

BEEEEP-BOP-BOOOOOP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEP-BOO-BEEP(<---- robot language for "Great update")

Originally Posted by feroxfire

but Ill come up with storylines? is that needed?

Doubt it

[nostyleguy]

Awesome Work

[Fullmetal]

Originally Posted by Araiti

BEEEEP-BOP-BOOOOOP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEP-BOO-BEEP(<---- robot language for "Great update")


Doubt it

no no, it goes beep booop beep bop beep beeep boop.

(sponge bob fans know what i'm talking about!)

Nice update devs!

[ae77guy]

Great Update!!
I have a question about the stress test. I will be installing on 3 computer at my house and inviting friends over, but is there an easy way to create login "accounts" without creating bogus forum accounts?