Standing Jumps (split from Minkata Shard Updates)

[MustardJeep]

No no I am actually rather fond of plasma it's still a very good Adventure game engine, I wouldn't say abandon ship. Just some healthy "Cautious Optimism" because the render pipeline is as complicated as the Moss servers; Just vertex related information rather then people related in the vault so to speak.

(Maintainers GuildMaster/GameMaster) SoapBox

Spoiler

I don't want to have 2 new servers looking like Gehn & TOC MOUL personally (with all the respect to respective teams working behind these shards). It was once funny to go everywhere...now it's plenty pityful. A new comers playing MOULa would go and say ... What (... I let you imagine the remaining... )

I've been tossing around a reply to this in my head for several hours, I felt it deserved a honest reply and not a hasty one.

The two worst things working against Uru right now are Cyan and the Fan Developers.

Cyan was never once ready for a Fan Based mod community, and when they discovered one had managed to sneak up on them..... Well Cyan has at best only ever managed a unsteady stumbling progress without taking the leadership role. The Fans on the other hand have had a lot of respect for Cyan's requirements and managed a steady progress of sorts, but never once come together making anything resembling a expansion pack. Plus I've been told Moss can pull a reasonable imitation of a clustered shard there is that to consider.

Lets use graphics as a example of where things have gone wrong and the "graphics upgrade" that could be done right now. Teledahn and the Cavern Lake have some of the stinkiest water in the game. When compared to the Koi pond in Kemo or the waterfall pool in Gira; Or including basically any puddle you can stick your feet into, that the Cavern Lake or Teledahn reeks. The pools in Gira/Kemo are about equal in size which was more or less set by the limits of the 64Mb's of video card memory. By comparison my current card is 1Gb....about 16x the memory. Anyone right now could rip the current water out of the 'hood/City and Teledahn and replace it. Chances are it would look nicer, and be different, but no-one has.
Ahnonay Sphere 2 - Volumetric Fog...........This is one of the most distinctive and lovely areas in the game, and it's the only place fog is used like this. Fog could be added right now to Kadish....Wisps flowing across the ground, in the trees, pouring out from the overlook. Or take it to the Cavern, pellets generate fog in the silo, enough pellets and fog starts across the cities nooks and crannies.

Remember what I said about my being told the Moss Servers could cluster together? This is the sticking point on why there are many separate shard servers rather then one. The tech is there right now (or more realistically probably a couple months from now) to have one main server and dozens or hundreds of minor servers all linked together with only one login. There is a long standing argument against this configuration, many many people stretching back in time to UU server owners who are passionately against it. A lot of ego involved but it boils down to choosing "Privileged Admin Running a Shard" or "Less privileged Admin running part of a Shard". It would take some careful thought to make the second choice attractive, possibly making the support Admin's into the ResEng Corp? Anyhow the Fans could mirror the main server it's just no one influential enough to get it done wants to.

As far as the graphics upgrades go Plasma has a lot of industry standard eye-candy already present. The difficulty isn't so much writing a DirectX11 render system, or Physx, or whatever; it's the step before that. That means really using what's available all the bells and whistles in the current system so you find the limits the new system is supposed to improve on. The migraine inducing issue here is there is no manual and nobody has a clue how Plasma currently would handle with a level designed heavy on the eye candy using modern hardware.

Past that you just need one expert C++ programmer and time so the new system works with the rest of plasma.

Of course this could just be 3AM bull so you know....

[Deledrius]

There are experts around, but time is, as always, the biggest problem.

I wish I were one of the experts, as I have time, but lack the motivation these days.

I agree though, there's a lot there already to be taken advantage of, but an upgrade to the render pipeline could make much of that more accessible than it is. We'd still need actual tools though, or it doesn't matter, and that comes down again to the question of time and expertise.

[MustardJeep]

The code is willing but the Developers need more caffeine!

As much as I am currently working with plasma I actually only have one or two project in mind that I would want ou to adopt so they get official eventually. Just a little mod, it rotates\scales\repositions models on level load obeying a couple simple rules. Really basic interface just a button on each relto page to turn it on or off for that set of objects. The end result being relto ACTUALLY being different from person to person not just which page each person has on.

But that's the immediate dream for now. =)

[Annabelle]

My comment has been attached to a post and commented by who know who and then putted in spoiler inside a new post posted and commented by MustardJeep

Where is that initial post and who is who know who?

It's seem there's a break somewhere in the thread, there's a post missing.

[MustardJeep]

Err....your original post is the last one of page four.

The spoiler tag in my post was to wrap what was me standing on a soapbox making a speech. Not everyone likes to read those sort of things so it's more politic to spoiler wrap them usually.

As for "(maintainers guildmaster/gamemaster)" that's just me. A ex-current guild master of the largely silent maintainers, and gamemaster of a couple non-uru game servers over the last few years.

[janaba]

I liked your soapbox, MustardJeep ... very entertaining and conveying some meaningful thoughts and ideas ...

[Annabelle]

Ok nevermind MustardJeep...

I read it 3 or 4 times already and still doesn't understand it. Anyway I never been disrespectful with Gehn Admins & TOC Admins, they can do whatever they want with their shards. I'm just wondering something...

There was a talk on GoW forum about how bad the recent (now it's an old story) changes to physics made everyone "Great Cheaters". I took defense on that subject. I was mostly alone standing on my grounds. Even Adams Hoikas seemed willing to make changes. All of the sudden, I saw the disaster on TOC shard visiting the COD. I go there very rarely since that visit, I just don't like it no more. I changed my mind: from opponent I became a proponent. It seems, I'm the only one right now!!!!

Everyone seem to like the monkey climbing! That's not even natural! Why on a cliff I have to jump to advance? Couldn't I have been able just to run up? Answer: N-O. To advance even on a 30 degrees slope you must jump, that's crazy.

Now you come with the built 1.912 on MOULa and serve us: we did it because it's more natural. We naturally kneel and break so the avatars should do the same.

Maybe some of you seem to know where we are heading. There are a lot of talks in certain groups...I don't think I have to name them...where the general consensus is: "Are we onboard of Titanic just before hitting the iceberg?"

I'm just the one that goes on the front, I take the lead, you may be not going to like that but the reality is that a lot of explorers are beginning to wonder where we are going? (...and I don't even go on the bahro stones subject )

[Deledrius]

I really don't understand what you're saying here.

I doubt anyone is happy with fixing bugs which reveal other bugs we're not allowed to fix. It's a no-win situation.

[Annabelle]

What I'm trying to explain is that in my mind the bug of being able to climb everywhere ...even if we can get to awesome places like top of Er'cana canyon in Gehn is not a good thing.

I think on that we are on the same vibe.

I just feel...talking with people around, explorers on the ground, in the ages, that they are actually liking that. I find that odd.

Now at least you confirmed to me the reason why i thought there was some kind of immobilism around this issue; you can't solve them because you are not allowed.

[Deledrius]

I just feel...talking with people around, explorers on the ground, in the ages, that they are actually liking that. I find that odd.

I can explain it:

It's something new to do in a game that is largely unchanged and static for most of the last decade.

...A game about exploration...