Minkata Update Build #264 2021.01.19

[rarified]

Shorah and Happy New Year!

This is a modest Content and Client build update. Updated 2021.01.29, see notes at bottom.

First, the noticeable Content Changes:

• Lighting Fixes in ChisoPreniv, VeeTsah and the Guild of Messengers Pub
• Add seasonal decorations in the Guild of Messengers Pub. (These can be turned on/off by the shard administrator. They usually are turned off.

Next the "under the covers" changes to the Client:

• Moved the entire build process to be hosted on Windows 10. The older build platform, Windows Server 2003 (Windows XP) was required when we used the old Visual Studio 2003.NET tool set, but now that we have completely moved to Visual Studio 2010, our automated build system can be run on Windows 10. This makes debugging the client much easier.
• Completed the change to build the client, launcher, and some tools with Visual Studio 2010.
• As a consequence of the VS2010 build changes, the client can no longer be built with VS2003.NET. (You can check out an earlier version of the client code that will compile under VS2003, but it is not likely it will work in the future, and definitely will not have features of the current client, such as the introductory movies.)
• Reorganized all prerequisite binary libraries (SDKs) from ones with an undetermined ancestry, to one that has been built by the same process with Visual Studio 2010. This makes the behavior of the client much more predictable.
• Archived the binary SDKs in the Open Uru source repositories so they are available to anyone who wishes to build a client for their own shard.

Ok, What needs to be tested?

• Visit the three updated ages listed above, and look at the lighting and shadows. For those of you who have visited Minkata since December, this update should fix the harsh lighting in Chiso, and fix subtle lighting changes in VeeTsah
• Verify there are New Years Eve decorations present in the Guild of Messengers Pub
• A expansive walk through of the whole game is needed to make sure the behavior of things (mostly physics affecting movable objects, sound effects, and video/movie images) has not changed. This is caused by changing the SDKs used when building the client, which affect all of these behaviors of the game client.
• It is possible that this client will once again run on Windows XP. That is not guaranteed, but does need at least one person with Minkata installed on their XP machine to try, and another person to make a new installation of Minkata on their Windows XP machine. Please post your results, whatever you encountered, here on this topic.

As always, please post your observations and bug reports as a reply to this forum topic. You can also post questions to the OpenUru#hood Discord server, and if the answer is short we will try to post one there as well.

Update 2021.01.26 Tuesday

After several of you noted there were no apparent New Years decorations in the Guild of Messenger's Pub, and with a nudge from Adam, I found the Holiday decorations were not being delivered to your clients with the updates when you started the client. This has been fixed.

From what I can tell, the New Year's decorations should include a New Year's message on an easel at the entrance, and decorative lights on the ceiling and tables. Doobes can add to this list if there should be more.

It was also suggested we test other Holiday decorations. I'm thinking of putting together a period of 12 hour cycles where each of the 5 currently defined decorations will be sequentially cycled through. I'll post another update when I decide when to do this.

Update 2021.01.28 Thursday

There has been another delivery for the Guild Pub from Doobes. I don't know exactly what is in it, but we were talking about adjusting some lighting in the pub. Please add the Pub back to your ages-to-test list.

Update 2021.01.29 Friday

The holiday decorations in the Messenger's Pub have been changed (season two of five). Please give it a look see.

Enjoy!
_R

[rarified]

(For tracking, from a Discord exchange with calumTraveler)

Chiso Preniv LOC file needs editing. Spurious & sequences are present. Some duplicated text in the Chat Log book.

[Korovev]

I re-checked the Heritage Docs pdf and found a few paragraphs I didn’t divide correctly.

Note that the text in my repository is missing all the picture tags, those of course should stay in the final version

[rarified]

I think I've finished adding Korovev's fixes to the Chiso book.

_R

[Mark Dev]

Running on Windows 10 20H2, Minkata 264.

Started a new avatar and played through the hand journey in first person. In the settings, the "Stay in first person" option was selected.

There were several instances of the view being switched back to third person on linking to an age.

A few times, on linking in, the view was third person but the avatar was not visible. This happened on most links to the journey cloth nearest the Bahro door in Eder Kemo. This was fixed by toggling the first/third person view until it was back to first person.

During the journey, I did not experience any non-avatar related glitches in any ages other than Kadish.

Kadish
For all three scope puzzles, the first time the scope was opened, the moving puzzle pieces were not visible. Exiting the scope then re-entering caused the moving pieces to display.

On the first scope I clicked the buttons to solve it while the moving pieces were not visible. On re-entering the scope the pieces were in the solved orientation.


In the pillar puzzle room, after setting the pillars to drop the long ladder. Climbed the long ladder. At the top, the avatar got off the ladder then teleported back to the bottom of the ladder. The avatar stayed at the top after the second climb.


Returning the Bahro Pillars
After returning the Kadish pillar to the Bahro cave, the avatar linked back to the Relto library rather than outside to watch the pillar drop.

After each pillar was returned, the view in Relto was in third person. The view did not automatically switch back to first person after the pillar animation had completed.


Rain Cleft
When climbing the ladder out of the cleft, the game took control and climbed the avatar up the ladder. At the top of the ladder the view switched to third person. The view stayed at the avatar location, switched to first person and looked to the volcano where the Bahro animation started. When the Bahro went back into the volcano, the view jumped toward the volcano then slid back to behind the avatar in third person then stayed in third person.

Great Zero Markers
Collected all of the green and red markers without issues.


D'ni Ae'gura'
No change in how the Nexus terminals work.

Did not find any issues.


Sparklies
I forgot to collect the Relto page when first in the cleft. None of the sparklies that I found during the journey registered.

I picked up the page in rain cleft then went back for the sparklies and they registered OK.

This is the first time that I ran and forgot to collect the page so I guess the game is designed to operate this way.


Journey of the Shell
Only visited Er'cana so far.

Er'cana
Had difficulty getting onto the harvester ladder. Managed to get on by approaching it from the left rather than face on.

No more problems accessing the ladder once the harvester had been moved.


Chiso Previn
Lighting looks better than prior test version where it seemed to be uniformly bright.

Did not check the books.

Ran around in the age. Did not get stuck anywhere.

Veelay
Lighting improved over previous version.

Did not check the books.

Ran around in the age. Did not get stuck anywhere.

Messengers Pub
New Years sign in foyer. I did not notice any other decorations.

There was nothing on the left imager. I took a picture and successfully loaded it up. It was still there when I returned to the age.

The table lamps on the tables in front of the imagers don't appear to cast a shadow of the table onto the floor.

Ran around in the age. Did not manage to get stuck anywhere.

[rarified]

Thank you Mark Dev for that thorough walkthrough!

I'll look in more detail this afternoon to see if any of your unexpected behaviors are related to the build.

_R

[hhhenry]

Teledahn: Toe stub leaving elevator and leaving break in pipe.

[Treehugger]

I have experienced a number of camera glitches, including the (annoyingly frequent) Eder Kemo one, but also a couple in Gahreesen. Otherwise, all good so far. I definitely prefer the shadows and the pattern from the windows in the latest Chiso Preniv, Doobes!

[rarified]

I have experienced a number of camera glitches, including the (annoyingly frequent) Eder Kemo one, but also a couple in Gahreesen. Otherwise, all good so far.

Can you describe the frequent Eder Kemo one; I'd like to try to reproduce?

_R

[Treehugger]

I get it in MOULa too. The camera gets stuck in or around the journey cloth that is up the spiral ramp. (Playing in third person.) My avvie can be anywhere in the age when suddenly the camera swoops to its favourite position and won't budge. I have to swap to first person to be able to see what I'm doing.