What needs to be done?

[RolePlaynGamer]

Wolfe, this question is mostly for you.
What needs to be done before we're releasing the long waited beta? If you write a list I could probably do SOMETHING to help you guys besides writing things here on the hive. I haven't coded anything for like ... Ages. D:

If one of you makes a list of the things we still need to do, I could just pick a random thing on that list and then work it out, and Everwood will be completed sooner.

 

[Tukki]

A short list:

• Necromancer spells
• Ranger spells
• Warrior spells (haven't info, though)

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Will they be the only classes available in the beta?

 

[Tukki]

Hopefully not, since there's no healer ^^ I will try to code as much as possible today, maybe even get the Necromancer done.

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Sounds great, remember that I can also script, so if you need some things done just tell me.
I'll rewrite some of the systems we have in the map so far and update them with new features, as there's not really anything else I can do at the moment.

 

[Tukki]

Thumbs up! I'll send you the Ranger spells as soon as possible then.

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Cool, but today I degraded my computer from Vista to XP, so I'll need to reinstall a whole lot of stuff before I can code the spells. I also need to get a bit more familiar with Zinc/cJass before I start coding them. Also, could you e-mail me the condition system so that I can check it out?

 

[Tukki]

Yep, my computer crashed today, and apparantly the freshly installed one thinks my keyboard is using the American layout. Will send you the stuff as soon as possible.

 

[Thrikodius]

I need to find a decent shape to rework into becomming ShadePyre cause I keep failing at creating the mesh on my own.

 

[Tukki]

So now that the necromancer and ranger heroes are done spell-wise as for the beta, what's next?

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

I asked Wolfe to mail you the spells, but if you have nothing to do, you could start coding some kind of NPC System. As you might've read, the npc's in Everwood aren't static, they're moving around. In the evening they'll go inside their houses, and in the day they'll be working on something.
I think a time system would be a good place to start, like a system which returns the time of day, and you could have certain event run when it gets a certain time of day. Like, in the evening, it gets dark and foggy, while in the day it's sunny, or perhaps even raining.

 

[Tukki]

Nope, complete silence from wolfe as far as I know.

Time system you say, eh Sure! Will try to make the NPC system as easy to use as possible

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Great, if it wasn't because of all the tons of homework, and some exams in December already, I could be more helpful than I am right now. Sorry that I'm not progressing very much guys, D:

 

[Tukki]

Haha =]

Only one exam left for me this year, did the last two this week

For the moment, the WorldTime system is very easy to use. It works in similar ways to "TimerUtils" and "Table", it gives you some functions to use, and does not limit itself with hardcoded parts.

There are 3 functions right now:

AddWorldTimeResponse(interface function) // fires on events: DAWN, DAY & NIGHT
AddRealTimeResponse(interface function, real timeMin, real timeMax) // fires a little more randomly than above
AddTimeResponse(interface function, real time) // fires only when gametime == "time"

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

If I wanted something to happen at, lets say, 11:37 in the morning, will it work or is it limited to 11:00, 11:30, 12:00?

Great job on the TimeSystem so far, it seems very cool and easy to use, ^^

 

[Tukki]

Yeah, depending on some "is-time-within-x-range" thing. Where X is changeable. Currently there's only support for one timeout(update frequency), 1. But that will probably change.

Added "GetGameTime", "GetGameTimeString" and "GetGameState" functions.

GetGameTime -> returns in-game day-time in a real
GetGameTimeString -> returns in-game day-time in a string formatted "hh:mm" (ex 10:33)
GetGameState -> returns "DAY,NIGHT,DAWN" values

But, it may not be so very efficient at lower timer frequencies because of multiple O(n) loops per tick.

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Perfect,

Is the real returned by GetGameTime hh.mm, ex. 18.48?

 

[Tukki]

Currently, no. But it should be easy to add the option of returning that.

Currently it is: hh.percentToNextHour (10.50 -> 1030)

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

Sounds great.

How is the NPCBehaviour going to work?

 

[Tukki]

I screwed the NPCBehaviour and replaced it with a simplified version: NPCEvent!

Right now I'm facing a major decision, whether to use dynamic triggers, or a static trigger with delayed cleaning and swapping.

In short terms dynamic triggers are MUCH easier to code, but less safe than a swapp combined with a delayed destroy.

Swapping triggers & events + delayed cleaning may be hard to code, but will generally be safer because of the delay.

Efficiency-wise the only problem with dynamic triggers are the amount of them, 1000 triggers will surely impose a lag of some degree. While the swapping-method becomes slow by much event-detection, useless trigger execution and more complex code.

As of now I'm inclined towards the swapping method. Though, it will require more code and one-time-use variables.

EDIT: Wrote a quick trigger-swapping function and I'll post some updates later this week. If it works, the NPControl is nearly finished!

 

[Tukki]

Aight, time for some double-posting!

I hope that everyone had a great new year's eve yesterday, I certainly had

Back to business; I've not coded much on this side of Christmas, but I'll try to work when I'm not writing on my essay, which is pretty darn big.

 

[Wolfe]

Just letting y'all know, I'll be away for another week. Sorry. xD

 

[RolePlaynGamer]

I'll post it, explaining why there hasn't been a news report. I'll also move the news posts to the first thread and fix the broken links.

 

[Tukki]

Nice! See you later Wolfe! =]