Back on the Wall

[Paradox]

Great job! There is something else though that always bothered me in UU. Those two maintainer Nexuses should really be moved to separate ages. In the current setup the wall makes people link within the same age. Sub age linking would be perfect for this.

The problem with moving the nexuses to different ages is that you'd need to completely reload Gahreesen between games.

I think this might be the reason that Cyan switched from separate Ages to including them in Gahreesen. There's a GarrisonNexus.age file in the scripts that Cyan released as part of open source.

[Sirius]

Great job! There is something else though that always bothered me in UU. Those two maintainer Nexuses should really be moved to separate ages. In the current setup the wall makes people link within the same age. Sub age linking would be perfect for this.

The problem with moving the nexuses to different ages is that you'd need to completely reload Gahreesen between games.

Not only that, but it's impossible to get the game state of the Wall in a separate Age. So the Imagers showing the Wall blockers in the Nexus would be totally broken.
Except if Cyan made the ptClimbingWallMsg accessible in a sub-Age.

Loading Gahreesen is a real pain, however making a public instance which would lock the doors to the outside could allow people to load only the Pages with the Wall Area.
That might be a fix.

[D'Lanor]

Once Gahreesen may have been a hog but on my current computer loading it is a breeze. My computer is not even that new, about two years old. And wouldn't ripping out the Nexuses make it smaller?

Game states in the form of SDL variables can be transferred between ages through the age vault. This works well for sub ages, which is why I suggested that kind of link. They would just have to be converted, possibly by the automatically assigned "owner" player who usually takes care of translating game messages to other players.

The imagers in the Nexuses btw did not do anything at all in UU (neither did those in the "spectator" rooms). This function did not seem to be fully implemented.

Edit: In fact in UU one had to relink anyway to get the correct wall state because there was a bug which left the physical blockers on the wall when a new game was started. Only the visible part of the blocker was reset. I wouldn't be surprised if that bug was still around unless you managed to squash it.

[Sirius]

Game states in the form of SDL variables can be transferred between ages through the age vault. This works well for sub ages, which is why I suggested that kind of link.

Unfortunately, the blockers are saved in the Python file, and the only other way to access it (the way the imagers do it) is using the ptClimbingWallMsg.
There might be a way to store them in an SDL variable. In older versions of Garrison.sdl, you had these variables:

Code: Select all

   VAR BYTE      northWall[20] # it depends, in some versions it's not 20 but 171 (171 is the number of blockers)
   VAR BYTE      southWall[20]
   VAR BYTE      southCount[1] # how many blockers did we use out of the maximum number of blockers ?
   VAR BYTE      northCount[1]
   VAR BYTE      southCountLimit[1] # the maximum number of blockers, it should always be the same as northCountLimit
   VAR BYTE      northCountLimit[1]
   VAR BYTE      nChairState[1] # defines if we are editing blockers, if we won, if we are setting the maximum number of blockers...
   VAR BYTE      sChairState[1]
   VAR BYTE      lastChangedIndexS[1] # maybe to revert the last change.
   VAR BYTE      lastChangedIndexN[1]

northWall and southWall might help. In fact, I think before they implemented the ptClimbingWallMsg, it was how they did it.
This can also make sure the state of the Wall is saved when you link back (still display the blockers even while no one is in this instance).

However, as there is no instancing offline, won't the Nexus be buggy ?

BTW, I received a PM from Christopher, and he raised a very good question: can the Wall work on MOULa ?
The Python functions used in UU are no longer in the Plasma API, however some are now in the PlasmaGame API, written in a different way (Cyan re-wrote the code for most multiplayer games, as the Heek and the Blue Spirals). We can't be sure if they work, however using SDLs might fix most of the netbroadcast issues.

Edit: In fact in UU one had to relink anyway to get the correct wall state because there was a bug which left the physical blockers on the wall when a new game was started. Only the visible part of the blocker was reset.

You are right, it seems the physics was not disabled. It should be fixed now.

If any of you remember any other bug...


And here are the fixes (with the update for the blockers). The instructions are in "install.txt". Everything should work fine.
[EDIT: removed old attachment as I had to update it. See first post of page n#8]

[kaelisebonrai]

I really don't see any /good/ reason for the nexuses to be ripped out of gahreesen... The concept that they're in a different Age is still in place as they are now... and there's no /good/ reason to have to unload an entire age... load it up another... unload that age... and load up gahreesen, in such a short space of time... just because someone who isn't thinking /might/ think they're the same physical Age. The player can't see those nexuses from gahreesen, all they really know is they've linked after completing the wall. So.. I don't see why you'd ever want to make things worse than they currently are...

[D'Lanor]

The illusion does not work because people in the maintainer Nexus are still showing up in the age players list. IMO this sucks big time. I suppose one could devise a system to remove those players from the list (although in a PM they would still show up as "From Player A in Player B's Gahreesen").

With regards to communicating SDL variables across ages, since it easy to detect when we are playing online or offline the age vault used can be either the owned age or the sub age. That is how I successfully implemented this in Adrael/DRA Office.

[diafero]

Actually I am quite surprised to hear that from you, kaelis, since you are so keen about keeping/making IC sane
I wouldn't rip it out either, but I can see why some would like us to: On the age player list, you can still see the people which, IC, are in a different age. That should not happen.

[kaelisebonrai]

I would say this a is a reasonable gameplay device and doesn't /need/ explanation, much of the problems with canon today, come from people trying to explain things that desperately do not /need/ to be explained.

The illusion still works, regardless of people being in the age players lists... its a sensible gameplay thing - after all, uru is a /game/. Some of its biggest issues with canon have been caused because things that are clearly part of the /game/... are turned into parts of canon (such as instancing)...

[D'Lanor]

Sirius, in grsnWallPython under OnNotify there seems to be a North/South mix-up for the warp points and the tubes. See "if (id == nTubeMulti.id):" and "if (id == sTubeMulti.id):". Even if those warp points are actually switched in-game I think one of the tube references may be wrong.

[Sirius]

You are indeed right, D'Lanor. The responder called is to open the tube to other players, but when I added the line I forgot to replace the "n" by a "s".
The warp points should be correct, even though the name of the variable is wrong. It seems there are a few other objects like this.

I'll update the Python file.