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Topics - DaveG

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31
Wish list / Additions to Advisor Mode
« on: July 09, 2005, 08:34:07 pm »
Ok, after answering a couple hundred questions in-game, I have a few ideas on how to make the system better.  (If anyone finds another thread on any of these topics, feel free to post the link here.)

Help players:

1)  In-game FAQ:  There are a handful of super-common questions that are constantly asked.  (ex: how do I train)  Yes, you can always say RTFM, but it would be nice to have an advisor/GM maintained FAQ in the game, for easy access.  (A mimimum of 100 or so advisor points could be required to edit this, to prevent problems.)

2)  Newbie message:  (mentioned in other posts; just thought I should re-state it here)  A simple message to new players with basic instructions, and directions to the sewers.

3)  An \"all advisors are busy\" message:  Sometimes there are just too many questions at once for the number of advisors that are active.  Some people start complaining into the help channel, and cluttering things up.  If advisors are posting help to others, an auto-reply to waiting players would be nice.

4)  \"/list_GMs\" command:  GMs are not as accessible as one would like sometimes.  Sure, you can sift through the \"/who\" list, but not all GMs are in the Game Masters guild.

5)  If you have 0 advisor points, don\'t bother to show them:  This is nit-picking, but if you\'re not an advisor you don\'t care that you have 0 points.

6)  \"/advisor /pos\" command ability:  New players get lost on occasion and have no way to communicate their location to ask for directions.  The ability to send your position to anyone (not just the help channel) would be useful.  Though, the abstract coordinates wouldn\'t be as informative as something like \"bottom of the Death Realm\".

7)  Non-functional things should not be accessible:  Granted, this is partially off-topic and has been mentioned many times, but it is the source of half of the questions on the help channel.  If a skill doesn\'t work yet, you should not be able to purchase training for it.

Help advisors:

1)  \"You advise (name)\":  All other forms of communication are of the form \" (your name) something (target name)\".  When I\'m one person answering questions from 4 people, while being talked to by yet more people, it would be nice to see what I said to who in the help channel.  This seems like a simple oversight.

2)  Just type in the tab:  Typing \"/advise whomever\" first gets cumbersome.  Simply typing in the help tab should send the message to the last advised person.  Additionally, a command like \"/advise %\" could have the same effect.

3)  \"/list_advisors\" command:  It would be nice to be able to quickly look up the available advisors, to know if I\'m by myself or not.  (If you want to keep up the anonimity of the advisors, you could make a minimum requirement of 10 points or so to use it.)

4)  Long advice sessions give more points:  Granted, the points are mildly useless, but answering multiple questions from the same person over a few minutes should give additional points.

Problems with the system:

1)  The advising system tends to time-out weirdly:  On many occasions I have gotten a late reply from a player, and then a time-out immediately following.  As a result, I couldn\'t answer their new question.  This is very annoying, and forces me to resort to tells.

2)  Advising system messages should be in the help tab:  The \"tapping foot\" and the like messages should be sent to the help tab, as opposed to getting lost in the system tab.

3)  Stop the chat tab bleed-through:  I don\'t know if this is a bug, or it was intentional, but often reminders of previous messages are sent to the normal says tab.  (usually just the \"thanks\" reply after their question has already been answered)  I don\'t see why these messages should be here.  If you were in the all tab this doesn\'t help, and if you were in the says tab you should be able to notice the blinking help tab.

4)  Display advisor points as an integer:  Partial advisor points don\'t exist, so why is it displayed with 2 decimal places in the stats window?

32
PlaneShift Mods / My Simplified Info Window
« on: June 30, 2005, 07:52:59 pm »
almogaver posted a custom info window in another thread, and that inspired me to make my own.  I think it came out pretty good.  Though, I wish I knew how to shrink the stance buttons.  Here\'s a screenshot of it:



I removed all the labels, because they just take up space and it looks better without them.

Any comments and/or suggestions are welcome.

33
Technical Help: IN GAME bugs (after loading world) / Trading...
« on: June 09, 2005, 05:03:00 pm »
It should be noted that canceling a trade can banish all items offered into oblivion.  This is generally considered a bad thing.   X(

34
Wish list / /guild /me messages
« on: June 08, 2005, 02:07:42 am »
In the last big update, \"/tell whomever /me stuff\" was implemented.  This is a very welcome feature, and I would like to see it for all the chat modes.  (shout, tell, guild, group, even advisor)

/shout /me falls down with a loud thud

35
Wish list / Carkarass
« on: June 07, 2005, 02:39:03 pm »
Well, we\'ve got this carkarass in the Death Realm, but it\'s just another monster.  Since this is the underworld and all, I think he should have \"mirrored\" stats.  The stats of the person it\'s attacking determine the apparent stats for the carkarass.  Thus, it would require all who wish to be resurrected to put some effort in.   :P  And, it\'s not like dying against it would be a big deal...

36
Wish list / Reduce HUD clutter
« on: June 03, 2005, 05:05:22 pm »
1)  The HP/Mana/Stamina/etc. window is just too big, and sucks up to much of the on-screen space.  My suggestion is to get rid of the target HP bar, and simply show a small health bar under the name of characters.  The range needed for the bar to appear should be rather close.  (you have to be close enough to \"sense\" the status)

2)  The FPS, time, and other little bits of info should be moved somewhere else.  Sure, you can move the window so they\'re off-screen, but this is just a hack.

3)  The chat window can easily be flooded with battle data, and actual chat messages often get lost in the clutter.  I turn off most of the combat feedback, but even the damage reports are enough to clog things up.  Using the tabs to avoid this gets annoying, because you can only see one of the chat types at once.  (ie. say, tell, guild, group)  Simple solution:  Show damage done as a number that briefly hovers over the hit area of the target.  (lots of RPG\'s do this)  Again, you should have to be within attack range to see this.  (yours or another player\'s)

4)  Item/magic toolbelt.  It would be nice to have a \"toolbelt\" that we could drop items/spells into that would sit under the stances icons.  It would act like the shortcut window does now, but more compact and nicer looking.  (Also prevent you from having to root through your inventory screen to eat some food or use a potion.)

5)  Get rid of the \"started attacking\" messages.  I see no point to these, frankly.  If my stance on-screen changes, I\'m attacking.  I don\'t really need a written record of it.

6)  Allow the main toolbar to fade.  I think this should have the same transparency options as everything else.  You can hide it right now with a click, but an automatic fade away would be nice.


Most of these are fairly simple additions.  Anyone have any other ideas?

37
Wish list / Pick up command
« on: June 03, 2005, 04:35:32 pm »
There really should be a text-based command to pick up a targeted item.  (If there already is, it\'s not in the help, and I can\'t figure out what it is.)  It would be nice to be able to map it to a shortcut button.

38
Forum and Website Discussions / BBCode list in FAQ
« on: June 02, 2005, 01:20:05 am »
It would be a nice thing for forum newbies to have a list of available BBCodes in the FAQ.  Not everyone seems to find the BBCode toolbar, and not all of them are on there anyway.  (\"code\" for example)

Additionally, an answer to \"How do I quote another post?\" would be nice.  (the \"quote\" button seems to be invisible...)

39
Wish list / Hiking/Climbing Equipment
« on: May 26, 2005, 04:29:55 pm »
Now that I\'ve fallen off a cliff to my death... again... I have a few ideas:

1)  Hiking Boots - Same as leather boots, but with added traction.  They could allow the player to climb up/down steeper terrain than before, and slow slipping on very steep terrain.  (giving time to jump back to safe ground)  Cost should be only moderately greater than the regular boots.

2)  Rope - One could tie a length of rope to a tree or boulder and use it to repel off a cliff.  Or, you could tie party members together as a safety measure.  Cost should not be cheap.  (good rope was valuable before modern times)

3)  Climbing Harness and Grappling Hook -  This could be equipped to the belt slot, and would give the player the ability to get up to rather out-of-the-way places.  Obviously, this would require its own skill, and should be quite hard to learn.

4)  Trail Mix - Cheap snack food that once eaten temporarily lowers fatigue caused by jogging.  Would allow long trips with fewer stops.

5)  Faster Walking/Running-  Ok, not actually equipment, but needed.  Characters walk and run unrealistically slow.  Granted, we don\'t want people zipping all over the place, but you should be able to walk around at a much faster pace.  (the monsters are too slow too...)  Theoretically you can improve your stats to fix this, but I don\'t think you should start out so pathetically slow.  Additionally, it would be nice to be able to sprint quickly away from enemies.  Running should be a much faster.  (and use up more stamina)  


A few of the things above could be done rather easily (like the boots), but others require the implementation of the climbing skill.  The grappling hook would also be a tad problematic with the current frequency of getting stuck in walls...

40
I\'ve stumbled upon something interesting.  The \"Third Person Follow\" camera view allows you to zoom in or out with shift-click (default).  It doesn\'t seem to have any sort of limit...



Here are a few good shots:
Hydlaa
Birds-eye view of Hydlaa
Birds-eye view of East Hydlaa

By turning off the camera\'s collision detection, you can even get good looks inside/underground.  A limit should simply be put on this feature to prevent cheating.  (It does allow for some pretty pictures, though.  :) )

41
Technical Help: IN GAME bugs (after loading world) / Immortal Tefu!
« on: May 21, 2005, 08:44:45 am »
I was at the field of tefu\'s, and seemingly randomly, one became temporarily immortal!  I would hit it, it would lose about 1/2 its health, then very rapidly regenerate back to full.  I ran away until it reached its invisible territory barrier, then after it jumped around a bit (wow, lots of path finding glitches), I managed to confront it again and kill it.  Weird...

Has this happened to anyone else?

42
Technical Help: IN GAME bugs (after loading world) / Trees...
« on: May 21, 2005, 06:11:45 am »
I\'m sure someone has mentioned this before, but what\'s up with the trees?  There\'s this weird area around them that makes objects seen through it invisible.  (aka, stand behind the leaves of a tree and become transparent)

I do hope this is high up on the list of bugs to fix...

43
General Discussion / Shrooms!
« on: May 19, 2005, 11:11:34 pm »
For the first day after the update, there were patches of mushrooms all over the place inside and just outside of the forest.  I guess the devs thought there were too many, because now there\'s only one at each of those spots now.  There\'s one patch left, but I\'m not gonna tell you where...  

I think this is a good time to start making use of the herbalist skill.  I hope we see a potion-making ability soon.  Until then, they\'re a great source of free health.

EDIT:
Nevermind about the disapearing shrooms.  They\'re still there, it\'s just that they looked like they disapeared from my view.  If you have an overhead-ish view, it seems to make them disapear through the trees nearby.  That, and they take a bit to re-spawn after picked.

44
All my fighting stance buttons go to \"Normal\", now.  Is this happening to everyone, or just me?

45
I went to the new area in town, and aside from flickering near the shadows it worked just fine.  However, upon reaching the gateway out, it jammed.  I wasn\'t even given a memory dump option.

BTW,
Should I post this on buggtracker, or is here fine for now?

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