1 Topic by James

  • James
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  • Registered: June 15th, 2003
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Topic: New client

A long while back, I updated Faldon fairly often. One of the main things that caused me to lose steam on it isn't well known to people: Microsoft released VB.NET. As I was a bit of a beginner when I first coded the game, the server was written in Visual Basic 6. VB.NET wasn't meaningfully compatible, so it would have necessitated almost completely rewriting the server. A hopeless option. There's a TON of code. So the server was orphaned in a programming language I can't even buy any more, except possibly questionable copies on eBay...

But lately I got to thinking, the code I do these days for my daily bread is much harder than this. Why not give it a go, focusing on only the important parts, and see how far I could get? So, it's been approximately a month and a half now, allocating usually 2-3 hours before dawn to it, and here's where it's at.

I've got a rewritten, new server that is pretty far along. Scripting mostly works, the monster AI is incomplete, but it's much cleaner code. Anyway, that took about a month. It's not done. I'm going to get back to it. But...

The past two weeks, I've been working on digging out the new client, seeing where it stands. I've put 'good enough' interfaces in where it was incomplete. I'm not sure the backup I started with was the newest, but whatever. It's not half bad.


Known bugs:

- There's inconsistent choppiness. The new client appears to be trying to save RAM, but people have a lot of RAM these days -- heck, they could fit the whole game into RAM -- so there's no reason to free RAM and reload the pictures a few minutes later. Will probably fix this in the coming week or two.

- Lighting isn't implemented. This'll be a fun one, probably do it in the coming week.

- Full screen mode has issues with multimonitor, i.e. it doesn't work. This appears to be a SDL issue, need to look into it. If you're in windowed mode you're good.

- Wu found that taking a screenshot crashes him. It doesn't crash me. Don't know why yet.

- It uses OpenGL right now, but it needs to use ANGLE to be compatible with computers that don't have OpenGL drivers installed.

- No music. I'll get to it tongue


Let me know what bugs you run into with it! Once this new client is solid, I'm going to get back to coding the Playground server (you'll see it in the listing, but it won't be online for a while.)

Enjoy,

James

James's Website

2 Reply by Zur

  • Zur
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Re: New client

It crashes from Screenshots because the patcher doesn't create the Sshots folder, so the client is trying to save them to a non-existent directory (from what I can gather in testing).

*This was after patching from only the new-game.exe with everything else deleted to clean up that horrid previous install directory. I realize now that isnt typical for the current installation method.
So keep in mind that all of these bugs are without any of the original files... only with whatever the new patcher serves.

That little tidbit may also be the reasoning as to why opening the minimap crashes the client  (no minimaps exist).

I see that maps are served live from the server in segments. Well if you delete a map file, the server won't repatch the area which was deleted, without first deleting the versioning xml file... but it seems in that case, it doesn't remake the map file, only rrpatches the previously deleted area. Seems.. unusual? But this was without visiting any new areas between testing.

These little bugs seem like they may be fixable by adding more of the required files to the patch process at each login/when patching everything with the new client patcher(installation), instead of relying entirely on someone having the full install of the old client (because people like me exist).

Last edited by Zur (July 25th, 2020 7:50 AM)

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.

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3 Reply by Catbert

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Re: New client

Looks good. Nice to see some official Faldon development! Looking forward to playing or possibly contributing if I can

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4 Reply by Ziegen

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Re: New client

Welcome back. paying players will appreciate the time and efforts you plan putting forward in the future. i logged in myself. i love it. lots and lots of work to be done but its something that should be done. you created a monster we cant get away from tongue faldon deserves a face lift and the loyal players deserve it to. Welcome back James

Mod Z

5 Reply by Rastlin

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Re: New client

cokebert just wants to steal the new server too. lol.

FP OWNS ALL!

6 Reply by pennywise

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Re: New client

Good to see you back!  Can't wait to see the new client!  Best of luck!

*Edit* Notes:

I bought a C and it doesn't seem to be working  smile

Bugs:

If you tab out of the Faldon window and then focus the window again, you can not longer type.  This is fixed by minimizing Faldon and restoring it.

You cannot remove the new player candle(or know it's there) without equipping a shield.  This kicks back an unknown error {} when you try to use a two handed weapon.

Suggestions:

Can you have Esc key close the top-most menu window?  For example If I open up inventory and stats, it would be great if Esc closed Stats then second press closed inventory.  In the event that there is no open menus, Esc would toggle the Options menu.

Monster drops are a little weird and the corpses compete for my mouse pointer focus and it's a little tedius to pick things up sometimes.  Maybe a few extra pixels of leeway on item focus?

Can holding right click PLEASE just repeat the skill use?  It's so tedious.  Also, when you drive players to simple automation tools to auto right click or something, you kinda encourage them to take the next step into full-fledged cheating.


New client runs so great!  Been waiting 15 years to try this one!  Thanks!
Also, I can still do some music if you need any  cool  cool

Last edited by pennywise (July 29th, 2020 12:52 PM)

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7 Reply by jaytrust

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Re: New client

Thank you Zer!  This was the first mmo I ever played like 20yrs ago.  Thank you for that, I remember talking to you once, character name was Westclox but either way super excited to see this post.. funny I just checked this today and see you are updating it.  Can’t wait to check it out.


Also if the game is so small can you make a Mobil port so that you can play on phone or pc?

Last edited by jaytrust (July 30th, 2020 9:12 PM)

8 Reply by Mumblee

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Re: New client

Well this was a pleasant surprise. Thanks for update and history, Zer. I'm curious what sort of thing you're doing in your day-to-day that is more complex than game dev? I do enterprise software as a job, and I tinker with games and other stuff as a hobby, and any game work is orders of magnitude more complicated than any of the stuff I do for work.

9 Reply by Master Wu

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Re: New client

https://media.tenor.com/images/b89d868c525155a77d08fdbd580f75fb/raw
If Zer is back, you can expect old man Wu to be in the side car.

https://wujournal.weebly.com/

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10 Reply by pennywise

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Re: New client

Master Wu wrote:

https://media.tenor.com/images/b89d868c525155a77d08fdbd580f75fb/raw
If Zer is back, you can expect old man Wu to be in the side car.

Love the new rendering of the website graphic in Blender!  Lighting and shadow really make a difference.  Can't wait to see some of that isometric work!

Pennywise - 7 Seconds - Fugazi - Husker Du

11 Reply by Catbert

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Re: New client

Hey Zer, it's Cat. I hope you project goes well man. The community is really excited for all of this, most of all me.

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12 Reply by Kr0nic

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Re: New client

Catbert wrote:

Hey Zer, it's Cat. I hope you project goes well man. The community is really excited for all of this, most of all me.

99% sure this is like the 5th or 6th time I can recall him coming back to work on the server, all he's done this time is upload a few things he worked on like 6 years ago or so that he didn't bother doing then when he was around for a month. DONT HOLD YOUR BREATH LADIES!

Best Player Alive.