Era - The new beginning?
 

Good day folks...

As most of you know it, Jenn, the former manager of Era, has renounced her position as manager of Era. Since then, roughly two weeks ago, when Snakeandy7 became Manager, Era started to revive.

Since then, he hired a numberous amount of staff, all of which I'm rather satisfied to work with. I initially joined to help Era (not quite as a staff, but a helper), although when I decided to come as staff as Era, I was promoted to Assistant Manager. Personally, I'm still quite uncomfortible with the position, and this new 'power' intimidates me. Anyhow... I do feel, as Assistant Manager, that it is time that I open up a few clear notes on you all. There are several great things that either have to be redone, or reworked.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Website. The Era website isn't quite in our possession yet, and we are trying to contact the former webmaster to regain access to it. If that is impossible, I will see to get a server which would provide both Forums, and a general database of Era (showing different aspects of Era). This has been delayed long enough, and I'm anxious to see it finally working out.

The second thing is the Hit-Detection. This side is rather quite complicated because Jenn scripted the hit-detection into the NPC-Server. I could easily fix it, but I do not know the total implications this might cause. At all moment, it could easily fail, or leave some glitches opened for player exploitation.

The third thing is Businesses. This is a rather harsh job on my part. Most of the weapons don't work, and I repair the items on the spot. I'm still a little unfamiliar with Jenn/Chrisz/Former Scripters way of working. Sometimes I spend a great amount of time just searching for where they put a particular event. In all cases, Businesses are going to be opened when I can get around to it -- It's not worth asking me if you can own it, or remind me you were the former owner of it. When I come accross the particular business, I'll probably come accross your name in one of the NPCs. Elsewise, I'll mass for help/reference to it.

Fourthly, I'm trying to get Gangs back onto Era. This seems to be just as complex as Businesses (if not even more!). There are several things I want to confirm with Snakeandy7 about it.

All in All... I'm trying to get GS2 version of Era wrapped up and ready to go. This will involve an overhaulment of all the major systems. To reduce my work, I am trying to get things organized in a sophisticated manner so that I can easily add items, such as a shotgun, without having to reprogram it entirely. This is encountering more problems then I dare accept because several functions in which are used are not availible. To get around it would be pretty complicated (such as the shoot command).

At last, to conclude: Durring the weeks I've been at Era (quite new at the time), I amassed a numberous amount of things that the players want done. When I work, I reflect to this list to see what needs to be done next. I wish you have a great time at Era, and perhaps withstand some of the delays I do.



Old Era
- Clientside Shooting [ DONE ]
- Businesses [ DONE ]
- Old Gangs
- Remove Gmap
- Old Guns
- Old Quests
- HP System
- Sewers [ DONE ]

Economy
- More well rounded [ DONE ]
- Minerals Selling [ DONE ]
- Free Hats
- Reset (Aren't you tired of resets yet?)
- New Jobs
- Cheaper to own Gangs

Events
- More Events
- PK Oriented Events
- "Cool" prizes
- Night Events

Quests
- Cooperative Quests
- More Quests

New Era
- Finish Jenn's Work
- Cars
- Better Transportation
- Aussie Friendly

Other
- More Weapons
- Less Lag
- Gang Staff supervision.
- Chrisz's Censor system

- SG552 Back
- Upgrade system (houses/business/etc)
- Gang/Business supervision
- Old Health System
- Cars (Jenn Work?)
- Old Weapons
- Customizible Weapons
- Furniture SystemHrm..
- * Party System

Work Needed Done
- Rescript Era Bank
- Minerals Selling [ DONE ]

Edit: Added "DONE"

I look forward to seeing Era the way it was intended to be... actually fun. Good luck, Velox... as if you'll need it. :P

Keep up the good work. :D

Yes finally someone is going to bring back old Era. There will be a good ecncomy again. One question is the Katana coming back, if so can you lower the price lol. I love the katana. Also i think that you should bring back some old gangs. Good luck on working to bring a better Era, its about time someone did ;)

Congrats @ Asst. Manager!

Good luck to you and Era.

Rance rocks.

Geology rocks. :eek:

Good work. Remember, hard work is peachy...but don't forget delegation. Why does this seem to happen everytime with Era?

What exactly does "clientside shooting" mean?

//#CLIENTSIDE
if (actionprojectile){
setplayerprop #c, omgbbq i can hack this npc;
}

Possibly that shooting is all clientsided now or something? I would deem this impossible, but you're all better than me, so I wouldn't know.

Pure concentrated evil.

Well, even that is quite ambiguous.

Fact or Fiction:

Clientside shooting appears to cause less lag...

Fact:

I have not yet been given a definition for "clientside shooting".

Fact:

Nobody on the face of earth would know the scripting details except for Angel, Tseng, and Jenn!

Why? Because Jenn was stricter than **** Germany when it came to giving access to any scripts.

1) Velox already claimed to have completed the task. I think it is safe to assume that he knows what it was.
2) Why are you make arguments about the comparative lag if you do not even know what the term means?

1 • Other than Velox...I forgot to add his name to the "oh so priveleged" list.

2 • A mentally retarded chimp could make the same argument. Scripting knowledge isn't required to notice a difference in lag... :rolleyes:

Hit Detection. Means that the players recieve the hits, compared to otherwise, where the hit detection was serverside. ... And filing "offical complaints" ain't fun Kaimetsu!... :( No more hugs, aye? If that's your desire... *runs off saddened by the rejection of Kaimetsu*

I know. However, I will be installing a two-way hit detection. Both clientside and serverside.

Yeah, but you need to know what has actually changed, else you can't possibly attribute it to anything.

Besides all that, you place far too much faith in your perceptions.

How the heck is that a good thing? Does security mean nothing to you?

Sounds awful.

Aye... Can't get everyone pleased.

I didn't declare it good or bad.

Indeed.

=) yay Old Era is coming back =D ^.^ thx to every 1 :)

We can see you play Era...

No. Wrong.

Velox ure kool. I just dont like the Clientside thing there is now. Its too hard to not get killed. You get hit everytime, not good. =( it also sees to cause a glitch that gets you from 50 hp directly to 36

Possibly you were shot twice, instead of once. And you didn't realise.

maybe...

It was clientside with Chrisz and stuff but then there was God Mod and Ammo Editing with Artmoney so Jenn changed it to a serverside detection thing and all the whiney little PKers complained so they changed it back to clientside....Stupid PKers.....they should go play UN :)

What I don't understand is how a Tribes 2 server can handle 64 people shooting at the same time, but a GServer can't handle 30 people shooting at the same time and not handle the projectile collisions correctly. :(
My guess is that they didn't code something right (Either Stefan's or Jenn's fault, can't tell until you look at their code) or the time it takes to send packets between France and wherever the client's computer is.

Graal's networ protocol is inefficient vs Tribes2's network protocol.

Tribes2 was designed around people shooting at each other, Graal was not.

See.
Maybe, when there was serverside scripts. You acually seemed good at PKing, but now you relize with the correct PKing system. You are just like the rest. ]:
This really shows who is the best. 8]

By allowing cheating? By subjectifying the whole system so that lagging players actually have an advantage? Do not be ridiculous. You have no idea what you're talking about.

aussie friendly?

I am talking in PKing. Guy.
Come play era and see the difference.
YOU ACUALLY GET HIT
before you didnt. =/
Please play era or learn something before you talk. ]:
It makes a big difference.

Idiot of the month.

There is someone who didnt start Era till New Era released.

I don't need to; I actually understand the issue.

This whole thing isn't relative to any particular system. Serverside hit detection is fairer, even if you dislike one particular implementation.

Gahahhahahahahahahahaa!

That is the funny of the month for me. You people seriously made hit detection client side? Are you insane?

If you want to reduce lag, don't think so directly into the issue. A game is an illusion - so think deeper. Create the illusion of no lag, regardless the fact that there is always lag. By making things so critical to the gameplay clientside (hit detection) you open yourself for exploit. And if hit detection is clientside...I would imagine health control is also clientside. That is insane.

This is what you would do if you're intelligent. You would make hit detection purely serverside. You would implement some clientside systems to give the illusion of no lag. For instance, a clientside hit detection check for the sole purpose to respond faster then the server, like a client variable which adjusts the images for health. It wouldn't actually change the real health, it would just be an illusion. Or, when the client detects a hit and the server detects a miss, you could implement something that says "dodge" or something of that nature to give it a less buggy feel and make everything appear as though it is meant to be. These are just off the top of my head - the point is making hit detection clientside is madness and it should be changed immediatly.

Summing all of that in three words.

Use clientside prediction.

How come you didn't use that on Shifting Ages? dawg that was laggier than Era.

WTF IS AUSSIE FRIENDLY?

heh...

In other words, we didn't have any ETs/GPs/FAQs during there time period. We now do =].

The reason for the temporary clientside hit detection was that there is a bug right now that optimizes npcs so that they are not visible to serverside. That often removes 90% of the npcs so that the scripts and the npcserver in general runs much faster. The problem with that is that the npcs are not blocking anymore, and projectiles on serverside are flying through them, while they are blocked on clientside. So you might be hurt without seeing any projectile. That problem can be quite annoying if projectiles fly long ways, you can reduce the range by changing the shoot-parameters though. It is planned that the problem with those non-blocking npcs will be fixed soon.