A Land Far Away

Was working on the module last night and thought i'd share with you exactly the sort of thing that is holding us up from live. Its a story as it happened to me, which i hope relates exactly whats going on:

So while giving a "sneak peek" to FI on tues i had noticed part of the walkmesh for the entrance to the Hilltop Ruins (in the HC inn) was fubared preventing entrance nicely. No problem, quick re-bake of the area and problem solved.

I go to check it. Sure enough, it has worked and now i can AT through the secret door. Moments after arriving in the new area though, the whole module locks up. The client still runs (sorta), but its clearly dead. This dungeon has worked since 1.00, so this is odd behavior.

Thinking it a fluke, i relog and try again. No go, still fubared. Figuring that in a previous crash it messed up the area, i go back to 1.02 and try to export. The export command throws errors. So does every other version of the module. How can this be as it did indeed used to work (i played through the dungeon many times)?

I go to bed disheartened, thinking i've lost one of my precious dungeons.

This morning it dawns on me that it wasn't the module that had changed, but the haks! I had to redownload the ALFA haks so i could be current (even though i don't use the content). Somehow these must have broken something in the modules, as the modules themselves hadn't changed.

I fire up the toolset and decide to look more specifically at the errors from the erf export function. There's a lot of "String to int" garbage in the message i ignore, but at the very end it mentions "environment objects". I crack open the area and go through every one of the 100 some environment objects inspecting each one. A few i find don't seem to have models visually, so i delete them.

I save the area, the module, and most importantly, cross my fingers and pray to the Spaghetti Monster. I hit export and.... nothing! Success, it has successfully exported. The area is fixed, and the dungeon saved.

Anyway, hope this gives you some idea of what i'm working on. Its just a lot of little BS that i have to iron out on my own.

zicada wrote:Also, theres the issue of getting a working portalling system ready. What is the status on that ?

Kalandorm wrote:Updates are good. Those playing actively on Silver Marches are getting ansy for some new places to see. We're all looking forward to it.