Perpetr8r the Perpetu8r's site

Graphics Distortion

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 06:41:13 +0000

Problem description:
Hi guys... another question about DM's capabilities here. Is it possible to create distortion effects over the top of the client's map?

I'm thinking like a ripple effect or a swirl that makes the map tiles look all weird without actually editing their icons (or how they look to anyone else).

I guess an example would be like in Amnesia, how the screen starts to crawl if you get scared enough. That kind of overlay effect.

Separating stat panel and verb panels

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:10:31 +0000

Problem description:

Hi guys, another quick question... is it possible to separate the verb panels and the stat panels using the interface? I see all these handy things like "tabs", but none seem to be able to host the stat panel other than the info box, and I've heard that there's only one info box allowed at a time.

Any ideas/work-arounds/etc?

.alt not possible for macros anymore?

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:42:03 +0000

Code:

client/script = {"

// Various css settings

macro
    space return "Interact"
    Return return "Say"
    R return "Interact"

"}

Problem description:
I've searched and searched the forums now, but the most relevant posts to my issue seem to be from 2004, and no longer applicable.

In my macros, I've got some code to run a macro with an alphabet key, as you can see. The space and enter key macros work but the alpha key simply adds to the input text box. I tried setting the command_text of the client to ".alt " but this had no effect. I tried removing the input box entirely, and it still had no effect.

So... how do I get my R key macro to activate when I press R? I'm hoping I don't have to use the interface-based macro options, because then it's tied to the interface rather than my code, and that makes me sad.

Crazy things with sounds

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:45:13 +0000

Recently I've been looking at all the fancy sound features BYOND provides, but I've been a little confused - it seems there's no way to know whether a sound is still playing for a user or not. This little thing interferes with all of my grand plans, so I was wondering if it WAS somehow possible, otherwise I'll just have to settle for something else.

Thanks in advance!

"BYOND stole my posting button!" and other random news

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:36:42 +0000

Minor language warning since BYOND seems to suddenly care about the content of blog posts...

So today it took me about 14 minutes of searching to find the thing that lets me post blogs on my member page. Why? Because, for convenience sake (yes I did note the irony of that), it's been moved into that little bar thing up the top, and as I never read the news posts that tell us about this stuff, I was utterly baffled by the button's sudden disappearance from my page!

All's well though, I eventually found it after searching the forums for help. lol.

Speaking of LoL, (clever segue, I know :P), I just played an epic match of that today. If you have no idea what League of Legends is, skip the next paragraph (or seventeen) for more relevant info. Anyway, I've been playing as Amumu, with all my masteries set on defense. I'm level 22, so I only have one mastery tree basically. Anyway, I'd been doing decently with that setup, but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe switching to offense would help, as Amumu's main feature is his AoE damage and ability to annoy everyone around him.

So I switched to 21/1/0 for a laugh, and got put in a terribly balanced team with a Cho'gath, a Nunu, a Jax and an Ashe (terrible combination for the obvious reason of 3 tanks). I was like "Meh, whatever, I'm testing this anyway..." so I rolled with it. Who did we get put against? An all-star team of freaking Yi, Jax, Tristana, Blitzcrank and Ezreal. Seemed pretty darn well-balanced to me, so I figured we'd lost right off the bat. At the same time, I, feeling crazy, was like "WOO LET'S DO THIS YOU'RE ALL GOING DOWN!"

I guess fanta makes me go insane for a while or something.

Aaaanyway, Nunu was like "Hay all who can handle a lane vs 2 guyz?" because he wanted to jungle, and I replied "Eh, depends on the opponents." Apparently, he took that as a "I can! Pick me to abandon to the mercy of two enemy champions!" and so he went off to jungle and left me laning solo. "Well," thought I, "I hope I at least don't get put against ranged people!"

If you guessed that I got put against ranged people, then no you don't get a treat, because it was freaking obvious. You can have a pat on the back though. ANYWAY, it was worse than just ranged charcters: I was up against Tristana and Blitzcrank. In other words, the "I grab you, you bend over and take my painful explosive shot" combo. Seeing this, I quickly requested backup, suggesting that maybe Cho'gath could handle soloing, immediately after which he died to a level 1 gank, even with Jax supporting him. So much for that idea.

Nunu stonily ignored me as the first creep wave approached and I braced myself for the inevitable face rape that would occur. Knowing that I needed to get that exp, I had to cautiously head out and stand behind our team's minions, making sure Blitz couldn't grab me while still being in range of the exp from the kills but NOT in range of Tristana. It was a tricky dance, but today I was Michael freaking Flatley, and I even managed to harass the two a little with tantrum every now and then while hopping around like a tiny toilet-paper leprichaun.

Of course, such things can't last, and eventually I was grabbed by the hand of doom and prepared for the worst. Only my worst was apparently a tantrum to Blitz' face, and then a quick hop back to the tower with a tiny wound from explosive shot (which healed due to my items). What do you know, he got as much damage as I did! Suddenly, I was very appreciative of my new offensive build. Still, the danger was far from over. At about level 5, I was grabbed once more, and this time subjected to all manner of nasty pain-inducing special moves. Sure, I dealt out as much as I could, but with 2 vs 1 my health was falling fast and I had to make a mad dash back to the cover of the tower... and only just barely succeeded. Fortunately, they were both low enough hp not to want to follow me, so I warped home and ran back out to my tower.

Meanwhile my team was doing amazingly. And by amazingly, I mean totally shit. I think we were sitting on about 5-0 in terms of team deaths, and everyone except Nunu seemed determined to die as many times as they possibly could within the first 15 minutes of the match. Nunu, meanwhile, was ignoring EVERYONE in favor of jungling, not even trying to assist people he was a stone's throw away from. Yeah, you can tell our team was built on strong bonds of friendship and intelligence, can't you?

What's a tiny green mummy to do? Well apparently, if you're me, you decide to take a calculated risk. Or actually, you decide that since you just got grabbed by Blitz again and you're the only one at level 6, you might as well crank out the hurt! Now as you can imagine, being grabbed by Blitzcrank is a bad start to any combat situation. Nevertheless, neither him, nor the nearby Tristana, were quite prepared for the Curse of the Sad Mummy (my ult), which I dropped in their faces as soon as Amumu's feet touched the ground. Naturally, I'd had Amumu bawling his eyes out before he was even grabbed, so the damage was stacking up. Their hp took a sharp downwards turn, and they frantically tried to pump me full of Blitz's metal fists and whatever the hell it is Tristana shoots out of that cannon. It hurt, but not as much as my tantrum to their immobolized, close-range faces. With tears in full swing, plus tantrum, plus Blitz getting the headbutt of destiny, it was only a short moment before he was down for the count, and Tristana was running like heck to avoid the same fate. I ALMOST got her too, but she had a head start after seeing Blitz topple into scrap metal, and Amumu just couldn't keep up.

More importantly, the score was now Team Tristcrank 0, Amumu 1! I was like "DAMN STRAIGHT BITCHES! AMUMU OWNS Y'ALL!"... which I said over team chat because I really didn't feel like talking shit to a team that was owning everyone BUT me, and possibly looking to add me to their pile. Still, it was an amazing rush, and it felt like all the pieces of the Amumu puzzle had finally come together - with this much power, Amumu could finally kill people!

But of course, this was only the beginning. Still feeling the rush of my first kill, I returned to base for some item buying and returned just in time meet mid-lane with Tristana. Blitz apparently decided I was too much for him and went off to try and gank my teammates, leaving me in a delicious 1 v 1 scenario. Now before I might have been unsure of Amumu's ability to win a battle on his own, but not anymore. Tristana knew it too, and stayed the heck back, except for to try and harass me which would heal almost immediately anyway.

In any case, she got a little too close and I unleashed the Amumu combo on her (tears, bandage, tantrum), forcing her to run away yet again with low health. I was just above half health, and about to retreat when lo and behold, Jax rocks up to take her place. And look at that, he thinks he can take the 'mumu! Yes, the silly, silly Jax leapt out at me, so I simply turned on the tears, fired off a tantrum, and watched him rethink his strategy. Oh but was I going to let him run off with that insult? "No, no!", insisted Amumu with his Curse of the Sad Mummy, "Please, stay a while and let me cry in your face! What's that? You're trying to escape? I'm afraid- BANDAGE TOSS!"

Following that was another satisfying message related to me slaying an enemy, and as a bonus,I got Jax's lizard buff! But the best part was yet to come. Tristana, still low health and seeing mine lowered by Jax, ran in and attempted to finish me off. I turned and stumbled away, but it quickly became obvious that I would never escape her. So naturally, I bandage tossed back into her face and dumped a tantrum, reducing her health to the same level as mine. At that point, she realizes she's screwed since I still have the tears going, and she starts to run. I give chase and a split second before I can finish her, our Ashe's massively oversized ult rips through the air and smashes Tristana into a megling paste on the ground. Friggin' K.S.er...

Still, I was now sitting on 2/0/1, and was most definitely getting stronger by the moment. Sadly, the rest of my team seemed to be quite retarded and was still getting ganked all the damn time, meaning we were STILL behind in kills, though occasionally we'd get a few of our own to try and close the gap. Anyway, fast forwarding a bit, I had 4 kills (and the abject fear and respect of the entire other team) before my spree was ended by a 4 person gank. That's right, it took 4 of them to take me down, and it was a lucky meeting for them too. UNfortunately for them, Amumu only got stronger as the game went on, piling on sunfire capes and thornmail until even fighting me was a recipe for instant death.

I literally could take their Yi 1 vs 1 (I did so at one point until he ran away), beat Jax into submission, make Ezreal waste all his mana flashing away and trying to kite around my bandages, and of course show Blitz that grabbing me was the worst idea he'd ever have. Regardless of my own victories, I'd also like to admit that despite our team being full of morons who literally fed the enemies for fun, our Jax was pretty darn good, and he got more kills than anyone else. Basically, while I was ruining every group fight ever for the other team, Jax was a nightmare for their lanes, popping out and slaughtering everyone when they let their guard down. Between the two of us, we literally carried our team to victory, since the others were content with feeding (Cho'gath) or jungling (yes, Nunu was STILL at it). Ashe was ok, but compared to Jax and I she didn't really stand out. Plus she fed a fair bit too.

One of my favourite group battles was when 4 of them dropped out of nowhere to gank me, only to find that my thornmail, ult and Amumu combo resulted in at least 1 death, along with everyone else at low enough health that when the rest of my team arrived, the enemy team were screwed. I DID die that time, but I did enough damage to ensure that our team would win easily, and go on to push a few towers. Over the course of the game we literally came back from being 6 or so kills under them to wiping the floor with these guys. Of course, there were other group battles that involved me not dying at all and slaughtering people everywhere, but I liked the futility of them killing me the best. Yes, I'm a cruel, heartless person.

But seriously, I ROCKED as Amumu that game. By the end of it, I was just ridiculous. People could fight me, but they would lose and lose hard. I was mostly just running from person to person in group fights, beating them down then bandage tossing to the next until one survivor would manage to crawl away from me into the safety of a tower, or they were all dead. Occasionally I would die, but whoever was dumb enough to deal that much damage to me guaranteed their own death due to thornmail and my wailing maelstrom of damage - if it didn't kill them right away, my teammates would tear them apart moments later. My final game score was 9 kills, 4 deaths, and 12 assists, with 1 turret destroyed and a swath of terror and destruction in my wake. And you'd best believe that every single one of those assists was an enemy champion at least half beaten down by my insane DoT combos, most of the time nearly completely so.

Oh, the icing on the cake was discovering that Tristana was level 30, Yi was level 26, and the others were level 24 (Jax), 22 (Ezreal) and 20 (Blitz). All of them were fully decked out in their best runes (compared to my haphazard combo) and masteries, yet I (and when they felt like it, the rest of my team) managed to turn that game around in a big way.

Anyway, the moral of the story is HECK YES I'll be playing with those offensive masteries again! With all the bonus damage I do now, it's more than enough to let me participate in low level ganks, and also to make me one of the deadliest things in a team fight mid to late game. I really feel like it makes Amumu cross the line from decent to good, and puts him in a position to compete with other highly played "top tier" characters. Naturally though, the other team could have played much better, so I can't let it go to my head. Nevertheless, this is an excellent first game for these masteries, and I expect great things in the future!

In other news, if you don't know what LoL is but really want to play it now, then click this link and you can play for free! Plus, then I count as a referrer and get a spiffy, useless forum badge. Come on, you don't want to deprive me of a useless badge now do you? *puppy dog eyes*

And um... a million paragraphs later I am adding a tiny footnote about PRPR. It's taking forever, but yes it still is in progress. Right now I'm working on the radio tower (not that anyone really cares), and will continue to add things when I get the time. I guess this game will be finished when it's finished, and not when I want it to be XD

...and that's it! My whole blog is huge again and probably filled with typos, but since it's 2:30AM I'm going to sleep instead and come back later to fix this if need be. Thanks for reading!

Determining whether or not a var is tmp

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:23:15 +0000

In this case, I'm not referring to looking at the code and checking which variables are temporary, I mean at runtime.

Are there any checks/procs which will determine if a var is a tmp var or not? I was rather frustrated to discover that my new awesome save system was suddenly saving variables that it was not supposed to save and I'd rather not have to rewrite the whole thing if there's a simple way to figure out which var is which.

Mitadake High Review

Tue, 05 May 2009 08:37:40 +0000

Mitadake High is one of those games that sounds great on paper, but fails utterly in execution. Not only does the RP mix with the game's execution like oil mixes with water, but the players themselves are often not willing to contribute, causing the game to suffer from what I call "Space Station 13 Syndrome" and break down into a mess of random killing and insult fights.

So why does this happen? Well simply put, MH carries within it the seeds of its own downfall. The game's creator spent a lot of time making a game where there were many opportunities to RP, and many different scenarios could be formed that would provide enjoyable gameplay to all. He also, unfortunately, undid all of his hard work by creating a bunch of pointless, game-breaking weapons and hiding them in specific locations that you could only find if you knew where they were OOC-ly. This in itself is an open invitation to all would-be griefers (see SS13), and more or less provides the groundwork for a disappointing RP experience to come.

"Space Station 13" syndrome (named after the game where this type of behavior runs rampant), is what usually happens very quickly after the game starts. Instead of bothering to play properly, experienced players with a chip on their shoulder (read: noobs) will go off, seek out all the best items on the map, arm themselves to the teeth with said weapons, and then roam the hallways in gangs or alone, bashing everyone they meet to death. It's affectionately termed "Random Killing" in the world of MH, and understandably, upsets most of the good RPers. What's worse is that due to the miraculous inability of most hosts to actually do their job and ban these people, it creates an artifical power hierarchy, where the killers become idolized for their power and others will flock to their side so as to prevent being killed over and over again. Without a stong system of authority, these players will rule with an iron fist, killing and sparing whoever they please with nobody to stop them. In an ironic twist, it's exactly how MH was meant to be played, minus the complete lack of roleplay.

Now, I could go on for pages about the hosts not doing their jobs, but this is a review about the game, not about the morons who play it. Game-breaking weapon exploitation aside, there are other areas where MH lets itself down into an even greater spiral of incompetence.

First and foremost of these is that the game essentially sets itself up to be a random brawler rather than an RP. Yes, it's a survival game, but when half the students in the school apparently keep knives in their desks and it's a common occurrence to find meat cleavers and syringes in the bins, you know that death and stabbing is just around the corner. It's also important to note that there are only a few items NOT related to combat, and these items are largely useless (such as the flashlight or the ketchup bottle).

Secondly, the game doesn't clearly define the limits of people's knowledge with regards to the RP, and some take this as an excuse to more or less know "everything". Players in "Death Note" mode will demand to search everyone in sight with no valid reason (and of course will freak if they find a death note), or start stabbing or be suspicious of anyone who they catch writing, regardless of the fact that they don't have any reason to worry RP-wise. The truth of the matter is that in DN mode, Kira should have pretty much no trouble killing everyone, since there's no valid RP reason why students would withhold their names from each other. I illustrated that in a comic for this game, as seen below:

Of course, the reality of this is much different. Nobody wants to be a victim, especially when dying means you float around as a ghost for up to an hour, watching the living people have fun while all you can do is chat. It's boring, after all, so people essentially cheat and make up excuses to make Kira's job almost impossible. What this means is that the death note is utterly useless in anyone's hands except for the "shinigami eyes" player, who can see everyone's names. However, that player and Kira rarely meet, because there's no easy way of distinguishing who's who without making everyone suspicious. So in the end, it's only a matter of time before the RP ends and the RK starts.

Thirdly, the entire RP element suffers from enormous plot holes. Let me demonstrate by pointing out the premise here: This is supposedly a normal high school, yet only one teacher exists on campus. One. This teacher is apparently a superhero, because she must somehow teach in like 8 different classrooms simultaneously. When she dies (kryptonite?), the super advanced computerized system of Mitadake High locks the school down and presumably cuts the phone lines too, since checking the phones in the game will always result in the same message ("It's dead."). Clearly, its more imporant to prevent the killer from ordering pizza than it is to prevent him from killing off the rest of the students.

Apparently not satisfied with this level of plot devastation, the plot then goes on to point out that students all carry around high-tech PDAs which have a range of useful functions, but nobody bothered to bring a cellphone to school with which they can call the police. That's ok, at least everyone brought glow sticks, smoke bombs, syringes and knives! Wait, what?

Not only this, but the school's total lockdown can be overridden with a security card (found randomly inside student's desks for no apparent reason), but it won't let you leave unless you take the card with you, meaning only two students in the entire school can leave (until 24 hours have passed, in which case the system changes its mind and lets everyone out, thereby completely ruining the point of locking the school down in the first place). The cards are apparently issued on an honor system basis, where the killer's own guilt will prevent him from using one of those cards to leave the screaming, angsty bloodbath behind him long before "help" can arrive. Oh yeah, and nobody is allowed to use the vending machines after 4PM. So take that, killer!

The only way ANY of that makes sense is if all of the students are secretly part of some top secret scientific experiment and the sophisticated Mitadake High AI is actually the real killer. Since it's highly implausible (despite video 'evidence') that a student would kill the only teacher, get rid of the murder weapon and then teleport back to class before anyone actually notices he was gone, it can only be explained that all of the "students" (test subjects) are brainwashed by neurotoxins fed to them via the vending machines (before 4PM obviously). The only thing missing from this theory is (aside from a portal gun) is a creepy, mechanical female voice that announces random things while students wander the halls. OH WAIT, THERE IS ONE.

As a final slap to the face, the big security doors that lead to "freedom" probably just lead to a firing squad to pick of any survivors who make it out alive so that nobody can ever live to tell of the bloodbath that was Mitadake High.

Of course, Death Note mode totally ruins that theory, so we'll just assume that Kira is in on it and he's given the note to a "student" just for laughs while he secretly watches them all from the AI's master control room.

I could go on, but I think you get the point about the plot by now. Long story short, the plot makes no sense, and the players' unwillingess to get slaughtered for the sake of RP often leads to random dashes for the bat room or people slinking off to find an alondite so they can go wave their phallic symbol around and pretend that slaughtering other players' characters can fill the void in their life where social skills should be.

Getting back the the review here, the last feature that fails the game is the custom map maker. While in the right hands this could be an excellent tool for extending the RP, more often than not it simply leads to arena-based maps where the RP is totally stripped away and all that's left is the killing-each-other part. Either that or maps where people think it's cool to put like 40 alondites and 8 death notes around the place and see how long it takes everyone to kill each other.

So in the end, this game starts up with a great premise but then trips over its own oversized shoes and falls on its face. With proper rules, better maps, and no freaking super weapons, the game CAN provide decent RP grounds, but the list of requirements for this to happen is very strict and the people who can pull that off are few and far between. In the end, Mitadake High is a lukewarm RP experience at best, and a random free-for-all brawl at worst. If you're looking for a good RP, keep looking, 'cause this isn't it. However, if you're looking for a game that undulates wildly between RP and slaughter, then you might just have some fun.

Edit: Cavern has pointed out to me that I didn't really touch on the good points of the game (which there clearly must be since I didn't give everything a 0). It's a valid point, so let me quickly paraphrase what I DID enjoy about Mitadake High.

Firstly, the graphics are very nice and the interface is quite well-designed. This makes picking up the game quite easy, even for newer players, though mastery of those controls is a separate matter. Attacking is a simple matter of equipping an item and clicking on someone next to you, and most of the controls are again a simple click interface. My main complaint is that there's about 3 different tabs which the controls are separated into, making it hard to do more than one specific thing at a time (ie you can't keep an eye on your energy while reading your PDA messages. That sort of thing).

Secondly, RP, while rare, does happen, and it happens more often than on say... SS13. When you get in a good RP, a game can be almost total junk and it's an enjoyable experience simply because of the interaction with other literate players. However, since the game's many imbalances reduce RP opportunity a lot, I didn't want to stress the RP factor very much.

Thirdly, and probably the reason I keep coming back, is the immersion. The custom-made maps often lack the realism of the default one, but the default map itself has a pretty much fully-furnished school, even if most of it is kind of pointless. The upside to this of course is that it provides a rich environment for RP fans to flesh out their own little stories.

And lastly, though broken, sticky, and often frustrating, the combat in the game can occasionally improve the RP experience too, particularly if the good guys win. When you manage to just barely defeat the killer in an axe fight to the death, or narrowly escape the maniacal knife-wielding bozo, you get the added bonus of an adrenaline rush and the ability to limp into the room covered in blood and have fun RPing your injuries.

So yeah. Though not nearly enough to redeem the game from it's frustrating spiral of annoyance, Mitadake High certainly has good points, and if EVERYONE RPed correctly then it would be a fantastic experience. Of course, getting everyone to play along is the tough part...

Some questions about the startup proc

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:03:00 +0000

I have a few questions about the above proc that I thought people might be able to answer.

Firstly, is it possible to make a world start up as private rather than public? I would rather not make public worlds pop up everywhere for what I'm trying to do.

And also, is there a way to suppress the connection message that pops up (ie "Do you wish to connect to X? This will log you out" etc)? I don't mind if it's a client side method, I just want to know if it's possible or not.

I think that's everything for now...

Using images instead of icons

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:00:10 +0000

Code:

mob
    var
        image/img
        
    New()
        img = image('punk.dmi',src,MOB_LAYER,src.dir) 
    
    verb
        IconThing()
            usr << img

Problem description:
Right, so as you can see, I'm experimenting with images instead of icons. Why? Because I want to create players that essentially have image attributes (ie can only be seen by players I specify).

The problem? Using this code makes the image appear and attach to the player, but the image does not animate movement or change directions based on where the player is facing. In other words, it's totally useless.

Now changing directions is easy, but is there a way to get the image to be treated the same way as the mob's icon without changing its visibility, or is this impossible?

Removing an image's visibility without destroying the image

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:45:02 +0000

So, I know you can make an image, and I know that to allow a player to view it you can simply do something like:

mob << image

Assuming that I want to create an image that multiple players can see, how would I go about removing the player's ability to see the image without destroying it? (Assuming of course, that the player can already see it to begin with due to the previous piece of code being called at some point.)

Or do I need to create a separate image for each player and destroy that when the right conditions are met?