Game Updates

Our games in the estate get semi-frequent updates as time allows, not all documentation makes it into the main wiki pages, so this page will cover the technical details! These update notes will have minimal fluff, and pure update notes. If you want to see the full meat of the update, click the title of the update to be taken to the forum post.

2014

2014-11-22 Food Updates

• The biggest change to food is that it doesn't poison you anymore. Instead you will more likely throw up. Occasionally there may be another affect as I see fit for the food you're eating (such as maybe poison or things similar to the purple shrooms). When you throw up, the food you ate won't count towards your food bar -- instead it'll subtract. Most of the time you will throw up only half the value of the food you ate. Sometimes you will throw up the full value of the food you ate. Rarely you will throw up twice as much.
• Food that has ZERO chance of making you ill now reads as "PREPARED FOOD" on it's description. This applies to most candies and foods that requires crafting. In addition to not poisoning you it also has a chance for the "delicious" bonus to the amount of food you get.
• Food that has a high chance of making you ill is now labeled as "BAD FOOD". You can still eat it and it's risky, but perhaps with correct preparation it can be made more edible. Alternatively it has other non-food uses! For the sake of showing off this feature, one classic food is now a Bad Food!
• 95% of the food is the same. The biggest change probably is the turkey buzzard legs. They've been "normalized". Since this was the first cooked food on the estate they've had pretty obscene bonuses for the recipe and parts. Raw legs have a lower BV now (which means you could get more from a buzzard you kill), but give more food than they used to when you eat them. Cooked legs give less food, and have a lower BV as well -- but are now considered prepared food so they don't kill you if they go bad.
• Old candies that didn't have a BV, now have a BV. Most of them are now PREPARED food too. On top of that they have a chance at being delicious!
• Some candies weren't labeled as food (halloween 2013), and have been corrected.
• Food slowly applies over 30 seconds, so don't fret.
• You can update your food by rezzing it on a masheen, and trying a recipe that doesn't exist. A failed recipe with returned items will replace it with the updated food.
• Exempt from the update because they need more specialized work: WL: Pumpkin, WL: Cup of Coffee

2014-11-19 Scythejaw Updates

Scythejaw is the first of many "BOT" updates I have planned. As such Scythejaw has been converted from a not-static statue, to a full blown avatar. He now wanders around his trading area leveraging HavokAI through LSLs Pathfinding features.

For the most part he operates the same as Alden now, with the improved menu system. He won't trade unless he's at his trading table, which has been moved south a couple meters. You can click him if he's not there, and he'll walk over and start to trade if you're at the table. If you're not at the table and he tells you that you're too far away or need a HUD, just click him again wen you correct the situation.

Most importantly, do not give him things directly! They will be sent to the trash! Just rez your stuff on the table like you always have.

If he ever appears to be stuck, just give him a nudge. 99% of the time he does just fine though.

I have a lot of little aesthetic and cosmetic things that I want to do for the bots that aren't directly game related. I just think it would be cool to see and have. So I will be working on those for a while

Also the Candy Masheen has been moved to a different platform just under the main telehub landing.

2014-10-24 Hallowen Pumpkin Quest, and Candy

As per usual, we had a special Halloween Jack-o-Lantern, except this year it was only obtainable through a new unique and spooky quest! The quest was intended to be difficult, and the reward is a no-transfer badge of courage! The WL: Omega Cone was also unleashed on the masses. It has a... unique effect when you eat it!

2014-10-17 Mushroom Gathering Quests

Visit Alden for your daily quest, and if you're LUCKY he'll be out of quests for you. Instead, he'll task you with a quest from good ol' Doktor Aeg. You'll be given a cloth sack that keeps track of your quest. When it fist equips, it'll show you that you need to gather a certain amount of different types of mushrooms from Hambone Slough. At any time you can click the cloth sack to update your progress. Once you are done gathering you can head to Aegs cave to claim your reward.

Some development notes:

• Makaio gifted us these mushroom objects. They were something he once sold forever ago, but doesn't sell anymore.
• That quest bag looks AMAZING with materials enabled. AKA Advanced Lighting Model. It looks kinda meh without it.
• I wanted the rewards from the quest to be only obtainable through performing the quest. I suspect player demand in trade will be higher than the listed BV for the reward. Especially for some of them.
• I also wanted the quest to be do-able without taking damage or adverse effects, instead it just takes more time. As long as you're perceptive and don't pick anything that isn't on your list or step on them -- you should be fine.
• However stepping on them is totally encouraged at least once, as I have put a lot of neat effects into some of them.
• Mushrooms spawn at a steady pace (with a little bit of random for flavor) once they're picked or destroyed.
• The rewards are on par with the amount of mushrooms you collect, that is, if you have to collect a lot you'll get more rewards.
• There's a bit of critisism that this quest takes too long, and that the mushrooms are hard to find. I agree that the quest may take too long RIGHT NOW, but that is because EVERYONE is on the same quest. With the daily amount of players that we have right now, and after today, the odds are that anyone running the quest should enter Hambone to a "full" region of mushrooms without other players on the same quest. If someone else has a bag in Hambone, they're after your mushrooms too. You may need to do a bit of diplomacy with a Face Breaker.
• The mushrooms are had to find, and that's an intended part of the quest. They have a very special spawning logic behind them. They don't intentionally look for hiding places, but that logic just happens to work really well with Hambone.

2014-09-30 Daily Quest Changes

• Quests and trades now have separate timers. If you've done either, you will see how much time is remaining.
• If you are a current resident and you start a quest, your quest cooldown will start at 20 hours.
• If you aren't a current resident and you start a quest, your quest cooldown will start at 38 hours.
• Current residents are people who actively own land here and now; being a member of the landowners group has no impact.
• Both residents and non-residents can reduce the quest cooldown by looting crates. Each crate you loot will reduce your cooldown by 2 hours to a minimum of 12 hours wait time. (That maths to 5 crates for residents, and 13 for non-residents)
• If you have a cooldown that is above 12 hours, the crate will tell you what your new wait time is.
• When multiple quest givers are part of the game a crate will only reduce the cooldown of one of them, typically in a specified order.

2014-09-15 Retire the old HUDs, Changes to Alden, and Daily Quests

Changes to Alden:

• He no longer gives out Candy Scrit as a trade incentive.
• You can trade with him once every 12 hours now.
• Instead of trading with him, you can run an errand for him. (See Below)
• His menu wording has changed a little, but now also has explanations for what buttons do what.
• Once you start an errand or a trade, it counts as your once per 12 hour use. Fortunately there's a cancel button in the main menu now.

Daily Questing (Errands):

• Today we're introducing a new questing system, and Alden is the go-to guy because he has a bunch of errands he needs completed.
• The first set of daily quests are very basic. Alden will task you with finding a dangerous crate in a specific region.
• What's dangerous about the crate you ask? Well that's for you to find out, as Alden has only heard rumors of the crate.
• There are currently two types of this quest. Normal in which you get a pretty standard reward, and have 20 minutes to find the crate.
• Then there's Difficult, where the crate dangers are more dangerous. Difficult quests are rare, but the rewards are 3x better!
• Any time you start a quest, you'll be combat flagged until time runs out, or you complete the quest. Do don't de-hud or get suspended!
• There's three different rewards given at random for each difficulty; a total of 6 rewards.

Example:

• Visit Alden, and select Errand instead of Barter.
• Read to his flavor text to see which region to go to.
• Go to that region and find the crate.
• Click the crate to LITERALY PICK IT UP! HOLY SHIT YOU'RE CARRYING A CRATE! TIME FOR PHOTOS!
• Calm your giddy gaggle of inner school girls down, and bring that crate back to Alden.
• Suddenly you find out why the crate is dangerous. OHGODWHY!
• BRING THAT CRATE TO ALDEN FASTER. WHY ARE YOU CURSED WITH ONLY TWO SLOW LEGS?
• No need to click Alden, just get proximal and you'll give him the crate.
• Regular crates will still give normal loot, which makes your quest crate distinctive.

Things to note:

• Only you can loot your quest crate, other players will get a special message.
• About 90% of the time you will easily succeed. That other 10% you will die, or your quest will be super easy thanks to random.
• Right now there are six specific crate hazards, some are easier than others.
• If you get a difficult quest, it WILL be difficult.
• The cliff-like regions are exempt from the destination locations, as the quests there are too hard. The Junkyard is also exempt, as that's just too easy.

2014-08-20 Wastelands Experience Keys Beta (Obsolete)

This Experience Keys beta is now what the normal HUD is.

2014-07-29 Buzzards are back!

The Good

Buzzards are back, and smarter than ever! (Along with an amazingly low 0.04ms of script time)

• Buzzards have more life, but do far less damage. Some higher end weapons are capable of one or two shotting them. I killed one with a Clobberin' stick, and only walked away missing 15% of my life. They're critters after all.
• Gone are the numerical health representations. In their place is a new system of descriptive words and colored hovertext. Red hovertext means they're currently fighting. Yellow hovertext means they're recovering from recent combat, and not quite at full health. Green hovertext means almost all or full health.
• I've also developed a simple system of modular behaviours that change how the buzzard moves around and interacts with people and (maybe) salvage. All I can say is be prepared for a frantic fight if you've got aggro.
• If you have aggro, the only way to lose aggro is to not get hit by, and not hit the buzzard. Fighting makes the buzzards angry. They will effortlessly chase you down, but they mix it up in close quarters using aerial and land based attacks. If you're agile enough you can avoid being hit.
• Buzzards want to live! If their status becomes "Critical", they will begin to evaluate their situation. There is a small chance that they will choose to flee, which is why if a buzzard becomes critical you need to land a killing blow soon.
• Buzzards will quickly disengage when you lose aggro, or when they choose to flee from a fight. It is in their best interest to just get away, but this doesn't mean you still can't hunt them down while they try to recover.
• Buzzards will spend most of their time in the skies (and out of melee reach), but they do get tired and come down to the ground to walk around. In combat, they will also land to kick your ass in a fight. They're not as fast on the ground, but have a much better turning radius.
• They also have a hidden hunger meter, just like you do. They use it to help recover lost hitpoints, if they should survive an incident. If they hit you, they replenish some hunger.
• The buzzards have a rather unique loot table now, with things that would make sense to obtain from a dead buzzard. There's also a very slim chance you will find something extra in addition to the buzzards normal loot -- things that it may have been carrying.
• It is planned (once more testing is done), that if they become really hungry -- they may attack players, and/or look for crates. However, they will not be able to instantly loot a crate, instead it will take them some time. Imagine following a hungry buzzard to a crate!
• A new buzzard model and animation system is in the works.

The Bad

I've had to make a few compromises just to bring the buzzards back in any capacity.

• Like old buzzards, the new ones give absolutely no fucks about the walls or obstacles in front of them, they're not coded to try to navigate around them (yet) -- but they're smart enough to climb over something, they'll try to do that.
• Another compromise I've made is that buzzards are limited to only spawn in the following regions: Burnt Oak, Cormac, and The Rot. If you read the small novel at the end of these summary notes, you'll find out why.
• Buzzards will do everything in their power to stay INSIDE their home region. It is rare but once in a blue moon they may escape.
• Once spawned, a buzzard will only exist for 1 hour.

The Ugly

Since buzzards try stay in their home region, this leaves a little wiggle room for people trying to exploit that behavior. For instance trying to fight them across a region border. Fortunately I've put in such countermeasures for such an occurrence. All I've got to say is that if you try to leave a region while a buzzard is in combat with you, you will end up either dying a slow and painful death, or using a medkit just to stay alive. So it is in your best interest to either lose the aggro through normal means within the same region, or kill the buzzard.

If a person is defeated by a buzzard, or that person leaves the region. The buzzard gains a "Rank". Ranks multiply their damage and total health a buzzard has, but does not increase the loot rewards. On the hovertext, you can see how many Ranks a buzzard has by looking for little * after (Critter). The more asterisks it has, the higher it's rank. Fortunately critter damage is so low that even several (improbable) ranks won't make much of a difference.

2014-04-25 New food items from Saul

• Saul now offers WL: Saul's Slathered Sturgeon Steak and WL: Saul's Tough Tilapia Plank