Sorry about the silence of late, but there is a reason: I’ve taken a break because I needed it. 🙂
I’m not gone, just taking a break to regain some energy. Once that’s done SRS is the first task on the list, getting that new version out. After that will likely be finishing up OUCN and releasing that.
Somewhere in there is probably also a new version of my Stopwatch add-on (just fixing a few minor things).
So hang in there, more things to come! 😛
Just a word (well, a few really) about what’s going on in Viper’s land of add-ons.
Stalker Resource System is coming along. I’ve made it to level 50 on my spellslinger which means I’ve had the chance to put some levels on my stalker (currently at level 15). This means I can finish up the last bits of SRS and get a version out there with all the new stuff. I’m hoping to have this done during the week.
I’ve also gone through some ideas for SRS and how to handle procs and a few different other things, but I’m unlikely to put these ideas to the test any time soon, but we’ll see. There’s still a ton of stuff to put in and other things that can be improved, so work is far from over on the add-on.
Latency Monitor has seen some updates and is in a good state now. There are more things I want to do to it, like more customization for aligning the text and where the graphic is, different graphics and a latency history (optional, of course), but for now it’ll stay as is so I can focus on other things.
I released Framerate Monitor as well since people were asking for it and I figured I could knock it out quickly (had most of the code in Latency Monitor already), so I did during waiting in queue at one point. That add-on is also in a good state and I won’t be doing anything to it in the near future.
I still haven’t had a chance to start work on Spellslinger Resource System as I’m trying to get OUCN and SRS out the door first.
Speaking of On-Use Cooldown Notifier I’ve run into a huge issue. The quirks I’ve experienced is due to the ability changing depending on your spell surge state and trying to solve this issue has so far not been possible. Basically it’s like this: If I activate an ability while spell surge is active I can only get the cooldown time for it if I’m still spell surged and vice versa. This, obviously, is a huge issue as it makes the add-on unreliable for spellslingers. I have sent Bitwise an e-mail hoping he can shine some light on it, but so far I haven’t heard back from him. Still trying to find some way to solve it but I’ve really hit a wall currently. I’m still working on other aspects of it and might decide to release it with a warning for spellslingers if I don’t find a solution once the other stuff is done.
I also want to finish up on the new version of Ability Error Control but focus is on OUCN and SRS right now, never the less you should see this soonish and before the spellslinger add-on.
The next *RS add-on after the spellslinger one will probably be for the Medic as it looks now, but that’s subject to change. 🙂 I’m hoping the PTR will allow me to get level 50 characters of each class to make the development of these add-ons a lot easier and quicker as I won’t have to level them up to test everything.
Remember that this blog is still being a bit neglected, but I will take more care of it once things settle down a bit and I have a bit more time to use on it.
So there’s sort of some bad news here. GetLatency() isn’t 100% correct either. The reason is that depending on what you’re doing it will hit different servers (not game servers, but servers handling different game related things (world server, user server, gateway server etc.)).
So while GetLatency() is still a better indicator than a pure network ping (like what Alt + F1 is showing) it currently isn’t a perfect indication. Alt + F1 used to show the GetLatency() value but was changed because it was unreliable.
Here’s what Pyaray said about it:
It reports on the average response time from when you send a message to the server to when the world server sends back an acknowledgement.
Additionally, we recently did some bandwidth saving modifications, that made MANY more messages not have responses.
The sad truth is that right now there’s no way to get a correct latency value, including server latency, and show it to the end-user. Will it change? Maybe, but not any time soon would be my guess. It’s not an easy thing to fix from what I can understand, which is probably why it wasn’t fixed initially and they instead went over to using just the network latency for Alt + F1.
I will probably update Latency Monitor to include this information and possibly make it possible to show the network latency too, but I don’t know if I’ll get around to doing that today.
So I made a small PvP video of a fight my friend Scuba and I had yesterday while out leveling, and figured I’d post it here since it shows OUCN in action (with a few changes since the first video).
So yeah, enjoy!
Just a few things I thought I’d mention before I head to bed today.
Leveling is going ok, I’m now 28 – whaaaaat! 😉 Getting to Whitevale was not good for my questing – way too many Exiles to kill (or at least try to!). 😛 But hey, it’s all about having fun! 🙂
Ability Error Control will get an update “soon”. I need to create a proper options interface for it to allow for a new function I’ve put in, which will allow you to control each message it shows. That is; decide if you want to show it, set its scale, color and font… Greater customization. It came from playing with On-Use Cooldown Notifier and then having the “Ability is on cooldown” and such messages show up – they just created noise, so I needed a way to remove them.
I’ve been doing a bit of work on OUCN, but there’s a few quirks with the way it handles things sometimes. I’m not sure where they come from so I have to figure that out. Progress on the options for it is also happening, most importantly being able to setup your keys. Never the less the system is not 100% reliable right now and there’s some stuff I’m not satisfied with yet – hopefully I’ll get that sorted soon enough.
For SRS I got an idea for better showing when a trigger happens, most importantly showing you the window you have to use it in. I need to figure out a way to get that in there and hopefully I can get some people to test it out for me as I won’t have a Stalker with the appropriate abilities any time soon. First I’ll get the current version done and out the door though, then I’ll add the other stuff after (I still need to decide on what way to do it best, in terms of visibility and so on).
I’m really eager to get started on SSRS as I’m severely missing a good system for my Spellslinger. Hopefully I can start it soon though! 🙂
Figured I’d let you know what’s up. I’ve been doing some add-on work here and there with the time I’ve had available, but generally haven’t had time to test much. Reason? I’m on Hazak, or as I dubbed it: Queuezak, which then became John Queuezak.
Basically when I’m finally in-game I want to play a bit as it is now. I’m a mere level 16 on my Spellslinger and my Stalker is standing where you start after character creation.
So what does this mean? SRS, OUCN and such will take a bit longer to get out. I obviously didn’t expect the queue to be this extreme (Hazak is an extreme case as well) so it hinders add-on development a bit right now.
I usually do some add-on work while I’m sitting in the queue, but again testing is difficult while in the queue. 😉
Also I’m really missing an SSRS so I’m anxious to get that started too.
Hope you’re all enjoying WildStar! =)
Figured I’d throw out a small update on where I’m standing with the add-ons, mainly SRS and OUCN, now that WildStar is about to go live.
SRS still needs a bit of work. There’s a ton of stuff I need still hook up, but I’m working on it. The priority system (for specials) will probably be omitted for the first release. The newest triggered special will take presedence with full suit power flash not overwriting the other specials. What does this mean? I’ll likely have the new version out during headstart, but depends on my available time. After all I want to play as well and Sunday I will be celebrating my parents’ 40 year anniversary.
OUCN still needs some work to make it work for everyone else but me. The issue is that the keycode I get when you push down a button on your keyboard is different from the ones stored within the keybindings. This means I have to make an option interface for you to setup your keybindings again so I can get the keycodes for your keybindings that matches the data I get. It sucks but it’s the only solution right now to make this add-on work. I might have mentioned this before but I have submitted a proposal to Bitwise for making something like OUCN much easier to do.
Maybe I’ll get this add-on out before headstart ends, but I’m not sure. Again time is very much a factor. 😛
Latency Monitor is working but I should post an update very soon, mostly to allow for greater latency thresholds for the unfortunate Oceanic players.
I would also like to mention that I’m not focusing too much on this blog right now. I’d rather spend my time on producing add-ons as I’m already “behind” and thus writing stuff here every time I release something will take too much time away from me. This will change as things settle down though, but if you want up-to-date information I suggest following me on Twitter (@Viper_TBA) as I’m dropping stuff there (it’s quick and easy).
Hope you’re all ready for headstart – time to get this show on the road! 🙂
So yesterday I released a new add-on called Latency Monitor which will allow you to see your real latency (Alt + F1 doesn’t actually show you what you want to know and it’s also annoying since it covers part of the UI).
I made a request to Bitwise to add a way for us add-on developers to get the latency (Apollo.GetPingTime() exists, but it suffers from the same problem as Alt + F1 – we’ll get into that later), because I knew people would ask for a way to see their latency at all times come release. Players want this information, because it’s pretty important to us after all. Alt + F1 wasn’t going to cut it for release – it’s a method that’s fine for beta, but not going forward. Bitwise quickly added the function and told me that it would be a while before it made it into “live”, but with the big patch this week it made it in. This of course also explains why I knew about it (since it wasn’t in the patch notes) as I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know when.
For reference it’s GameLib.GetLatency() and it returns your latency in milliseconds. I don’t know the update frequency or if it caps out at some point.
So what’s the difference between Alt + F1/Apollo.GetPingTime() and Gamelib.GetLatency()? Both of the first ones just does a ping, which isn’t actually a real indication of what your latency is as the server adds additional latency from doing what it needs to do. So doing the ping will give you a nice low value but it’s not correct in terms of how much your game actions are actually delayed. GetLatency() solves that and will give you your real latency – the information you want.
I’ve been asked a few times after the release of this add-on if I would add FPS to it or do an add-on to show FPS, but since the answer is longer that a tweet I will answer it here.
First off I won’t add FPS to Latency Monitor, so it would be a separate add-on if/when I do it.
I won’t do it now since there’s more important things to get done. Why? Because there are other ways to show your FPS in-game, like Fraps/Dxtory etc. and there’s also Ctrl + F (which admittedly isn’t very good, at least not last time I checked).
The bottom line is that it’s not a high enough priority for me right now because there are other options available. When I do get a bit of time and if nobody else have made a nice FPS add-on I will most certainly look into it, because I know it’s something players want and I want to give it to you then. 🙂
Latency Monitor fills a hole because there simply wasn’t an alternative, which is why I wanted to get it out quickly. With that done my focus shifts back to Stalker Resource System and On-Use Cooldown Notifier as I hope to have both ready for head start, but we’ll see how that goes. 🙂
I get this question a lot and the short answer: They will all get one, at least that is the plan.
The longer answer? It will take time. The reason for this I’ll explain a bit here.
Take Stalker Resource System as an example. It’s really fairly basic – after all it’s just a damn bar going up and down, not really complicated. However you’ve seen how much time I’ve put into the add-on already and that should tell you it’s no simple task.
But even before starting an add-on I have to play each class. Why? Because that’s the only way I can really understand how it works, how it plays and how I would need various information in different situations. Sure I could just give every damn class a bar and tweak it a bit, but that’s not how I do things. I will tailor each add-on to the specific class to make sure that it works the best way possible for displaying the information. Each class has different mechanics and thus different ways to display the information.
With all that of course also comes learning about the little nuances of it. How to manage your resources in relation to healing/tanking/DPS’ing or whatever the case might be and when it would be beneficial to display some sort of extra information.
Basically it’s a lot of data gathering which ends up in me trying to figure out how to handle all this information and display it in the best way possible. One of the key things I want to do is to keep your eyes on the fight, so a lot of time goes into making sure that I can display information for various things that you won’t have to actually look at, but instead can see out of the corner of your eye, so to speak, meaning you don’t have to take your eyes off the action. If my add-on requires you to actively focus on it for you to use it, then I’m not doing a good enough job.
Now having a good idea for how to display something doesn’t mean it’ll actually work. There’s a lot of testing involved and some thrown out ideas because they’re simply not good enough. When I test an add-on like this I don’t look at my add-on. If I test it while I’m focusing on it I won’t properly test it. Even controlled tests are often not good enough (for instance just going out hitting a few mobs and see how things work), because I’m still too aware of what I’m doing (testing my add-on and something specific, meaning my brain is sort of prepared for it). So to really test it I need to play with it and forget that I’m testing – that’s the only way I can really make sure it works as it should.
Finding a good way to display all this information is also time-consuming at times, because it’s important to not overload your screen with all kinds of different things happening, but also make something that’s pretty clear and easy for you to recognize (without having to look directly at it!).
Then of course comes actually developing the code for everything. Now with SRS I’m at least building some blocks I can re-use in other add-ons, but it takes time. It takes even more time with the amount of options I offer. And while I hate making options for my add-on I do it because it’s the only way I can make sure the add-on will be good for as many people as possible. What works for me might not work for you, so I will make sure you can make it work for you as well.
Setting up systems and what not to deal with special triggers that would require information also takes time to develop, optimize and test.
So as you can probably see doing resource system add-ons properly takes a lot of time and effort. But it’s worth it to get an add-on out there that actually does the job in the best way possible and allows everyone to tweak it as they like.
As I’ve mentioned before the Spellslinger will get the next *RS add-on, as that’s what my main will be. After that it might be the Medic, but we’ll see. SRS will probably be developed alongside the Spellslinger one (SSRS, I guess), but there will be a sort of “dead” period without anything majorly new for SRS until I start putting some levels on my Stalker alt, which won’t happen until my SS is settled in.
Hope you’re all enjoying the end of beta!
I’m working on getting the events tested so I can do the last stuff I need without having a Stalker at a certain level and thus release the new version quickly after head start begins.
Now what are these events you might ask. Well, they’re procs and such to trigger effects on the bar. I’ve made an animation system that will allow me to flash different parts of the bar in a better and more customizable way than before. For instance the old flash effect when the bar is full is gone and replaced by this new system. Screenshot? Of course.
As you see there’s two separate flash effects. The bar overlay is a version of the bar graphic you’ve selected and the flat one is just a solid color. Through this system you can decide what to use, colors, opacities, speed and such.
There’s a check box in front of each “min” setting (these will be renamed, min/max doesn’t really make sense). If unchecked it will not cycle between them and just use the color or opacity of max. This way I only process what’s needed and you have even more freedom to display things as you want.
Now the specials are also going to use this system, with a few more options (full bar flash might also get some more options). The specials are the triggers and right now there’s triggers for below X suit power and Punish, with Decimate going in shortly (the base system is in place for it).
There’s still a bunch of stuff to sort out in terms of priorities on these effects (in case two trigger the same effect layer, which one should then display?), which I will make user definable. Also logic for delaying a flash for Punish, for instance, if the ability is on cooldown and thus only show when it goes off (during the time window it’s active). You know… All that nice stuff.
But as long as I’m sure the trigger systems and cooldown stuff works I’m in solid shape to get the rest done before head start, so it will just require a bit of testing of the stuff I’ve then done “blindly”. Never the less look forward to this version – it will be a major step up in taking this add-on to where it should be. That being said there’s still plenty of stuff to add, as well as specials.
I’ve also made some optimizations to the add-on as a whole and I have some more planned, cutting down on processing time. However this is not a huge priority right now – it’s all about getting it ready for head start and get it into your hands!
