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! 🙂
