Archive for August, 2007

Short Followup : Tyrant’s Exploit

I intend to do a little more of an analysis/commentary on this issue tonight after work, but for now I want to throw a quick note in with some of the things that Esprite has said to me about this. He’s spoken with Tyrant, and had the moves demonstrated, and has some good points to make about it.

… So I spoke to tyrant and got him to show me those tricks people are talking about, it seems like there is alot of discussion about it … and we have people talking about whether or not its an exploit or something.

For me its something I have difficulty ruling on, policing people in general gridwide is not something I want to do, and the I guess legitmacy of using such techniques is something thats difficult as wel.

On one end, things like this to me are interesting, mainly because they are like new moves people discover for the weapons in such a way its akin to the jump slash, but then ya need to consider how such a thing effects gameplay and if it does so in a negative way.

And then the ultimate question of what could be done about it, if any, and if we deal with that do we have to deal with other “moves” as well, and what draws the line between them.

I think alot of people consider the issue of at what point would something like this be ok if it were allowed, “Think of the newbies!” comes to mind… But thats something we already have to deal with, people being more skilled than others, which is something we already have planned for being addressed in the new ranking system

Does this move or exploit and others like it, add to the color of our skill based system or does it impact it in a negative way? I’m uncertain really, infact I’d like to hear more people’s opinions on it.

It’s clearly not a black and white issue, and it would be good to get a dialog going about it. For me, my first reaction to it was utter frustration and irritation. On the other hand, the person that was doing that to me repeatedly was relying on the move too much - as many people with such “tricks” do - and I was able to win about half the time. So it’s not really a “supermove”, even if it is incredibly frustrating to fight someone who uses it. It’s just about as frustrating as fighting someone who constantly runs to heal, and makes me feel the same way about whether I want to continue dueling with them, but I’m still not 100% sure whether it should be officially ruled on.

I suspect - and this is my unofficial personal opinion only - that it will be much like space bar use in the sense that people will be warned about using it in official tournaments, and that many people will not choose to fight someone known to use these moves excessively, but that by and large it won’t change anything. The best fighters are not the best because of any single technique, but because of a holistic approach to the various techniques available.

I would love to encourage people to discuss this on the official C:SI forums, as this would give the problem more visibility to all the developers as well as several people who never read this blog.

Let us know what you think of this.

Popularity: 18% [?]

C:SI Combat V1.5

It’s been an interesting week - not all of it good. On top of a hectic first-life schedule attempting to push our new product out the door (I currently work for a startup company in RL) and get some momentum going with potential customers, I’ve somehow managed to become very ill, during summer no less :(
But among the really good things that have happened is that I’ve gotten the code for the next version of the C:SI combat system, and I gotta tell ya: I’m pretty jazzed about this release.

There are some pretty good innovations in this version, some of which I think will especially help those who train others, and some of which I think will add a bit of flash and sex appeal (in the software marketing sense) to what was already a pretty great system.

There are, to be sure, some bug fixes included. Some of those deal with blocking issues that people have noticed lately, and which I have good reason to believe will provide a noticeable improvement. I feel it’s important to note, however, that there are just some things in Second Life’s platform that are simply not fixable by code - lag being one of them - and while we have tried very hard to make the system work as well as possible it’s just not realistic to think that it will work without side effects 100% of the time. We’re doing our best, I promise.

Another high priority bug fix - from a merchant/developer point of view -resolves an issue that has been occuring somewhat recently with the Second Life data servers choking under load and serving up garbage or no data at all, and which will occasionally cause the swords to be undrawable. In some extreme cases, it has even caused the sword’s security features to trigger and permanently disable the sword. Archanox has figured out a pretty good way around that issue, so while most people will never even notice this fix, it’s an incredibly important one.

I had a long discussion with Harukko the other night; she was asking what’s going to be new in this release, and seemed especially concerned that there might be something that would affect the current fighting strategies. There are no new features that will change how you fight, your current strategies and investment in training and practice are perfectly safe :)
I’m still in the process of merging the changes into the sword’s code, so I don’t know everything about this version yet, but I’ll put in the occasional post as I learn more. I’m sure there will be plenty more to write about.

Popularity: 22% [?]

New blog theme

Seems to be time for the obligatory “messing around with the blog theme” annoyances. Although my original intention was to have the blog available primarily for those who might read it from within Second Life, I’ve come to the conclusion that the in-world browser is so painful to use as to be almost useless. It’s ugly as hell, small, and the actual browser content is covered by UI buttons for useless god-mode buttons for most of the people who might read it.

I will still make a concession to the in-world browser by using a plugin by Alex King that detects when the blog is being viewed by a mobile device - and I’ve tweaked it to recognize the SL browser as such - and will render a very plain and easy to navigate version in such cases.

But for those of us that want to read more than 5 words per line, I will be exploring new themes. Once I get more time to devote to such low-priority projects I will customize a theme but for now I just want something I can read without cringing.

If you are an in-world reader and want to provide feedback on that experience now that I’m mucking with things, I’d love to hear your feedback.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Tyrant’s C:SI Exploit

I really would love to take the time to add my thoughts and opinions on this manner in great detail… Unfortunately, I am sick today, and my brain is not working well enough to be articulate. I will say at this point that anyone caught obviously using this kind of trick in any tournament that I am sponsoring will be summarily ejected.

So, while I am waiting to recover and discuss the arguments about whether this is or is not a “true” exploit, I’ve made used the absolutely wonderful Chatlogs utility over at sleeds.org to create and post the full transcript of how and when I found out about this issue: Tyrant’s C:SI Exploit (and text-only version).

Popularity: 21% [?]



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