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Some questions about training tools

Feb
23
2008 in Scripting, products, C:SI and Second Life.

It’s been on my mind for quite some time to revisit the topic, but I was recently reminded of my interest in third-party training tools for the C:SI system when Aimee brought a new one to my attention in a comment to the Jump Slash Difficulties post.

She mentioned one that I’d not yet heard of called "Straight Razor’s Iaido Reflexes", which apparently comes available in a version that has sit pads for people to make use of and seems to provide some pretty good numbers for reaction times.

I use Yasuragi’s original complete set quite frequently, and have since the day that he released them (before I joined C:SI). I’ve also used his Perfect Timing tool a few times, though not recently.

Eyana Yohkoh also has training tools available that include obstacle courses in addition to slash testing, and I still remember quite fondly when they were set up in the now-defunct Shrouded Isle sim.

I’ve often wanted to make my own training tools for C:SI, though I simply don’t have the time : I have 50,000 things I want to do, and maybe enough time and energy to do two of those at any given time. It may be that some day I will finally get around to it, or one of the other C:SI devs will do so, but I make absolutely no promises to that effect; We are all very busy and just can’t do everything we’d like to.

I do often make very crude "tools" for testing purposes, suck as kick and block testers, and use those constantly, but they are far too crude to let anyone else use.

And, to be honest, I think that the third-party interest in (and market for) training tools is pretty darned neat. I’m betting there are more such products out there, and while I can’t give any sort of "official endorsement" of any of them, I’d surely love to check them out and perhaps write some reviews on them.

So my questions to you are:

Which third-party training tools are available?
Which ones have you tried?
What did you like/not like about them?
What would you like to see in training tools that’s not already out there?

Feedback is strongly encouraged

Popularity: 53% [?]

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Small avatars, bounding boxes, and combat

Feb
21
2008 in Combat, Scripting, C:SI and Second Life.

14 Comments

Not long ago, I was standing around at the House of Blade store on Samurai Island, and there was someone that I was not familiar with there who wanted to spar anyone and everyone who showed up.

He was a decent fighter, not great, but better than many that chose to go against him. Until Malachi showed up, at least. The gentleman refused to fight Malachi until he put on a bigger shape, stating that the smaller avatar was "too hard to hit, and it’s cheating".

I tried to explain at the time that it certainly was *not* cheating to have a short avatar, but I’m not terribly articulate at the best of times, and this gentleman spoke English as a second language, so between those two factors I was not able to explain well.

I will try to do so now, and though I will probably fail again, perhaps some people will understand my meaning.

Popularity: 44% [?]

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Myth Busters - Second Life® Edition

Feb
21
2008 in Software Development, Rants, Scripting, Bug Reports, C:SI, products and Second Life.

9 Comments

Ever since I released the Wave Katana 2.0.3 update, I’ve been hearing rumors about it that I find somewhat disturbing. It’s not the content of the rumors that I find most disturbing, however, but rather the fact that only a single good friend of mine is relaying them to me.

The rumors range from the new version being much faster than previous versions, to being able to automatically counter from block, to being able to combo without getting stunned, and now I’m even hearing that some people refuse to fight an opponent with a Wave Katana because it’s considered "cheating".

So far I’ve found very little of substance to these rumors and have been unable to duplicate any of the supposed exploits that have been described to me. It may be that I’m missing an important detail, or some step has been omitted, or I’m just plain misunderstanding what’s being said, but I’m not convinced.

This reminds me somewhat of a time early in my Second Life® when I was talking to a C:SI regular who had been around from day one, and he used a phrase I will always remember to describe the drama that sometimes happens within certain cliques of the C:SI community : "Samurai Soap Opera".

I think it’s irresponsible to spread false rumors, and certainly doesn’t help the community. All it does is spread FUD, and to some extent makes the most active rumor-spreaders lose credibility.

If there were truth to these rumors, or even a suspicion that there might be truth, it would certainly be better for all if the one person able to do something about it were told, wouldn’t you agree?

I’m a pretty accessible guy, usually willing to converse, and always willing to test something. Ask anyone who’s known me for a while, and they will (I hope) tell you that I’m just a regular nice guy and you can talk to me. Even if someone feels uncomfortable talking to me personally about what they think might be bugs or exploits, there is the official Combat: Samurai Island Bug Reports forum available to everyone specifically so that issues can be easily reported.

I know this has been a rant, and probably sounds much more negative than I intended, but I’m honestly quite disappointed that only one person so far is willing to come to me and say "Hey, dude, there might be something wrong with this update". I want to know when something is wrong. And I should think that more than one person would be willing to tell me about it.

Why wouldn’t you?

Popularity: 49% [?]

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Wave Katana 2.0.3 Released

Feb
19
2008 in Scripting, products, C:SI and Second Life.

3 Comments

An update to the Wave Katana was released yesterday. All owners of previous versions of the Wave will receive the update, of course, as part of the free lifetime updates program.

There’s not a lot of significant changes in this version, other than some tweaks to the control code. Among those changes, I’ve re-introduced the ability to "autocombo"; Pressing more than one attack key simultaneously will result in between two and four attacks in sequence, depending on which and how many keys were pressed. This is the same behavior that other C:SI swords exhibit, and was re-introduced to the Wave due to customer feedback. Additionally, a few quirks of the control system were smoothed out.

For my own peace of mind, I’ve also hosted the C:SI Patch Log and the Wave Katana instructions here on this site rather than as a notecard in the product package. When customers rez the product box, it will ask them if they wish to navigate to the Wave Katana instructions page, and the sword’s customization menu also has the option to browse that page. This should allow me to keep the information current, as well as provide better discoverability of this website and the C:SI official website.

I am now able to devote my free time to my new weapon, and I’ve started the scripting on that today. So far I’m very encouraged by the progress, and I’m trying a few new concepts that I hope will be interesting to people.

Popularity: 32% [?]

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