by E.J. Thayer
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Quest update   6-15-2008

Yesterdays update was mostly to add some quests to the game that I have been adding using the new map maker  and scripting language. It makes it so easy to add new quests that I kind of like sitting around and inventing new ideas to put in.

Players of Xenimus FP should be aware that I am working on an update for it.  My first step is to convert FP to the new graphics engine.  That conversion is in process and going well.

Stupid ISP   6-10-2008

It looks like my ISP decided to change their e-mail system without telling me.  It looks like nobody has been receiving responses for a couple weeks.  I have been responding to people about the new map maker, password change requests, and several other things. I'm guessing that none of you got those e-mails. I have fixed the problem now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The test server   5-29-2008

The map maker may be ready, but the test server seems to be crashing during uploads. I know some people are interested in quest and map design but hold off for a bit until I get these problems worked out with the server. I might go ahead and let people design maps and then submit them to me without using the test server.

The map maker is ready   5-26-2008

If your interested in designing parts of the map and quests using the scripting language then now is the time to give it some thought. Email me and include the following:

I expect people to be serious about adding some cool ideas to the game. We will also have an agreement about things you submit. The basic idea is that you will maintain ownership and copyrights to ideas that you submit. If you have a really cool mini storyline to add to the game you are still the owner of the idea and creative work, by submitting it to me you are giving me full rights to use it and/or change it free of charge within Xenimus and Xenimus FP. I will need the right to change what you submit in the event the quest needs to be modified to fit with other quests, or to change quest rewards, or for any reason that might come up. This way if you create a really cool idea and some day want to expand on it and create your own game, write a book, or add the idea to another game you have full rights to do so.

Map Maker   5-17-2008

Just to let people know I have working a lot on the map maker. Soon it will be available for people to design parts of the world. Today I have been testing the ability to real time update the server with scripts and chunks of the map and its working good. I want to do some more testing but things are going well.

I also added a new optimization to the special location system that controls things like transporters, traps, monster generation, and beaming crystals. This new optimization make access time to the special location system super fast! After I update the server with it you may notice a server speed increase, in other words faster spawn rate. Most likely it will mean the server will maintain a better spawn rate when the server has more people. 

You may also have noticed that the durability test mode has not even been turned on yet. I was working out a few bugs with it before I turn on the test mode. Let me be clear here, I will be turning on the TEST MODE, durability will still not have an affect on gear but you will be able to see how fast it goes down.

Update soon   4-19-2008

Update:

It Seems that there are some questions about the new durability system.  First of all it will not ruin the game and if you can't deal with it and don't like it then quit. Gear keeps flowing into the game and never out, there needs to be a way for gear to flow out of the game as well as into the game. Other games have dealt with this problem either with durability or making all gear non drop non trade. Making all gear non drop non trade would ruin gear trading so I didn't want to do that.

When gear reaches a maximum durability of zero it is destroyed. Gear will not lose durability very fast. There will be plenty of time to find a second item to recharge the first item or save up durability recharge items.

If current durability reaches zero, bonuses, damage and armor of the item will no longer work until you repair it.

Original post:

I am nearly done with the new update. Most of the work on this update has to do with internal server programming to make the scripting language better and to expand on the capabilities of items and to add additional quest variables for players.  The new scripting language is faster and more powerful with some cool new abilities.  All in game NPCs are now created and controlled by the mapmaker.  I used to store information about NPCs in a different place.  Now all that information is centralized into the mapmaker.  The new scripting language can now also be triggered by ground locations that the player walks over. People who are interested in designing new quests or entire areas for the game will be able to do so soon.

This update will also introduce item durability and a good way to recharge the durability on an item without having to regain all of the properties for that item.  All gear will start with the durability of 100 and every time you repair that item the maximum durability will decrease.  So for example if you repaired a spirit leather several times and the maximum durability was down to 50 it would then be possible to use a second spirit leather to recharge the durability back to 100.  There will also be items in the game that will raise maximum durability above 100.

This update will also have expanded item abilities.  These abilities will be used with the profession system as I develop it.  Types of abilities might include temporary enchantments or bonuses to armor.

New idea I am considering

With the new script programming and the abilities in the mapmaker I am considering a new idea. I think it would be kind of cool to have an entire server specifically for player designed world areas and dungeons.  I don't know if there would be enough interest in this kind of thing at first but it certainly could work out in the future. 

Weekend work   3-31-2008

So this weekend I have been continuing my work on the new top-down map maker.  Mostly this weekend I was testing the new script system.  It is working great and the new advancements in the mapmaker are turning out great.  All NPC creation and a script programming is now done through the mapmaker.  This makes it far easier for me to add NPCs to the game and give them Scripts for quests.

After I'm done with this update I will be continuing work on the new graphics engine and applying that to first person.

My new job at the game company here in Utah is going well. At first they were going to have me programming the Nintendo Wii, but have moved me over to programming DirectX because they needed someone to handle that. so I've been working on a cross-platform game engine handling the DirectX side of things.

Recent work  3-18-2008

Well my new job has been good so far, they never even had me start programming the Wii because  they needed a DirectX programmer really bad when I got there.  So after I learn their engine I will be their lead DirectX engine developer.

I did get quite a bit of work done this weekend on the new map maker.  It is just about done and will help development of new quests and game content.

I have noticed some people's payments are not getting through and applied to the game as fast as normal.  I'm not sure why that is happening, the payment system has not changed in a long time.  I have even had a few e-mails from people saying "most people" have not been getting their time in the game, this is a huge exaggeration, it has only happened a few times.

Make sure to enter the proper account number when making a payment, and you must use the website to make the payment, you can't pay pal the money directly or it will not be formatted correctly so the payment processor will find it.

New ISP   2-21-2008

I'm getting settled in my new apartment. I had to change ISPs obviously because I'm in a different state so my new e-mail address is ejthayer@comcast.net. Make sure only to send information about your account to this e-mail address.  My old e-mail address does not seem to be working at all anymore.  Recent password change requests and other e-mails will need to be sent again.

Item wipe   1-10-2008, updated 1-11

OK, I have been working on this update all day and have to take a break now. I really wanted to get it out today but I need to do more testing. Hopefully tomorrow. I found and fixed the female, Behock, Barbarian sliding attack thing. Noticed that while testing. Anyway, you can be sure it will be out soon, I'm working on it.

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I know I said the wipe would be this morning, but when changing the item drop system I like to test things more than normal so I'm doing that. It will happen soon. I don't know how many people are looking forward to this wipe, but I think a lot of people are looking forward to it and you really should be. The more I think about it the more it seems like the best idea. I'm trying to find a proper balance for item drops.

I'm also taking some extra time to enhance the stats screen as some people have asked to show magic bonuses and resists.

Also the spawn town for good side is always going to be Semel, evil side will always be Odium. This change is so I can centralize low level quests to those areas. Later I will add a -bind command so you can change your home town. -bind will not be in this update though.

------------------------

So here we are facing an item wipe because dishonest players want to flood the game with duped gear. I guess my reward of 10 million experience for turning in the dupe is not enough. I will increase it to 20 million then and see if that helps.

Here is how it will work. I have been programming some new things for this wipe. One of those new things is the -junk feature documented below because people will be killing things again.

The increased drop rate will be on a per player basis. So it does not matter when you get your kills. The drop rate increase will not be based on time, it will be for 5000 kills. This means if you don't want to get your 5000 kills right away you don't have to. It also means that people who get restored a month from now wont miss the chance for the increased drop rate.

So here is what will happen.

Obviously not everyone wanted this to happen but with the duped items and gold in the game right now it has become necessary. I'm trying to do the best thing for the game.

X3 will not be wiped.

Small new feature   1-9-2008

For a while people have sometimes asked for a way to deal with worthless gear drops while hunting. So now there is a new command to help with that.

-junk 35
Drops all gear below treasure level 35 (not the same as player levels).

-junk 35 potion ring
Drops all gear below treasure level 35 with the exception of items that contain the word 'potion' or 'ring' or any other words you want to put on there. The exception item words can be anything you want. This allows you to fully customize what gear you drop. 

35 = about where minor rings are, so fire and magic items would be dropped with this setting.
20 = about where magic items start, this might be a decent setting for a newb character.

Duping problem   1-2-2008

Well it looks like the game faces another duping problem because of some jerks that like to cheat. I will get this fixed ASAP in the fairest way possible.

The old reward of 10 mil exp is going to be increased to 20 mil for the first person that can send me an accurate and clear description of how its done so I can fix the problem. The 20 mil can be divided between 2 people if both discover how its done.

Go ahead and dupe LOW LEVEL WORTHLESS GEAR ONLY in order to test how its done. Anyone who dupes high level gear is risking getting deleted.

Another update soon   12-25-2007

I would like to do another update soon to add a few new items and to continue helping people that are still having problems with the last update. Not too many people seem to be having problems with the last update anymore so I hope most people are up and running. If your still having problems make sure to email me.

Update today   12-22-2007

First of all if you are having problems you should email me about it. It does no good to post on the message board and talk among each other about it. I watch my emails very closely after an update.

I just put out a new update to fix the debug info at the top of the screen and it should fix startup problems for people. Please email me if you continue to have any problems. This version is also smarter about maintaining the window position and size if you are using windowed mode. (12-23-2007)

More clear on this   12-4-2007

When I said the person who is hacking the items file wont be able to do it I meant they wont be able to do it after the NEXT UPDATE. I just added the fake item named 'pinecone' to track how it was happening. Now that I know it will be fixed in the next update.

Holy crap its been a while  12-1-2007

Hello everyone, it's been awhile since I last posted here obviously.  Recently I've done a couple of updates.  One of those updates was to figure out how the hacker who's been changing people's colors and causing other problems is doing the hacking.  I'm happy to say I believe those problems are solved.  This is the same jerk that's been hacking the items file and letting everyone know what new items are added to the game. I consider this to be a severely detrimental thing to the game because the process of discovering new items is very important to a game like this.  As some of you may know I did a small update to add items.  But the only real item I added was an item called 'pinecone'. That was really just a trick item for the idiot hacker so I can figure out how he's doing the hacking.  The good news is that I did figure it out and you won't be able to do it anymore.  So I'll now be adding new items.

The other major task have been working on for quite some time is yet another new graphics engine.  I know we've all been here before where I work on the next best graphics engine and then apply that to the game.  This time is quite a bit different than other graphics engines in the past.  At the beginning of the summer I took a small contract job with a local company that does 3-D simulation software for the government.  For the first time in my game programming career I have actually been able to talk with other programmers about the best ways to do things.  One of the problems with working on this game full time out of my apartment is the simple fact that I'm isolated here.  In other words my point is I have gained some really good programming skills during the summer and written a graphics engine that is very easily as good as other major engines out there.  Unlike graphics engines in the past, this time I know for a fact that my current engine can compete with with the best of them.  A good example would be the city that I put into a first-person demo that I wrote.  This city area is right around 100,000 polygons, my old engine would hardly be able to render that scene and probably only ran at 15 frames per second, this new engine renders that same scene at 60 to 85 frames per second with no problems  and would very likely go just as fast with 250,000 polygons. Keep in mind that I use a rev limiter so the engine does not try to force frames through the graphics card more often than the refresh rate of the monitor. This allows the computer to pay attention to other processing instead of forcing useless FPS through the card that wont actually be rendered. So as you can see this new engine is far superior to anything I've ever written before.

Right now I'm working on the pixel and vertex shaders for the lighting system with this new engine.  I'm absolutely making sure that this engine is perfect in every way. in other words this will be the last engine I will ever have to write.  After this it will be a simple matter of plugging in new C++ objects for updates that would need to be done.  The current version of the game is of course written in C++ but keep in mind the code for the current version of Xenimus is getting close to 10 years old. Sure it's possible to do updates to existing code but the reality of it is a rewrite is inevitable at some point. I am considering rewriting the entire game including all the server code.  I believe that in doing that the quality of the game would increase drastically. 

At this point I'm really not sure what route I will take. What I mean by that is what game will this new engine be applied to first.  I could apply it to top-down or first-person or even create a new game.  I will be submitting the engine as a demo to a couple different companies that fund game projects for independent developers like me. In any case, good things are on the way.

Talk to you later,

EJ

What's with FP?   9-8-2007

Xenimus first person is still in the works. Some of you may know this already and some of you may not but I took a contract position with a company here in Madison to develop a 3-D simulation tool.  My agreement with his company is that they allow me to use my graphics engine to do the 3-D simulation but I maintain ownership of the graphics engine.  So when the simulation program is complete I will have a new graphics engine ready to apply to first person Xenimus. The cool part about this is that development of this new graphics engine is going very very well.   I currently have a new graphics engine that flat-out blows away the one in first person.  I used to be somewhat worried about performance when rendering 50,000 polygons, but my new engine already has no problem rendering over 200,000 polygons with a minimal hit on performance.  The contract position with his company should be done soon, I think they will try to extend the contract and keep me on longer but I will most likely refuse an extension because I want to get to work on the game.  Contrary to popular belief I don't make very much money on Xenimus so I took this temporary position to help pay some bills.

Constitution casters   8-27-2007

Well here are my current thoughts on this.

if people are adding points to constitution instead of intelligence or wisdom then that means to me that people need it. I know you don't add points to different stats for the fun of it, so you must need the constitution to compete. It also means that the game has a design flaw. Intelligence and wisdom should mean more so people want to add points to those stats.

So here is the change that I'm thinking will be added. A casters main stat should be their highest stat. For every point some other stat is above your Int/Wis you will lose 1% of damage. So if your a wizard and Con is 10 points higher than your Int you will lose 10% damage. The most extreme thing I saw was a player with Con that was 32 higher than their Int so obviously they will be respecing. There will also be a small damage and armor spell bonus for a higher Int/Wis.

I'm trying to make the affects of this small so no over/under powering. A properly built player should not be negatively affected.

New PVP Stats page   8-24-2007

The new PVP stats page should update real time, that means about every 5 min or so. If you are supposed to be on there and don't see yourself that is because the new program does not know you exist yet. You will have to cause yourself to get updated to the page, in other words engage in pvp and that will cause an update.

This page is new and could have bugs, let me know if you notice anything.

Board posting, admin apps   8-14-2007

If anyone is wondering why I have not posted on XenTales after adding it back on my links page its because my account cant be activated for some reason. I think there is something wrong with it. I request a password change and that seems to work but then I try to log in and it says I need to reactivate the account, so I request a reactivation email and it says my account is already active. So something is goofy.

On a side note I saw the post about if the game is 2D or 3D. First of all, 3D does NOT mean that the game is a 1st person shooter style of play, Xenimus is a true 3D game, all graphics are rendered in 3D. I'm actually very seriously considering a 3rd person view play mode similar to the XenHook mode. Then of course I would make it render a larger distance and possibly add height to the terrain for hills and mountains.

A lot of people applied to be admins as I mentioned before. There are honestly many people who are probably good candidates for admins but I will only need 3 or 4 per server. One thing I noticed was a large number of people wanted to be admins for X3 evil side. I didn't really expect that. 

Admin applications (no longer accepting)   8-8-2007

I received a LOT of admin applications. I will be looking them over and deciding next week. No more applications are being accepted right now.

I am officially accepting applications for admins on all servers starting today. I'm looking for new admins for both the good and evil sides on all servers. Send an email letting me know you are interested and an explanation as to why you think you would make a good admin.

Here are some main points I will be looking for:

Chest pulls and luck   7-18-2007

Because of the new server and the fact that people are leveling and going to get their chest pulls I'm getting some e-mails from people thinking that some people are getting two chest pulls.  Those people are not getting a second item.  Those chests have a very high item chance to begin with so what's happening is people are just getting lucky.

Update on lots of stuff   7-13-2007

Message board

Admin on the XenTales message board seem willing to work with me instead of against me, so I will add XenTales back on the links page. Let me know if you are still interested in setting up another message board, I don't mind having more than one available.

Emails/calling me

I have posted this several times but people seem to forget so here it is again.

FP progress

I'm still working on FP, the lighting system is done and working great. I'm finishing up the conversion to DX9.

Website changes

I took FP stuff off the site for now because I'm going to have FP on its own web page.

PVP stats

Programming is nearly complete to have the PVP stats real time update so your kills/deaths and PVP level will show up only 5 or 10 min after it happens. And of course X3 will have its own section. This is the reason I have not been updating it as much lately.

As you can see I'm busy with a lot of things.

New Message Board   7-3-2007

The old Xenimus message board is now a thing of the past. If anyone is interested in setting up a new message board please e-mail me the link. I know some people in the past have been interested in setting up a message board so I will wait for a few people to submit their links to me.

-goevil   6-28-2007

It is now off 7-3-2007.

The go evil command is now on for servers x1 and x2.   It will remain on until further notice.  Remember that using the go evil command is permanent and will not be reversed.  So make sure you want to go to the evil side before doing it.

New server   6-15-2007

I was wrong about that previous post.  Time will not update when you request a password change.  I will do a massive time update to the new server so it is aware of your account time.

OMG!!!!!!  6-13-2007

I think fate just loves to %$#@ with me!! I add a new server, do a bunch of advertising and my ISP decides to screw up somehow! You would not believe how pissed I am right now! I have called them and the servers will be up ASAP.  

New server  6-12-2007

The new server is up and ready to use. Just download the update and it will appear for you. The new server has its own dungeon server and it will not be connected to the current servers. 

Server lag problem  5-28-2007

Got it fixed, sorry for the problem. 

The ISP is saying its a server problem. All servers will be down until I fix the problem. I am working on it right now and will have them up ASAP.

I know there is currently a server lag problem, I have informed my ISP and they are looking into it. I rebooted the server and that didn't help.

Server update today   5-12-2007

OK, so here is what happened. I tracked the crash from the other day and fixed it.

The trade window was reprogrammed a bit so that in the next update I can easily add a refresh button. I also made it so if the trade is changed in any way by either player the ready to trade button must be pressed again.

Server reboot failed on DS   5-6-2007

For some reason the FP server did not come back up after the reboot. I have notified the ISP and things will be fixed soon I hope, but its Sunday so you never know.... I guess they solved the problem while I was typing this. So it will be up soon.

FP emails   4-11-2007

I have had some emails about FP. Seems there are some people that think I should just abandon FP because its not good enough. What you people need to realize is that if I just gave up on things then Xenimus would not exist at all. None of my friends thought I would actually write an on-line game when I was in the process of writing Xenimus, they all though I was nuts and would never see it through. If you don't have faith in your own work then you have failed before you even started.

Converting FP to DirectX 9 has forced me to rewrite the lighting system, but it should be done soon. That's a good example of why I don't give dates on when things will be done. A week ago I didn't know rewriting the lighting system was going to be needed. 

Current work   4-7-2007

I have had several emails recently asking about the next update for both the top down (TD) and first person (FP) versions of the game.

First let me start off by saying that I have been working on an update for TD. It still needs some more work but is certainly in process.

What I decided to do is change the modeler tool, the FP map maker, and the FP game itself over to DirectX 9. I think DirectX9 has a long development life left in it because DirectX 10 only works with Vista and the whole world is not going to move to Vista over night so game development will continue in DirectX 9 for a few more years at least. You might remember that I converted to DX9 a while back but it didn't work out that well. The EXE size went way up and didn't work well for some people. Microsoft put out a new version of the DX9 software development kit in about the middle of last year that is much better.

So here is the idea behind me spending this kind of time converting to DX9. These large RPG games are way too much work for someone to do mostly alone as I have so far. So I have decided that I wont do it alone anymore. I will be posting an FP development job web page that will list tasks I need done for FP and how much each task is worth. 

It might look something like this (this is only a sample and could change)

New Dreg character model - $100
Full set of Dreg character models with all armors - $250
New dungeon in area Xxxxxxx with cave theme - $200
New dungeon in area Xxxxxxx with tomb theme - $200
Good side main city street layout with outer wall - $300

If you decide to help with FP then you would send an email with the job you want and if the task is still available I would send you the 3D modeler or the Map maker. The jobs would have to be done within a reasonable amount of time and approved by me. Once approved then THE FP GAME owes you the amount the task was worth. What that means is you get paid a % of the game profits until the amount the game owes you had been paid to you. Of course right now FP is free and it will stay that way for a while. Yes the 3D modeler and Map maker will use version control and encryption so they don't get misused.

I will be advertising these jobs on several message boards where game development types of people go, so there may be people working on FP that have never even played Xenimus.

This method of doing things gives everyone an interest in making the game successful. 

FP is just too big for me to develop alone so if nobody is interested in helping then development will stop. 

There are many different paths this plan could take.

Buying and selling gear/characters   9-17-2006

People seem to just ignore the game rules about not buying and selling gear and characters in the game. So if your all just going to ignore me I will start doing something new. I'm going to spend time pretending to want to buy gear in game and on message boards. anyone who attempts to sell items or characters to me will have their account wiped of items or deleted.

The people who run the xentales message board even have a section devoted to these kinds of sales. The people who run that board have never had any respect for this game or the rules in it so that does not surprise me.

Botting   9-2-2006

I deleted 5 characters this morning for using bot programs to level. Bot programs are very easy to track. Please don't use those programs or I will be forced to delete you. There were a few people that used a bot for only a very short time. I figured you were just testing to see if it worked and this time I'm going to not worry too much about it. From now on anyone who uses a bot for even a short time will be deleted. 

Exp loss change!!   8-3-2006

-VERY IMPORTANT CHANGE

The experience loss amounts have changed. From now on when you die you lose 2% of the exp it would take to go up your current level. This new system is far less harsh on lower level chars and will make higher level chars actually care about getting killed.

Examples:

LVL 10 char only loses 400 exp (2% of the exp needed to go from 10 to 11)

LVL 60 char would lose 2 million exp (2% of the exp needed to go from 60 to 61)

The exp loss total is caped at one level down from your current level.

This will be the rule for a while so I can see how it works. PVP deaths should not lose exp.

Admin rules   7-26-2006

The update with the new skills is going good. I have made some great progress this week so far. The new skills screen will not work with the low requirements version of the game. The low req version will still be usable but it will not have the new screen. That means you will have to get the regular version working at some point so you can setup your new skills.

Just a note to admins and players.

Players having problems with admins in these areas should report it to me. 

Please be more careful   5-27-2006

Recently I have been getting payments with bad info. 

Of course what happens is people assume that I just keep their money and rip them off. I bet some people go on the message boards and post things to make me look bad also. Most of you know I would never do that kind of thing.

Please be careful when sending payments.

Xenhook   4-9-2006

I understand the some of the features in the Xenhook are liked by many people. Most of the features in it are fine with me. The problem is that it has a mapping feature that allows you to see every secret area in the game giving you an advantage to finding things that other people do not have. That makes it a cheat. Why did the creators of this tool put in a feature that they know is considered to be a cheat? The fact that they did that means they are no different than a hacker as far as I'm concerned.

People already know about most of the secret areas in the game. But what happens when I add more secret areas? Unless your saying you don't ever want new secret areas added.

I will create a post in the message board asking about what features you like the most about it. Then maybe program those things into the game directly.

One thing has become clear to me. Cheaters will never stop cheating, and they will continue to justify cheating to themselves in some way so they don't feel like cheaters. 

If you get hacked!!   7-14-2005

First of all it is your responsibility to protect your own account.

If your account gets hacked keep in mind before you email me that it is 100% your own fault that it got hacked and that I will help you if I can but it is not my responsibility to do so. In order for me to do anything I have to find proper proof that your account was logged into.

Also keep in mind that you are responsible for what is done with your account. So if you let a hacker use your computer or your account you risk getting banned or deleted.

Official info on 20 mil exp   12-18-2004

It seems that I need to be clear about this reward of 10 million exp for reporting a dupe bug.

1. Once the info is given to me on how it works I must be able to confirm that the bug exists.
2. The bug cannot be related to the servers going down in any way. I am well aware that in some situations it would be possible to dupe an item if the server was to go down at the proper moment.
3. After the bug is fixed the 20 mil exp can be given to any character or if multiple people discover it the exp could be split up.
4. Once I know about a bug it cannot be submitted again by another person.