Vscape has always been moving towards one thing, being a recreation of 2006 runescape (the line blurs with dates/patches/revisions but bear with me). Our server is among the most accurate, unlimited energy and xp rate aside, and that's how it's going to stay. If a change is made it's going to be to fix something broken or missing, and that's exactly what the runecrafting nerf was.
Sometimes changes take a while and happen randomly, I'm going through some health issues, Pickles has his classes, Bobster, Latent and Saxi all have varying amounts of time to work on vscape as well. We have a list of about 1000 things that need fixed, some are easier or more interesting than others. We don't have timelines, assignments or quotas. If something gets done it's because a staff memeber decided to do it and had the time.
The staff is all pretty united in the direction this server is headed and that's one of the things we really have going for us. We have a pretty good history of integrity, decent uptime and a lot of content. Nothing has broken our economy or caused a server wipe (the speculative hammer market is really heating up though).
If vscape is ever shut down, myself and other staff have talked about us releasing the code to our server, and that may or may not happen. Release it, and change the xp to 1x and turn energy back on, and it is now 2006 runescape "preserved" for the future. Intrest in runescape will fade, but like the people that work on mame, dosbox, WoW private servers, SWG private servers or any other project of that nature, at the end of the day we'll have saved something from disappearing.
In the mean time, we're running a pretty damn good server for as long you play it. I'd like to keep trying to make it perfect.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
An Update
Hello memes,
Here we are with another update with the banner items being One Small Favour and Tutorial Island. Along with these comes numerous bug fixes and other content fixes, here's a full list including some small things omitted from pnotes:
-Temple of Ikov complete-ability bugs fixed
-Temple of Ikov witch not teleporting after certain stage fixed
-Mage of Zamorak's id changed so usage of the 'teleport' option is enabled
-Eat text on Cabbage fixed
-Can now decant potions properly into empty vials
-Can now equip boner club (Fuck off Hammi)
-Some messages related to clue scrolls now display in filtered
-Ring of Recoil properly gives PC damage points
-Fixed a bug that prevented thieving stalls when the guard had died nearby
-Gnome Stronghold front doors properly fixed
-Banana trees now update appearance and run out of nanners
-Fixed open drawers not working for certain clues
-Fixed various items not being able to slash webs when they should
-Fixed a small bug with DT that got you stuck on the ice path :^)
After this patch goes live I will be able to turn my full focus to RFD, which is currently in the works, and around 10% done. We have multiple devs working on the subquests while I continue to do cutscenes for it as well as the final fight with the Culinaromancer. I'll finish that shit and pick up a few subquests as well most likely. Bitterness is working on Shadow of the Storm while we work on RFD, with release of that planned for a week or two before RFD.
-"How come we don't have x content? X quest WHEN?"
To make it simple, there are 3 main components of the game: the client, the client's cache and the server. The client reads the data from the cache which makes up npcs, items, objects, interfaces and displays these and the rest of the game. The server dictates all content and tells the client how to interact with scripted content added to the game. The client responds to this and makes sure the server knows what each player is doing. Now, the cache extremely limits what you can add to the game. In terms of revisions of Runescape, we are loading 474 items, npcs, animations and graphics. We are loading 377 objects, interfaces and map. 474 equates to the Halloween update of 2007 while 377 was released on May 2nd 2006 for Swan Song. This means we are limited to the lowest denominator date, 05/02/06. Content that exists past that at this point can not, and will not, be added until the team sits down and entirely overhauls the game to update to a newer revision.
-"B-but there's content past that date added already!"
Yes, you're entirely right. There is. That's because it is either entirely item / npc / animation / gfx reliant and doesn't require usage of any objects / interfaces / map. The large exception to this would be the Warriors Guild which I squeezed into the Fight Arena a year ago. While it is possible to make custom changes further to the game to add more future content from the parts of the cache that come from 2007, as stated above we will not be doing any more of that on this version of the game.
-"Hunter and Construction WHEN"
As stated above, we have the exact same issue with both of these skills. Construction was released on 05/31/06, after a big game engine update on the 16th of May. It is thought that this update started the 400 series of revisions and heavily altered the way interfaces are stored in the cache. Hunter was released later on 11/21/06 somewhere around a 430 revision. Both of these skills are out of range for us to add at the moment. Just because we have the items and npcs for them does not mean we will be adding them in a 'custom' way to the server. This leads to the next question:
-"Custom content? Are we going to see any of it?"
Plain and simple, no. We are striving to recreate the game as it originally existed and to be as accurate and as stable as possible. Custom content has 2 major issues: it uses pre-existing resources and ruins the proper usage of those resources and it just looks bad. However, you will see custom content in terms of events. We have had, I think, 3 events that have been written entirely from our own material using Runescape's existing resources. We have the ability to create and add items to the game for special events for people to enjoy. Such things will only be added on special occasions and the majority of events will distribute original Runescape event items.
-"Revision update? You're thinking of adding GE? REEEEEEEEEEEEE"
When the time comes (which is still a long ways away), the maximum revision we will update the game to will be 474. As said above, this is Halloween of 2007 and pre-dates the GE. The GE will never be added.
Thanks for reading and much love,
Pickles
Here we are with another update with the banner items being One Small Favour and Tutorial Island. Along with these comes numerous bug fixes and other content fixes, here's a full list including some small things omitted from pnotes:
-Temple of Ikov complete-ability bugs fixed
-Temple of Ikov witch not teleporting after certain stage fixed
-Mage of Zamorak's id changed so usage of the 'teleport' option is enabled
-Eat text on Cabbage fixed
-Can now decant potions properly into empty vials
-Can now equip boner club (Fuck off Hammi)
-Some messages related to clue scrolls now display in filtered
-Ring of Recoil properly gives PC damage points
-Fixed a bug that prevented thieving stalls when the guard had died nearby
-Gnome Stronghold front doors properly fixed
-Banana trees now update appearance and run out of nanners
-Fixed open drawers not working for certain clues
-Fixed various items not being able to slash webs when they should
-Fixed a small bug with DT that got you stuck on the ice path :^)
After this patch goes live I will be able to turn my full focus to RFD, which is currently in the works, and around 10% done. We have multiple devs working on the subquests while I continue to do cutscenes for it as well as the final fight with the Culinaromancer. I'll finish that shit and pick up a few subquests as well most likely. Bitterness is working on Shadow of the Storm while we work on RFD, with release of that planned for a week or two before RFD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions I was asked to address
-"How come we don't have x content? X quest WHEN?"
To make it simple, there are 3 main components of the game: the client, the client's cache and the server. The client reads the data from the cache which makes up npcs, items, objects, interfaces and displays these and the rest of the game. The server dictates all content and tells the client how to interact with scripted content added to the game. The client responds to this and makes sure the server knows what each player is doing. Now, the cache extremely limits what you can add to the game. In terms of revisions of Runescape, we are loading 474 items, npcs, animations and graphics. We are loading 377 objects, interfaces and map. 474 equates to the Halloween update of 2007 while 377 was released on May 2nd 2006 for Swan Song. This means we are limited to the lowest denominator date, 05/02/06. Content that exists past that at this point can not, and will not, be added until the team sits down and entirely overhauls the game to update to a newer revision.
-"B-but there's content past that date added already!"
Yes, you're entirely right. There is. That's because it is either entirely item / npc / animation / gfx reliant and doesn't require usage of any objects / interfaces / map. The large exception to this would be the Warriors Guild which I squeezed into the Fight Arena a year ago. While it is possible to make custom changes further to the game to add more future content from the parts of the cache that come from 2007, as stated above we will not be doing any more of that on this version of the game.
-"Hunter and Construction WHEN"
As stated above, we have the exact same issue with both of these skills. Construction was released on 05/31/06, after a big game engine update on the 16th of May. It is thought that this update started the 400 series of revisions and heavily altered the way interfaces are stored in the cache. Hunter was released later on 11/21/06 somewhere around a 430 revision. Both of these skills are out of range for us to add at the moment. Just because we have the items and npcs for them does not mean we will be adding them in a 'custom' way to the server. This leads to the next question:
-"Custom content? Are we going to see any of it?"
Plain and simple, no. We are striving to recreate the game as it originally existed and to be as accurate and as stable as possible. Custom content has 2 major issues: it uses pre-existing resources and ruins the proper usage of those resources and it just looks bad. However, you will see custom content in terms of events. We have had, I think, 3 events that have been written entirely from our own material using Runescape's existing resources. We have the ability to create and add items to the game for special events for people to enjoy. Such things will only be added on special occasions and the majority of events will distribute original Runescape event items.
-"Revision update? You're thinking of adding GE? REEEEEEEEEEEEE"
When the time comes (which is still a long ways away), the maximum revision we will update the game to will be 474. As said above, this is Halloween of 2007 and pre-dates the GE. The GE will never be added.
Thanks for reading and much love,
Pickles
Monday, August 17, 2015
Staff additions!
I've given two players positions on staff, it's clear we need more quality people helping with things.
The first is Saxi who has been given the position of Admin (gold crown). He has been writing quests for months and is someone I know I can trust. For those who don't know, I've known Saxi in real life for years now and this will give him the ability to assist people with quests and other content he writes. While he won't be the definition of active in the player base, he is now an official "part of the staff" and someone I know I can count on.
Then there's Latent who has been made a Mod. After coding for a while now and being online *all the time*, I believe it will be a good addition to the staff. Regardless of words that have been exchanged or who got pk'd by who, the staff and I see nothing wrong with this move.
In personal and development news, I have over a month with no real responsibilities until Fall term starts. I'm gonna try to get an ton of vscape stuff done, my first little pet project is resurrecting the original Jagex map viewer. Here's an initial version for testing, lemme know if anyone has problems with it running: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r8m32x7cr844msi/map.jar?dl=0 I'm aware it is the wrong map and it would seem no one has the correct version of a data file it uses out on the internet. I'm sure it's sitting on a hard drive somewhere in a beige box out there, but I'm working on figuring out how to make one myself. I've also started work on a update script that will pull code from our repository, compile it and update data files quickly. This will mean quicker and more frequent updates. There's some other big things I'd like to do, but there's also a good amount of bugs to work on so we'll see. Again, thanks to you guys for reporting bugs @ http://vidyascape.no-ip.org/mantis
Also, that tournament was awesome, it had it's hitches but it was great to see so many people online and participating. Shout-out to Nijia who kicked tons of ass.
The first is Saxi who has been given the position of Admin (gold crown). He has been writing quests for months and is someone I know I can trust. For those who don't know, I've known Saxi in real life for years now and this will give him the ability to assist people with quests and other content he writes. While he won't be the definition of active in the player base, he is now an official "part of the staff" and someone I know I can count on.
Then there's Latent who has been made a Mod. After coding for a while now and being online *all the time*, I believe it will be a good addition to the staff. Regardless of words that have been exchanged or who got pk'd by who, the staff and I see nothing wrong with this move.
In personal and development news, I have over a month with no real responsibilities until Fall term starts. I'm gonna try to get an ton of vscape stuff done, my first little pet project is resurrecting the original Jagex map viewer. Here's an initial version for testing, lemme know if anyone has problems with it running: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r8m32x7cr844msi/map.jar?dl=0 I'm aware it is the wrong map and it would seem no one has the correct version of a data file it uses out on the internet. I'm sure it's sitting on a hard drive somewhere in a beige box out there, but I'm working on figuring out how to make one myself. I've also started work on a update script that will pull code from our repository, compile it and update data files quickly. This will mean quicker and more frequent updates. There's some other big things I'd like to do, but there's also a good amount of bugs to work on so we'll see. Again, thanks to you guys for reporting bugs @ http://vidyascape.no-ip.org/mantis
Also, that tournament was awesome, it had it's hitches but it was great to see so many people online and participating. Shout-out to Nijia who kicked tons of ass.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Just weak my shit up
----The Npc Weakness System----
So you have:
-MELEE (Rare, used mainly on unique npcs such as Dagannoth Supreme and varies %-wise)
-MAGIC (More common, a global 20% increase in accuracy for this weakness)
-RANGED (More common than melee, but not as much as magic, 15% boost)
-STAB (15%)
-CRUSH (15%)
-SLASH (15%)
-FIRE/WATER/EARTH/AIR (25% accuracy boost for specifics like this)
[Ancient spells do NOT count as elemental spells, per original runescape]
This is pretty much how the original system worked, although finding accurate accuracy percentages (so meta) is nigh impossible unless someone wants to watch some OSRS Q&A videos for hours on end. What can be found is which npc's have which weakness, which is the next section of this post...
I spent a few hours last night scripting some shit to parse through a downloaded copy of the OSRS wiki and pull weaknesses from every NPC I could. Now, the formatting in the source of the wiki is garbage and all over the place from various edits and stuff, so it's very possible the script missed a few NPCs (I noticed fire giants, but those were my test subjects and had weaknesses at that point anyways). So, that's why the update will come with the ::checkweakness / ::checkweak / ::weakness / ::npcweakness command. You use it like ::weakness blue dragon, and get results as such:
http://puu.sh/jucEc/06f49e1ac2.png
While the parsing of the wiki found a huge amount of weaknesses and set them to an equally massive amount of NPCs, like I said, you never know. Have fun with the command, check what you're fighting and use it to your advantage, but also report any npcs that have either an incorrect weakness or no weaknesses at all (If and ONLY IF they should have one). You'll need to cite the OSRS wiki or an archived wiki page from 2006-7 like RuneHQ, tip.it, whatever. DO NOT USE ANY MODERN RUNESCAPE WIKI! Weaknesses changed tremendously on the EOC update on realscape and are entirely inaccurate to this time period.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
FoxterGate. 5-11 Never4get etc.
The server is back up. Here's what went down.
Last night I was informed that someone's old account was missing all valuables. I took a look and found all the items were traded to Shiggydiggy on 5-11. Mr Foxter was logged into the account that was looted. Before this, Telescope tried to log in and saw he was banned.
This is around the time Mr Foxter was losing his staff privileges, and Telescope and Mr Foxter were always close. Telescope, presumably in reaction to Mr Foxter being demoted, chose to look through old files he had from running the server way back when. Some of these passwords were still current. They checked out and looted 5 accounts and over 100,000,000 gold worth of wealth.
All persons involved were banned (including accounts items were traded to and stored on) and the affected accounts will be getting their items back.
This was about 4 hours of detective work into the morning.
325 accounts are still using at risk passwords that Telescope still has. These accounts have been locked and their owners will have to contact staff to unlock them.
If you're getting a banned message please contact staff in game on another account.
!Change your password and pin regularly, PLEASE!
Oh, also we scored a slightly better server package with the same provider. It's double the ram and a little bit cheaper. Win-win!
Last night I was informed that someone's old account was missing all valuables. I took a look and found all the items were traded to Shiggydiggy on 5-11. Mr Foxter was logged into the account that was looted. Before this, Telescope tried to log in and saw he was banned.
This is around the time Mr Foxter was losing his staff privileges, and Telescope and Mr Foxter were always close. Telescope, presumably in reaction to Mr Foxter being demoted, chose to look through old files he had from running the server way back when. Some of these passwords were still current. They checked out and looted 5 accounts and over 100,000,000 gold worth of wealth.
All persons involved were banned (including accounts items were traded to and stored on) and the affected accounts will be getting their items back.
This was about 4 hours of detective work into the morning.
325 accounts are still using at risk passwords that Telescope still has. These accounts have been locked and their owners will have to contact staff to unlock them.
If you're getting a banned message please contact staff in game on another account.
!Change your password and pin regularly, PLEASE!
Oh, also we scored a slightly better server package with the same provider. It's double the ram and a little bit cheaper. Win-win!
Friday, July 24, 2015
My gear is better than yours pt. 2
Here's more tests following the same method (yes it's in controlled mode)
Player tests:
http://puu.sh/jbDns/979e89ea04.jpg (The test subject)
http://puu.sh/jbDxJ/8c3b89f183.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbDIW/90a217faef.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbDLk/6f147170fd.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbDPh/53d08cd8b9.jpg (Void DFS)
High level NPC test:
http://puu.sh/jbE9V/cd6e93e7dc.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbEdr/81b05a388b.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbEhf/76f7ccb40a.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbEjz/87fb7dce4b.jpg (Void DFS)
Player tests:
http://puu.sh/jbDns/979e89ea04.jpg (The test subject)
http://puu.sh/jbDxJ/8c3b89f183.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbDIW/90a217faef.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbDLk/6f147170fd.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbDPh/53d08cd8b9.jpg (Void DFS)
High level NPC test:
http://puu.sh/jbE9V/cd6e93e7dc.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbEdr/81b05a388b.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbEhf/76f7ccb40a.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbEjz/87fb7dce4b.jpg (Void DFS)
AAAAAAAAAAA MY GEAR IS BETTER THAN YOURS AAAAAAAAAA
Hopefully this settles some of the argument over BiS melee BS
http://pastebin.com/1DqAh98C (Max melee hit method for anyone who wants to actually crunch max hit numbers)
http://puu.sh/jbBFq/eb756c0d10.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbBOH/d917d7d678.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbBXb/fa84f56b52.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbC0U/148c4529ee.jpg (Void DFS)
Posted here for hyperlink purposes
http://pastebin.com/1DqAh98C (Max melee hit method for anyone who wants to actually crunch max hit numbers)
http://puu.sh/jbBFq/eb756c0d10.jpg (Non-void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbBOH/d917d7d678.jpg (Non-void DFS)
http://puu.sh/jbBXb/fa84f56b52.jpg (Void rune defender)
http://puu.sh/jbC0U/148c4529ee.jpg (Void DFS)
Posted here for hyperlink purposes
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