Wednesday, July 16, 2008

BadLands Finally Made it to 1.69

That's correct! BadLands RPG is finally up and running in the new 1.69 upgrade.

It is not without it's bugs, but all you old chars are there along with all your PW info.

If you find bugs, and you will, this is as good a place as any to post them. I will address them all in due time.

New subraces are not getting wings and tails. I will fix this.

New players are finding BadLands RPG and think they own the place. Even though the 1.68 and 1.69 share the same servervault and database, the new world is being changed. Are you really going to let some noob think he/she can take-over your world? Get the update and join in the fun.

I still can't get a sceenshot, but players are riding horses. Lot's of players on now.

Q

25 comments:

Simon Hawk said...

I ran into the "Rakshasa NEW"....OMG, that thing is ridiculous. It definatly takes a new strategy to beat it.

Deurack said...

cant wait to get back on. I have been pretty busy with work and didnt bother downgrading so I could log on with the 1.68. Now that the server is running 1.69, it's time for the new members of the Death Dealers to make their presence felt. Just remembers...it's nothing personal ;)

Deimonos said...

Yep, some bosses are badasses now..

And I'm having that deja vú feeling going on in my head.. somehow I feel like I'm back to the ledak/shadow/oki time.. oh no.. :(

Simon Hawk said...

Ah yes, the L.S.O. times :P What a wonderful new day to be a DM! :)

But look on the bright side, this will bring fourth the opportunity to bash many new faces...repeatedly.

SF Daishi said...

Shark isnt working?

Deimonos said...

Tell me about it.
Yesterday was the day.. Sharon was justing hanging around, riding her new horse, getting to know the new bosses, adjusting to mounted fighting.. when she hears a pk shout. Shanobi Sket was pk'lling low 10s in mosquito wolfe! >_>
That must be "game mistake", nah.. couldn't believe some guy would do that on purpose.. (another deja vú, sewers massacre anyone??) and then she hears it again, one shout after another.
When the guy became a wanted criminal, Sharon decided to do something about it..
She ports to Newport and ride Blub (her horse.. i liked the name.. :D) and go speeding through the Path of the Beaten. It seems that Blub has some magical powers as well, since he can run pretty fast, like a monk.. Well, when they reach crystal coast, what do they find?
Yep, the same wanted criminal, just camping and waiting for his next lowbie victim.. but not this time, Sharon buffs herself and there she goes. After a couple of minutes of intense pursuit, he's finally down and put in jail.

A good day, a good day indeed.. :D

Qwildurn said...

SF Daishi said...
Shark isnt working?

No. The shark is not working now.
I hope I can fix it, but at least the important parts of the realm work.
Q

Qwildurn said...

The new blood is coming in from two main sources,
1 > BadLands was one of the first to go to 1.69
2 > It's summer and schools out.

I had left BadLands up even though it barely worked and a lot of players tried it. After it went from Beta to final (badlands) I gave these new players the XP they had earned.

So we are one year older and one year maturer. Schools out for summer and all the kids are on to heckle all us old farts.

Shanobi Sket: to be specific, asked me if PVP and PP (pick pocket) was allowed. It is and I said so. I did mumble something about reading the wanted corpse. Shanobi Sket did earn his 30+ levels. And got imprisoned for murder when a bounty hunter caught up to him. I felt kind hearted and eventually released him from jail and wiped his PK points.
ROF-LMAO
It didn't take long till he was a wanted criminal again and got whacked. This time he could not respawn. He wanted my help.
I said something about cowards hunting lowbies. If he was hunting players at his own level he would not be getting PK points, but they would probably be able to kill him too.
Shanobi Sket seemed annoyed that I would not rez him. Probably about as annoyed as all the the easy-pickin's he killed.
TFS old man. (TFS = Tough Fucking Shit).

QB (queen bitch)

Deimonos said...

lol.. this really brings back memories.. :D
and your info about shanobi being the old booma baby got me thinking.
He was ledak's only lvling bud since everyone else was relatively annoyed by his lack of "skill". But he was not a pk'ller.
Now, seing that many of the ppl playing right now are lowbies and some are really noobs, the guy gets all brave and feeling too uber.. go figure...

Deurack said...

I still cant log on. I have tried my direct connect shortcut and going through Gamespy. When I try the Direct Connect I get:

"Attempting to find server.
Server Found. Attempting to log in.
Connection to Server has failed.
Connection Error: Client and Server versions do not match."

When I try to go through Gamespy it says it's connection to the server but then nothing ever happens.

Any suggestions? I'm starting to go through some really odd withdrawal symptoms. I hid in the shadows near the stairwell and performed a sneak attack on the mail clerk today at the office. Help me Q, before I randomly attack another postal worker!

Qwildurn said...

Yes –
>>>>Connection Error: Client and Server versions do not match."<<<<

You are using one version and trying to log on to the other version.

I am hosting both 1.68 and 1.69 still.

If you have the 1.68 version:
- In the gamespy window you will see BadLands RPG in blue and in grey. The grey servers are all 1.69 servers.

If you have the 1.69 upgrade:
- In gamespy you won’t see any 1.68 servers.

If you are trying a direct connect:
- The 1.68 port is :5121 (default)
- The 1.69 port is :5123

You can change the saved settings by editing the correct .INI file. It is self-explanatory once you open the correct file.

NWN.ini or NWNPLAYER.ini

The new upgrade is only available in English. I am leaving the old one up for the other countries.

Q

Qwildurn said...

If you want to put a shortcut on your desktop to do a direct connect to the server:

Find the file named "nwmain.exe" and put a shortcut of that on your desktop. (look in your NWN folder).

Then right click on the new Icon and click on "properties".
Next, make sure your in the "Shortcut" tab and look for "Target".
In the text window it should look similar to this:
C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN\nwmain.exe

Add this onto it:
+connect qwildurn.game-host.org:5123

To make it look like:
C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN\nwmain.exe +connect qwildurn.game-host.org:5123

(leave a space between ".exe +connect")

Then click OK to to close.
Now you should be able to skip all the movies and crap and start at BadLands RPG.

If you are still using 1.68, use :5121 instead of :5123

You can do this for any NWN server actually, but you need to know the IP of the server. I host my own web site, so that's why you can use part of my web address. And, if my IP changes, the DNS look-up will take care of the changes for you.

Are you confused yet?
Q

erik!!!! said...

Lost the ability to buy some scrolls. I guess it kind of makes my pure rogue useless now. Any plans to add a new scroll shop?

ukcanuk3

Qwildurn said...

ukcanuk2 said...
Lost the ability to buy some scrolls. I guess it kind of makes my pure rogue useless now. Any plans to add a new scroll shop?

When 1.69 was released, I was in the process of a lot of changes. The scrolls shops was one. Your pure rogue is not worthless. I need to finish the shops.
Basically, I am moving the divine scrolls over into the temple. But I forgot to finish. Hopefully it will be finished in a few days, along with the monk gloves issue.
Q

erik!!!! said...

So much for running the 1.68 version while 1.69 is up.. I went back to 68 because all the bosses were impossible, and it was no fun to play. So now I go to kill the rak, there's about 14 mega minions there, okay, i can handle that. But then i only have one outpost left, and it's meph.. I get there to find about 30 minions, LeShays, and the killer shark.

so much for fun?

Qwildurn said...

1.68 is still up because 1.69 is only available in English. About half our player don't speak English. Quite often, the servers have 6/6 players. Sometimes 6/12. (1.68/1.69)

Which half of the BadLands players do you want to lose their database info? When 1.69 is available in other languages, their current info will be where?

The mega-minions are a problem that I have been on players about since dirt was clean. Us DM's have had numerous pow-wows about players creating mega-spawns and not killing them. There is no good solution that I can find. What is your solution?

The bosses have been toughened-up because they were just to easy. Most of the bosses were made with standard level 40 players in mind. With the stronger sub-races and players rising above level 40, most of the bosses make better mini-bosses than Tough-As-Nails, Hard-Ass-Bosses. There suppose to be hard, that's why they're called BOSSES. Any Boss that can be taken down by one character is not a boss, just a tough monster. A good party is what it takes to take out a REAL BOSS.

Yes, 1.68 can take outposts and so can 1.69. It works both ways.

Q

Simon Hawk said...

""Us DM's have had numerous pow-wows about players creating mega-spawns and not killing them. There is no good solution that I can find. What is your solution?""

Reduce the number of spawn points. And or the number of creatures that each point produces. Make the minions easier to kill.

""A good party is what it takes to take out a REAL BOSS.""

Unless people actually start partying instead of solo'ing on BadLands, it is my gut feeling you are going to lose players Q.

Unless the current guild leaders and or high level players start activly persuing 'party-play' I think alot of what BadLands has to offer will go un-used.

Deimonos said...

Thing is, it won't matter if you got a big group if you face an enemy that can stone everyone with an unreasonable attack that can't be resisted.
Same with a monster that can't be hit. What good it will do having 2 chars swinging swords if neither of them can touch the damn thing?

Mages have, or used to have, an easy time boss killing. Most of the bosses are mage killable only. Only a few can be bashed with melee. Actually, only one could be killed with a str based char. The other two required a high AC to withstand their heavy blows, something the standard str based lacks.

But when we come to getting above lvl 40, no doubt devers rule. A well build dever has only boredom as his main enemy while a mage struggles and after 8 or 10 trogs he is compelled to rest.

Going back to Simon's post. Just this: more players = more party-play possibilities.

Simon Hawk said...

I agree with you Deim, about the bosses.


As far as party play goes.

Shouldn't BadLands be hosted under the "Party" option in gamespy instead of "Action"? If you want a party oriented server then it should be hosted in the proper place. I think a version should be hosted there as a test.

Deurack said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Qwildurn said...

You're correct, I don't build mages in BadLands. I don't truly know them. I have tried, but I have never been able to solo a mage. I have seen enough players do it, I can't do it. I have given myself free mages with 40 levels and still, I can't play them.
In the old days, mages could only do mage stuff, AC and AB was so low they HAD to have a group of fighters to hide behind. Even if all the fighters were was a wall so the mage could get off a few spells. Low-level mages had to be carried until they had some real spells like fireball.

Leaf had a wonderful balance here at BadLands. I destroyed that balance by adding sub-races and the HGLL 60 engine. Part of leaf's balance was nerfed IGM's. At one point I removed (unknowingly) the IGM changes. All I did was restore IGM to BadLands original.
I will disable this again. In a few days you will see the change.

My envision of BadLands: I was a regular player on Leafs server for a long time. I got tired of being level 12 and stepping out of the forest into Crystal Coast to be creamed by the 40s that were lined up waiting to PK noobs. It never seemed right (correct) to me that a Paladin could go on an "Axe-Murderers Rampage" and be immune to any retribution.
I added "RPG" to the title mostly to have a standpoint to say, "Some of this can't be." The bounty system seems to have fixed my primary complaint. The players themselves are now able to dish out retribution.

BadLands is "Hack-n-Slash". Solo, Party or otherwise, it's fast paced ACTION. I want the player(s) to be able to do their thing, play their style.

Q

Deurack said...

**This was what my post that Q is responding to above was supposed to look like. I cut and pasted it incorrectly so I deleted it and re-posted it.**

Simon and Deimonos hit it right on the head. This is an ACTION server, not a PARTY server. I personally come to Badlands because I want to be able to do things on my own. If I wanted a Party experience, there are MANY other servers that are DESIGNED to be a Party experience and are much more enjoyable in that regard.

Something that I have not heard anyone comment about here on the Blog but is being talked about ALOT in the game is the nerf to Isaacs Greater Missile Storm, or IGMS as it's more typically known. Q, I understand that you don’t play mages. You have told me that a few different times. AND YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT BECAUSE YOU DONT PLAY MAGES YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF WHAT IT TAKES TO BALANCE THAT CLASS!! You make me think of a Chef trying to season a pot of soup without ever tasting the ingredients. You have NO idea what it tastes like, or even what you want the final product to taste like, but you just keep tossing things into the pot, hoping it will be better. IGMS is a very powerful spell when used in the right circumstances. It can be very effective in PvP and boss killing. BUT IT WAS NOT OVERPOWERED THE WAY IT WAS! I can just hear people saying now, “Not overpowered? That spell can do 240 points of damage!” No, you’re wrong. The MAXIMIZED version of that spell can do 240 points of damage. In order to do that much damage the mage must first take the appropriate Feat and then use a 9th level spell slot, which means there are other powerful spells he cannot cast. That is the cost the mage pays for having that power. Is that really so different from the Deep Orc Dev Crit’er that is willing to sacrifice having good AC and good skill points to be able to deal huge amounts of damage per hit with the ability to ‘one-shot-kill’ anything he hits? This game, and specifically this server, is all about SPECIALIZING in a specific area and sacrificing the ability to be effective in other areas. The mage sacrifices many other abilities to be able to have the power to cast that spell.
The regular version of IGMS cast by a 20th level mage does around 140 on average (an average 2d6 roll is 7, * 20 = 140). A mage that is hasted can cast that spell twice per round, for an average damage output of 280. A well built, Strength based Melee build with no monk levels can attack 5 times per round. The Melee build would only have to average 56 damage per hit to have the same damage output as the Mage casting IGMS. A well built Monk build can attack at least 8 times per round, which means it would only have to average 35 damage per hit to match the damage output of the mage. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? THE SPELL WAS BALANCED THE WAY IT WAS! Yes the Mage had the ability to greatly increase the damage of the spell by Maximizing or Empowering it, but the Monk has abilities that offset that damage and the Strength based Melee build obviously has other abilities that set him apart from other builds. THAT’S THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSE D TO BE!!! Oh, and let’s not forget, the above example only applies if there is only 1 target for the IGMS. If the mage is Xp’ing or trying to kill multiple things, then that damage is spread out among all the targets, while the other builds can focus their damage on a single target and the move on to the next one.

So now let’s get to the real issue; boss killing. I know how you feel about the bosses, but what you did to IGMS was not the answer. Yes, IGMS is extremely good at killing some of the bosses, but some of the bosses are already immune to the spell, and some are resistant to Magical Energy. If you wanted to make IGMS less effective at killing bosses, all you had to do was either make the other bosses immune to it or add some Magical Energy Resistance to them. Hell, I know that the DM's have been thinking about a new set of armor that would help lower the effectiveness of IGMS in PvP. Upping the bosses defenses and putting that armor in circulation would have accomplished the SAME EXACT THING without Crippling the mage class.

If you've never played a mage, then you don’t have any idea of how tough they are to level up. You don’t know how many times you have to rest, and you surely don’t know many spells you have to cast in order to kill most of the monsters at your level. IGMS was one of a VERY few spells that were actually effective in Xp'ing, and you just took away half the effectiveness of the spell. Great. That leaves Mages with even less ability to level.

Now, about the PvP. Sure IGMS is a great spell, but it was what made a mage a mage. What I mean by that is PvP is supposed to be about "Paper, Rock, Scissors". There is no one build that can kill all the others, each build is supposed to have an "Achilles Heel", another build that can kill it. Sure, the 29/10/1 build is powerful and tough to kill for most builds, but it is not in any way unkillable. A build with 16 levels of Monk and the right Sub-race and Feats can stand there and laugh at that build. And like I said, IGMS was one of the mage’s few effective weapons on this server. No spell with a save is worth using due to insanely high Saves and Ability Modifiers, and that doesn’t leave the Mage with many options. Take into consideration the high level of Hit Points most 40+ builds have and you’ll begin to see that Mages don’t have many effective options when selecting PvP spells.

Let’s do another comparison. IGMS used to do 140 damage on average, but since the nerf only does 70. If the Mage is hasted he can cast it twice per round for a total of 140 points of damage per round. However, the Strength based Melee build only has to do 28 damage per hit to match that, and the Monk only has to do 17.5 That’s just pathetic. Ok, let’s assume the Mage is using Empower and Maximize Feats to increase the damage of the spell. An Empowered IGMS would now do 105 damage on average, cast twice per round for a total of 210. The Strength build only has to do 42 damage per hit and the Monk only has to do 26.25 per hit to match that. Ok, what about a Maximized IGMS? Well, a Maximized IGMS is now the same as an old version of the Regular IGMS and we’ve already seen the comparison above. So that means that if a Mage and a Melee build are fighting each other, and they have the same amount of HP, the Melee build will be doing MUCH more damage per round than the Mage and will win if he’s smart. And I know, Mages have Epic Warding and Acid Sheath, but smart players know how to get past/around that, just ask Borg Master and Paine. And besides, that’s where the “Paper, Rock, Scissors” aspect comes in.

Anyway, here’s my point. BADLANDS NOT A PARTY SERVER!! It never has been, and in my opinion, it never will be. I understand what you're trying to do Q, I really do. You want to create the same atmosphere and challenge level of the Pen and Paper D&D you love so much. But Badlands just isn’t going to be that! I don’t know if this is what you envisioned when you made the Badlands RPG world, but this server is a place where people come to level up new builds quickly, join guilds, kill bosses and use their powerful new builds to PK. THATS WHAT THIS IS. If that's not what you want, I suggest you create a new world with new rules and new challenges. If that means shutting Badlands RPG down, so be it. But I strongly feel, and I believe I am REALLY not alone, that the changes that you are making will lead many of the people who play here on a regular basis to stop coming here.

erik!!!! said...

Amen ^

SF Daishi said...

I agree... I had such a hard time after losing all my stuff I had to earn it all back. As I'm sure some of you are... I have a small window to play more often than not. I Sometimes only get 1/2 an hour a day due to work and kids etc. I used to love to log in and kill a few ants before work. But now its hard and I have to rely on a monk or bard.

Simon Hawk said...

Q, Thank you for restoring IGMs to their former glory!!!

Us mage users appreciate it greatly!