Difference between revisions of "GM Developer Blog"

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==Where We Are Now?==
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{{:Nov_2_2024_Devblog}}
  
heRO has come a long way. We are one of the oldest remaining English servers and have an unbelievable amount of custom content. Sometimes it's worth looking back at our accomplishments to see how far we've gone while keeping the core feeling of the pre-renewal mechanics:<br>
 
  
* Continued the tradition of the 18th year with no wipes, restarts or major data losses
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==Old Dev Blog Posts==
* Out of ~2700 monsters or monster entries in the game, over 90% are modified in some way compared to a vanilla server
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* 3/5 of all naturally spawned monsters have completely customized stats, abilities and item drops, or they are unique monsters to heRO
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* Over 1000 custom items and cards are available in heRO
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* Over 500 obtainable costumes (degree of cuteness varies)
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* Our custom regions and areas result in over 40 custom maps available
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* Introduced many custom artwork from GMs and player contributions alike, creating new NPCs unique to our server
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* With our class reworks, more than half the skills in the game have been modified with number touchups, or they are heavily rebalanced
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* Explored many unique ways for PvM combat that's never seen in other servers
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* In terms of patches alone, heRO has reached over 600 releases and updates in our history
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<br>
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Recent years introduced a much heavier emphasis on quality of life improvement, such as the hero's journey, solo brewing room, BBS for async trading, continued reduction of time-gated gears, quick interface NPCs, and increased account-wide accessibility features. We expand on overlooked builds to breathe life into classes/skills that are forgotten by the original game.<br>
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[[Oct_24_2024_Devblog|Oct 24 2024]]<br>
 
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[[Apr_27_2024_Devblog|Apr 27 2024]]<br>
However, our unique position and history also bring many problems unique to heRO that are never felt by many newer, more exciting-looking servers. We have reached a critical point where it is too difficult to go further.
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[[Apr_6_2024_Devblog|Apr 6 2024]]<br>
 
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* We have hit our hard limit on the number of monsters available in the game. To create any new monster entries, heRO GMs have no choice but to overwrite some unused/rarely used official mobs to make space. For reference, we are up to mob ID 3992. The last ID allowed is 3999.
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* We have already run out on the number of NPC sprites available- we had to overwrite official NPCs already to fit Faeheim
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* We have so many custom monsters and items that we've broken the default custom databases provided by the Hercules emulator engine a few years ago: we had to abandon the "db2" systems and overtake the databases reserved for official- because we've crossed the 50% boundary where we have more customs than officials
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* Our map server is exhausted: GM Ciar and our T&D mapmaker have to purposely downgrade maps and monster sprites to make them compatible with our 18-year-old server (Lutia Mines, Abyss 4, Mora fields, Bifrost are all examples of downgraded maps)
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* We've pretty much done as many unique twists and item combinations possible allowed within what we have- even though we have the creativity to make more interesting things that will challenge the theorycrafters, our tools don't allow these ideas to come to fruition
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* heRO has so many custom resources that heRO requires the "GRF" file to be split into two to be functional- but this means every release or patches potentially have twice the amount of work involved
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* We have hit the limitations placed on playable characters of the Hercules simulator engine, even though we have expanded them many times already (such as our beloved Kafra inventory size, the number of autobonus triggers available, or the number of kill-quest registered for a player)
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* Every change we make in 2024 has to be compatible with a character created under the codes and rules permitted in 2006 (e.g. This is why Sign Quest seemingly breaks for every returning old player)
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Therefore, it is time for the heRO GM and T&D team to take a break from making changes or creating new content that is visible to players and handle these extremely pressing issues behind the curtains. We need to focus our efforts to address technical limitations to give ourselves some breathing space for the future.<br><br>
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'''It's time for a client and patcher upgrade.'''<br>
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==What Does That Mean?==
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We will make one final critical bugfix release with the current client and patcher in April to address the following critical issues: Super Novice Link requires the wrong skill pre-requisite and some item description errors that must be fixed. This will be released at the end of the Easter/St Patrick's Day quest. After this release, we'll enter a "code freeze" where we stop changing the server to prepare for the client and patcher upgrade. Any reported issues during this time will not be addressed under the current client. The fixes to reported issues will be carried out for the new client release version instead.<br>
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On the GM team, we have GM-Flutrane joining our team as a much-needed expert to assist us. GM-Abathur has also returned to the team to lend their aid. Admittedly, GM-Ciar and I (GM-Ayu) are unfortunately heavily occupied with real life due to a series of misfortunes since the latter half of 2023. We'll need help from these other GMs to maintain the pace of releases and to be less of a bottleneck for heRO. We also have our wonderful T&D player volunteers such as Ange, Rankin, Namreg, Kadar, Wys, JoeJoe, PonPon, Cattre and Peeka to help us in a broad range of areas- network administration help, artistic contributions (sprite art, card art, patcher art, loading screens, map-making), balance/stat calculations, project management and spot testing. This is a herculean effort that was already started back in February in the background. Only now are we close enough to the end where it's suitable for GMs to announce this project.<br>
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We aim to have the first stage of the new client available by May or June at the latest. Unfortunately, this means that there will be a bit of a slow time ahead of heRO. According to our current schedule, we expect that the Summer celebration in July will be the first true "new content" where there are new activities to do. After the small summer celebration, then we aim to have new PvM content available using technologies made newly available to us via the update. When the new client arrives, all players will have to re-download heRO from scratch due to the massive changes involved with the client. Admittedly, this is quite a nuisance to download 5 GB+ of files again, but it will be very worth it.
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==What's in the Update?==
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We'll break down what a new client and new patcher can offer us in different categories:<br>
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Address currently "unfixable" bugs and issues:
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* Knights and Crusaders can learn skills on a Peco Peco
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* Bizarre palette failure whenever another player gets on a mount within your point of view
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* Remove all ID-related limitations for monsters, NPC sprites, and item sprites
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* Improved in-game quest list- so that it's usable. The quest translation may not be available on release, but the technology to fix and rewrite it for English is here now.
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* Fix map-related issues where it's previously unfixable, and our only option is to downgrade maps or remove the appearance of certain effects or objects to bypass the errors
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* Return of different weapon/shield sprites for different equipment
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* Fix an issue with a new download where it complains about an invalid path
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New Quality of Life
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* Break the limit with 5000 storage slots available in personal storage and guild storage
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* Equipment loadout: prepare 2 sets of equipment, and with one single button, all equipment will swap from "loadout A" to "loadout B"
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* Skill bar loadout: prepare 2 sets of 4 rows of skills, and with one single button, what you have put on skill bars will swap from "skill bars 1" to "skill bars 2", allowing battlemode players to utilize more than 4 bars at once easily
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* Expanded character slots: 15 characters per account instead of 12
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* Compare equipment: when you right-click on an item in your inventory, it can also display information for what you have equipped right now so you can easily compare what you have vs what you got in your inventory
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* The gender of your character does not have to be fixed for an account: you can have a mix of male and female characters in the same account
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* Favorite items have their tab in your inventory, not only in Kafra
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* Ingame recommended quest list: have less reliance on the heRO wiki to suggest notable things to do in heRO
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* Expanded hairstyle and palette options for character customization at Styla
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* Gunslinger mounts will no longer be a brand peco peco. Gunslinger will get a motorcycle mount!
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* Opens new possibility of more status icons available in the client to notify you of any issues
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* Patching heRO should no longer require a long time to "unpack" files
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* Allow etc. items to be placed in the skill bar so you can see the quantity of a particular item without opening your inventory
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* Not a quality of life for players, but for GMs: much-needed ease in development and modernizing development tools
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Brand New Features for heRO- not everything will be made available immediately with a new client/patcher, but we will have the option for the following
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* Class Costumes: A much-requested feature—dress up as the 3rd and 4th classes in appearance while remaining true to the pre-renewal system, which allows you to only go up to trans 2-1 and 2-2 classes.
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* Pet Costumes: disguise your current pet to look like something else while retaining its actual abilities (such as looting)
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* Skin tone for your character for more personal customization. 3 new skin tones will be available.
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* Rearrange party display via drag and drop- no longer do you have to invite members to a party in a curated order so that your Prof and HP do not go insane
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* More garment costume options available
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* Achievement system: obtain rewards based on meeting certain requirements or doing specific actions at any time
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* "Trans" version of extended classes: While it's debatable whether we should do it or not, we currently don't even have the option due to sprite ID limitations. A new client at least opens that option for us, so it's even plausible to think about it.
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* Rodex mail system: this is another hotly debated feature on whether it should be enabled. On one hand, people like the feature for easy offline trading, but players are also wary of the mail system due to security concerns. The new client opened up the option for us to consider whether we should implement this or stick with banker/BBS to fulfill the role of offline trading.
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* Opens up the crafting list so that we have room for more arrow crafting and get the option for an item creation revamp for Blacksmiths and Alchemists
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Latest revision as of 10:59, 2 November 2024

Another new GM to the team?

I think some players will be wondering why do we have another GM to the team. heRO is an old but very small server, so why is there so many GMs?

TL;DR: 2 GMs moved to be inactive. Pandora and Aki moved to backend. Ciar, Ayu and Pereca have to do less, so we have Flutrane and Aventurine join to fill in.



Thus, it's time to revamp the wiki's GM Team page to highlight what is happening. As the server ages, so does the GM team, and different people handle different responsibilities. At the same time, some other GMs can no longer contribute as much as they used to. There have been age-old problems that plague an old server as well- problems that new servers do not have to face, such as a database of characters from 2006 that has to be compatible with a 2024 system. Furthermore, a mix of stagnant personality plus a limiting skill set does not allow the GM team to address these problems. New blood is required to keep things moving.


Therefore, some of the old GMs will take a step back. Players probably have noticed already, but GM-Rahice and GM-Garr have been absent for quite a long time for various reasons. They will step back to be inactive GMs. GM-Aki and GM-Pandora are rare for players except for those who may have support tickets submitted, where they support players in account or donation-related matters. Outside of the players' sight, GM-Pandora continues to be the server administrator who is responsible for server hosting and all auxiliary sites, such as the website and the wiki. GM-Aki assists GM-Pandora to be the account and database administrator. Finally, GM-Abathur has always been a GM in the background for scripting and coding support. So, out of the GM team, 5 members will unlikely be seen in the game too often.


That leaves three in-game GMs: myself (GM-Ayu), GM-Ciar and GM-Pereca. For various real-life reasons, the three of us have been less active than before, such as for school/professional upgrading, work and health reasons. Our timezone coverage is also relatively weak, especially since we have more European/Asian players than traditional North America. Therefore, we decided that we can use some new members to the team.


Our duties have also been shuffled around to reflect the reality of different GMs stepping back and new GMs coming in.


GM-Ciar will continue to lead the GM team, overseeing all other GMs' duties and serving as the final reviewer of all changes made by other GMs. High-level server directives will be set by GM-Ciar for other GMs to execute. On top of that, he will resume his usual status as our server's mapper- for example, the recent maps used in Rental WoE and Iron Fist tournament are Ciar's more recent work. He will also do some light scripting himself- he took part in some of the recent Port Malaya releases, the anniversary + Halloween event. GM-Ciar also has a November Thanksgiving event prepared for everyone as well!


GM-Ayu will retain the responsibility for server balance. Although other GMs and T/D members also make suggestions and contributions to balance, I will approve the detailed mathematical changes in execution. While I will still contribute to scripting, making backend changes (such as further class re-balance or making buffs/nerfs to existing custom changes) and being an event host, I will also relieve some of this work and pass it to the new GMs so that I'll take more of a backseat in this area until some real-life circumstances with work have cleared up.


GM-Pereca will be the main in-game and discord GM for ticket resolutions for non-technical matters, and hopefully, she can return to host some monthly events for our players.


GM-Flutrane will primarily be a backend GM who will take over as primary source code control and the main tech GM who will implement custom features for heRO. With Flutrane's help, heRO has recently implemented features unique to heRO only and not seen on other servers, such as pet inventory, weapon costumes and pet disguises. The recent roguelite arena in Mystic Tower is also supported by many Flutrane's work, even though Aventurine and I hosted the event. Flutrane is working hard on a never-seen-before-repeatable activity for players, such as this year's Christmas celebration, so be sure to look forward to it!


Intern-Aventurine will do a mixture of both player-facing in-game events, especially for players who like to take a risks and gamble away. Aventurine will help in hosting regular events so that we can restore monthly events with his increased coverage. Behind the scenes, Aventurine will help me in patch-related work, scripting, and most importantly, be heRO's network administrator to help in backend infrastructure fixes and improvements. Even though we had technical staff in heRO's history, we always had programmers but never anyone who specialized in networking. We look forward to Aventurine's contributions in this department.


Our last dev blog post discussed things that affect the players for the immediate future. This major GM change will also affect some things that will not immediately impact players in the game. Because these changes are not observable in-game, we hope that they'll be a net benefit for our small but close community.


Old Dev Blog Posts

Oct 24 2024
Apr 27 2024
Apr 6 2024