v900

Last Minute Art

I just wanted to say that the Clan Lord community has some great artists.

Not only will these artists take last-minute requests, but they will deliver it in time for the update packaging.

I am really excited for the upcoming update.  Too bad that most of the content is still in testing.  But it will look great.

Back in the Saddle

I'm back!

Tonight was Compiling the Update night, something that I should have done over the weekend but was all strung out from vacationing up in northern New England.  Lots of cool behind-the-scenes stuff going in.  Maybe you'll get to see some of it!

Script Polishing

Today was a vacation day for me, so I got to stay home and do fun stuff: I spent my entire day debugging and polishing a new script (and this script is not in any way related to combat).

The script runs a new tool for v819, and I got it to a point where it works well enough, but it works well with vulnerabilities.  Being a rather frightened and slightly paranoid Yappy, I am working to seal off any perceived leaks and problems.  The last thing I want to have is a scripting misfire resulting in the injury of one of our gerbils.

I need to work fast.  The update is less than 48 hours away.  Does anyone know where I can buy some gerbil insurance?

Day Away

I was away for most of the day today, so very little Clan Lord development got accomplished on my end.  And tonight is the submissions update deadline, and there is still a lot to do.

I can double down tomorrow and try to bang out some new monsters.

The Suck Stops Here

I am undertaking a new role on Team Clan Lord: I am now the stunt double for Pre-UpdateGM.

The pre-update involves receiving all of the deliverables/submissions from the GMs, and putting it together in a tidy update package.  This includes new images and new sounds (which we all download at the beginning of each Chaos Storm), as well as the data for areas, monsters, items, and so forth.

It was a lot of fun putting this all together in spite of the complications.  We have some scripts to automate most of the update process (largely eliminating a lot of the grunt work of shuffling files around from directory to directory).  I could not get these automated scripts to function properly on my computer, and this ended with my handling the process manually which, upon reflection, was probably better for me on my first time through this process.  Handling all of the steps manually certainly helped me understand what is involved in assembling the content for an update.

So: if things go well this update, then you may thank the contributing GMs for their awesome content.  And if things go wrong, then the suck stops here.



Many thanks for the tremendous support from my update coaches!

Plenty of Nothing

Real life has whisked me away from my focus on Clan Lord (and I admit that what little free time I have has been spent putting out fires).

I have no materials going in for V762, but I hope to have a lot for V765.

The Exclamation Point

The past several days have been a lot of fun for me.

Last Friday evening I was working in my GM office, compiling a punch list for my V756 deliverables, when another GM stopped by.  We started chatting about a project on which we were working together.  The chat slowly morphed into a teleconference: a collaborative assembly of the project components which lasted a little over four hours.

This was a new — and very positive — experience for me, as I typically assemble my update materials alone.  It was great to have a collaborator ask and answer questions: do we have these files ready?  Did we include this NPC?  Do we have all of the artwork that we need?

Collaborating with this GM has added an exclamation point to an already fun project.

Late to Bed, Early to Rise

Tonight is my deadline for V756 content.  After I eat a late dinner, I will begin organizing my submission materials.

This has been a long week for me, and tomorrow is going to be a long day (14+ hours).  I really should get to bed early tonight — I can not afford to stay up late — but I know that I will because I simply love Clan Lord too much.

I'm looking at some of my submission materials.  I gotta say that we have some ridiculously talented artists volunteering their time and talent for Clan Lord.

Vanishing Act

I will be largely AFK for all of next week.  This is significant for me in that the V756 deadline is next Friday.

If I want to have any materials ready for submission, then it is in my best interest to have everything ready by this Sunday evening.  And I certainly do have a project that needs to go in this update.

Cookies and Cola

That's this evening's dinner.

I have been working on organizing content for the V753 update since a little after noon today.  While doing some last minute additions, it came to my attention that one of the merchant NPC scripts does not support a function that I need for this update.  In fact, there are numerous merchant-related scripts and all of them do not support my needed function.  I could write the needed function, but I worry about the time remaining before my deadline.

Cookies and cola are certainly helping with the energy required to help me meet my deadline!  Hooray for caffeine and sugar!

One Hundred Percent

Sometimes I get a little lucky.

The V747 update has been postponed until Thursday which gives me an extra day to fuss with my scripts for this update.  I am entering precarious territory, as I am now seriously thinking "well, what if I were to try making such-and-such changes to this script, and then hook in support for that script, and then do this and this and that..." — which is no different from how I typically think! — but now there is a firm time frame in which such changes need to happen, and not a lot of time to test a lot of changes.

My kid sister, a CPA, was once told by her supervisor "I'll back your work 100%.  All I ask in return is that your work be 100% right."  I view my relationship with the other GMs with that quote in mind: they'll support (endure?) my rascalities 100% as long as my work is 100% right.

...even when I am still updating scripts on the eve of an update.

Update V747

... is in my rear view mirror, but I find myself watching the mirror rather than watching the road.  While I can not change any of the content that I have submitted (60+ areas: my helpers have been busy!), I can still upload and edit data files.  I am not yet satisfied with some of the scripts, so I have been uploading changes well past the Friday deadline.

There is still a little smoothing to do on one portion of one script, and I hope to have that resolved by the time the server reboots on Wednesday evening.

An Update Update

The deadline for V744 has come and gone, and I did not submit content for this upcoming update (my last update-less update was V723).  I am happy to report that, although no content was delivered by me for this update, work continues on projects!

One of these projects requires two critical scripts to power the quest/event, and I finished one of these scripts late Saturday morning (I admit that it was the easier of the two scripts).  I was unable to submit this script for the V744 update because the areas which rely on this script required updating to reflect the latest changes within the script — and those areas were also updated late Saturday morning, far past the submission deadline.

V747 will be a busy update for me!

Toad Eats Puppies

I made a brief stop by the fairgrounds this evening while waiting for the update.  Silliness ensued.







Thanks to everyone who stopped by. I enjoyed your company!

Ho Ho Huh?

Busy busy busy busy busy.

I have one new script and one modified script submitted to our file depository, and I am racing to finish two new scripts by this Friday (the GM's deadline for V732 deliverables).  In addition to all of these scripts, I need to make some new art work happen, test some new items, add a couple of new monsters – and then I can think about implementing my languishing quest.

Sometimes I wish that I was Santa Claus Chicken, and that I could use my chicken-magic to grant everyone their wish.  And deliver lots of goodies in one evening.

The Update Update

It was quite the fascinating update.

Without going into details, we had some, uh, "technical challenges" which had complicated matters.  Fortunately we have some pretty smart folk which were able to troubleshoot problems faster than Trinity could slap-and-draw a six shooter.

One problem did come to light: one of my scripts-in-development went rogue and started flooding the server log with a lot error alerts.  What confuses me the most is that I do not recall ever uploading that script to the live server!  How embarrassing for me.

I am excited about this update.  I think that it may prove to be a lot of fun, now that we were able to overcome the technical challenges.

V729 Is Delivered

My quest script has been rewritten!

It is a shame that this script was not included in my submission for V729 (which contains some proof-of-concept areas for a new adventure that my helper and I have been developing).  I still have a little time this weekend to slide the revised script in under the radar, but I have other activities planned that may distract me for an extended period of time.

I am very pleased that I achieved the goal of rewriting my script, but I now need to run the new script through a test server and begin the debugging process.  My prediction is that there shall be bugs.  Lots of bugs.

Another Update Completed

I have made a lot of progress on the scripts for my silly little quest.  While I was unable to complete everything in time for the V726 deadline, I must say that, overall, I am pleased with the progress that I have been making on this project.  Heck, I am pleased that I am making any progress on this project!

This evening was deadline evening, and I spent my evening assembling my content for V726.  The materials which I submitted were for a couple of projects in development, and both were produced entirely by one helper.  It will be a while before we see either of these new areas in game, but both of the new areas are shaping up to be ambitious projects.

One Less Task

I spent Wednesday evening scripting.  It has been a while since I have scripted in earnest, and I was pleasantly reminded on how fast an evening can pass whilst focusing on a project.

This all came about earlier in the day after noticing that the V693 update was over 4MB in size.  Four megabytes!  I was both mortified and intrigued – why would the update be so large?  The answer was a bit of a let-down (this update includes some uncompressed sound files), but after poking around the new content, I was reminded of an NPC of which I had wanted to add some functionality for the past three years (or remove functionality, depending on one's view).  Last night was the night that I made those changes happen.

One less task to do on the To Do list!