LDoNs and whatnot

[lanileb]

That part I know wouldn't be hard at all, just write a quest script where it ports them to said zone. I was wondering though how you would write a script where it generates an instance of the zone so other groups can't rain on your parade and start killing in the same "instance."

[x-scythe]

I think you would have to have more than one of the same zone running on your server. So, depending on the size of your playerbase, you could end up having a lot of the same zones running. Unless you put in more than one ldon mission to spread out the playerbase a bit.
Or, so you don't have unneeded zones running if they aren't in use, set up a script to start the zone up if a new one is needed. I don't know how you would go about doing that though.

[John Adams]

I actually have not seen zone instancing work yet. Is it really as simple as booting copies of the same zone name? For some reason, I didn't think that'd work. Color me skeptical.

If LDoNs worked, that would kick ass. A server could really support lower player populations if they had something more to do than kill repeatedly on orc highway.

[lanileb]

yea, was wondering if there is a way to set up a script where its like IF zonenamehere < 1player send to X zone server or something like that...again I wouldn't know how to set up a script like that though..wouldn't even know where to begin.

[sfisque]

this is already handled by the zone files. if you look at the zone files, there are 8 of each, labeled "zone_name"a through "zone_name"h. basically, a group would get one of the eight zones depending on which was available, that zone would have mobs spawned that were level appropriate, and the players would be flagged somehow so that when they hit the door, the server would zone them into the correct zone, aka taka or takc ("tak" being the zone and "a" or "c" being the instance).

so the only tricky part would be the door handler code (if you went the "exactly like Live" route) unless you went the "quest npc teleports the group" route.

== sfisque

[John Adams]

Hmm, so the LDoN missions given out doesn't really "instance" an LDoN zone on live, but uses up to 8 zones only? What happens on the 9th group wanting to do Tak LDoNs, do they get denied?

I thought true instancing was what we were talking about, but you may be right. Or, that would be a quick way to handle it here on Emu anyway. No way 9 groups at once will storm one type of LDoN.

I have been working on this LDoN stuff for some time, but hit a wall on the PlayerProfile packet not holding the adventure ID. Since the only way to get help was to sit on IRC until I got kicked off for inactivity, I gave up. But my next concern in line after the interface was - how do you tell taka to spawn level 20-70 mobs? So I started thinking of spawn "conditions", and some script that determines the average level of a group and uses that condition, which will spawn the appropriate set of mobs. This of course means each LDoN zone would need 6 different level scales of 20 or so unique mobs plus bosses, plus loots. I almost blew my head off trying to work it all out.

[KLS]

Sorry I was little help John.. just didn't know, perhaps we can revisit it later. =x

The fact that we have no instancing is probably one of the biggest obstacles to real LDoNs... and there's quite a bit of work to get the server to support them.

[sfisque]

Originally Posted by John Adams

Hmm, so the LDoN missions given out doesn't really "instance" an LDoN zone on live, but uses up to 8 zones only? What happens on the 9th group wanting to do Tak LDoNs, do they get denied?

I thought true instancing was what we were talking about, but you may be right. Or, that would be a quick way to handle it here on Emu anyway. No way 9 groups at once will storm one type of LDoN.

I have been working on this LDoN stuff for some time, but hit a wall on the PlayerProfile packet not holding the adventure ID. Since the only way to get help was to sit on IRC until I got kicked off for inactivity, I gave up. But my next concern in line after the interface was - how do you tell taka to spawn level 20-70 mobs? So I started thinking of spawn "conditions", and some script that determines the average level of a group and uses that condition, which will spawn the appropriate set of mobs. This of course means each LDoN zone would need 6 different level scales of 20 or so unique mobs plus bosses, plus loots. I almost blew my head off trying to work it all out.

you could just have an invisible npc that spawns the zone, adding dynamic mobs when a proximity detector goes off (aka the group zones in). then the spawns could be done cookie cutter (which IIRC) was pretty much what the ldons were, you had 90% cookie cutter spawns and a handful of mini-bosses/boss mobs

== sfisque