Tos on 5/1/2009 at 09:18

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I finally got around to downloading A Thief's Holiday 2004 (or more accurately, sNeaksieGarrett's modification of it), and I made some changes in the current build that have fixed most of the objectives that previously couldn't be completed by clients. These changes should improve compatibility with FMs across the board, and may fix some things in the original missions as well.

Turns out that most of the problems with that particular FM were being caused by the fact that the Dark engine won't propagate the reactions that an object make to stimuli across the network if that object is being hosted by another player. This has now been changed, and certain types of reactions will now be sent to the owner of the object (usually the host of the game) if a client does something that initiates one. Networked reactions will have to be added on a case-by-case basis though since some of them should remain un-networkable, so let me know if there are any other strange problems with fan missions after the next release.

Even better, this new system has allowed me to completely fix the problems with client blackjacks. Guards that are knocked out by clients will now play the correct death animation and sounds (and no longer alert nearby guards with their death screams, thankfully).

I believe that the client can now complete all of the objectives on A Thief's Holiday on normal difficulty, with the exception of the one that involves using matches on the fireplace. That one's going to take a bit more work unfortunately, because whatever's causing some objects to begin the mission in an "activated" state for clients (the lights on the tree, the fireplace, and the faucets for example) is breaking that. I have a feeling that this one is going to be difficult to fix...

davidsung on 5/1/2009 at 15:03

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Would this change resolve the bug with the (gas)mines (mines by other players do not detonate if they come to close)?

Tos on 5/1/2009 at 19:25

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Do mines detonate if you get near them in single player? If not, I very much doubt this will change that -- the game probably just doesn't consider players to be valid targets for mines. That shouldn't be very difficult to change, though.

sNeaksieGarrett on 5/1/2009 at 20:57

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Hey Tos, I've got a new report:

I finally just beat another fan mission with pavlovscat (yes I know it's not an original mission and is not priority to fix problems in fan missions, but I at least wanted to mention what I found as observations.) It's called The Skull of St. Yora (pretty good mission I might add.) Anyway, on subsequent reloads of our saved game, we found out that a key we needed to beat the mission was deleted from pav's inventory.:wot: :weird: Never had anything delete itself before, but apparently there's something wrong with loading saved games, as she told me she didn't have the key (and some others were "deleted" as well it seems.) Luckly, I figured out that I could summon the key we needed thanks to your "/summon" command, and we were able to beat the mission.:) Yay for /summon.

Another bug that I am not sure has been discussed before is respawning of the host player. For some reason in this fan mission, if the host dies it's game over. I would briefly respawn, and then we'd get the skull n' crossbones.:erg: Could this perhaps be a conflict with some script in this fan mission? I know the host can spawn in other missions, such as the OMs.

Oh btw...

I think it is after using text that movement gets messed up... I also get this other strange thing that happens after typing a message and hitting enter: my inventory items will come up and be changed. Like, in St. Yora's, my rope arrow would be equipped and the ancient scroll would suddenly be shown in inventory.

I forgot to mention (it's only happened once so far, and I don't know how to make it happen again) that I got this really weird error message one time when trying to connect online:
(http://img395.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thieferrorrv9.jpg) http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/6448/thieferrorrv9.th.jpg

Tos on 5/1/2009 at 23:29

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Okay, I've fixed the problem with mines. They should work much better now.



The saved game problem is odd. I'm not sure what could cause objects to be deleted from the inventory after loading one -- is it relatively easy to reproduce this bug? Would I run into this problem shortly after beginning the mission, or would I need to play for a bit to run into it?

The mission ending when the host dies sounds like an objectives problem to me. Maybe dying in that FM causes a required objective to fail and ends the mission?

The text box problem is unfortunate and I'm not yet sure how to fix it. Most of the chat system in T2 MP is my own creation (since Thief didn't have any existing code for it), but it uses Dark engine functions to manage the chat box and they seem to be responsible for this problem in Thief and SS2.

The assertion error that you got means that the archetype for the avatar you had selected in player settings wasn't created properly. Not sure how that could have happened. If you figure out how to get that to happen again, let me know.