Newsletter #61 - Journey to Find Karth

News

There is no news to report this week.

From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I spent most of the passed week setting up the servers to run as services, the idea being that I wouldn't need to worry about manually starting and stopping them. I managed to get them to run as services, but ran into a snag; I can't guarantee that the MySQL server will still be online when the game server is being shut down. To fix this problem, I will need to restructure the way the database is kept in sync with the server, which I don't have time for right now.

While learning how to run the servers as services, I discovered something which I have been curious about for a while; how to read HRESULTs (error codes from Windows). The 32-bit HRESULT is split into parts. Bits 0-15 store the result code. Bits 16-27 store the facility code, which tells where this result came from. Bit 28 is reserved. Bit 29 is set if this is a customer defined result (set for all non-Microsoft defined results). Bits 30-31 store the type of result, 00=success, 01=informational, 10=warning 11=error. For further information, read winerror.h in the PSDK.

After the services work was finished, I started fixing our Bugzilla installation. For some reason, attachments became corrupt after I reinstalled the dedicated server last week. After discussing the problem with the people in #mozwebtools on irc.mozilla.org, the problem was found; apparently the attachment data became corrupt when I pasted the backup SQL into Query Browser to perform the restore. Restoring again from the original backup using the mysql command-line tool solved the problem. I would like to note that the Mozilla channel I mentioned earlier is one of the friendliest that I have ran into so far. Special thanks to mkanat for taking the time to explain the Bugzilla code to me.

Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #19

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Community Spotlight
Written by Jay

AbyssalPhoenix, on the forum, created a Volund fan thread. This thread consists of an image that shows a layout similar to the Volund site; however, it shows information about the history of Volund, important information regarding the game, and predicted (by AbyssalPhoenix) release information.

From the Testers
Written by Jay and Acaceol

(Click to enlarge)

An insanely high (and probably glitched) DPS.

The journey began. As a tester, I must find bugs, glitches, and make sure that the game runs as it should; however, there was another thing I had to try to find: Karth. This secretive being was first alluded to in a conversation between Invisible and another tester, but I had to ask myself, "Where and what could Karth be?" There was no simple answer lest InvisibleMan told me the location himself. I decided then and there that I would find this so called "Karth." The map of the town's outskirts is no laughing matter, but I figured that would be the correct place to look. After a little bit of time had come to pass, I found a secret area. I was excited because I thought this had to be the place; however, that thought was soon overturned as the monstrous Blarg chased after, and killed my character. I then decided to check every single spot between every single tree and on every wall (including in town). I even tried to burst a rock in order to open a wall, but that failed. I finally, after a week's worth of ideas and failures, stumbled upon the great Karth whom had something of great value to give.

This week was spent setting up for some serious bug squashing. The server's now going strong, our bug list is being compiled, and our attention should soon be completely on bugs. We've found some bugs for Invis to work on now that he's able to focus on fixing them, and hopefully we'll blaze through these. I'm looking forward to testing these bugs out, especially the item duplication bug.

Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: HAL uses a "." instead of a "/" for commands.

Acaceol: My bank is full
Acaceol: I have seven Dextrous Linen Coifs of Brute Force
Acaceol: Six Weak Linen Gloves of Brute Force
Acaceol: And four Linen Sandals of Rock
Acaceol: :/
InvisibleMan: From duping? :P
Acaceol: ...maaaaybe
HAL_: undefined method `strip' for nil:NilClass