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Artefact (and talisman) disambiguation
Just a humble request / suggestion for a small change to some of the help scrolls / talisman info sections of artefacts. As it stands today, quite a lot of them are (in my opinion) pretty vague. Some are worse than others, but I would bet that in virtually every single case, one could find mechanics or important factors on artefacts or talismans that are critical in the determination of whether or not it would be useful, and/or worthwhile, for your character.
Currently, if you are unclear about one of these, you have two options:
1) ask someone who owns one (I find issues with this because quite frequently, I cannot find such a person - especially for some of the more obscure talismans / artefacts. Examples of this might include things like dala'myrr claws, quisalis cloak, hunter's blind, scorpion's tail, etc).
2) ISSUE ME to ask about it, or to request to "trial" one out. (My main issue with this is that it has, historically, often taken me 1-2 RL months to get an answer to this question - and even then it's only a specific answer to a specific question - not a full overview of everything you'd want/need to know).
Essentially, I think clear mechanics of each artefact, including critical information like balance times, conditions to use it (e.g. works prone, requires 1 arm, etc), mechanics of its effects, cooldown(s), ownership rules (shareable or not) and so on would be very beneficial to both the player community as well as the game admins (probably a big reduction in inquiry issues / emails, and also probably more artefact purchases). I would think that if any player has to ISSUE ME or email to ask about an artefact, that's probably something that should be listed in the information screen, unless it's something super obscure or obvious.
I think a half-measure here would simply be to put all of this information on the wiki, however 1) the wiki isn't really well-maintained and is often missing information or out of date, and 2) Some people may not know about it or have direct access to it, so it seems better to just provide the info in-game.
Naturally if some artefacts are intended to be obscure, then it could be left as such, but I don't think there's much benefit in concealing the balance time of Scorpion's Tail, for example. It gives a single loki affliction, on a 2-ish second balance. Knowing that it's 2-seconds, instead of something more "normal" for a single aff like 1.0 or 1.2 second balance, might save a lot of people headaches (players and admins alike). There's nothing quite like buying something, then 5 seconds later saying "aww damn I really don't want this..." (at which point you have to trade it in for a huge loss or maybe get a refund, 1-2 months later).
This is a bit out there, but another idea might be to code in some way for players to "rent" an artefact purely for the duration of one arena spar, for a gold fee. This way, any ambiguities / mechanics could be directly tested by a player themselves, IG and IC. Think of the amount of daily questions like "Does anyone know how much faster my Scims will be if I upgrade L2 to L3?" type questions this would be able to eliminate, or others such as "How long does crier's bell take to complete its execution?".
Just throwing it out there. Would even be happy to participate in documenting these things, if it'd be helpful. 😀
Shecks
Re: Why aren't there many Jesters?
The Joker version of Jester is far more obnoxious than the pranky kind. It would take 15 minutes for it to get old. Please stop requesting it.
Re: What Happened To You Today?
I completed my first solo sailing trip from Northreach to Thraasi! :D I think I could enjoy sailing more if I was able to ensure I had unbroken time for the venture.
Ryssa
Re: [Nexus] Khaseem's Nexus GUI "nexGui"
Achaea should be paying you in credits to do this stuff.
Cooper
Re: Achaean Raves
It's been a little while since I had over three straight hours of rp with different kinds of people and views! Enough was exchanged I actually needed a fifteen minute brain recharge to let everything settle in. Reminds me of why I do still keep logging in despite the struggle some days. Y'all know who you are. Thank you for keeping me engaged. 🙂
Melodie
[Nexus] Khaseem's Nexus GUI "nexGui"
This post will likely be long. tldr: I made a pretty massive GUI+utility for Nexus.
I like Javascript as a hobby to tinker with. Since returning to the game I use the Nexus client 100% of the time to play Achaea. There are (were) some serious compromises one had to make using Nexus when compared to Mudlet. Some of you may be using, saw the post about, or have heard of my previous nexMap package that added the Achaea Crowdmap into Nexus. This post is to share my latest labor of love: nexGui. A complete GUI for the Nexus client. I browsed through all the Mudlet GUI posted examples I could find and picked elements that I liked before settling on this layout and functionality. The great thing here is Nexus is a webpage; with CSS/HTML/Javascript you can do almost anything graphically... and I know very little about web development.
I will open with one major disclaimer. I have put quite a bit of work into this, but as of this writing it is version 0.4.3; it is still very much in development. That is not to dissuade anyone from using it, I use it 100% of the time, and I have had two other testing it the past couple weeks. It works great, but documentation is almost non-existent. I am releasing it as an early access of sorts, mainly because I am running out of ideas that are general and most features and work I have started to do are tightly integrated into my own personal settings. So I am sharing what I have now and I welcome others to use it and provide suggestions and feedback.
With that out of the way, lets get into some details
As you can see above, this is almost a complete remake of the Nexus GUI. The GUI will load individual modules depending on your class, and detecting when you change class. What you're seeing above is for my Occultist class. I will attempt to briefly just run down through each pane, most are self explanatory.
Starting with the 4 stack on the left...
Missing Defs: This displaying missing defenses (go figure). Fed off of a user defined defense array in each class function.
Timers: Again, obvious. Count down timers. Any timer added with time will count down to zero. These can be added on the fly or with the class function.
Self State: Right now this displays current afflictions. It's fairly basic. My intent in the future is to flesh it out more and have it reference your user set curing priorities to display afflictions in order of your prios with associated colors and timers for uncurable timed afflictions.
Target State: This pane is unpopulated out of the box. This is intended for users to customize with their own target information. Limb counters, etc. As an example for occultist:
Middle column...
Straight forward. Chat window up top, main window feed below. What is worth noting is the in-line highlighting of the names. I have started a MongoDB as a character database integrated into nexGui. This is hosted information populated and referenced by all users of nexGui. Right now it strictly pulls information from the API. I have thoughts of adding additional information such as any time a nexGui user looks at or honours a player, that information is stored.
One side note with the Chat window is nexGui "tweaks" some core Nexus functions. One tweak is gagging NPC says from the chat window.
Right side stacks...
Up top you have the map window (showing nexMap of course). Surrounding the map window are the panes for room items, npcs, and players. There are a few bells and whistles worth pointing out in these areas. Since nexGui handles all of the room information itself this allows us to apply additional checks and formatting. You will note in that first image I choose to group all city guards ((5x) City Guards) into one display to declutter the pane for me. But we can really do so much more. Here is an image where with a simple rule in the settings (nexGui.colors.room['a monolith sigil'] = {color:'red',text:'A MONOLITH SIGIL'};) You can change monolith sigils to display however you would like. This also causes them to always float to the top. I've also put it in there to accept ID numbers as well.
As just a fun feature, player names have a mouse over "tooltip" that pulls information from the character database for display.
All NPC and player names are also click to target. Targets will be boxed with a red outline, whether you click them or not.
nexGui uses and tracks your enemy and ally list in game for display purposes. Allies and enemies in the room are surrounded by colored parentheses and always appear at the beginning of the room list.
Moving on down to the 2x3 grid of panes at the bottom right corner. Left to right, top to bottom...
- The first pane I've been using for lots of different things. It is constantly changing, I have not settled on exactly what I want for it. Right now I've been experimenting with animated theming that changes based on the time of day and environment you're in. I've included 3 or 4 themes out of the box for fun. That one in the image actually has fun little fireflies that randomly flit about. This pane might completely change.
Bonus theme. I've been playing with this cloud theme on the main window. The clouds are animated to slowly drift across the screen and the star constellations change.
- To the right of the theme pane is my take on an information stream that I saw Penwize using. Streams all curing, affs, defs, priority changes, and target changes. A mini-log of sorts.
- Next to that is a gamefeed stream pulling from the gamefeed API. Note this also uses the same in-line color highlighting from the mongodb.
- Lower left we have a stat tracker. Not as fancy as Zulah's full database, but it does what I need/want. Pretty straight forward, the left side can be reset like when you start bashing an area, the right side only resets on logout/login.
- Bottom middle is the class pane. My intent for this one in particular is 100% user customizable. Everyone will have a different preference on what they want to do with it. This is also one of the panes that is tied to the class functions and changes dynamically when you change class.
- And finally the Party pane. This pane updates and track automatically your party composition. There is also a type to enter box, for parties that are not actually using the party system. Pull down list and toggles here all set nexGui variables that can be referenced in your own settings if desired.
Quick demo of the GUI updates on class change
There are a couple things not not shown in the display above. One is I have started on a full attack replacement module for nexGui. This is still a work in progress (like everything), right now it really only has the messages for my own classes and other dragons, but if you're a dragon and using this you'll see.
Another residual perk that I did not plan for is nexGui works on mobile and the chat window placement makes it a bit more user friendly.
Closing ramblings.
A big note is that I have pulled in the eventification from Jhui's Nexsys package into nexGui. All of the toggles and options raise events which should make it very clean to tie into your own personal settings. The bulk of nexGui is on github and pulled into Nexus through a CDN. The big pro to that approach is as I continue work on the system users are updated automatically... the big con is I occasionally (more than occasionally) break things. As I mentioned at the beginning of this extraordinarily long post, there is very little documentation in the package right now. The package should work right out of the box. "ng load" and you're off.
If there are questions/issues/feedback I am usually available in Discord or in game. I hope others enjoy it, feel free to shower me with compliments, gifts, and name your first born after me.
Khaseem
Khaseem
Re: Summer Festivals - which are you going to?
If I wasn't hunting that weekend, I'd come by and say hi in Austin. While you're there, DEFINITELY go to Mandola's (either one, but I prefer the one on Guadalupe St.) - their pasta is cut to order.
Peak
Re: Memorable quotes
Romeo is so sweet.
(Newbie): Romeo says, "Where am I? SURVEY will tell you! If in the Wilderness you'll see the
direction of nearby villages. If in a subdivision you will see coordinates. Along with HELP MAP,
check out HELP WILDERNESS!"
You tell Romeo, "But who am I?"
The helpful voice of Romeo the Guide sounds within you, "You are Kierra, and the only and best Kierra there is."
Kierra
Stencil or Ink Container for Shops
At present, stencils and inks use up a sizable amount of shop space. This is especially a challenge for stencils as they cannot be grouped and they decay so they cannot be placed in containers. I was thinking of something akin to tuns that can store them to be brought adding non-decay to the stencils. Please discuss.
Greys