I just wanna second this again so it shows on the record that there needs to be a fix on this. I almost never use trails anymore just because of the fact that scripts are just soooo much faster. Rangers have enough bad things about them, I am sure shaving off 10 or 20 seconds from a scrolling of the trail running rooms isn't too much to ask for, especially on the trails that do not pass over heavy athletic checks. Like the NE gate to Riverhaven ferry and back...

On the same note (should be in a new thread...) TRACK XXXX is kind of long also, specially when it takes me 30 seconds or more to track some one who is 3 rooms away. I know Track will follow some one for a good distance but shaving a few seconds off that one also would make it more functional for use by rangers almost daily... Right now i think we only use it to track those Companions that poof at alarming rates...

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"Well, I mean, we have the room with the screen and the lights and all."-UnnamedGM

<<1) Remove scripting functionality from the game

Putting the merits or lack of merits of this idea aside, how exactly do you propose to even do this? Scripting is client side, and there is zero way to prevent someone from running a script that sends commands to the game. Policing this would be so enormous a task as to be ridiculous to even consider.

<<Without having looked too deeply into the details, yes, I do believe you are correct. It'd require an official Simutronics client that does not have scripting functionality, and when logging in to the game the server would need to verify that the client has been unaltered - or something very similar. It's been pretty standard procedure to do this since ... I dunno, the year 2000 or so? Just one area where DR is behind the times.

This will do absolutely nothing. All someone has to do is use a separate program that outputs commands to another program on their computer.

Anyways, this is so off topic it isn't even remotely in the ballpark. If you want to continue the discussion about how you think no one should be able to script, travelling anywhere should require at least 5 to 10 minutes, empaths should only be heal monkeys, or any other reasons why DR should be a completely different game than it is then feel free to start a thread for it.

>1) Remove scripting functionality from the game

LOL?

<So completely changing how the game functions at a basic level is a better solution to remedy a situation where a single guild's ability is lacklustre than simply updating the lacklustre ability. Got it.

I don't think the problem is just with ranger trails. Even moongates/teleport are pretty silly under the current mechanics. At most they save you ferry time (which, admittedly, in the case of the islands is actually reasonable.) There's just really not that big of a need for fast-travel in DR ever since travel scripts became widely used - something we didn't have back in my day - and ferry/gondola/etc times have been dramatically sped up. Excluding the islands, moongates will save what, 5 minutes at most (assuming waiting through multiple ferry trips)? If there aren't any ferries involved, it's probably faster to just use a travel script than it is to try to set up a moonbeam for teleport. Ranger trails are even more useless.

Elanthia feels so tiny these days.

<I'm been playing off and on since 97. Travel scripts have never not been a thing. Your claim otherwise is eye-rollingly ridiculous. Nice try with the up hill both ways argument, though.

Yeah, you could make your own (once Wizard was released for sure - I don't remember much about the AOL client from before the move to web, though.) Or get one from a friend. But there weren't any widely available ones back in the day. This was well before google, remember, and e-pedia. I remember drawing out maps of areas with pencil and paper, was good fun. Great part of my childhood.


<I use Moongates and the astral plane on a daily basis. I also use travel scripts on a daily basis.

Why bother with moongates? I realize that it's all relative, but do you really think they save you an appreciable amount of time? I can't speak as to the astral plane - haven't gotten that ability yet.

<Being able to astral plane to <insert location here>, buy/do/train/kill something, and moongate back in less than 5 minutes to and from almost any location in the game. Moongate is not broken by any stretch of the imagination.

So it's only useful once you also have access to the astral plane, then. I can see that. I was very underwhelmed by MM teleporting/moongates (apart from how flashy they are!) But I never got access to the astral plane. Tag-teaming the two abilities over extreme distances makes sense, but I still don't really see a reason to teleport from, say, Crossing to Shard considering that it only takes about 5 minutes on foot - maybe 10 if you catch the ferries at awkward times. 99% of that time is waiting on ferries. How much time would the astral plane really save in that case? Astral plane from, say, Shard to Theren would make sense though ... because of all the ferries.

Still, I don't think that speeding up trails is the solution. One of the last things DR needs is even shorter travel times. Travel is already ridiculously fast.

Every time I read one of Stellarmagus' posts I'm reminded of why he isn't a game developer.

<<So it's only useful once you also have access to the astral plane, then.

No, it's useful even without the plane. Cast a moonbeam, use a travel script once to travel wherever you like. Or shift your moonbeam via Locate. You now have unlimited instant travel between those two locations for anyone for the duration of your moonbeam by shifting your moonbeam through your moongate whenever you travel through it. Even longer if you shift a different moonbeam through your gate to replace the current one when it's near the end of its duration.

<<Ya. Let's get back to trails. As much as I typically eye roll at ranger whining, I think trails are a valid complaint. If they're supposed to be shortcuts which take 2-10x as long to get from point A to point B as simply spamming the directional keys on a numpad, they should be reevaluated.

Here's my suggestions, expanded from above.

1. Reduce the travel time of fixed trails by a fairly significant margin. Whether this is a skill based reduction, based on trail length, or simply a flat reduction across the board doesn't really matter. They need their travel times shortened otherwise there is almost no point to their existence.

2. Allow tracking across rivers and lakes and allow companions to locate across them as well.

3. Have the ability to teach your companion specific locations that they will remember. You can then send them to those locations and track them down to travel to fixed points. If you lose your companion you have to teach your new companion these points again. E.g. you could teach your companion to remember the entrance to the Shard ranger guild, the back entrance to the Crossing guild, outside of the tent in Riverhaven, and the base of the tree of life in Leth Deriel. From anywhere in the mainland you could send your companion to one of these locations and then track it down to travel there. This would basically be the ranger equivalent to the astral plane. Comparable risks might include loss of your companion, or possibly getting lost yourself and meeting an untimely demise.

4. As for companions themselves... I'd like to see the ability to gain a more mystical connection to your companion somehow in order to be able to gain better information about their status. Perhaps a beseech that temporarily links your spirit to that of the animal's and allows you to sense where it is or what it is generally doing. E.g. by using PERCEIVE/CONCENTRATE you can sense that your companion is tracking, waiting, following you, etc.

I like the idea of multiple branching paths on the game trail. Some kind of hybrid between thief passages and astral travel paradigms where more scouting skill speeds up your trip and/or shortens the number of rooms it takes to complete a game trail trip. If there was a small chance of getting ambushed by a predator native to whatever geographical region you were in would be pretty cool too, so as you took trails around the Rossman's landing area for example, maybe a x% chance of getting ambushed by a predator laying an ambush on the game trail, where you had the choice to either fight or flee. (fleeing increasing the time it would take to complete your trip) and/or x% (random event) chance of finding some tracks you could choose to track (for even more scouting experience) instead of continuing your trail trip to track down some kind of rare or boss mob animal to try killing and skinning for slightly elevated boss mats.

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>>I remember drawing out maps of areas with pencil and paper, was good fun. Great part of my childhood.

nothing is keeping you from doing this again.. but please don't mistake your desire to do this with my desire to HAVE to do this because you, at some point, enjoyed it..

>>movement RT.

not sure why we can't improve ranger trails without trying to suggest something this awful in any setting..

Damian, a voice from the distant and long-forgotten past.
AIM:DamianDR

If only it was that easy. I just read a little bit of the tracking code. I think I'm going to have nightmares.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>There seem to be more and more of these nightmare-inducing code bits coming to light lately.

Probably because they're finally getting around to taking a whack at some of the early early stuff.

I don't envy them.

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>>You know how map makers use to be "Here be dragons"? Old DR code is like that. Except instead of dragons there are Lovecraftian horrors made out of well-intentioned psuedo-code.<<

Best get working on it and stop posting on the boards. These things need fixing and we be paying customers.

Arct

>>I'm assuming your tactic is helping a GM decide to not bother volunteering to fix something for Rangers.

Naw, I'm not petty enough to let tactless posters on the forums control where my development time goes.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

Pfft. He won't even tell me what a constellation is. :P

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Ok, I know you all are going to roll your eyes and ponder ways to oust me from the ranger guild but...I have never understood why trails are perceived to be shortcuts! Go into a forest, desert whatever and go down a trail and see how much "shortcut" it is. I don't think trails were ever perceived to be a ranger moongate sort of thing (way to move around quickly) by the GMs.

I love the trails, as is and always have. Yeah some are really long but during the wait, I grab a drink, stretch, pet the cat and dog, you get the idea. And the descriptions are terrifically written and if you read them closely, you can just about tell where you are in the realms on the trails which I find really neat. For instance you splash through water as you near the fens. And some of the trails have day/night/weather atmospherics.

Thank you whoever wrote the trails and worked on them (even if it is evil pseudocode).

Actually, I'm just thankful that GMs (especially with the evil sense of humor they seem to have) didn't make trails that dead ended. I fondly remember having to backtrack a dead en trail or two.

I don't think all the perks a guild has should be ways to do something quicker, smarter whatever but that some perks should be just because it adds to the flavor of that guild. Like I wish I could whistle like a bard does. And I love the fact we can make popcorn and jerky.

Ok, end of post. Don't forget, you can ignore me on the post if I irritate you too badly.

Zinaca and her baby wolf, Lucky

I like and generally agree with Duneplay's post.

So yur running trails AFK learning skills. Isn't that technically against the rules? Learning while not at the keyboard.

I think the trails need to be fixed to something more useful then just running for learning. The time issue to me is non-existent. If i want to get somewhere fast I use a travel script. The only reason I used the trails was to learn scouting when that was the only option. With hunt I haven't ran a trail in years.

Not to mention, I don't want to take the time to learn where they are at, and where each trail goes. It is more simple for me to use a travel script that I know will take me from point a to point b using actual words not trying to guess or memorizing where each one is.

Now if a trail was to lead to some mecca Ranger hunting ground that was extremely difficult to get into unless with a ranger and using trail, then I am all for them.

Arct

Yeah Arct, I rarely but do sometimes * actually run a long trail and dash into the kitchen and grab a drink and come right back. Petting dog and cat I don't have to move because if I'm awake, so are they and they think computer is their toy.

Most of the time though, I don't and just watch and read the screens as I pass by. I like doing this because as I said before they can tell me where approximately I am in the realms.

As for not coding the trails to be faster GMs have posted several times on this. Let me see if can find one for you.

Zinaca and her baby wolf, Lucky