Empire of the Iguanadons

A rundown of what I'm up to, in no particular order:

Open Cities: Killing off any remaining bugs I find. OC Classic will get one last release before I shift focus over to the Reborn series. The last major hurdle I had to clear has been cleared. The city gates will now issue a buffer purge call when activated by the player when closed. This is meant entirely to simulate what the game does when entering a normal closed city worldspace.

Feldscar: Cleaning up some bugs that got passed Dwip and I. Mainly minor dialogue condition issues, especially with the Sedor Job quest. Also moving the file paths for the paintings.

Faregyl: Work stalled on this for awhile because of the issue with being unable to talk to creatures. TalkieToaster came up with a way around this, and once I get back in the mood, I'll get back to working on the major expansion for this.

Vergayun: Nothing really. Just needed some love. Though I am planning on somehow incorporating the nearby Oblivion gate into the village's activities.

Cyrodiil Travel Services: The Leyawiin NPC got a bugfix recently. I also have plans to add support for mod-added cities as destinations. Bartholm and Sutch come to mind. This will mean becoming dependent on OBSE but I don't see that as much of an issue these days.

New Roads & Bridges: Dwip begged and pleaded and groveled (ok, maybe not groveled) for map markers to be added to the guard stations. Those are in now and waiting for next update. Some continued cleanup in the never-ending war against grass on roads too. Plus a new road sign for Bleaker's Way. Bethesda's largely neglected little village along the road to Bruma.

Really AEVWD: Just felt lonely. Nothing planned for this right now.

Unofficial Oblivion Patch Supplemental: Some more fixes pending for this. Nothing major. One day maybe there really will be a magic pill for all of Oblivion's bugs, but somehow I doubt it.

TIE+Frans: The little unknown that a mere 61 people have downloaded. I guess my combination of overhauls isn't all that popular after all.

All Natural: We're in the final push to 1.0. Bugs bugs and more bugs to be fixed. Have I mentioned the bugs at all?

A Brotherhood Renewed: Marching toward release. Amazing the number of bugs still cropping up after all this time.

Also, for those of you using the Unique Landscapes series, I sense more updates on the horizon for those too. We're building up quite the list on the council forum.

And one total random side note @Conner: I haven't been all that active with the mudstandards.org site, but it seems to me like it's a whole lot of talk about stuff with no action being taken. Am I right in thinking it's just another place to bicker about who's right and who's wrong? sproingie sure seems to have reached that conclusion.

The floor is now open to discussion on any/all of the above, or whatever comes to mind.
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RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

I'll trade you, I'll take your lag and you can have my satellite perks...

Sorry, I haven't followed the various Oblivion forums enough to know anything about this Psymon, but if Samson says it means you've 'arrived' then he's probably right.

We always knew Dwip was special

And still, despite collision optimization, much face raping:

Conclusion? The big cave mesh simply has too many polygons for the engine to handle. Go figure.

Really? Were we in the same cave? I had absolutely no problem. It ran better than some caves I've been in.

Speaking of problems, I've run into one. All my city guards have disappeared. Well, most anyway. While Bruma and Leyawiin and the IC seem fine, Anvil has none except Lex, Chorrol, Bravil and Cheydinhal have none, and Skingrad has maybe one or two. I don't know where they went. Maybe they're on strike? And I couldn't even tell you when this first started. I only just noticed now.

Well you see the triangle count in the corner, right? I can be outdoors with 2.4 million triangles showing and have zero problem, pushing 30 frames even. Much past that and it tanks hard. For some reason even with Dwip's newly optimized Kerrach meshes this is happening standing right outside the Buroseli door. Doesn't matter which way I face, even pointing straight into the ground, it can only muster 15 frames in here. I don't get it, really. Something has clearly gone very very wrong.

I'm not sure that picture means what you want it to mean.

You'll note that despite having almost 3x the texture memory usage for whatever reason, I've still got 3x the FPS. In fact, Kerrach is as smooth as silk for me, in or out of combat. If Hanaisse wants to provide her own sdt 13 shot she can, but per email, it was smooth for her too.

Which suggests that you're the only one with a problem here, and I'm not sure why. As I recall, your graphics hardware is either just as good as mine or better. IIRC you have AA on, which could be it. I assume you're running QTP3 like the rest of us.

Assuming it's collision-related, what could be causing it? Presumably you have the same 9 or so guys the rest of us do, so I'm guessing it's not a too many guys issue. Is it that increased AI updates thing?

What happens if:

- No AA

or

- Delete the collision

or

- Remove all your mods except AFK_Weye and vanilla, and use a brand new character coced into afkkerrach03

- Replace the esp with the one in the original beta rar and try it then

There's clearly something in your setup that's breaking things, and I'd like to find out what. I'm very puzzled as to why this only happens to you.

Simple, should be obvious what I did here:

It's the cave mesh dude, I don't know WTF else to tell you. Even deleted your loose folder, redownloaded your last update, and then loaded the game to find 10fps. Renamed cave mesh, fps pegged at 30 and wandering about is smooth as silk.

Previous Kerrach with the assload of rocks did not have this problem.

Also don't know why you have 3x texture memory usage. I use QTP3 Redimized same as you, even have a hi-res Oblivion realms pack, and the kick ass lava texture upgrade too, plus the 31fps shot is running with 4xAA and 16xAF and is only limited there because of OSR (godsend of a plugin btw)

You are aware your cave mesh is 31,000+ visual polygons too, right? The game doesn't always tolerate that the way one thinks it should.

I'm going to put a new Kerrach mesh on the server for you here in a sec, but if I'm going to be tossing meshes at you, you need to get on IM, because I'm not going to spend my time loading this slow ass thread, which the addition of pictures has now pretty much killed for me.

Wow, interesting.

From same location, in front of Buroseli. Looking around the highest triangle count I clock is 350k while looking at the Spire, but still at FPS30. I use QTP3 Redim but I don't have AA on.

Well, dropping the poly count seems to have sort of fixed things. It remains utterly mysterious why this only happens to one of us, but there you go.

Which is to say that there will eventually be a new update with a new mesh, but since Samson's the only one with the problem I'm not worrying too hard about it right now. Back to your regularly scheduled testing.

Well, at least the day's high traffic that I missed today seems to all be stuff I'd have had nothing to contribute to anyway.. nice to see that you were able to figure it out one way or another though.

"This is good plan, yes?"

Omg, how adorable is Maliq?

Once again Dwip has managed to amaze and stump me at the same time. The island Spurius takes you to is freaking awesome! How scary is this? But I'm lost in the catacombs... can't find my way to the secret passage.

And, come on, do I really have to be a member of the Mages Guild for info on the Ayleid tablets?

Ha, interesting, fatal error yet my post posted.

Maliq was fun to write.

The brightness of that island screenshot astounds me, as I always get more like this.

I guess I succeeded in hiding the secret thing that needed hiding better.

You do not need to be a member of the Mages' Guild. Try talking to learned people who aren't in the Mages' Guild. Ask around.

I got a fatal error too.

That really is a bright screen shot, my screen's usually not quite as dark as Dwip's but not as bright as Hanaisse's either.

The fatal errors seem to come and go sporadically, I think Samson told us they were from something unrelated to the actual posting and weren't even sending him email notices either. They seem to have gone away for now too though.

You guys both like playing in the extremes of lighting don't you? My screens from the island would fall somewhere between, though tending toward the gloomier dark look Dwip has.

I will again mention that I don't think the tablets quest is clear enough on who these "learned people" are and after exhausting the Mages Guild you'll recall I had to either ask you or stumbled on it by accident and commented that the dialogue that led me to the right person doesn't fit the game.

Still have no idea what the fatal errors are and I'd have to undo the code that blocks their display in order to find out, but it has to be related to mailing the notification since I never got them.

I maintain that it wasn't supposed to be wildly clear, but we'll see what Hannaise has to say. Ditto on that bit of dialogue. It works for me, so, uh...

There are, I remind you, no less than five possible people to give you the info you need. The person in question isn't the only possible choice.

The reason it's a bright pic is because I caught a flash of lightning nearby, plus I play on full brightness as I hate using torches. So, the pic is not quite my norm. It really is an awesome island. And holy rats, Batman! Yeah, I found my way into the secret part of the catacombs. I just love that purple lighted room. I also need to comment - bad, bad Spurius!

Yeah, the "learned people". Haha, I figured it out, but I won't spoil it for Conner. It was actually just by chance I went to talk to the person I did, who led me to the next, who led me to the next. If you want my opinion I think the quest dialogue is fine. My first thoughts though were the Mages Guild members, then I thought of priests, then asked myself who is a 'scholary' type. Getting lost in the catacombs was worse than this quest, heh. I'm still on it, I believe this is the last quest I need to finish. Got the info I need to work some magic on the stone, which, I assume means inside Weyandir. I'm kinda fuzzy on what to do here so I took a break and finished Property Rights first. I hope Elahai has the scrolls I need.

Found a couple of interesting typo's that I'll send you Dwip when I do my email review later. (*collective gasp*)
Back I go!

Like Samson, I keep my screens somewhere midrange on lighting. I prefer not to have to use torches but I also don't want to go blind in day-lit scenes.

No worries about spoiling stuff for Conner, Hanaisse, I enjoy reading about it and by the time I finally do get to that part in the game I'll have probably grown old and forgotten everything you ever said about it anyway.

Yeah, the notification email itself, that's what you had said that fatal error was linked to, Samson, though, it sounds like way too much of a pain in the ass to worry about as long as you remember to watch the recent list or at least the posts before the one you think you're responding to..

Grrrr.....

Piss off CS, and do as you're told. Seriously, make me an activator when I make a new activator, don't make me a freakin static object!

Is this typical of the CS being cranky? Is there hope that when I boot up my PC tomorrow the CS will love me again?

Maliq not see this thing before. Maliq wonders if you are right clicking and creating the object in the activators section and not accidentally clicking in statics instead. CS confuses Maliq.

Dwip not sure why he talk like khajiit.

Nope, very sure I'm right clicking in activators, the object box that comes up to create it even says activator. Even if I edit an existing activator with my new stuff and create a new form it doesn't show up as an activator in the game.

It's not a shiny thing, so Maliq is confused. Give him a coin to make him happy again.

And you've attached the script and all that jazz? Dunno then. I blame squirrel aliens.

On another one of those complete OT side notes, I have won at last.

*Gives Maliq a coin*

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Hanaisse. Wish I could help.

On a few separate issues...

Dwip, sorry about the sound recordings, things got crazy here on me, Dragona had a sleep study to attend on Friday and then a friend of ours down in Houston went into labor over the weekend so Dragona dropped everything (leaving me alone with the kids) to rush down there to help her because her family happened to be out of town on vacation (this is a month plus early so no one was expecting it yet) and only got back very early this morning/late last night and then Dragona managed to break/sprain her ankle this morning when we got up too early after going to sleep so late to deal with kids who woke up feeling a bit too rambunctious so we ended up spending most of the day in the ER and only got home about two hours ago, still unsure whether it's broken or sprained (Have I mentioned that I hate doctors?) and tomorrow we've got a ton of errands and other stuff to try to catch up on because Dragona was gone for basically a four day weekend.. so, I really am sorry that I hadn't gotten them done and sent back to you and I am still looking forward to doing them as soon as I can, but it's looking like it'll be Friday at the soonest now.

Samson, it appears that the QSFP site is down, hopefully you were already aware of this and it's a very temporary thing and not anything serious or major.

Finally, Dwip, congratulations!! Way to go!
What exactly is a recipient of a Master of Library Science degree expected to know, if I might ask without sounding too obtuse or demeaning...

Good God, man, don't worry about me. Take care of Dragona, and wish her well from the rest of us. I've watched my mother go through a couple of similar injuries, and if it's anything like that, she'll need the sympathy. :|

As to what an MLS should know...depends on track and concentration, really, and can shade pretty heavily towards an almost CS-like set of stuff.

What I got, roughly:

- Basic cataloging (metadata for books, I think I've talked about it here before, and I wrote my master's project on it)

- Reference services, which boils down to how to run searches and how to guide people towards finding stuff, which is slightly more complex than it sounds

- Material acquisitions, basically selecting and buying books/serials/electronic serials/AV stuff

- Some basic management techniques

- This that and the other thing. I also did a bit of PR coursework, some history of libraries, and classes on the differences between public, university, and corporate libraries. Also did a couple years of student work in the university library's technical services department, where I did a lot of stuff that boiled down to database records management, item cataloging, and a few other esoteric things.

I probably should have spent a lot more time on UI design, cataloging, digital libraries, and a couple other related things than I actually did, but then, I probably should have got the degree from a slightly different school. Now I know, I guess, and that's why they invented professional training.

450th comment, and yes those embedded images really kill it. Time for a new topic?


Well, an activator is an activator whether there's a script attached or not, but yes I did. It's just not showing the little activator hand when I go in game to look at it. I recreated the dice about four times and nada. Haven't tried it yet this morning, still waking up, still on my first coffee. So will update later. Might need a sniper rifle for those pesky squirrels.


Conner, deep breath. Again. That was quite the epic run-on sentence. Poor Dragona. I hope it's only a sprain. Take good care of her! And yourself, sounds like you're in for a rough week or two ahead.


Ok, I paraphrased, but congrats dude! Don't know the story behind it but it appears significant.