client update to 382.17

[Fridlekh]

382.17 is Fridlekh's fault if anything is broken client side. [except terrain] It will hopefully be the last client built with vs2003 and hit-or-miss Vista support.

* Flight on falling code is active again for dragons [and hatchlings can glide] check the options -> options screen.

* The Guild Manager's member info window has been re-factored.

* Random launch images. The client looks for resources\startup\splash_*.bmp and picks randomly from the list. You can add your own images if you want, but avoid using numbers if you don't want them to be overwritten by future official images.

* After a few minutes in-game, porting will also give you randomized load images and text. Feel free to leave suggestions for witty/informative random text.
o Override UILoadWindowExtras.def if you want to have your own images and text used instead.

Also:
* New Launcher that doesn't say "Horizons" anymore. >_>
o Character creation has been exposed in the launcher, no more logging in through IE just to make a new char.
o New launcher doesn't care where the game is installed, and doesn't check the registry for path info, it just uses the directory it was launched from, and verifies that the game exe is there too before proceeding. This should make multiple-installs for blight/live much easier to deal with.
o New background for the patcher, thanks art team! Thart team.

note: If you have shortcuts to Installdir\HorizonsLauncher.exe, you'll need to change them to Installdir\Launcher.exe after this update.

[Creme]

The multiple install directories for blight/live sound very nice.

Are these the only changes in this client update?

I know there were issues with the previous client on blight with spontaneous crashing. Have these been identified?

Is this already patched to blight?

[Fridlekh]

I did make a couple changes to the terrain to stop a crash I was getting locally, though the bail-out I do to prevent a total-crash might cause other odd things to happen, I'm not sure. Needs testing.

Not on blight yet, but should be soon. You'll know it's up when you try to log in and it starts patching instead of just logging in. :-)

[jerk-o]

Would there be any way you could have an option to have the loading screen show up whenever we start the game, and another option to have the loading screen not show up when we port or recall? Having the loading screen show up when Istaria first starts is nice in case I forget to close my vault when I exit, but I don't like having to wait for everything to load whenever I recall or port somewhere.

[Fridlekh]

The loadscreen allows for faster resource loading by 1) bypassing the scene graph functions (frustum culling/occlusion/rendering) and 2) allowing immediate unthreaded loads instead of threaded loading where a lot of files try to load at once (and thus take longer)

Not using the loadscreen causes many undesirable effects, and is not a supported feature for general use. Most of the problems come from moving around while things are loading, triggering resource unloads while they are currently loading.

[Takora Drakan]

Was there also the bug fixed where the textures get blurry when you log from blight to a live server back? http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=19959

[aine]

This is probably a silly question, but...my old launcher doesn't work anymore and the game won't load for me from the website unless I uncheck ".NETpatcher*.

Is there another way for me to get the new launcher?

Thanks in advance.

[Zexoin]

you can try the java one until they release the new one

http://horizons.oceth.net/

[aine]

Thank you Zex.

[Velea]

Your old launcher doesn't work when trying to connect to what server?

The old launcher should still work for live shards. The new one, which has a different name than the old one, is only for Blight.

[Deth]

I have had a problem as well. I am not sure if it is my computer or the blight client. I will try the normal client and see which it is and post back here on it.

[Radamanthas]

I've downloaded the new client, and tried to log onto Blight, but keep getting this fatal error:

FATAL ERROR: Couldn't create player character entity "Human_U" -- Check that it is valid! : 0 @ .\source\ClientErrors.cpp:725

Any ideas?

[Velea]

If you are playing with the load screen off, you need to turn it on.

There is an article in our Knowledge Base for how to fix this:
http://support.istaria.com/support-c...mod_id=2&id=69

[Radamanthas]

Thanks! That did the trick, but now I have another question...if this new client is specific to Blight only, at this time, will I have to perform this operation every time I switch from Blight to a live shard?

[AmonGwareth]

Thanks! That did the trick, but now I have another question...if this new client is specific to Blight only, at this time, will I have to perform this operation every time I switch from Blight to a live shard?

Yes, thats why its on blight You can try logging into live with it, but its use is unsupported. Your best bet is to have two installs (one for blight, one for live) if you regularly login to both.

[Raptress]

Just two small things I've encountered:

The event-related picture is off-center for me. It was not off-center on the live shards.

Creating a new character results in a crash after clicking the final accept button. The character is created, but I have to log into it again.

Also, while this may not be 'official' since it requires you to change the file manually, you can fix the Human_U problem by navigating to the pref folder of the character affected, opening Clientprefs_Character, and changing the U to an M.

[Drevar]

Well one thing was definately fixed, I am getting a "real" Texmem number again. Previous 382 build told me I was using 3 megs in the middle of Dalimond, heh.

Drev

[aine]

Your old launcher doesn't work when trying to connect to what server?

The old launcher should still work for live shards. The new one, which has a different name than the old one, is only for Blight.

It was Blight that I was trying to connect to, Velea. I seldom ever log onto live anymore (so little time as it is, that I just stick to Blight). Thanks.

[Fridlekh]

Event image was off-center because the folder where the image is suppsoed to come from got moved, but the themes dir was protected by the no_delete_list. this kep the old folder around, and prioritized the themes dir so the old image is insed instead of the new one.

There's another exe going out today that looks for custom themes in the resources_override\interface\themes\ folder and removes the resources\interface\themes\ dir from the protection of no_delete. This should fix the problem.

[Knossos]

The mappack does not work with the Blight Client 382.17.1 The mappath is to resources_override in the prefs but game's own map shows up in game rather than the mappack one.

Knossos