RSS Feeds. Gotta love em. I do at least. I was so thrilled when Garth came out with the origianl DDO DevTracker. I was able to easily keep up on what the dev’s were saying on my blackberry (using Viigo). Then one day it stopped working. Arg!!! I felt….lost..alone, without my dev chat lol. So what does a programmer do in that circumstance? You guessed it, write their own lol. So, mines been functional for a while. I wrote it all from scratch, and made it look exactly like Garth’s, as that’s the one I grew to like. The format was great. I still have some bugs in it. Occasionally it will just lock up for no apparent reason, and not push it to the web so you all can see it. I keep a pretty close eye on it so it gets reset fairly quicly when that happens. With the latest release I put a few extra checks in to hope and resolve that issue once and for all. I’ve posted this up on the Fansite News section of the forums, but figured I’d write a little here about it Here’s my post from the forums, on how to set it up for yourselves:

This has been around a while, but wanted to give a heads up that its recently been fixed. The two RSS Feeds I know of for the DevTracker, myself and Ustices have been broken for a while. Something changed in the forum code, so the body of the posts were not showing. I updated mine yesterday, and published it this morning, so have at it if ya like.

This is looks and feels exactly like Garth’s did way back when:

Add to Google Reader

Link to the Feed itself:  
http://www.inthecore.com/ddo/RSS/devTrackerIS.xml

If you load the XML link, and subscribe to the feed in Internet Explorer, those on Vista/Windows 7 can add the Feed Headlines gadget to your desktop.

Enjoy all..

Well its been a long time coming. 3 Months ago 3.1.0 was released. I’ve spent the better half of the last month of my free time working on getting 3.2.0 polished, and ready to go. I want to give a big thanks to IS for their support/ideas, especially Crimson. Just try and find something that’s to hard for me to do..I dare ya muahahaha. I hope you all enjoy this release. Here’s the final release notes:

Additions:

• NEW - Epic Crafting makes its way to the Interactive DDO Game Guide. Most of the known recipe’s as of 2/7/2010 are in the planner. It works slightly different than Shroud/Ring crafting. The Raid Drop down is not required, its there so you can limit down the item drop down to items for the selected raid only. You can select an item right away though if you like without touching the raid drop down at all. Full functionality is there for ya, so enjoy!!
• NEW - Dreamforge Crafting is here. This is more along the lines of Dragon/Alchemical crafting, in that its a page that describes the whole process.
• NEW - DDO Wiki graces the pixels of the Interactive DDO Game Guide! Borror & Company has done an outstanding job getting the community involved in gathering a repository of information on everything DDO. Thanks Guys/Gals, this site is a life saver.
• NEW - Load last Epic Formula added to the options list. On by default.
• NEW - Track Epic Tokens on Ingredients Tab
• NEW - Credit Page Update, DDO Wiki & Loot Thread added.
• NEW - Litany Puzzle. I’ve added the Answers to the Litany of The Dead quest into the Puzzle Tab. There is a cooresponding MINI Mode version too.
• NEW - Against The Demon Queen Puzzle/Riddle. I’ve added the guaranteed order for all possible solutions to the book puzzle in Against The Demon Queen. There is a cooresponding MINI Mode version too.

Changes:

• Remember the size/position you had the game guide at last on close/re-open.
• I’ve modified how the look of Super Shards appear for Shroud Crafting. Previously it would list the Super Shards as FOCUS/ASPECT, IE Earth/Mineral. It will now just utilize the ASPECT II only, IE Mineral II. I had to add an extra character to the beginning of the sorting sections so the sorts would work properly. I hope this clears up some of the confusion I had been seeing on the forums regarding the planner creating Dual Shard recipe’s.
• Definative Loot Tab is now loading from my web server. If the server is down, it will load a local copy of it. This give me the ability to update the page on the fly, and allow all of you to get the updates immediately. (Thanks Crimson for the idea!)
• Added in a confirmation that the save was successful for saving items on exit.
• Moved all crafting tabs under a single crafting tab.
• Change text on save/load forumula to save/load shroud forumula. Also changed this on the menu drop down.

Bug Fixes:

• Blast Effects on Tier 3 were listing the wrong damage numbers/information. This has been corrected. (Thanks Noctus)
• Sorting via essence/gem under certain circumstances was populating the drop downs when they shouldn’t have been. I went back in time and tried to find where this first crept in. Its been there since day 1, can’t believe I never saw it before. Its fixed now.
• Opposition on the ingredients tab for tier 1/2/3 was not working with validation and would allow you to leave the field blank.

WebPage Updates:

• Loot List Updated to 1/7/2010
• Added Reavers Refuge Flagging to the “Are Your Raid Ready?” page.

You can download it here, or from within the internal updater in the game guide:

http://www.inthecore.com/ddo/upload/Vinton/Crafting.zip - Main
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BFK1RQ46 - Mirror 1
http://rapidshare.com/files/348846215/Crafting320.zip - Mirror 2

Work on this version of the planner is coming to a close. I had a few other snags pop up that have already all been taken care of. Primarily, allowing Colorless into any Augment slot was an issue, but again, taken care of.

I posted up on the official forum thread a sample of the output. Dragon.Star commented on layout of it, and I kind of agree with him. I’ve re-organized it in the version I’m running already.

I’ve released to Inferus Sus a BETA version of it today. They will be playing with it while I add a few more things to it. I’d say another week, depending on how work goes this week, before I release to public.

Here’s a shot of the output I had originally. I’ve swapped the forumula part to the top, and General Information/Gather These Materials below it.

Epic Output

Its late, Superbowl is over, and time for bed on my end.

So another day, another obstacle taken care of. Yes, I was very frustrated in the last installment, but that has subsided, and great strides have been made. You’ll be happy to hear, the logic is complete, 100%, and functional for Epic Crafting. I did the best of both worlds, and mixed some of what I did with shroud crafting, and the new way I eventually want to do shroud crafting. It makes the overall feel of it smoother.

With the logic down, the rest is pretty easy really (should I have said that?). All menu items have been added:

Save, Save As, Load, Print, Print Preview, Page Setup, Export, Copy, Reset.

Each of those are fully functional with 1 or 2 that need some extra error checking. That whole load on startup thing with the other ones is not working yet, nor the checks when you go to save, if the forumula has changed from the loaded one if you have a loaded one. Most of it is in place, I have 2 more functions I need to setup for it I think.

After getting the error checking on save/load done, the last piece I need to code is the actual output. That I’ll need to go through all the posts on the forums that I have flagged which state the exact process etc, it shouldn’t be to hard. Oh, maybe I should add in the ability to track epic tokens? I’m not going to compare to ingredients on that one, its really not necessary, but I think I’ll add it in to the ingredient tracking page all the same.

Here’s a few shots of the drop downs in action:

Item Selection:

Augment Selection:

Let me start off by saying, please someone shoot me

I got the Raid data file in place and loading. I have the Item drop down updating properly when selecting a raid, and vice versa, select an item, and the raid limits to the raid that item comes from.

Now, I’m not going to try to explain how this all works, its backwards thinking, IE, do something, and don’t think of what its actually doing, think of what everything else does because of that thing you originally did. Its not easy to follow that sometimes.

I made a HUGE error in my calculations on the bonus’s you can put on epic items. I just wasn’t paying attention. GREEN, VIOLET, ORANGE colored slots do not actually have a gem associated with them. Yes I knew this, no I wasn’t thinking about it when programming. So I was nearly done today with the logic, or so I thought. I was seeing weird stuff happening, but being that each drop down, relies on every other populate drop down function, i wasn’t to worried about it. (Every time you change one drop down, all the others basically refresh based on that selection, and if something isn’t right, it will clear that item to let you know its not possible).

So yeah, GREEN, VIOLET, ORANGES don’t have actual gems. My Bonus Data file bases the BONUS off the COLOR of the gem, NOT the slot. Can you see where this is going? Actually, I mixed the two up and was thinking that they were one and the same, COLOR/SLOT were the same in the programming.

So yeah, its all messed, and this adds TONS of extra stuff to it. Everytime I see a GREEN, VIOLET, ORANGE I need to do special checks now, to make sure I didn’t have a RED/BLUE/YELLOW previously selected..yada yada yada.

In a nutshell, this put me back pretty far. I’m so ingrained in it at the moment I can’t even think straight on whether or not I should scrap the logic all together and start over (possibly with new data files), or forge ahead and try to repair what I have (already done for just 1 of the limits).

I’m done for the night, I’ll re-think it another day. Time to drive home. Ciao for now.

Quick update for today. I was able to get the last of the updates to the Loot page completed. I got the epic ingredient files successfully loading in, and the layout of the page done:

As I was doing the layout, I realized I needed some way to decide what Raid we were doing epic crafting on. So, I added that drop down in, but have yet to create a file for it, and link it to the items as of yet. That shouldn’t take to long to do, and I’ll be prepped for Update 3 and Epic Dragon.

That was 3 hours worth of work on it today. My next goals are to start working on populating the drop downs, then working the logic on what happens when you select items in it.

So, its been 2 months to the day since I posted last.  Sounds like a lot of time to work on the project right?  Yeah, not so much lol.  I ended up getting stuck on a Federal Jury Duty case for a little over a month.  Not so much time was available for me to work on this.  I wasn’t allowed cell phones, laptops, nothing electronical during the days.  Top that off with the holidays flowing in right after, and a week of training at work, and I was notched back to maybe a weeks worth of work time on this.

Last time I was complaining about the whole handles thing, and moving tabs around.  I’m happy to report that’s all taken care of (x’s fingers).  A new tab is called Crafting now exists, and all the old Crafting tabs fall under it, like so:

 I’ve done a few other small changes too.  The Save Formula that showed up under shroud crafting, now has the word Shroud in it.  There was a sorting bug that cropped up when I moved the tabs, that’s been in existance since the first version.  I wen tall the way back to the first versions code to see if it was there, and sure enough, its ugly head poked up.  I’ve fixed it and further explanation will be in the release notes (for those of you that actually read them lol).  Another bug was discoverd in the Ingredients Tab.  Opposition would allow a blank in it, which is bad, and would mess things up pretty bad.  Yes, these bugs exist in your current versions, no, don’t come crying to me if you try to see if the bug is really there, and your ingredient file gets whacked

Oh the days when it was just updating the crafting stuff and only that.  To ALL of you that have written me on the Loot tab, and asking for updates to it, you’ll be happy to know when this is released, they will all be in there up to the day of release.  I have two sections to go as of typing this, the Crafted Items section, and In-Game store section.  These updates are extremely tedious to do.  One mistake and all the images get out of order.  I’m almost, but not quite, regret having added it.  I use it all the time myself, so rest assured it will keep being updated with each new release of the planner.

Epic Updates.  I’m still just sitting on my data files.  I wanted to get all those pesky bugs out of the way, and the tabs moved around before I started crunching on this.  Its next up on the radar.

Inspired Quarter Crafting.  This will end up being very similiar to dragon crafting/alchemical.  It’ll end up just being a web page that explains it, as its pretty much all set in stone, and there is no real choosing of items like Rings/GS/Epic items.  This should be a quick add.  I’ve got most of the data required and info from personal experience on it.

BETA Event Crafting.  At this point, its in BETA, so will not be getting added to the game guide until its officially released by Turbine.

That’s all for now.  I have tommorrow off to wait on the washing machine repair guy woot, so I should get some programming time in.

So as I sit here, I’ve been working on V3.2.0 of the Interactive DDO Game Guide (IDGG for short).  I was dabbling with some color selections, at least from what I could tell I was.  I’m not to sure where I was going with that.  Anyway, random thought there, the code is there for me to allow someone to choose colors now, just not sure what I’m going todo with it.  Oh..just rememberd, I think I was going to work on the Item Tracker, and allow you to assign colors to specific types of equipment.  That piece has long been awaiting an overhaul.  I was thinking of making static drop downs on types of equipment (keeping your old stuff still), and allowing to export/import from excel, possibly, maybe, that’s could be a long shot

Today I was looking at the layout.   We have lots of tabs going on now, and about half of them all revolve around crafting.  I figured that’s not going to slow up.  We have 1 more type of crafting now, EPIC, and another coming soon, Dreaming Dark stuff.  So, I started working on a new tab, called “Crafting”.  Under that tab, would be another series of tabs, all of the crafting ones that were originally on the top level. 

You’d think this would be an easy task.  You know, the old Cut/Paste technique, everything moves over, and is supposed to function just as it did.  Yeah, nothing is ever easy.  For those VB.NET programmers out there, if you had a program, originally written in VB.NET 2005, and convert it to VB.NET 2008, this will cause headaches for you too.  05 version didn’t add the “handles component.designation” to the end of every SUB.  Some it did yes, but not all.  What’s this have to do with cut/pasting components?  Well, 08 thinks its a new component, so all that code you had written in the originals, yeah, doesn’t work anymore.  You have to go through every SUB, and add the correct “handles component.designation” to it.  For me, that’s ohhh, roughly 500-1000.  I’m not anywhere near done with it.  Its mind numbing work.  So I’m 50% through the ingredients tab as of writing this.  75% through the Shroud Crafting tab, and haven’t even started any of the others.

This will require some heavy beta testing.  One spelling mistake could cause some not so fun bugs to crop up.  TY Inferus Sus for being my guinee pigs ;)  I release these to them a week or so before I go public, and they get to break it lol.

Beyond this pretty large task, I started working on EPIC DQ crafting.  I’ve created by base data files for the information the community has as of today.  Not all items have been created as EPIC yet, so when this does release, it will be missing some.  The augments for them will be 100% done, just not the base items. 

I’m going to use this opportunity, since its different than the shroud crafting, to re-write how I’m handling it.  I think I’m going to try to do the list all in every drop down box, and then when selecting from either one, limit the other on the items that can be made.  If I can get this working here, It will be the beginning of changing the original Shroud Crafting to fit into this roll.

So that’s where I stand today.  Trying to run a guild, do the IDGG, and keep the family happy with all my free time, is challenging to say the least.  On that note, I must sign into the game, and try to divy out some shroud ingredients to those guildies that lost some.  Take care all, and I’ll try to update this as often as possible on the status of the IDGG.

Is it to run raids?  Take it slow and be in a constant state of re-roll?  I always wondered why other people join guilds.  To me, its about being part of something.  Knowing a group of people well enough to be able to know, without a word, what they will be doing next.  I like the feeling that the guy next to me is a great player, and I know they have my back.  I don’t have to worry about what types of weapons they have, or what spells they may be carrying, because it will always be the appropriate stuff.  I have a strong sense of loyalty when it comes to whatever guild I’m in.  The guild is always first, no matter what.  Its these people I run with, my comrades in arms, that are the ones that will not leave my side when the going gets tough.  They’ll laugh a wipe off, and figure out what went wrong, and correct it.  They don’t just ditch me.  They aren’t out only for themselves.  They are there for the betterment of the whole.

This is just a game, and that may sound a bit serious, but I treat my relationships in game, like I would in real life.  Alot of my guildmates I would consider friends.  I talk with them on the phone, hell, we’ve even had guild parties were people have come from all over the US to meet up. 

What saddens me, is when people join guilds for the wrong reasons.  “I have to have 32 shrouds done a week, and come hell or high water, new content or not, I will step on anyones toes to get that done”.  “I want to run my lowbie, I know you guys are trying to figure out the new raids etc, but sorry, I want to do what I want to do.”  ”Anybody want to join this pug shroud I just got in?  Other guildies say hey lets just do our own as a guild, so its formed up, and that guy that said join the pug, stays in the pug and doesn’t come with his guild mates.” ”I, I, I, me, me, me”.  These type of people are out for only themselves.  They are not out to help THE WHOLE, they’d as soon let you drop in a run over sacraficing themselves to keep you alive, even when they know you will win the day if they keep you up.  Why in gods green earth would you want someone like this in your guild? 

I don’t get why people are not loyal to their guilds.  Why are you there if you won’t stick with the guy next to you?  In my mind, a guild becomes to these people, just a constant pool to pug from.

So what are your thoughts?  Why do you join a guild?   Are you loyal to your guild?

Disclaimer:  This post is not game related in the least :)  Take what you will from it.

I’ve tried and tried to explain this many a time, and I keep deleting it.  It always comes off just wrong, not the way I’m intending it.  In all reality its not a nice thing to say right?  Its so true though.  What I do for a living largely falls under the category of NDA, and I can’t write about it.  Its hard explaining this being vague on work, but part of my job entails explaining theories and how things will “flow” on the starting side, to training people on the completion side.  It just baffles my mind, with all the work I put in to getting people up to par on what they need to know, from flow diagrams, installations, manual preperations, class sessions etc; I try to make it as simple as possible to “get it”.  Sometimes, no matter how many ways you explain something, no matter how simple you make it, some people just don’t get it.  In my line of work, that happens so much more than it would in most, not all, other industries.  Hence the “I’m surrounded by morons!”.  These people are good people, smart, intellegent, I’m friends with quite a few of them.  We are all morons from time to time I guess, I just tend to see it more often then most.