Another Anniversary

It's the 2 year anniversary for Planetside 2!
That is all.

Voted best Zephyr blog post.
-No one

In other news, by request: You can now change the game window size with your mouse, and the window will auto-correct itself to the 4:3 ratio.

Gotta Say It Again, I Don't Like Winter

It's too cold.

Hitboxes Again
I believe I've mentioned this before, but anyway, the hitboxes in DT are almost always smaller than the sprite.

For example:

In this overly large shot of my display, there are 2 sprites displayed. Those dark boxes over the sprites are the pixels used for collision. Most enemy sprites use the full sprite for collision, but their projectiles often have the first outer edge of the pixels cut off from colliding with anything. This is why you'll sometimes see a fireball fly through the top of Jerry's head or something pass through his arm while he's unharmed. The collision boxes have remained the same for most of the sprites that were carried over from DT1 and DT2.

When DT1 first started, there was none of this. Every sprite was its own collision, which led to a lot of problems.

For some enemy sprites that have a weapon as part of the sprite itself, I'll often cut off the weapon for collision checking, both due to it being awkward for the player when they take damage from it (I think so anyway) and that it's also part of the collision for the player to deal damage to the enemy. For those occasions, a separate object is used (as you would imagine) for the melee weapon the enemy has.

The above collision examples are only for collision with damage objects, these are not used for world collision. (though they can be) That's handled in a different, slightly more complex, way.

Achievements
These are in DT3 as of a moment ago. There's been plenty of talk with people about these and if they should be in the game. I've shared my thoughts on them before, and I tend to not like them. So, nearly all of the achievements in DT3 are very silly things that are outside of normal gameplay. There won't be any "Completed Chapter 1" or "Defeated 100000 Enemies" achievements. Most of them are designed for comedy purposes.

A comment here inspired someone to say a thing to me, which inspired me to code in achievements. Luckily some of the UI and code was already done from when I was toying around with the idea.

Moving Forward

I had walked outside for my lunch break and when going around a corner, a grackle was also walking around the same corner. The two of us would have collided had we not been paying attention. I stopped when I saw her and she did the normal quick flight, but she only flew away about 3 feet before returning. The bird recognized me and I guess she got really excited because she kept flying in front of me. Grackles, like many birds, cannot hover very well. So she kept fluttering to the wall next to us and kicking off of it to remain in front of me. Finally after about 3 times of doing that, she landed right at the base of my feet.

I do wonder if I had extended my hand, if she would have landed on it. Another of the birds out there, that is far more friendly, has jumped up on my leg when I was sitting on a bench.

Chapter 19 Progress

It's a slow thing these days, with having a full time job and trying to maintain a social life, both online and offline. But it is always moving forward every day, little by little. One of the three major locations is completed. It took a bit longer than I wanted due to the second half of October being exceptionally busy for me.

It is kind of weird to be almost done though, both happy and sad about it... mostly happy. I like seeing things finished.

Release Date

I still don't know just yet, but I think late February or early March next year. That's just a guess, it could be sooner, it could be later. But that's my new goal. I'm not going to rush things, I'd rather the game come a bit later rather than suck.

Also, I haven't played Planetside in over a week. I'm putting the game down until I finish DT3.