December 2016

December 11

I'm a full day late on this one, sorry about that.

Progress has returned back to normal, I've pretty much wrapped up what I need to do in the currently running ingame events. I'm plowing along on the color box data for items, and once I finish the initial equipment set (all existing Vindictus Manual equipment), I will move on to coding the actual functionality/UI of this feature. That should start before the next Dev Log, barring a blindside from an IRL surprise or Hurk's second weapon.

The general plan is to finish the initial equipment set, fully setup the actual UI/etc, and then add in the Lv.1 vanity equipment just before release. The work required for what this will actually do should be relatively small, which is unfortunate since I find data entry to be incredibly boring, and writing functionality to be fun. Oh well, resuming V3 after will have plenty of that.

December 17

All existing Vindictus Manual items now have material_type data recorded, on my development copy, as of Wednesday. Shortly after, I began work on the actual functionality. Less than an hour later, the idea of a "Random Dye Color Table Tool" was entirely scrapped. The idea I had in mind for what it would do turned out to be nonsensical.

I wanted it to be contained in a tab that would allow you to search for a specific item, and view the material_types of the item, where you could then look up the info on the specific material_type, to see what colors it can roll. With a fancy bit of functionality, you would be able to cross search for items with certain material_types, or any item in x slot that could random dye to roughly y color. If you have been reading my Dev Logs since I first started this on Tumblr over a year ago, you will realize the base idea of this is literally the Archives. So that's what I am making.

However, to be clear, I am not cancelling this project to wait till the Archives themselves are filled in and ready to go along with the rest of v3. That would be absurd, and it would be a huge kick in the teeth after all the talk I've done about this feature. So instead, I am creating the framework of the Archives, with very little data underneath it. What this means is that it will have 100% functionality when it comes to looking up color data, but recipes, drop locations, item groups, NPC shop data, enemy data, etc, none of that will be present on release. Consider this 3% of the Archives, to invent a random number. With that said, here is the current mockup so far:





If it looks familiar, then you read the September 2015 Dev Log on Tumblr, and kudos for having superhuman memory. The thing that came to mind was this very early mockup of the Archives:


It has actually been a major design reference for the v3 Archives, as I mostly like the design. Some deviations are immediately apparent, though.

In terms of actual design, I am still choosing to use the v3 framework, to allow a sneak peek of what it will be like, and allow for feedback before v3 is released on it. The tab relocation feature will not be enabled however, as that needs the whole v3 framework. It WILL be using v3 table/panel code/CSS though. Depending on timing, I might also try to code for them to work on mobile devices, and see how it works out.

For this mockup, I've chosen to try to represent all of the possible features that could be present when using the Archives, on this specific tab anyway. Initially, no item tabs will be open, there will be just a tutorial bit of text explaining how to search items. You will be able to search items in the search box like on Item Compare, or you will be able to drag and drop item icons into the search box to instantly open that item. Items in the Item List will also work for this.

The content section is designed to very crudely imitate a web browser. You will be able to switch tabs by clicking on them, or with the left/right arrow keys (if Javascript cooperates). The section that looks like an address bar is a text input pretending to be an address bar. You will be able to enter item IDs into it to jump to that item, or a full Archives page link once it goes live, to jump to that as well. There is no Home or Go button on it yet, but those will be added once I am certain that I am satisfied with the overall visual look.

The left-side box in the top section will show the item's icon, as well as other general information about the item. To the right of that section, the stats of the item will be shown, or the item description if it is not equipment. Contrary to what this image shows, Lv.90 equipment will show the full stat range of the completed item, from Min Grade/Min Rolls up to Top Grade/Max Rolls. EX: This staff would show 47~67 for Critical. Below the item stats will be attack reach values, if it is a weapon. (Please note that the 99s here are placeholder, this staff is NOT that OP.)

And then, below the reach values, you will notice a rather interesting section. A wiki-style place for gear images. I am setting the structure up for this in the hopes of being able to offer it, but I want to be upfront now: My Web Host would kill me if I tried to host that many images on my allotted space. To be able to do it, I would need to find another source willing to host the images, or a service that would let me host thousands of images for free. I consider these unlikely at best. But if they do happen, the Archives will have a very efficient structure to handle images.

Below the main header section of the item, will be the Color Data section. The intended idea so far, roughly, is that you will be able to set certain colors to "watch" for, either as exact RGB, or within a certain range of. When these values are matched, they will appear on the list below the box number. In the event of numerous matches such as "within 3 of 255/255/255" like 255/254/255 etc, only the closest match will be shown.

You will be able to click on these sections, to jump to the full color data of that material_type (which will be on a Color Tables tab of the Archives, not the Equipment tab). This is likely to result in the "Box #" headers being recolored to the Blue used for clickable text, or some other indicator. On the subject of the headers, I did intend for these to originally directly name the material_types instead of just saying "Box 1" etc, but name length is killing me here. This might require an awkward solution such as tooltips, or simply having to deal with how it currently displays.

You will also be able to click on individual color listings, to jump to a search result tab on the Color Tables tab to see what all material_types can roll that exact color. The result tab will likely have it's own option to search again for "RGB within 3 of" results.

I wanted to have this up before the end of 2016, but I'm not so sure that I will succeed now, with the scope increase the project. Since I'm building the actual Archives framework here, I want to do as thorough of a job as I can with it.

Also, happy spoiled surprise. The Archives is going to be an Armory/Item Compare window, instead of just a separate page (though there will be a separate page copy of it, for those who want it).

December 24

A slightly late Dev Log, but things did happen this week at least. First, have an image of the current state of the Archives:



The most noticeable thing (probably), will be the new stat format on composite gear. As mentioned in the last Dev Log, since these items don't have set stats, they will instead show ranges of absolute minimum to absolute maximum. The format was initially very messy and chaotic, but this was easily fixed by wrapping each stat in a span tag, and stopping those from word wrapping. I tried centering the text afterward, but it made it look worse, so the likely final setup is what you see here.

The second most noticeable thing will be the font change. Georgia has been replaced with Lucida Bright as the third Vindictus Manual font. The second font is still Arial, however. Choosing appropriate fonts that are also present in nearly every OS is rather tricky, the selection is quite small. Along with the font change, it has also been unbolded (except for item names).

Additionally, to accomodate long item names, the font size of the item names has been reduced from 24px to 18px. Margins and padding have been adjusted in several places, as well as some extra spacing inserted in yet more places. It should hopefully look less cramped now. More changes will be made likely, regarding overall size, placements, etc. Nothing is final until the last week before release.

Functionally, the window is no longer 100% placeholder. When the page is loaded, it is generating the Dullahan Staff page exactly as it would if you were to select it from the search box or by dragging and dropping one in. Two sections of placeholder still remain though. Reach data is not in the current v3 code, and so I can't enable that yet. And there is no options menu to select "Favorite" colors to appear in results, so this remains placeholder.

I should note that even on release, there will still be no options menu to select Favorite colors. I'm limiting the Archives release to only parts that do not need to save any data; I don't dare to mess with the save format on v2. Instead, there will be a pre-set series of colors, such as 255 White, 230 White, 25 Black, 30 Black, 43 Gray, and a few others. When Vindictus Manual V3 arrives, you will be able to change these.

My goal for the next week should be pretty predictable. I want to incorporate reach data in a way that my live v2 site can handle (which will unfortunately mean a sloppy data block initially), and then de-placeholder it.

I then want to code in and enable color searching for the color boxes. Once both of those work, I will be in a good position to start working on the rest of the Material Type coding. Features such as being able to click the color, and automatically listing every Material Type that can roll it (or within the range of it that is set in Options). The last week of 2016 should be fun, unlike the last two months of boring data entry.

December 31

Not much happened this week, what with Christmas and all. I was also gifted Skyrim Special Edition, and I haven't played Skyrim before. That should sum up this week.