Classic Conceptual Art (found my external hard drives)
 

I finally found my external hard drives, and then had to dig a little deeper for a 12 VDC / 2.0 A plug. I'll keep posting interesting stuff as I come across it, but it might take a while because I'm trying to create a new back up of the files onto a faster external hard drive.

Here is a screenshot of the first battle fought on MoD fort after the server wipe. I had coded it such that a guild had to maintain the flag for a minimum of two minutes to ratchet up a victory, after which a new round would start in 15 seconds.

Attachment 20718

You know the Deadwood Guild Tower? That was formerly the Kull's Castle Quest. It got wiped with the server. Here is an intermediate-stage plan for mapping out what the replacement quest would have been before someone decided to make it into a guild fort.

Attachment 20719

My sketch/plan of the geography for an initial expansion the overworld after the wipe.

Attachment 20727

Here's a preliminary map of the first expansion made to the overworld after the server wipe, obviously not the final version, but the idea was to bring Graal Castle back.

Attachment 20720

This is right after the east mountain was first added. Actually, it was right after the all-nighter I pulled retiling it from scratch. If I can find a picture of this mountain before I retiled it, I'll post it here. I'm somewhat disappointed that this version of the castle didn't last because it had an awesome courtyard hedge maze and a roof garden, and especially because it was removed after already having been incorporated into the questing story line.

Attachment 20721

This was going to be the boss battle for the Graal of Fire (or maybe water...). The red guy's aura swings you around the room and if you hit those glowing walls you get hurt. The strategy for victory should be fairly obvious. I believe Cappa created the graphic of red guy.

Attachment 20722

This was a maze room for what was going to be the water temple, where you would inevitably end up getting the Graal of Water.

Attachment 20723

Oh, found a few screenshots of that version of the castle I miss.

Attachment 20724

Attachment 20726

Attachment 20725

Awww the original MoD noobs. Now mike and xen have someone to idolize.

Really cool, I actually really like those map expansion concepts.

Just wondering, why were the servers wiped?

one was for the introduction of the npc server.

Nice

tl;dr: scripting language upgrades.

Initially Graal was coded in such a way that everything was scripted clientside, with certain features being handled on the server. A lot of game features had to be moved to the server because people hacked the game client (what you would download to your PC to play) and made the gameplay less enjoyable for other players. It's harder to hack a server (home-turf advantage). As a longer-term strategy, Graal created an NPC server, which basically split scripting from being implicitly clientside or serverside to being explicitly clientside or serverside. There was a generous amount of time given to the volunteers managing the Classic server to convert the server's code to be compatible with the NPC server.

Late in the game, I converted hundreds if not thousands of levels. I didn't know much about scripting yet, but I thought that converting the easier levels would alleviate the sense of hopelessness. One day, they cut over, and Master Storm, the manager of Classic at the time, told me that he had pulled an all-nighter just getting a core set of levels up from Graal City with custom movement and hit-detection systems. I saw the code, it was definitely rushed. I became the replacement for the development administrator shortly after.

Meanwhile, there was also another cut-over looming in terms of GScript1 vs GScript2, which makes the whole ordeal seem somewhat inevitable in hindsight.

The original MoD tower scene actually came much earlier. That screenshot was when it was reintroduced.

Found a Graal Easter event screenshot taken in my favorite level of all time.

Attachment 20729

Preliminary design plan for top level of the T-shaped castle shown above. Guards would be posted that would capture you and throw you in the dungeon. You actually had to be thrown in the dungeon in order for the quest to continue.

Attachment 20730

Preliminary design plan for the new Gnome Caves. I assigned the creation of levels to multiple people over time, but nobody ever created them. It was a bit of a bottleneck in the quest timeline.

Attachment 20731

I really hated the shape of Nimda, but I don't think anyone ever changed it because it was pretty low on the priority list.

Attachment 20732

Another incomplete map screenshot showing the preliminary developments on the western side of the main Graal continent.

Attachment 20733

Massokre, that map is uglyyyyy

missing a lot of those names, tho :(

So that's what that level with the black gelat was for lol. Before the scarf quest on Classic came out, the Mask Shop was the level with that black gelat

There's a secret at the top-left corner of the level that goes to a spar arena.

Do the levels in Graal Reborn have this?

If the server is up, yeah.

Well, ain't that the truth. If you're talking about the overworld, that's a step to what was around when I left, and still what's a lot of what's around today. Cliff detailing on the continent north of the river that isn't Onnet or Graal City is all me in that map. The exception would be the old level25.graal, which I went waaay out of my way to include because it was one of my favorite levels.

http://i.imgur.com/VvlHt.png

Was Stefan involved a lot in these sort of dev updates way back then? Fair play to you for pulling all nighters and such, but the amount of work you and others must've had to put in this is crazy.

*Kino (Darkshire) <3

Correction, while these became many benefits, the NPC Server was originally called "Animal Sector" and it was a patentable technology I invented because I wanted to have birds, weapons, and bomies free roaming the server with more sustainable interactive data between players, calling for a command I named "canwarp". Stefan stole the NPC Server idea because he knew it was the missing link that would change everything.

http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.php?t=77
http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.p...o=newpost&t=83

Stefan was not involved with the exception of adding features to the scripting language that I requested in order to make some elements of custom-written movement, hit detection, and related systems possible. Those updates applied to all worlds, but they were pretty crucial in particular to Classic.

We had a strong team of level builders and a few good pixel artists. On the other side of the coin, there was a severe lack of active scripting talent. I had to assign myself most scripting tasks because there was nobody else who could do them, and my level of programming education was from toying around with GScript for a few years, and being a second-year CSIS major.

You realize that the NPC Server practically destroyed Graal Classic, right?

---------

Found a text file describing the Kull's Castle concept map.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...9&d=1453337451

Green: Doors to outside
Red: Stairs (links between floors)

Themes: Swamp, Medieval Fortress

1. Warp Maze
2. Baddies/Hammer Stakes
3. Room with big chest, fences and bushes in squares around it.
4. Room that is seemingly empty, doors are locked.
5. Collapsing Bridge
6. A crapload of bush baddies.
7. bushes/healthpots
8. Trident maze
9. Boss

Kino? What ever happened with you anyway?

I'm not sure what you're even referring to.

1. Graal Classic still has a lot of revisions that need made.
2. I had a million dollar game stolen from me, and technology. How does this have anything to do with me destroying Classic?
3. Graal Classic needed revamped.
4. Graal Classic is booming bigger than ever on the mobile app.
5. I have a much bigger vision for Classic so I really don't care; frankly Graal Classic went downhill quickly after G2K1 opened imo and in the opinions of countless others. The process started even earlier after PACHUKA left, then in 1.3 with the addition of all kinds of junk; a lot of the original places were removed and replaced by stupid stuff that to this day anyone with good taste will tell you shouldn't exist but was added laxidaisically, such as:
   • Picnic tables in Graal City
   • Burger Refuge
   • A mansion next to Azrael's pub
   • Super Nick's spar arena
   • Vangel's house, which should have been in Onnett and shouldn't have had a tennis court
   • A bank
   • Fox's mansion in Graal City twice
   • The Baddies Fort was replaced by the castle, then by a crappier castle, and an even crapper one after that
   • Ibonic's park (called Cinobi)
   • A sign that reads "Nafet's River". Yes, I am to blame for that one.
   • A clothing shop where you could get any color clothing for any clothing accessory; what a great & popular spot, I'm so glad that douche who added that got his level uploaded (not)

I could go on and on; but I won't give away my editor's touch. A ton of garbage was added because people wanted to clutter up Graal City with their stuff, even if it meant ramming something in somewhere, removing something, replacing something, or remodeling something that was as pivotal as the Baddie's fort & King Clops did a damn good job; replacing King Clops' Baddies fort is downright blasphemy to the creative spirit. Literally, a lot of stuff wasn't real estate that should have been up for grabs—not like that; you can't design a game with a bunch of programmers & server admins calling shots with random members of an online community.

You need a professional game designer.

However, stuff was added just to add it because some of the admins didn't have great taste, were threatened by players, didn't care, or whatever. I think Vangel just added his house himself; I had permission to add things but not remove, as it was a community project—but I know my perspective is right. At least when I made Destiny, I was trying to replace what PACHUKA took away when he left; a lot of people were just adding stuff anywhere it was popular to boost their ego. Graal went from being something enchanted to a giant shopping mall of puke in zero to .5 seconds. I've said it, Elk said it, Rufus has said it: Some stuff really needs edited.

Victory stop spamming.

That map is epic I wish it was still in the game

It still is, they're just fleshing it out piece by piece as their release strategy.

What I like more about the current map than this map (assuming content will be fleshed out instead of removed):

• The York Town Peninsula
• The return of the Destiny Desert
• The return of MoD Town
• The return of Graal PD
• The tree tiling in Master Li's Woods
• The use of trees instead of cliffs between Swamp Town and Destiny

What I like less about the current map:

• The removal of the northern valley corridor
• The remake of the castle (I think that came before iClassic)
• The addition of the sledding slope in Snow Town
• The removal of the golden grove northwest of Swamp Town
• The use of Babord's guild fort as Swamp Town's guild fort
• The use of the Kull's Castle quest area as Deadwood
• The use of Kull's Castle as a guild fort

ty!

Thank you for making quality work.

I'm going to confess that I never lived to be this old to remember all of these.

What is the area in the purple circle? I've always been curious.

The graphic was originally posted by someone who was pointing out what Nimda was.

When you were still able to glitch out of the map you'd reach a black void and no matter how far you dragged your screen to nimda, it was fully gone lol (same with the other areas)

Never really got to know what Nimda really was. Only been there through offmap glitches. What is the purpose of Nimda? I know there are games like boat race and such. There's also a forest too. Was that a quest?

They blocked it off with the black void. Big City (or Big Island, whatever it's called) used to be accessible through glitches before it was released then was blocked off by black voids.

Part of a file that had a whole bunch of task assignments in it (it also had some of my class schedules, but I'm leaving that out).

Onnet Town
-Sparring Arena
-Bowling
-*Bar
-Stefan's House
-Pizza
-Shop
-Horse Barn
-Floating Boots


Onnet Bounty Hunting
player submits rupees
player cannot collect his/her own set bounty.
everyone who accepts bounty assignment collects bounty for every 2-1 kills of bounty:total deaths ratio
bounty cannot be bounty again for 36 hours
bounty hunting lasts one hour.
trials can't set bounty.
three bounties at once



Sardon Spar
all player dirs change at least 3 times
movement keys must be being pushed 85% of the time.
there must be more than 2*totalhearts/swordleveltotal + 2 sword strokes.
spar must last longer than swordstrokes/2*8seconds.


Projects (that I can think of off the top of my head) List:

Frog Graphics: Preexistent
Frog Ganis: Myself, need to be redone
Frog Script: Myself, needs slight modifications.
Black Spider Graphics: Myself = done
Black Spider Ganis: Myself = done
Black Spider Script: Myself = done (waiting for damage function)
Mountain Spider Graphics: Preexistent
Mountain Spider Ganis: Unassigned
Mountain Spider Script: Myself
Stone Turtle GFX: Cappa = done
Stone Turtle Ganis: Racil
Stone Turtle Script: Myself
Carnivorous Bush Graphics: Cappa = done
Carnivorous Bush Ganis: unassigned
Carnivorous Bush Script: Myself
Troll Graphics: PKT (needs some touching up, Storm demands they be used)
Troll Ganis: Racil
Troll Script: Unassigned
Guardian Tree Graphics: Preexistent/Luda (needs slight modifications)
Guardian Tree Ganis: (Kevin's Attempt of an LAT app)/Myself
Guardian Tree Script: Myself
(to kill guardian tree)
Red Bomb Plant Graphics: Cappa = done
Red Bomb Plant Scripts: Unassigned
Castle Guard Script: Myself
Weapon Hammer: IDK who made it = done
Weapon Jolt Bomb: GrowlZ
Weapon Bruges' Bird: Unassigned
Weapon Birdshot: Myself
Weapon Lantern: Myself = done
Lantern Dark Room: Myself = done
Sliding Door Script (Dynamic): Kohan
City Gossips Script: (will be) Kohan
Pretext Quest: Myself
Quest Scripting: Myself
Graal Castle/Dungeon Levels: Exodus (in charge), Racil, Mighty
Graal Castle/Dungeon Graphics: Luda
Gnome Cave Levels: Raistlin
Swamp Town/Kull's Fort Interior Levels: Unassigned/Exodus
Onnet Town/Sardon's Tower Interior Levels: Unassigned/Racil/Exodus
Forest Island Levels: Mighty
Water Island Levels: Drastic
Desert Island Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Levels: Jaffer or reuse Big City
Forest Island Dungeon Levels: Exodus
Water Island Dungeon Levels: Myself = done (needs tweaking)
Desert Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Quest Key Graphics: Ghost = 3/5 done
Quest Big Chest Graphics: Luda = done
Overworld Expansion: (mostly)Exodus/(tweaking)Myself
Bug Storm About Movement: Everybody
Bug Storm About Damage: Everybody


//Story Line
--Pretext
City Gossips speak of the guy at the joint having a bounty out.
North Shorean has halted beer supplies to Graal City.
Kill North Shorean
Get Key to a cave
Find Lantern, Glass Graal
Lift Glass Graal
Warp Ring cracks
Fire Warp Ring
Irony has it that you warp to a warp ring smith in the clouds.
He claims to have fixed your warping

--Castle
Accidentally warp into courtyard with warp ring,
intrude the throne room,
get taken to the dungeon
get the level2 glove and use it to get out somehow
Escape the dungeon, sneaking past guards
Meet the king,
king notes Glass Graal,
speaks of the 4 ancient graals (forest, water, sand, fire)become a knight
sent to gnome caves with key to assist the gnomes
--Gnome Caves
gnome caves are infested with trolls.
you fight through the trolls
find the gnomes in a blacksmith's room
speak of gnome princess
speak of the stone turtles
get hammer from the gnomes
use stone turtles w/ hammer to access other caves
find the troll's portal.
block it off
get gnome princess
leaving, the gnome king confronts you
gives you note of worthiness
--Kull's Fort
Tristam wants to take Kull's Fort for his own territory.
It is currently occupied by the swamp town/destiny army commander.
Swamp Town is full of creature people, they get along with baddies.
Need to use level2 glove for entry


--Sardon's Tower
king has problems with sardon, the black wizard
sends you to neororner to acquire a name for yourself within the town
(through gambling, games, sparring, etc.)
step 1. gambling: find the right chest and get 1000 rupees.
step 2. games: moving bombs and arrow targets
step 3. sparring, spar another actual player in observation of Sardon
(spar has to be looked at as competitive enough for entry,
to prevent cheating your way in.)

win spar and gain access to the tower.
upon entering the tower, you say you were sent by tristam to destroy sardon
sardon flees to the top of the tower, sets obstacles
find a magical staff (like sword, not reall) to pass some obstacles
find sardon, defeat him (partially, he's really a good guy).
use staff to defend from sardon's dark magic.
room will be dark, lanterned.
talks to you on the roof, says that tristam's a bad guy, though you don't believe him


//To Do
Fix hats on Angel, Portable Chair, and Skull Ganis
Graal City Gossips
Castle Guard
Castle Weak Statues
Stone Turtle
Evil Tree
Bomb Plant
Evil Bush
Bruges' Bird
Birdshot

I started doing periodic backups of the levels after some jerk decided to delete everything at one point (not naming names), so I decided I would generate the maps from the earliest and latest timestamped copies. I added some recent images I posted for timeline context.

The earliest system timestamp I can find on my version of the first map including the castle is 9/29/2005.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...0&d=1453337879

The earliest system timestamp I can find on my version of the Overworld Map expansion concept, which includes some additions to the last map aside from the imagined future, was from 11/26/2005.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...7&d=1453341272

The earliest system timestamp I can find on my version of this initial Overworld Map expansion is 1/2/2006 (which agrees with the timestamp on the screenshot)

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...1&d=1453337895

Overworld Map from 7/11/2006 (missing some levels, probably because I'm not using the correct GMAP). The gmap I used is from 7/22/2006. I tried using the GMAP from 4/2/2006, and from that I can infer that Nimda got re-added to the gmap between 4/2/2006 and 7/11/2006 (although not fleshed out for content), and that the errors are weird.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...7&d=1453686009

Here's 7/27/2006, which doesn't have the weird errors, but shows the work I did to move level25.graal up to a proper elevation for snow for the first time in Graalian history. It also brought about a potential for a "fish mountain" arc in any Graal storyline (following further overworld updates), but that's no longer a thing.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...9&d=1453692176

For good measure, I figure 8/21/2006 would be a good halfway point to look at how things were evolving over time.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...8&d=1453686723

Overworld Map from 11/15/2006, shortly before I essentially quit.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/atta...6&d=1453685994

Oh wait, I misunderstood the first time. That is a level formerly known as level25.graal. It was what I believed to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing in Graal, so I wanted it to stay on the map. It was originally at a really low altitude, which I always found kind of weird because it had snow, so I made an effort to put it at a higher altitude when putting it on the map. When I first played, it was part of level 3 sword quest. You would obtain the obsidian shaft component by digging in that level with the level 2 shovel. From my old FAQ pages, it was part of Fox's cave complex that led to Sylphia (Snow Town).

Graal only ever loads the level you're in and the surrounding 8 levels when you're on the gmap, which is why when you drag your camera you can't see beyond a certain area.

Before the first server wipe, there was a forest quest there, followed by another quest that took you to a place called dragon's island. Neither of those quests were reimplemented during my time. I was trying to get Pretext/Castle/Gnomes/Kull's/Sardon's done as the highest priority quests. We only got up through the castle quest ever completed. The Gnomes quest was extremely frustrating because I couldn't get anyone to work on it.

There was a shop there where you could get the torch and a mini-game system, and the map to Nimda Forest. You'd follow the map to find ratform. You had to kill a boss for it. Once you had the ratform, you could enter the Dragon's Temple on Nimda Island. Once completing the Dragon's Temple, a dragon would carry you to Dragon's Island, where you would find the Graal of Life (one of the four graals needed to enter Midas' Realm) after defeating the dragon mage in a temple there.

Link to a previous post with task assignments in case anyone's just clicking to the third page. In addition to providing some sort of vision and assigning everyone tasks to accomplish that, what I did was primarily scripting and the detailing of levels.

The previous post documents the Overworld Expansion from 9/29/2005, around when I became the lead developer (also my first semester of college), to 11/15/2006, around when I quit (it was my third semester in college, the server had lost a lot of players and nobody was particularly happy with what I produced).

Well, now I've reviewed the castle dungeon quest levels and I'm missing them. Too bad I can't make a video. It's a classic raise/lower water puzzle, get's you the level 1 glove (lift rocks), a few secrets that you can bypass, a projectile boss battle, with little other combat.

Forgive the lack of relevant graphics being loaded, but the level names should be self-explanatory (this is like screenshots of a third, and all missing lots of graphics, but whatever).

I really liked the castle quest. I had a trial account at the time so I had to do it every time I logged in.

Your feelings on the inaccessible treasure chest that looks like it ought to be accessible in this quest? I also put that one by the waterfall west of MoD Town, although it seems someone gave it a fancier graphic and made it accessible via ratform.

It's practically a freebie if the devs wanted to reimplement it. The coding and levels already exist (at least I have a lot of it). Meanwhile, I doubt the existence of requiring a quest for newbies would really work with the server's current lag issues, especially when you have hundreds of people wanting to do it at once. I also don't know if anyone in present development has planned for people being able to handle lifting/throwing rocks in the present iteration of Graal.

So rock throwing and distribution could be issues any devs would face if they wanted to implement such a thing. Of course, if you get a good distribution system, that would significantly help quest implementation in general.

This had me thinking, the warp ring jewel system I implemented could be used to distribute access to quests so that not everyone is doing the same quest at the same time (albeit with some minor changes, e.g. giving warp ring jewels an expiration date rather than being permanent). E.g. you dive and find a warp jewel to a quest. Or you kill a baddy and find one. It only lasts for a certain period of time, otherwise you lose your spot. Heck, you could make a warp jewel repair guy that you pay gralats in return for fixing your used warp jewels, which would then allow you a replay of quests.

I think I asked Ranger or Tatsumi if you could get it. They said you couldn't and I left it at that. I remember the one near MoD Fort, too. I noticed it was a tile instead of a coded chest so I knew it wasn't accessible.

I liked finding all of the warp gems and stuff, too. Classic around 2005-2006 was really fun for me. Thor changed the warp ring when he became Dev Admin, though.

why doesn't iClassic look that big and good? :( now everytime I log on IOS i will cri

Looks better now than it ever did, both level wise and GFX wise.

Classic always had **** levels that were mostly broken. I'm sure massokre tried to fix the cliffing but anyone that's ever worked with the server knows that once you fix one set of cliffs you need to fix the rest or else the problem is still there. Absolute horse **** to work with. The detailing was always bad, interiors were garbage with the excuse of "iz clasik styl!!", and I'm glad quests are gone because I never liked them.

Dang. Never knew Nimda had such an epic purpose.

Are the quests on Graal Reborn exactly the same as the before the wipe? Like that Nimda quest

Cliffs are a collective work, so yea, it involves a comprehensive approach. Onnet Town is the biggest cluster**** of all. In regard to resources, there are a lot more graphics resources now than there was then, and that's definitely an improvement. The scripting drought still seems to remain from at least an outside perspective. Tilers are often hit and miss, but establishing the general outline of levels and detailing them can be two different jobs, so that was never really hurting.

I can understand that you don't like quests, but generally MMORPGs attract players based on several different factors of play. Quests cater to a large segment of players, and even though you might not be included as one of them, that segment exists and it's significant. See: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

The graal of water quest, though never complete due to baddy issues and weapon issues (namely the birdshot, which is pretty much equivalent to a hookshot), did have a complete set of levels and puzzles. A lot of the clientside code was written pre-GScript2, which would no longer be supported (in contrast to the castle dungeon quest I posted about earlier).

This is the first level. You get approached for help. That's pretty much the deal here.

Attachment 20787

Here we see one of the first central levels, i.e. you might have ended up coming back here many times. That whirlpool shaped thing was actually replaced by an actual animation, but it was there to signify in the tiling where those would go. The whirlpool affected the players movement like you'd expect (that scripting was done). It would dump you out in another level.

Attachment 20786

Here's the level it would dump you out in.

Attachment 20785

The doors here would be numbered, and you'd have to keep track of them in order to complete the quest (hinted by an NPC in another level). The door you chose would be different depending on what path you took in another level.

Attachment 20788

This was a path choice. It was filled with blocks that you could move, but only in the sense that depending on which way you moved the first one, you'd end up at only one of those two doors at the right side of the level.

Attachment 20789

Only one of those whirlpools actually took you somewhere, but I bet on you being worried about picking the wrong one. The other would take you somewhere else, but only after the quest was complete.

Attachment 20790

Here is a screenshot of the boss that I provided earlier in the thread depicting the boss battle.

https://www.graalians.com/forums/att...2&d=1453338928

After the battle, you could obtain the Graal of Water (or whatever it was called). Before that, however, you'd have to get through this maze that I posted a screenshot of earlier.

https://www.graalians.com/forums/att...3&d=1453339157

Intro to the Graal of Life quest:

Attachment 20802

Bush & Bush Baddy Maze!

Attachment 20803

You'd get sent back to the beginning here if you were hit by something. Also, tree baddies.

Attachment 20804

A bit more, but I don't want to spoil much if there are ever any plans to introduce this quest, although it's certainly not as complete as the water quest.

Attachment 20805

I remember that there was a big thing about baddies not being scripted but I never understood why. Can you elaborate?

Weren't they no longer coded into the client?

Ya but that hasn't stopped Thor from creating them to work with his custom systems or Dusty from creating them with the default ones.

Oh, you mean why weren't scripted ones made? Good question.

Baddies could only be made serverside under the constraints I was given. The only option for baddy movement was to use a move command that couldn't be interrupted by other events (like being hit by a sword). I.e. you could literally only hit a baddy when they weren't moving. There was also the translation of movement to the serverside, and it wasn't exactly trivial to map clientside movement to serverside movement because the clientside can check every frame iteration, but in order to check movement serverside, you have to ensure the whole vector of movement between move calls wouldn't put the baddy in a wall. There was some progress made, but nothing I was happy with (I'm not happy with iClassic's baddies compared to the original baddies either, even though I respect the work put into making them halfway decent).

Edit: I should add that even though move included a blockcheck, it was broken.

I don't know what the constraints Thor and Dusty had, or what differences in GScript may have come about to potentially make things simpler, so I can't really speak to their implementations. I certainly wasn't given the option of built-in baddies by Storm, as custom serverside hit detection required custom baddies. However, iClassic's baddies seem to be implemented serverside with many of the pitfalls I faced unaddressed, and I imagine that took a **** ton of time. PC GtA's baddies seem to be implemented clientside, essentially bypassing all of those issues.

You can interupt move() by setting their x/y such as:

function onWa****() {
this.x = this.x;
this.y = this.y;
}

Serverside is pretty much mandatory, so to compensate I designed the ganis to have a larger "range" so I could setshape the baddies to a larger size, thus improving the compensation for delay with hit detection. I also implemented clientside hit detection that doesn't rely on triggeractions, but instead a buffer DBNPC that handles that data communication. I found none of the cache methods that move() offers useful. Eventually the positions will become different for players and will see the npc in different places. However could possibly use some clientside extrapolation to smoothen out the movement. As far as serverside AI goes, with scheduleEvent() you can now create more than just a timeout loop. So you can let the .1 timeout handle movement and set a slower loop to handle complex AI such as picking targets, pathfinding and so on.

Also Stefan suggested not using onMovementFinished and instead set a timeout for the same movement time and using that instead.

I started the graphics for remaking the old style baddies but never finished. Could be cool.

I literally tried doing that. http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...02&postcount=1

So to answer your question, the reason I couldn't implement them in the same way Dusty did was because you couldn't set a shape on an NPC that used a gani at the time, and the reason I couldn't implement them in the same way that Thor did was because I had a mandate to implement them serverside.