Andor's Trail

Oskar is aware of your recent issues posted, and is in the process of compiling code for beta 3. Incorporation of additional fixes will also be addressed. Some "in house" testing will likely be required, so a little extension of the courtesy of patience is our part to exercise. Sometimes the best way to assist with development is to be patient. For some of us, myself included, just going outside to see what a tree looks like again might very well serve as some worthwhile entertainment. See you on the outside!?

Found another one, when I switch from selling to buying from Thoronir the game force closes.

Ctnbeh13: tree? What is that? :p

I'm glad to hear that everyone has such strong opinions about how the game should be and what to improve. Thanks for all the input! These types of alpha- and beta periods are really valuable I think, so that we can find issues like these before Android Market.

I'll have a try at some changes to make the new resourceloader not be as apparent as at is now.

There are two different areas here that I believe to have been mixed up:

1. Smoothness in combat animations
2. Required loading time when changing maps

Which one would you say is the most pressing thing to adjust?

Regarding 1, I can't see how changing the setting "Optimized drawing" to being enabled would be any different than alpha3 or v0.6.9 - if that setting is enabled then it's the same exact code as before that does all animations.

Regarding 2, the maploader caches maps according to the amount of available ram on your device. If your device has lots of ram, then graphics will only be loaded once when you first enter a map, and then cached if you return to that map. If you have less ram, the device may choose to flush out some of the graphics from maps that you are not currently on.
How long are the loading times between maps on your devices? Are the loading times consistent if you return to the map or are they only applied when you first enter a map? On my device, I would say it takes a tenth of a second to load resources for an average map, which is not even noticeable. But other devices will of course have different performance.

Anyway, I have some code to write. Beta 3 soon

/Oskar

i would like the smoothness in combat because it lags way too much.

Fellow adventurers,

In an effort to get a better understanding of the type of memory issues that plague Android OS run devices, it's helpful to know how much ram your device actually has. The next item to get to know is; what is actually using my device's available ram? It is a sad truth, unfortunately, that a fair amount of Google's apps are preinstalled by them when they release a version of their Android OS. What's even worse is all the "bloatware" that is installed on your device that is specifically put there by your wireless provider (and your not "allowed" to remove). When you factor in both categories of additional apps that you don't want (for the majority of users), that not only take up valuable storage space on your device, but also spend your precious battery life on keeping many of these apps running in the background and using system ram in one of two ways, but often both.

They are either actively using your available ram, and/or caching their data to it. So, now you may want to know; how much of my ram is actually available to me for what I actually want to use? In order to help you figure that out, I have provided a link to an app that I found useful enough to purchase the full version of (which essentially adds the ability to monitor long term what is using your battery resources the most). It also contains no annoying ads. Please read over the apps info to decide if it's something that you'd like to try. The app's called SystemPanel Lite, which can be found on the Android Market here: ( https://market.android.com/details?id=n ... ystempanel )

I realize that this post isn't going to be enlightening to all here in the forum, but for many I believe it only to be fair to share with, to help illustrate that Oskar has been saddled with a burden to please users, when the issue of the individuals' devices' true available memory is out of his hands. Mostly, it's out of our hands as well.

I may take additional time & space at a later date to write more about rooting your device, legal ruling on the matter, device manufacturers and wireless providers voiding your warranty, and even a link to the F.C.C.'s file a complaint form on their website. There's a slow momentum building of fed up end users, that I'd like to believe, will one day turn the tide.

Pyrizzle,

Regarding your tree question, I can't say for certain, as I am only specifically familiar with one type of tree. Apparently, in life, if you fail to appreciate trees for their true worth, a mythological character, whom I've heard called Santa, will perform a B & E job on your living quarters, leaving behind a rudimentary example of a tree. It is usually found in your living room. It is often adorned with such bright lights and shiny objects that one cannot help but notice it. This act, which is more commonly reported near the end of December, is even considered buy some to be a child like horror, as this Santa individual often helps himself to your milk and cookies before departing your home.

My advice; go enjoy a tree today! A tree a day, keeps Santa away?

There. I have committed some code to svn now that should make the combat animations a lot smoother. The main problem earlier was that lots of parts of the UI was updated at the same time, thus reducing the thread priority for the animation thread. For example, your displayed HP (in the bottom status bar) should be reduced when a monster scores a hit on you. Normally, updating that bar takes an amount of time that is not noticeable. But once we start doing animations, every millisecond counts. The easy fix for that particular situation was of course to update the HP bar before starting the animation , instead of starting the animation first and then mid-animation update the HP bar.

Also, I have enhanced the map loader even further, to make it load graphical resources for adjacent maps in the background while you are walking around on a map. This makes the loading times when transitioning from one map to another hardly noticeable, since everything should already be loaded by then.

These changes will most likely be put into a beta 3 version soon, depending on how the initial testing on them go.

One step closer to release

ctnbeh13 wrote:Pyrizzle,

Regarding your tree question, I can't say for certain, as I am only specifically familiar with one type of tree. Apparently, in life, if you fail to appreciate trees for their true worth, a mythological character, whom I've heard called Santa, will perform a B & E job on your living quarters, leaving behind a rudimentary example of a tree. It is usually found in your living room. It is often adorned with such bright lights and shiny objects that one cannot help but notice it. This act, which is more commonly reported near the end of December, is even considered buy some to be a child like horror, as this Santa individual often helps himself to your milk and cookies before departing your home.

My advice; go enjoy a tree today! A tree a day, keeps Santa away?

HA HAHAH AHAhH AAHAha HAHAHAHAHHAH HAHAHAHAHAHA
Like this one?

I dont want that mean old Chris Kringle to steal my cookies. I had to shake down quite a few girlscouts for my stash of cookies.

& that jerk still owes me the Pony i keep asking for. I have been sooooo good this year

Apparently, the girl scouts were in close proximity to the tree when you did the shakin' down. On the bright side, you probably assisted them in obtaining badges few other girl scouts ever will.

Please keep conversation on topic.