What's up, RMers?

[Kain Nobel]

I'm taking a short hiatus from the album. Just short enough to recollect my bearings and not burn out. I'll probably be back to it by this weekend.

Recording could be considered finished (I have one guitar solo I need to re-record proper as I didn't get 100% accuracy on it. I could leave it as-is, it's not bad, just not faithfully articulated as wrote...)

However, I have wrote brand new Verse 3 sections for tracks that didn't have them. I've wrote brand new guitar solos for tracks that didn't have them. New bridges, new melodic breakdowns, etc. Once I do these sections, none of the tracks should be less than 3 minutes long (except "Logo" which is 4 seconds and is technically just a very short guitar solo.)

Right now I have 19 tracks, roughly 64 minutes. If I push to do the new parts it'll fill it out to be a full 74 minutes.

Next year I'll probably do one of these albums too. The first 5 tracks have already been drafted and I think people will really dig it.

Also, if anybody has suggestions for next year's REGAL devops, feel free to drop in and let me know. I posted a video showing some of the progress on the database.

[kyonides]

In a previous post I had informed you of a bug present in Ruby 3.0. At least I thought it was only there and nowhere else. Sadly, I recently found out that is not the case.

Ever since version 3.0, the core development team thought it was nice to implement their Primitive pseudo variable in a couple of default methods. What I mean here is that instead of simply defining a CRuby function and then link it to Ruby via a rb_define_method call, they pretend to temporarily create a Primitive "class" that simply calls the C function directly. The function gets all the obvious parameters from Ruby plus a hidden context variable.

Why is that a HUGE problem for developers?

The answer is pretty easy. Standalone applications like MKXP or HiddenChest are now unable to call a simple file and directory collector method like Dir#glob or Dir#[] ever again.

How's that even possible?

Well, now such applications would need to include probably most of Ruby's files that had never been required in the 2.x series or even before that. Why? Because the irb or ruby interpreter's console (a MS-DOS like shell) still can access those Dir singleton methods.

I know Matz and his collaborators had been talking about implementing some special __C__ variable, now known as Primitive, to let us call CRuby functions directly. The thing is that instead of being an advantage, it has become a real nuisance for developers!

[Remi-chan]

Imagine clinging to the outdated engines that utilize a poorly thought-out programming language instead of just using MV which uses Javascript, another poorly thought-out programming language that alternatively has documentation for fucking DAYZZZZ

But enough about Kyonides recent moral outrage over a deprecated language that even most of its core developers don't take that seriously, here's all the dumb bullshit i accomplished during my probably unnoticed absence.

I've made some big progress on the Road map I've posted around the place but maybe not here...? Done 13 events over 11 days which is over one event per day. Not as fast as I'd like... But I might get more productive as time goes on, but so long as it doesn't dip, we'll still make it by 12/22/22 which is one of two intended release dates.

"Updated roadmap: Green Boxes means complete!"

With 51 Events to go when you consider I started with about 100 on my plate last month, it really does seem like I'll make the December 2022 release date! It's more or less down to my artists...

For the second Esperia event, I decided it was about time Esperia's current portraits got updated and that I add another eight of them to round out her character more.



Oh, and while we're on the subject of portraits and my artists!

Pjcr

Got me the first two of eight Xeltara portraits, finally his net and power have somewhat stabilized.

Xiie
Is likely to be back around mid November. Meaning we should have a LOOOOT less placeholder sprites in the game than we do presently.

Now... to the media. So I realized I was not only missing the second Esperia event, but also the first one! Well, this has been corrected, both these scenes and more updated with her new faces.

Recovery of the Frostqueen

Family of ZERO BLOOD (This is the events actual name, forgive the out of date banner.)


And now, for some planetary event previews!

Byteopia


There's more events done but I've only done videos of these two.

Draik



An event for Kira at last, and there's one missing where Xaela introduces her bad self again. These events are unlocked by Kara's Optional event chain. Xeltara and Xaramitsi get to have some fun with good ol' fashioned MURDER! (or torture but who's really gonna try correcting them...)

While I've started on the Haven Quests, I'm not even up to a point where I can test them due to restarting from scratch on a new save to ensure against game-breakers and soft-locks.

[kyonides]

Even if people like Remi-chin-chan can handle it, here's just another report on the Dir#entries and Dir#glob issues found in Ruby 3.x earlier this month.

Dir#entries and Dir#glob fail in stand-alone CRuby app

https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19086

Yes, I could finally post the darn bug report on  Ruby's official   bug tracker!

Honestly, it has been a terrible ordeal to report it because of their stupid TOTP security feature. Even if I had Duo Mobile and Google Authenticator, I had to rely on a website to get a darn valid code I could type on that hell of a code box.  And I had to repeat the process a couple of extra times just because I picked an old page in my current tab's browsing history.  How can a simple feature be so obnoxious!?

I really hope the TOTP remains disabled so I can stay logged into that website. Well, I could automatically get notifications in my inbox if anything changes but...

[Remi-chan]

Your continuing torment amuses me.

[kyonides]

I'm bringing you today a brand new chapter of your unwanted novel entitled...

Dir#entries and Dir#glob fail in stand-alone CRuby app

Where one of the core developers, at least he looks like one based on the knowledge he exhibited there, left a piece of advice that ended up solving the whole issue in no time.

I had to replace the ruby_setup call with two other ones, namely ruby_init and ruby_options.

At first glance, it doesn't seem to bother anyone just to change a couple of lines of code just because. The problem is that you need to pass some stupid parameters, at least 3 of them, to make it run.  Otherwise it quickly gets frozen.  

I do think that is pure nonsense. Why did they make it more complicated? To make developers keep complaining about that?

[Remi-chan]

Not as HUGE an update as last time, but I did get four more events done (that I can't even test yet) marking Planet Haven complete with the exception of a Surreal Difficulty boss-fight which will be handled later. While making these I made some gorgeous pictures to support the scenes.



Of 180 events, only 47 remain. I intend to get another eight completed over the next couple days or so. My focus now shifts to Planet Zirkov and Planet Postmartia, completing those will also complete the Turquoise System


To clarify, I'll be skipping the last two Postmartian events until I get around to focusing on boss fights and hectic events like that.

In the spirit of such progression, I went ahead and made a bunch more placeholders, including some brand new designs.

The Zirkovians

Floating lifeforms who once had an empire, they were brought low by the Galaxions. Now a handful remains under the shelter of Saarkrell's generosity and bravery. These are made in MSpaint, because it's quick and easy for me to do.

Mal Morris

Mal Morris joined the Polaris Federation and sought to become a hacker of justice, but ultimately was lead to just being a hacker in corporate pockets. He'll be a comical antagonist to serve as a contradiction to Shadow Dude's profile, who is someone governments expressly fear!.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

Quick question (God, I still miss the shoutbox): Is there a script call to close the game?

[DerVVulfman]

Quick question (God, I still miss the shoutbox): Is there a script call to close the game?

Yep.   It's just exit if you wanna just close the game fast.  No fuss.  No muss.

Sure, Scene_Title has this method:

Code:

  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # * Command: Shutdown
  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  def command_shutdown
    # Play decision SE
    $game_system.se_play($data_system.decision_se)
    # Fade out BGM, BGS, and ME
    Audio.bgm_fade(800)
    Audio.bgs_fade(800)
    Audio.me_fade(800)
    # Shutdown
    $scene = nil
  end

Or

Code:

  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # * [Shut Down] Command
  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  def command_shutdown
    close_command_window
    fadeout_all
    SceneManager.exit
  end

... for VXAce users (the SceneManager code doing basically $scene = nil from RMXP).

But using exit just ... does a quick "BAMF!" straight out.

[kyonides]

Quick question (God, I still miss the shoutbox): Is there a script call to close the game?

Yep.   It's just exit if you wanna just close the game fast.  No fuss.  No muss.

Sure, Scene_Title has this method:

Code:

  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # * Command: Shutdown
  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  def command_shutdown
    # Play decision SE
    $game_system.se_play($data_system.decision_se)
    # Fade out BGM, BGS, and ME
    Audio.bgm_fade(800)
    Audio.bgs_fade(800)
    Audio.me_fade(800)
    # Shutdown
    $scene = nil
  end

Or

Code:

  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # * [Shut Down] Command
  #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  def command_shutdown
    close_command_window
    fadeout_all
    SceneManager.exit
  end

... for VXAce users (the SceneManager code doing basically $scene = nil from RMXP).

But using exit just ... does a quick "BAMF!" straight out.

exit alone would cause an SystemExitError internally that will be handled by the engine. Still, it would be better to use the normal XP or Ace shutdown methods rather than silently crashing the game.