The Mana World Forums

I'm loving the new ambient enviroments, like the desert storm and the moving spotlight in the mines.
I was thinking, perhaps these could be item dependant? Like if you have goggles on, you have greater viability in the sandstorm (higher opacity of ambient). Or for the mines, you only have the spotlight if you are wearing the miners helmet, otherwise the area is just dark (except where the npc is standing, since he has a minerhat. Perhaps we could also implement new items, like a torch to equip in one of the un-used equipment slots that would work as alternative for the miners helmet (that way you don't have to compromise in equipment when going in the mines)

The problem is that the ambient effects are client-sided and can be switched off. It doesn't make sense to have an item that does something that is completely client-sided. You could just modify your client to get the same benefit for free.

Ah, I c
To bad, but yeah in that case, it would just stimulate people more to mod their accounts.

what if you pulled an ambient value from the server ... like when you log in the server checks what items you've equipped and the authorizes an ambient value. just an idea ... but i know it would mean more overhead on the server

zick wrote:what if you pulled an ambient value from the server ... like when you log in the server checks what items you've equipped and the authorizes an ambient value. just an idea ... but i know it would mean more overhead on the server

And why should the client use the ambient effect the server tells it to use?

Rule number one of network application development: The client software can not be trusted.

Rule number one of network application development: The client software can not be trusted.

I totally agree with you there. Clients can be hacked (especially when the client is open source), modded, etc. What I was saying was something more along the lines of the server tells the client if an item has an ambient effect and the value (radius) of that effect. Ambience could be a value like defense or attack strength.

The point is the server only sends and recieves data. The client decides what is done with that information. Like to show an ambient effect or not. If a player wants to he can edit the client sided maps for instance to show the collision map in-game revealing secret passages. The server can only decide not to show a player something by not sending information about it, not by telling the client to ignore or draw stuff over the information it sends. Or at least that can be bypassed.