I broke a record!!

[Variaz]

738 mb of RAM used, how's that for memory usage?

Ok, not something to be proud of actually. The thing is that for the next release, I wanted every single objects to be capable of handling up to 20 custom spells, allowing the Enchanter(and potentially other classes, or special scripts, etc...) to add activations to items. Sounds great, except that it gave memory usage a huge blow to the point where it's critical(it was already bad, but now it's terrible.)

Now, if we take away that 600 towns array, and lower it to 1, that 738 drops down to 41. Quite a drop! And what does that array does? Prepare shops for towns. That's it, nothing else.

Ridiculous.

I'll deal with that long load time problem for the next upload. In addition to this one, there's quite a bit of unused arrays and stuff, and it must all be taken out. Also expect some changes in the way shops are handled in the next upload(and expect them to be customizeable too! ). Customizeable shops + short load times, how can you NOT like that??

[Variaz]

The towns array is GONE!

And so are the long load times and memory usages of over 200 mb. I also cleaned a couple of other arrays such as the now useless "quest" array(because quests aren't defined as "quest" objects anymore.).

There is now one global stores array instead of a store array for every towns. A consequence of this, however, is that technically, all towns now uses the same shop. What will happen is that every time you enter a town, the shops inventories will be regenerated(based on a "stores.txt" file that will be in the edit directory, so shops will be customizeable ). This means that your home will also always be the same, no matter what town you're in. This is both a good and a bad thing. A good thing because you'll never have to worry about where you left your items, and forgetting items in a town, because it will be available everywhere. The drawback is that it also means you'll have less storage space overall(though the truth is, one home is more than enough most of the time).

Also, a word of warning: save files won't be compatible in the next upload due to the massive changes in the arrays(remember it's still an alpha, so things like that can happen). Making a "load game" executable would be difficult too, and not worth it. In terms of quests, however, not many will be added, so if you like your current character, you might as well try to finish the beta with it, and use the next upload when you'll want to try out the Enchanter.

[Frumple]

*hops up and down* Hurray!

... well, it's not as much of an issue with this new lappie, but whatever. Anything that reduces resource drain is still awesome.

Storage loss is kinda' sad to the inner packrat, but at least I'll stop losing items when Udor gets demolished... I lose more bee-stings to that than anything except, um... dying. Heh.

The 700+ is pretty impressive, though. Only thing I've topped that with lately is my 'net browser (Opera). 100+ open tabs can do that, kehe...

[Variaz]

I was quite impressed myself. This is the first time I ever saw memory usage going that high.

Anyway, custom shops will be great, since the five major kingdoms should NOT have the same inventories. Jindar will have balanced selection of items, but might not sell bronze anymore, only iron and steel. Karingen will have many guns, lighter armors and perhaps a couple of Karingen-only technological goods. Nimbraya will have bows and priestly stuff such as robes, maces and gloves for their monks. Ivhala will be armor-specialized and sell much better armors and shields than other kingdoms. And Rhyzendal......who knows what the odd Rhyzendal will have in store for the players brave enough to venture there? I have some nifty ideas for this one...

[sos]

Having only one home throughout the entire world is a quite a blow, considering it's the only way to store money and backup equipment in case of death, not to mention classes with heavier inventory requirements such as marksmen, soul guardians, and crafters. Perhaps you could counter this by being able to purchase upgrades to it - the player could start out with a small home that only holds one page of items, but could upgrade that to two pages for the relatively cheap price of 10,000 gold. If that still wasn't enough, the player could spend 50,000 for a third page, 100,000 for a fourth, and so on. This would allow the player to store a wider variety of items for a price, without giving them a massive home at the start. It'd also give higher level characters something useful to spend large amounts cash on once their equipment outclassed anything sold in shops.

[Variaz]

For the moment, to compensate for having only one home, I've raised the maximum gold for gold piles to 100000 instead of 30000. Also, the amount of gold in piles will now be displayed.

As for the custom shops...well, they seem to work just fine. Right now, I've created a new default list that will be used by any towns that do not have their own lists. And it works just great! It will be fun to have different stuff for every towns, especially the major cities.