Zugg Software :: View topic - LotRO Book 11 Expansion coming this Wednesday

Novice Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Colorado

. . . they are opening up new areas.

Will there be an update?

Perhaps an option for a higher resolution map for those of us with lots of RAM?

Also, very interested whether real time tracking will be added as per your earlier announcement in the stickies.

Love zExplorer! :D

Edit: Might not be new land areas, may instead be additional features added to existing open land areas.
See http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Book_11#New_Areas . . .

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:50 am

From what I can tell, there are not any new areas being added. Just new content to existing areas. This is actually a bit disappointing, because in their original schedule that I saw 6 months ago, the October update was *supposed* to add new areas. I hope this isn't a bad sign for their update plan in the future.

In any case, I can only update the map when they actually add new areas. Making a new map is still a pretty time-consuming process on my end. It usually takes me several days to do it. So I only do it when it is absolutely necessary. Making the higher resolution map is part of this process, so it really isn't productive to make a higher resolution map unless they have also added new areas. I'm just too involved with getting the new CMUD 2.0x beta to a Public release point that I can't get distracted by zExplorer at the moment.

The "real time tracking" was going to be based upon watching the clipboard data. So it's not automatic real-time tracking...you'd still need to do a /loc within the game and then copy the result to the clipboard to update your tracking location in zExplorer. In any case, I plan to implement this the next time an update is required, like when the maps are updated. Again, it will take several days to add this to zExplorer and I need to do it after CMUD goes into Public release.

An unfortunate side effect of that fact that the majority of my income comes from zMUD/CMUD users and zExplorer has always been very much a "side" project. And while I use zExplorer myself and still have plans to support other games that I play (such as Vanguard), I have to make sure that it doesn't take time away from the CMUD project.

Finally, I do thank you for the post. I don't play LoTR as actively as I did a few months ago, so I'm not as on-top of their updates as I was. So if they ever make a big update that adds new areas and I don't notice it, just post a reminder and I'll get to it.

Newbie Joined: 30 May 2005 Posts: 2

They expanded the Trollshaws (south) and Misty Mountains (west) areas.

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 4:06 pm

It isn't clear from the data that they actually "expanded" those areas. They added some instances to those areas, but I don't see much in the way of raw terrain changes. If you have seen raw terrain expansions, let me know more specifically where it was added (like give a coordinate range or something)

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Has the /loc format changed... I get a message "You are at: r1 lx962 ly925 ox42.81 oy113.34 oz389.93 h33.7" ... which is kinda nothing like the "31.8S, 50.6W" long/lat that I think you're expecting?

That aside, might I sugggest that you add logfile parsing as well as clipboard parsing ... that way I can share my logfile, run zExplorer on my secondary machine, and as I type /loc in game, zExplorer will see the file has been modified, read the lines from it, and see if any of them contain a location, and update the map accordingly. You could use a zMUD-style or regex-style trigger to let us easily update the pattern and/or conversion should they change the format of the message again.

The trick is to make sure you monitor in a non-exclusive way, so the logfile can still be written to, but read from at the same time.

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:09 pm

That is the normal /loc format. If you copy that into the clipboard and paste it into a coordinate field in zExplorer, zExplorer will parse it and convert it to a more readable coordinate. You need the full /loc format that you showed to get the extra decimal point of accuracy that zExplorer can use.

Yes, clipboard/logfile parsing is how I plan to implement the tracking system in the future. But right now, sales of zExplorer have been so low that I can't afford to put as much time into it as I'd like. I'll probably wait until LOTRO does a big area expansion before I work on a new version with tracking.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Weird, for some reason copy/pasting that message didn't convert for me. I'll try again tonight and see how I go.

Edit: so, if I put it in the "Location" box immediately under the "Map" tag, it coverts properly, but if I use "Edit -> Goto Coordinates" the /loc isn't converted properly (it converts to 0S, 0E). Likewise, "Markers -> New Marker" doesn't convert it properly.

I'm not sure how to display an "X" at my current position. Another wish for the list I guess, at some point when you next look at things :)