Paragon Chat FAAAQ

[Aoide]

Icon does not make permanent changes to the I24 install; it leaves the original files intact. Paragon Chat can happily work side by side with Icon, and there are some tentative plans for future versions of Icon to have features that can interoperate with Paragon Chat.

There is no reason to have two separate copies of I24. Both projects are designed to build on top of it and treat the original data as read-only.

Thanks.  For some reason I thought that ICON modified things.  Glad to know I'm safe with both programs.

And since I haven't said it already.... Thanks for all the work you've done with all of this!  I can't wait for another bit of our city to exist again!

[WolfSoul]

I'm asking the question I asked before, but this time in the FAQ forum.

I'm wondering this: can you make it so that all those slash commands are clickable in the power or inspiration trays?

Thanks,

Wolfsoul

[Kyriani]

I'm asking the question I asked before, but this time in the FAQ forum.

I'm wondering this: can you make it so that all those slash commands are clickable in the power or inspiration trays?

Thanks,

Wolfsoul

Can't you do that yourself by making a macro? Macros in coh make buttons in your power tray that execute the entered command. Icon allows the creation of macros just like the actual game did.

[Atlantea]

You've mentioned that emotes will work. I'm wondering if the costume change emotes will work? That's one thing I really miss about COH that no other game has.

[Codewalker]

Costume change emotes are unfortunately more complicated (and hacky) on the COH side, so they are not enabled yet and wouldn't work even if they were, mostly because of the method the game uses to sync up the timing of the costume change. They should make an appearance at some point in a future update.

Macros should work, though at the moment both macros and keybinds reset every time you zone. I'm trying to get tray and keybind saving implemented before release, but it may or not be fixed by then depending on a number of factors.

[Sinistar]

You've mentioned that emotes will work. I'm wondering if the costume change emotes will work? That's one thing I really miss about COH that no other game has.

yeah, I enjoyed triggering a tray button for my characters that would call down the lightning transformation emote and a catchphrase at the same time.  :)

[FloatingFatMan]

Costume change emotes are unfortunately more complicated (and hacky) on the COH side, so they are not enabled yet and wouldn't work even if they were, mostly because of the method the game uses to sync up the timing of the costume change. They should make an appearance at some point in a future update.

I guess that's because the emotes trigger sound effects too?  Would it be possible to fire the animation then swap to another costume manually? I know the timing would be off, but I'll settle for doing it the old fashioned way... ;)

Macros should work, though at the moment both macros and keybinds reset every time you zone. I'm trying to get tray and keybind saving implemented before release, but it may or not be fixed by then depending on a number of factors.

I seem to recall the game did that once, too.  You're in good company. ;)

[Leandro]

Custom Windows should work to store macros, since those are saved on a file by the client itself, and you can drag macro buttons to it.

[Codewalker]

I guess that's because the emotes trigger sound effects too?  Would it be possible to fire the animation then swap to another costume manually? I know the timing would be off, but I'll settle for doing it the old fashioned way... ;)

Not the sound effects, but the costume swap itself. It's not part of the emote, but is carefully timed to happen at the same time by some sort of pseudo-costume change that is sent early but not actually applied immediately. I haven't played with it enough yet to have the details worked out.

It's very likely that you could add the animation you want to your emote.cfg file and use it manually. It's exceedingly unlikely you could time a costume change at the right moment to arrive on people's machines at the right time to look convincing. But if you don't care about that and just want the emote, it's just a matter of figuring out which sequencer bits to put in the file. Might want to dig up the developer Icon build and look at the MOV list if that google doc is still up.

[Arcana]

Not the sound effects, but the costume swap itself. It's not part of the emote, but is carefully timed to happen at the same time by some sort of pseudo-costume change that is sent early but not actually applied immediately. I haven't played with it enough yet to have the details worked out.

It's very likely that you could add the animation you want to your emote.cfg file and use it manually. It's exceedingly unlikely you could time a costume change at the right moment to arrive on people's machines at the right time to look convincing. But if you don't care about that and just want the emote, it's just a matter of figuring out which sequencer bits to put in the file. Might want to dig up the developer Icon build and look at the MOV list if that google doc is still up.

If you push raw sequencer bits into the client, does Paragon Chat automagically relay them outbound through XMPP and process them inbound back to the client, or do you have to code a manual look up for every sequence start by hand?

[Felderburg]

So I think I may have used an XMPP chat one time a few years ago, maybe? Anyways, it seems pretty clear that if I just get Paragon Chat and the I24 client, I can use CoH as a chat room (hooray!). But if I did want to use some sort of other XMPP chatting client thing, what would be the best one? How would it connect to Paragon Chat?

[Tipsy]

Hey there.  Soo excited about this project!

My question is about character names.  If you recall, per server there was quite a lot of competition over character names being taken or not.  I am aware that things will work differently, as it's a chat server, so I'm curious as to the representation of character names in the per-zone chat.  @Globals will be the chat server (in this first launch, our Titan login), but when we're chatting in zone, will we be able to have the specific character name we login with as well?  If so, will there be any name conflicts as with the original game?

I guess I'm asking if you could explain how name-representation works in the client.

Best regards,
-Tipsy

[Codewalker]

If you push raw sequencer bits into the client, does Paragon Chat automagically relay them outbound through XMPP and process them inbound back to the client, or do you have to code a manual look up for every sequence start by hand?

It doesn't relay the bits themselves, but it does relay the resulting MOV that was chosen by the sequencer. There's no feedback the other direction; what the client sees is the same as what is being transmitted, so you can't force a client to set its sequencer state through XMPP.

Unless you're talking about the proxy entities for other players. For those the client is instructed to ignore the bits and just play the MOV directly, much like how demo playback works.

Once we start working on travel modes I'll have to synchronize the fly bit, but not so much for animation. Rather because Paragon Chat's enhanced motion prediction applies gravitational acceleration to the last received velocity, and that needs to be turned off if the entity is flying.

I suppose the weapon drawn bits will need to be done eventually as well so that people can flash their custom weapons, but there are several other things that need to be fixed first for that to work.

[Codewalker]

@Globals will be the chat server (in this first launch, our Titan login), but when we're chatting in zone, will we be able to have the specific character name we login with as well?  If so, will there be any name conflicts as with the original game?

Paragon Chat does not enforce name uniqueness between different clients. If multiple people go to the same zone using the same character name, there will simply be multiple characters with that name in the zone. If you right click on somebody and go to player info, you can see which global is associated with the one you are targeting.

I recommend using @globals where possible. In the case of a character name conflict, slash commands for that character name will pick one or the other, usually whoever zoned in last.

Incoming tells always show the global name, even if they are in the same zone, so there is no ambiguity there.

I'm considering using the yellow 'GM-assigned special title' to optionally display globals over character avatars if turned on, however since doing that would preclude using that title for other things I'm not sure if that will be done or not.

[Todogut]

... you could add the animation you want to your emote.cfg file ...

I used Windows Explorer to search my computer and my installations of CoH Issue 23 and CoH Beta Issue 24, but I did not find an emote.cfg file. Is it hidden somewhere? Is it a file that you create to add emotes beyond the standard ones?

[Codewalker]

emote.cfg comes with Paragon Chat, which of course isn't out yet.

[WolfSoul]

Can't you do that yourself by making a macro? Macros in coh make buttons in your power tray that execute the entered command. Icon allows the creation of macros just like the actual game did.

I never did learn how to do macros. Guess I'll be learning.

[Takinalis]

You can chain macros to some degree if I remember right using $$...

Aha! Guide on wikia the wiki! http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Macro_(Slash_Command)

[[EDIT: BOO HISS!!!!!! Wikia is evil. Paragon Wiki is hosted *by* Titan Network, not Wikia. ~Agge]]

[Eskreema]

CAN WE FINALLY HAVE VOMIT EMOTE?!?!

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

I never did learn how to do macros. Guess I'll be learning.

It's actually pretty easy. i used macros a lot more than keybinds since they're easier to edit and naming the macro buttons makes it easier to keep track of what each one does across dozens of characters.