If I have (or rather, had) vendors in your location recently that have suddenly disappeared yesterday or today, it’s not because I’m no longer interested in having them there.
The actual reason is that the new server rollout that Linden Lab is doing is resetting the scripts in my vendors for some reason. When that happens, the vendors cannot properly initialize until I am present to grant debit permissions, so they self-destruct.
In any case, it looks like I’m ready to release the new Kodachi weapon, so I’ll be replacing all my vendors at the same time I put the Kodachi for sale tomorrow or Saturday.
I’ve been slammed in RL lately, and haven’t been responding as quickly or as thoroughly as I’d like to the IMs and notecards people have been sending me lately, so I thought it would be good to take the time to give a quick progress update on my new C:SI weapon.
As you can see from the above snapshot (which is an in-world snapshot with a gradient background photoshopped in), the build part is basically done, and I’ve started working on the product box / display stand. I’m relatively close to being able to call those parts finished as well.
I still need to make a hip-mounted sheath set for those who wish to have that option, and the animations to go with it. This should be relatively quick and easy to do, so I’m not too worried about that.
I also still need to finish the special attack. This is the biggest task remaining now, and the one I’ve been looking forward to the least lately. I do have a working special attack now, but it looks pretty lame, so I need to : Tweak the animations, completely redo the particle effects, find/make/edit a suitable sound effect to go with it, and test it to make sure that it’s consistent with other special attacks.
After all of that, I’ll distribute a version to a select few Beta testers (those who have given me the most/best feedback) that works with existing weapons, so that I can make sure that it works as expected and doesn’t bring up any big balance issues.
There’s still lots of stuff left to do, and although I currently have a lot going on in my RL that needs my time and attention, I’m working hard to get this thing done 
This is an automatically-generated summary of all Combat: Samurai Island™ activity for the week starting on Jul 06, 2009. Please note that for the purposes of gathering statistics, each week starts on Monday rather than the more traditional Sunday.
You can view the latest up-to-date statistics on the C:SI Weekly Stats Page.
| All-time totals |
| Total Warriors |
23,427 |
| Sims Fought In |
8,595 |
| Total Fights |
3,032,952 |
| Weekly Summary |
| Total Fights |
24,726 |
| Sims Fought In |
121 |
| Active Warriors |
527 |
This is an automatically-generated summary of all Combat: Samurai Island™ activity for the week starting on Jun 29, 2009. Please note that for the purposes of gathering statistics, each week starts on Monday rather than the more traditional Sunday.
You can view the latest up-to-date statistics on the C:SI Weekly Stats Page.
| All-time totals |
| Total Warriors |
23,367 |
| Sims Fought In |
8,563 |
| Total Fights |
3,008,023 |
| Weekly Summary |
| Total Fights |
25,892 |
| Sims Fought In |
131 |
| Active Warriors |
577 |
… You just have to fix it yourself 
Many of you know that I have two accounts, but not that many know that Takuan was my original account, and Robby is actually named for an RL friend. Here is that RL friend, frustrated that HP customer service was not able to adequately fix a “known problem” with the HP dv6000 laptop motherboard :
NOTE: Opening the case may void your warranty!
Zai just showed me this… I must have said “What the heck?” at least seven different times, laughing all the while 
I know I promised several people yesterday that I would have an updated Kodachi beta available for them today, but I’m going to beg out for the day. I just don’t feel well enough to do anything but take a nap and have a good read (re-reading The Book of Jhereg for those interested).
Sorry about that. I really don’t like to tell people I’m going to do something and then not follow through, but I’m sure you’ll understand; we’ve all been there at least once, I think. Hopefully a good sleep will make me feel better, and I’ll be able to get that out tomorrow.
So on that note, here’s one of my all-time favorite bands, singing a song by the same name as the title of this post 
I was talking to Krystal Renard last night about the kick on the current generation of Beta weapons, and while we were testing it, I had a realization that the problems that some people have recently been reporting might actually be specific to my weapons more than just a problem with the upcoming update.
While it’s true that the increased kick power is part of the problem, it may not be the entire problem, and that is something I intend to look into in the very near future. Since I am the only C:SI dev with a public beta out right now, it’s quite possible that any problems specific to my code simply weren’t being made obvious because of the inability to compare them to the other dev’s weapons.
Having said that, there’s another kick-related issue of more immediate concern to me (and presumably to some of you): It seems almost certain that the new update will not be released before I am ready to release my new dual-wield Kodachi, and currently the Kodachi is using the same kick strength as the update.
Obviously, I need to change the Kodachi kick to align with current non-Beta weapons, and I hope to finish that and have an update available tonight. Since this beta currently only works with other Daikon Forge beta weapons, this might cause some difficulties for those of you who are doing beta testing, since it will be significantly different from the Taketori and Wave betas. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing that can be done about that.
Other than that, I’m not hearing a lot of complaints, so I think things are looking pretty good so far. Well… I say I’m not hearing a lot of complaints, but I can’t be absolutely certain, since I don’t speak Japanese and masmako’s blog post was translated by Google Translate in a very odd way and I have no idea whatsoever if she likes it or hates it 
I’d like to express by best wishes for Esprite on his birthday today. I hope it’s a great one!
PS: Don’t know if he wants this publicly known (though he did mention it on Twitter, so…), so if this post suddenly disappears, just pretend you never saw it 
