Can somebody who is bright enough fix al those cursed errors?

[Mind]

Posted by myself:

Oh great.

If I add up all the time I worked on my first map (Burning to Avenge) which I deleted, my second map (The Raging Horde) which makes the game crash, and my thirth map (A Scream for Vengeance), wish doesn't work, the outcome is months of wasted time.

If I also add up all the time I tried to make levels for Duke Nukem 3D, (none of them worked) the outcome is almost a year of wasted time.

If I also add up all the time I made levels for Gold Digger, Starcraft and Age of Empires, which were never released, the outcome is years of wasted time.

While the outcome of my work is alot of wasted time, sorrow and trouble, but absolutely no positive results.

I'm fed up about it; I'm fed up about my clumsy, unattentive and useless manner of working.

Neither me nor you could fix "The Raging Horde" yet, and we will probably never be able to. The same counts most probably for "A Scream for Vengeance", and all my future levels.

Yes, yes, I know, Arancytar, a fool is he who quotes himself.

Could someone who is bright enough (certainly not me) fix these flagrant errors?

 

[Mind]

This one makes the game crash.

 

[Mind]

This one fails to start.

EDIT: I could also just post this in the topic "Beta testers needed!", but then it's no longer relevant.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Take a deep breath. Half of programming is finding the bugs, and its my forte. To be honest, if ya wanna code, ya gotta debug.

Lets go over what we know.

1. Warcraft will crash or disconnect players if you reference an array item that does not exist. If you have four defined elements in your array, and you reference [6], your DOA. This is most common in loops, which count and add numbers like wild. Check over your variables and confirm this is not happening. Its also hard to see these things inside loops or when you put a VARIABLE inside the array ( our_array[variable] )

2. We know that, negative values are dangerous in objects and values not originally intended to be. This is not to say it doesn't work, but rather sometimes its not designed to work.

3. A lot of programming languages crash when you divide any number by 0. Smart languages catch it and correct it, but that is not always the case. Even if languages can handle it, the computer might not. Sometimes it slides, sometimes not. Check if you have any arithmetic that uses division. Most common when your dividing something by a variable, or a COUNT of something, at it turns out to be zero, so its very hard to see.

4. Warcraft will crash with improper sound and music formats, or improperly configured sounds. To debug this, strip the map of any special sounds or music.

5. Warcraft can potentially crash if your using improper path names. This is most common in the import manager, and in custom text triggers ( like music playlist )

6. More than one of us has proven a bad multiboard setup will crash the game. I have recently figgured out that, this happens when you reference a multiboard cell that does not exist, or you never configured. Also common using FOR loops to set the multiboard up, as you don't even see the for loop getting out of hand.

7. I don't think we have to go over memory leaks and infinite loops, as warcraft doesn't have allocate functions or do-while loops. If you have an infinit loop ( a trigger fires that trigger, and later fires the original, back and forth, back and forth, it will just cause INTENSE lag.. you'll know right away its doing something funny)

I recommend by OPINION....

Save your map as a new temporary name.

Turn all the triggers off that are not abosulutely needed to function. Strip the map of any sounds or music it might use. Remove any negative values in objects, abilities or game constants. Turn things back on and add music back in one or two things at a time. Test, test, test until it dumps. Then you'll know what did it. (I would add music/sounds in last). If you can justify your triggers and objects as good, you know sounds could be the problem.

If your map is dumping at the same point, or the same EVENT every time, you already know where to look for the problem. You just have to see it. Was it supposed to start playing a sound or music? Were you trying to use a heros ability, or a quest action?

 

[Darg]

now THAT is definitely something we should have in our war3 guide...

 

[Mind]

Lets try to fix The Raging Horde first.

1. Umm… What do you mean? I'm too stupid to understand. Do you mean unused variables which have arrays?

2. I don't have negative values in my map; I made the "Misfit Aura" ability I once spoke of in my seconds map.

3. I never realised what arimethics where for untill I tried to make a fire trap, which I made in my second level.

4. Done.

5. I never imported files in The Raging Horde.

6. I didn't make any multiboard or leaderboard in my level. Perhaps I should do so.

7. With other words, triggers with Periodic Events?

EDIT:
Great. Now it crashes from the start.
I did hear a "whoosh" sound, but it was very quiet. I could barely hear it. It was probably the wind.

EDIT 2:
I have found the first bug; The training puppets get healed every 0.00 seconds.

EDIT 3:
SD_Ryoko, where did the game freeze up? Please try to remember. It is very imported. Perhaps it has something to do with the event of a certain trigger.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

1. Variable fruit, string, array.
set fruit[1] = Apples
set fruit[2] = Oranges
set fruit[3] = Pears

game to display to (all players) the text (fruit[6]) = crash.

6. If you don't need, don't botha.

7. Triggers firing back and forth, causing a huge loop.
Trigger 1 moves this unit instantly to this region
Trigger 2 moves that unit instalntly to the previous region
They will go on forever.

[crash]

It just happened while I was walking around. Must be sound or triggers.

You know what you can do? This is pretty easy. At the top of every trigger, add a text display action to yourself. You only gotta code it once, then paste paste paste. Change maybe a number or something so you know which ones the culprit.

If a triggers crashing it, you'll see it just before.

 

[Mind]

SD_Ryoko, you're genious!

7. Triggers firing back and forth, causing a huge loop.
Trigger 1 moves this unit instantly to this region
Trigger 2 moves that unit instalntly to the previous region
They will go on forever.

In my level, there was a diabolic portal. If a unit entered the region between the portal obelisks, he moved to the other portal. And vice versa! So that's what caused the crash! And, since I never added a player comparison to that trigger, eventually a barn owl flied in that region and made the game crash! That "whoosh" sound was "DarkSummoningLaunch.wav"!

So that's fixed already.
Now, the only problem left is A Scream for Vengeance. I think I've fixed it by deleting the custom preloading screen. Probably, you can continue your beta testing!

Wait - A Scream for Vengeance also has portals…

EDIT: Ok, I fixed the portal triggers in A Scream for Vengeance, but now only one by one can move through the portal. (Well, I think so. I didn't test it)

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Who woulda known the example hit the nail on the head.

Reg 1 <=> Reg 2

You don't have to move one at a time, really.

Just don't use the teleport destination as the teleport pad.

Use 4 regions. Two trigger regions, two target regions.

Reg1 => Reg 2
Reg4 <= Reg 3

I dun think you should even bother healing the training puppets. Ya, I killed em, but - the graphics didn't change whatsoever. You just couldn't click on them anymore. No biggie, right?