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xmlspawner >>Q&A >>Getting the spawn straightened out...


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MarcusO- 12-29-2005
Hello,

After going around in circles for several hours, I think the easiest thing is for me to ask the experts for the right commands in the right order to do it right. Right?

How Do I...

1) Remove all "standard" NPC's and Monster spawners?

2) Remove all xml NPC and Monster spawners? [I have xmlspawner2, but I'm misusing it somehow]

...to give me a fresh start...clean slate...new day.

Then what should I use to to populate the world so that it only happens once? I do have Xmlspawner2 and Nerun's Distro and I have tried to [xmlimport his monster map, but the number of monsters kept growing and growing. I'm guessing I need to also import something with vendor spawns after nuking them. Help!

Lastly, How Do I...

A) Get rid of all spawns everywhere except for Fel?

cool.gif Clear items everywhere except in Fel?



godfood- 12-29-2005
So you want to get rid of EVERYTHING except the monsters in fel?

ArteGordon- 12-29-2005
QUOTE (MarcusO @ Dec 29 2005, 05:32 PM)
Hello,

After going around in circles for several hours, I think the easiest thing is for me to ask the experts for the right commands in the right order to do it right. Right?

How Do I...

1) Remove all "standard" NPC's and Monster spawners?

2) Remove all xml NPC and Monster spawners? [I have xmlspawner2, but I'm misusing it somehow]

...to give me a fresh start...clean slate...new day.

Then what should I use to to populate the world so that it only happens once? I do have Xmlspawner2 and Nerun's Distro and I have tried to [xmlimport his monster map, but the number of monsters kept growing and growing. I'm guessing I need to also import something with vendor spawns after nuking them. Help!

Lastly, How Do I...

A) Get rid of all spawns everywhere except for Fel?

cool.gif Clear items everywhere except in Fel?


1) to remove all standard spawners and creatures, use these commands

[global delete where spawner
[global delete where basecreature


2) to remove all xmlspawners, use this command

[global delete where xmlspawner

3) to import the .map spawn definitions from Neruns, check out the How to post on this http://xmlspawner.15.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=7

I'm not sure if Nerun's also has vendor spawns, but I think that it does.

A) to get rid of all creatures except for Fel, you can use this command

[global delete where basecreature map != Felucca

cool.gif to delete all items except for Fel, you can use the command

[global delete where Item map != Felucca

Note, that will also delete xmlspawners, regular spawners, and everything else

MarcusO- 12-29-2005
Thanks Arte...you da man!

I did what you said, and all worked well. In #3, yes...Nerun does have vendors in his map. Then I used [xmlfind with Xmlspawner and treasure and got rid of 240 "things that had treasure in the entry"...but the world keeps growing...and growing.

Time Mobs MobsScr Items ItemsScr
0 min 3358 442 80598 1718
30 min 6006 442 84717 1718
45 min 7506 442 87582 1718

Obviously, the Mobiles are spawning. When do they stop? I thought a new server restart did a complete spawn, and then nothing would change unless a monster died? Perhaps I'm not understanding this...

Keeping in line with the rules...How do I...

A) find out what's spawning out of control? I have no "treasure" anything, so it can't be the chests, which were giving badspawns for some reason (I think because some of the chests were trying to spawn in narrow passages [I went to one and looked], which would make some chest spawn in walls, etc).

cool.gif control the spawns? (I'm guessing you're going to point me toward the XmlSpawnEditor, but the install sounded kinda hairy). Are there files that can be edited, now that it's all Xml spawns?

C) Add back the treasure chests? smile.gif

D) Remove all the scorpion from the spawn? (I hate those damn things!). I'm guessing this one is tricky because the spawners are set to do a group of monsters. For example, in Shame, there's only a couple of spawners, but they're cranking them out smile.gif

Thanks in advance for your help. Just so you know, I'm trying to set this server up on my home intranet so my younger ones (11 & 9) can play free of miscreants. I've managed to get some stuff done on my own by reading the forums. I've disabled AOS and SE, and changed to old weapon info. I've kept the AOS damage, since that's cool. I've fixed it so that you can recall in and out of dungeons, etc. Made it so new accounts get a stocked bank and pack. I'm still working on the skill room.

ArteGordon- 12-29-2005
yeah, know about the miscreants (just dont let them come here wink.gif

It sounds like you are just seeing the spawning as it progresses. By default, after you import them, they do not automatically fully respawn.

You can easily force them all to respawn if you like. There are several ways to do this. There is the

[xmlspawnerrespawnall

command.
You can also use the

[global set dorespawn true where xmlspawner

command

You can also use [xmlfind, search for all your xmlspawners, click the 'Select All' box, and the press the 'Respawn' button.

After that, you will find that the mob count will stabilize at some level.

The SpawnEditor installation could be as easy as just unzipping it, running setup.bat and then starting it up.
The extra stuff is if you run into problems, or if you want to install the TransferServer (I definitely recommend going through the trouble to do this).

For example, with the TransferServer installed, you would be able to see exactly where all of the creatures in your world are located, where all your gold, treasure chests, anything just by downloading it from your running server. Very helpful.

Even if you dont install the transferserver you can still use it to edit your xmlspawner XML files.
Just save out your spawners using the

[xmlsave filename

command. And the Load that file into the SpawnEditor, edit what you like, and save it back out.
Then just load it back into your world with

[xmlload filename

You dont have to worry about duplicating spawners. The edited spawners will simply replace the previous ones. You can use the [xmlload command as many times as you like.

D) If you wanted to remove all of the scorpions from your spawners, you could use [xmlfind and enter 'scorpion' into the Entry field. Then do a search. This will find all of the spawners with scorpion entries.
You can bring up the gumps for each of the spawners using the Gump button next to each xmlfind entry.
Then remove the scorpion spawns (click the down arrow at the left of the spawner gump until the maxcount goes to zero, one more click after that and the entry is gone)

Another fast way to do this is to save out all of your spawns to an XML file using the [xmlsave command I mentioned before.
Then open up the XML file in any text editor, and do a global replace of 'scorpion' with whatever you like, or a blank string if you dont want anything.
Then just do an [xmlload to load back in the modified spawners.
All done in about 1 minute.

C) As for adding back the treasure chests, the reason that those spawners were complaining is that they are not defined as part of the standard distribution. They need custom treasure chest scripts. Nerun's should include those.
Just add those scripts to your Custom scripts and you should be good to go.

MarcusO- 12-30-2005
Thanks a million Arte...I think I understand it better now. And the server did stabilize after a couple of hours at ~11K Mobs, and ~92K Items (Nerun's MAP). I have the right number of vendors and all looks good. Whew!

Now that I understand the processes for erasing and importing and exporting spawns, I'll try your Editor. The kids are going to be needing a bunch of Bulls inside Del, and my youngest wants lots of chickens (yes...we have chickens!). After I get that done I'll give your Transerver a whirl. Code on top of code on top of code smile.gif

My newest problem is getting my server to work on my kids PC (port problem I think), but I posted that over on RunUO.

Thanks again for the timely and detailed help. I really appreciate it.

ArteGordon- 12-30-2005
if you are using a machine with anything less than WinXP or Win2K installed on it, then you might have problems running the Spawn Editor.

I would also highly recommend setting up SmartSpawning on your spawners. With only a few people playing on your shard, you will significantly reduce your mob count by enabling it, and reduce your save times.

Just run the command

[optimalsmartspawning

and it will set everything up for you automatically.
You can check on the savings with the

[smartstat

command.
It may take a little while after enabling it for the maximum savings to be achieved.

MarcusO- 12-30-2005
Hi Arte,

Thanks for the suggestion on Smartspawn, but after further review (just like in the NFL), I think I need to completely revamp Nerun's spawn. He's got some serious issues in the dungeons and has overspawned many areas. Terrathon Keep is particularly awful with dozens of solen fighting orphidians while surrounded by dragons, demons and mares. I don't know why he did this, except maybe he never planned to go there smile.gif

Maybe I'll use Smartspawn after I get the world trimmed using your SpawnEditor. If I find any bugs or have any issues, I'll post in a separate thread.