Just a quick update to let you all know that the ACMaps module is completed enough to at least be useful to the public, so have at it! I'll be working on a few things with it, most notably the database. There were a ton of duplicate maps to sort through, as well as many that had the same ID associated with them, which had to be repaired. I work on this stuff locally to my computer, then upload changes as they are warranted. That being said, there might be a little down time here or there as I change things within the database to make it function more efficiently. Ok, you're already bored.. so let's go over a few things..

The Search area has limited functionality. The 'monsters' drop down does not work. It would have been a monumental task to go through all the monsters and associate them with individual dungeons, and as well, since ACMaps went dark, there have been tons of changes. It would take me a week of slaving through the ACWiki to get all that info into the new database. That drop down never seemed to work very well on the original site, and the fact is, it's kind of an unnecessary feature since 99% of the people looking for maps known the name of the dungeon they are looking for. Likewise, the 'Level' input box does not work, although with some changes I made to the database 'level' storage, it could be brought up to some sort of usefulness in the future. We will see...

That leaves you with the main Alphabet search along the bottom, and an actual search input box. The Alphabet search section is self-explanatory, and I'd imagine that's what most people were used to using. It works like it always did.

The actual 'type it in' search box works well now, and it does accept the asterisk ( * ) as a wildcard. Anything typed in without a wildcard will be taken as a literal. Here's some examples:

Around sometime in October of 2011, one of the most important sites to the Asheron's Call community, acmaps.com, went dark. Many of the maps (the most important ones, you might say), were permanently posted to the AC Wiki site (http://ac.wikkii.net/wiki/Home). While that sufficed to fill a very real and urgent gap, I always thought that acmaps.com had a very 'special' look and feel to it that represented some of the best the AC Community had to offer over the years. Maps are just maps, but when you add the 'house' that built the maps, you get the entire package. I've been really busy, and of course restoring acmaps.com was on my 'get around to it' list.. unfortunately I never got around to it! I was messaged by Jmage of Frostfell last week about acquiring mapping tools, and learning how to do it. I asked him to give me a few days... It was an exhausting amount of hours, painstakingly restoring the site down to the letter, and then embedding it into a Nuke module to run from within the Neon Knight's website, but the hardest part is now done. The main index, as well as the entire Tutorial section, are completed and live online. ACMaps lives again!

Right.. well, and so you say, BUT DUDE! THERE'S NO MAPS!!

Yes, well, you have to build the house first... and trust me, going through over 3,000 lines of HTML by hand over the last 4 days have generated at least 2 or 3 migraines, consumed an absurd amount of coffee and cigarettes, and generally allowed me to invent brand new cuss words. In other words, it was right up my alley. There is one more major hurdle to get over. All 750+ maps will need to be added, by hand, into a new MySQL database. Once that is done, it will be fairly simple to activate the ACMap's search features once again, and the rest of the site will come up rather quickly! I will be working on this, day and night, until accomplished.

Best,

- Keith

With the advent that the Vault Network is going to reduce the number of Forums they host (as well as moving them to the IGN side), I have opened up the Neon Knights Forums for any and all Asheron's Call support. We welcome any and all end users, as well as Decal designer/developers, and offer support for each individual in-game server. While our site has existed for more than 13 years (extending back even before Asheron's Call beta), as of late, we have not been active as a group in any particular game, and therefore, much of this site's capabilities and resources have been left unused. I am a PHP and MySQL developer, and contributed for many years to the Raven PHP Nuke Content Management System, so if any additional tweaks or features are needed for AC support, I am capable of implementing those.

There has not been an official notice of which VN Forums will be retained and moved to IGN, and so we cannot say for sure whether or not this site will be necessary. Nonetheless, we cannot wait until the last second and lose the chance to inform people of an alternative that is probably just as familiar, easy to use, and feature rich as what you're used to.

A few words about this website - we are PRIVATELY hosted on a dedicated server, a server of which I am a direct administrator of, and have direct root access. There are no ads, no banners, and there never will be. Your personal information, email addresses, etc., are not used by this website for any other reason than to remain in contact with you on a level YOU prescribe. Your information is NEVER sold or shared with any third party entity, without your expressed consent. This is a personal and private website dedicated to gaming and community across the globe, and is in no way intended to be any form of a commercial enterprise. Your email address is utilized by the system to allow you to retrieve a lost password, be notified of Private Messages, notified of updated threads you might choose to subscribe to, etc. Although we do NOT currently send out any form of periodic Newsletter, we may choose to do that down the road, and you are capable of opting into or out of it. You are in control of the content you wish to be a party to.

You will need to register with a valid email address (we are currently allowing free services such as Hotmail, Gmail), and then you will need to click through a verification email. Once registered, you can utilize the resources appropriate to your membership (we do have private areas for our Guild Members and Administrators). Whether or not Asheron's Call Forums remain supported by IGN, we welcome any and all to register here as an alternative, and to use this site on a daily basis as you see fit.

Sincerely,

- Keith (Wizarium_of_NK)