I loaded up PoK in its own zone.exe so that I could read the log for the zone as stuff happened. When you try to spawn a mercenary, it prints out "Error loading NPCs from database. Bad query: #1054: Unknown column 'vwMercNpcTypes.special_abilities' in 'field list.'" That's not surprising since the table vwMercNpcTypes doesn't exist in my database. Is there any way to get those tables since I cannot find them in the source?

Better question, do mercs even need special abilities?

This is a very recent change and you can modify the SQL that was used to convert npc_types to convert the merc table.

Edit: Reading your post again, that is a view not a table. The relevant table is merc_stats. That table need converted the same as the npc_types was.then the code that uses that table will need modified the same as the rest of the attack code was modified.

you would need to source in source_views.sql that comes along in the daily dump. That would create the views.

I added in the field "special_abilities" to merc_stats. I didn't bother populating it with anything because every entry in the specialattks field was empty. After adding special_abilties, I modified vwMercNpcTypes to also include special_abilities from the merc_stats table. After doing that, I was able to spawn a mercenary without being given any errors. I don't know how stable of a fix that is, but it appears to be working.

Instead of adding the column, you should rename the column and change the type to match npc_types. If they at wall empty then that is even less to worry about. Maybe it was added for customization down the road.

Once I get home tonight I will change it on my server and then post a SQL once I confirm it.

That seemed to work for me as well Randymarsh. Thanks :)

only thing I noticed missing on my end is stance info in the stance window.

ok made this to help anyone having problems.
I ran these on a clean DB from this morning's /release. When I went to hire a merc there was nothing listed. I'll try and look into that later because the merc tables are populated.
Merc SPecial Abilities: http://pastebin.com/6gpx9RGM
Fix the View: http://pastebin.com/dXfrkFmd
Update Liaisons: http://pastebin.com/s7i5vWLk

Just got around to checking this thread again and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who likes mercs and that you guys were looking into it.
I sourced in the .sqls you provided, sorvani, and mercs spawn now for me too. I haven't given them a run through to see if that have any issues, but they are at least available now and appear to be behaving properly so far. Thank you guys, for your efforts.

I just tested this and was also able to get mercs to spawn for me. I will try to get the sql sourced in this weekend.

I also had the correct data show up at the merchant, so that works. I'm not sure what problem you may be having, sorvani.

Me either and I have not had the free time to look into it.

After applying Sorvani's code everything worked, but when I went to work on my backup server and applied everything I got nothing, I had forgotten to set mercs = true in the rule values, sometimes its the silly stuff...

Do mercs usually have special abilities like double hit?

I have logs with many rounds with 4 attacks. I'm not sure if they get any other types, but I know they can more than double.

Ok, so then it makes sense to leave special abilities in the code.