Progress Reports (2010)

Fixed some cosmetic issues with the 'appearance' command.

Fixed some strange messages in the circle techs when mounted, and a typo in the retreat tech.

Killing a martial artist now causes your 'what' advice to skip the practice grounds and prison. Also added 'what' advice for dragon hatchlings.

Dragon Hatchlings can now wear sashes from the dojo - around their necks.

Alias lengths weren't being capped, meaning that people could set very long aliases - and the mud would then block them from reconnecting, thinking that their files were corrupted. Fixed.

It's now possible for action points to drop below 0, at which point you become fatigued. While fatigued you can still perform combat techniques, but only one at a time, and each with a +1 delay penalty. Raging allows you to ignore these penalties, but you cannot enter a rage while fatigued. Added a 'fatigue' help file to explain the specifics.

The 'invite' command can no longer be used to spam people.

The 'tell' and 'reply' commands can now trigger the spamblock.

The God of War now surrenders if a war reaches turn 100.

Added some more age 400 subclasses for dragons.

The Wild Boar lunar tattoo wasn't giving its full forearm bypass bonus, due to a typo - fixed.

The Bull Shark lunar tattoo now gains a secondary forearm bypass bonus from the Greater Shark Spirit power, in the same way as the bear and boar tattoos.

Added a set of special power mobs, which will be used as the basis for player-generated mobs.

Fixed the inversed a/an article when dealing with objects that have an additional keyword prefixed (eg when 'a unicorn horn' becomes 'a dripping wet unicorn horn').

If a haunt lowers your Offence hand during a War, you retain your full Offence bonus until the end of the turn. Defence was changed to work this way some time ago, but Offence was missed.

Made some minor optimisations to a few of the access methods.

It is no longer possible to train stats if you are below 50% potential.

Did some more work on the 'what' command, providing information for spellcasters and suggestions for classed characters.

The 'Ancient Map' task only gave its reward for the second map of the day. Fixed.

You can now craft tiger claws from small shards.

Decided not to bother limiting pantheon sphere swapping to once per month, and have updated the help file accordingly.

Typing 'war' wouldn't display tutorial wars, but it would still give the comment 'The following wars are being fought:'. Fixed.

Shards and fragments had entangle techs, left over from when they were copied from craftable cloth - these techs have now been replaced with bash.

When a pet kills a player, the pet owners name is now included in the battle message.

Fixed a typo in the 'gender' command when shapechanged.

Fixed a typo in the 'Protean Nemesis' help file.

Vampires can now 'shadow off' to switch off infusion.

Added dynamic descriptions for mist form, following some suggestions from Tonitrus.

Cleaned up the 'appearance' command a bit, adding options for mist form.

Mist Form and Bat Form now always have a neuter gender.

Draconic Aura is now also part of the 'buff' sphere.

The pantheon 'title' command no longer allows you to begin titles with 'The', as such titles conflict with the pantheon messages.

Rewrote 'help events' as the old version was just an outdated stub.

Changed the wording of the help file for the Terrestrial Sigils talent to clarify that it only works with draconic talons.

Fixed several help file typos.

Added a 'goblinoid' shape, and extended the human descriptions to also include goblinoids, with appropriate skin, hair, eyes, etc.

The 'weapons' command incorrectly allowed werewolves to view their 'tail', due to reusing the location for talon charging. Fixed.

Dismounting no longer clears a werewolf's 'talon' charge table.

Added a 'dungeons' help file for screen reader users.

Swarm eyes are now described as 'many eyes'. Also fixed some other cosmetic issues with eyes.

Swarms now always show up as being gender-neutral.

Fixed an issue with imp tables still being accessable after an imp had been removed, and cleaned up the imp attack techs. Also added an 'is' (imp scout) tech for Imp Servant, although it still needs some cosmetic touches.

Age 500 mobs no longer drop regular magic items, only legendary or better.

Fixed some incorrect messages in the pantheon induct/outcast.

Explicitly ordering pets to 'follow' didn't clear their combat queues. Fixed.

It is now possible to craft naginatas from large shards and butterfly knives from small shards.

Chromatic Pedigree now also grants a bypass bonus based on Dragon Barding, so that it's no longer tied to Treasure Hoard.

You can no longer 'join' someone while doing a task or in Winterland.

Dragon riders didn't suffer from Flight Exhaustion. Fixed.

The 'jog' and 'run' techs used to take 2 and 3 seconds respectively. They now both take only 1 second (although you still need to walk before jog before you run).

Added a 'config autowalk' option, on by default, which causes your character to automatically start walking when you type 'north', 'east', etc. It queues the command so it's no faster than doing it manually, but it should simplify the interface for newbies a bit. If you're lying down when you do it, it'll get you back up to your feet first.

Removed the redundant 'quest' help file, and added a 'begin' help file.

Serpent Fiend skin warp wasn't gaining poison auto-absorb from Pathway to Hell. Fixed.

Added a 'what' command for newbies, with a help file. The command will be extended to classed characters in the near future.

Did some minor optimisation on the hint code.

The martial arts status check used the affect on the player, meaning that by wielding multiple sashes you could make yourself appear to be a higher grade martial artist. Not a serious issue, but still a bit wierd, and as I was working on related code for the 'what' command anyway I decided to fix it.

Added four tasks - locked chest, ancient map, tutorial war and full war.

Did some work on the dragon subclasses.

Experimented with an ELIZA-style chatbot, and begin developing a module to provide mobs with similar capabilities.

Spent a lot of time trying to track down the cause of the lag. It happens when the mud opens files for writing (not the writing itself, just opening the file), and almost always occurs at the same time every day. So I created a separate little application to run on the same server, which does nothing but open and close a file every few seconds - and it ran into exactly the same problem at exactly the same time of day. Still investigating, but it looks as if it's not the mud itself that's the problem.

Fixed a minor bug with 'say @' changing your target to the person you've just addressed.

The Ember and Thunder head runes were only giving half their bonus, while the Spiritus head rune wasn't giving any bonus at all. Fixed.

Blood Legacy gave the wrong expiration messages for swiftness and fortitude. Fixed.

Added a missing file close to the messagebox class.

Fixed a problem with pantheon promotion not taking into account the person's current rank.

Changed the creation menu message to try and discourage newbies from selecting customised creation.

Storm Talons now only requires 5 ranks in Ride the Storm instead of 10, and the charge tech lasts for 1 second per rank instead of for just the next attack.

Woolly Rhino and Imperial Mammoth tattoos now allow Storm Talons to provide a different burst to each hand.

Made some cosmetic updates to the face, eyes and chest locations for human shapes.

Rewrote the 'throw' tech used for hurling small animals at targets.

The 'weapon' command now shows information about wielded animals.

Went through the various 'stagger' messages, checking to make sure that the target isn't in midair, and also corrected a 'knocked off your feet' message.

The MWI statistics now record Screen Reader and MSP users, and has a piechart for the class distribution.

Kite shield had high/medium/low commands (but no techs) - removed.

Added highlighting to 'someone' and 'blurred shape', in the same way as regular player/mob names.

The enhanced message for 'sixth sense' gave the wrong value. Fixed.

Added a 'system' admin command, for broadcasting on the system channel.

Made some changes to the directory structure to hopefully reduce the lag issues.

Mist Form no longer has 'fingernails'.

Added a '$v' prompt option that shows whether your target is within a valid age range for giving primal. The '$O' prompt option now is now coloured to indicate the same information.

Fixed the Lernaean Hydra so that it actually closes into melee range instead of sticking with its long-distance breath weapons.

Corrected a minor technical mistake in the 'Fang Forging' help file.

Fixed some 'hit' messages that looked a bit strange.

Dragon 'hoard' now also accepts the spelling 'defense' for defence.

Changed the draw/sheathe messages to no longer describe the weapon being drawn from (and slid back into) your belt/sash.

Added a claymore following repeated requests - but still trying to decide how to make it different from a greatsword.

You can now 'say @* message' to talk to your current target. Mostly useful for mobs (who had a habit of talking to severed limbs instead of their dead victims), but its available to players as well.

Fixed an issue whereby if the paradox spirit killed a vampire who was shapechanged into a cloud of bats, it wouldn't realise the vampire was dead (because the remaining bats disperse rather than leaving a pile of tiny corpses), and would therefore keep on hunting the player over and over.

Added a great redwood treant event mob.

Split the MWI player list into pages of 100, as there were too many players for the MWI to display in one go.

Fixed a few typos in the power help files.

You no longer 'stand upright' when shapechanging in midair.

Fixed a cosmetic issue with removing wielded creatures - it would always display the remove message, even if the creature was removed as part of an attack (i.e., when thrown).

Dire lioness wasn't using the lion spawn sound - fixed.

Added a new PlayerTracker module, to keep track of active player details and display them via the MWI. This consists of a player list (everyone who has connected in the last 30 days, with differently coloured activity icons to indicate how long ago they were last on) and a statistics page (listing player numbers broken down by activity, class, age and gender, and providing a combined playing time of all active players).

Fixed a bug whereby there was no battle victory message for arena kills.

The 'banish' command now lets you banish people who are in your private stores. You no longer need to be able to see the people you banish.

Giant bat pets now 'squeak' instead of growling like a wolf. Also fixed an issue with them trying to pounce instead of swoop, and now being properly initialised when summoned as bats (as opposed to being summoned as wolves and then transforming into bats).

The giant bat form now always ends up at flying speed after a swoop.

Fixed some help file typos and a social typo.

The stats for the Bloodguard concept hadn't been updated when the requirements were changed for House BloodStone. Fixed.

You no longer see messages about equipment repairing itself if you have an adrenaline rush (to reduce spam a bit).

Regeneration, Human Form and Salamanders Gift now allows you to automatically recover from minor injuries, as long as you're healing at full regen rate. Dark Lineage also provides the same ability as if it were a rank 5 power, and stacks with the aforementioned powers.

Fixed some problems with pets following. They should now remember who they were following, and go back to following them after combat (without attacking).

It's now possible to craft katanas from medium shards.

Fixed a bug with the pantheon scoreboard which allowed pantheons to carry over their score to the next week. Added an admin 'setkarma' command to fix the side effects of this bug.

Added 'mittons' to the 'take' command.

Fixed a problem with quivers and crossbow cases.

Blight Demon mouth warp was inflicting pure poison damage instead of dual heat/poison damage. Fixed.

Fixed an issue with mobs inside not doing anything while inside buildings.

Fixed a typo in the hint when typing 'newbie off'.

Restored the coloured activity dots to the warboard and pantheon board.

Added basic pantheon profiles to the MWI.

Fixed a problem with the ogre event - if the girl was freed from her cage through stealth, the ogre would kill her as soon as she escaped. The ogre now just complains and then storms off.

The harpies in the Harpy Wood task no longer attack each other if they run out of targets.

Added the basic infrastructure for the Fatebound class, which Negator is designing.