Release Notes

[nessalin]

July 29th, 2016

(Nessalin)
-Fixed (hopefully) an intermittent crash bug we've been experiencing in throw for the past few weeks.
-Under-feet now have an object flag as well as a wear location, meaning all the oddness around what can/cannot be worn on/under feet should be resolved.  There will some time while items are updated with the correct flags.
-Objects that can be worn on eyes now correctly identified as such using the assess command.
-Eyes location now has higher priority than most other locations when not specifying where to wear something (i.e. 'wear sunslits' or 'wear all')
-Minor changes to how some commands work for staff to make life easier.

[nessalin]

August 1st, 2016

(Nessalin)
-Crashbug fixed.
-Some typos fixes.
-Prioritized 'belt' higher than 'waist' for the wear command.
-Some refactoring to split code into smaller chunks
-Updates to staff commands making them easier to understand and use
-Updates to what will break hide
  -'examine' will no longer break hide
  -'change' will no longer always break hide
    -never break hide
      -language, ldesc, tdesc, mood, accent, locdescs, objective
    -may break hide
      -'change opponent' - only if successful, meaning correct syntax, valid target
      -'change hands'
        -only if successful, meaning correct syntax, valid target
        -Will use sleight of hand skill check to stay hidden
-Craft List will now display if recipe requires a fire.
-Craft List will now display if recipe requires a tool.

You could make...
   1) a hamburger from that. [cooking, effortless, needs a fire, needs a spatula]
   2) a baked potato from that. [cooking, effortless, needs a fire]
   3) an apple from that. [cooking, effortless]

[nessalin]

August 22nd, 2016

(Nessalin)
-Fixed bug where character's trying to throw an item in EP that shared a keyword with the item in ES got a message that only primary equipped items can be thrown.
-Refactor of poison code, please report oddities such as wrong poison being transferred to food/drink/weapon, or from food/drink/weapon to victim.
-Fixed two crash bugs related to shooting in/out of wagon items.
-Characters now automatically unhitch mounts when they are knocked out (similar to dropping all EP/ES items).
-Updates to staff commands related to building.
-Improved logging around character death for staff information.
-When using the view command on an item that is armor, the player will no longer see the 'too small'/'too large' message twice.
-Arrows can now be lit off of torches and campfires, increasing their damage nominally for a short period of time.  When the first goes out the arrow will be blackened, resulting in it doing slightly less damage, and preventing it from being lit again.

[Nathvaan]

September 5th, 2016

(Nathvaan)
- The duration of peraine poison sometimes would instantly wear off when successfully delivered.  This will no longer happen.
- Minor change to mul character generation for a bug that would allow their origin to be set to the wrong location.
- When failing a bash and being in contact or with a barrier up it will now properly cease the psionics, just like all other combat.
- Minor bug fix to some magick because some code wasn't doing everything it should have.  This should not impact any characters.
- Fixed a typo in one of the skellebain echos.
- Fixed an effect in dispel magick that wasn't being removed as it should have.
- Added a feature for 'count' to be able to use 'count <item> <container>' while you are wearing the container.

(Nessalin)
- Adding some additional logging to help find an issue with an open bug.

[nessalin]

September 12th, 2016

(Nessalin)
-When an arrow becomes lit, by whatever means, any poison on it is removed.
-Vials can now be used to administer cures and poisons to victims using either the use or pour commands.  This will preclude wishes asking to shove a tablet into the mouth of someone who is sleeping/paralyzed/subdued.
 -The victim is unconscious (small chance they will choke and spit it up)
 -The victim is paralyzed (small chance they will choke and spit it up)
 -The victim is subdued (chance to resist)
-Usage:

> use vial warrior
> pour vial warrior
> pour vial in warrior
> pour vial on warrior
> pour vial into warrior
> pour vial onto warrior

[nessalin]

September 19th, 2016

(Nessalin)
-Fixed bug that blocked last week's release, the features of which should now be available.
-addkeyword command will no longer break concentration (such as crafting)
-addkeyword command will no longer break hide
-knock command on an open door will no longer reveal true sdesc to other side when hooded.  (knocking on a closed exit will still say 'Someone')
-Can no longer make/roll/break tents while mounted.
-Can no longer make/roll/break tents while in combat.
-There is now a 1 second delay attached to using make/roll/break on a tent.
-Updates to messages for tents (typos, line returns, etc...)
-Using make on a tent in inventory now returns message that the tent must be dropped, first.
-make command now returns 'Make what?' when no arguments are given.
-make command now returns contextual messages based on input, including the suggestion that the user may have meant the craft command.
-Tweaks to staff commands to improve flexibility.
-Tweaks to logging for staff use.

(Nathvaan)
-Groundwork code for future projects.

[Nergal]

(Nergal)
- Clan-restricted apartments can now also be restricted by rank in a clan
- Pickable plants are now able to bear thorns that damage the player if unavoided
- Pickable plants are now able to be poisonous on contact to inexperienced herb-gatherers
- Pickable plants are now able to bear poisonous thorns that damage and poison the player if unavoided

[Nathvaan]

October, 15th 2016

(Nathvaan)

• All book data, both the books themselves and their linked pages now reside in the database instead of in files on the machine.
• Books now have had their maximum pages over quadrupled, from 12 to 50.  All books and scrolls will have the same number of pages they currently have.  This is just the maximum being raised so new books can be bigger.
• Your skill with the language is now taken into account when writing in books and reading from books.  It will be scrambled in exactly the same way that partly understanding a spoken language works.
• All current characters who didn't have read/write at perfect will now have perfect penmanship/reading due to their upbringing in the languages they know how to Read/Write in.
• The original text will be saved for posterity and staff's use, unscrambled, so we know what you were trying to write if the character has low Read/Write skills.
• It will now record the account and character who created the book and it's pages.  This includes the ability for staff to see who wrote one page and who wrote a different page on the same book.
• The title of the book and each of the pages' text can now be in different languages, one title per book though. Naturally, you would have to have the Read/Write ability in the language you are speaking to write in that language.
• Titles will no longer display at an arbitrary skill level, instead if you have the read/write skill in the language in which it is titled you will see a scrambled (or not) title. This works in both 'inventory' and 'look book'.
• All historical book and note data has been imported into the database.  This will allow staff to create books in the game that were previously 'lost'.  I suspect this will happen for things that are found with historical significance but at the discretion of staff members.
• 5465 books were imported into the database with a total of 14711 pages. Yeah, you read that right.
• The creation date of the old books/note/scroll data go from October, 1995 to present.
• The original creation date is recorded as well as whenever it was last updated.  Some of those dates will be the last time the character saved themselves while holding the book, though.  
• So they may not be totally accurate, especially for recent books.  This date will be accurate going forward though.
• I have made the best attempt to scrub all the books that are currently in game and on characters to accurately include the current page size and language but there is no way to be 100% certain. If your character has the ability to read/write and has problems reading a certain book/scroll, please wish up and we will take a look at the object to get the right data associated. Usually this would mean there isn't a written language associated with the book and/or page and is quickly fixable.  It might indicate you do not know that language.
• All books and scrolls written from this time forward will not have the previously discussed issue, just possibly the ones created prior to this deployment.
• A fairly comprehensive staff tool was written to allow for web management of all the book data (current and historical).
• I have no illusions that a project of this size and complexity will go off without a hitch so please feel free to open requests if you feel something may not be working properly.  I'll assess it and let you know if it is working as designed or fix the problem.
• Infrastructure was put in place to allow a series of flags to be put on individual pages for future development use.  This is already the case for the book themselves such as when they are 'sealed' with a signet ring.
• Lastly, this is the first phase of updates to read/write.  More will come in due time.

Discussion here:

Update: Patched in a couple of bug fixes this morning. As far as we know everything should be complete.

[Nathvaan]

October 19th, 2016

(Nathvaan)
- Fixed another crash bug that cropped up with the read/write changes.
- Fixed that annoying problem that many (all?) MUSHclient users have where when you first connect the it seems to not understand the option chosen.
- Fixed a few minor typos.
- Fixed the formatting on a staff command that wasn't giving proper carriage returns so it was hard to read.

[Nathvaan]

October/24/2016

(Nessalin)
-Changes to 'who c' as it relates to psi powers.
-Bugfix to the repair spell related to power levels.
-Crashfix in crafting for items that aren't actually craftable.
-Consolidation of code related to poisons making them easier to update/expand.

(Nathvaan)
-Fix to bug with lock picks.  They are working properly again.
-Fix to bug where Bloodburn wouldn't apply the correct effect.  This also is working again.

[Rathustra]

Not an official release note but:

-Rope Making has been removed from the game. All rope crafts (all 5 of them) have been rewritten to use craft skills that suit their materials. No guild gets rope making anymore.

[Nathvaan]

November 25th, 2016

(Nathvaan)

Added the following features:
-Added a fully customizable system to allow the display of colors within the game.
-Added the ability for 256 color capable clients to use any of that color palette.
-Added the ability for the player to add as little or as much color as they like (or disable it).
-If VT100/ANSI is not on in the main menu, all color features are disabled.
-Added a default color template that is off by default.
-Added 19 categories of color for player use, see below. (foreground and background).
-In these categories are included 5 combat specfic categories to highlight hits and misses to your character, hits and misses to your victim and combat in the room that doesn't involve you.
-Added 7 addition categories of colors for staff use, like comm channels, logging and monitoring (foreground and background).
-Added the ability to export your color setting to a list of commands to recreate them, share them on the GDB or save them for future use.
-Ability to view the current color settings and available categories.
-Ability to view all the colors available (color palette).
-Added feature that copies staff color settings to the NPC when animating for a consistent look/feel.
-This change was throughout much of the code: 48 files were changed, 4622 lines inserted and 2468 deleted.

Here is the list of categories for players and staff (can set foreground and background):
-say - Messages generated by the say command regardless of target.
-shout - Messages generated by the shout command.
-tell - Messages generated by the tell command regardless of target.
-whisper - Messages generated by the whisper command regardless of target.
-room_name - Room names when moving and looking.
-room_exits - Room exits when moving and looking.
-psionics - Messages generated by psionics, dream and feel.
-ooc - Messages generated by the ooc command.
-sing - Messages generated by the sing command.
-talk - Messages generated by the talk command.
-wish - Messages generated by the wish command.
-object - Objects in the room and various places (not likely all objects yet)
-char - PCs and NPCs in rooms and various places (not likely all yet).
-emote - Messages generated by the emote command.
-combat_charhit - Combat targeting and hitting your char.
-combat_charmiss - Combat targeting your char but missing.
-combat_victhit - Combat targeting and hitting your victim.
-combat_victmiss - Combat targeting and missing your victim.
-combat_room - Combat in room but not targeting you at all.


Valid colors:
-These are the colors you can add by name, you can also add them by number (0-255).
-black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, bblack, bred, bgreen, byellow, bblue, bmagenta, bcyan and bwhite (the b<color> is for bright color).

Options:
-You can see the whole color palette by typing 'change color palette'.
-You can set the color settings to off by typing 'change color none'.
-You can set the default color palette by typing 'change color default'.
--I am totally up for changing the palette if staff and/or players have better ideas for the default
-You can see your current setting and category options by typing 'change color'.
-You can make an export list of your current color setting by typing 'change color export'.
-You can change the category color by typing 'change color <category> <color name or number>'

List of 256 color supported clients from wikipedia (not a complete list please check client documentation for compatibility):
-zMUD
-AMudClient
-Atlantis
-BeipMU
-BioMUD
-CMUD
-Gnome-Mud
-KBtin
-KildClient
-Lyntin
-mcl
-muby
-Mudlet
-MUSHclient
-Potato
-Powwow
-Soiled
-TinTin++
-TinyFugue
-Tortilla
-Wintin.Net


Click here for discussion thread.

[Nathvaan]

November 28th, 2016

(Nathvaan)
- Removed underline from system message.  It is just bolded now.
- Fixed 18 canned socials (like chuckle, cough, grin etc) to be colored as emotes.
- Some instances of putting and object in an object should now color as objects.
- Staff using send will now color as if it were a wish.
- Staff using the echo command will now color as an emote.
- Some instances of sitting at and standing from a table should now color as char.
- Listing at merchants will no longer choose random colors.
- Packing and unpacking mounts should no longer be flagging as random colors.
- Resting a beetle should no longer be coloring as charhit category.
- Mounts should now be colored like PC/NPCs when looking and walking.
- Preface for the 'weather out' text will no longer be colored with the wrong category.
- Moving in 'blinding sands' text should no longer be colored as psionics.
- change color fg_monitor and bg_monitor (staff command) will no longer show up in the 'change color export' list for players.
- 42 files changed, 5295 insertions(+), 5286 deletions(-)

[Nathvaan]

December 5th, 2016

(Nathvaan)
-Fixed bg_emote not saving issue.
-Fixed thousands of places where colors could randomly display as the wrong category.
-Added the correct coloring to 'look room'.
-Fixed a bug where skellebain room names would sometimes not display.
-Fixed bug where you could use 'look room' to get around the effects of skellebain.

[nessalin]

December 12th, 2016

(Nessalin)
-General code cleanup
-Added messages to mount emotes

Note: Put in a fix for misbehaving mounts.

[Nathvaan]

December 18th, 2016

(Nathvaan)
-Added criminal code to Luir's Outpost.
--Added a flag so staff can set NPCs to not arrest if they have another job.
--Soldiers in Luir's, Allanak and presumably Tuluk will now return to the location they grabbed the criminal after drop them off at jail.
--Soldier's communication updated slightly for use in Luir's.
--Luir's jailer will notify the correct authorities if someone is in the jail cell.
--Similar to Allanak, criminals in Luir's will be stripped of their weapons.
--Similar to Allanak, Prisoners will be automatically fed at any time they are starving/severely dehydrated in the cell.
-Reading and Writing in public will now be a crime.
--If you are a local noble or immune to the laws you will remain immune to this crime.
--Possession/buying/selling of reading and writing instruments is not a crime.
--Those who could tell the crimes of a criminal (e.g templars) will see 'literacy' as the crime.
--Please be aware those who have Read/Write (great merchant houses included).
--Reading and Writing to IG messages boards will not flag you as a criminal.
--If you are flagged as a criminal for Reading/Writing in public it will not enter the in game editor.
-The feature allowing you to target books/scrolls by keyword if it is titled, works once again.

Added: Patched in a bugfix making it so when reading scroll/book you must have a book/scroll and have the ability to read the text on the book/scroll before it would flag you a criminal.

Discussion can be found here

[nessalin]

January 16th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-We're moving towards dynamic crafting recipes.  Meaning that recipes will no longer be constrained by exact objects.  An example being two logs in the game needing two separate recipes to be turned into planks.

-First instance of dynamic crafting is how tablets and vials are made.  The craft command can now be used in place of the brew command to create cures and poisons.  While the same recipes will work for craft that worked for brew, the results will be slightly different in three ways.
  -The resulting will be a mushy item that in turn can be brewed into a tablet or a vial.
  -Because the system is dynamic any vial item will be usable.  We will be adding in new vial items over time.
  -The resulting mushy item (and its downstream tablets and vials) will have a color that is a combination of the items used to make it, rather than randomly selecting one of the items used to make it.  Specifically if you combine a red & blue item, you will not get a red OR blue item, you will get a purple item.

-Second instance of dynamic crafting is that items can now be dyed different colors without requiring a new item to be made.  Using the craft command with a dye item and the dyeing skill to a non-dye item will give players the ability to create a new item.
-As with cure/poison crafting colors can be combined.  Applying blue dye to a shirt will result in a blue shirt.  Applying red dye to a blue shirt will result in a purple shirt.  Combining colors that don't mix will result in 'gray'.

-Changes to shootable weapons.
  -Bows, crossbows, slings, and blowguns have separate skills for use
    -archery (same skill as prior to this change)
    -crossbow use
    -sling use
    -blowgun use
  -Bows
    -must use their own ammo type called 'arrow'
  -Crossbows
    -delay on load, no delay on shoot
    -Strength and stamina check only checked on load
    -Must use their own ammo type called 'bolt'
  -Slings
    -no delay on load, delay on shoot
    -Must use their own ammo type called 'bullet'.
  -Blowguns
    -Must use their own ammo type called 'dart'.
 
-The DB and items saved into the game have been updated for shootable weapons and their ammo.  Items on your characters have not.  If your shootable weapon or its ammo are not working correctly wish up for a new version of the item(s)

-Fixed a lot of vague/incorrect messages around the load/unload commands

-new race, Kagor, added with information provided by Akariel
  -http://armageddon.org/help/view/kagor

(Nathvaan)
-Code clean up
-Improvement to staff's character approval tool

[nessalin]

January 18th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed a bug in dynamic crafting (dyeing, tablet, vial, cure) where the character's ldesc was not cleared after crafting was completedly.
-Cure vials no longer go away when drunk/used/poured, instead an empty version is left behind for re-use.
-Characters can look at a vial to see if it is empty or has a cure/poison in it.  Note: this is looking at the item not IN it (yet).
-vials no longer go away when drunk/used/poured (on ground or target or on food or on drink con)
-Fixed an issue with cure/poison crafting to give it more feature parity with brew.

(Nathvaan)
-Fixed a bug in book title keywords.

[Nathvaan]

January 19th, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Fixed a minor bug with assess text with bows/crossbows.

[nessalin]

January 20th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed some typos in messages with shooting blowguns, crossbows, and slings.
-Fixed a bug in cure/poison crafting where not all colors were recognized.
-General technical debt.

[Nathvaan]

January 21th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed a bug in crafting where in some cases it was no longer possible to 'craft item item into #' due to a syntax issue.

[nessalin]

January 22th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed bug in the taste command where it didn't work on drink containers.  Now calls the sip command as intended long ago.
-Messages when assessing herb items now displays only required text.  Sometimes extraneous text was sent.
-Updated taste messages so item sdesc is always sent to indicate what is being tasted.  For some things it was only sending 'It' or 'That'
-Some bullet proofing against future crashes.
-Added rules around what can be dyed based on material type, item type, and other criteria.  Meaningful error messages should be provided when attempting to dye an undyeable item.
-Crafting herbs now performs a skill check to see if it would even be possible before displaying impossible recipes options

[Nathvaan]

January, 23rd, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Output when using the 'assess' command on objects has been updated
  -Now displays the material the object is primarily made out of
  -Format updated to (hopefully) be a little cleaner)
  -bow/crossbow/sling/blowgun now say what they are and what kind of ammo they use
  -arrow/bolt/bullet/dart now say that they are ammo and what kind of weapon they need
  -Fixed long standing bug where some skinning weapons would say they were usable for skinning twice
-Added things made from GEM, GLASS, CERAMIC, SALT, and FUNGUS undyeable.

(Nathvaan)
-A great deal of ground work for upcoming projects.

(Akariel, Rathustra)
-Blowgun use, sling use, and crossbow use have been added to primary guild skill trees.  These skills should be added to your character upon logging in if you're supposed to get them.

[Nathvaan]

January 30th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Cure items can now be assessed.  (New help entry for 'cure' should help explain the output)
-New spell added to all elementalist subguilds (should get skill at login, there is a helpfile for it, as well.  Much help from Akariel)

(Nathvaan)
-More prep work for future projects.

[nessalin]

January 30th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed a bug in the messages for trample where sometimes the attacker's unmodified sdesc appeared (only to them) to be revealed

(Lyric)
-Submitted several new combat messages that the code can choose from for greater variety.  These are things like kick, bash, backstab, and so on.