Release Notes

[nessalin]

February 6th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Cosmetic changes to the spell added last week.
-Character approval e-mails for elementalists now include symbols for spell added last week.
-Items worn on torso can now be set to also cover pelvis.  Will let this bake for a week before doing a bulk update of the DB to fix legacy items.
-Expanded javascript hooks into the game code.
-Generic code updates to improve quality of life for future coders.

[Nathvaan]

February 13th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Bulk update of items in DB that should get the long body flag (dresses, gowns, etc...) based on criteria provided by Akariel.
-Fixed typo in acceptance letters for elementalists.
-Fixed bug that allowed dyeing of food items if the order of the food and dye items were in correct order.
-Updated messages in bartering so that dyed objects have the correct sdesc when listing/buying/selling in shops.
-General refactoring and deletion of unused code.
-Fixed odd messages when stealing items out of a character's worn container item.
-Fixed odd messages when mounting a hitched mount in the dark.

[Nathvaan]

February 23, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Enabled HTTPS for www.armageddon.org to ensure no information is being sent clear text over the internet.
-Enabled HTTPS for gdb.armageddon.org to ensure no information is being send clear text over the internet.
-Updated some server side settings to fix a vulnerability.
-Updated firewall rules to be more restrictive, should see no difference with this change.
-Numerous minor code tweaks on the website to make the HTTPS changes seamless.

[Nathvaan]

February 25th, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Added the ability for characters to draw illustrations on books/scrolls. This is not reading/writing.
-Drawing skill added (crafting skill) but maxes at advanced unless certain in character circumstances are met. (Yeah, find out IC)
-Added the ability for characters to gain the skill drawing when drawing illustrations.
-Multi-paged books/scrolls have the ability to have any combination of illustrations and writing if you have the appropriate skills.
-Modification to the 'draw' command to allow characters to draw illustrations.
-Modification to the 'look' command to allow characters to look at illustrations.
-Added an account flag to disable the ability to draw illustrations if it is abused.
-Drawing still requires a writing implement and something to write on (book/scroll etc).
-Added the ability for character to gain RW skill points based on some limiting, realistic and complicated circumstances.
-Note: This doesn't allow you to 'pop' RW like another language.  That still requires the proper RP/Logs and staff approval.  But after the first skill is given this will allow natural gain to work.
-Looking at a book will now show it's age based on the RL date it was created.  This includes all books created over the years. Staff have the ability to override this age as needed per object.
-Freed up some unused values on book/scroll items.
-Fixed a few longstanding bugs to some staff command output.
-Fixed a difficult to find and horribly annoying bug where some mistyped staff commands would cause the game to lag for about 10 seconds.
-Added some functions for use of updating objects with the appropriate illustration flags.

-Acceptable use for illustrations:
-Similar to scribble, illustrations are not to have any written words in them.
-Illustrations are to be descriptions of what was drawn and NOT ASCII art.
-The details of the acceptable use of illustrations is in the 'help illustration' help file.
-Note: This uses the same back end code as Read/Write meaning that it records character/account/time and we have the ability to remove/modify misuses holistically.

Discussion thread can be found here.

[Nathvaan]

Release notes:
March 6th, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Bugfix to read/write where some characters in some circumstances might have it indicate the item was written in an unknown language.
-Update staff tool to allow searching additional content of books/illustrations.

(Nessalin)
-Bugfix while poisoning darts to have it behave properly like poisoning all other weapons.
-Update to staff side command to add recent changes to object values.
-Bugfix to address a rounding error for some items with regards to container capacity.

[Nathvaan]

Release notes:
March 10th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Additional Bugfix to address an issue with regards to container capacity.

[Nathvaan]

April 17th, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Bugfix to some capitalization when putting objects into a full container.

[Nathvaan]

June 5th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Fixed bug that was allowing items affected by Imbue Totem to be hold the affect permanently.
-Fixed a bug with a staff tool that was causing items to go missing, sometimes, when setting up NPCs.
-Fixed a bug that prevented staff from being able to work with NPCs consistently.
-Blowguns no longer break hide when fired.  Reloading DOES break hide, however.
-Bandage is now a timed affect rather than an instant hit point boost.

Who can be bandaged?
-Anyone with more than some slight wounds.

Who can bandage?
-Anyone can attempt to bandage, and have a chance, but only those with the skill will gain on failure.

What affects bandaging success?
-The quality of the bandage.
-How injured the patient is.
-Bandaging yourself is harder than bandaging others.

What happens on failure?
-Healers with the bandage skill may see an increase.
-Patient's may suffer some additional damage, the amount of which decreases as the skill of the healer increases.

What happens on success?
-The patient gets a timed affect on them that
   -Increases their rate of healing.
   -Prevents them from bleeding to death.
   -At high effectiveness (a factor of bandage quality and healer skill) heal from wounds that normally require sleep
   -At high effectiveness, remove bloodburn poison

What is the affect like?
-Bandages will last roughly a day, a little longer when applied by skilled healer.
-The effectiveness of a bandage will remain at its applied level unless lowered by activities (running, climbing, combat, ...).

What makes bandages fall off?
-Existing bandages are removed when a new one is applied.
-When duration expires, message is sent to the patient.
-When hit points regenerate to their maximum, message is sent to the patient.
-When effectiveness is reduced to zero through activities (running, climbing, combat, ...), message is sent to the patient.

How to inspect bandages?
-Assessing a bandage item gives an indication of how well suited it is to the healer's skill.
-Looking at a bandaged person shows only that they are bandaged.
-Assessing someone that is bandaged shows...
    -Without bandage skill, only that they are bandaged.
    -With bandage skill:
        -Rough idea of how long the bandage will stay on.
        -How effective the bandage currently is

[nessalin]

June 5th, 2017

(Nessalin)
-Hotfix deployed to fix the issue with regenerating stamina points that blocked the earlier release today.
-Bit of clarification - when shooting a blowgun, when hidden it will not start combat.

[Nathvaan]

July 4th, 2017

(Nathvaan/Nessalin)
- Fixed two bugs that may be causing crashes due to some bandage related items.
- Fixed bug causing crashes when looking/reading a book that was written/read by someone else without them looking/reading it.
- Fixed a bug where if you are falling and how they interact with some Whiran spells.
- Fixed a bug where the tribal backpack getting assigned the wrong capacity at character gen.
- Change to stables: When mounts are stabled they aren't rested until three IC hours pass.
- Major changes to karma:
--Modified the account_index table in the DB to add current_karma and last_karma_regen columns. (completed)
--Added karma_options table to store karma options data in the DB. (completed)
-Minor fix to char revision with regards to Tuluki Tattoos.
-Bug fix to karma refactoring ensuring that the timing of karma regen works as expected.
-Modified staff tools for karma related changes.
-Modified all karma related functions to insert/delete from the DB instead of account flags.
-Modified character generation to allow for more than 64 subguilds and look in the DB for that information.
-Reformatted the character generation subguild choice, slightly.
-Added the ability to pick all subguilds available in character gen.
- Added code to only display options you have available to make the UI scroll a little less.

[Nathvaan]

July 5th 2017

(Nathvaan/Nessalin)

- Bugfix for staff command related to karma changes.
- Bugfix to verify that accounts are saved just after karma adjustments.
- Multiple bugfixes for bandage code to mitigated against possible crashes.

[Nathvaan]

July 10th 2017

(Nessalin)

- Room messages for diseases should no longer display for people who are not visible (hidden, invisible, ethereal, etc...)
- The unhitch command will now take the argument 'all', unhitching all mounts your character has hitched to them.

[nessalin]

July 11th 2017

(Nessalin)

- Fixed a crash bug in vial crafting.

[nessalin]

July 12th 2017

(Nessalin)

- Fixed a crash bug in "unhitch all".

[nessalin]

July 14th 2017

(Nessalin)

- Fixed a crash bug in crafting.

[Nathvaan]

July 17th 2017

(Nessalin)

- Fixed typos in crossbow loading.
- Fixed a bug in crafting where existing recipes were sometimes pre-empted by dyeing and would generate errors.
- Added chase command (see help chase)
- Updated follow code so that the game is aware of what type of following is being perform
  - Hitched - Leader has hitched mounts which stop following with unhitch.
  - Normal - Leader is aware of follower, follower will stop following at leader's instruction (unhitch)
  - Shadow - Leader is (usually) unaware of follower, but cannot lose them with unhitch if they become aware of them.
  - Chase - Leader is aware of follower, but cannot lose them with unhitch
- Updated unhitch code
  - unhitch mounts (all hitched mounts (not followers, not shadowers, not chasers))
  - unhitch followers (all followers (not mounts, not shadowers, not chasers))
  - unhitch all (all followers and mounts (not shadowers, not chasers))
-Updated help files related to this release
  -http://armageddon.org/help/view/shadow
  -http://armageddon.org/help/view/follow
  -http://armageddon.org/help/view/chase
  -http://armageddon.org/help/view/unhitch

[Nathvaan]

July 24th, 2017

(Nathvaan)

- Ability to toggle on and off emphasis with 'change color emphasize'.
- Added account data to store preference of how you want to see the emphasized text.
- Text surrounded by '/' can now display as italics.
- Text surrounded by '*' can now display as bold.
- Text surrounded by '_' can now display as underlined.
- Text (/, *, _) will display as typed for characters with emphasis disabled.
- Text can be stacked with multiple symbols allowing for italics, bolded and underlined emphasized text.
- Symbol stack order doesn't matter, though if you don't 'close' the emphasis it will leave the rest of the line emphasized. Eg, /_*Bolded underlined and italics/*_ would work fine.  While _underline whole line would underline the entire line.
- This emphasis includes all text that can also be colored but does not include targets PCs/NPCs/Objects.
-- Example: 'emote looks around at /everything/.' would have everyuthing in italics while 'emote looks down at _~pants_.' would not work at all. Though 'emote Looking _dejected_, @ looks at the stain on ~pants.' would underline dejected.
-- Note: In testing not all MUD clients implement all these ASCII escape codes, see note below.
- When setting 'change color default' emphasize is enabled but can be toffled off with 'change color emphasize off'.
- Current characters will likely need to enable this feature with 'change color emphasize on'.
- Items that bolded before including combat now once emphasizes as before if you have opted to enable 'change color emphasize' enabled.
- Allows for 'change color emphasize on|off|bold|italics|underline' to determine how you want these items emphasized.
-- Note: this is the same feature where the sdesc/you/your etc. were bolded prior to the color changes being implemented.
- Changes to the stabled mount stamina/health regen.  Now it calculates how many minutes of the 30 minutes (3 IC hours) have elapsed and give the appropriate amount of stamina/health to the mount.
- Minor bug fix to some specific circumstances for skill search.

Note: During testing some older versions of clients (mushclient etc) weren't 100% compatible with these changes.  It is suggested if you find any oddities with bold, italics or underline not displaying as you expect please start by upgrading to the latest version of your client.

Note about ANSI Color bold:  The way that bolding works is by flagging the 'bright' version of the color.  This only works on the base primary colors (0-7). To see these colors type 'change color' and look at the first few entries.  0-7 are the primary colors while 8-15 are the bright versions.  If you want combat bold highlighting to work you will need to use these primary colors as foreground colors.  Italics and underline work with all colors.

UPDATE:
7/24/2017: Major bug with rent/offer mounts at stables fixed.  There may still be lingering issues.  If you mount is out of the stables and it has iow health/stamina for the time being, please wish up and let us know.
7/25/2017: Patching in a bug where combat text is a little garbled for accounts that have VT100/ANSI disabled.  This should be live around 7/25/2017 at 6 AM server time.


Discussion thread is here:

[Nathvaan]

July 28, 2017

(Nathvaan)

-Fixed the bug that was causing mounts to come out of the stable at absurdly low stamina.
-Fixed a long standing bug that wasn't applying the correct height and weight to a mount when bringing them out of the stables.

Update: On next reboot (likely 7/30/2017 early AM):
-One bug was fixed and another was created for stable code.  This will be fixed on next reboot.
-Formatting issue on all 'nicked' combat messages will be fixed.
-Minor formatting issues with some output of the change color emphasize have been fixed.

[nessalin]

August 7th, 2017

(Nathvaan)
-Fix to allow the */bold emphasis character to be used as at the beginning of an input.
-Fix to no longer strip out the *'s when viewing a hidden NPC/Character.
-Fix to no longer strip out the * when looking at an NPC/Character that is invisible.
-Additional additions to color categories that are exempt from emphasis (like character sdescs/room names etc).

(Nessalin)
-Changes to how the size of exits work in the game, making life easier for staff to adjust the world in response to player suggestions.
-Changes to show wagons, skimmers, and some races interact with shallow and deep silt rooms with regards to visibility, movement, and falling.

[nessalin]

August 14th, 2017

(Nessalin)

-Fixed a bug that prevented PCs from drinking cure vials.
-Fixed a bug that blocked poisoning food/drink items.
-Fixed (hopefully) a bug that was allowing NPCs to attack while hidden without initiating combat (but would, at least, un-hide them)

[nessalin]

September 4th, 2017 (Monday)

(Nessalin)

-Fixed a bug that prevented missile weapons from poisoning targets.
-Fixed a bug that prevented erdlus from emoting randomly.
-Fixed a bug that caused non-alcoholic drinks to be drinkable even when 'full' of thirst.
-Character inventory should no longer reverse itself between logins.
-Room contents (in save rooms) should no longer reverse between reboots.
-'scan status' and 'listen status' will no longer break concentration.

[nessalin]

September 13th, 2017

(Nessalin)

-Fixed a staff command that make confusing echos to players.
-When using the pick lock skill, the command will now perform all checks (holding picks, valid exit, etc...) before the delay is applied.
-Typing 'prompt' alone will now output your character's current prompt settings.
-Prompt will now take %p as an argument to indicate that Scan is active (when Scan is turned off nothing is displayed).
-Prompt will now take %P as an argument to indicate that Listen is active (when Listen is turned off nothing is displayed).
-Fixed a crash bug in crafting.
-Tools now degrade slower.  Note that tools only degrade on failed craft attempts.

[Nathvaan]

September 25, 2017

(Nathvaan)

-Fix to the drawing skill to allow the skill to progress to it's intended skill level in some circumstances.
-Change to a staff command to address occasional lag issue.
-Change to psionics skill coloring to remove the psionic color category where applicable.

[Nathvaan]

October 23, 2017

(Nessalin)

-Addition so that containers cannot be dyed if there's something in them.
-Addition so that drink containers cannot be dyed if there's liquid in them.

(Nathvaan)

-Modification to make it so a character wouldn't be 'caught' when latching and unlatching their own gear. 
-Modification to add more detailed logging with regards to criminal behavior.
-Removed a minor debug log related to learning to read and write.
-Modification to templar's casting messages and related bug with some magick.

[nessalin]

October 30th, 2017 (Monday)

(Nessalin)
-Allanak's gates will now be opened/closed depending on the time of day after a reboot.  This should fix the issue where the game would reboot during IC daytime but the gates would be closed.
-Fixed an issue with newbie gear containers having a broken capacity value, resulting in them not being able to hold anything.
-Fixed a bug in assess of items that cover chest and pelvis reporting as only covering chest.
-Fixed a bug with some poison liquids not actually causing poison.
-Some code changes related to staff clarity on game mechanics.

-Wagons can now be damaged by staff.  In the future there will be ways for the environment, NPCs, and PCs to damage wagons.  Damaged wagons:
  -Move slower
  -Give different movement echos, inside the wagon, that should indicate how damaged the wagon is
-Wagons can now be repaired by staff and NPCs.  In the future there will be ways for PCs to repair wagons.

-At staff discretion wagons, and wagon like items (tents, villages, buildings, etc...), can be open/closed, lock/unlocked, picked.  For the most part this should result in leave/enter working like other exits in that when closed they will block look/throw/shoot/and so on.  This is an on-going project