Weekly Update for 3/7/2004 and 3/14/2004

[Sanvean]

News
We're soliciting player histories for the staff documentation. Anything's fair game for a write-up of your character. What do you want remembered about your character? What did s/he do, and who did s'he interact with? What would other members of her/his clan remember, what stories would the grandchildren tell? Write-ups of past clans, including the slew of player-created desert elf tribes, are also quite welcome. Let us immortalize you. Send your emails to sanvean@armageddon.org and zhaira@armageddon.org

Staff apps are still being dicussed; interviews should be scheduled soon.

We're currently #8 on TopMUDSites - thanks for voting!

Code and scripting:
Tor and Winrothol ingame boards added (Nessalin)
5 new NPC races (Nessalin and Vendyra)
Additional functionality for staff command (Nessalin)
Script for specialized objects (Raesanos)
Miscellaneous script updates and fixes (Raesanos)
You can now forage specifically more kindling (Sanvean)
You can use "forage food" instead of "forage root". Watch for additional interesting changes to forage for food coming soon to a ranger near you. (Sanvean)
Time code adjusted. See http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7448 for more details (Tiernan)
Changes to immortal command (Tiernan)
Option added on main menu to create new account. (Tiernan)
Script updates (Vendyra)
3 scripts (Zhaira)
Crafting: 6 cooking (1 from Sanvean, 5 from Vendyra)

World changes and additions:
Kadian shop updates (Ashyom, Vendyra)
Allanak update (Dyrinis)
Updating Salarr objects (Ix Machina)
Salarr shop and warehouse updates (Ix Machina)
3 npcs (Laeris)
1 object (Louten)
1 room update from Asinha, 2 rooms from Impska, 2 rooms and 1 object from Pearl, 1 object from ShaLeah, (Mekeda)
Kurac shop updates (Mekeda)
2 rooms from Lazloth (Myrdryn)
1 object (Myrdryn)
Northlands updates (Myrdryn)
2 npcs, 11 objects (Nidhogg)
1 room (Nidhogg, Sanura)
1 room, 1 object (Raesanos)
2 NPCs , 5 objects (Sanura)
Tor updates (Sanura)
2 objects (Sanvean)
1 npc from Cuusardo,2 objects from Jacob, 1 npc from Pearl, 2 objects from Priestess, 1 npc from Soltun, 1 npc from Spawnloser (Vendyra)
Food object updates (Vendyra)
3 npcs (Wachabe)

Documentation:
Helpfiles updated: CAMPFIRE (update), GUILD_WATER_ELEMENTALIST (typo), SKILL_FORAGE (update) STEAL (clarification)
Webpages added:
http://www.armageddon.org/general/ooc.html
Webpages updated:
http://www.armagddon.org/general (link added)
http://www.armageddon.org/intro/helpers.html (update)
Wiki additions and amplifications from Raesanos, Sanvean, and Zhaira
We're experimenting with ways to publish and archive the Weekly Update; see what you think of http://www.zalanthas.org/weeklyupdate

Bugs/Typos/Ideas:
AMoore (1), AngelaChristine (2), Angelwrath (1), Ashyom (6), Astilwe (1), Atalya (1), Crowder (1), Dakkon (1), Elzocone (2), Grog (1), Haiwolfe (1), Hoodwink (1), Jcruise (1), Jmordetsky (1), Kai (8), Lazloth (1), Lorain (3), Mekeda (6), Myrdryn (2), Nari (6), Narlac (1), Phoenix (1), Praetorian (1), Raesanos (1), Ralin (1), Rekcah (2), Sacac (1), Sanura (1), Scortius (1), Seril (1), ShaLeah (1), Sleazye (1), SpaceAce (1), Vendyra (1) , Vox (2), Xeria (1), Zwen (22)


Current Open Clan Assignments:
Allanak Templarate and Militia: Zhaira@armageddon.org and
Dyrinis@armageddon.org
Anyali: Louten@armageddon.org
Atrium: Vendyra@armageddon.org
Bards of Poets Circle: Sanvean@armageddon.org
House Borsail: Kivan@armageddon.org and Wachabe@armageddon.org
Desert Elves: Bhagharva@armageddon.org and Myrixt@armageddon.org
The Guild: Nidhogg@armageddon.org and Xygax@armageddon.org
House Kadius: Ashyom@armageddon.org and Sanura@armageddon.org
House Kurac: Mekeda@armageddon.org and Kivan@armageddon.org
Northern Templarate and Militia: Myrdryn@armageddon.org
House Nenyuk: Kurano@armageddon.org
House Oash: Ashyom@armageddon.org and Nechomacus@armageddon.org
House Salarr: Ixmachina@armageddon.org and Xygax@armageddon.org
Tan Muark: Naephet@armageddon.org
House Tenneshi: Raesanos@armageddon.org
House Tor: Gilvar@armageddon.org and Sanura@ginka.armageddon.org
T'zai Byn: Tlaloc@armageddon.org
House Winrothol: Vendyra@armageddon.org

Special applications should be sent to naephet@armageddon.org.

96 applications accepted, 26 rejected, 73 edited for March 7
78 applications accepted, 8 rejected, 65 edited for March 14
2824 objects are craftable (15% of database)
There are 27132 rooms, 18368 objects, and 6436 npcs in the game.

[Tamarin]

Um....wtf?  That's way too long.  It looks like there's about 5 udates in there.

[Carnage]

I like the blog.

[Sanvean]

Yeah, there seems to have been some cut and paste difficulties. Should read better now. Sorry about that.

[Koala]

5 new NPC races (Nessalin and Vendyra)

Interesting addition.  

[John]

Interesting addition.  

I agree. When I read that I wondered if it was completely new races being added, or if it was current races either being split up so they can be specialised more (e.g. instead of having Sunback and Raptors as the same species, they're split into seperate species*).

We're experimenting with ways to publish and archive the Weekly Update; see what you think of http://www.zalanthas.org/weeklyupdate

I like it And for a quickie prototype it is very good

I like the cool feature of being able to add comments directly to the entry. It makes the message board method compeletely obsolete I also love the search function.

However I don't currently like the line-height. I find it to be too much of a gap and at the very least I would halve it to 100% or possibly even get rid of it completely (depending on how that looked of course). I also think the fact that the menu dissapears whenever you go to any page other then the main one gets rid of a lot of navigability that is handy to have. The last thing I don't like (who said I'm picky ) is the fact that the comments open in a new window. I think having them in a collapsible portion of the page would be much better (I'm against pop-up windows except when absolutely necessary).

Here is another page that I visit that uses Movable Type 2.661

One thing I would change is the "Syndicate this site" link to "RSS feed" The reason is, it is already an RSS feed. All you need is for it to tell people that

Congrats to the person who suggested using moveable type for the WU. I've been trying to think of a way to automate it for a while, and I could never get around the problem of the index for the Weekly Updates page.

* I don't know if Sunback and Raptors are codedly the same species, it was only know an example When my special app'd raptor gets accepted I'll let you know if they're the same species

[Ralin]

Bugs/Typos/Ideas:
AMoore (1), AngelaChristine (2), Angelwrath (1), Ashyom (6), Astilwe (1), Atalya (1), Crowder (1), Dakkon (1), Elzocone (2), Grog (1), Haiwolfe (1), Hoodwink (1), Jcruise (1), Jmordetsky (1), Kai (, Lazloth (1), Lorain (3), Mekeda (6), Myrdryn (2), Nari (6), Narlac (1), Phoenix (1), Praetorian (1), Raesanos (1), Ralin (1), Rekcah (2), Sacac (1), Sanura (1), Scortius (1), Seril (1), ShaLeah (1), Sleazye (1), SpaceAce (1), Vendyra (1) , Vox (2), Xeria (1), Zwen (22)

Hey, I got involved! -blinks-
...
-Runs back into relative obscurity-

[Lazloth]

Did the weeklies turn into bi-weeklies, or is nothing emailed out nowadays?

[Sanvean]

There's been some confusion about who's doing them, which is my fault. I'll try to get both last week's and this week's out on Sunday.