What Was New In 2017

12/6/2017 v1045
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. — Mark Twain (1835–1910)

• Merry Bawkmas!
• ... and all other coincident holidays!
• Certain items in a certain far-off mountain should be significantly more common.
• Several monsters which had been inadvertently shaved have been reupholstered.

11/15/2017 v1042
But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year.
— Ervin Drake (1919–2015)

• No significant changes this version.
• No crashes in 1,693 days, and counting. (A record!)
• Today marks the 1042nd week of the game’s existence, more or less. This means that Clan Lord has been up and running, almost continuously, for just over 20 years. Happy anniversary to us!

However... as you will have noticed, the Account Portal has been out of order for some months now. Unfortunately, we’ve concluded that, for reasons of time and resources, we are unable to revive it. This means it’s basically impossible to sign up new players, or for existing ones to modify their accounts, add new character slots, transfer characters, etc.

Moreover, we have to recognize the writing on the wall for our current Mac and Windows client apps. Both are technologically out-of-date by decades, not just years. We’ve nursed them along as much as we could, but without drastic rewrites they’re not likely to survive more than, say, 12–18 months.

Even if we had the time, skill, and resources to rewrite the clients (not to mention our associated internal world-building tools), we’re still stuck with game assets — primarily artwork and sounds — that, although they may have been acceptable or even ambitious back in the late 1990’s, are nowadays woefully inadequate. They would all have to be redone, from scratch, to look and work reasonably decently on modern hardware.

Finally, even the least observant of players will have noticed that the pace of world enhancements has lately slowed to a trickle. Many of the volunteer GMs and their helpers and the artists and contributors who had put so much time and effort into the Clan Lord world over these last 20 years or so, are now inactive. Without their enthusiastic participation, the game world stagnates.

We have enormous gratitude to all our dedicated players and wonderful collaborators. We’re interested in your thoughts; we’ve started a discussion on the Sentinel, where together we can work out the future of Clan Lord.

10/25/2017 v1039
Some people are born for Halloween, and some are just counting the days until Christmas. — Stephen Graham Jones (b. 1972)

• Boo!

10/4/2017 v1036
Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower. — Albert Camus (1913–1960)

• No changes this version.

9/13/2017 v1033
People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible. — Will Rogers (1879–1935)

• No changes this version.

8/23/2017 v1030
What’s the sense in having an eclipse if you can’t look at it? Somebody in production sure slipped up this time! — Charles M. Schultz (1922–2000)

• No changes this version.

8/2/2017 v1027
I never smoke to excess — that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time. — Mark Twain (1835–1910)

• All changes this version are invisible.

7/12/2017 v1024
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. — Alexander Hamilton (b. 1757; died 12 July 1804)

• No changes were submitted this cycle.

6/21/2017 v1021 (The super summer solstice edition)
Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world. — Ada Louise Huxtable (1921–2013)

• Slow news day.

5/31/2017 v1018
A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them. — Mark Twain (1835–1910)

• Happy 15th anniversary to ThoomCare.com!

5/10/2017 v1015
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. — Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)

• No notable game news to report.
• The Account Portal remains out of commission. There’s been some progress on reviving it, both stronger and better — but nothing visible yet. Apologies for the inconvenience.

4/19/2017 v1012
I’m proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. — Arthur Godfrey (1903–1983)

• No notable game news to report.
• The Account Portal remains out of commission due to unforeseen software changes at the hosting provider. We’re trying to get it back online but we can’t yet say how long that will take. Apologies for the inconvenience.

3/29/2017 v1009
Life with fools consists in drinking; with the wise man, thinking. — Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

• Let’s hope the v1000 excitement has finally died down a bit!

3/8/2017 v1006
Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness. — Christopher Morley (1890–1957)
Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. — P. J. O’Rourke (b. 1947)

• We apologize, again, for the mishap that afflicted the v1000-to-v1003 update. At long last we’re able to award the lion’s share of the ranks that we’d planned to give out as compensation for the lost time.

2/15/2017 v1003
I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, — and the stars through his soul. — Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

• Housing mannequins now correctly display shifting tie-dyed cloaks and shirts.
• We had some reports of “choppy” sound playback in the v1000 Mac client. With any luck, v1003 fixes that.

1/25/2017 v1000
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

• Happy v1000!
• Humble and heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful players who have kept this game alive through the past 19 years! 💝
• Not totally new, but this seems as good an occasion as any to advertise it: check out our historical splash-screen gallery!