This page generally only reports changes to the client, and not additions to the world. You will have to explore to find the additions to the world.

Latest What’s New

12/30/98

• The slow typing problem should be better.
• \give amount player should work in addition to \give player amount.
• Re-shares are moved to the top of the list.
• Fixed creating accounts with leading, trailing, or duplicate spaces.
• The escrow merchant should be more selective about the items he deals with.

12/23/98

• New areas, sounds, images, NPCs, items, classes, trainers.
• Fixed problem randomly changing daylight savings time.
• Happy Holidays.

12/16/98

• New world data.
• Fixed problem displaying bubbles with characters with the high bit set.
• The white pants merchant now sells a grey colored pants item that works correctly.
• The town crier now knows the “correct” time.

12/9/98 New world data.
Can now use ‘/’ as well as ‘\’ to indicate commands. Fixed typos. Fixed the Orga Hemlock picture. Added automatic penalty for players who abuse the \pray and \bug commands.

12/2/98 New world data.
Removed sources of lag. Separated \report into \bug and \pray. Rewrote network code so connecting does not disappear for 10 minutes as often.

11/25/98 New world data.
Fixed bug not showing some error messages when connecting.

11/18/98 New world data.
Newcomers to town are no longer able to \yell.

11/11/98 New world data.
Fixed irritating problem with some routers not delivering large data packets. Cash bounties are now shared the same way experience points are. Changed connection process so that you once again receive the error messages like “Incompatible versions”. Fixed bug healing people by pushing a fallen healer into them.

11/4/98 New world data. New hard disk.

10/28/98 New world data.
You should stop moving when you \sleep and wake when you move. Fixed bug entering name or password incorrectly and not connecting after the next select character dialog with correct data. Monsters should generally stay near their own areas. There shouldn’t be any more snow vermine in the desert for example. You cannot \push people when they are disconnected or \sleep’ing.

10/21/98 New world data.
Fixed invisible halfling NPC’s. Added optional reason to \thank and curse. This only works for people near you. And you lose your anonymity. “You have just received good karma from Gaia for exceptional role-playing.” Passwords in dialog boxes are now hidden behind •••••.
Who says you can’t teach old monsters new tricks? Keep your eyes open. And guard your friend’s back.

10/14/98 New world data.
Restored the “is now Clanning” messages. Fixed crashing bug on server. Fixed bug with articles. You can no longer \use items if you have round time. Added argument to \use. Added \push.

10/7/98 New world data.
\pull now has limits. Fixed bug dying twice when killed by lightning. Articles are now capitalized when appropriate. Going through a very crowded door should be much better now. Dead people should stand up when healed.

9/30/98 New world data.
The new \temple command will immediately log you off when used during a shutdown. After the restart you will be in the temple. The monster and NPC AI scripting engine has undergone extreme changes. Please let us know about any problems or unexpected features.

9/23/98 New world data.
Added \use command. Fixed bug in the arena where players would sometimes attack twice per frame. Limited to one character online at a time. Fixed server crashing bug leaking file descriptors.

9/16/98 New world data.
Fixed bug changing account info. Allow many more characters in formerly number-only fields. New Puddleby. Many new features for the client. We accidentally left in the god menu. Please don’t flood us with email about it.

9/9/98 New world data.
Changed account info entry. Monster names are no longer shown. Added sounds to some commands.

9/4/98 New world data.
Fixed bug with sunstone thoughts only going upstream. Observant players will be able to tell if they learned anything from fighting weaker creatures. Fixed typos in \info. Added dialogs to collect and modify information for accounts.

8/26/98 New world data.
Fixed bug entering one command multiple times. Fixed bug not showing inventory. You can no longer \pull when fallen. When there are too many people on the screen you’ll only see the closest. Removed the generation of leaks.log file because it was causing confusion.

8/21/98 New world data.
Fixed bug allowing a new client to run with old data files. Fixed bug playing sounds. Added \pull command. Completely rewrote the network message protocol to address screen lock. It’s really complicated now (and still buggy — hence the need for the numerous restarts and the lateness of this week’s update.)

8/12/98 New world data.
New network connection code. Fixed bug with players not getting saved during shutdown. Monsters should no longer get stuck on dead players. Switching items no longer resets round time and balance. Added gender to info. Players stop moving when the connection is lost. The \share list is now FIFO. The Debug Messages window is gone. \reports are logged to a file and feedback is given. Names for large creatures are now drawn in the correct place. Should not lose sharers when reconnecting, or getting a new picture, or colors. Removed the \temple command because it is no longer needed.

8/5/98 New world data.
Fixed bug with long words in bubbles. Fixed bug not updating combat stats when switching items. Started rumors of clothing merchants and Orga Warlords.

7/22/98 New world data.
Creatures no longer give 1 coins. You will get hoarse if you yell too often. Rumor is that the ancients have discovered a new spell. Some of you may become test subjects. Observant recipients will be able to tell the difference between broadcast thoughts and private thoughts. Limited to two characters online at one time. Commands can use partial names.

7/15/98 New world data.
Fixed crashing bug with super crowded areas. Fixed bug being invisible with partial names after reconnecting. You can only give money to someone when you’re alive and they’re nearby. Fixed bug with town invasions happening every 40 minutes instead of every 2 days.

7/8/98 New world data.
Fixed a crashing bug. Added 10 minute auto save. Improved \share and \info. Added \give. You can now get no experience from killing a low level creature.

7/1/98 New world data.
Fixed the reconnect and be undetectable by monsters bug. Players ghost for a few minutes after disconnecting before being removed from the game. It is strongly advised you disconnect in a safe place or you may return to find yourself fallen. You now can only see another player’s good and bad karma. This makes retaliatory \curse’s more difficult.
Improved \who — use \help who.
Fixed bug departing. You really do lose a rank this week. Bumping into the altar only sets where you \depart to. It is no longer necessary to bump the altar to save your accumulated experience.

6/24/98 New world data.
Fixed problem getting disconnected when at crowded and noisy places. Can reconnect when lose connection. Idle time was increased to allow more time for people to reconnect. You now lose a rank when you depart. Fixed memory leak and subsequent bad behavior and crashes. Everything is now saved when you are disconnected — you no longer lose accumulated exp.

6/17/98 New world data.
Fixed bug showing nearly dead as white on black. \share now shows who is sharing with you. Added \action command and bubbles. It will take some time for a healer to get a fallen person back on their feet. The hive area should no long bring the game to its knees. We moved to a new server — clanlord.preten.com — if you need to ping it. We now track the number of departs. You now log in somewhere close to where you logged off and with the same number of hit points and spell points. No more abusing the log off/on feature to heal yourself. The names of people in your clan will be italic. Those sharing with you will be bold.

6/10/98 New world data.
Accumulated experience now counts in level calculation for determining experience gained for killing a creature. Fixed bug with click & hold movement when clicking on the inventory window. Added names to offscreen yeller balloons. Wounded and bad karma folks are now easily identifiable. Added \share and \unshare commands. Reward those healers! You now need to \depart if you die. Inactive players will automagically be punted.

6/3/98 New world data.
Implemented \yell and \money commands. Dead folks now return to the altar with little life and no magic.

5/28/98 New world data.
Experience is shared. PvP areas. First stab at a healing spell.

5/21/98 New world data.
Removed trashable data diagnostic message because it was mistaken for a bug.

5/13/98 New world data.
Can now move items to your hands. Changed combat so you must have a weapon in your hand to attack monsters. Added code support for clans, classes, and races. Fixed bug showing trash when saying “ ”. The amount of karma you can save up is now limited.

5/6/98 New world data.
Major changes to the combat system. Fixed bug drawing people and creatures on top of trees and mushrooms.

4/29/98 New world data.
Fixed problems connecting. Fixed problem connecting no more than 25 players. Fixed bug prohibiting spaces in account info. Fixed bug using “an” instead of “a”. Improved shutdown procedure. Can no longer log on while a shutdown is in progress. Fixed potential problem in \who command. Changed the way experience and karma are awarded. Added \thank and \curse commands. Implemented alternate movement controls. Select Controls... from the Options menu.

4/22/98 New world data.
Fixed crashing bug with long speeches. Speech bubbles point to the speaker and are generally smarter. Sped up drawing. Walls are no longer sticky. Stopped the wall dance. Added \news command. Announce to the world what killed you.

4/15/98 New world data.
Added an inventory window — unfortunately there’s nothing yet to have in your inventory. ;-> Added test version to the window title. Added version info that shows up in Get Info. Name comparison is no longer case-sensitive and it ignores single quotes, hyphens, and spaces. Names may only be composed of letters, spaces, hyphens, and single quotes. Other account info may only be normally printable characters. Names must also be at least three letters and at most 15 characters long. When entering commands you may enclose names with spaces within double quotes — or you can just leave out the space(s). It used to be impossible to give bad karma to Jasper Darkhead. Now you can use either:
   \karma JasperDarkhead -100
or:
   \karma "Jasper Darkhead" -100.
Added disconnect menu item to make switching characters a little easier. Added a small layout for those Neanderthals still using 13" monitors. Added a message when a bad command is entered.

4/8/98 New world data.
You no longer gain experience for standing around. Now you must defeat creatures in order to train. Fixed divide by zero bug.

4/1/98 New world data.
Selecting Join for the first time will ask you to create a new character. Fixed client crashing bug with long speeches. Creatures close to attack players at maximum speed now.

3/25/98 New world data.
Re-animated the NPC guides. Added a trainer NPC. Fixed various bugs.

3/18/98 New world data.
Fixed problems saving at altar.

3/11/98 New world data.
No need to download a new client if you have already have last week’s version.

3/4/98 New data.

2/25/98 Users can create new characters. Pictures and sounds get flushed from the cache so we don’t run out of memory and behave marginally.

2/18/98 Monsters move around without people around. Fixed bug drawing pictures. Slowed HP regeneration when you gain a level. Fixed spamming guides. Added help for commands.

2/11/98 Fixed the bug where creatures would have the wrong name and picture. Changed commands to require a \. Anything typed without a \ is spoken. Fixed whispers. Removed thoughts. Changed many things with monster creation. New data! Fixed immortal speech bubbles. Added time stamp option to text window. Text window goes behind when you type. Improved scrolling in the text window. Now names the creature you killed. Fixed one problem trying to send too much data. Addressed problems arising when an arrival point is completely full.

2/5/98 Added a Text Window. Made communications a whole lot more reliable.

1/22/98 Added karma. Added experience. Changed and added verbs. Increased the size of the window. Improved network connection code.

— timmer