AlexMUD [Code News]

	Home

	Code News by type

CODE NEWS (sorted by date)
This is a list and commentary on recent code changes, designed to help you see what was changed, and why it was changed. This list is not complete by any means. Indeed, certain information may well have been withheld for good reason :-) Note: Everything prior to June 1st, 2000 has been removed to make this more readable.
May 2005
BUGS A number of minor bugs have been fixed. Please keep bug reports coming.
April 2005
COMMUNICATION The communication routines are in the process of being rewritten in order to introduce some new thief skills. If you spot anything odd in this regard, please submit a bug report. SPELLS More illusion spells have been discovered.
January 2005
MISCELLANEOUS HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! Expect to see more exciting things happen in the next couple of weeks, as a lot of on-going work comes to fruition! BUGS I believe all the mana bugs are now fixed. Please note that renting and then re-entering the game will leave you will less current mana than your maximum unless you rent for a certain period of time. This is by design. The following other bugs have been fixed: The infamous sanc-bug, which had re-appeared, has been squashed once again. Removing mana items can no longer leave you with negative mana. However, from now on these items will only affect the maximum amount and not the current amount! COMBAT Over the past few weeks I have noticed that combat is becoming mundane and tedious for some of the players. This was highlighted by the fact that two intrepid adventurers dispatched a dragon rather too easily not once, but twice in one day! So, from now on, expect the unexpected when it comes to combat. The current systems entails the same overriding AI routines for all NPCs. This makes things too predictable, and is going to change. Please note though that this is not an attempt to make the game impossible - consider it an alternative way of making it more challenging for those characters who have amassed great power over their lifetimes without simply throwing NPCs at you with more health and spells. For starters, dragons just got a whole lot smarter... COMMANDS You can now check the status of your group while meditating without losing your meditate state by using the new "groupstatus" command. The "smack" social has been altered; use "lsmack" to smack you lips together from now on. The yank command now takes "group" option which will attempt to yank all of your group members to their respective feet. ITEMS Examining (and inspecting) a weapon will indicate if the weapon would be too heavy for you to use properly. WORLD There is chatter amongst adventurers about a pyramid in the jungle.
December 2004
SPELLS Additional high-tier spells have been added. WORLD The giants are back ...
July 2004
SPELLS Additional Conjuration and Illusion spells have been added. Use them carefully, if and when you come across them. WORLD The existing world has been merged into the new wilderness. Some paths to locations in the world have changed, so watch out! Please, if you see anything strange, or you end up in the middle of nowhere (aka, "A Desolate Part of the Countryside"), let us know as quickly as possible! Hill Giants have been sighted in the northern reaches of the world. Fortunately for Ardenia, they seem more intent on razing Arak-Kur than Ardenfall...
May 2004
SPELLS More spells have been added to the School of Enchantment.
June 2003
GENERAL There have been some internal changes made to how parts of the code work. If you see any odd behaviour, please report it. BUGS The following bugs have been fixed: Corpses not decaying (or saving) Lesser Horn of Cornucopia when held from extended inventory Aliases Bottomless flask spell
October 2002
BUGS The problem with the monster in the pool not resetting should now be fixed, as should the issue with lights sometimes not appearing to work. LIGHTS The light system has been substantially rewritten. Players should not notice any difference at this time in how they are used to things working. However, the new ignite and extinguish commands should add some fun. SPELLS Players using brief mode will see less output when someone casts a spell.
July 2002
BUGS Numerous recently-added bugs have been fixed: lightsources, lock-picking, pushing buttons, buy x.book, entering shops, following, spell-affects, grouping, permanent abilities, etc.		BUGS
April 2002
COMMANDS The "pat" social now pats someone on the back rather than patting them on the head. The "pet" social will perform the old pat action. WORLD The forest north of Ardenfall now has some climbable trees in it. This is an excellent place for thieves to be able to improve their climbing skill.
January 2002
BUGS The following bugs have been fixed: A bug in the rescue system that was causing rescues to fail an inordinate number of times The gate problem in the countryside cemetary Restoration of health after renting while wearing +health equipment RENT It is now possible for players to buy houses. See help HOUSES for more information. WORLD Two links in Orc Mountain have been fixed. The exits between level 3 and level 4 have been swapped. This is a long-time oversight that is needed to accomodate future extensions. A new area has also been added to the game. Pay close attention in the castle ruins and you never know what you might discover.
December 2001
COMMANDS You can now PUT money into containers. This will allow you to carry around more money than normal. However, you will need to retrieve the money from the containers in order to use it (eg, for buying, selling, etc.). THIS INCLUDES RENT MONEY. Any coins in a container WILL NOT be used to pay your rent bill! BE WARNED: Money stored this way can be stolen very easily! You can no longer RECITE scrolls under water. The SPLIT bug has been fixed. You can no longer get huge chunks of money from the ground by using split. Instead, utilise the new put command extensions. The CONSIDER command has received some updates. It will continue to provide additional information as and when needed. The CONSIDER command now includes damroll in the weapon/bare-hand calculation. The DROP, GET, GIVE, LOOT, PUT and TAKE commands have some additional methods of transfering multiple items at a time. See the help file for more details. The LIST command has been updated. You no longer need to specify the full spell name when using that method. Also, the number in brackets when using this method is now correct. Also, the LIST command will now accept a school of magic as an argument when listing spellbooks or prayerbooks. MAGIC Rumours of new prayers and spells having been discovered by the more powerful magic users in the world are probably true. Spells and prayers have now been alphabetically ordered. This is evident from the new output of the SPELLS and PRAYERS commands. It is also applicable to the CAST command as well. SKILLS A new thief-skill has been added. See the help on SCAN for more details. Skills have now been alphabetically ordered in the SKILLS command. This should make locating your skills somewhat easier. WORLD Due to too much in-breeding, the upper levels of the Wight Warrens are now infested with weaker cave-wights. Adventurers report that the Abyssial Demons sometimes found in the depths of Orc Mountain, have new powers.
July 2001
BUGS The following bugs have been fixed: A problem with traps not working correctly Spell-casting mobs not having the correct mana Money not being saved with corpses (this does not affect corpse retrieval) Another follower bug, this one regarding moving when still fighting MAGIC Spell-casting mobs can now cast non-combat spells when in combat. This may sound grossly unfair, but the fact is that players can prepare for a fight and mobs cannot (without help). We'd rather not go adding a ton of affects to mobs when they're created, but let the mob AI work on its own. We trust you understand this change. Please also realise that they were always meant to be able to do this, but a bug in the casting code prevented it. SHOPS The inspect command will now show the help for magical spellbooks and prayerbooks. WORLD Numerous new areas have been added to the game, and an old area has made a reappearance. More to follow soon! The Gloomy Forest The Hills of Zabrak() Orc Mountain extensions The Temple of the Abyss The Troll Moors () Old area
June 2001
BUGS The follower bug has been fixed. Please report any other strange occurances by the bug command. COMMANDS A more detailed ignore command has been implemented. Please see the help entry for more detals. A "helpers" extension to the who command has been added. Please see the help entry for more detals. WORLD Certain creatures in and around the goldmine in Orc Mountain have been altered. In particular, their special combat attacks now work as designed. Rumours are rife about troll infestation on the moors north of Haon-Dor forest.
May 2001
COMMANDS The quaff command will no longer try to quaff non-potions. MAGIC Certain spells now have alignment restrictions. Essentially, good characters cannot cast them upon evil characters and vice-versa. As this is on on-going process, the help entries for spells that gain this restriction will be changed to indicate this. STACKING The stacking system has been extended to handle the movement of groups of mobs.
March 2001
AREAS The bridge spanning the River Arden to the east of Ardenfall has been repaired, and the eastern part of Greendale is accessible once again. Also, rumours abound that the entrance to the ancient warrens in the depths of Orc Mountain has been uncovered... GENERAL An auto-save feature has been added. This will kick in for each player approximately every 30 minutes. ITEMS Some of you will notice that +health eq no longer works as it did. The old way was a bug. This has now been fixed. MAGIC Approximately 20 new prayers/spells have been added to the game. You'll find them the usual way.
February 2001
BOOKS Upon identifying a prayerbook or spellbook, the help file for a spell will now be displayed (assuming the entry exists - please report any that don't). This should help you determine more easily if you should want to learn a particular form of magic or not. BUGS A problem has been discovered in the combat system which meant that equipment was not getting damaged during physical combat. This bug has been fixed, so expect to see more equipment damage from this point onward. COMBAT/SKILLS The chances of items getting damaged has again been reduced by around 50%. This I think will be the final "tweak" unless it appears that we've been too generous :) New warrior skills have been added - berserk, hitall and stun. These are very useful skills indead, although they are quite tiring to use. COMMANDS A new command - BEHEAD - has been added. See the help file for more details. ITEMS Be warned! Those who wander around with open backpacks can fall prey to unscrupulous thieves! The cost for repairing items has been halved. This will hopefully offset some of the large repair bills that have been experienced recently. MONEY The amount of money that can be found on mobs has been increased a little. This should help offset some of the repair cost for items. RENT Rent has been reactivated. It's been six months since the new system was introduced, so it is time for people to start paying their way once more. NEWBIEs no longer pay rent. See "help rent" for more details. On a related topic, the QUIT command has been modified. Please see "help quit" for more details.
January 2001
BUGS The problems with grouping have been fixed. COMMANDS The ability to specify multiple nouns and adjectives for items and mobiles has been added to certain commands. To use multiple nouns and adjectives, simply enclose them in single quotes ('), eg. kill 'wiry man'. Please be patient as this is added to other commands. The emote system has been extended. See the relevant help page. MAGIC Additional understanding in prayers/spells may help you increase your overall knowledge of the magic. MISCELLANEOUS HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!
December 2000
BUGS The following reported bugs have been fixed: Bone sceptre No message when holding a lightsource while fighting Garbled lizardman message
November 2000
BUGS The following reported bugs have been fixed: The pegasus code The pemote command Emptying liquid containers Incorrect school for sleep spell SHOPS Additional usefulness has been added to the list command. See the help for more details. SPELLS The identify and divination spells are now reveal more information. However, this often required additional power in the spells and is not automatic.
October 2000
BUGS The `stunning flash' bug has been fixed. You have been warned. COMMANDS The drop and give commands will now accept a number specifier. See help drop or help give for more details. ECONOMY When a large number of coins is found, it might be the case that there are too many for a player to pick up. In this case, the player will attempt to grab as many as he or she can, leaving the remainder behind. To help facilitate the greed that is rampant in the world, the code ensures that coins with the highest value are taken first. It is now possible to purchase multiple copies of an item at the same time. See `help buy' for more details. Shops that deal in spellbooks and prayerbooks should now buy more than 10 books. GROUPING Group leaders may now appoint treasurers (see "help appoint"). As a result of this, the split command is now active again, although its use is limited to the treasurer of a group. MAGIC The magic of the divination spell has been altered slightly, so that it reveals more information in certain cases. WORLD The Dwarven City of Duur-Halla has recommenced trade ties with Ardenia. Be warned that the dwarves are not at all tolerant of those that break their laws. The dwarves of Duur-Halla report good adventuring grounds east of their fine city.
September 2000
BUGS For some unknown reason, worn items were counting full weight against the maximum weight that can be carried. This has been fixed so that only half the weight is counted. It is done this way since it is generally much easier to wear something heavy than to carry it. The money changer should be working properly now. Please report any problems by using the BUG command. COMBAT Characters who are mortally wounded or incapacitated can now attempt to quaff potions. See HELP QUAFF for more information. ECONOMY Shop inventories now save from reboot to reboot. WORLD At the request of the local lumberjacks, the Ardenian army has swept through parts of the Haon-Dor forest, purging the area of the large, nasty tree-spiders. While the army cannot guarantee that none will be sighted, it is expected that any that remain are not as dangerous as those that used to inhabit the forest. The army commander also reported that they were able to thin the ranks of the wargs as well. Adventurers report sightings of Hobgoblins in the Misty Hills.
August 2000
SKILLS Additional descriptive words and phrases have been added, so that skill progression can be seen more easily.
July 2000
SKILLS A new skill, dagger throwing, has been added. Thieves, and to a lesser extent warriors, should benefit from it the most. STATUS We are now open for business. Please remember that there are somethings missing from the old code that will be ported as time permits. Take time to learn the new magic system (for mages and clerics). Non magic users should pay attention to what really helps in combat, and not make any assumptions based upon what might have been the case in the past.
June 2000
SPELLS More spells have been added. You'll discover them in the usual ways.