If you reply in this topic with suggestions for A30, I will delete your entries after updating my TO DO lists as I see fit, thanks!

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Estimated A30 Release Date: 1/15/2000

Our Motto: "A30, the Y2K edition"
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* AUTOMATIC NAME GENERATION. If you can't think of an interesting alias or Real World name, A30 will make one up for you. (whether you like it or not).

* SPAM FILTER. Source-side anti-spammer for chat. If you type too much chat too quickly, you get gagged for awhile until you shut up.

* PERSISTENT SERIAL NUMBERS. No longer says "Soul (shareware) Left Game" and the serial numbers make an effort to be persistent (no guarantees, however)

* CHAT SCROLL SNAPBACK. If you scroll back in the chat window, the autoscroll is disabled until either: 1.) 20 second elapse since the last movement of the scroll bar, or (NEW!) 2.) you drag the scroll bar 'thumb' all the way to the bottom.

* MIX STUFF. several MIX server changes have been made in this period, which will release with MIX 1.08 Mostly it is stuff to auto-detect various hacker attacks and reply in kind.

* NEW WORLD PUBLISHING IMPROVEMENTS. Check Online For New Worlds no longer freezes up if the INI file cannot be accessed from the web site (the [X] close button works to recover). This doesn't make the web server itself any more reliable, of course, just lets you give up waiting without a ctl-alt-delete

* FIXED WORLD VERSION NUMBER BUG. Fixed the version number handling for self-published worlds. Be sure to have the same version number in your 'public' INI file as you have in your world's WORLD.INI file. (Two INI files are required for self-publishing - see web page about WoS Worlds)

* HI-RESOLUTION WORLD MAPS. You can now OPTIONALLY provide an additional high-resolution map in tandem with any map in your world. (I mean you HAVE to provide the low-res map, but if you also provide a high-res map, I will use it for the main walking around window). Just make the high resolution map identical to the low resolution map (but exactly 4 times as wide and 4 times as tall) and give it the same name, only with "X4" added to it. For example:
evergreen.jpg (low-res 512x512 pixels)
evergreenX4.jpg (hi-res 2048x2048)
(note: high-res maps increase the download size of your world, and take longer to load)

* FIXED LEVEL 96 XP BUG. Fixed a bug where level 96 players only earned one XP per battle. Also removed the new feature which limited level 98 players the same way. So now level 98 players can accumulate XP again, even though it does them no good whatsoever. But it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

Note that the highest levels now require a bit more XP (well, OK, twice as much!) so you might see your high level characters drop a notch or 10 after the first fight. This is called tuning. You said it was too hard, I made it easier. You say it is too easy, I make it harder. :-)

* FASTER STORY SCROLL. The World 'story' scrolls by a bit faster. If '50' is how long it was between scrolls before, now it is only '35' (units are arbitrary) It is still not user selectable.

* MAGIC-USERS GET LESS HP. Evergreen magic-users now get a little less max HP. This is a world issue and you are encouraged to set up your own world the way you like it.

* NEW HIGH LEVEL EQUIPMENT. Almost 200 new items, filling in the gaps from level 40 to level 98 for most equipment classes. Also, 'healing spells' can now be bound to staffs (world designers take note) and the Soul Staff is now bound to resurrection, which makes it a truly useful thing to have around. The cowboy boots are back in the store, as well.

* STORE CHANGES. Mostly esthetic, the descriptions of items, their effect on you, and whether or not you can use them, has been changed a bit. Hopefully this will be less confusing.

* WHISPER. Finally, there is a secure way to pass a /tune channel number to another player. It is kinda wacky, so pay attention:

1.) right-click on player in MAP list, select "Whisper to <player>". This selects your whisper target. You can only whisper to one person at a time.

2.) type "/w this is a whisper" or "; this is a whisper" and "this is a whisper" will be sent to your current whisper target.

* NEW MIDI FILES. 'Ahad' has graciously composed several new pieces for us, and they are all excellent!

* ABILITY TO 'LOCK' PARTIES. In the right-click menu of the STATS list is a new option "Lock Party" (wording changes depending on context). Basically if you check this it means "I don't want anyone new joining my party" (people who are already following you can continue until they leave your party). Bear in mind that when you try to join the party of someone who is actually following yet another person, you end up following that other person, so it is THEIR setting of the 'lock' which counts.

* STUN WEARS OFF. Man, you weren't kidding it lasted too long. It lasted forever! (well, until the end of scene). Now it wears off even faster than SLEEP. (well, except sleep wears off when you get bonked on the head)

* NO MORE SEED GIVING. Seeds are for your personal consumption only now. You could still give someone the money to buy their own seeds, of course.

* PK OPTION DEFAULTS TO ON. Not entirely sure why I did this, but as of A30 a new character starts off assuming you WANT to PK and you have to explicity turn it OFF if you don't want it. I think this better matches peoples normal expectations, but be careful if you have grown used to the other direction. Of course, this only affects new characters you create, not existing ones.

* NEW SCRIPT COMMANDS. In addition to finally writing some documentation for the individual script commands (look in the new quest.txt file), I have added three new commands: BKGND (lets you change the scene's background image), FX (lets you change the scene's current FX), and WEATHER (lets you change the scene's current weather)

* SKIN XFER LIMITS. Now when there are more than 10 people on the server at once, the skin xfers get throttled back to avoid chewing bandwidth. So if you can't get your pal's skin, try bopping over to a less overloaded server for a moment.

* ANIMATED ACTORS. The quest file POSE command now lets you specify two additional (optional) poses for an actor. If we call them pose1, pose2, and pose3, then the actor will automatic cycle between pose1 and pose2 for the duration of the scene with an occasional flash of pose3. (for example, use pose3 to make the frog's rongue lash out, or a character to wink). Josh was kind enough to provide multiple frames for most villagers, and you can use monsters as villagers as well.

* HEAL SPELLS EARN PP. Only if you cast them on another player. And sadly, only if that player is alive, so resurrection still pays nothing - sorry.

* SCRIPT COMMAND 'MOVE' HAS MODES. Now, when you command one of your actors to MOVE across the screen, you can provide an optional 'mode' number. The only mode supported right now is '1' which causes you to instantly teleport to the new x,y instead of ambling over there. Hopefully I will come up with more modes later (I kinda look forward to a 'hopping' mode). Note: this feature creates an incompatibility with earlier releases which might have wacky side effects. Since it only applies to actors for now, I think we're safe. But eventually I will expose it for monsters and heroes "Special Leap Attack" for example.

* BIGGER WORLD. I rendered seven new maps and some cool new backgrounds (Bryce2, your friend) and doubled the number of sub-maps in Evergreen (North Umbrage and Fort Roundtree are now maps, for example, plus some brand new areas including 'Inferno' where those lava boots will finally get some use. I am including hi-res maps for the prettier ones, but not all)

* QUEST AUTHORS TAKE NOTE: While I have added lots of new quest functionality, it should all be upwards compatible, so you should NOT have to diddle your existing scripts unless you want to take advantage of a new feature. Where that is untrue is the new joshMiscellaneous file which has many new (excellent) characters, but a couple old ones may have moved from where you expected them. You might want to check all your ACTOR commands to be sure your poses are correct. If you fixed them after the release of A29, you are PROBABLY already OK.

* MAJOR ART UPGRADE FROM JOSH. If I didn't already mention it, Josh has provided even cleaner versions of all his art. All the monsters, all the heroes, all the villagers. And there are a lot of new villagers, and a couple new monsters (mainly new because I didn't link them into A29 for some reason). I will be (not yet!) putting ALL these files into the A29 BASE VERSION but only including the new villager files as part of patch A30. So, if you want ALL the new art you will need to pick up A29 BASE VERSION again. [not yet!] (but don't be confused, a slobber is still a slobber, just a little prettier)

* WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? Well, that's all you now CAN be. one million is the max GP your character can carry, if you have more, you will see it disappear in A30.

* SPELL SPAM FILTER. New option in the FILE menu "Enable News Events" Turn it OFF and you will no longer see "xyz has learned spell" messages. (Actually you both have to have A30 for it to work).

* MAJOR SERVER/CLIENT CHANGE. This is a big scary change, but the result should be more people can use a server before it bogs down. I strongly suspect this will lead to some chaos as it is a major change... but it seems to be working, and you're already soaking in half of it!

* MAP OBJECTS NO LONGER MY FAULT. As a world designer, you create a file called "objects.jpg" with all your link point graphics in it. You can now make a 256 color RLE BMP instead (objects.bmp) and I will use that preferentially. It will be bigger, but prettier. The JPG creates all sorts of fuzzy noise around each link point, PLUS recent versions of evergreen have had black as the transparent color, making the objects even fuzzier.

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And some other stuff I seem to have forgotten already, but you can be sure it isn't major.

Once again, reply to this topic with things you would like to see, but I will delete your reply when it has served my purpose (and there were lots of cool suggestions over xmas which I have moved to other lists or implemented already)

What about level limits for links and class specific items?

Okay, what about for armor and weapons temp. adding to STR or DEX or somesort of thing like that?

so have PK options in the quest file, like only PK world, PK gives experence, PK ladder system

[seriously pruned by samsyn]

10. restrict the current classes
e.g. -warriors shouldn't get any magic
-archers only get certain spheres of magic (life & nature?)
-different types of magic users limited to different spheres of magic (e-mail for suggestions)

This way a world map could (for example) have 'blue water' for all areas outside the bitmap image. Maps drawn carefully then wouldn't have so much of an 'end of the world' effect when you get close to the edge of the bitmap, and could give the illusion of a non-square world.

[I wouldn't rule this out, but I think it has two basic problems: 1.) seldom will a single color work and I can just hear the request for tiled bitmaps :-) and 2.) it might lead to confusion as to why I can't sail my boat any farther than this..
Also, I'll bet people will suggest maps which 'wrap around' :-) Anyway, we'll see, and Hi, Duncan! -samsyn]

4) More Dying Effects - I have noticed that when some enemies die, once in a while they will fade out, or one I have noticed faded into the ground. Could we have more of these eye treats?

5) Spell Caused Ailments - Could there be more spells to cause Physical Ailments to the player, for example, blindness could cause the player not to see his enemies, Berserk could make the player do random things, like use random items, attack random enemies or allies, or cast a random spell, etc. Plus, there could be Items (Hint Hint) that could cause such spell given diseases, such as "Sleepy Powder" or "Ground Pepper" (Stupid Names, but to give an example..)

[We'll try one mill for awhile and see how it feels -samsyn]

#2: Every time I open WoS, my ICQ seems to go beserk... any particular reson why this might be happening?

[Of course it is IMPOSSIBLE for one windows app to influence another.... What sort of beserk. They would compete for CPU time, memory/disk, and the sound card. Other than that I wouldn't expect anything too odd. -samsyn]
Thanks
-merlin

1) Poses - The three extra optional poses available... is there anyway you can make one of these, just an idea, and Jerad's ideas suck, casting a spell, under an ailment (Kneeling on one knee, clutching stomach, etc.), death, etc.

[the new poses are just for ACTORS in scenes, not regular skin files or monsters, so no. But you could have an ACTOR with poses implying kneeling, death, etc and use them based on quest tokens... he's hurt and dying, you save the town, later he's ok.. that sort of thing]

2) Move Mode - Oh yeah! I would like to see some beta stuff with this thingy. Looks like a good prospect.

[A30 only has the 'instant' mode as a new one, I haven't tried hopping/leaping/phasing yet.]