Category: Game update

Just finished with today’s update, which is now live in Build 478.  Most notably, a new window is present to remind you what your active quest is.  Hopefully this will help with new players who are confused on what to do (because they skipped the tutorial text ;))

If you only have one quest, it’ll just show it.  Otherwise, it’ll show quest summaries, with the full details displayed only when you roll over the window.  You can also hide the window entirely with SHIFT+U if you don’t want it.

I also tuned down the outlines on windows, so they’re 1px instead of 2px.  Looks a little cleaner that way I think.

Finally, I cleaned up some of the intro quest text and added intermediate steps where appropriate so that new users should understand what to do.

Thoughts/comments on today’s update, feel free to post here or in the forums.  Hopefully no new bugs because of today’s update, but please let me know if you spot any!

Couple changes to help make the game playable at lower resolutions:

• Zoom support!  Press Z to toggle zoom levels.  The amount you can zoom out is based on how big your game window is
• Dialog text – on lower resolutions, the text is shown smaller and on more lines so it is easier to read
• Prevent situation where chat window recent text fills the screen – now this is maxed at 1/4 the screen height
• S3 storage – the game client is now stored on Amazon, which should result in faster client downloads and lower server load.  That does mean there’s a new security popup window, since the client is on a different server than the game server.  It looks like this:

Here’s what I worked on today, playable now in Build 457:

• New chat window!  Messages will show up only when there is a new one, and fade out.  Or, roll over / press enter to see the chat history.

• If there are more than 5 players connected, quit/join messages will not be shown.
• Death notifications are now only shown if you are near the player in question.
• Perfomance will now autoadjust, toggling off features if the game is running slower than 30FPS (this can be overridden in options)

• Town Expansion – cost to expand towns are now based on Plat instead of Gold
• Town Expansion – towns can be expanded even larger (max 40×40 regions (woah))

Bunch of misc fixes today for build 442:

• Slug quest – now pops up a reminder when the five slugs are slain to go back and talk to NPC
• A little reminder at the bottom right of dialogs to press E to advance/close them
• Intro sign now references WASD instead of Arrow Keys (much more ergonomic).  E also refers to use/npcs instead of reading signs
• Slugs should no longer float suspended in space sometimes
• Slugs no longer target dead players
• Extra error handling and crash prevention in quest system

A couple updates today for Build 430:

1) Now if you press spacebar, but don’t have a weapon equipped, you’ll auto swap to sword!  This makes it a lot easier if you suddenly find yourself cornered by lawyercats while building.

2) NPCs now have (!) and (?) icons floating above their head when they have a quest to give, or just have something to say.

3) The Noob area has an extra sign in it to remind players how to sword.

Hopefully these improvements will make it easier for both new players and old 🙂

Whew!  Finally finished the revamped shop!  A couple things to note:

• ToolTips!  Roll over most items to see what they are.
• Decluttered – oversize items no longer escape their respective areas, and buy/open buttons don’t show until you are over a specific item
• The shop currently uses a lot of alpha rendering, which may slow things down on older machines.  I plan to disable alpha on slower machines soon, but lemme know if its particularly bad on your system.
• I’ve taken a pass at rebalancing some of the costs to be more in line with the values of the items.
• I’ve introduced a new currency, ‘platinum’, which you can acquire from the new Buy Packs screen.  I’ve also added some special deals to this page, to provide folks extra incentive to help out the project financially 🙂

The latest build adds two things.  First, there’s a new mob which doesn’t attack you but only gives you limited gold.  It currently only exists in the newbie area, but I’m considering having it spawn in the wilderness too.  This should hopefully make it easier for new players, so they don’t have to worry about learning to defend themselves right away.

Also, as suggested on the Comment Box, I’ve added links in the in-game menu to the Comment Box & Blog web pages: