Alter Aeon Recent Changes and Additions

Recent code and server updates can be found in this changelog.  Only the
last 20 changes are listed.  For a complete list, click here.

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---- Mar 19, 10 [981]
Minor armor/hitroll changes to try to widen the useful range of armor.
Increase in cutting power of spell resistance and spellsave.
Even more lag/performance improvements.
The socket level abort command is no longer case sensitive.
Raise high level solo exp.

From Locane:
Allow extended item search in player shops.
Add achievement display to finger info.
Display final value when training stats.
Show/brag 'condition' added.
Minor show/brag fixes.

---- Mar 18, 10 [980]
Updates to increase grouping exp.
More lag/performance improvements.

---- Mar 17, 10 [977]
Various minor permission checks and fixes for clan elder building.
Teleport on yourself can no longer fail due to spellsave.
Autobinding objects can now be traded, sold, and auctioned.
New 'autoshort' command to toggle room short highlighting.
Clean up strings when being attacked while waking up.
Allow various utility commands to be done while hiding.
Minor wording change for skill unlock when leveling.
Various spellsave updates to help match up to MR changes.
A few new achievements have been added.
Random objects will now show up as 'unique' instead of 'random'.
Minor performance improvements to reduce server lag.

---

Magic resistance on equipment has been changed to 'spell resistance',
and now has a different effect:  instead of failing spells outright,
the level of the spell is attenuated based on how much spell resistance
you have.

Note that the spell level is dropped before anything else is calculated.
For example, spell resistance would first lower the level of an incoming
dispel, then saving spell can be used to resist what remains.

As this is a fairly big change in those cases where magic resistance
was used in the past, expect updates and improvements to this new
system in the future.  It may be several weeks before all the mechanics
are understood and the major kinks are worked out.

---- Mar 16, 10 [974]
Event based regen is now on by default for newbies.
With brief mode off, room shorts will now be highlighted.

Major internal rework to spell list code and sorting/handling routines.
Please report wierdness with spell/skill level or practice/slist etc.
When you level, the game will notify you what new spells and skills
have become available.

PPK has been disabled in the code.  This is quite possibly a
permanent change.  PPK has never worked as well as it should have,
and it causes more drama than it appears to be worth.

Major rework to exp code on mob death.  The previous system had a lot
of weirdness and was very complicated.  This version is a lot simpler
and easier to work on, but is probably going to need a lot of tweaking.
Expect further updates over the course of the next month or so.

From Locane:
Skill reworks to improve sanity checking.
You can now 'insult all' to get insult strings for all worn equipment.
PK players cannot taunt other players.

---- Mar 11, 10 [972]
Add target size to entangling roots calculations, and modify the
chance of the spell landing.

Achievements have been added, which are small goals your character
may automatically complete as you explore the world.  You can see
which achievements you have with the 'achievements' command.  Note
that for existing characters, it may take a while for previously
completed achievements to show up.  More achievements will be added
as we think of them.

---- Mar 08, 10 [970]
Fix wierd crash bug in remove command.

Now that autobinding is understood and more data is available, the
autobind limit has been lowered to just above the maximum "super
random" limit.  In short, old style items that couldn't possibly
load even as an extreme super random are now autobind.  Note that
freak temp enchants may also on occasion trigger autobinding now.

---- Mar 06, 10 [967]
Fix wierd pagebreaking bugs on login.
Removed warning for long name in character creation.
Allow level 0/1 chars to quit anywhere without recalling first.
Event based regen now saves, but can still only be reset once per login.
Bugs involving having the prompt on in the dclient fixed.
Microlevels that you can't level won't show up on the dclient exp bar.
Lots of minor intro screen and new char creation updates.
The 'allies' and 'foes' commands has been added for group management.

Ignore improvements and additions, including god-settable forced
ignore and cleanup of a handful of minor ignore holes.

You can no longer see random and bind flags on equipment carried
or worn by mobs.  This was the original intent, but it apparently
got lost somewhere along the line.

From Locane:
Minor equipment list parsing updates.

---- Mar 02, 10 [966]
The 'wall of ice' spell no longer works in CITY flagged areas.
The 'darken' spell no longer works on player shop rooms.

Minor clanset parsing cleanup.
You can now only clanset someone in the same room as you.
The 'clanset' flag clears on login, so people will be less likely
to be clanned against their will if they forget to unclanset.

Minor DClient updates and fixes and the beginnings of a newbie demo
mode for 0.985 and higher client versions.

---- Feb 24, 10 [965]
Magic res no longer wraps if you exceed +127.

---- Feb 23, 10 [962]
Reduce weight of player corpses so they're a bit easier to carry.
Add first part of a newbie introduction/demo mode for 985 versions
of the dclient.

OLD STYLE EQUIPMENT WARNING - some old style equipment is now subject
to autobinding.  See 'help autobind' for details.  For now, only the
most extreme old style equipment is autobind, so most people won't
be affected.

Quest gold is now dependent on the system gold offset, and the quest
difficulty/rarity.

---- Feb 15, 10 [960]
The ansi 'blink' color tag has been completely disabled.
Minor cleanup and improvement to newbie char creation intro screens.

Playershops how have a minimum rent determined by the amount of cash
in the register.  This is to help prevent shops from being used as
cheap infinite bank accounts.

From Locane:
Fix death bug with absorb item effects.

---- Feb 14, 10 [958]
Golems can no longer use berserk.
Make object file loading more fault resistant.  Still looking for
data corruption bug that caused extended shutdown.

---- Feb 12, 10 [956]
Add area level to 'nearby' command.
Take mob name out of mob corpse keywords.
Event based move regen now has a tick down period when you're over
your max movement.  It works the same way event based mana regen does.

From Locane:
Minor bug fixes to group flags.
Absorb chance increases.

---- Feb 11, 10 [955]
Burning hands and shocking grasp can now fire when you're attacked.
Entangling roots success/fail changes.
Poison now shows up as part of hp regen in 'stat -dc' windows.
Spellsave has been made more powerful for resisting spells like
dispel magic and blindness.
Added misrepresentation of gods to rules.
Minor string changes for the 'get' command.
Minor anti-bot better at fixes.
The keywords 'myself' and 'self' added to most commands, so you
can 'follow myself' to ungroup.
One of the 'group rate' warnings will now be less stupid about
when it appears.

Gold calculation on mobs changed to help balance out other gold
sources in the game.  Expect the typical two weeks or so for the
offsets to stabilize.

Level calculations on areas have been changed as part of our global
area update process.  You may notice some areas having a recommended
level of zero for a couple of days until we go through them all.

Magic resistance change: it is no longer possible to get max MR with
less than 9 pieces of equipment.  In order for magic resistance
coverage to be 100%, you must have the physical locations covered.
These locations are both hands, both wrists, arms, one neck, head, on
body, legs, and feet.  For each missing wear location, the maximum
MR drops by two points.  Note that gloves cover both hands, or you
can wear two rings, or wield/hold items with magic resistance on them.
One neck piece will cover the neck location, about body will cover the
on body location.  The help page has also been updated.

From Locane:
More group flags updates.
Bug fixes for lowhp/lowmove commands.
Add 'look -equipment' option for mobs.
Clean up sends for 'show absorb'.
Allow storage locker access from player shops.

---- Feb 04, 10 [954]
Display price and buyer to seller when auction completes.

---- Feb 03, 10 [952]
Minor dclient updates.
Fix minor autoupdate bug with random objects.
Added smooth decay of surplus mana when using new event based regen.
Exp cost for levels has been rounded to have more zeros in them.
Fix minor 'autoloot from neighboring room' bug.
Minor formatting/typo fixes.
Fix attack bug with prison spells, and clear certain spells on login.

From Locane:
Display 'random' tags on equipment that hasn't been picked up yet.
Display global fame list on web pages.
Show idle time on 'friends' list.
Add 'lowhp', 'lowmana', and 'lowmove' commands for group reporting.
Add group label/job flags.  No help page yet.
Player corpses now have more insult keywords.

---- Jan 30, 10 [950]
Level calculation changes for taunt, roar, and intimidate.  This will
probably require rebalancing of the experience levels for these skills,
which may take some time.

You can no longer fill spellcasting liquids from infinite springs.
The chance of escape from entangling roots has been changed.
The 'dice' command is no longer emote spoofable.
Add 'show report'.

From Locane:
Improve offline ignore against spammer flagged players.
Color added to noleave and defend toggle strings.
Improve parsing of spell names when groupcasting.
You can now use second wind while healing someone.
Healing touch with no target will now target yourself by default.
New string added to bash skill when target is knocked down.
Allow insulting of worn items by wear location.
Allow 'list search' in shops, similar to 'locker search' (llist).
Bound players can no longer be group summoned.

An option for event based regen, 'set regen', has been added as an
experiment.  This breaks regen up across the entire tick, instead of
just on tick boundaries.  Once set, you can only clear it by relogging.

Experimental changes to clan rosters to try to improve lists and clan
management have been installed.  These may or may not cause problems,
prepare for a bumpy ride.

---- Jan 26, 10 [947]
Don't display broken skills (hunting/tailoring/etc) on slist.
Gaze will no longer target clan rooms.
Consistency fixes to waypoints and recall sites.
Fix weirdness with graphs of room temperature.
Taunt exp for large numbers of mobs at once lowered.

From Locane:
Widen allowed range of luck and absorb stats.
Disable the 'you are fully healed' send for the 'haven' spell.

---- Jan 16, 10 [944]
The http area list can now take creator names as an option, to list areas
per creator.  For example, http://alteraeon.com:8080/areas/dentin

---- Jan 13, 10 [940]
From Locane:
Minor bugfixes to 'list' functionality.
Pk/ignore fixes to warrior skills.