Wurm Server Release Notes 2012

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120427 Inner walls by Zcul!

• You may now build walls inside structures, creating rooms. Zcul is the genious behind this addition
• You may now restrict mine doors to your alliance
• Gate management for massive amounts of gates was given a nudge but couldn't be tested
• Some methods were added to Chaos to prevent planting of non-allied deeds. Only allies or citizens should now be able to plant within 100 tiles of the perimeter of an existing settlement on Chaos

120424 PayPal issues being sorted

• This Friday, PayPal updated their system. Most payments were still working afterwards but one of their servers failed to communicate with our servers. Yesterday we updated our code in order to fix this error. It worked well for several hours but suddenly our server stopped handling orders. We're looking into the problem and will handle your payments as soon as possible.
• Update: The systems are now working again and your payments are being processed automatically as the transactions are re-issued by PayPal during the day. You may use the shop safely.

120423 Chaos PvP plans

• The Chaos server will be removing some of the PvP restrictions that doesn't go well with it being a PvP server. Effectively, some time after the 1st of May the changes listed below will be introduced. Up until then those of you who wish to leave will receive free disbands effective only on the Chaos server! (minus the free upkeep added). Any traders on deed will be removed and you will receive 20 silver as a reimbursement.
• The major changes will be to remove all penalties for attacking eachother and give battle ranks and affinities for slaying premium accounts, as well as removing the requirement to declare war before raiding.
• On a totally unrelated note, large axes henceforth will be called just axes or medium axes.

120419 Fixed timers and gate hopping

• The mining timers that were increased unintendedly were reduced again
• You may now have troubles entering a locked gate if you are engaged with a player opponent. Might be able to sometimes, might be unable to sometimes.
• Gate hopping fix now applies only to non-deeded gates and doors, or ones on the border of the deed. It's still being developed and tested.
• Fishing and digging may now yield rare items
• Vynora priests will receive alignment for cutting down trees. Alignment gain was changed to require a certain age though.

120418 Rare item functionalities

• First a note regarding repairing - it seems to take longer than it should in many cases now and will receive a fix.
• Most of the planned or possible rare item functionalities have now been implemented. The following list contains suggestions for rare items that have been implemented in one form or another (Many thanks Zao and Klaa for compiling the list):

• Materials have faster associated timers and may turn constructed item into rare item
• Locks are harder to pick
• Lockpicks break less and aid picking
• Containers (including boats) are harder to pick
• Arrows hit harder and miss less
• Bows hit harder and miss less
• All items get higher default price depending on rarity
• Ships sail faster (up to max so good only for fewer people)
• Carts move faster
• Yoyos and Dolls succeed more
• Fishing poles dmg less and have better odds at rare fish
• General tools are faster
• Fires heat up faster and stay lit longer.
• Altars get bonus to normal affects and alignment during prayers and sermons
• Food gives more nutrition
• Drinks are more potent
• Gems store more favor
• Warmachines do more damage
• Healing items has better effect
• Signs have a few more letters
• Horseshoes improve speed
• Butchering knives increase meat yield and item ql

120417 Important changes to item construction and gatehopping

• In approximately two weeks you will no longer be able to create larger items inside smaller ones. You will receive warnings about this in order to encourage you to change behaviour.
• In order to prevent gate hopping, house doors will now stay open for one minute if you pass them while there is an enemy closeby.
• Certain timers that were increased too much in an earlier update today were brought in line.
• Minimum repair time was lowered.
• The orb of doom now has 1 hour cooldown.
• Area spells now have 2 minutes cooldown. We don't support area cooldowns.
• Fishing rods damage received another tweak.

120414 A few minor but annoying bugs fixed

• Some items such as imperial lamps used up too little material during creation
• When attacking crowded creatures the slots shouldn't change as easily
• The health bar in the client should work more properly

120306 Mainly item damage tweaks

• Area spells no longer work underwater
• Tree harvesting should deal less item damage.
• Mixing different fruit juices will remove their unique property instead of increasing one of the juice types
• Fish rod damage was tweaked
• Liquid creation should use better ratios
• A bug was fixed with spell buffs that didn't time out
• Those traders that were producing steel items will start to produce normal items once they run out. It was just decorative but it's a bug.

120404 Horses save positions more often

• Horses should now save their position approximately every 10th tile so crashes should not have the same impact.
• Fishing spots will change with seasons. Your fishing spots have probably moved due to this. Bigger fish will be harder to catch but should on the other hand yeild higher quality levels.
• Repairing no longer leaves damage when complete.
• Client colors were modified. Dye still shows colors. Rarity is shown in color and wound coloring is back.

120403 Colors showing in inventory

• Colors are now showing on inventory items - thank you Budda!
• Voice chat binaries were updated, so you may receive a firewall or antivirus warning message but it is safe to install. It works well by the way and we suggest you form a team in your village to try it out.

120402 Fixing some metallurgy, liquid mixing etc

• Numbers were off for metallurgy and some liquids such as fruit juice, which is dealt with
• Fungus trap was useless and can now be cast outside of mycelium and Libila influence like the Ice and Fire pillar counterparts

120401 Lag reduction

• Some of the lag that the recent changes introduces should be gone after this update
• The bug where materials sometimes weren't used when building was fixed
• Creation of lye and other liquids should use proper amounts now
• We don't have any April's fools joke this year. Honestly. This isn't a joke at all, seriously. Haha April's fool!
• Ok that was really cheap but things are hectic!

120331 Upwards retweaking

• Prices for ropes and locks are back up at what it was before due to the wemp requirements
• The powerful animal loyalty was unnerfed a bit
• Keys will not take damage when failing to create moulds
• The convert bug was fixed
• Zombies will no longer instadie

120329 Wonderful Time(r)s!

• Faster timers for most actions!
• Timers now run on tenths of seconds, giving more precise effects of quality, skill and enchantments. This includes fighting.
• Less item loss on failure!
• Priests receive alignment modification for actions just as non-priests now
• Dispel now has range 24
• Mounts and carts may be used in shallow water. Less land bridges - more fords!
• Mounts and carts may be used in steeper terrain. Less obstruction!
• Older creatures may spawn now - more challenge!
• Items have rarity! You may now occasionally succeed in creating a rare, supreme or even fantastic item. These tools are faster, weapons do more damage, and armour protects a bit better. This may also happen as you improve or polish items and rare items may turn into even rarer items. Constructing new items using rare materials may turn the unfinished item into a rare item. Rare guard towers spawn more guards, for instance. More functionality will be added over time.
• Known bugs: Metallurgy needs some more debugging. Chain armour creation erroneously uses up the chain on failure. Fields show the wrong textures.

120315 Scrap bugfix

• Since last update, low ql lumps are supposed to appear instead of metal scraps in order to improve creation. In certain instances these lumps would not appear, which has now been fixed.

120314 Amsterdam meeting update

Inspired by the discussions at the Amsterdam Wurm meeting this weekend we've managed to implement a few of the quick improvements mentioned:

• Only uniques break cave walls now
• You now get low ql lumps instead of the annoying scrap metal
• Construction options should now display both ways when selecting an item
• The max number of concurrent attackers were doubled for uniques
• Creature spawn points got a kick in the hind
• NOTE: Ridden creatures will be attacked more often
• The decay for butchered body parts was increased
• You should now be able to be passenger through palisade doors
• Empty bulk containers are now possible to pick up

120306 Archery skillgain modified

• In an effort to make archers hunt creatures and real players instead of alt characters, archery skillgain is now more uniform for all attacks except when there is very little damage dealt, when you are deemed macroing or attacking newbie alts. Skillgain speed may need tweaking.
• Shieldbashing also gives more skill when damage is dealt.
• Kingdom rulers may no longer become champions.

120302 More lockpicking tweaks

• The base chance is still based on lock quality but a bit higher. The chance increase with skill and be maxed at 100 lockpicking skill. Chances increase more the higher skill you get. Expect to start becoming somewhat able at skill 30. The container or wall ql may halve or double the chance. Lockpick quality increases chance more than before. Gates are easier to pick. Large boats are harder to pick.
• Thievery skillgain was increased.
• The HOTS skillgain bonus for thievery skills was removed since everyone runs the same risk nowadays.

120301 Changes to thievery and support case handling

• Lockpicking and stealing skillgain now is on timers. Every ten minutes you may gain the skill.
• We are still tweaking the system at the moment. It is pretty nerfed when it comes to skillgains and success rates especially for doors.
• Lock ql now sets a base chance for lockpicking difficulty where a lock of ql 99 gives you 1% base chance and a ql 19 lock gives 40%. This is then modified by the skill so that someone with skill 50 has 20% chance to pick a ql 19 lock and 0.5% to pick a ql 99 lock. The container or wall ql modifies this as well, and the difference in lockpick quality increases or decreases the overall chance by multiplying difference/3 %.
• Stealing is harder closer to deed center and in the vicinity of guards. The 5 tiles closest to the token can be considered extremely safe. The difficulty of stealing things is based on the quality level of the item you steal, so in order to start gaining skill you should steal low quality items.
• Stealing and lockpicking only works on PvP servers.
• Compasses are now affected by WoA
• There's now a difference between CA and CM. CM's may mute and /support calls now go to the CMs who may elevate them to the GM's in case they can't help out.
• Since stealing skillgain was tweaked using a new system everyone on the epic servers had their stealing skill multiplied down to 20%.

120228 Reputation tweaks

• Reputation hits for attacking and killing have been tweaked since it caused reversed grief. This applies to PvP servers where you can attack eachother. You now take 20 rep hit when killing same kingdom (unless within deed perimeter, or duelling etc) so you can deal with griefers a few times. On the other hand it should be fairly slow business hunting newbies for griefers. If you attack someone out of the blue you get stamped as Hunted for half an hour which means anyone can kill you without penalty. This stays over respawn. The only "supported solution" on PvP servers is to get a deed for any land you claim otherwise the game considers it free-for-all. On non-homeservers (Elevation) there is no penalty at all.
• Magranon now has the spell locate artifact
• Some people on Elevation found an exploitish situation where they were gaining body control too fast. The skills involved were modified down to more sane levels.

120217 Mount turn rate tweaked

• The turn rate for mounts were toned down and you automatically move forward slowly when pressing left or right (A or D)
• Login problems solved
• Improving arrows now takes half time
• More typed creatures should spawn around dens

120215 Movement changes

• The bug with doors that appeared in the latest update was resolved
• Boat speeds were tweaked and should work better with more passengers
• Mounted movement backwards is now done at 1/3 speed. Turning was made faster.
• Improved speed hack detection and prevention
• A bug where Web Armour slowed down creatures too long was fixed
• Fixed a bug with names disappearing out of local
• The HOTA was fixed
• Model size multiplicator for items (visual change only) now has a max value of 5
• Shield bashing now toggles the icon properly
• Armour while worn will make Oakshell inactive on that bodypart

120210 Lockpicking

• Lockpicking has been turned into a normal grindable skill which you can practice at home. Previously it gave a bonus when the game considered it to be dangerous but those situations were always avoidable. Two players on Epic have had their skills trimmed to 30 since they gained it in an overly easy way that wasn't reported.

120201 Stamina regain while swimming bugfix

• You now properly regain stamina offline gradually up to max after 6 hours.
• You should now receive a message in green when someone from your own kingdom attacks you and you are able to attack the player back without a reputation hit.

120131 A few Tuesday bugfixes

• Polearm damage bonus was increased to 2.5 versus mounted. Spears also do this damage versus mounts.
• Disbanding now properly modifies alliances
• Kingdom tower ritual missions should now only spawn on enemy home servers and non-home servers (Elevation) properly.
• Enemy presense should now trigger for enemy alliances
• A bug with epic portals allowing you to travel back to your start epic server should have been fixed.

120127 Voice chat confusion

• Funny, the proximity voice chat we're advertising experiences some account confusion so the chat clients don't manage to log on to the system. The error is on our side but we probably can't fix it during the weekend so you'll have to wait until next week. Three cheers!

120126 New Client!

Client update - version 3.1!

• Voice chat enabled. Try out the automatic proximity chat!
• New 3D model format supported with things like bones, skinning, mesh replacement and forward kinetics. This will enable us to add new and improved models and animations.
• Most players should experience better overall performance. You can tweak animation settings in the options panel.
• Lots of small bug fixes and improvements like this item selection fix: Hovering over items with the mouse should select them properly now around the edges.
• Support for ingame seasons. Not yet implemented.
• And of course Gui improvements!

Server changes:

• The Link option should work on tree and farm tiles now.
• Stealing certain items usable only on ground that didn't work before should now work.
• Led creatures now receive a combat rating penalty
• Opponents on mounts no longer need to be moving in order to receive double damage from polearms when the attacker is on foot
• The reputation system for attacking players from the same kingdom on PvP servers received several improvements:
  • There was a reputation hit for killing outlaw allies. Fixed.
  • You may now kill anyone inside your perimeter without reputation hit.
  • You now only receive a reputation hit when a wall of a non-deeded structure from the same kingdom is destroyed instead of previously when attacking it.
  • You will receive a small reputation hit when you first attack someone where it is not allowed. If you are attacked in such a manner you should receive no penalty for slaying the person. The effect stays until you die or until there is a restart.
  • Slaying or attacking someone in PvP zones, duelling areas, and during duels should give no reputation hits.
• A note: Armour made from glimmersteel or adamantine give better protection. Attack speed of weapons made from glimmersteel is often higher and damage dealt from adamantine. Decay and damage taken by items made from those materials should be a lot less. You can find them in terraforming events on Epic or by winning HotA tournaments.
• The statues won in Hunts of the Ancients should now be plantable like signs.
• The Affliction server (HOTS home) is now free to play.
• You should now be able to spawn on all permanent villages on a home server.

120125 The Hunter's Lodge

• A new settlement has been founded on the west border of the HotA zone on Chaos in order to facilitate joining the Hunt of the Ancients. "Hunter's Lodge" is the new default spawnpoint on the server even if spawning at The Landing still should be possible. New players arriving on Chaos will spawn at Hunter's Lodge.

120120 Damage properly applied in PvP zones

• The increased damage on walls and fences as well as the Mine Door restriction is now properly restricted to PvP zones.
• The Village settting should be saved now when creating such settlement roles.
• The HotA pillar distribution was skewed and too easy. Next hunt they will be more properly distributed in the zone.

120119 Boat kicking and tweak to PvP zones

• The Village setting for new village specific roles isn't saved unless you change to another village then back to the one you want to apply the role for. Or create with the wrong Village and set it to the proper Village afterwards. The bug is fixed next update.
• Boats should stop before the border now instead of kicking you when you are not allowed to to leave the server in the boat.
• Fences and walls now take 10 times damage off deed in PvP zones. No mine doors can be built in PvP zones.

120118 Hunt zones created

• On the Chaos and on the Elevation servers, special Hunt zones have been created. A short description is on http://www.wurmonline.com/blog. Enjoy!

120118 Duelling rings and inventory merges

• You should now gain fight skill if you slay premium players with skill 20+ of an opposing alliance
• Duelling rings were added close to the start cities on the Epic servers for removing unwanted kingdom rulers of the non-custom kingdoms
• Boats on PvP servers no longer have the village or friend restriction when changing servers
• Because of possible duplicates causing one copy to be automatically deleted, inventories will no longer merge when travelling to or from Chaos like they used to after it joined the freedom cluster

120117 New Alliance System

• The new alliance system is now active and old alliances had to be removed. You have to form new alliances by meeting up with diplomats from other settlements. In the new alliances, there is one settlement that is the 'capital'. The Mayor from the capital may oust your settlement from the alliance and declare wars on other alliances on PvP Servers. Alliance war have to be accepted in order to not give reputation hits for kills.
• You may create special village roles for different villages in order to control other members of the alliance.
• Killing someone from the same kingdom outside PvP Areas will give a reputation hit unless you are at war. Killing someone from the same alliance or village within the PvP zone will still give reputation hit.
• You should no longer become invulnerable when you lose link since linkdropping was abused. The auto invulnerability when you log on still remains.
• Players from warring alliances should be able to loot eachother.
• As a diplomat, you may still declare war on other single villages but it does not involve the alliance. The future of this feature is uncertain.
• In the freedom cluster, if you become outlaw you are now also kicked out of your village.
• There is also alliance chat. If it doesn't turn up automatically, you may have to type /all <text>.

120113 Voice chat being tampered with

• We are updating the voice chat binaries with a fix for unstable and it won't work during the weekend.
• Sacrificing Valrei items should work on all Epic servers.
• Epic creatures will no longer spawn in the Freedom cluster.

120111 Upcoming changes to alliances

• Alliances will change in the near future so that a settlement may only belong to one alliance. There will be one town in charge of the alliance and its diplomats will be able to add or oust other settlements to the alliance. The town that invites another town to form an alliance becomes the alliance capital, but this can be changed later on. Diplomats of a settlement may make the settlement leave the alliance.
• This means that you will have to recreate your existing alliances when that update comes. Please take any steps necessary in order to prepare for a smooth transition to the new system.
• The reason that we change it is for clarity and things like alliance chat. The reason that we don't keep both system at the same time is that it would cause confusing bugridden code and alliance loops. Expect this new code early next week, but in case we run into some serious bug that must be fixed it may happen before the weekend.

120109 Nogump nerf among other things

• The Sons of Nogump have been nerfed and an extra check for throwing through walls was added. Valrei creatures should no longer spawn inside houses or settlements.
• Lockpicking on pvp servers received a bug fix.
• You should now be able to send mail between the Chaos server and the other Freedom servers.
• Fix to fletching where heads were not consumed properly.
• Changing server with boat from Chaos should work better for villagers and friends

120105 Non-prem priests bugfix and structure option

• You should no longer be thrown into structures by uniques during combat.
• There is now an option to allow your kingdom to enter structures (thanks Zcul for coding).
• Non-premium priests was was a favor linking loophole which should be plugged now.

120102 2012

• Happy New Year dear Wurmians! This year we'll see some real progress with graphics and lots of game improvements both in existing features and plans are to solve multi storey buildings and bridges as first projects. We also want to add a lot more construction options and hopefully we'll be able to look at things like rivers and seasons before this summer.
• Creatures summoned by the deities on Valrei like the Drakespirits will appear a lot less on non-Epic servers. They will send 1 where before they could send up to 15. Additionally, on Epic servers the toughness of the creatures summoned will be considered so fewer will spawn the tougher they are.
• Uniques may bash house walls with higher probability now.