[ViewVC] Annotation of: cvs/deliantra/server/Changes

Deliantra MORPG Server, Maps and Archetypes ChangeLog.
Version numbers sort like decimal numbers.

2.74 Mon Dec 29 15:23:38 CET 2008
        - fix a longstanding bug that teared multipart monsters
          at map boundaries apart.
        - temporarily make permanently invisible player visible when
          he/she makes noise.
        - fix being able to see through walls a bit.
        - improve look at output.
        - completely replaced the line of sight algorithm with a variant
          of spiral fov capable of visibility grades and arbitrary
          shadow angles, that uses less memory and less code.
        - the new los code supports arbitrary map rectangles and loosens
          other restrictions of the old code, supporitng further optimisations.
        - udpate los if blocksview-objects are inserted in a map, not just when
          removed (e.g. for summon fog).
        - permanent invisibility doesn't make immune against making noise:
          implement a noise system that allows monsters to locate the player
          when he/she makes noise.
        - implement a primitive smell system that monsters can use to track
          players.
        - create bomb now also works when casted by door traps.
        - (arch) new torch graphics.
        - (maps) considerably soften the subway spider.
        - (maps) made the portgate of navar safe ground, to protect
          the guards from being killed by players.
        - no maximum darkness for outdoor maps anymore.
        - add more hints, fix some messages.
        - fix a bug: firing rods should tell you something about them.
        - make light additive even within players.
        - darken xrays effect a bit.
        - improve handling of los changes when inserting or removing
          objects, not perfect yet.
        - make map darkness signed (formerly unsigned) to allow
          ambient lighting and centrally manage darkness as an offset.
        - revamped, fixed and documented the server calendrics, also
          tell users the current time and data, to improve awareness.
        - implement proper wizlook flag and handling of wizlook, instead
          of dumbly just clearing los once.
        - speed up los code - it's now about 2-3 times as fast as the old one,
          and has a smaller runtime variance.
        - daylight/nightfall can now increase/decrease past the natural limit,
          making them actually useful.
        - see_in_dark now increases the viewing radius by 3.
        - implement a fast tiled map iterator and use it in LOS for a 20%
          speedup, as well as in many other places.
        - remove support for extended map infos - these are not used
          by the deliantra client and removing them gives us a 10% speedup
          when sending map changes.
        - remove most gcfclient and other client bug workarounds, as well
          as now obsolete protocol versions, simplying the code.
        - optimise and simplify generation of random numbers.
        - correctly provide a non-zero default density for materials, to
          avoid crashes, fix other bugs in the material handling code.
        - fix volume calculations.
        - fix cfpod parsing when multiple verbatim blocks were separated by
          newlines.
        - increase monster detection radius from wis/5 to wis/3.
        - remove old pickup modes.
        - remove obsolete disarm and search commands (search wasn't working
          anyways).
        - fix a crash when an npc applied a sign.

2.73 Thu Dec 18 20:56:31 CET 2008
        - this release is assumed to be very stable.
        - (maps) radically redesigned and improved tutorial.
        - directional casting no longer immediately removes the invisible effect.
        - magic ears now trigger when used inside the NPC dialogue.
        - fix overflow in lighting calculations.
        - negative glow radii can no longer cause total darkness.
        - allow lookat on spaces where we only barely see, as opposed to
          only maximally-lit ones.
        - class selection has been reworked completely and their documentation corrected.
        - swashbucklers got the oratory skill now.
        - jump skill was fixed to adhere to all the flags a mapspace has got.
        - (maps) small fix w.r.t. magic ear in /scorn/houses/wizz.entry
        - fix deadlock in Jeweler::improve_ring_by_plan.
        - use Coro::SemaphoreSet instead of our own lock management
          (which was probably broken, too).
        - support negative glow radii during daytime, too.
        - use circular, not rectangular, viewing area.
        - use minimum viewing distance of 2 in outdoor maps.
        - negative glow is stronger than viewing area or lamps.
        - (arch) new darkness spell face.

2.72 Thu Dec  4 22:20:19 CET 2008
        - (maps) completely redesigned scorn.
        - "cast light" now works on oneself.
        - bump max light radius to 9, rewrote glow lighting calculations, fix
          negative glow radii again (they were totally broken before).
        - the "worldmaps sometimes are black" bug is finally fixed.
        - the "player objects are referenced in _GENxx globals" bug has finally
          been fixed, by not relying on buggy perl internals when serialising.
        - fixed a long standing bug in the anvil converters in armour shops.
        - items shops weren't interested in don't vanish anymore, and are given
          back to the player.
        - attuned/repell and spell base level system reworked.
        - rewrote skill cache (last_skill_ob) system and usage - might
          be less erratic now.
        - refuse to write the uuid file if the uuid is zero
          (to avoid writing it in early crashes).
        - pathsync the directory after saving a file for added slowdown^Wsafety.
        - speed up emergency_save by not syncing every file separately.
        - no longer reattach perl to every object on reload, it's slow, and no longer
          necessary since we don't nuke stashes anymore.
        - do not bootstrap perl from the commandline args, use separate eval for
          better error reporting.
        - fix a crash when pushing cone spells met ice attacks.
        - pre-cache perl extension files on reload to speed up the reload.
        - speed up map refresh in server a bit.
        - refactored drop code and fixed some programming errors in it.
        - fixed small regression in 'Slag Ex' potion extension.
        - fixed a bug where some objects couldn't cross map tile boundaries.
        - fixed a bug with weight update of the player, the client showed -0.0
          as the current weight of the inventory.
        - (arch) the dragonbreath spell is level 12 again, but the high level spell
          dragonfire has been introduced for the non-dragon players.
        - remove unused "tooltype", "start_holding" object slots.
        - change "weapontype" object slot to uint8.
        - convert "hide" object slot into flag.
        - reorder object members for better locality of reference and codesize
          decrease.
        - correct rounding in lerp, add lerp_rd, lerp_ru.
        - fix a crash when no skill could be found when killing amonster.
        - fix a small memleak that would eat one pointer on the perl stack for
          every completed aio operation.
        - perl mapspace acessor methods now normalise (handle tiled maps)
          and update mapspaces if necessary.

2.71 Tue Sep 23 07:02:23 CEST 2008
        - removed all command line parsing, only env variables are supported
          anymore.
        - region-specific monsters will now once more be on the worldmap.
        - fix a disastrous "memleak" where temporary memory allocations
          would grow out of bounds.
        - server now writes a pidfile and makes sure its alter ego is killed.
        - fixed a double-escaping bug in the pod-parser.
        - rewrote the cfpod parser in C++.
        - hintmode moved to C++, players need to re-set their hintmode if
          they dislike "show".
        - fix RIP inscription.
        - bump login name length from 18 to 20 char max.
        - correctly support gender in emotes.
        - correctly support gender in the death messages.
        - correctly generate death messages for players only when they really die,
          with increased information.
        - fix a bug in the dynbuf code that could potentially lead to crashes
          and data corruption (but apparently was never triggered).
        - close the $ENV{LOCKUTIL_LOCK_FD} fd if in the env, for lockutil.
        - make sure Compress::LZF acquires the storable lock, might fix some
          data corruption bug.
        - tweak coredumping/monitoring a bit.
        - completely redid server initialisation to hopefully avoid rare races.
        - do not crash in the loader when an inventory object could not be loaded
          (from a corrupted file).
        - redid skills command to send output to proper channel.
        - object->map is no longer refcounting.
        - add FLAG_DEBUG for internal debugging.
        - add NDI_VERBATIM flag to send_msg.
        - add perl backtraces to logBacktrace-initiated backtraces.
        - player->exists is no longer a sync_job.
        - split login.ext's player scheduler into
          it's own player-scheduler.ext extension.

2.7  Sun Sep  7 16:32:03 CEST 2008
        - require perl 5.10.
        - make nrof signed, so that code that checks for underflow actually works.
        - swap player and observed count's on the map when observing.
        - add (mostly untested) mapspace perl class and accessors.
        - re-"calibrate" value/weight autopickup to be silver/kg >= pickup*100.
        - fix a crash in cast_bless (restoration et al.) when no target
          could be found.
        - pits now have a configurable "random spread" range and default
          to a radius of two now.
        - rewrite pay_player_arch.
        - use a more stable perl_reload implementation.
        - do not use Symbol::delete_package (causes crashes after perl-reload),
          use our own, safer, clear_package instead.
        - when asynchronously dumping core, close all file handles to allow
          the server to restart concurrently.
        - improve the cfpod parser to generate proper xml from proper cfpod
          sequences, without double-encoding. it should be faster, too.
        - the above fixes wrong display of help tetx and many other issues.
        - use lzf and frag packets for large messages for clients supporting them
          (0.9976+), use it for long books and other messages.
        - eradicate listen command and corresponding code.
        - eradicate logs command.
        - let the client log into the server log, used for crash backtraces.
        - fixed rods/wands/etc. with randomitem spells on maps, but broke
          old style spell objects with the spell magic bullet.
        - (arch) fixed skill less rods in the archetypes

2.61 Sun Aug  3 17:59:50 CEST 2008
        - made jeweler workbench larger and some other minor map
          changes in jeweler town.
        - fixed wrong item handling in jeweler skill code.
        - (arch) use a special "key_random_map" for random map keys
          that are used up.
        - fix a crash when the player who was observed has logged out long
          enough for his region/map to be gone.
        - port to g++-4.3's incompatible tr1 changes.
        - add some missing dependencies.
        - log to /var/log/deliantra/ by default.
        - hack observe code to enable smooth movmenet when observing.

2.6  Sun Jul 20 18:58:08 CEST 2008
        - (maps) extension of the jeweler quest/skill/town
        - correctly move gsay to the party channel.
        - fix a crash when animate weapon was used in some areas.
        - fixed unnecessary identification of by converters created objects.
        - (maps) tutorial now contains clues about chatting and talking
                 with NPCs.
        - (arch) dragon scales got proper type now
        - object::decrease would sometimes cause container weights to
          be wrong, this has been fixed.
        - do not send time updates for newly-seen items.
        - thawing an icecube will once more drop its contents to the ground.
        - fix cone spells etc. going through walls sometimes.
        - fix a weight update bug that sometimes left containers
          with wrong weights.
        - added auto_apply event and extension for shop tiles.
        - work around get_map_flags invoking perl and switching the stack.
        - make sure the map is loaded when using a town portal return.
        - fixed a bug with caching of sp/grace/food points for spells
          where healing spells didn't cost any grace.
        - fix starvation kill reason.
        - fix pk killer name message.
        - don't let people apply signs with @match.
        - add support for berkeley db 4.7 (the new BDB module also fixes
          what seems to be the biggets memleak in the server).

2.56  Wed Jun  4 10:50:40 CEST 2008
        - require Coro 4.73 which contains an important performance-bugfix.
        - use anyevent to manage listen ports (this enables IPv6 support).
        - server supports ipv6 client connections now.
        - use newly-available Coro::AnyEvent.
        - get rid of the AnyEvent::AIO watcher, start the event thread earlier
          to let it handle AIO requests.

2.55  Sat May 24 19:52:52 CEST 2008
        - avoid newmap commands when crossing tiled map boundaries. this speeds up
          processing considerably (especially in the client) and reduces data transfers
          (saves roughly 1kb each crossing in typical configs). works even with gcfclient.
        - (arch) fix typo in ixalovh treasurelist causing empty_archetypes to appear.
        - (map) fixed npc dialogue in pup_land/s_f/special.
        - bugfix: fix a crash when a player casts a swarm spell and then logs out
          (swarm spells now stay in the player's inventory).
        - bugfix: when unapplying skills also remove them from the range/combat slots.
        - bugfix: do not merge items whose archetype name merges, use the
          archetype *archname* (chairs of different facings were merged).
        - bugfix: fix a potential crash issue in find_object_name (not used
          normally).
        - bugfix: locked doors cnanot be bashed down by magical means
          (destruction, magic missile etc.).
        - swarm spells without a direction now use various spiral patterns
          instead of being fully random.
        - update AnyEvent API to 3.4 and above.

2.54  Thu May  8 22:01:22 CEST 2008
        - change floorbox item ordering to enable more efficient protocol and to
          stay in sync with the 0.9971 client update which also reverses ordering.
        - bugfix: the jumping skill now gives experience for jumping
          and for attacking monsters. it also takes about one second to do a jump.
        - bugfix: players couldn't starve in 2.53 :(
        - bugfix: correctly send the client a del_spell when a spell gets removed.
        - bugfix: spell effects like word of recall are removed on death.
        - bugfix: fix a crash when objects with treasure on top (ground...)
          were created outside a map.
        - bugfix: couldn't apply inventory items when levitating, but ground items
          (fixed by reversing the logic).
        - bugfix: fixed a mismatched '"' in the debugging description of objects
        - bugfix: the random map generator no longer leaks key objects.
        - bugfix: support random maps >127x127.
        - (maps) fixed the death certificate system in nimbus.
        - (maps) rebalance onefang, build a road to onefang, temporarily closed zorn.
        - (arch) the material 'wood' was undefined, it's now a burnable material.
        - (arch) give ball lightning a real name.
        - (arch) fixed material of bones (was 'wood', is now 'bone')
        - support cfpod in ex replies (client item tooltips).
        - unapply item in range slow when readying a spell.
        - bugfix: account for rounding errors in weight updates.
        - remove synchronous mkdir in chargen_race_done.
        - fix per-race starting maps.
        - check hiscore on suicide and quit as well.
        - tell players when they are starving.
        - get rid of costly object_from_name conversion for altar effects.
        - fix map difficulty calculation for generators.
        - slightly more intelligent handling of "is_animated" flag.
        - support no_drop map header flag (before it was only available internally).
        - make random-map-generated keys crumble after one hour, use more unique slaying.

2.53  Sun May  4 17:32:48 CEST 2008
        - bugfix: custom skill settings were not saved by the server.
        - bugfix: remove did not actually remove items from the inventory, leaving
          ghost items.
        - bugfix: properly update items identified on the ground.
        - bugfix: use localtime_r in the logger thread.
        - bugfix: player starvation will now give the correct kill reason.
        - bugfix: archetype reloads could crash the server.
        - bugfix: the mailscrolls are now correctly handed out even when the destination
          player is not logged in.
        - bugfix: make list_logins non-blocking (glaring oversight). this caused the lag at
          server startup.
        - bugfix: fix the door surround check in the random map generator.
        - (maps) fix heaven quest difficulty progression.
        - (maps) fix some random map styles.
        - dropping items a shop is not interested in won't sell them anymore.
        - rods and horns with a too low maximum charge allow now at least one discharge.
        - implement kill & death statistics.
        - random map preparation is no longer synchronous.
        - rewrite find_style in perl, no longer does synchronous I/O.
        - improve random map specials placement.
        - make the killer a real object pointer instead of a string, improved
          kill reason messages.
        - take advantage of new aio_close and aio_chmod.
        - implement archetype::get, object::deep_clone and update callers.
        - change_abil is much faster.
        - update the floorbox more often to work around the reverses item order
          display in clients.
        - cleaned up object copying by encapsulating it to a single place.
        - add hints to the invite messages.
        - rewrote key<->value pair handling.
        - use an independent random number generator for the random map generator.

2.52  Thu Apr 24 11:47:19 CEST 2008
        - completely automate the item add/delete on remove/insert. this should fix
          all "ghost" item bugs caused by sloppy coding, as sloppy coding is now correct :)
        - completely automate the weight handling, should fix all weight
          accounting bugs caused by sloppy coding, as sloppy coding is now correct :)
        - reloading archetypes while a user was in the character creation phase
          could crash the server.
        - fix a nontrivial number of cases of code commented similar
          to "is this really correct?", as many of those cases are now handles
          automatically by lower level code.
        - replace many ad-hoc checks for client visibility by object::visible_to,
          should result in broader applicability of functions using it.
        - merge items with different arch pointers refering to the same arch
          (due to archetype reloads).
        - refactored the object remove/insert functions and most related
          functions (decrease, split, merge_ob etc.).
        - make it compile better on freebsd (reported by pippijn).
        - remove GT_UPDATE_INV (no longer applicable).
        - fix the longstanding "container stays open" bug.
        - improved floorbox updating to be incremental and other protocol
          optimisations.
        - get rid of update_after_inventory_change and only do update stats
          for weight once/tick/player at max.
        - rewrite party commands, use party channel.

2.51  Sun Apr 20 21:27:37 CEST 2008
        - properly link against libgthread as that is needed to make the slice
          allocator thread-safe.
        - support perls not compiled with 64 bit support (though this is not a
          recommended configuration) (reported by Samuel Gondouin).
        - always put godgiven items into the player inventory, never any containers.
        - (maps, arch) the scorn go club was founded!
        - (arch) do no longer support player abilities, they didn't work anyways.
        - (arch) the alchemy spell is now of the alchemy spell school, which
          became a real spell-class.
        - (arch) the alchemist class now get an alchemy spell book for new characters.
        - (arch) considerably strengthened spark shower and destruction.
        - match archetypes by name, not by ptr, in treasure.C, this makes archetypes
          finally reloadable at runtime.
        - changed archetype loading algorithm to only require one pass and
          use delayed resolving of references.
        - examine command now uses the examine infobox.
        - implement an "incremental garbage collector" for archetypes.
        - enable slice allocator again.
        - implement optional free memory poisoning.

2.5  Wed Apr 16 15:06:53 CEST 2008
        - the two handed weapon skill can no longer be used as unarmed combat
          skill.
        - append [drop xxx coins] to altar/trigger_altar/identify_table/converter
          names (also update all maps to use money instead of coins).
        - add uuid accessors to perl.
        - add coin names and archetype accessors to perl.
        - fix runtime uuid file format to use "." instead of ",".
        - change perl extensions to not use hardcoded coins and values.
        - write uuids asynchronously (no hiccups due to uuid writes)
          and be more parsimonous of uuid usage by the exact value out on exit.
        - write log messages in another thread, removing another sync point.
        - support multi-line log messages in a nicer way.
        - be more portable w.r.t. uuids and format specifiers everywhere.
        - fix a minor memleak in the random map generator.
        - some parts of the random map generator are not coroutine-safe,
          so only call it "single-threaded".
        - major cleanup of memory management in random map generator.
        - slight refactoring of the random map generator, faster too.
        - solve the "slice_alloc becomes negative" mystery - no allocation bug,
          bookkeeping bug.
        - work around "player is on active list" problem by deactivating player
          after loading.
        - garbage collect shstr's more evenly and adaptively only when
          there have in fact been allocations.
        - fix object::insert to do as documented and insert into the env
          if necessary.
        - fix cf::map::unique_maps.
        - fix nrof overflow check in can_merge_slow.
        - fix converter code to handle >31 bit values.
        - added support for the player_sold flag
        - converters no longer accept unpaid items.
        - canonicalize random map meta files for better unification.

2.43 Sun Apr  6 20:35:29 CEST 2008
        - work around a glibc bug that causes calloc to return non-zero memory
          when mlockall has been used.
        - pass environment to perl_sys_init3, as required by newer perls.
        - use separate thread for ticker timing (and more in the future).
          this greatly increases timing accuracy and gets rid of an enourmous
          number of gettimeofday calls.
        - use a separate thread to signal aio completion, for lower latency.
        - require Coro 4.47, which fixes a data corruption bug with its C API.

2.42 Sat Mar 15 12:05:21 CET 2008
        - rebalanced default experience table to be more exponential
          and much easier up to level ~40, then moderately harder.
        - change attuned/repelled level boni to +-8 from +-2.
        - use SvUPGRADE to avoid exception in sv_upgrade with perl 5.10.
        - do not exit on reload/load errors but properly cleanup.
        - fix a 32 bit uncleanlyness in the slice debugging wrapper.

2.41 Fri Jan 25 13:15:37 CET 2008
        - get rid of YAML::Syck, it's too buggy and misparses many files
          (this fixes the jeweler skill).
        - back-to-back perl_reloads don't freeze the ticker anymore.
        - convert cfutil from Event to EV (forgot to do this earlier...).
        - move tombstone to real map if player died due to cave-in (even if
          it has reset, which is better than putting it on the savebed, also as
          proof that the palyer didn't use a savebed).

2.4  Sun Jan 13 13:41:29 CET 2008
        - work around perl bug in configure perl module version check.
        - fix bug in golem move code that would cause a crash at tiling borders.
        - fix a freeze bug when looking for an arrow in the inventory.
        - fix a bug in animate_weapon, causing a crash.
        - no longer exit when a coroutine throws an exception.
        - fix a potential double free bug (nicely exploited by g++ 4.2).
        - fix the "<player> is nuts" message.
        - fix an exception at logout due to the json_coder being gone.
        - upgrade to EV version 2.0 API.
        - when players don't apply a savebed correctly but stand above one,
          do not move or kill them.
        - implement client-side settings page in playerbook (0.9963+ required).
        - implement generic framework for server-side resource files.
        - implement resource file update event.
        - hook experience table update into the framework.
        - move jeweler.yaml to resources (arch/).
        - switch from Crossfire to Deliantra perl module.
        - implement json2json arch filter.
        - implement widget protocol version 2, support for ui templates.
        - mapinfo is now handled fully asynchronously.
        - ext/irc: also log irc messages.
        - ext/schmorplog: write user stat files asynchronously.

2.32 Sun Dec  2 18:11:01 CET 2007
        - limited the number of items that can be picked up and dropped
          as temporary measurement against bad performance or dropping things
          (this lead to long freezes and triggered the watchdog).
        - improved the performance of the drop command a bit.
        - switch from Event to EV for higher performance, easier usage,
          less bugs...
        - updated to release version of the gnu affero license.

2.31 Sun Nov 11 17:26:28 CET 2007
        - more thoroughly rename the binaries, contact addresses.
        - update the copyrights.
        - avoid backtraces due to old spells on some maps, sometimes causing
          crashes.
        - fix a problem where facedata wasn't initialised to zero properly,
          potentially causing crashes.
        - assign weapons on user load time, not login-time, avoiding
          crashes.

2.3  Sat Oct 27 11:22:38 CEST 2007
        - fixed an important bug that caused passwords to be forgotten.
        - implement *tag destinations for goto, slaying etc. and use it
          in some of the maps.
        - bigworldised many maps (islands as in pupland and aldwulf),
          which is now trivial to do.
        - removed all traces of the old (and never working) plug-in interface
          (70kb code less on amd64).
        - improve/tune scheduling priorities.
        - fix some freezing bugs.
        - fix a memory corruption problem in dynbuf.printf.
        - use channels for chat and many informational commands.
        - improved the tutorial.
        - create missile is now fixed.
        - race fields must now contain archetypes.
        - jumping skill now works as advertised.

2.2  Tue Sep 11 15:41:24 CEST 2007
        - relicense under the gnu affero license.
        - new inscription skill, can only inscribe INSCRIBABLE items.
        - implement server-side framework for generic resources.
        - use resource framework for server-provided ambient
          music.
        - save object owners (players only atm).
        - replace limited sound api with server-provided sound effects.
        - new sc (sound control) protocol command.
        - improve fxix protocol to include types.
        - exactly fill tcp segments, if possible.
        - output-rate is now an upper limit, the server will automatically
          (and quite perfectly) adjust to the network conditions, ensuring
          low latency even during bulk transfers (music, images, sounds etc.).
        - implement server-side widgets (i.e. client widgets controlled
          in the server side). this will allow future expansion without
          having to upgrade clients.
        - implement a (artwork) world map with realtime player position
          tracking.
        - new and more efficient extcmd (server still supports old extcmd
          protocol).
        - fixed lots of underflow/overflow bugs in diseases and general stats
          calcluation that could be easily exploited by users.
        - rebalanced diseases to spread more naturally/evenly.
        - completely asynchronous map loading even for tiled maps.
        - replace simple messaging protocol with channels carrying metadata
          (similar to message types, but more directed at the user).
        - reduce command processing latency by a whopping 120ms by
          reordering some processing steps inside the server. this directly
          reduces lag by 120ms.
        - actually send spell faces to the client.
        - implement player genders.
        - unclean logout/login results in: nothing if map hasn't reset,
          otherwise return to savebed and possible kill if the log-out
          was for too long.
        - fast socket-dead detection (kick player after 8 seconds without ack).
        - greatly reduce the cpu time needed to draw maps _again_.
        - archetypes are now subclasses of objects.
        - rebalanced shop greed and approval functions to be more realistic
          (and likely match the actual intention).
        - implement "crossfire pod" format for messages, with working bold,
          italic, gender-specific text, paragraphs etc.
        - implemented hint framework, players can opt to receive hints.
        - implemented (long) book framework, added some books from the cf wiki.
        - implement generic message framework that uses xml, utf8 for the client
          protocol and is capable of transmitting generic meta information.
        - implement (in a suboptimal way) per-player instantiated maps.
        - replace the nexus by a per-player tutorial map that teaches stuff
          better than the newbie house.
        - fix the magicmap colours.
        - optimise map update even more by removing unneeded code and checks.
        - decouple map and stats update from pl->ob and use pl->observe instead.
        - implement observe command.
        - major speed up in map refresh by replacing most get_map_from_coord
          calls with a simple comparison.
        - fix a latent crossfire bug that could crash the server because the
          map refresh did not update the mapspace.
        - support custom keys for regions and maps, regions are now
          refcount-managed.
        - allow worldmap overlays anywhere in the 000..999 range.
        - new system to acquire time slices for background jobs, to reduce
          jitter.
        - semi-persistent object-referencing framework (currently only players
          supported).
        - dependency tracking for perl extensions.
        - new slag-ex extension for cleaning cauldrons.
        - fix invoke result processing.
        - there are even less i/o syncpoints in the server now.
        - added map-tags extension that scans all maps for object tags
          and records them in the database (not used yet).
        - metaserver 2 support.
        - many more bugfixes and minor optimisations.

2.1  Sun May 27 04:21:29 CEST 2007
        - optimised event invocation (non-wanted events can now be
          skipped with 4-5 inlined instructions).
        - complete rewrite of town_portal: it now creates a portal
          to the "nearest" town only, travel is only possible
          to the town and back, anybody can use it (also removes
          one of the remaining syncpoints in the server).
        - complete rewrite of the range/attack skill slot system:
          there are now two slots, one for combat, one for ranged
          attacks.
        - introduce the concept of a current weapon (either a ranged
          or a combat weapon/skill/tool) and switch between them as
          needed.
        - rewrite bow code so bows get more useful: apply damage,
          attacktype and other stats to the arrows and treat
          bows as weapons. also rebalance the missile weapons skill
          so its damage increases with level.
        - rewrite the complete player speed logic: weapon_speed now
          works as documented and there are no unnatural speed boosts.
        - implement a utility - cfutil - that simplifies arch and map
          installation, replacing the old collect scripts and
          simplying deployment by scaling and cutting faces as required.
        - simplify the map protocol extensively by taking advantage
          of missing bigfaces, speeding up map generation immensely.
        - implement inherit keyword allowing archetypes to inherit from
          other archetypes.
        - rationalise archetype, region and treasurelist file format
          into a single file format and make them reloadable asynchronously.
        - make the worldmap, facedata (smoothing, faces, magicmap)
          reloadable at runtime.
        - implement 64x64 faceset support.
        - implement fxixsx protocol that saves
          a lot of bandwidth over the old image/face/smooth packets
          and allows images > packetsize, incremental and background
          transfers.
        - implement a bandwidth-saving smoothing protocol that works
          on a face basis as opposed to a mapspace basis.
        - the server can now rate-limit image uploads to not exceed
          a certain (client-configurable) speed while guarenteeing full
          freedom of movement.
        - implement new ex command to request item descriptions.
        - implement new msg command for in-game messages with meta
          information (using xml).
        - enforce utf-8 for all text messages.
        - added micropather (not used yet).
        - many, many bugfixes.

2.0  Tue Mar  6 15:22:53 CET 2007
        - make coroapi accessible to cf+.
        - moved map handling logic completely to perl
        - per player maps are now marked in the map
        - maps are saved completely differently now,
          and much more often.
        - rewrote map header parser and writer, to be much faster.
        - maps and players are now (in the average case) loaded
          and saved completely asynchronously, I/O contention will no
          longer freeze the server.
        - players and maps can be loaded anytime, without the player
          being logged in.
        - automatically generate method interfaces for perl from headers
        - unbundled freezethaw
        - mostly rewrote common/map.C
        - completely rewrite server/swap.C
        - introduced "runtime", the CCT clock (corrected crossfire time) :)
        - introduced new keyword for map files: file_format_version (integer, server version: 0)
        - better message for apply failures due to applymode
        - removed most all of the weather code
        - unified logging to stderr and file
        - too many minor changes to document
Revision:	1.309
Committed:	Mon Dec 29 14:32:51 2008 UTC (15 years, 4 months ago) by root
Branch:	MAIN
CVS Tags:	rel-2_74
Changes since 1.308:	+1 -22 lines
Log Message:	2.74