www/src/news-archive.pod

=head1 News Archive

=meta language en-us

=meta link http://cf.schmorp.de/

=head2 2007-07-14

Finally, after much testing, the die-on-log-out code has been enabled.
Now, if you disconnect without using a savebed and the map resets and you were
logged out for too long, you will die. Always use a savebed. On the brighter side,
the server now supports per-area and per-map background music. Already two hours
of music are available. For this to work you currently need the CVS version of CFPlus,
but a general release of CFPlus is to be expected soon.

=head2 2007-07-02

Moved Crossfire TRT to a mix of GPL version 3 and Affero
license. Together with the new sourcecode command, this will avoid the
danger of Companies or People locking up improvements behind a server.
As minor changes, the server now supports hint messages and a new
hintmode command, as well as much better message formatting capabilities.

=head2 2007-06-09

The nexus after character creation has been nuked
and replaced by a tutorial map which was posted on the crossfire
mailing list long ago (with some changes). Town portal scrolls are
now available in shops and elsewhere. A non-visible change was
a rework of the archetype code (keep an eye on weird behaviour and drop
us a mail if you find anything :-).

=head2 2007-05-29

The server maimnboard died and has been replaced. The root
disk also died and has not been replaced and for various reasons we
have a shortage of disks in the server now, which leads to crossfire
freezing sometimes due to I/O starvation on the machine (which is
doing heavy stuff). This will be rectified ince the replacement disks
have been installed and crossfire has, once more, its own disk.

=head2 2007-05-22

Due to an accident, the main server files have been
copied to the backup server, overwriting player files, nuking
most progress in the last day. We are deeply sorry and will
tar and feather the culprit :(

=head2 2007-05-20

Town portal has been changed into a real town portal -
casting it creates a portal to the nearest town that anybody can
use, transfering him/her to the nearest town, and back. Town
portals will last at least 20 minutes.

=head2 2007-05-13

Large changes to the range slot, weapon logic and
attack speed logic have been made. You now have a range slot
for ranged attacks (shift-direction) and a combat slot for
direct attacks (run, walk). rotateshoottype togggles between
the two. Bows are now treated as full weapons, so attacktype,
damage bonuses and other attributes are applied to your
arrows now, making bows much more useful.

=head2 2007-05-11

A relatively portable GNU/Linux x86 (and amd64) binary
release of the client has been made. It only relies on glibc-2.3
and the X libraries.

=head2 2007-04-17

The windows binary for CFPlus was wrongly linked against
msvcr80.dll. This and a few other bugs have been fixed and the
windows version should work quite fine again.

=head2 2007-04-16

Lots of updates: the server now enables facecaching with
gcfclient remotely; weird monster and trap behaviour (e.g. bloodwell)
has been fixed; shop inventories sign work again; sanctuary and
counterwall now no longer remove floortiles and last not least
archetypes and treasurelists can now be dynamically reloaded without
freeezing or restarting the server (and of course a lot of other minor
stuff has been fixed). Enjoy!

=head2 2007-04-15

The Crossfire2 project has been renamed to Crossfire TRT
(on request by the Crossfire 1.x developers). See also the [a href="faq.html"]FAQ[/a]
about the B<TRT>.

=head2 2007-04-11

The Crossfire+ project has been renamed to Crossfire2
(on request by the Crossfire 1.x developers).

=head2 2007-04-10

The playershop problem has been identified and fixed as
a bug in JSON::XS. Also, the new highly-detailed 64x64 faceset
is now officially online. The CVS version of CFPlus supports the
64x64 graphics, as well as the new bandwidth-conservative smoothing
protocol.

=head2 2007-04-05

We were struck by another loading error in the Tradeshop/Playershop map
again and had to get a backup from yesterday morning.
If any of your belongings were lost please inform the DMs (see contact
information on this website).

=head2 2007-04-02

Due to a loading error in the Tradeshop/Playershop map
we had to restore the Tradeshop from last days morning.
If any of your belongings were lost please inform the DMs (see contact
information on this website).

=head2 2007-03-28

The server harddisk developed problems. Crossfire was
moved to another disk. Everything could be salvaged except the users
B<Curly> and B<Lysen>. Please contact a dm in case the restored
backup is not appropriate.

=head2 2007-03-27

The sky2 driver that seems to have caused all the recent crashes
has been replaced by the sk98lin driver which might improve stability.

=head2 2007-03-18

The bad news is that the server was down for almost 10 hours
due to a kernel crash. But the good news is that the very likely cause
has been identified: the gigabit network card. We will change the
hardware config to use a different card within the coming days.

=head2 2007-03-15

B<The protocol has changed.> The new protocol is still compatible
with crossfire clients, but image caching is now mandatory. The reason for this change
was the upcoming introduction of the 64x64 faceset, as well as getting around bugs
and stupidities in cf/gcfclient/2's image handling. Make sure you have image caching enabled
(you need to reconnect after changing it).

=head2 2007-03-06

Lots of work has been done on the instability issues.
We also have a [a href="server_download.html"]server release[/a] page now!

=head2 2007-02-19

B<The main server crashed with a hardware
problem. Crossfire was moved to the backup server without any
problems. Unfortunately, when the main server came back some
helpful soul started the backup process again, which in turn backed
up the (outdated) playerfiles from the main server to the backup
server running crossfire. This had the effect of replacing all
player data with the version just before the crash, so up to ~20
hours of gameplay might be lost.>

=head2 2007-02-03

B<A rather serious bug in Debian GNU/Linux caused serious
filesystem corruption on the server, which we are still in the process
of repairing. The player data will be restored to the last 15-minute backup
at 01:28 UTC, which hopefully was before the corruption. If you experience
any data loss, please contact the dms at crossfire@schmorp.de.>

=head2 2007-02-02

The landbridge to the continent south to the navar
continent has been removed an replaced by a ship from navar (it's the
ship to 'Valleynoy').  The jeweler skill has also been completed a
bit more and a quest is being build (but not completed yet) on the
continent south to the navar continent to guide players through the
new jeweler skill.

=head2 2007-01-29

A number of balancing changes have been applied: charm
and other mood change spells only affect visible spaces now (unlike
oratory and singing). Scorn is high-security area now, and parts of
scorn near the central marketplace do no longer allow pets either.
There also was an attempt to fix the face breakage which was introduced
some weeks ago. If you still have broken faces you should contact the DMs
or better send a mail to [tt]crossfire@schmorp.de[/tt].

=head2 2007-01-25

Next CFPlus beta released to the world: loads of bugfixes, added
'bind apply ...' to the context menu of the inventory, improved local
database handling, rework of the whole keybindings (much easier now!).
Get it [a href="client.html"]here[/a]!

=head2 2007-01-19

The server had a half-catastrohpic hardware fault (a faulty disk
that stopped working some time ago now took the complete system down), but
the server could be restarted with no loss of data.

=head2 2007-01-18

It was discovered that the lone town apartments for some
players seem not to work correctly. Either they are reset when they enter or
items seem to vanish from it when leaving it. If you have this problem please
contact the administrators at [tt]crossfire@schmorp.de[/tt]. The maps can be
recovered from a backup when the problem is fixed (which might take some days).

=head2 2007-01-08

Todays server upgrade turned out to be a bit buggy. If you lost
any stats while that upgrade please contact us at [tt]crossfire@schmorp.de[/tt].

=head2 2007-01-03

This evenings restart introduces some bugfixes, along 2 map bugs
and wrongly set treasurelists running into exits was fixed (which teleported
the player sometimes to the center of scorn). Summoned monsters don't drop
stuff anymore now. Smoothing has been fixed. Artifacts have correct faces again
now.

=head2 2007-01-02

The big rewrite is mostly finished and the server got a major upgrade.
Unfortunately the savebeds had to be reset, that means that you won't wake up
in your savebeds but in the center of scorn. Please re-apply your favorite bed
to reality.
Aside that the update should show no other weirdnesses.
B<If you find problems please report them to [tt]crossfire@schmorp.de[/tt]>.
[br /]
The main change was a complete rewrite of the map handling in the server.
Maps are now loaded and handled by Perl and are loaded asynchronous now,
the player will be placed on a link map (named '{link}') while waiting for the
new map to load. Real per-player maps are also possible now.

=head2 2006-12-25

There is a big internal rewrite in work. The server is currently
unstable and might show strange behaviour at the moment. B<Please be patient
and report problems or feedback to [tt]crossfire@schmorp.de[/tt]>.

=head2 2006-12-22

There has been a bug in the building system (player
buildable maps) which will remain until the server has been restarted
(which will be announced here). The bug made buildable walls
unbuildable after builing next to them. If you have a unremovable wall
in your apartment please notify the DMs about them to get them fixed.

=head2 2006-12-18

The network code has been rewritten from the ground up. The new code
handles network I/O asynchronously and can handle multiple user commands per tick.
As a side effect, the server will not allow you to queue more than five seconds worth
of commands, meanign you can never freeze yourself for longer than five seconds by
issuing too many commands in a row. Also, random maps will now be correctly saved
and restored on server restarts, making restarts just a matter of having to log-in again.

=head2 2006-12-14

The random weapons have been removed from chests and replaced by
wealth (like gems and money). Together with the weapon shop updates it makes
weapon shops way more useful/interesting.
There also have been added blood puddles to some low level
monsters in the CVS, on the next server update (which might be soon) this will
also show up. The plan is to adjust most monsters to drop blood after death,
for now look our for ie.: goblins, kobolds and orcs! Also further work has been done
on the worldmap, soon the worldmap can be generated alone from
the [a href="http://cvs.schmorp.de/cf.schmorp.de/util/world.xcf?rev=1.24"]png (currently a gimp xcf)[/a]
and the [a href="http://cfmaps.schmorp.de/world-overlay/"]overlay maps[/a].
Last not least, the login should be much faster now.
Non (user)visible changes have been: code cleanup, bugfixes and rewrites done by schmorp.
And we are on [a href="http://www.happypenguin.org/show?CFPlus%20-%20Crossfire%2B%20MORPG%20Client"]The Linux Game Tome[/a] now!

=head2 2006-12-12

Updates shops in scorn, port joseph, stoneville, santo dominion,
navar, wolfsburg and azumaundo to have a higher difficulty, also, implemented
better weapons to be sold in shops, according to their difficulty. This should
offer players more choice.

=head2 2006-12-06

Simplify finding a hand-to-hand skill on attacks by using the most
recently used skill, allowing users to select their preferred hth skill easily.
Also, learning spells is now possible with lower literacy skill than before,
for high level skills (before that change it was virtually impossible to learn
high level spells).

=head2 2006-12-03

We increased the required level of Meteor Swarm to 60 because
we agreed that level 12 is way too low for a spell as powerful as that.
We are planning on lifting the levels for other spells as well. This will
be reported on the website. Also, the new flesh pickup mode is available
and a crash bug has been workarounded.
[br /]
B<And another CFPlus bugfix release look on the [a href="client.html"]download page[/a]!>

=head2 2006-11-20

Due to schmorp'S foolishness, we encountered an unplanned
one-hour downtime today. Doh.  Also, the random ride to Nurnberg was
not working, trapping players in dragon hangars.  Fixed, thanks to
Nioreh who reported it.

=head2 2006-11-19

A serious exploit in the trade shop has been fixed today, where the sellers
account were increased even if the buyer wasn't able to pay for the item. Also, recent logins
was fixed, as it didn't show players with a fractional log-out time. Party say's are now
shown in green instead of in white and are unique messages.

=head2 2006-11-08

A new client version has been released. This mostly
fixes a long-standing off-by one but for the map view, resulting
in misdirected clicks and some monster ghosting. Also, the test
server now allows the commands B<wizlook>, B<reset> and
B<teleport> (in addition to wizcast, wizpass and goto) for all
players, which should greatly help to test maps.

=head2 2006-11-04

We repaired the [a href="recent.html"]recent login page[/a]!
And on the upper right the count of online players is displayed.

=head2 2006-10-02

Preview of test server now ready. It runs as cftest.schmorp.de, port 24 (cftest.schmorp.de:24) and allows
the use of goto, wizcast and wizpass for all users (more to come). Maps can be freely [a href="/upload"]uploaded[/a].
The test server has the same users and maps as the normal user, and will be reset every 3 hours.

=head2 2006-09-29

New CFPlus beta is out. Look at the bottom of the [a href="client.html"]download page[/a] to see what changed.

=head2 2006-09-20

The apartment rent has now been enabled for all known apartments. The
one-time entrance fee for new apartments has been lowered considerably. Please
note that stopping to rent an apartment will not currently clear its contents it, but
will do so in the near future, so do not rely on it. And another B<client release>, look
on the [a href="client.html"]download page[/a]!

=head2 2006-09-18

The new apartment shop (and renting system) is now in place
for the scorn apartment only. You will not be able to enter until you
go to The Apartment shop in scorn and rent the "skorn" apartment.
Your existing map stays as you are, no items will be lost. If you are puzzled somehow, look at the
chatlog in the [a href="faq.html"]FAQ[/a], which might answer some of your questions.

=head2 2006-09-15

We replaced the RAM and HDD today. Hardware failures are hopefully
a story of the past now.

=head2 2006-09-10

After lots of frustrating crashes and playtesting we identified the
remaining corruption-causing code that wasn't following C++ rules and fixed it.
So far, the new server seeems stable. As an added benefit, the command documentation
for the CFPlus client is now available as server helpfiles (help command) in text
format, too, and will be automatically updated on changes.

=head2 2006-09-09

Yesterday the server kernel froze, we had to reboot the server (which
was inaccessible to us for a time). We will likely replace some components
that could have caused the crash within the next week.

=head2 2006-09-08

Major Upgrade: the load/save functionality has been rewritten from scratch:
maps load about twice as fast, with some degenerated maps (hi, Saladon) loading
five times faster than with the old code, pushing map loading time below the tick time,
eliminating freezes due to map loads. String handling has been rewritten from scratch and
the server now uses C++ object lifetime management and the glib slice allocator. Help files
are now automaticlaly extracted from the CF+ manual. Among lots of other changes...
While there should be no big user-visible changes, we do expect some bugs to have
crept in due to the massive changes (the source diff is about 3MB in size), so watch
out for any weird behaviour.

=head2 2006-09-03

The work on the worldmap will take a while, expect more terraforming in the
next days. If you want to take a look at the current stage of the new world take a look
at the [a href="world.html"]World page[/a].

=head2 2006-09-02

The worldmap has been redone, and is in active development. The new worldmap is hopefully going
to be more nice to travel and explore. We also restarted the server due a bug
in the save code, B<if you lost a lot of experience points due a login please tell the DMs!>.
And the jeweler skill has been activated for testing! The experience gained in the skill is not added to the total
experience. Look at the [a href="documentation.html"]documentation[/a] for jeweler_skill,
there are no recipes yet, they will follow the next days.

=head2 2006-09-01

The CFPlus documentation along with the new jeweler skill (B<the new skill isn't yet online, it will still take a few
days until it's user ready>) documentation has
been prepared for the website, look at the [a href="documentation.html"]documentation[/a]
page. Aside from that we prepared some wiki pages about [a href="http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/servers:schmorp"]cf.schmorp.de[/a]
and [a href="http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/crossfireplus"]Crossfire+[/a] at the [a href="http://wiki.metalforge.net/"]Crossfire wiki[/a].
[br /]
The bug tracker contents has been dumped and can be downloaded as text file on the [a href="development.html"]development[/a] page.

=head2 2006-08-30

Some buggy code in the rewritten connection code caused a lot of crashes this morning,
the bug is fixed now, sorry for the inconvenience. Unconnected levers and other devices weren't handled 
correctly.

=head2 2006-08-29

We had to take the bug tracker offline, as someone spammed it too much
and we are too busy to maintain it and remove all the spam. Please send bugreports to
crossfire@schmorp.de! Changes in the server code: connections can now be handled
from Perl (means: you can trigger them and capture events for triggered connections).
Small transports (which are only 1 map tile big) have been reimplemented in Perl 
and should be crash safe now. But their semantics have changed: The transport is no longer
a container, it just moves everything thats above it. You can control it like the old ones:
apply them and then just move. Also most shops, also the tradeshop, in Scorn got a 'safe ground'
upgrade, which should prevent the usage of destructive stuff in them. 
- Everything is online on the next server restart.

=head2 2006-08-28

Big change in the code:
The extension/plugin API was completly rewritten and offers now a complete new dimension
of scripting! But B<due a bug in the shop code it wasn't possible to sell stuff to shops
in the night from 27. to 28., it's fixed again, we are sorry for the breakage!>
Also it's not possible at the moment to send mails in the imperial post offices, but this will
B<soon> also be fixed! Transports are disabled now, as the C implementation
caused way too many crashes. We plan to reimplement them in Perl.
[br /]
B<If you find other bugs, please report them via mail or to the bugtracker! This will
ensure that we find and fix the bugs as soon as possible in our limited time!>
B<If anyone misses sales from one of his items please contact the DM.>

=head2 2006-08-20

The server main disk had massive filesystem corruption, so the
server crashed and was down this evening. It took a few hours to fix it and now
it's back up again.  As we have a backup for all the critical files
(like your player files) it wasn't fatal. Aside from that you maybe want to take
a look at the last [a href="screenshots.html"]screenshot[/a], which shows healthbars
in crossfire. The server also has Perl in his core now, which makes it's integration easier.

=head2 2006-08-15

07:30 CEST Update: The server has been restarted, the first trade shop can be visited in scorn.>

=head2 2006-08-14

Uploaded some [a href="documentation.html"]documentation[/a] and implemented
player trade shops, where player can sell items to other players for a price choosen
by the seller. The items will stay in the trade shop for ever. This change has to
wait until the next server restart.
[br /]
[br /]
The B<next CFPlus beta release is out!>: Inscription and renaming shortcuts have been
added to the Inventory. The interface got line frames to be more eye pleasing.
On top of that the documentation browser has been greatly improved and the documentation
improved also a bit. And other minor stuff has been implemented and fixed.

=head2 2006-08-13

We finally restarted the server today, the changes from the last two news entrys are
now online! We also switched the server (programming) language from C to C++, to be able to use the
programming facilities of C++.

=head2 2006-08-11

Earthwalls block monsters view again! And players don't face back to north after sometime (yes, this
was a bug :). A new spelltype has been added, which makes spells implementable in Perl. Everything online on the
next server restart.

=head2 2006-08-11

The heaven town has been uploaded together with the final part of the
heaven quest. On top of that the difficulty calculations for maps were adjusted together
with the generation of scrolls, rods, wands and staffs, which are now more close to the level
difficulty. The post office code has been rewritten in Perl and got extended by some nice
features like live notification of arrived mails and mail notification for received
packages.

=head2 2006-08-02

Thanks to the efforts of sliss, all of current cfextended mlab should now
be online.

=head2 2006-07-31

Fixed logout and shutdown code: The server should now properly save both
all players and all maps on shutdown, making a restart much less of a problem, as
players will be able to continue playing where they left.
[br /]
[br /]
On top of that: B<The long awaited [a href="client.html"]CFPlus beta[/a] release!
Download! Install! Try out!>

=head2 2006-07-24

Uploaded new screenshots for the client and added some information about
the current state of the client, which is quite far and "soon" ready for a beta release.
Also added some notes about the history of the Crossfire+ project.

=head2 2006-07-21

Added many new commands to the dialog system. Added a test
of whats possible to the scorn harbour area (shady gambler). Implemented
a "seen" command that tells you when a player was last seen. The "say" command
is now a little more verbose when the character mentions some keywords.

=head2 2006-07-20

Implemented new dialog system which allows direct script
integration, dialog trees and more. Banks, Valriel, Gorokh and some
shops have been converted, IPO and other areas will follow. Also
updated forgotten town quest from upstream.

=head2 2006-07-18

Expanded the magic shops a bit, because monsters don't drop rings or
spellbooks anymore.

=head2 2006-07-17

The network connection was down around 14:00 (CEST) due an power outage
at the University of Karlsruhe.

=head2 2006-07-11

Prices are back where they were a long time ago. 
Monsters don't drop rings anymore, only gems and money instead.
Shops have now a default maximum. Prefetching of player informaiton
has been improved. An event system was added for perl.
A bug in the bank script has been fixed.

=head2 2006-07-10

Uploaded a new quest: The mana fountain. It lets you refill empty potions with mana.
Scorn has a small extension on the left, where you should search first.

=head2 2006-07-02

The CF+ OpenGL client now officially entered alpha release stage. Yehaa! What that means is not
clear, I guess we now know mostly whats still missing and how the design should look like.

=head2 2006-07-01

Worked around a buffer overflow on map writing by enlarging the buffer. Players
can no longer overflow the buffer, but plug-ins and core code still can, so its not considered a fix.

=head2 2006-06-29

We replaced some hardware in the server, so we had a few hours downtime
this evening. Now there is more RAM for crossfire :-)

=head2 2006-06-28

Put a bargaining scrolls in the Gem shop in scorn for a low price.
So that players can begin levelling bargaining early.

=head2 2006-06-27

Added a plug-in that asynchronously pre-fetches adjacent maps from disk
whenever a player enters a map. This make ist highly probable that maps entered by the
player are already in memory and comes at almost no cost (they are loaded into the
OS disk cache only). As a net effect, most short freezes due to map loading should
be gone.

=head2 2006-06-26

Rewrote shop pricing considerably: Bargaining has no effect on reckoning anymore,
but a much greater effect on prices. Charisma 30 no longer has an artificial penalty.
Shop pricing now changes prices from 2% (perfect, not achievable) to 100% difference.
The prices have a more dynamic adjustments than the old * 4 factor. B<Summary:> cheap
things got cheaper, expensive things got more expensive, and everything became much less random
than before. Also reduced the costs of healing and mana potions to an affordable price.

=head2 2006-06-23

Fixed a bug that sent the server into a tight loop, not responding
anymore. This could happen if the player the disarm skill activated multiple
traps which for reasons unknown were moved below the player, triggering each other
continuously. Traps now longer move below the player but stay where they are.

=head2 2006-06-14

Greatly reduced experience for playerkills. Disable friendly fire logic
in the arena, so you do not have to be hostile anymore just to visit the arena.

=head2 2006-06-11

Greatly reduced availability of skill scrolls and (to a lesser extent)
enchantment scrolls, to enhance class-based gameplay. Also reduced amount of generators
in raffle.

=head2 2006-06-06

Stealing now never yields more exp than the monster has and also
reduces monster experience.

=head2 2006-06-04

After yet another crash (and fix of it) we restarted the server
with some minor changes (ghosts drop ectoplasm more often). And the bank script
has been added to the last maps.

=head2 2006-06-02

Added Linux-specific fast timeout code that kicks players
out when the client doesn't ack data after 20 seconds. This
makes it possible to quickly re-login after a "catastrophic" even such
as losing your internet conenction. Also player-stealing between hostile players
is possible. The last bank-maps were upgraded to the new bank script
and the bank in lonetown was upgraded with new converters.
Some undo-bugs were fixed in GCE (the editor) along with a context menu for
adding stuff to the inventory to monsters on the map (not yet aviable as binary, but
stay tuned or use the CVS).

=head2 2006-06-01

Extended the scorn bank with a small quest.

=head2 2006-05-31

(Update) Extended the bank in scorn and fixed the
remaining bugs in the bank script (the missing inventory update and
the ability to withdraw the whole balance).

=head2 2006-05-30

added information page about the [a href="client.html"]new client[/a].
Revision:	1.7
Committed:	Sun Sep 16 12:02:47 2007 UTC (16 years, 9 months ago) by pippijn
Branch:	MAIN
Changes since 1.6:	+28 -28 lines
Log Message:	bold