Brian's Changes List

Changes to the Game

• February 11, 1999
  • Players no longer outlaws from casting wall spells if safety is on. (still bugged in non-sacred haven arenas)
  • Player's vigor rest threshold reset to 80 when character is reset.
  • Player's modifiers are reset when character is reset.
  • Innkeepers no longer give key copies when player has no money.
  • Can no longer offer items that are marked "cannot offer to NPCs" to buyer NPCs.
  • Free action now works correctly when the hold spell is cast. Used to work in reverse.
• February 16, 1999
  • Patched commercial servers. Included my changes, as indicated above.
• April 19, 1999
  • Updated combat to use new offense and defense values and new equation.
  • Updated Evaluate spell to give combat abilities of both players (and hp info) and monsters.
  • Combat code focused in battler instead of part of both player and monster.
  • Combat messages updated to reflect combat. (Current attack messages are basic, current defense messages aren't reflective of abilities.)
  • Combat sounds work like before.
  • Monsters convert viDifficulty into offense and defense values, but values are very generic, no variation between different monsters of the same type.
  • Divorced touch attacks from the combat code in their old capacity.
  • Touch attacks are ready to be treated as weapons. Must be personal enchantments, though.
  • Damage not fixed yet, still under old system (don't know if it'll work well or not with the binding).
  • Need to make sure things are balanced, so that people can hit bigger things if necessary.
  • Armor not changed yet, doesn't take away damage, actually makes wearer damn near invulnerable.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• April 23, 1999
  • Fixed infrastucture for using both physical and spell damage types.
  • Put in basic infrastucture for combat text by damage type.
• April 25, 1999
  • Monsters are by default neuter instead of male.
  • Fixed the combat messaging system to work correctly now.
  • Capped damage from outside factors such as attack modifiers and faction benefits.
  • Added faction factors into combat.
  • Added infrastructure to give monsters unique offense, defense, and damage values. Monsters still have a generic default.
• April 26, 1999
  • Changed armor to give bonuses to defense and to absorb damage if defined.
  • Changed shields to give bonuses to block and absorb damage on successful block skill checks.
  • Changed armor to give negative bonuses to defense, but absorb more damage.
  • Change orc shield to give slight bonuses to Qor spells, like the opposite of the ivy circlets.
  • Changed circlets to give mana depending on users max hps. Takes hps/7 (bound between 5 and 20) hps, gives twice than in mana.
  • Changed combat to allow for additional damage due to proficiency with weapon.
• April 27, 1999
  • Altered values of defense modifiers to match new combat system.
  • Fixed bug that was giving WAY too much attack and defense bonuses from the attack modifiers and defense modifiers.
  • Fixed Bless to remove itself as an attack modifier when the spell ends.
  • Added message "DefaultValues()" to object. Allows us to reset the default values on any subclass it is defined on. Currently works for DefenseModifier, re-sets the defense bonus and damage reduction values. Will be useful for when updating, can set old armor to new armor values.
  • Patched the Beta server with the above changes.
• April 29, 1999
  • Fixed skeletons' death sound resources so that skeletons will make a death sound. Will mess up people who have re-named their wave files, but that's an unauthorized change to the client. ;)
  • Made the casting of touch spells to enchant self a non-outlaw act. (Fixes bugs 163 and 164)
  • Set correct genders on monsters and NPCs. (Fixes bug 146)
  • Cleaned up text kludges in: Room decorator, council members, forest shrine, helms, spellbane, hold, spell.
• May 3, 1999
  • Updated the lore object to follow object-orientated methodology. Now draws data from accessor functions in player instead of being passed the internal plSchools data structure.
  • Added a list of weighted castings of spells in a school. Weighted because higher level castings contribute more castings than lower level spells. Used to give bonuses to spell advancement for people with a slim chance to advance.
  • Added code for combat skills (weapon, unarmed skills) to improve after every few swings instead of at every death.
  • Added infrastructure in skill objects to give a bonus to the secondary chance to advance. Currently used for the swings bonus for weapon proficiency/stroke improvement checks and bonuses.
  • Fixed bug that was not allowing defense skills to advance. Was not setting the "dodged" flag in a player when opponent missed. (Fixes bugs 168 and 169)
• May 4, 1999
  • Removed the possibility for Faction soldiers to have Plate and Nerudite armor, and Nerudite swords.
  • Tweaked the Disarm and Second Wind skills. Disarm now disarms much less, and Second wind will be a bit kinder than before.
  • Fixed error spam in shield and skill, caused by not passing correct parameters to shields in combat section.
  • Fixed bug of gauntlets not taking damage. Also switched gauntlets from taking damage when wearer hits opponent to taking damage when wearer is hit by opponent.
  • Fixed combat messages by bows. Now says that the arrow does damage, not the bow. (Fixes bug 175)
  • Boosted to-hit bonus of gauntlets. Also made the bonuses customizable, like armor is. ("Fixes" bug 161)
  • Increased values of Bless and Eagle Eyes to fall more in line with the new combat system instead of the old one.
  • Fixed a bug in Eagle Eyes that made the enchantment return nil if player had no ranged weapon, and remove itself as an attack modifier when it expires. Also made it look up weapons correctly.
  • Modified berzerker rings to fall more in line with new combat system. Also reduced the bonus damage a bit.
  • Modified parliament bonuses to reflect new combat system. Bonus to hit is pretty good. Also lowered damage bonuses.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• May 5, 1999
  • Removed a phantom door near clock tower in Cor Noth. (Fixes bug 176)
  • Changed holy touch to only do damage, like other touch attack spells. No longer heals. Does +50% damage to undead and increases/decreases the amount of damage depending on victim's Karma. Someone with +100 karma will take no damage, someone with 0 karma will take average damage, someone with -100 Karma will take double damage. (Fixes bug 137)
  • Increased Vampiric Touch's damage. It does roughly the same damage as Acid Touch. Also heals 1/4 the damage to caster.
  • Added elderberries, herbs, and mushrooms to the big pillar in Raza. (Fixes bug 120)
  • Can no longer store un-vaultable things in chests. This includes tokens. (Fixes bug 119)
  • Fixed touch spells to give combat messages again. Forgot to make the change when I fixed combat changes for bows (see above). (Fixes bug 189)
  • Updated Jewels of Froz for the new combat system. They give a reasonable bonus to hit, and a reasonable increase to touch attack damage. They give a small to-hit bonus for non-spell attacks.
  • Fixed bug that was making attack modifiers give too large of a bonus to damage. Basically, each attack modifier doubled damage.
  • Fixed touch attacks to increase in damage as skill gets better. Also balanced touch spells do do more appropriate damage. Touch attacks do 1/2 the base damage, plus the spellpower % of half the base damage. So, at full spell power, touch attacks will do full damage.
    • Zap does 4-10 points of damage.
    • Touch of Flame does 6-10 points of damage.
    • Icy Fingers does 7-10 points of damage.
    • Holy Touch does 3-6 points of damage at base, can do up to double damage to evil monsters and 50% extra to undead.
    • Acid Touch does 5-10 points of damage.
    • Vampiric Touch does 6-10 points of damage, but heals player 1/4 that damage.
  • Set advancement to 5 improves every 9-12 minutes.
  • Halved Disarm's initial chance to improve.
• May 10, 1999
  • Fixed various text bugs in quest engine, pillars, truce. (Fixes bugs 66, 90, 126)
  • Made wall elements (fire, lightning, web) affect players on Sacred Haven if a monster cast the element. (Fixes bug 111)
  • Fixed Medei's yells to be black instead of default purple in the Barloque Bar. (Fixes bug 107)
  • Fixed help messages in DM. (Fixes bug 114)
  • Made the Duke's throneroom and the Princess's chamber no-fight zones. (Fixes bugs 143 and 144)
  • Made it so that you can't initiate attacks in no-fight zones. (Fixes bug 194)
  • Made it so that armor only checks to be damaged 50% of the time. (Fixes bug 170)
  • Fixed it so that killing something with a touch attack does not give two messages, one for touch attack, one for punching. (Fixes bug 167)
  • Fixed spellitems so that the notify the room they're casting. This now disallows the use of shatter wands in the arena. (Fixes bug 138)
  • Made attacking yourself a non-outlaw activity. (Fixes bug 132)
  • Fixed it so that when you find a monster in the crate in the basement of Castle Victoria, it gets created.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• May 11, 1999
  • Fixed weaponcraft improves to be more generous in improvement checks.
• May 17, 1999
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• May 19, 1999
  • Fixed Drechx's description to include all the lieges. (Fixes bug 207)
  • Vastly improved Kara'hol's curse so that it uses new combat system, is useful, and doesn't allow people to go through doors while stunned. (fixes bug 72) Could perhaps improve the message timing?
• May 20, 1999
  • Removed the instructions to use $ to bring up an admin window from the Admin greeting message.
  • Removed the extra line of spam when monsters miss DMs when they are immortal. Current combat messages handle the immortality of DMs just fine.
  • Developed the defense messages better. Gives a weighted chance to dodge, parry, block, or avoid attacks depending on your ability in each skill. "Avoid"ing an attack is to give a bit of variety and to handle instances where a mage with no defense ability (but defensive spells) avoids an attack.
  • Updated monsters so that monsters with visible weapons can parry. Faction soldiers can also block.
  • Updated reflections to use the dodge, parry, and block skills of their original.
  • Updated Avar Chieftains to not allow defender to parry their attacks.
  • Updated Avar Chieftains ranged attack to use the attack infrastructure instead of the special case it had.
• May 21, 1999
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• May 24, 1999
  • Fixed problem of touch attacks doing too little damage. Was using punch stroke instead of touch attack stroke.
  • Fixed problem of touch attacks' "out of range" message using the punch default. (Fixes bug 202)
• May 25, 1999
  • Made it so that the Watcher in the Tos Arena lets the Bard know when someone cast a spell during a tournament.
  • Made key copies undroppable (swapable) unless willfully given or dropped (moved code to key copy superclass)
  • Made key copies undroppable in rentable rooms.
  • Made keys remove the owner of the key from the room when the key is deleted (IE when the room expires). (Fixes bug 128)
• May 26, 1999
  • Put a message in keys notifying player owners that they cannot drop their key when attempting to drop them in unallowed rooms.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• June 2, 1999
  • Fixed a bug that made punch almost unusable. (Fixes bugs 230 and 231)
• June 8, 1999
  • Investigated bug of touch attacks happening too fast. Seems to be a false bug.
  • Lowered damage of touch attacks. Maximum damage lowered from 10 to 8.
  • Put a "magic resistance" infrastructure in. Battlers are checked when a spell is cast on them to see if they resist the spell. Most cases they don't. If the battler resists, then the spell fails. Check is made at end of CanPayCosts, if the battler succeeds, then the spell uses the costs (reagents and mana) and gives a resist message.
  • Xeochicatl use the new magic resistance infrastructure to resist spells. They resist harmful spells with spellpower less than 40 and resist 50% of the spells over that spellpower. Blind, hold, and dazzle are resisted at 80% instead of 50%.
• June 14, 1999
  • Finished Mollusk monster. Has full description and will throw rocks at players. Still doesn't "pop up" right, but that's less of a priority for now.
  • Made it so that Xeochicatl (and Dark Angels) never resist DM spells.
• June 17, 1999
  • Fixed gauntlets so that they don't cause wearer to take extra damage when they are worn. Attack and Defense modifiers use the same message name "ModifyDamage" to give damage bonuses and damage reductions, respectively. Since gauntlets are both types of modifiers, it was adding damage to defending hits (when it should only be adding damage to attacks).
  • Actually, on further inspection, I found that Gauntlets were doing absolutely NOTHING for the wearer. Then NewUsed and NewUnused messages were returning instead of propagating, meaning that the superclass's code to add the gauntlets as an attack modifier (let alone defense modifier) was never reached.
  • Also made gauntlets add and remove themselves as an attack modifier at the right times.
  • Finished Dark Angel's attack powers. Very nasty monsters.
  • Changed Evil Twin to accept a monster as caster. Dark Angels summon Evil Twins against players.
• June 18, 1999
  • Finished Dark Angel. Has a variety of spells it can cast (many nasty ones) and is difficult. Also have magic resistance the same as Xeochicatl. Can cast: Evil Twin, Reflection (specially cast in the Dark Angel monster, doesn't use normal spell infrastructure), Blind, Hold, Enfeeble, Forget, Discordance. Every attack 30% chance to cast on current target. Also casts Darkness in room on every attack if not already cast.
  • Changed Reflection to work with monster casters. Dark Angels create reflections (that don't require mana drain!) Put in so that monsters that use ranged weapons have reflections that use ranged weapons. All behavior isn't duplicated in the reflection (such as maintaining range, or speed), but it's good enough for now.
  • Created Dark Angel treasure type. Drops: Dark angel feathers most of the time (duh), blue dragon scales, entroot berries, fairy wings, shaman blood, and inkycap mushrooms.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• June 21, 1999
  • Fixed problem of touch attacks giving double "miss" messages.
• June 22, 1999
  • Fixed error spam of reflections wanting to see if Dark Angels are "logged on".
  • Fixed various room key and room key copy error spam relating to what being NIL on a ReqNewHold call.
  • Fixed error spam in Evil Twin where the caster didn't have an owner (like a deleted/killed Dark Angel).
  • Fixed some error spam probably caused by the funky mailing problems the NodeAttack had before.
  • Fixed error spam in brain that was trying to send battler messages to class DeadBody. Monsters target dead bodies? (My guess is that it's from feign death)
  • Made monsters a bit more likely to swarm a person, more likely to attack someone of opposite Karma if so flagged, and less aggressive against wizards if so flagged.
  • Fixed error spam of room keys not finding their owner's room.
  • Changed gauntlets to not give attack bonuses to ranged weapons.
• June 23, 1999
  • Changed cheese to give a bit less vigor and to be more filling.
  • Reduced the amount edible mushrooms fill you up.
  • Fixed wall spells turning you outlaw in arena of Kraanan. (Fixes bug 125)
  • Replaced Spiders in front of Barloque (RID_I3) with centipedes to make it a bit more newbie friendly.
  • Added mollusk creatures to: RID_E2, RID_F3, RID_D6. Replaced one of the previous monsters. (see the room information page in the Meridian58 documentation) for full list.
  • Documented new monsters and monster locations on Meridian58.
• June 23, 1999
  • Added damage descriptors for different types of attacks in battler. Now attacks will have cool verbs to describe The damage they do. (Thanks to Joe for helping with this.)
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• June 25, 1999
  • Added magic resistance to Lich. Resists ALL Qor spells, resists Dazzle 90% of the time, resists all spells below 30 spellpower, resists all other spells at 60%.
  • Evil twin now uses targets combat stats to fight, instead of using the standard monsters stats. Problem: Causes the normal combat side-effects to the target, IE, target's weapons will be worn down. Should not be too noticable.
  • Made the Morph spell actually work! Combat was ignoring a morphed character. Added a check to most of the combat functions to see if an illusion is affecting the player. Made sure that it was only Morph that affected the player.
• June 28, 1999
  • Cleared up error spam of spell Foresight when cast on a non-player. Was calling a player-only message even if target was a non-player. Spell now fails at casting if the target is a non-player or a DM.
  • Fixed up error spam in Yrxl sap in NewHold.
  • Fixed error spam of Dazzle trying to get the sun's Karma. Made call check if caster is a battler.
  • Fixed error spam of spell checking for room flags in a caster that doesn't have a room, like the Sun.
  • "Fixed" Shadowform's description to follow the standard of using plural general pronouns. (It's incorrect grammar, you know)
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
  • Increased the spider queen's attack range to compensate for her not moving.
  • Changed some text in quest engine text to be gender-neutral. (Fixes bugs 52 and 53)
• June 29, 1999
  • Fixed problem of using punch for stroke if enchanted with a personal enchantment instead of weapon. (Fixes bug 260)
  • Fixed problem of water finding arrows not showing a graphic in inventory. (Fixes bug 134)
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
  • Fixed Illusionary Wounds error spam trying to find "GetHealth" from a monster. Put the message in monster.
  • Fixed error spam in Guild Hall 14 of SomethingSaid called without a what. Checked if what was nil beforehand.
  • Fixed error spam of trying to delete a bad timer in OrcCave6. It didn't follow standard timer convention.
• July 6, 1999
  • Updated commercial servers with patch.
• July 7, 1999
  • Fixed orc shield's inaccurate resistances. The spell resistances weren't negative, so the wrong resistances were being added when a player used the shield.
  • Increased shirt hits to reasonable levels. For some reason, they were lowered to 10 hits. Increased them in line with other clothing.
  • Fixed bug of deaths causing double penalties. Teleporting to the Underworld no longer assumes that you deserve to be punished for death. Only dying will set you up to be punished for death.
  • Fixed Sandstorm's permanent aim reduction problem. Sandstorm now reduces aim temporarily. Also reduced amount of penalty the spell gives; now spellpower/3 instead of spellpower/2.
  • Reduced Winds' aim penalty from spellpower/2 to spellpower/4.
  • Amulet of Shadows now works as a defense modifier. It previously had no functions for reducing damage, so when the combat code called the function (which should be in every defense modifier), it got nil, and screwed up the damage.
  • Made it so that deflect only protects against harmful Faren spells, not beneficial spells (like enchantments).
  • Made it so that Truce requires the Yrxl sap it claims to in the description.
• July 8, 1999
  • Changed Super Strength's reagent cost from 5 elderberries to 3, as per Director recommendation.
  • Made it so that created weapons can be dropped and given, but not sold.
  • Reduced duration of weapons created by Create Weapon from spellpower/7 hours to spellpower*2 minutes.
  • Increased mana cost for Create Weapon to 15. This should slow down the overcrowding of made weapons (I hope).
  • Made Rescue never "fail". It does not have a random chance to not work.
  • Fixed it so that Outlaw and Murderers never create revenants when they die.
  • Prevent casting of portal of life on non-player corpses and repeated casting of Portal of Life.
  • Fixed the statues in the Hall of Heroes. They weren't using the update information correctly when told to update.
• July 9, 1999
  • Fixed error spam in Umbrella. Also fixes problem of new users wandering into the area of effect of Umbrella after the spell is cast. Wasn't extracting users from the active list properly.
  • Fixed error spam in Sweep. Had the same error as Umbrella, as well as others. I fixed it to work as advertised.
  • Fixed error spam of casting Invisibility on a non-player target.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
  • Fixed Eavesdrop. The "figure the duration" message used a non-standard name. Now works as advertised.
  • Changed generic weapon attributes to give a reasonable to-hit bonus for the new combat system.
  • Fixed problem of identified "special" weapons not giving a description. As a bonus, I made it so that player-enchanted weapons (like holy and unholy weapon) now show the maker string that is stored in the item attribute.
• July 10, 1999
  • Fixed weapon enchantments to not overflow the max integer value when figuring the duration for a timer. Weapon enchantments will only last a maximum of 37 hours (random 1 to 4, plus spellpower/3 hours), because 37 converted to milliseconds is less than the maximum integer value of 2^27 (32 bit variable, 4 bits for type, 1 bit for sign), which is roughly equal to 137 million.
  • Fixed engrave to show description when an item is engraved. Also removed some debug spam associated with it.
• July 11, 1999
  • Lowered casting cost of enchant weapon down to 3 elderberries and 1 orc tooth.
  • Lowered casting cost of holy weapon down to 3 emeralds.
  • Raised casting cost of unholy weapon to 3 fairy wings.
  • Lowered casting cost of shroud to 3 mushrooms, 3 elderberries, and 2 herbs.
  • Lowered casting cost of glow to 2 elderberries and 2 mushrooms.
  • Fixed combat messages for attack spells. Attack spells (like fireball, etc) now use standard damage messages.
  • Fixed problem of wands improving attack spells when used.
  • Fixed some error spam in Player when trying to figure combat damage messages with no stroke object (like when attack spells (now) use the combat damage message infrastructure).
  • Increased ranged attack spell damage. Damage is now more like touch attack spells, where base damage is determined from a range of numbers, and spell finally does (50 + spellpower/2) percent damage. Mana focus now gives a 25% bonus to spell damage.
  • Eliminated some debug spam from SpellItem.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.
• July 12, 1999
  • Fixed problem of Super Strength causing error spam when trying to end. Changed the structure of the state to only include the strength change, NOT the target (assumed when the spell wears off).
  • Fixed attack spells to not give insta-kills or no damage. Problem with uninitialized values. Seems SourceSafe saved the file in a mixed state. Argh.
  • Fixed bug of rescue continuing to cast on a bad target, such as a logoff ghost or an NPC.
  • Fixed bug of no item information when a DM creates a glowing item attribute. Now sets default values for adding the glow attribute to a weapon.
  • Removed some debug spam from the spell Glow.
  • Fixed umbrella to not give double messages and to put users in the umbrella properly.
  • Fixed umbrella to no longer give outlaw status.
  • Found problem of giving a weapon a glow attribute making the admin unable to benefit from personal light effects. If a DM creates a glow attribute on a weapon, it will decrease the user's light value without the initial increase, leading to problems. A recalibrate should fix the problem.
  • Patched the Beta server with above changes.

To Do

• Clean up error spam from commercial and beta servers.

For the future

• Allow lich queen to live through a "recreateall". (bug 122)
• Clean up SotH and Ao3 errors with stat changes.
• Come up with penalty for people who just sit around and cast spells in no-fight zones.
• Shut down "safe corners".