Aardwolf MUD Blog

A new release of the Aardwolf Mushclient package has been uploaded to the website. Major changes in this release are:

• Xterm 256 color support.
• Players can now reliably replace movement between connected rooms (like opening doors) with custom exits in the gmcp mapper.
• Cleaned up gmcp mapper help.
• Added some new commands to the gmcp mapper.
• Mapper purgezone shouldn’t require quitting and restarting mushclient anymore.
• Mapper pathfinding status message now indicates the progress of the search better.
• Added the ability to not capture mob speech to the channel capture window.
• Added tick marks at good/neutral/evil alignment boundaries in the health bars plugin.
• You can now select arbitrary text inside the channel capture window and then copy with the right-click menu, instead of clicking on whole individual messages.
• Purging all custom exits and portal exits from the gmcp mapper now requires confirmation.
• Fixed a bug in channel capture that missed lines with hidden garbage or fake color codes.
• Fixed a bug in the gmcp mapper preventing finding rooms with oddly colored names.
• Fixed a bug in the gmcp mapper that blocked sending two identical custom
  exit commands in a row.
• Fixed an error on saving rooms when using the gmcp mapper without a pre-initialized database.
• Added manual mapper database backup command with zip compressed rotating backup storage.
• Added rolling automatic backups of the gmcp mapper database files. If left
  on and running forever, the rollover schedule approximately follows the
  pattern: today, yesterday, last week, last month, 3 months ago.
• Various other bug fixes and changes.

The entire list of changes is available on the Aardwolf Mushclient Code Page.

Here’s a preview of a new ‘damage tracker’ feature we have been working on. It is currently on the Aardwolf test port:

The basic feature will show rounds of combat, hits, misses, damage and relevant averages:

If you are wielding two weapons, the stats are broken down by primary and secondary weapon:

Test of Faith and Gaias Revenge hits are counted as ’special’ hits. You can also designate a specific spell to track damage for. In the example below, dtrack was set to monitor immolate:

Finally, using ‘dtrack hits’ you can see a more detailed breakdown of each hit type:

Three new quests (goals) where added to Aardwolf this evening:

New Goal - Cougarian Queendom:

The Cougarian Queendom, tucked in the depths of the Jungle of Verume, has prospered for hundreds of years undiscovered by the outside world. Now that has all changed as the Bengaleen Empire threatens from the North.

Cowlina, Cougarian Queen must juggle the threats of the Bengaleen while trying to keep the magic-barren pridelands at peace as well. Outsiders have threatened the resolve of her ban on the use of magic.

Can magic find its place in Cougaria once again? It may be the only thing that will save it.

Level Range         : 140 to 160
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 160
Goal Converter      : Whitdjinn
Area Author         : Whitdjinn

Please Note: New visitors to Cougaria are not trusted enough to gain the needed access to save the land. The queen’s trust must first be gained.

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New Goal - The Infestation:

To the north of Aylor lies a small, quaint section of land teeming with wildlife. Many travelers make their way through this small, peaceful area; enjoying their brief time, always making a mental note to come back when they have some spare time to relax. So long as you don’t mind the large insects that have decided to call this little section their home. The ants and the wasps dislike one another with a passion, but they’ve yet to declare war on one another. An amicable agreement, unspoken, resides between the two: Stay away from us, and we’ll stay away from you.

However, not all is that peaceful here, for there is an infestation growing in strength that, if left unchecked, could bring about the ruin of such a peaceful plot of land. To one, there are pests overtaking the area, making it their own and killing the populace off. Find the one who needs help and take care of the infestation before it’s too late.

Level Range         : 5 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 25
Goal Converters     : Escobar & Paramore
Area Authors        : Rundvelt

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New Goal - The Tournament of Illoria:

The sun rises over the quiet west.
The beginning and start of a brand new day,
The crowds come to here from all around,
for the Tournament of Illoria is underway.

Oh, what sights to see and to behold!
The battling of knights so strong and brave,
is sure to be a spectacle indeed,
So, who’s a champion and who is a knave?

And yet, not all is happy and merry,
For there are rumors one may hear,
The notion of some knights going bad
and making mischief has reached my ear.

But fret not child, ’tis not to worry,
Don’t think on it, don’t look down!
Surely nothing bad will happen…
For you see, they hired troll guards from a nearby town.

So, venture you forth to the grandest of fairs,
Watch the knights battle for all the glory!
In my heart of hearts, I hope to see you there.
Come, play your part in this story.

Level Range         : 70 to 90
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 90
Goal Min Level      : Level 60
Goal Converter      : Elvendar
Area Author         : Rayna

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Other changes in this reboot:

A few other changes did make it in this reboot:

• Translocate now has a message when you use it, displayed just before the room name. (Macbeth). So does Prob Travel/Teleport.
• You can now use autoassist in warfare. I reserve the right to change it back if I ever remember a good reason for having the restriction in the first place.
• If a venomist uses spiral on a target that is immune to the damtype, but not immune to poison, the damage done will be substituted for poison. I know this is pretty low impact, I just like it for effect.
• If you have ‘nospellupspam’ set, you will no longer see other people cancelling their spells unless you are in combat with them.
• The bug with GMCP and ‘$’ on the trivia channel is now fixed - this should no longer mess up GMCP.
• Alias keywords can no longer be more than 20 characters long. This only applies to mud-side aliases of course.
• Fixed a buggy message from cell adjustment when affected by a type of poison it cannot cure.

List of changes made to Aardwolf MUD on Feb 20th 2011:

Game Enhancements:

• Shield Punch with 1000 weight shield would always daze the target regardless of stats. This has been changed and chances of a shield dazing is now partly based on victim con. The max effective weight that will count towards daze is 4000.
• ‘Quit Check’ will now show items in containers along with the container id:

     [  9] (Nosave)   - Aylorian Sword (inside Vladia's Shopping Bag/639441811)
     [  1] (Nosave)   - Aylorian Sword (Worn)

• The resist bars on ’score’ have been redone. They are no longer linear and they now max out just under 2500.

• Light now a damage type that can be set on weapons.
• Changed the format of ‘wangrp’ channel slightly - align is now shown rather than the text, and compressed the other info.
• There is a new ’sports’ channel, should be pretty obvious what it’s for. Cursing is allowed on sports channel, other rules still apply.
• There is a new channel called ‘mxit’. The intent is that you can use ‘txt speak’ on this channel without being told “use full sentences!” etc. IF u dnt lk ths sentnce u shld nt trn it on!?!!!!!11111!!11. As ‘mxit’ is also a command for imms, the ‘txt’ command is an alias for it.

Bug Fixes in this reboot:

• Using ‘pick lock’ when you don’t have the skill will now give a message saying so rather than just ‘you failed’.
• Failed Bodycheck could sometimes give an invalid ‘… is immume’ messsage, now fixed.
• Quit check will now show both worn and carried items at the same time. It would previously only show one or the other.
• Quest actions such as qreset, complete, fail, etc should now flag a group as needing GMCP update.
• The ‘rainbow will only work outside’ message will now only show once even if, behind the scenes, rainbow multicasts.
• Casting cure disease on someone else in a silent spell room did not show a success message, now fixed.
• Fixed a bug with GMCP group causing additional prompts to be sent during combat.
• Roster 10 will now sort by total level rather than just by tier and classes. Redos are not included in this, that part is intentional.
• Mobs names with a quote in them were causing problems in GMCP says. They are now correctly escaped.
• Seeing the experience other group members gain will now be based on your own ‘exprate’ setting rather than theirs.
• The ‘xxx feels abandoned and leaves’ pet message will only echo to the room when a player quits if the pet is in the same room.
• If a player in a group renames, the group leader name, group member name or from/to side of a group invite should now rename correctly.
• Party Harmoney, Party Shield and Party Sanctuary will now return an already affected spellup tag when the affect is not added to anyone.
• Suicide was leaving mana/moves unchanged if the clan had a custom suicide message. Now fixed.

New Area and Goal - Wildwood:

Long ago and far away in the outer reaches of Gelidus a nation of centaurs settled within the cold forest of Koloma. Hidden within a dense forest, the noble creatures strive to maintain their customs and traditions behind a wall of secrecy and illusion. Although serene temperaments prevail, within each citizen lies the heart of the warrior. Trained from an early age, the centaurs guard their home jealously, particularly from Human intruders. Elves, sprites, dryads and others of mythic origins are always welcome, however Humans have ever been the enemy, bringing death and destruction to the forest. Trolls and giants might be tolerated, but proof of peaceful intent will probably be demanded.

Note: This area replaces Antharia.

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New Area - Adventures in Sendhia:

A nexus created by the three moons of Andolor opens a gate upon a world you have never before visited. Upon entering, your adventure begins with a mysterious shipwreck in the Sendhian Sea. From there, you island hop and meet with a variety of strange characters and creatures. You will need to use all your wiles in order to escape the perils you face in Sendhia!

Level Range         : 5 to 50
Area Author         : Lumina

Note: This area replaces Ultima and currently has no goal.

We released a newer version of the Aardwolf custom Mushclient today. The main differences between this release (R336) and the original release (R226) are:

• Group monitor plugin using GMCP group info.
• Multiple mapper enhancements including the ability to store custom exits/portals and a command to find all exits leading to unexplored rooms. Check ‘mapper help’ with the client loaded for full info.
  - Client is updated to Mushclient version 4.72
• The Aardwolf MUD Client Download Page has a new section to help you figure out what files to copy over if you are using an older version of the client.

Click the image for a larger screenshot

Check out the Aardwolf Mushclient History page for full release notes. Thanks to everyone who has helped with contributing code and suggestions to the client. Special thanks to Spartacus for many of the mapper updates and other fixes and, of course, to Fiendish for starting and maintaining the whole thing.

 

List of changes made to Aardwolf MUD on Feb 5th 2011:

• The way in which defenders are checked on entering a clanhall has been changed. Note 276, 277 and 286 on the raiding board have more info, but basically the change is that the number of defender timeout slots in use plus the number of defenders already in the area has to be lower than the number of defender timer slots to be allowed to enter.
• There is a new channel option ‘*dice’. For example, using ‘gte *dice 5 7′ will roll 5 dice with 7 sides each and report the results to the channel. Useful for lots of things. One idea in groups is to dice for who gets first pick of the best loot etc. The message will appear with (Dice) before it so that it is impossible to emote.
• When using ‘heal mana’, you will now see a message when your mana is fully refreshed.
• The ‘wangrp’ channel will now show the Remorts/Class/Tiers of others next to their align.
• If you have a %c as the last character in your prompt and have promptflags on, the promptflags info will now show inline with your prompt rather than on another line.
• Fixed a bug with GMCP group info getting truncated on larger groups of 20+ people. As a reminder, this is the Mushclient group plugin:

New Goal - Kingdom of Ahner:

The Kingdom of Ahner has fallen; through deceit and treachery, King Ahner himself has been betrayed and, with his queen, cast down and imprisoned within the jails of the castle. The King’s army, known as the Oreh, have been forced out of the kingdom. A new army, known as the Dullurds, have taken control, led by the Dullurd King and Cyrus Dirroh.

As the Oreh prepared to make a counterstrike against the Dullurds, two other armies have joined the fray; the Gorlab and the Nilbog. War has ravaged the once lovely Kingdom, leaving it a bloody and horrific sight.

The Oreh are strategizing one final strike, to wipe out the hostile armies of the Gorlab, the Nilbog and Dullurds, defeat Cyrus and restore order back to their homeland. The Oreh leader, Michael the Hare, is looking for someone to help him in his endeavors. Will that be you, adventurer?

Level Range         : 20 to 50
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 45
Goal Converters     : Escobar & Paramore
Area Authors        : Zendalonii

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New Goal - Halls of the Damned:

Up ahead you hear some hammering and see the city’s official employment advisor busy hanging a new poster. Noticing the lint in your pockets you rush up to see what’s available.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Mayor Darkon Stills humbly requests the aid of any and all persons daring enough to undertake a semi-heroic and definitely life-threatening task for paltry rewards. His village is in dire straits, and wishes you to know that he has issued a decree enforcing house arrest on all its citizenry until the threat has been tended to.

Though not wishing to engage in blackmailing, or any other such underhanded tactics, he kindly wishes for you to consider how long you think his village’s citizens can survive without fresh food and water.

Level Range         : 95 to 115
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 115
Goal Converter      : Paramore
Area Author         : Calabus

New Friend List Options:

• There is a new ‘nofriend‘ command that will prevent others from friending you. This does not apply if they are already on your friend list and are just adding you back.
• New Syntax ‘friend reject [person] [reason]‘ will remove someone from your friend wannabe list and give them a reason. The reason why is optional. Nothing to prevent them just re-adding you but if that becomes a problem you can ‘ignore’ them.

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Other Game Updates:

• Using ‘quit check’ will now show all items that you cannot save with and the reason why. For example (Fake test items):

     [200] (Clanonly) - Rune Stone of Athenas' Might
     [  0] (Key)      - an important-looking key
     [ 15] (Raided)   - Icequake
     [  1] (Nosave)   - an Aylorian Sword

  Just using ‘quit’ will also warn, as it used to do with items too high level.

• There is a new ‘attack’ filter for skills - it lists skills/spells that cause you to have an additional attack compared to if you didn’t have the skill/spells. This includes the obvious ‘attack’ skills plus haste and lightspeed. Did not add enhanced damage/scorpion sting - they don’t cause attacks, they just increase them. Same with weapon skills.
• There is a new ‘passive’ filter for skills - it lists skills/spells that work automatically.
• There is a new object flag called ‘iskey’ that flags an item as a key even if it is not type key. The only affect of this flag is that the item will be picked up by keyloot, it does not affect loading/saving etc. Will leave it up to builders whether or not they want to add this to their own areas, but recommending that special imm items such as scrabble pieces start to include it.
• If you try to invite someone into a group who is already in a different group, they will now receive a message like ‘Lasher tried to invite you to join group: kill all mortals!’
• Potential buy will show the cost of the next point after each buy.
• Runto ‘ft2′ will now also work for ftii (Salvanas). Using ‘Runto Deaths’ (no apostrophe) will also work for Deaths Manor. I basically added the ability for an area to have a second keyword used for ‘runto’ only, so if there are others that could really use this please post them.

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GMCP Changes:

• GMCP Channels will now show player name for most chats. It generally will not show it for information about the player rather than their actual communication - for example, login/logoff, auction messages etc are not tagged with player name.
• When a player is no longer in a group a slightly different GMCP message will now be sent - the group name will be empty and a “reason” field will show why (Mrykul). For example:

     group { "groupname": "", "reason": "quit" }

  If you have been using the test version of the plugin Fiendish made for monitoring a group, this will crash it until a fix is made.

• GMCP base info now includes tier.

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Bug Fixes:

• Earthquake and Lightning Strike messages will no longer appear while in note write. (Escobar). As a reminder, nospam also turns off these messages completely.
• The ‘learned’ command is supposed to show skills you have practiced as much as you can with their percentage in red. This had been adjusted to 85 percent even for people without the new wish. Should be fixed now.
• Level 200s were getting the ‘can take another campaign’ message even though they can’t - this doesn’t kick in until level 201.

New Area and Goal - Empyrean, Streets of Downfall:

In Sarcoph’s empire, all roads eventually lead to the imperial city. Those who survive the journey through the Great Eastern Desert and the foothills of the Demon’s Halo range will lay eyes on the seat of Sarcoph’s power. But the city itself is no safer than the path to it. No, it is the residence of Ignorance, Treason, Voracity, Might, and Delusion. It is Empyrean, and its alleys are the streets of downfall.

Level Range         : 170 to 200
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 199
Goal Converters     : Paramore & Dras
Area Authors        : Paramore & Falkon

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Area Replacement and Goal - The Path of the Believer:

The Path of the Believer is where a believer will begin the first steps of prayer, fasting, and meditation. They will visit the temples along the path and commune with the gods. However one of the temples has been subverted. The priest there is preparing to summon hordes of evil unto the inhabitants, and they are in grave danger. Will you find a way to save the them, or will you leave the inhabitants to their fate?

Level Range         : 1 to 10
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 5
Goal Converter      : Ageha
Area Author         : Domain

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New Goal - Marshlands of Agroth:

Baya, the marsh witch has a problem. Her former maid servant, Siskriya has stolen her book of ancient flesh magic, and without it, she cannot balance the cycle of death in the marsh. Siskriya has gone deep into hiding and is being protected by several marsh inhabitants, enemies of Baya, or just convenient idiots.

The maid who wants to become the new marsh witch has used her powers of persuasion, and her pale innocent looking face to beguile and convert many of the more powerful people in the marsh, you’ll need to seek them out, and stop their protection at any cost.

To succeed, you’ll need to be as wise as a serpent, and as gentle as a small posse of axe wielding, magic throwing enraged barbarians. Hold on tight, because this will only end in blood.

Level range         : 105 to 125
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 125
Goal Conversion     : Ayon
Area Author         : Pursia & Falkon