Post by Belouch on Mar 3, 2020 22:19:49 GMT 1
Game Update 3 March 2020
Test environment
This is the biggest and best news of this Update, though from a player's perspective there is nothing visible. As of today, we now have a Agonia test server where we can test our code before pushing it to the live environment. This will probably come as a shock for many that we had no such thing like that yet, and those who have a minimum of coding experience will feel our pain! Every code change required a manual push to the live server from Dspe. Now we can make changes, push it to the test server without Dspe, correct the mistakes, push it again, repeat until it works, then push it to the live game. We sometimes had to loose 3-4 days just because we forgot a " in one line, those waiting times are over now.
This is a fantastic news because it means progress on the game will go much much faster. See everything that we have done in one year without a test environment, now imagine what we can do in the next year with one
It also means that in-game disturbances will be minimized since we will not push untested code into it anymore. Of course it still doesn't mean that any new code will be 100% bug-free but it will limit the damage a lot.
Marketplace changes
Nozama's Rare Items Shop
Restat code
As you may know, our objective is to recode the whole game entirely. This last month, we entirely recoded the restat system. This complex system regroups all the functions that calculate and update constantly all the stats, skills, hp, etc of players everytime an action is performed (using an item, changing a ring, casting a spell, expiration of spell/items, etc).
This now means that you will no longer need to go to your character sheet to activate the effect of your potions or spells. Everything will always be re-updated automatically.
It is a very complex system that is affected by, and is affecting, many other functions, therefore there is the possibility of some bugs so please keep an eye out and let us know immediately if you find one. (This is what was causing fights to get stuck sometimes today).
Other changes
Bugs fixed
Future priorities
Test environment
This is the biggest and best news of this Update, though from a player's perspective there is nothing visible. As of today, we now have a Agonia test server where we can test our code before pushing it to the live environment. This will probably come as a shock for many that we had no such thing like that yet, and those who have a minimum of coding experience will feel our pain! Every code change required a manual push to the live server from Dspe. Now we can make changes, push it to the test server without Dspe, correct the mistakes, push it again, repeat until it works, then push it to the live game. We sometimes had to loose 3-4 days just because we forgot a " in one line, those waiting times are over now.
This is a fantastic news because it means progress on the game will go much much faster. See everything that we have done in one year without a test environment, now imagine what we can do in the next year with one
It also means that in-game disturbances will be minimized since we will not push untested code into it anymore. Of course it still doesn't mean that any new code will be 100% bug-free but it will limit the damage a lot.
Marketplace changes
- Offers on the Marketplace are now visible even if you are not in cap. Click Trade Items then Marketplace and you will see them no matter where you are on the map.
- If outside of any cap, you can only see the offers that are in the Marketplace of your faction's capital. You can view them, but you cannot buy anything, you still need to get physically to the cap to actually buy the items (they don't magically teleport across the map).
- Offers on the Marketplace now have an expiration counter. This is to limit the pollution of the marketplace with irrelevant offers. When you put an item for sale, an expiration counter of 45 days begin. At any time, you can go to your Sell Items page from capital to see the status of the counters, and click Reset all expiration counters to reset all of them back to 45 days.
- We remind everyone that putting items on the market at very high prices to store them is prohibited.
Nozama's Rare Items Shop
- Nozama's shop is now open in both capitals! Nozama is a collectioner of precious items, but she is willing to spare some to you in exchange for a hefty price in Gold.
- You can access Nozama's shop only from capitals. Go to Trade Items then Nozama's Shop.
- Nozama sells all sorts of rare items: ivory tusks, sacred wood, silk, dragon parts, runes, gems, etc...
- The price system is based on offer and demand, but it's different than the one used for the Xarnak embers: everytime someone buys an item, the price of this item will increase. The amount increased depends on the rarity (not price) of the item. In parallel, every few minutes, there is a chance that the price of all items is reduced by 1 Gold. Over time, the price of each item will stabilize.
Restat code
As you may know, our objective is to recode the whole game entirely. This last month, we entirely recoded the restat system. This complex system regroups all the functions that calculate and update constantly all the stats, skills, hp, etc of players everytime an action is performed (using an item, changing a ring, casting a spell, expiration of spell/items, etc).
This now means that you will no longer need to go to your character sheet to activate the effect of your potions or spells. Everything will always be re-updated automatically.
It is a very complex system that is affected by, and is affecting, many other functions, therefore there is the possibility of some bugs so please keep an eye out and let us know immediately if you find one. (This is what was causing fights to get stuck sometimes today).
Other changes
- Mayors: The new Mayors have been appointed. Greyhawk and Balin will be the mayors until 30 June. The next election will happen mid-June.
- Alchemy recipes: The required skill of alchemy recipes has been increased. They were set low in the beginning since players had very low alchemy skills.
- Freefolk resurrection point: Freefolk players now have a resurrection point. It is located on a small island south of Agonia. After resurrecting, a NPC can take you to the shore. No one can go from the mainland back to the resurrection point. This means that even players who are banned from both capitals will always be able to resurrect somewhere.
- Softcap/Hardcap: A first character recently reached hardcap at 400. As planned, this will now trigger the cap increase. Every monday, the hardcap will increase by 1. The softcap as well, since it will always be 50 skills lower than the hardcap.
- Spawns: When moving diagonally, the spawn rate of monsters is now increased by 41% (just like the move cost is increased by 41%). This means you can now train with movement by moving diagonally and you will still get the same number of fights/moves consumed and not lose any potential XP. By doing so, it makes move-training less 'clicky'.
- Faster fight rounds: To make the game a bit more dynamic, we have sped up the speed of rounds. Rounds are now 15 seconds apart.
- Town: When a group leader moves someone's item from his dwelling to the town hall, the owner now gets an ingame notice message about it.
- Dragons: Dragons have been buffed since there are more and stronger players now.
- Voting site: The reward system now works for BBOGD! (the 2nd voting site on your vote page)
Bugs fixed
- Town: The bug where some items would disappear when group leaders used the 'Move items to Town Hall' function is now fixed. The bug was causing items to disappear if the page was refreshed and the action sent twice.
- Town: When making buildings, the Copper nails in the mason hut were not accounted for and players had to store them in the town hall instead. This is now fixed, so copper nails, just like planks and stones, must all be stored in the mason hut when you make buildings or extensions.
- Spirit trades: There was the possibility to catch more spirits than your sorcery level allowed by setting some to trade (without the other person actually accepting th trade). This is now fixed.
Future priorities
- Recoding the entire fight engine. The fight engine is the biggest, baddest, scariest part of the game's code. It is a nightmare vision where several coders have drowned to their despair, most who have tried to tweak it never made it back to their families. The process of recoding this monster entirely has already started and some significant chunks are already being tested. We hope that by the next Game Update whole game will function on the brand new fight engine.
- New agility/strength system. Taking the opportunity of the fight engine recode, we will also work on the long overdue agility/strength system we have been promising.
- Army spawner. For an invasion event
