Developer Blogs

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This page is an archive (with formatting improvements) of the developer blogs, mostly the development blog.

This makes it possible to search or read large parts of the devblogs without having to go through a lot of pages.

This is different from Announcements aka News which are posted on the bulletin board with the same name and they are also available from the news command in game.

Contents

Recent Developments

1006 Revisionist, posted on Fri Mar 15 10:08:44 2024

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

* The "brief" command now shows your settings in alphabetical order.

* The lecture timetables in the AM Assassins' Guild now obey your temporal_reality setting.

* When Bernita's wombles deliver flowers, you'll now be able to see in hcomm who sent them.

* Various new breads have been added to the bakery stall in Djelibeybi's bazaar.

* Some witch hats will now keep the rain off when they didn't before.

* The thaum-absorbing pyramids in the outdoor gym at the Institute of Illusory Learning now work.

- Guildenstern and Kake

1005 The Craft Of Bugfixing, posted on Wed Mar 6 13:40:18 2024

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* Beard Day beards can now be removed. They will vanish when you do so, but if this makes you sad then you can always su for another one.

* The Morporkian Carriages game will now tell you who won when the game has finished. Moreover, you can now end a game that's got "stuck" by making sure that all players who are still in the room have resigned (see the helpfile attached to the game for more details).

* Decoratable items now have the adjective "decorated" or "undecorated" as appropriate. Moreover, fabric-covered decoratable items now mention the colour of the fabric in their short desc (instead of being e.g. just "a velvet covered gift box").

* Pottery items now have the adjective "fired" or "unfired" as appropriate. For technical reasons, this change couldn't be made retroactive, so it only applies to pots made from the time this change went live; but since these adjectives are mainly useful during the making process, we felt it was worth implementing the change anyway.

* Pottery plates are easier to glaze than they were. Conversely, teapots are now slightly harder.

* The Ninja pottery room now has a brush and a set of tongs on the table for everyone to use.

* Binders have been made slightly larger, and will now hold 32 items rather than only 20. However, please note that for item-counting purposes, every item inside the binder is counted, rather than the entire thing counting as just one item. This is not a bug, and it's also not a punishment for people who like to collect things - it's a technical limitation due to the fact that binders can contain editable items like maps and enchantable/writeable/remember-placeable/etc items like creator cards and iconographs.

* The message when failing to sculpt a finesmithing item has been clarified to remove ambiguity about whether any progress at all has been made.

* A bug has been fixed in the code that sets the values of finesmithed items; specifically, for some (but not all) items, it was failing to add the full value of the materials. Now this is fixed, every well-made finesmithed item should return at least _some_ profit. This fix is retroactive, so you may find that existing finesmithed necklaces and brooches have increased in value (but not rings, since the bug didn't affect them).

* Trying to use the "fix" command on an unsuitable item will now give you a much more helpful message wherever possible, indicating what you need to use instead of a forge.

1004 Why Is This Loon Still Blogging About Parrying?, posted on Fri Feb 23 15:04:35 2024

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

In addition to the adjustments that were discussed in previous blog posts, an additional, separate issue was found that related to parrying some ranged attacks (particularly those involving smaller projectiles).

An additional (and hopefully final) change has now been made that should make a far more noticeable difference to parry users defending against small projectiles. This change should mean that your choice of "tactics response" should always be used when defending against ranged attacks. Please note that if you are a parry user who was accustomed to having dodge kick in as a sort of 'backup' defence against projectiles, this will no longer occur. On the plus side, your *actual* primary defence should work far better than it did previously. You may wish to exercise some caution while you evaluate how the change affects your specific setup. The expectation is that this will be beneficial to the vast majority of parry users.

Many thanks to the PTs for their help with nailing down this issue and for testing the fix.

Good luck!

1003 Parrying What Life Throws At You Pt. II, posted on Thu Feb 22 13:56:17 2024

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

I've now made a further adjustment to the weighting of ranged attacks vs parrying defence, as mentioned in the original post on this topic. Again, please submit a bug report if you witness any behaviour you think constitutes a bug or unintended outcome of this change.

I would also like to clarify that this change does *not* affect inhumation attempts in any way. There is separate code that handles those compared to normal ranged attacks.

Have fun!

Kadath

Re:#1 Formulas for the teaching change

Note #20 by Pit at Sun Feb 18 13:34:37 2024 [GMT-5] on board frog

On Thu Dec 28 13:32:16 2023, Pit wrote:

> If you haven't yet read about the teaching changes on the blog, please
> do that first (blog view default entry 995).

> In that blog, I promised the new formulas.  These are as follows:

> EFFECTIVE CAP:
> * A teacher's Capped ETB (CETB) for teaching a student with bonus N is
>   - Min(ETB, N + 100) if the teacher is unspecialised
>   - Min(ETB, Max(N + 200, N * 1.5)) if the teacher is specialised

Update: as part of the ongoing evaluation of how the changes are playing out, the cap for unspecialised teachers has been changed to MIN(ETB, MAX(N + 150, N * 1.35)).
So, the difference between a specialised and an unspecialised teacher in a skill is now a bit smaller.

Pit.

1002 Pressure Drop, posted on Tue Feb 20 10:27:00 2024

Posted by: Kake
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

The XP reward for sailing has been rebalanced to bring it more in line with other game systems. In particular, it now takes into account the duration of your voyage, in order to ensure that crews of all speeds are given a fair reward for their time.

I've put further details below, but I also want to explain the thinking behind this change, and make it clear what will and will not happen in response to player feedback.

Firstly, the reason for the change. This is a high-XP mission, which means that a balanced reward for the fastest crews looks very different from a balanced reward for the slowest crews. Before this change, the fastest crews were being awarded too much XP for the amount of time spent earning it. This had to be fixed, since efforts to avoid power creep are a major reason why the MUD has stayed fun and sustainable for thirty years. We could have just balanced the entire mission by setting the reward in line with the speed of the fastest crews, but that would be very unfair on slower crews, and we want sailing to be worthwhile for as many types and combinations of players as possible.

Secondly, we do not plan to make any tweaks to the actual mechanics of this change for at least six months (and hopefully not even then, if none seem to be needed), but if you think any of the messages or helpfiles are unclear or confusing, please make a rep explaining why you think so, and we'll take a look at them. Feedback of other kinds is also welcome, but I will be collating it and responding to it in one go, rather than trying to answer every single person individually.

Thirdly, if you don't want to start having to care about your speed during the voyage, you absolutely do not have to. The idea of this change is that whatever speed you go, you will get a fair return of XP for your investment of time.

And finally, here are the details:

- People whose sailing bonus is less than 200 can no longer attempt the mission.

- The monster XP has been halved.

- For each stage of the voyage, if your crew completes that stage in less time than a specific threshold (which varies by stage), then you might get less XP than if you'd taken the full time. This is "might get" rather than "will get" because there's a smoothing effect that will to some extent let slower times in earlier stages offset faster times in later stages (but you can't get a huge offset by just idling in the ship for half an hour before starting).

- To make this make narrative sense, Smith has a new type of leaderboard, both her and Chidder's pre-voyage and post-voyage chats have been changed, and the "here is your XP for the stage you just completed" message now includes a notification in cases where the XP has been reduced.

- Only XP is affected - ambergris and cash rewards remain the same as before regardless of how long you take to complete the mission.

1001 Pancake Tuesday, posted on Tue Feb 13 02:26:20 2024

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Happy Pancake Day!

You can now fry pancakes in a frying pan, skillet, or wok. This requires a heat source like brewing, as well as flour, raw egg (from cracking eggs), milk, and butter. You can also add any seasonings and up to 1 optional ingredient of your choice!

Enjoy!

1000 Loitering Within Tent, posted on Fri Feb 9 11:03:20 2024

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special

The range of tents available has been expanded, and you can now go camping around the Disc! Some highlights:

* Erecting a tent will keep the room it's in loaded, which means that the stuff you leave in it (and outside it) will not be eaten by the inevitable progress of time for a few days - even if you log out.

* WARNING: It can still be picked up by players or NPCs, and a crash or a reboot will destroy it all. Anything you lose like this will not be replaced by Liaisons.

* You will need to re-visit your tent at least once a Discworld week to shore it up, or it will fall down and you will lose your stuff. Looking at it will show you how badly it needs shoring up.

* There are some rooms (mostly in cities) where you won't be able to erect a tent. You also will not be able to erect a tent in the same room as another tent, whether a player tent or an NPC one.

* You will be able to find tents wherever the old wizards' tent hats were sold, in some of the warriors' guild shops, and in the Ankh-Morpork thieves' guild shop. If you already have a tent hat, you should be able to continue using it.

* Campfire kits are also available - once you unpack it you won't be able to move the campfire, but you can light or extinguish it as much as you like provided you have fuel.

* Both tents and campfire kits have their own help files!

* Have fun, and be happy campers!

999 Parrying What Life Throws At You, posted on Wed Feb 7 15:03:54 2024

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

An issue has been identified that made it extremely difficult for anyone using the 'parry' response to defend against the majority of ranged attacks (anything using the thrown/fired skills).

This will have had a significant impact on players who rely on parry in places like the smuggler caves and copperhead mines with aggressive NPCs who like to throw things. It will, however, have been advantageous for players using ranged attacks against parry-using NPCs as well.

The modifier that favoured the attacker in these situations has been reduced somewhat and the current plan is to reduce it further, but to monitor the effects of the first reduction to ensure there are no unintended knock-on effects. We expect this change will be a net benefit to players as the majority of players will be on the receiving end of thrown attacks more than the other way around (ranged attacks against monsters while sailing are unaffected by this change).

Consider this a caution if you happen to use ranged attacks in combat on a regular basis. If you experience any oddities with ranged combat that you think constitute a bug or are otherwise unfair or unintended, please submit a bug report.

Have fun!

Kadath

998 A Rambling List Of Ramtops Fixes, posted on Wed Feb 7 14:05:36 2024

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Ram

This month, your intrepid creators have taken on the perilous terrain of the Ramtops to bring you a list of fixed bugs, implemented ideas and miscellaneous maintenance:

Items

* Furry earmuffs from Stephan in Mad Wolf will now fit under both helmets and hats.

* Hessian sacks are now treated as "flexible" while empty, meaning you can put them inside smaller containers as long as they don't contain things themeselves.

* Non-piercing ranged weapons, such as thrown boulders, will now end up on the floor after striking their target rather than in the target's inventory.

* A plethora of bugs have been fixed involving the floaties from the Creel Springs bathing shop. They should no longer spam players with messages about deflating while not being worn, should show their inflated/deflated status properly both when looking at them and when looking at a player who is wearing them, automatically deflate when removed, properly show as deflated when their air runs out, and perhaps most crucially, no longer make swimming nigh-impossible while wearing them.

* It is no longer possible to dry yourself with a towel while you are situated in a body of water.

* Bales of hay from Razorback and jack-o-lanterns from Slippery Hollow can now both be placed as furniture. Hay bales will act as a simple table, and jack-o-lanterns can have their candles lit/replaced to provide light.

* The climbing rope and harness from Joshua's Climbing Shop in Slice now weigh more sensible amounts.

* Mending needles have been refactored so that all sewing/leatherworking needles on the disc now use the same code rather than working in their own quirky and unique ways. This shouldn't affect players in any meaningful way, other than finding that bone needles no longer function as (really terrible) weapons and can no longer be used to sew clothes mid-combat. Other types of needles (such as embroidery needles) are unaffected.

* Holding a hobby horse no longer prevents people from seeing messages about jingly fools' clothing when someone enters/exits a room. In fact, wearing such clothing and holding a hobby horse will now produce a combined effect that is, all things considered, very silly.

Copperhead Mines

* Dark Sight will now help you to fight shadow bats.

* A bug has been fixed where the "pry" and "investigate" commands for rooms containing crates sometimes didn't function properly until you looked at the crates. The word "crate" is no longer an optional word in the syntax now, so bear this in mind if you have any issues with existing aliases.

Lancre Town

* The beauty parlour in Lancre Town now offers a mullet hairstyle, and the syntax and help file are clearer.

* Your hairstyle, nail polish, lipstick, and waxed legs will no longer decay in appearance, but will instead stay perfect until they expire. Additionally, the timer will no longer count down while you are offline.

Ohulan Cutash Selling Missons

* You can now quit an OC selling mission without losing your collateral, as long as you return any unsold merchandise. J. Smyttle's dialogue is now more helpful in guiding you as to what you need to do in this circumstance.

* Fixed a bug where it was possible to sell to the same NPC repeatedly without increasing the skillcheck difficulty.

* Added some dialogue to J. Smyttles to explain why the monetary reward for mission completion is sometimes higher than the value of the items sold.

* You can no longer sell mission items to the general store that gave you them to sell.

* Mail hauberks have been removed from the list of items that can be given out to sell for senior-difficulty missions. They have been replaced with something a little more manageable weight-wise for most players.

Misc

* A new syntax has been added to the "events" command ("events list groups") for a more convenient way of seeing which groups of players an event can be targeted at. Also, the list of targetable groups now includes (a) Fools and (b) citizens of various areas.

* Roads in the Steppes now have the same climate as their surrounding terrain rooms. In most cases this means they are now somewhat colder.

Good luck!

Guildenstern, Kadath, & Kake

997 Concentration!, posted on Sat Jan 20 00:09:11 2024

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

After some discussion with The Defeater of Empires, the Swallower of Oceans, the Thief of Years, the Ultimate Reality, the Harvester of Mankind, the Assassin 'Gainst Whom No Lock Will Hold (better known as Death), he has agreed that once something has crossed into his jurisdiction, as it were, then if someone was focusing their attention upon said thing, that attention should then be lost.

In practical terms, what this means is that if you are concentrating on an enemy, and the enemy dies, you can now concentrate on something else immediately. This also means that the special identifier 'target' can also be used immediately.

--Presto

996 Keeping The Faith, posted on Wed Jan 10 13:52:04 2024

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

The Gods of Discworld have been in a giving mood over Hogswatch, and have decided to distribute one last set of boons to their faithful before turning their attention back to important Cori Celesti infighting.

Rituals

* Sufficiently skilled players can now break out of stasis spheres with unarmed strikes.

* It is now possible travel to the air room via Divine Hand.

* The helpfile for Horror has been updated to clarify that it can be performed while holding a faith rod.

* Holy Insight now has the potential to give information about a target's current tactics (Like the rest of the ritual, this insight is skillchecked and therefore won't always be shown).

* The stages for performing Life of the Party should now properly show which type of "party hat" is being used as a component.

* Odoriferous Wrath now uses a skillcheck to determine how frequently the target will give off stealth-breaking chats.

* Fear, horror and agoraphobia no longer have an effect on unconscious targets.

* When creeping doom devours a corpse, the "consumption" message no longer reflects the size increase of the doom before it has actually happened.

* Insect clouds produced by the creeping doom ritual will no longer leave non-decaying bits lying around when they devour corpses; instead, the messages now give alternative explanations for what happened to the bones.

Commands

* New syntax options have been added to the "pray" command to allow praying for someone random from your faith, praying with varying degrees of fervour for another player, or both together (praying with varying fervour for a random person).

* A new syntax has been added to the various ritual burial commands to bury "max" corpses based on your currently available GP.

Resurrection

* Resurrection after a PK death no longer gives priests a long, spammy and often incomplete list of retained rituals. Since rituals are not actually removed with this kind of death, it now simply tells you that your knowledge of all your rituals has been preserved.

Shrines

* The Small Gods shrines in Ohulan-Cutash and the Ramtops (near the Giants' Land) have been reworked to be a little less awkward and buggy than before. It is no longer necessary to enter/leave the shrine repeatedly to receive the the full +2 wisdom boost and in fact doing so will likely make the process take more time rather than less. The shrines now give more useful player feedback when bestowing their blessings, too.

Bonus Non-Priestly Fix

* The regulars at the Hatchet & Entrail pub have been persuaded to take out their violent urges primarily on humanoid (and equine!) individuals, and should now leave creatures like clouds, cabbages, fruitbats, moon dragons and others alone when deciding who to do horrible things to.

Have fun!

Kadath, Kake, Guildenstern & Pit

995 Teaching Changes, posted on Wed Dec 27 12:02:46 2023

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Hello all!

There have been some changes to the way teaching works. Specifically:

* The goodness of teachers is now capped based on your own bonus.

* Teachers can specialise in a skilltree. The cap is higher for skills in the tree they specialise in.

* Both the teaching XP and the learning cost formulas have been adjusted slightly.

* There is now a "teachers" command to help you find online teachers for skills you want to learn.

To help those who manage learning-oriented websites, we will publish the most important formulas on the boards. For the big picture, the most important things to know are:

For students:

* Especially at low levels, there is no benefit to finding the "best" teacher for a skill, any specialised teacher whose effective teaching bonus (ETB) is above a certain number is equally good.[1]

* Especially at low levels, there *is* a lot of benefit to finding a specialised teacher.

* To make it easier for you to find a good teacher, you can use the "teachers" command to see available teachers.

For teachers:

* To show up on the teachers command, please use "teachers opt in"

* To make sure your students get the best cost, set "options personal teaching_spec" to the tree you prefer to specialise in. A specialisation can be changed every 5 minutes for now, although this is likely to change in the future.

We will be monitoring how this develops, and if the new system causes problems, so your feedback is welcome. It is very possible that there will be further changes in the future, depending on need.

Happy learning!

[1] Specifically: if a teacher's ETB is at least max(your bonus + 200, your bonus * 1.5), they are "optimal", and will give you the best possible XP cost for your skills.
Note #23 by Pit at Thu Dec 28 06:32:16 2023 [local] on board frog

Hello all!

If you haven't yet read about the teaching changes on the blog, please do that first (blog view default entry 995).

In that blog, I promised the new formulas.  These are as follows:

EFFECTIVE CAP:
* A teacher's Capped ETB (CETB) for teaching a student with bonus N is
 - Min(ETB, N + 100) if the teacher is unspecialised
 - Min(ETB, Max(N + 200, N * 1.5)) if the teacher is specialised

LEARNING COST:
* To learn 1 level of a skill for which you have N bonus, with a teacher of CETB M will cost you:
 public int compute_teaching_cost(int student_level, int student_bonus, int cetb) {
   int cost = 250;
   float minimum_k = 0.5 * student_bonus / 800 + 1;
   float maximum_k = 1.5;
   float simple_k = 0.5 * student_bonus / (cetb ? cetb : 1) + 1;
   float k = maximum_k - (cetb - student_bonus * 1.0) /
             (maximum_relevant_etb(student_bonus) - student_bonus) * (maximum_k - minimum_k);
   if (simple_k < k) k = simple_k;
   return 500 + to_int(cost * student_level * exp(student_level / 500.0) * k);
 }
* Here, maximum_relevant_etb(student_bonus) = Max(student_bonus + 200, student_bonus * 1.5).

TEACHER REWARD:
* I won't give the full formula, but this used to be based on how much XP the student spent learning the skill (meaning that a bad teacher would get *more* XP than a good teacher for teaching the same skill), and is now instead based on the cost of self-teaching the skill (meaning that teacher goodness doesn't matter).

994 Happy Hogswatch From The Gods Of Discworld, posted on Fri Dec 22 09:17:47 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

In the spirit of Hogswatch, the Gods of the Discworld have done the unthinkable and actually agreed on something:

It has been decided that Priests and Followers who stray out of their God's preferred alignment will no longer immediately lose access to all their rituals. Instead, a hefty penalty will be applied to the difficulty, effectiveness and GP cost of the ritual that will become more severe the further the individual strays from their God's dictated alignment.

PLEASE NOTE: This is being treated as an INTERIM fix for alignment, and there are plans for a far more comprehensive overhaul of the faith/alignment system to something far more nuanced than what we have now. The current change should be seen as a way to ease a major pain point for Priests in the short-medium term while we work on something that will take a lot more time and testing.

We strongly recommend that you do not make any long-term character decisions based on trying to optimise around this current alignment fix.

That said, have fun and Happy Hogswatch!

Kadath

More Fiery Fuels for Fledgling Firebreathers, posted on Tue Dec 12 18:39:25 2023

Bulletin Boards: Foolsguild
More Fiery Fuels for Fledgling Firebreathers

Note #8 by Evensong at Tue Dec 12 18:39:25 2023 [GMT-4] on board foolsguild

A slight error in the code meant that a lot of basic fuels were being discounted as fuels when they should have worked fine.

Affected fuels include, but are not limited to, named malt whiskeys, fire ale, lava, old comber, stoat special and the vegetable medley.

Please excercise the usual caution if exploring these or other firebreathe fuels.

993 Foolish Ventures, posted on Sat Dec 9 15:24:27 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Am (domain pages)

Members of the Guild of Fools can now be spotted wandering the streets of Ankh-Morpork.

992 No One Knows What The Dead Think, posted on Wed Dec 6 17:37:31 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Feeding GP to a spectre will now extend the duration of its life properly, rather than simply replacing the old timeout with a new one. This means that you no longer need to wait until your spectre is about to disappear in order to avoid wasting previously-fed GP.

Praying for others will now contribute deity points to the pool in the same way as praying in general.

"appraise here" will now attempt to let you know if you're in a room where dropped things will fall down rather than just staying on the floor (e.g. if you're hanging off the side of a cliff). Note that this does not apply to water rooms, since determining whether a thing will sink or float is more complicated.

The squint command has a new syntax - "squint list methods" - for a more convenient way of seeing which methods you know.

Maracas can now be repaired in any woodworking workshop.

- Guildenstern, Kadath and Kake

991 An Encouradjinn Start, posted on Mon Nov 27 16:27:46 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Following the re-discovery of the Eritian Desert ruins, a few adjustments have been made to make the player experience a little smoother:

- Jassi's forge now has a custom helpfile that should help with the ordering syntax, rather than a generic "forge" helpfile. Use "help here" in the forge to view it.

- Jassi will now give you a reminder of which special item he needs if you try to give him the wrong item.

- Presenting a djinn weapon to another player will now check against their unmodified bonuses (all other skillchecks remain unchanged).

- "Sand Scabbard" jewellery items will now recognise nicknames when trying to restore weapons.

- The "glowing dance floor" wishing lamp item now has new chats and a special "dance" syntax that updates the player's position in the room accordingly.

- The "list" command for the willing well was initially broken but now works as intended.

- The saris from Khambriya's shop now have a help file that details how they can be wrapped in different styles.

- Unarmed aids (knuckle dusters, plain leather headband, etc.) now have a line in their "appraise" output that indicates in broad terms what benefit they provide.

990 Uncivil Endjineering, posted on Fri Nov 17 09:49:23 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Deep within the Eritian Desert, the ever-shifting sands have uncovered a decades-old trail to a ruined and forgotten settlement.

Several of the beings within this settlement still live, going about their daily routines in service of long-departed masters. Others have survived but with a rather less cooperative disposition.


There are lots of new things to discover that I don't want to spoil, but I invite you to explore this new area and hope you have fun with it! Many items have an associated helpfile if you are not sure quite how they work, so trying 'help <object>' may be handy.


Huge thanks to Kake for their supervision on this and for writing lots of wonderful food descriptions. Thanks as well to Guildenstern for sprucing up some other descriptions on various shiny objects (which I will let you all discover for yourselves).


Kadath

989 Over Our Quota On Bug Fixes, posted on Wed Nov 8 14:27:16 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

A number of additions, improvements and bug fixes have been made throughout the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Thieves and beyond. Below is a list of the most noteworthy changes.



Commands:

- A bug in backstab has been fixed. Previously, if you tried to backstab while your inventory was still regenerating, the attempt would go through but you wouldn't get any attacks. Now the attempt is prevented entirely, so you don't lose GP for no reason.

- Scope now works properly for items sold in containers (i.e. it should no longer claim things are easy to shoplift when they aren't).

- You can now shoplift items by name even when there's a sold-out thing that also matches that name.

- The command "slip Xs" will now work whenever you have only one non-worn X, rather than failing if you have a worn X. So, for example, if you're carrying one ring and wearing another, you no longer have to work out whether the carried ring is "ring 1" or "ring 2" - you can just "slip rings".

- "hide stop" now prints a message to let you know that it worked.

- Net-dead and reconnection messages are no longer shown to people who can't see the player because they're hiding.

- A few new messages have been added for a failure to hide. These do not indicate different degrees of failure - they're just for flavour.



Licences and Quotas:

- Checking your quota will now tell you how much more you need to steal to reach your minimum and maximum quota (assuming you are currently under the relevant values). Abolishing the need for basic mental arithmetic has been the most-requested licence change by the Muggers' specialisation for 12 years in a row now.

- Elusive Ron now offers an expanded range of special licences for higher-level thieves.

- Thieves' Guild licences now have a little extra detail in their short description.

- Checking your receipts will now show the timestamps for each theft in your local timezone rather than server time.

- Kordane will now make good on his threats to throw out thieves who ask to go on leave while they are over quota.



Nicolette Leveaux:

- Nicolette's petticoats and underskirts now accurately go underneath skirts.

- Likewise, her smocks are now effectively robes rather than aprons.

- When you order a suspender belt, it will actually show up as such rather than, for example, an 'ivy green belt'.

- Her trenchcoats and labcoats will likewise show up as such in the short description.

- You will now be able to wear labcoats and trenchcoats over dresses.

- Knee-high and thigh-high socks are now visible while wearing shoes.

- All her clothes are now properly coloured, so Gapp will be able to see and judge them.

- None of her clothes will appraise as being made of "plant-fibre" or "other".

- If you order something "undyed" then that won't be mentioned in the short description.

- If you enter nothing but spaces at her prompt, she will now assume that that means you want to cancel ordering (as though you'd entered 'end') instead of getting confused and giving a runtime error.

- Ordering custom clothes from Nicolette is no longer a spectator sport - only the person making the order can see the details of what they enter.

(NB: because of the way Nicolette's clothing works, you will need to order new items to see the changes. Your old ones will not be changed.)



Other Items:

- Keys for Monitor/AGM/GM offices should now have actual dimensions and should weigh considerably less than 50 grams. You will need to ditch your current key and ask Kordane for a new one to pick up this change.

- The Ankh-Morpork Thieves' Guild armoury now sells a selection of pins for those who wish to wear their guild allegiance on their sleeve (or lapel, in this instance).

- Kordane will no longer provide new recruits with a talker if they already have one on their person.



Fencing:

- Fences will now reject most items that are currently on fire and will need you to extinguish things like torches, tea lights, and firecrackers before trying to fence them.

- Fences should no longer have "wanted items" that are outside their speciality category or that they refuse to recognise as wanted when fenced.

- Jak Raplin should now be much more consistent in maintaining a list of wanted items.



Djelibeybi Guild Grounds

- Fixed several aspects of the "extra-curricular" rooms that are accessible in the guild. Several exits now work much more intuitively and disabling a particular trap in related to an exit will now disable that trap for individuals passing through in either direction.



These changes brought to you by Guildenstern, Kadath, Kake, & Stygian

988 Custom Prayer Books, posted on Tue Nov 7 18:30:18 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Guilds

The cellar scriptorium of the Temple of Gapp in Genua is now accessible. Guillaume Bindere works there, and he would prefer that you not bother him so that he can finish his novel in peace. However, please do feel free to bother him by getting him to make custom prayer books for you, because quite frankly the Disc can wait a bit longer for his novel.

987 The Secrets Of The Heavens, posted on Sat Oct 28 20:47:39 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Wouldst tha like thy fortune told? By a SPOOKY fortune-teller? Then hie thee fearfully to Lancre Town, where Eldritch Ethel awaits, and tha'll unlock the deepest secrets of the heavens and what they hold for THY future.

(Disclaimer: may or may not involve horrible death. Further disclaimer: all fortunes are for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as actual witchery, because the Witch of Lancre Town does not hold with doing this sort of thing except for lots of scumble.)

986 The Zombies Are Coming (2), posted on Thu Oct 26 17:28:25 2023

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The zombie bacterium event will happen again on October 31, Tuesday! If you missed the last one, now's your chance to bite some survivors and/or purify some zombies.

Like the last time, the event will be opt-in: type "zombies opt-in" when it's ongoing to join. This means that if you do not want to participate in the event, you can completely ignore it.

The event will run for 24 hours.

985 Outstanding Contribution To The Historical Process, posted on Wed Oct 11 20:47:00 2023

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The latest bugfix weekend focused on issues inside Ankh-Morpork (though some of the fixes will extend beyond its borders).

Kadath, Kake, and Guildenstern made several outstanding contributions to recitif long-standing issues.

Most noteworthy are the following fixes:

- The Master of Ceremonies quest can now be completed by Adventurers. Clarifications to indicate the roles of Adventurers and Fools have been made.

- Setting off a trap in the haunted mansion will give more helpful feedback to those with elemental shielding.

- Searching the shelves in the Alchemists' Guild is significantly more likely to result in finding coloured acid.

- Job market delivery jobs have been changed to ensure that players should no longer be asked to deliver to inaccessible or frequently killed npcs, or to fetch especially hard to obtain items outside of the "Rare Items" delivery job.

- Several descriptions of delivery job recipients have been updated to more accurately reflect where they can be found.

- The "check" command for ticking off items on a job writ will now work provided you have a writing implement somewhere about your person, even if it's in a container.

- You can no longer use a quartermaster's shovel for street repair jobs.

- Constable Dorfl will now arrest criminals after knocking them out, rather than just leaving them unconscious on the street.

- Pets should only be thrown in jail if they are actually in the room with their owner at the time of arrest.

- Attempting to enter an area of The Dysk theatre that you don't have a ticket for should no longer stop you from using commands like "applaud" or "boo".

- The nomination limit in magistrate elections has been changed to "at most 7 plus yourself".

- Council honour rolls now appear in the descriptions of the rooms they're located in. You can also "list honour roll brief" if you only want to see the names and not the other details.

- The spangly belt now has a spanglier description; it is also slightly less heavy.

- The Apex Club admin office will respect your temporal_reality when telling you how long your rent is paid for.

- The Apex Club and the Thieves' Guild have agreed that theft on club premises now also falls under Guild policies, i.e. it will go on quota for Guild members and be punished for others.

- The priest listings on in-game top ten tables can now be sorted by deity.

You are encouraged to provide these upstanding creators a beverage of their choosing the next time you run into them in one of Ankh-Morpork's drinking houses.

984 Tooling About, posted on Mon Sep 25 20:54:05 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

I've made a few small fixes and updates, as follows:

- DJB madmen are now significantly more likely to shout about paid advertisements than to shout about some random chatter they heard from passers-by. Hopefully this will make it more worthwhile to take out advertising time in the city.

- Maker's mark stamps (for leather tooling) now feature an expanded range of animals to choose from, mostly those associated with the Mano Rossa, Ninja and Conlegium Sicariorum.

- Vic's tannery in Ohulan-Cutash now sells a few new leather tooling patterns (idea reps for more patterns are welcome, preferably if they include suggestions for the various levels of detail).

Have fun!

Kadath

983 Injury Time, posted on Mon Aug 21 12:30:15 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Four new achievements have been added, all from ideas in our Rainy Day File: Accident Prone, Brittle Bones, Packrat and Scheherazade.

The quartermaster's shovel is now a mace, rather than a polearm, since this is more consistent with its length.

Sorrel will now answer to "spice".

982 AMEWSing NEWS, posted on Fri Aug 11 19:14:11 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special

Horse-loving individuals of a charitable nature may wish to find Galsworthy Prebble in the streets of Ankh-Morpork, and give him some money. Perhaps buy a T-shirt or a badge to show your support for the Ankh-Morpork Equine Welfare Society. 

Bring a spare hat so he can make it suitable for your horse to wear. Unless you don't have a horse, in which case bring a friend with a horse.

981 Gravitas, What Gravitas?, posted on Wed Aug 9 15:57:03 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

A bug has been fixed in the Memorable achievement, but unfortunately the fix required us to clear progress on this achievement for those who have made some progress but not yet completed it. If you feel hard done by because of this, please talk to a liaison. This does not affect people who've already completed the achievement; only people who were part-way there.

The spelling of the "Fossilized" title has been corrected to "Fossilised", in line with MUD style for spelling. If you were using this title, you will find that it has been removed for being invalid; you can just use "title fossilised" to get the new version.

The Disciple Of Debris achievement now grants the title "Dizzy", and the Extreme Potter achievement now grants the title "Potty".

The "ach" command now has a "random" argument that you can use to see details of a random achievement you haven't achieved yet. You can also append a level to see only achievements of a given level, e.g. "ach random minor".

"ach show top twenty" now shows your own score at the bottom if you aren't already in the top 20.

"ach details" now properly takes account of your "cols" setting.

The achievements page on the website now allows you to sort your own achievements by progress (ascending or descending) within categories and levels.[0]

We also have some news that is not related to achievements! Firstly, Maisey Bent has been persuaded to accept local coinage for training, and has also employed the services of a wizard to protect her from scrying so she can travel in peace.

Yellow dusters are now actually made of cloth instead of wood, in line with their description. If you are strange enough to use these as weapons, please note that you will now need to mend them rather than repair them when they get damaged, and their combat effectiveness may be slightly different from before.

A new soul has been added; you can now "badger" people to your heart's content.

- EvenSong, Guildenstern, Kake and Stygian

[0] Please note that for technical reasons it is not possible to provide this functionality within the MUD - working out progress for everything at once is computationally expensive, and hence we have to use a cache, which is reasonable on the website but potentially confusing in-MUD.

980 Lying Like A Cheap Rug, posted on Sun Jul 23 21:04:14 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

One of the long-standing problems that Djinn's Flying Carpets, on Scoone Avenue in Ankh-Morpork, was having with their supply of flying carpets has been fixed. At least one remains.

(Some other carpets can also be found elsewhere.)

979 Fairy Tales Now *more* Fair, posted on Wed Jun 28 14:50:32 2023

Posted by: Fran
Category: Forn (domain pages)

I have fixed a bug that caused some players to be locked out of some of the quests in Bois for much longer than was intended.

I have also reset the lockouts for all players for these quests to let those of you who were already affected start these quests.

Fran.

978 Beachcombing, posted on Tue Jun 20 11:13:43 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Ram (domain pages)

You can now search the rocky beaches around the Widdershins Ocean for interesting and occasionally shiny things.

976 Scroll Right To The End., posted on Sat Jun 10 09:16:58 2023

Posted by: Fran
Category: Web

I've fixed a bug in the DecafMUD client (accessible with the Play Now link) that was preventing the automatic scrolling from working in some browsers.

Enjoy!

975 Thank You And Goodnight, posted on Wed Jun 7 14:47:08 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Special

Our recent Bugfix Weekend produced a plethora of fixes and enhancements, mostly related to playerhousing, decoration and furniture. Further details below!

* Furniture now responds to "placed furniture" and "unplaced furniture"/"displaced furniture" as appropriate. Moreover, it now responds to "all"/"thing"/"things" _if and only if_ it is unplaced; so, for example, "drop all" will now drop furniture items as well, but "get all" will continue to ignore placed furniture.

* Beds (except hammocks, bedrolls, futons and tatami mats) can all now have items put on them.

* Hangable items such as mirrors can now be placed "on" the ceiling as well as "hanging from" the ceiling.

* Cats and cat toys can now be put into cat baskets.

* Birdbaths now attract birds in suitable circumstances.

* Decoratable furniture now gives a more useful failure message when you try to decorate parts that can't be decorated.

* Descriptions of multiple walls with the same appliques on now have improved grammar.

* There is now a limit to the number of stencils that can be put on any one wall, thus preventing the bug where too many stencils show up as the wrong number.

* "Female priest" dummies and mannequins are now "priestess" dummies and mannequins.

* Swapping clothing with dummies/mannequins now always wears the clothing, instead of sometimes just going into your inventory.

* Silver crystal dragon goblets now hold water.

* A bug in the quick categories game has been fixed: it will now award achievement progress to the winner of the game rather than the loser.

* Ink racks have been upgraped; previously, you could only store up to four bottles (1000 drops) of a given colour of ink, taking up one glass flute. It's now possible to fill multiple flutes with the same colour of ink - e.g. you can store five bottles of red ink, but this will take up two flutes of space in the rack. (The total number of flutes remains unchanged at 150.)

* Finally, Jabez Clamber and Jenny Tawdry have been persuaded to rotate their stock a bit more often.

-- Capita, Guildenstern, Kake and Stygian

974 Replacing Beds, posted on Sun Jun 4 17:05:52 2023

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

Hello all!

As part of some updates to furniture, several beds have been improved: you can now put things on them! This may prove quite useful for those of you who would like to have a pillow on their bed. :)

Unfortunately, as an unintended side effect of this change, many existing beds have become unplaced...

So, for those of you houseowners who have beds in their houses: please check in your house if the bed is still properly placed. If not, just replace it; the placement should not be lost again.

If a bed has disappeared from the house, it might be that the house unloaded while the bed was unplaced. If this is the case, please contact a liaison: we can recover unplaced items within 2 weeks of them being lost.

Cheers,

Your fluffy Liaison Team.

973 Visualising The Good And The Bad, posted on Wed May 31 07:33:55 2023

Posted by: Fran
Category: Web

For creators: I have updated the bug statistics graphs page so it works once again.

For players: I have made the creator bug graphs available to everyone so the curious can now see how many bugs we fix, how many bug reports players make and more! Check out the Bug graphs link in the Creating menu to load it up.

Enjoy,

Fran.

971 The Regrapes Of Woodworking, posted on Fri May 19 11:22:32 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special

* Player-made wooden rings are now slightly less ridiculously durable than they were.

* Newly made Uberwaldean walking sticks are now "walking sticks" instead of just "sticks".

* You now need to be holding a saw in order to saw rivings, rather than just having it in the room. On the other hand, sawing multiple rivings at once now behaves a little better.

* Some new wood types have been added in various places wood is sold.

970 Player Shop Money Changer Improvements, posted on Tue May 16 06:03:55 2023

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

Playershop money changers have some new features!

First, for shop owners, the 'withdraw' command now allows you to withdraw multiple denominations at once by separating them with ", " (both the comma and space are required). So for example you can "withdraw 10 crowns, 5 rhinu from changer". This has actually been available for a while, but now it's officially announced. The only catch is that for Ankh-Morpork money it's recommended to use the area name (eg "Ankh-Morpork pence" or "am dollars") otherwise you might not get what you expected. This might get corrected some day.

The way the exchange rate is calculated for foreign-to-foreign switches has been changed to be the sum of the acceptrate and issue rates for the two areas. The old way was a little more fair to customers, but was complicated to understand.

For customers there are some new commands.

First, you can now 'list contents of changer' to see what money is available.

Second, you can now 'change <money> to <area> on changer' to convert your cash to money from certain area. For example 'convert am dollars to lancre on changer'.

And third, if you want to see what the result of a transaction would be without actually doing it, both variants of the 'change' command have an associated 'try' command, so you can 'try to change am dollars to lancre on changer'.

--Presto

968 Recovering Mortal Remains, posted on Thu May 11 17:05:11 2023

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

The find corpse ritual has been updated:

- It now requires a target when you perform it instead of asking at the end. See help find corpse for details on the syntax.

- A bug with some of the distance indicators is fixed.

- It now is clearer when some poor soul happens to have more than one corpse.

- You can now find your own corpse if you lose track of it.

Fran.

967 The Darling Bugs Of May, Part 2, posted on Wed May 10 12:07:37 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

Here's the latest batch of updates, tweaks and fixes from your lovely creator team:

- Playershop greeter imps have finally learned how to speak Brindisian, Dwarfish and Klatchian. (If yours is not co-operating, please ask a liaison to update the room, or wait for the next reboot.)

- The output of the temperature command has been clarified, removing the need to wonder (or argue about) whether "a lot of warmth" is more than or less than "quite a lot of warmth".

- The weights of garlic cloves and bulbs have been rationalised to ensure that (a) the cloves ripped from a bulb no longer weigh several times more than the bulb itself, and (b) garlic no longer doubles its weight when ground. To compensate for these changes, (i) garlic cloves now act as collective objects in the same way as carrots (i.e. they stack in your inventory) and (ii) the Laughing Falafel now sells bulbs of garlic instead of individual cloves, at the same price as before. Please note that bulbs of garlic cannot be directly ground - you need to rip out the cloves and grind those.

- Books can now be turned or opened to a random page, and books with no pages left can now be referred to as "empty book". Please note that these changes are unlikely to filter through to all existing books until after the next reboot.

- You can now use $servertime$ and $localtime$ in your prompt and monitor strings to print the server time and the time in your personal timezone (if set). See "help prompt" and "help monitor" for more.

- The mailinfo command has a new syntax, "mailinfo alts unread", for those of you who find "mailinfo alts" too spammy.

- Using 'group assist' to change the person you're assisting should now automagically 'unassist' the previous person.

- You can now use the 'engraved' adjective to refer to things that have been engraved with text or a pattern.

- The priest ritual 'Food of Life' now works on hunks of meat that have deboned on a butcher's workbench.

- Spider monkeys now have the correct number of limbs

- Fixed an issue where it was impossible to TM music skills when using custom play or serenade messages.

- You can no longer crack a safe if the room is too bright or dark for you to see it clearly.

- Coffee Nostra mission npcs that ask for scroll deliveries can now actually hold said scrolls without blowing up.

- Four kitchen sinks have appeared in shops in Sto Lat and Bad Ass, so you will no longer have to go into the bathroom for water.

- Two new pieces of Klatchian-themed jewellery are available in Djelibeybi.

- Squinty Jeb has been persuaded to make bevors to go with the rest of his wares.

- The Laughing Dog restaurant in Bes Pelargic has had a change of owner and heart - it is now a place for dogs to go and have dinner with their humans.

- Gem grinding has been un-bugged; it is now possible to fail when it wasn't before.

Good luck!

Fran, Guildenstern, Kadath & Kake

966 Making Your Mark, posted on Wed Apr 19 11:07:49 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Special

A few specific tanneries in the Sto Plains and Ramtops regions now stock leather tooling equipment. This will allow you to add text and patterns to leather items, or those made of similar enough material. Two pattern books and several loose tooling pattern sheets are available in various locations and more are expected to start appearing as additional enterprising shopkeepers look to get in on this new avenue of income.

965 The Hidden Articles, posted on Thu Apr 13 03:48:58 2023

Posted by: Capita
Category: Guilds

Articles such as "A", "An" or "The" added to deluded items will now be hidden appropriately in messages that mention those items.

Example:

She has A Student Wizard floating around her.

The wise monk swings at you but your floating Student Wizard swoops in and absorbs all of the blow.

964 Arcane Machinations, posted on Tue Apr 11 12:11:58 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

Thanks to an unprecedented few days of reluctant cooperation and minimal[1] bickering, the various orders of wizardry (and hedge wizardry) have been able to iron out a number of thaumic wrinkles with various spells, artifacts and magical miscellanea. The most noteworthy of these changes are summarised below:


Jogloran's Portal of Cheaper Travel (JPCT)

- Burning portals from JPCT should now interact in more intuitive ways with things like hand and foot armour, as well as elemental shielding.

- Several new portal types have been added to JPCT, disproving the long-held belief that "One does not simply walk into more doors".

- The command 'push door with staff' no longer allows you to push the door with random non-staff objects. On the plus side, this has resolved the issue where pushing the door with random objects would refer to them as staves.

- Portals created underwater will no longer show as 'sinking here' when they are, in fact, not sinking.

- Burning doors will no longer appear if you are underwater (being on the surface is still fair game). We will monitor this change closely to ensure that priests of Fish who exclusively use JPCT scrolls to get around do not become overpowered.


Heezlewurst's Elemental Buffer (HEB)

- HEB has changed so that the spell now targets people rather than crystals. The biggest impact of this change is that the spell can now be cast on other people instead of only on yourself. While the spell *can* be cast without specifying components, you will generally find it more helpful to use a command on the lines of 'cast heb on <person> using <crystals>' to ensure you get the result you want. See 'help Heezlewurst's Elemental Buffer' for more details.

- HEB now provides some degree of protection against gas-based bombs. The concentrated nature of these items means that they are still likely to have a substantial effect despite such arcane protection, however.

- HEB now provides a rather more succinct and less spammy output when included in 'group shields'.


Other Spells

- Independent Recurring Vocaliser has been reworked and can no longer add many different messages to a single object. Instead, a single message at a time can be added, at which point nobody can add another message until the first one wears off. The person who added the message can either extend its duration (up to a cap) by re-casting with the same message, or can remove and replace the message by casting the spell with a different phrase.

- Pragi's Lost Gaze had become so lost that it had ceased to work properly and no longer did any damage at all. This has been remedied, and some previously-reported issues with the damage messages have also been fixed.

- You can now 'shoo' the imp summoned by Sageroff's Sentry Summoning if its services are no longer required. Or if you just get sick of passive-aggressive remarks.

- Speaking of which, those with higher skills will find that they are able to abjure the snarky imps summoned by Sageroff's Sentry Summoning to be a good deal less talkative.

- A concerned group of wizards have completely overhauled the casting process for Al'Hrahaz's Scintillating Blorpler to make it 'look the part' and 'bewilder the yokels' more than it previously did. As such, the casting messages for this spell now match the associated magic skills much more closely. The actual functionality of the spell is unchanged, but that's hardly relevant.

- Skeleton warriors created using Grisald's Reanimated Guardian are now immune to spider venom on account of not having any blood.

- Fiddelmaker's Auriferous Embrace now gives different damage messages depending on how, well, damaged your opponent is by it.

- Shells used with Rubayak's Power Storage are now a bit clearer about how much power they hold after many casts.

- Rubbing the tummy of your wooden monkey will now give you some information about how much power they have left. If you do not have a wooden monkey, please disregard this message. If you do not wish to disregard this message, you can create a wooden monkey of your own using the spell Doctor Worblehat's Flaming Primate Premonition.

- Wurphle's Midnight Snack can now create goat's cheese & red onion tart, as well as some more non-alcoholic beverages.

- Staves with Crondor's Mysterious Sparkling (CMS) active on them can now be tapped to make one of their sparkly effects happen.

- Kelleflump's Irritating Demon (KID) will now respect the caster's capitalisation when making its victims scream their name.


Sto Lat & Surroundings

- The Hillshire wizard has found another of 'Numbers' Riktor's old experiments, in which he tried to unravel the fundamental nature of colour.

- You can now fill bottles etc. from the bucket in the Academy of Artificers garden.

- Bloodstone now pulverises correctly.

- The Academy suites can now be teleported into, but not out of. Wait, no, the other way around. You can teleport out of them, but nobody can teleport in. Except by using the pre-installed door, which makes it less teleporting and more "walking in".

- Billiards tables now tell you which balls remain when it's your turn, and a tie gives achievement credit for both players rather than neither.


Miscellaneous:

- Klein bottles have been (very carefully) persuaded to stop leaking while they don't technically exist. Players should find that their klein bottles only decay while they are logged on now. Please note, however, that any existing klein bottles belonging to offline characters will continue to decay until loaded for the first time, at which point they will be updated to use this new behaviour.

- Colourful glass nuggets that have gone clear will now regain their colour even when placed in a container. Once they have their colour back, they will revert to their normal behaviour of not changing colour while inside a container.

- Offensive-magic wands now have a short cooldown before they can be re-zapped. This change is intended to prevent abuse, and should not affect legitimate use.

- Witches can now glare at distortions in the UU library to move them out of the way (the distortion will remain in the room, but will move to block a different exit).

- You can now 'flick' a piece of "gp light" jewellery that has stopped working in order to encourage it to start again. This should negate the need to remove and re-wear gp-consuming light sources if they go out due to lack of energy.

- The UU library will no longer have weirdly-formatted room descriptions for people with lookmaps turned on.


Enjoy!

Fran, Guildenstern, Kadath & Kake

[1] Relatively speaking, of course.

963 Maisey Hits The Road, posted on Fri Apr 7 19:36:11 2023

Posted by: Evensong
Category: General

Happy that she has made a difference, Maisey has decided to go back out on the road.

She's taken a bunch of Fools Guild admin forms with her so she can train and recruit on her travels and has left details of her tour dates in the reception Office.

962 Papilio Tempestae Ad Nauseam., posted on Fri Apr 7 15:16:27 2023

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

I have taken the wizard spell Patient Taming of the Quantum Weather Butterfly firmly by the metaphorical scalp and shaken it up and down a bit.

You will notice that there is now a physical weather lotus in the room when you cast the spell, as well as the fact that the temperature command will report how much the weather orb is affecting you.

The most important functional (rather than cosmetic) change is that the temperature change effected by a weather orb will only be able to affect others if it wouldn't cause them to become too hot or cold - unless they and the caster pass a PK check.

The exception to this is the caster themselves as well as their groupmates, with the use case in mind that you might want to make yourself and your groupmates hotter than comfortable before going to the hub, or colder than comfortable before going to the rainforest or jungle.

Other functional changes include the ability to smash a weather orb (subject to a PK check as long as the caster is online), an infinite XP lever that you have to search for in a room with a weather orb, and the fact that it now gives off light.[1]

[1] At least two of these are true.

961 Give A Man A Fire..., posted on Thu Apr 6 22:00:18 2023

Posted by: Evensong
Category: General

Maisey is most pleased by the lack of fresh corpses around the Fools guild now. As a reward she has made some new items available to those who have shown themselves worthy.

960 Well, Colour Me Fiery!, posted on Wed Apr 5 16:49:47 2023

Posted by: Evensong
Category: General

Maisey Bent has continued to find ways to improve the Fools Guild. Working on suggestions from the Fools she has talked to she has negotiated with the alchemists and has managed to secure some peculiar substances that burn with different colours.

Discworlds elemental forces have also caught up with recent events and wetness and foolish fireballs will now work more realistically together.

959 Assay, Assay, Assay!, posted on Tue Apr 4 16:48:53 2023

Posted by: Evensong
Category: General

Maisey Bent is already complaining about having to tidy away charred corpses of Fools. To avoid this happening so often she has devised a method of determining how powerful a fuel is without having to put it in your mouth and set fire to it.

She has also restricted sales of some of her items to those who have proven they know how to use said items safely[1].

[1] well, wisely[2]

[2] no, sensibly....argh! You know what I mean!

958 Fools Fail To Accept That They Are A Joke Guild, posted on Mon Apr 3 22:36:09 2023

Posted by: Evensong
Category: General

Having heard that the Fools' Guild was a joke, Maisey Bent has taken a break from her travels to see what she can do to help out around the guild.

She has just arrived and doesn't know how best to assist but we're sure that she will find her feet in the next few days.

In the meantime please say hello and make her feel a home.

957 Foolish Upgrades, posted on Sat Apr 1 09:53:42 2023

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

For the 4th year anniversary of the Fools' Guild, its primary guild command has received some upgrades.

Most importantly, the skillchecks for juggling multiple and non-round objects have been increased, and it is now more likely that you will kill yourself if you're going to juggle knives or other sharp objects.

Happy juggling!

P.S. Okay, okay, we also added some new juggling patterns. Go ask Auguste to teach you.

956 Magical Experiment Goes Wrong Again Again Again Again, posted on Sat Apr 1 02:38:22 2023

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Another magical experiment by the Bes Pelargic wizards has gone wrong. Your intrepid reporter isolated the head researcher responsible for the accident for an exclusive interview.

Q: Do you think that perhaps -

A: Take this reporter back and bring me a better reporter.

The interview ended at this point. However, the head researcher is available in the Bes Pelargic wizards' guild again for further questions.

955 Skeleton Staff, posted on Fri Mar 31 12:05:04 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

In a move appropriate to his profession, the renowned necromancer Grisald has posthumously made some adjustments to his Reanimated Guardian spell:

- Raising a skeleton warrior will now imbue it with a modest amount of skill in traversing difficult terrain. This should help skeletons to keep up with their masters in a few specific locations. Grisald advises that he tried to extend this benefit to swimming, but apparently there are 'too many holes'.

- Wizards will now be notified when the magics holding their skeleton warrior together won't last much longer.

- Wizards controlling a skeleton warrior can now 'relinquish control over skeleton' to prematurely end the spell. The magic holding the skeleton together will immediately start to deteriorate and the skeleton should disappear shortly afterwards. Grisald reiterates that he takes no responsibility to what happens to the wizard in the intervening period of time. Control can be relinquished regardless of whether the skeleton is in the same room or not, which should prevent instances of lost skeletons preventing the user from creating a replacement.

Have fun!

954 Flexible Demeanour, posted on Wed Mar 29 12:07:43 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Forn (domain pages) and Guilds

The Ettouferie of Luc Chanceux is now open on Yaga Crescent in Genua, offering custom-made string ties of all descriptions. Mano Rossarians in particular will find his services of interest.

Goaded on by this competition, Monsieur Gabbiani has increased his fabric options to include a couple of locally-themed leathers; though unlike Luc, he continues to offer his services to members of the Mano Rossa only.

Guildenstern and Kake

953 Dead Letter Update, Part III, posted on Mon Mar 27 12:02:23 2023

Posted by: Fran
Category: Am (domain pages)

The vague address letters for delivery in Djelibeybi, Ephebe and Genua have been updated to work with the recent skill update.

Enjoy!

Fran.

952 Skill Changes, posted on Sun Mar 26 20:25:22 2023

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Hello all,

We have made a number of small changes to the skill tree and to some guild primaries:

* We have removed fighting.range.bow, and merged existing levels into the fighting.range.fired skill, considering the relative XP costs of both skills to
replace players' existing levels. Guilds which had fighting.range.bow as a primary now have fighting.range.fired instead.

* We have removed both people.culture.djelian and people.culture.ephebian, and moved existing levels into the new skills people.culture.klatchian and
people.culture.genuan instead.

(If you had invested a lot into people.culture.ephebian and would prefer for this skill to be mapped to klatchian, then please approach a liaison. We may
be able to swap the skills, if you haven't advanced them yet after the skill change.)

* We have introduced a new skill crafts.arts.theatre. The Fools' guild has their crafts.music.performance primary replaced by crafts.arts.theatre.

(If any Fools had invested into crafts.music.performance and would prefer to keep these levels in a primary skill, then please approach a liaison. We may
be able to move the performance skill into theatre.)

Your fluffy creatorbase.

951 Minor Thing, posted on Thu Mar 16 13:09:56 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Far away, sisters and brothers of the desert have divined that sand is not quite as abrasive anymore.

Enjoy.

950 Bear Frivolities, posted on Wed Mar 15 20:40:10 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The owner of the Assemble-An-Animal Workshop in Bes Pelargic has finally grown tired of the neverending stream of requests from customers asking him expand his available stock. To solve this problem once and for all, he has hired a tailor imp who will produce miniaturized versions of any weapon, shield, armour piece, or item of clothing that it is presented with. For a fee, of course.

Happy shopping!

949 Fluff Density, posted on Sun Mar 12 18:06:12 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Guilds

Gufnork, God of Fluff, has expressed His displeasure at the drastic reduction in the amount of fluff on the Disc last weekend. Accordingly, the downgrape has been itself downgraped, resulting in a much smaller and less effective downgrape. Fluff is now almost as heavy as it was before, and just as fluffy.

948 The Travelling Salesman Solution, posted on Wed Mar 8 06:58:22 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Underworld

I've made a couple of updates to everybody's favourite travelling shop:

- Several items have been removed from the stock list that were available elsewhere far more conveniently.

- Several brand new items have been added to the stock list.

- The stock list itself should now be a little more balanced when it comes to 'desirable' items versus 'toy' items or those with a very niche use.

- The shop's stock will fully refresh a few times a day, rather than waiting for a reboot or... other methods. The exact frequency will vary with each refresh.

Enjoy!

Kadath

947 Divine Intervention, posted on Tue Mar 7 16:17:07 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

Your lovely creators have been busy this weekend, primarily waving big sticks and pointy things at the Gods of Dunmanifestin to demand a variety of fixes and changes relating to their faithful flocks. Here are the main highlights from what we managed to 'negotiate':


Shops & Items:

- Party hats are now available in the AM Hat Temple shop.

- A couple of different Hattian npcs in Djelibeybi have acquired some new headwear.

- The shop in the Djelibeybi Fish Temple now stocks a much better variety of items.

- The shop in the Bes Pelargic shipwreck now stocks some new items of clothing.

- A shrine to Shoji has opened in the Red Tower in Bes Pelargic, selling clerical items.

- Faith rods can now be referred to by their consecrated deity, e.g. "Hat baton" as well as "hattite baton".


Temples & Passage Rooms:

- Visiting somebody who is not visible to you (because of light levels or stealth) no longer tells you the hidden player's gender.

- You can no longer walk directly through the giant fire pit in Sek's Djelibeybi temple.

- You can now swing on the vines in the hot tub area of Pishe's AM Temple, should you so wish.

- Fish's high altar in Ephebe is now situated in shallow water rather than next to it.

- You can now throw balls for your pets in Pishe's passage room without losing them.

- The water in Fish's passage room is now properly salty.

- Gapp's statue now wears His favoured clothes.

- The clerk in charge of the donations slab in Gufnork's AM Temple will no longer treat a single player as multiple entities based on whether they had a surname at the time of donating. All existing donations that were spread across different surnames have now been consolidated and a new top 10 donator list has been compiled.

- Harry in the Temple of Small Gods now reacts to ghosts who were present when he arrived, as well as those who showed up after he was already spawned.


Rituals & Minions:

- The Visit ritual now properly informs observers when other characters follow the performing player on their visit.

- Khepresh has received a a Talking To from senior members of the Hattian church. He will no longer perform rituals with a 'missing symbol', will be somewhat more responsive to a number of souls, and has had his diplomatic immunity for the Listening Monks' Temple revoked.

- The Chant ritual will now calm pets and minions belonging to your groupmates as well as the groupmates themselves.

- Holy fluff is now lighter in weight.

- Find Corpse is no longer pk-checked and will no longer fail if your holy amulet is in a component pouch.

- Wrath no longer uses a fake 'say' command, and the ritual stage messages have been amended as a result.

- Some new dust devil types are available.

- Players with summoned minions will now get an extra warning message prior to the minion disappearing. This is in addition to the existing departure messages and should give players more time to respond to the departure. This message will appear even if you're not in the same room as the minion at the moment it triggers.

- Spectres summoned by the Unquiet Spirit ritual should no longer ever have duplicate adjectives for the same summoner. This should make it easier to interact with specific spectres in conjunction with the 'my' qualifier.

- Items that are stolen from spectres will no longer be immediately destroyed.

- The Breathe Underwater ritual now gives a few extra warning messages when its duration is getting low. In addition, when you extend the duration of the ritual, you will receive some approximate feedback on how long you can expect it to last.

- Celestial Anchor is somewhat quicker to cast (more in line with similar rituals like stasis) and will now prevent escape via blue crystal ring.


Player Information:

- Fingering or referring a player-worshippable deity will now list their ministers as well as their High Priest/ess.

- The finger info of ministers and High Priest/esses now indicates their position.

- Excommunicated Fishites and high-level excommunicated Pishites now have more exciting post-titles than just "the Heretic".

- Footlefon, God of Stairwells, now has a proper reference.


Enjoy!

Kadath, Kake & Guildenstern

946 Ptune-Up, posted on Mon Feb 27 08:02:40 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Ptune Pturban in the Djelibeybi Bazaar has decided to expand her sartorial offerings and now sells bespoke hijabs as well as veils. Her custom veils have also undergone some changes, but this will only affect new veils ordered after this blog post goes live. Any existing veils that have previously been purchased from Ptune will be unaffected.

I've added a help file for hijabs (including the non-custom ones that are in the normal stock list) to indicate the options you have for wearing them.

Finally, Pterrence has expanded the offering available in his lucky-dip box and you may now find any manner of turban, hijab or veil when going for a rummage.

Enjoy!

945 After Careful Examination..., posted on Sun Feb 26 07:23:47 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

I've made a few more changes to the DJB Language School to address some long-standing bugs. The two most noticeable changes are as follows:

1) If your teacher finishes their shift, or you are forced to log off, during your final exam, then your exam paper will now remember who you are and which questions you have already answered. You can log off without penalty and return when your teacher is available to finish and hand in your exam. In addition, if you somehow manage to lose your exam paper, your teacher will be able to provide you with a new one rather than demanding the return of the original.

2) The final spoken and written exam for each language now requires a higher minimum level of skill to begin, but has a higher maximum level before you are no longer eligible to take the test. In addition, there is now a minimum number of levels in spoken/written that will be awarded to you upon completing the exam (no more awards of 0 levels!). The overall result should be more consistent progression through the available lessons with a worthwhile reward at each stage.

Happy studying!

944 Cultural Exchanges, posted on Mon Feb 20 22:43:36 2023

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

I've fixed a number of bugs and made a couple of adjustments in and around Djelibeybi. Some will have more of an impact on your day-to-day play than others, so I do suggest reading this one carefully.

- The language school textbooks should no longer have more than one word with the exact same Djelian translation, meaning players no longer have to guess which is the right word when given the translation and asked for the original word.

- Textbooks for learning the Klatchian language should no longer contain words that have no Klatchian translation. As much as the teachers enjoyed having students try to pronounce the word " ", it was deemed "not that funny" and "poor educational practice" to do so.

Please note that these two changes will only apply to any newly-issued textbooks. Existing textbooks will be unaffected but the teachers will avoid asking you to translate the ambiguous words therein.

- Players in the same room as somebody taking a written exam will no longer see message like 'You select option A' as if they were taking the exam themselves.

- It should no longer be possible for a second player to enrol in a lesson right after another player has just enroled in one and effectively cut in front of the original player.

- The DJB post office no longer dispatches both a frog and a djinn to inform recipients of deposited parcels.

- Wandering mercenaries will no longer try to convince cats, camels, and other non-sapient individuals to pay them for assistance in a fight.

- After a very -pointed- debate, D'reg men and women will both simply be called "D'reg"s when encountered out and about in the world. Furthermore, D'regs will no longer have wildly inappropriate adjectives such as "shy" or "mousey". It has been brought to our attention that while there were very few complaints about these adjectives, this was largely due to the lifespan of such complainants being consistently cut short around the time they became aware of the misnomer. Consider yourselves warned.

(This change may not be immediately apparent but should start to filter through in the coming hours)

Have fun!

Kadath

943 Home Decor And Other Animals, posted on Wed Feb 8 18:23:06 2023

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* The Djelibeybi real estate receptionist will now explicitly tell blacklisted players that the reason they can't bid is that they've been blacklisted.

* Real estate offices that control leased properties (i.e. shops) now have a notice listing the dates when the leases will end.

* Sum Flying Duck, who lays tatami matting in Bes Pelargic, no longer talks about carpet.

* Various issues relating to pluralisation of appliques have been fixed.

* A blood splatter applique has been added to Nese Stenzelle's stencil shop.

* Cutting stencils now gives more interesting results based on the short description of the item you use, though the limits of text parsing means that they're not guaranteed to always be as useful as you'd like. Experiment!

* Also, an undocumented feature has now been documented; you can set the capitalisation of your stencil once it's been cut.

* Stencils applied with paint colours that begin with vowels were incorrectly using the article "a"; this has now been corrected to "an".

* Ivory calligraphy brushes now have their material properly set, and can be repaired.

- Guildenstern, Kadath, Kake, and Stygian

942 Fade Out., posted on Wed Feb 1 10:02:47 2023

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The witch fade command is supposed to insert the witch in their chosen position in the room's long description. A bug was causing this not to happen, and now it has been fixed!

N.B. It may take some time for this change to filter through so you won't start showing up in long descriptions immediately.

940 Learned Response, Part 2, posted on Sat Jan 14 15:38:10 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Some more updates for the Genua trainable pets:

- They now do an emote (about wanting to go on an adventure) when they send a follow request to someone. This should make it easier for their owners to see what's going on and hence to praise or punish them as preferred.

- The monkeys can now be trained to "equip" and "unequip", thus allowing them to wear and remove human clothing as well as pet clothing. (This was kinda-sorta implemented already, but wasn't working properly.) You can still simply "ask" them to wear and remove pet clothing, as with other pets; this does not require special training. Note that a successful "unequip" will also make them remove all pet clothing other than collars and leashes.

- They now follow through passages as well as portals (this fix also applies to other pets).

939 Kiss The Blade, Part 2, posted on Sat Jan 14 15:01:18 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

A couple more things started during the last Bugfix Weekend are now finished:

* The Conlegium Sicariorum reception area now has a helpfile.

* The unarmed and sharp weapons dummies in the Ninja dojo can no longer be used by people who are currently on the balancing beam.

* The Ninja dojo now has a climbing rope.

- Kake and Stygian

938 Kiss The Blade, posted on Wed Jan 11 14:18:54 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Being at the turn of the year, our most recent Bugfix Weekend focused on a guild concerned heavily with endings - assassins! Here's what we did.

* Fingering an assassin will now show if they hold a position within their spec.

* Inhumation books/scrolls/rolls can now be viewed with the contracts sorted by price (ascending/descending) as well as by name.

* Something at the Mano Rossa mansion that was not previously climbable has now been made climbable (and also something-else-able).

* Monsieur Gabbiani has added a selection of red shades to the fabrics he stocks for Mano Rossa suits.

* The first Hashishim trial now makes more narrative sense, and the instructions for the second are now less misleading.

* The Hashishim paradise used to dump people into the void under certain circumstances. It should no longer do so.

* The Ninja shop now stocks a ten-slot scabbard for throwing stars & shuriken.

* Ricepaper books have become washi paper books, and the pages are now washi paper rather than default "writing paper".

* When finding out from new female recruits whether they want to join Black Widow House, the Conlegium Sicariorum secretary will now ask the question again if she doesn't understand the answer, rather than assuming that any answer other than "yes" means "no".

* The Sto Lat CS outpost has been cured of its unreasonable prejudice against people who like to use twisted vine rings to unlock doors. It has also reluctantly conceded that soaking a towel in its fountain is permissible.

* The CS graduate clothes shop has started selling sensible knickers, ideal for the more middle-aged assassin.

* The CS library will no longer recommend books that have been removed from circulation.

* CS students now have a shared newbie chest in the stairwell outside their dormitories.

- Guildenstern, Kake and Stygian

937 Learned Response, posted on Mon Jan 2 12:50:28 2023

Posted by: Kake
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Several changes have been made to the Genua trainable pets:

- They can no longer be put into backpacks, vaults, etc.

- They can no longer be picked up by anyone other than their owner.

- They now show an indication of their mood when you look at them.

- They now respond to many more souls than they used to.

- They no longer consider the splash ritual to be a punishment unless it's performed on them specifically.

- They no longer require you to omit punctuation for them to understand a command (e.g. they now recognise "Roll!" as well as "Roll").

- They now only respond to speech from their owner that's _either_ directed at them (with "sayto" or "whisper") _or_ that contains their name.

936 Festive Frolicks Are For Life, Not Just For Hogswatch, posted on Mon Dec 19 20:32:22 2022

Posted by: Evensong
Category: Am (domain pages) and Guilds

Anticipating an influx of Holiday weddings the Guild of Fools and Joculators have revamped their Chapel of Fun. Brother Whopply has been subjected to all the puns from the talker during the last couple of months whilst being beaten with an assortment of bladders and has agreed to perform marriages if only he doesn't have to listen to any more puns.

Furniture has been rearranged, ancient artifacts have been restored and they've even put fresh hay down on the floor. Head on over (with or without a potential spouse) to have a look and get into the Hogswatch spirit by Acting the Fool!

935 Me, I'm Counting, posted on Sat Dec 10 17:56:26 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

* A bug with the squirming black tentacle has been fixed. You can no longer hold this with any of your limbs (even the normal ones) when under the effects of Booch's Extremal Polymorphism. On the bright side, this means that your tentacle will no longer be eaten by a silent runtime error.

* Playerhouse rooms can now have up to six different types of decoration on the surfaces (floor, ceiling, walls) before the description gets collapsed into "X are multicoloured". (If you have a room that still looks multicoloured, this is probably because there are a lot of domain-specific playerhousing inherits and I missed one when I was updating them all. Please bugrep it and I'll get it sorted out ASAP.)

934 Displacement Activity, posted on Wed Dec 7 15:01:49 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

* You can now drag things underwater.

* Knocking other people's pets off the DJB walls is now properly PK-checked.

* A small number of chicken feathers can now be picked up from among those littering Staff Sergeant Grout Ilbilee's "office" in Lancre.

* Master Gildworthy has been persuaded to tidy up and label his stock better. A stack labelled e.g. "A six-foot riving of birch" will now be birch all the way down, until his assistant changes the stock around.

* In other woodworking news, gingko rivings are now ginkgo rivings.

* A "monitor show" syntax has been added to let you see what your combat monitor display currently looks like.

* The character limit for the names that items are sold under in player shops has been increased from 50 to 80.

* Finally, fishermen in the Sur terrains now have more appropriate clothing.

Guildenstern, Kake and Stygian

933 Fine Till You Came Along, posted on Mon Nov 14 12:26:31 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

A bug in the baby kraken pet has been fixed, and so interactions between these pets and other wearable pets will now work more consistently. 

Specifically, wearable pets are intended to attack each other when you wear more than one of them. 

Before the bug was fixed, you could stop this from happening by wearing the other pet first and the baby kraken second. 

This inconsistency has been removed, and so the attack will now happen regardless of the order you wear them in.

931 As The Sands Of Runtime Trickle Through, posted on Tue Nov 8 09:34:37 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

* Title changers now have a "check" command which will show you your current title with the colour codes.

* Water buffalo no longer spawn in the rainforest; gaurs spawn instead. Water buffalo are still available in the appropriate habitat.

* Flatulus and Aegadon have finally consented to be (respectfully) fingered.

* Alethelegeios now sells talkers in a much more obvious way.

* Benches in Ephebe no longer hide items placed on them.

* Tortoises will now accept gifts of lettuce.

* The clock in the Ephebe citadel now specifies which hour it's tolling.

* Arimasticopoulous the Mosaicist will now install his mosaics on ceilings and walls as well as floors.

* Carved elephant tusks are no longer worthless.

* Pterrence and Ptune Pturban now have some more options available, and their shop sells a couple of hijabs.

* The Djelibeybi post office now sells envelopes to match their range of writing papers.

* Stalls in the Djelibeybi bazaar should now also all understand "out" as well as "leave".

* The water shop on Tsort Road will now allow you to refill the spray vials it sells, which now come in a few more colours and show more reliably when they're empty.

* The cairns in Djelibeybi now cause lightning damage rather than fire damage, so shields that protect against lightning will protect you, and shields that protect only against fire will not.

* A backgammon board has been installed in Ol'Ptom's bar in Djelibeybi.

* The map in the Djelibeybi council reception is now much more readable if you can't read it.

- Fran, Guildenstern, and Kake

930 Nervous Energy, posted on Thu Nov 3 11:53:51 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

* A small bug has been fixed in the SS Unsinkable's dragons, which will affect people with very low skills. There was meant to be a skillcheck to see whether you could see any information at all about a dragon's status, but the bug meant that this skillcheck was always succeeding. Wranglers without the skill to pass this check will no longer be able to see the abovementioned information.

* Relatedly, a new command - "check <dragon> [status]" has been added to the dragons to let wranglers see their status without all the spam of their descriptions. This is subject to the same skillcheck as seeing status when looking at a dragon, and provides the same information.

929 Less Picky Paperwork., posted on Sun Oct 30 13:58:18 2022

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

I have updated how you can refer to scrolls by the spell they hold. You no longer have to fully specify the spell name and may just use parts of the name.

This fixes a bug that made it impossible to refer to a Cherry Blossoms in Bloom scroll (or A Cup of Tea and Sake scroll if you had options input andascomma=on).

Existing scrolls will only be updated when they next load, so if you have any issues with a scroll you can su with it in your inventory to fix it.

Fran.

928 Ignorance Is Bliss, Or At Least Safety., posted on Sat Oct 22 11:09:10 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

Labels can no longer be stuck to people who are ignoring you.

On a similar note, wands that don't do damage (eg. garlic breath, icing sugar, paintball) can no longer be zapped at people who are ignoring you. 

927 Passing By And Thought I'd Drop In, posted on Fri Oct 21 13:49:43 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Am (domain pages)

A new restaurant has opened on Fast Street. Its proprietor and her wife are keen to share the joys of chaat - a category of Bharatri snack food that combines crunch, tang, sweetness and saltiness - with the residents of Ankh-Morpork, so make sure to take your friends and a good appetite along with you!

926 Serious Callers Only, posted on Wed Oct 19 14:08:05 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

* Fairy godmothers are now able to speak ungarbled while underwater, and their instructions for getting them to help you have been clarified.

* As previously warned about on the Frog board, the sea serpent in the sailing mission will now break TPA and bugshield on the first hit.

* A few new items of Bharatri-themed clothing/jewellery have been added in Djelibeybi; specifically, in the posh dress shop, the wedding shop and the Ibis Parade clothes shop.

* The locate command has been updated to work better with playerhousing, and will now state exactly where placed furniture is rather than just saying that it's on the floor.

925 The Ends Of Invention, Part 2, posted on Thu Oct 13 18:19:41 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Last month's craft-themed Bugfix Weekend was so much fun that we did it again! Here are the results.

* The values of finesmithed items have been improved in line with the cost of the minimum materials required to make them (i.e. the finesmithing process will now always add value, assuming you aren't using bars larger than the ones needed).

* The Agatean engraving book now has patterns for water buffalo and feathered crane designs.

* Quilting and embroidery needles can now be threaded directly from spools in the same way as e.g. the small silver needle.

* Decoratable binders have a new syntax allowing you to add papers at specific locations.

* Woodworking with items inside a container, or with a book that's inside a container, is no longer possible.

* Woodworking items now have adjectives based on the state of completion (e.g. "polished", "unpolished", "sanded", etc).

EvenSong, Guildenstern and Kake

924 God Told Me To Do It, posted on Wed Oct 5 16:48:32 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

* Priests' newbie chests would previously only allow their contents to be removed by players of under 18 hours in age (as well as High Priests and their ministers). This condition has now been relaxed slightly; players who are under 18 hours in age _or_ whose guild level is 25 or under will be able to take things.

* Monsieur Gabbiani now offers his Mano Rossa customers the option of trousers or a skirt when ordering a suit.

* The Hello Monkey! shop in Bes Pelargic has added some new clothing items to its stock.

921 Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints, posted on Wed Sep 28 17:31:24 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

If you've been having trouble with the Timbered achievement due to being too good at dodging, you will now find that increasing your burden above 50% will help. Relatedly, if you're planning to hunt trees in the Ramtops and you prefer not to get squashed, decreasing your burden below 50% is now recommended. (The situation for people whose burden is exactly 50% is left as an exercise for those who enjoy finding things out.)

915 The Ends Of Invention, posted on Mon Sep 5 12:12:09 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Several things to report from last weekend's craft-themed Bugfix Weekend:

* A single-use soft rag that will strip wax from woodworked items is now available wherever woodwork tools are sold.

* Crafted candles now last twice as long as they used to.

* Small silver needles, heavy duty needles, and whalebone needles are no longer weapons. (This is part of an ongoing change to improve the underlying code to stop us having to fix needle bugs/implement needle ideas in three separate places.)

* Decoratable sewing and jewellery boxes are now the same size as each other and have the same capacity.

* Ratskin clothing can now be fixed with leatherworking.

* Bandaged and splinted people will no longer receive confusing messages about removing their dressings while unconscious (this will happen after they come to, instead).

* Appliqued quilting blocks now get the "appliqued" adjective.

* You can now view all blocks of a quilt at once, with the syntax "view all blocks [of|on|in] <quilt>".

* Owners of colouring books can now fill in a random area instead of having to choose one themselves.

-- Capita, Guildenstern and Kake

914 Caconym, posted on Tue Aug 16 18:23:13 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

The "groups" and "group list" commands now have extra syntaxes allowing you to specify brief output (e.g. "groups brief").

The Mano Rossa guild title "Rooftop Rambler" has been changed to "Socio Rossa", for a more in-theme feel. (Please note that this is cod Italian rather than real Italian, and so there is no need to typo rep the lack of noun-adjective agreement.)

Inhuming the Lag/Laggy-San now counts towards the Lagbuster achievement.

The feather charm available from the Harbour Market in Ephebe is now usable for Finneblaugh's Thaumic Float.

913 Keepin' Safe, Gettin' Some Respect, posted on Sun Aug 7 18:25:57 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* You can now use filters for Coffee Nostra families with 'who' in the same way as for Agatean families.

* Sonkies now no longer weigh nearly half a pound.

* Some new safes have been installed: one in CWC, two in Ankh-Morpork, one in Genua.

* The dragon harp and recital harp are now noticeably harder to play than they were.

* The shipwright's on Minaret Street can now be used to repair wooden items.

* Quinbury Soames now stocks marbleable envelopes as well as paper.

* The 'Blackbird' achievement now also progresses when your minions strike the killing blow.

* A bug that prevented visiting and misportalling to the flying room is now fixed.

* The charm shop in Genua and the charm stall in Djelibeybi have had some bugfixes to rationalise the inventory.

- Caw, Fran, and Guildenstern

912 Miscellaneous 'can't Think Of A Punny Title' Fixes, posted on Mon Jul 18 22:41:23 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* Mr Vitiolo has begun restoring damaged quills in his shop on Brookless Street, Ankh-Morpork.

* Pens, styli, and so forth should no longer answer to 'quill'.

* Most writing implements now weigh more sensible amounts.

* Erasers now weigh a nonzero amount, and can be used to erase signatures in pencil.

* Parchments are now no longer also made of paper.

* The achievement 'Patron Saint of Perforators' now does actually put up a portrait of the most recent achiever in the Stab in the Back pub. Unless they've chosen to hide the achievement, in which case they put up a portrait of an unnamed but very stabby figure in a black cloak instead.

* The "financials" command in club control rooms now allows you to list transactions in reverse order, i.e. from newest to oldest.

* Hatty Lillington's hats now include the style (if you chose one) in their short description, in line with other custom items.

* The RSS feeds for the bulletin boards now include links to the relevant posts, allowing you to click straight through from your feed reader.

- Guildenstern and Kake

911 Things And Stuff And Bits And Pieces, posted on Sun Jul 3 18:48:06 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

We have a collection of fixes and minor improvements for you!

* You can now use eg. 'pour 1/5 of ink well onto sponge' when staining. Using less or more than the amount the sponge needs will waste some. Using 'pour ink well on sponge' will still automatically take the correct amount (1/5 of the capacity of a standard ink well). The bug whereby using 'onto' would occasionally not colour the sponge has been fixed.

* Player-made staves are now slightly lighter than they were, which is to say they are no longer heavier than the riving they're made from.

* Polishing cloths will no longer allow you to use them when you have no crafts gp left.

* All the hats that the Maker of Proper Wizards' Pointy Hats makes should now be embroiderable, as should all quilting materials.

* The glassware from the Aged Wizards' Bar is now a proper size and capacity, and shot glasses have been added to the stock.

* Sticks of chalk can now be used to write with.

* You can now give the Unseen University communications imp the coffee he craves. At your own risk.

* Moonlit Market wearable keyrings should now work as well as any other does.

* Elegant leather knife belts can now also hold tlinga.

* If you can see the enchantment on items, you can now use the adjective 'unenchanted' as well as 'enchanted' to refer to objects.

- Guildenstern, Yehoshua, and Fran

910 AM Parks Spawns, posted on Sun Jul 3 13:17:00 2022

Posted by: Fran
Category: Am (domain pages)

Some parks in Ankh-Morpork were not spawning NPCs properly, affecting some sausage missions.

This has been fixed.

909 Death And Gravity, posted on Mon Jun 27 15:44:59 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

The ice axe has been rebalanced to bring it in line with other weapons. Specifically: it no longer boosts your rope-climbing or tree-climbing bonuses, the rock-climbing boost is now capped, it no longer acts as a staff, it is heavier than before, and it deals less damage than before. If you had one stored in a star sapphire ring via Crondor's Marvellous Sequestration, you will be able to retrieve it but you will not be able to store it again.


As pre-announced on the Frog board a week ago, the metal filings used in CCC have been made consistent with other components that come in pinches and handfuls, so 1 handful of filings is now 50 pinches instead of 20 pinches. The weight of a handful remains the same, the weight of metal needed to create a handful remains the same, and the amount needed for a single CCC cast remains 1 handful. However, due to technical constraints, old filings translate to new filings at the rate of 1 pinch = 1 pinch, not 1 handful = 1 handful, and so if you had any filings stashed away then you will now[*] have the same number of pinches as before, but fewer handfuls.

[*] Where "now" means "whenever the thing your filings are stored in is next reloaded".


The beige canteen sold in the Hashishim guild has been slightly upgraped to compensate for it taking a back slot. Specifically: it now holds more liquid and weighs less. In addition, a new waterskin has been added to the Hashishim shop with the same properties as the blackened canteen sold by the Ninja.

908 Mending Mending, posted on Thu Jun 23 13:14:18 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

You should now be able to use a needle and thread to repair things made of more materials than you previously could. Specifically, the nice fabrics that Gerard de Wendelle uses should now be mendable, as should things made of fluff and things that appraise as "fabric". If you come across something that you can't mend, but you think you should be able to, please make a bug report on the needle saying what you were trying to mend, and where you got it from!

Guildenstern

907 Empiricist, posted on Mon Jun 13 09:24:22 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Weighing balances are now available in the laboratories at all specialisations of the Assassins' Guild.

904 Break Even, posted on Sat May 28 16:33:55 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Forn (domain pages)

The package delivery jobs available in Genua harbour now have a wider and hopefully less frustrating range of possible targets.

(In particular, frequently-killed casino employees and wandering unscryable preachers are absolutely no longer allowed on the list.)

The XP and money rewards have also been slightly increased, and the lockout time before you can take on another job has been decreased.

901 The Darling Bugs Of May, posted on Mon May 9 15:22:00 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Sur

Now that spring has well and truly sprung, your lovely creators have been hard at work weeding the garden that is the MUD codebase. The list of changes below might look small, but for each change you see here, there have been a multitude of other quiet little adjustments and fixes in response to various idea and bug reports. The changes you are likely to notice are as follows:


- A variety of climbable trees have had oddities fixed, such as properly responding to 'climb assess', and giving a more appropriate response to attempting to bury items in their branches.

- Flowers purchased from the stall in Sheepridge can now be braided into hair as an alternative to being worn.

- Braiding flowers into the hair of another player will now fail if that person is ignoring you.


Several changes have been made to Bernita's Flower Shop on Treacle Street in Ankh-Morpork:

1) You can now order and send multiple flowers at a time. The maximum number you can send at once will depend on the weight of the flower(s) you choose.

2) If Bernita isn't able to give you the flowers you ordered (due to having too many items/too much weight in your inventory, for example) she will no longer wait 2 full minutes before placing them on the floor for you.

3) Bernita will no longer allow you to send flowers to people who have you on their ignore list, even if they're offline at the time.


Enjoy!

Fran, Guildenstern, Kadath, Kake, and Presto

900 Sweeping Changes, posted on Wed May 4 15:42:22 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

Borst Besensteel in Copperhead now sells broom stencils in his shop. These can be used in conjunction with a tin of paint and a small stencilling sponge[1] to apply a stencilled design to a broomstick.

Those wishing to apply a stencil to their broomstick will need a quite respectable degree of painting skill, and should be able to apply stencils to any kind of broomstick. Note that custom broomsticks can only be stencilled if they do not already feature a 'decoration' from Borst.

Important Note: If you have not logged off or used the 'su' command since this blog was posted, you will need to do so before trying to stencil a broomstick. Failure to do so may produce Undesirable Results.


There are also several other changes and fixes, courtesy of the wonderful and industrious Kake. Please direct all fluffs for the following changes to them:

- Witches can now bury their own bat's corpse (but not other people's bats' corpses).

- Members of the Weapon Masters' Court will now become Heroic Killing Machines rather than Heroic Psychopathic Killing Machines when reaching the relevant guild level.

- Cheesewires are now available in the Little Brindisi cheese shop in Genua.

- The "browse and weigh" syntax is now available in general shops as well as item shops. Please note that this change will take time to propagate to all general shops, but the next reboot will sort it out everywhere.


Lastly, but most certainly not least, the first update from Feanor's new team of Ankh-Morpork City Architects:

Rising levels of wealth inequality in Ankh-Morpork have caused a tent city to spring up near Shambling Gate. Congratulations to Tinsch for getting their first rooms into the game!


Have fun!

Kadath, Kake & Feanor

[1] Conveniently also sold by the ever-enterprising Borst

899 Ordering Broom Polish, posted on Thu Apr 14 21:37:45 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

Borst Besensteel, in Copperhead, has been rationalising his business processes a bit. You can once more order a box of six jars of broom polish in your chosen scent and finish, this time by talking to him rather than with a room command. You may in the process find yourself committing tax fraud, but in the final analysis, being a witch is a form of tax fraud anyway.

898 Mazda Needs Money, posted on Tue Apr 12 16:07:06 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Dear thieves,

A couple of achievements have been adjusted to make them be more about persistent acts of thievery and less about staying logged in for unhealthy amounts of time. Specifically, the requirement for reaching the top of the leaderboard a number of times has been removed from Thief Extraordinaire and Mazda's Hero. Instead, they now require you to pay A$96000 and A$256000 towards your quota.

If you have already reached one or both of these totals but "ach details <achievement>" shows you at 100% rather than at "You have attained this", you can move things along either by paying any amount on your quota or by doing "ach check <achievement>".

Please note that if you wish to make sure you obtain the special gift that Artan gives out for achieving Mazda's Hero, you should take the "pay any amount on quota" option for that one.

Respectfully,

Kake and Feanor

897 Caught Them All Again Again, posted on Fri Apr 8 08:08:08 2022

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Professor Shrub's imps have all been put on the incinerator again, thanks to the adventurers that helped capture them.

896 Every God Has His Day, posted on Wed Apr 6 17:41:42 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Chefet, the Dog-Headed God of Metalworking, has decreed that the doors to His temple are to be thrown open to the public. Visitors to this sacred place (conveniently located off Petulia Avenue, Ephebe) are invited to witness the masterful feats of metalworking conducted in His honour and to fill the temple coffers by purchasing one of the many exquisite items crafted by His faithful. Those who wish to try their hand at creating fine works of their own are welcome to make use of the forging facilities herein. Dogs and their owners are, of course, welcome in the temple and a room has been set aside to provide your canine companions with some respite from the hot Klatchian climate.

895 Crone Corrections, Cat Conniptions And Consecutive Collisions, posted on Mon Apr 4 15:25:25 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

This weekend, your wonderful creator team sifted through a variety of bug and idea reports relating to the Witches' Guild and have made the following changes and improvements:


Brooms/Flying:

- Holding a broom when finding yourself high up in the air will now only land witches safely; everyone else can expect a hard landing.

- Attempting a disallowed command while flying on a broomstick will now inform other players in the air room of your poor choices.

- Some incorrect broom landing messages have been fixed.

- Crash landing in a room where there is already a crater shaped like you will now print a special message.

- The locations you crash land at should be more random now.

- Witches may now erase locations from a broom without having to overwrite them.

- When a destination recorded on a broom goes quantum, it will no longer be automatically erased.

- More broom polish scents are available.


Spells:

- Mama Blackwing's Potent Preserver can now only be cast on items in your inventory (including items in containers you are carrying). This prevents a wide variety of buggy interactions with witches trying to dry up ponds, lakes and various other things that should probably be left well alone.

- Mama Blackwing's Potent Preserver will give a much more helpful message if you cast it on a vessel rather than the liquid that is in that vessel (it will no longer tell you the vessel contains no moisture).

- Hag's Blessing now has a couple of extra jams that may be used to summon fireflies.


NPCs:

- Greebo is now much less tolerant of being subjected to the rituals 'splash' and 'soothing rain'. You have been warned.

- Mrs Gogol now sells her gumbo from her tent in Genua's marketplace. Unlike the dead, she does require the living to pay for her cooking.

- Making bats fumble by tempting them when they have a full inventory is now PK-checked.

- Borst Besensteel will now let you interrupt someone if they've been idle for over a minute while ordering.


Miscellaneous:

- Several small changes have been implemented to make the process of becoming a witch less confusing for newbies.

- You can now use scented ink to make scented candles at Wee Flaudia's cottage in Mad Wolf.

- The chest in Granny's front hall will now reject any item that has been bonded to someone, including to NPCs.

- It is now possible to ogle elephants, if your skills are high enough.

- Custom witch hats now show their 'style' in their short description. If you would prefer to go back to the 'traditional' or 'modern' adjective in the short description, you can do so by ordering a hat and choosing 'none' for the style.

- Decate's pool is now a real pool containing real (sea)water, rather than a cunning trick of the light that was impossible to interact with.


These changes brought to you by Capita, Fran, Guildenstern, Kadath, Kake, and Presto

894 Magical Experiment Goes Wrong Again Again, Again, posted on Fri Apr 1 00:04:00 2022

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Another magical experiment by the Bes Pelargic wizards has gone wrong. Your intrepid reporter isolated the head researcher responsible for the accident for an exclusive interview.

Q: Are camels -

A: You again!

The interview ended at this point. However, the head researcher is available in the Bes Pelargic wizards' guild again for further questions.

893 Agatean Family Inhumations, posted on Wed Mar 30 10:35:00 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

Ninja who have passed the Chunin Test, but not the Ru Noperi, should now be able to close Agatean family inhumation contracts like any other graduate.

891 Bits, Bobs, Hats, And Needles, posted on Sat Mar 26 21:19:05 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* Hatty Lillington, in Ankh-Morpork, now has some new kinds of hat available.

* You can now embroider on things which aren't clothing, but are still made of appropriate materials.

* Ann Celeria, in Slippery Hollow, has had an extra shipment of dyes for her custom paper and envelopes.

* The papers box that Tom Boit sells can now be decorated like some of his other items.

* Grangrid & Graves' trousers have slightly larger pockets now. 

890 Synchronize Your Dogmas, posted on Mon Mar 21 17:18:34 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

The ritual "detect alignment" is now granted to priests of all player-worshippable deities, and the skill requirement for learning it has been standardised between them.

889 Paint Me Like One Of Your Quirmian Warriors, posted on Sun Mar 20 15:17:14 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: Guilds

We've added three new achievements for warriors, all relating to warpaint:

- Cubist
- Warholistic
- The Art of War

Your paint committee,

Ugke, Ugstern and Ugnor 

888 Inhumation By Beheading, posted on Sun Mar 20 14:43:39 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Guilds

Attention, all Hashishim! You can now inhume people by beheading with a greater variety of swords than before.

Previously, any weapon that used the fighting.melee.sword skill and had the slice command would work. This is still the case, but now also all the swords that are Hashishim cultural weapons will also work - any scimitar, shamshir, sabre, kora, or khopesh - whatever their fighting commands.

Inhuming weapons use their normal fighting.melee.* skill - eg. a kora inhumes using the sword skill, whilst a great scimitar uses heavy-sword to inhume with.

Please see the updated 'help inhume' for details.

Guildenstern & Kake.

887 Tea & The Tanuki, posted on Fri Mar 18 10:39:22 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

I've added some new items to the list of things you can make in the Sung pottery room: a flask, a gaiwan, an incense burner, and a statue of a tanuki. This is leaning into the "British reception of Asia as a multicultural mishmash" aspect of Agatea, given that's what we've inherited from the books and previous development cycles - some of the pottery is explicitly Korean inspired, to go with the Chinese & Japanese influences we have already present.

In addition, the teacups that you can make in various pottery rooms across the Disc are now suitably teacup-sized, instead of being the same size as mugs.

886 Gemstones, posted on Thu Mar 17 13:12:28 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The dwarves have discovered some new gemstone deposits. Specifically: aventurine, iolite, peridot, spinel, and sunstone are now available from the usual sources for uncut gemstones. They also have slightly more interesting tourmalines available than they did. 

885 Of Course I Still Love You, posted on Sun Mar 13 16:35:31 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

- Shopkeepers in Genua will now no longer attack you for saying "you" or nodding at them. (This was a bug, totally unintentional, and should not have been happening.)

- The cakes sold at the AM wedding shop now stay fresh for longer than a couple of hours. The shop also now sells a selection of cake knives.

- A new warrior-only title-granting achievement has been added: Bloodspattered.

- The requirements for the Morporkian Carriages achievements (Bouncy Seat, Bussed It, Street Rider, and Route Basher) have been clarified.

- The events command has a new (optional) field for location, and a new (optional) syntax for brief listings. See "syntax events" for details.

- Finally, like the minerals from a couple of blog posts ago, unrottable corpse parts such as troll eyes will also no longer answer to "uncured thing".

884 March Of The Warriors, posted on Mon Mar 7 19:15:13 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Guilds

The Warriors Guild are marching into March with a variety of bugfixes, items, weapons, achievements and more. Details of the most noteworthy changes are as follows:


- Beheads that lead to a head hitting you in the face and covering you in blood will now actually cover you in blood.

- The berserking messages about attacking thin air now take account of whether you're holding weapons and/or shields. You will also occasionally push NPCs over, just for the fun of it.

- Three new iai-related achievements have been added: A Well-Oiled Scabbard, Iaijutsu Artist, and Decisively Deadly.


- Three changes have been made to the guard command:

1) It is now possible to use adjectives when specifying which NPCs to guard an exit against.

2) The helpfile for the guard command has been rewritten to explain more clearly how this specification works.

3) The message shown to onlookers when someone starts guarding an exit will now indicate which exit they're guarding.


- Wan Bending Reed will now assess the suitability of potential customers to wield his new bespoke kodachis. The requirements for these weapons may different from the other types of sword he offers.

- Three new scabbards have been added, two for heavy swords (and swords) and one for polearms. You can find them in the armouries of the Ankh-Morpork Palace Guard, Hublandish Barbarians, and the Lancre Highland Regiment.

- The Hublandish Barbarians armoury now also sells more cold-weather clothing and a new extra-warm helmet.

- The Musketeers armoury now has more coats and hats available.

- Divine Vestments can now be performed on padded caps.

- Yielding in the Musketeer duelling room now works more consistently.


- Several additions and changes have been made with regards to newbie chests:

1) The Lancre Highland Regiment now have an old chicken coop to put things in.

2) The Hublandish Barbarians have set up two large skulls (one for each camp) that will act as containers.

3) The Imperial Guard have a new tea chest that can be used to store items.

4) If you were the person who added an item to a newbie chest, then you should also be able to remove it regardless of the usual newbie chest restrictions. This particular feature will come into effect after the next weboot.


These changes (and many other smaller bugfixes) are thanks to Feanor, Guildenstern, Kadath, Kake and Presto.

Enjoy!

883 Nicolette's Cravats, posted on Tue Mar 1 19:06:26 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Guilds

Are now tieable and stick-pins-innable just like other cravats. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the code, previously existing ones won't be affected - if you want to be fashionable you'll need to order a new one, sorry!

881 Dressed Up To Party, posted on Sat Feb 26 18:55:04 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

- It’s now possible to create a no-theft league by using the syntax "league create <name> without theft". Please note that if two members are also in another league that does allow theft, then they can still steal from each other, since league permissions are defined by the most permissive league.

- Fingerless gloves no longer prevent you from having a manicure or viewing your fingernails. However, they will also no longer protect your fingernails from combat damage.

- Some of the pets from Alfred Peacock's Petshop on Tchuttifrutti Street in Genua now come in different colours.

- Mamie Olivia on Dead Man's Walk in Genua now has a helpfile which hopefully makes her less confusing to use.

- The Shades souvenir shop on Chittling Street has a new banner in stock.

- In other souvenir news, Little Jimmy has listened in on the talker and expanded his selection of souvenir mugs.

- Finally, minerals, being uncurable, no longer answer to "uncured thing".

Kake posting on behalf of EvenSong, Feanor, Kake and Pit

880 Fang-Tastic Forgeries, posted on Wed Feb 23 21:28:06 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The Fang family in Bes Pelargic have made a number of improvements to their counterfeiting facilities in the hope of attracting some extra revenue from their friends and associates.

There are numerous changes to how the forgery process works, the most significant of which are as follows:

- Access to the forgery facilities is no longer limited to just thieves, although you must still be a member of the Fang Family.

- The types of skills required have not changed, but the level of skill needed for a success has been increased in each case.

- The forgery process now takes place over four individual stages, rather than one (very long) stage. There are new commands associated with each stage that were not present before. The help file for the room has been updated to explain these changes, so please take a look even if you've made forgeries in the past.

- Sufficiently skilled players may find that they can now create extremely convincing forgeries that are more worthy of their time and effort.

- Upon completion of a forgery attempt, and when looking at a forgery that you have created, you will now get a more helpful indication of how convincing your duplicate is.

Various bugs and issues have been also fixed along the way, and hopefully forgery will now be a more stable and worthwhile endeavour.

Have fun!

(Please note: If you are racing off to try out forging right after this blog is posted, it is recommended that you su first to make sure your forge-able documents are properly updated)

879 Fairer Fares For Furriest Furrier Flair, posted on Tue Feb 15 23:08:18 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Stephan, the resident furrier of Mad Wolf, has finally had enough practice at working with hubland bear fur to be able to use it far more efficiently. The quantities of tanned fur he requires for trimming clothes have been reduced, and several items now require an amount of fur that is more proportional to their size.

878 Pack Saddle Fixes, posted on Sun Feb 13 16:49:43 2022

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Fixed a bug allowing horses to temporarily carry infinite amounts of weight. There is now a soft cap of 100% burden where you won't be able to put any more items on and a hard cap of 150% burden which can't be exceeded.

Fixed a bug that was making the item limit on pack saddles not work. Previously, you could put more than 10 items on the pack saddle but the horse would fumble the extra; now you just can't put any more on when you reach 10.

Fixed a bug that allowed putting continuous items like ash or hay on pack saddles when they were put on at the same time as other items.

Edit: Bonus bugfix - renaming a location should now change the routes associated with that location to use the new location name.

877 Truffles, Tramps, And Thieves, posted on Fri Feb 11 22:21:44 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: General

There have been several changes to how foraging for truffles works.

The main change is that truffles are now much easier to find. While the minimum skills to get started haven't changed, anything above that should result in a greater amount of more valuable truffles from your foraging expeditions.

The other changes are more cosmetic in nature:

1) Not every deciduous forest room will have truffles, but the ones that do will have much more than before.

2) In order not to waste time with empty rooms, the 'encourage' command has been split into two varieties:

- 'encourage pig to start looking for truffles' puts your pig into 'search mode'. This makes it automatically report whether it smells truffles in a room it enters. The pig stays searching for a long time, or until you have it dig or tell it to stop.

- 'encourage pig to dig for truffles' is exactly what it says. You don't have to have it in search mode for this to work.

If repeated digging isn't finding anything, but your pig can still smell truffles in the air, the remaining ones are probably too hard to pinpoint at your skill level.

3) The cooldown period after a successful dig is now explicit, preventing you from encouraging your pig again for a while. Having multiple pigs doesn't bypass this limit.

4) You also can't encourage your pig to dig if you're not in the right type of room.

Happy truffling!

---

The tramps in Ohulan-Cutash have finally worn out their clothes, the attire catching up with their lifestyle.

---

The Thieves' Guild cook is now unable to prevent you from tasting their food if they're, well, unable to prevent you from tasting their food

876 Reds, Threads, And Treads, posted on Thu Feb 10 13:38:46 2022

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

After seeing the excitement around the recent Lunar New Year celebrations, the calligrapher on Diamond Place in Bes Pelargic has decided to start selling lucky red envelopes. Have a read of the sign in his shop for more details.

Decorative embroidery is now visible when looking at items in the inventories of other players or NPCs (please note, this does not apply to text-only embroidery, which remains unreadable in line with other written-on items).

After a thorough reprimanding from the UU Faculty, Maudlin Bridge and the irritable troll beneath it will now take fewer liberties with the laws of physics. Vibrations on the bridge from irate trolls will no longer affect those who are in a ghostly form, floating above the ground, or just generally good at keeping their balance.

875 Smell Of Sawdust, posted on Tue Feb 8 00:05:29 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: General

The value of items made through woodworking has been increased! They do, however, have to be completed in order to reach their monetary potential.

Updating the values of items made prior to this change will require some more code updates, so please be patient while we work on that.

874 Pelagian, posted on Mon Feb 7 20:11:47 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

In celebration of the recent Lunar New Year, the authorities, citizens and underworld denizens of Bes Pelargic have been doing some soul-searching and self-improvement. Lots of minor things have been fixed here and there, but here's a summary of the ones that you are most likely to notice:

- The plants sold at the Phoenix Avenue plant shop are now placeable as furniture, and have also been made lighter to allow you to put them on tables if that suits your aesthetic better.

- One Tender Tulip has been persuaded to sell her wares to anyone who can reach her, and no longer assumes everyone is from Ankh-Morpork.

- Tomtom the monkey has agreed to be a little less stubborn about acknowledging some of things that visitors say to him.

- Animals from the Assemble-An-Animal shop on Elysien Lane will no longer magically fix themselves after logging out and in if they had been split from overstuffing.

- The families of Bes Pelargic have reluctantly agreed that, despite it being a hilarious joke on outsiders, they will no longer ask you to visit any inaccessible rooms as part of a mission.

- Bes Pelargic arms permits are now properly made of paper and can be used as spell scrolls.

- A safe somewhere in Bes Pelargic now contains more than just money.

- The Hong family guards now have something to justify the lock on their chest.

- In response to complaints and violence from angry customers, Wun Staind Arm will now give give a more accurate explanation of how your requested tattoo will look when completed.

- Things buried on the piers and breakwaters at the Tuna Bay docks will now go into the sea rather than "deep within the [nonexistent] earth". This also means they will no longer be recoverable.

- The Pearl River ferry no longer has its own microclimate.

- Imperial Guards will no longer nominate someone to talk to passers-by if there is nothing for them to actually comment on.

- After considerable debate, the Subcommittee for Classification of Injurious Materials in Bes Pelargic has agreed to declassify tealights as deadly weapons. In addition, tealights will now produce a far more appropriate amount of light and can be lit without being held, meaning they can be dropped in a room for some pleasant ambient lighting.

These fixes and many others were brought to you by Evensong, Fran, Guildenstern, Kadath and Kake.

Kung hei fat choy!

873 Hunters, Watchers, And Souls, posted on Tue Jan 25 13:37:17 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: General

Yesterday's fix to the Gods Truffler achievement unclogged a small logjam of cosmetic changes:

- the truffle hunters in Ramtops terrains are now more responsive when truffles and truffle pigs are involved.

- the bird watchers in Ramtops terrains now carry a pencil and a notepad in order to make notes about their experience.

- a few new souls were added, letting you nerf, sglance, cluck and chitter. Keep an eye out for "gag" as well.

Feanor

872 Truffles, Gods, And Piggies, posted on Mon Jan 24 10:38:07 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The gods atop Cori Celesti had grown peckish and came knocking on The Lady's door wondering why the pantry was empty. An audit of her books discovered she'd fudged the dice which govern the probability of mortals stumbling upon the fabled truffle of the Gods -- it was about 1 in 12 duovigintillions.

That is a big number. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-boggingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long shot to win the lottery, but that's just peanuts to a duovigintillion[1].

Some arms were twisted, some dice replaced, and long story short, it is now much easier to find the truffle of the Gods and get the Gods Truffler achievement. Specifically:

- as long as you can find even the smallest truffle, you have a chance

- each higher tier truffle is significantly more likely to be The One than those of the previous tier

- furthermore, each truffle you find improves your odds by a tiny amount, up to a (distant) point where the improvement is substantial

Bear in mind this is still an epic level achievement, so expect a proportional amount of effort!

Happy truffling!

Feanor

[1] 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

869 Witches, Drink And Song!, posted on Mon Jan 17 15:34:34 2022

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

I've fixed two bugs in the hedgehog command:

* Hidden NPCs and players who can't resist the music will now come out of hiding when dancing.

* The punishment for singing the hedgehog song in Ankh-Morpork is fixed. You will now be contracted if you ignore the warnings given by the Musicians' Guild enforcers.

Enjoy/beware,

Fran!

868 Food, Wizards, And Adventurers, posted on Sun Jan 16 13:31:23 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: General

The candies and lollipops sold at Saccha Rose's shop on Long Hogmeat now turn your lips interesting colours.

The messages shown to casters when casting Wurphle's Midnight Snack are now more varied. No functional changes have been made - this is purely cosmetic.

The sno-balls sold in Genua can now be licked as well as eaten, and you don't even have to take them out of the cones to do so. They also now give more interesting messages.

After the popularity of the hedgehog, Mrs Corduroy of Ankh-Morpork has decided to start making toy adventurers as well.

Kake and Feanor

867 Hidden Income, posted on Sun Jan 16 12:16:24 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Two previously non-crackable safes in Genua are now crackable. Please note that the NPCs in these rooms are not just there for decoration.

Relatedly, the guards in Genua harbour who carry iron chains are now a bit more aware of the most effective way to use them. If you had been relying on their previous (buggy) behaviour, you may now find them harder to kill.

866 Divine Tolerance Thresholds Increased, posted on Sun Jan 9 20:53:32 2022

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

After a meeting on Cori Celesti, Gapp, Sandelfon, Fish and Hat have decided to be a bit more tolerant of their followers' shifts in alignment.

Hence, priests of these gods should now find it a bit easier to stay in your gods' good graces!

865 Qualifier, posted on Sun Jan 9 13:55:39 2022

Posted by: Kake
Category: Special

The quest listings page on the website has been updated to allow you to split the listings into completed and uncompleted quests.

Relatedly, the quest command in the MUD, when invoked as "quest list all" or "quest list <area>" now defaults to dividing the list into completed and uncompleted. If you want the old behaviour, you can get it by using the syntax "quest list interleaved all" or "quest list interleaved <area>".

864 Cravats Etc., posted on Sun Jan 9 11:23:14 2022

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

* You can now both tie all cravats in fashionable (or unfashionable) styles, and stick cravat pins in them.

* Iconographer's vests are now available from the iconography shop on the Ridings, Ankh-Morpork, for all your iconography needs. Or at least the ones that will fit in pockets.

* You can now stare at a lava lamp and feel it reflected in your soul.

863 Fashion, Plaques, And Hedgehogs, posted on Sat Jan 8 16:11:49 2022

Posted by: Feanor
Category: General

A long-standing bug in the Genua wedding dress shop has been fixed; the wait time for custom dresses here is now in line with other Genuan custom wedding items.

The Genua custom wedding vendors have got together and synchronised their colour choices, as well as adding a few new pastels.

Jaqu Alufe in Genua and Huan Gong in Bes Pelargic now offer palladium as an option for their custom-made rings.

Soo-tsoo-sa in the Djelibeybi harbour now stocks a small selection of needles and threads for those who might need to make emergency repairs to his delightful clothing.

Mounting plaques have a new syntax option that allows you to mount items to show as "on" them instead of the more-verbose "mounted on" them.

Mrs Corduroy of Ankh-Morpork has added a hedgehog to her selection of stuffed toys.

Kake and Feanor

861 Peace Makes Plenty, posted on Wed Dec 22 15:12:46 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

A couple of new pottery items have been added to the Sto Lat and Cockbill Street pottery wheels.

Mr Vitiolo at the Brookless Street calligraphy shop has expanded his range of rare inks to include a handful of new colours themed around swamp dragons.

Cade l'Insignateur in Genua now offers shield badges in addition to his other shapes.

Jaqu Alufe, also in Genua, has persuaded his sapient pearwood rings to accept engraving.

The jewellery boxes sold at Silver Bells Silversmiths in Genua will now accept badges as well as jewellery.

The Crackdown achievement has been removed from the game, due to its unwanted side-effect of increasing the demand for relics to the point of causing substantial unpleasantness between players.

The club and family pages on the website have had a small style tweak to make sure descriptions linewrap instead of extending past the edge of the page. You may need to do a force-refresh in your browser to see this change.

(Kake posting on behalf of Feanor and Kake)

860 Like Magic, But Less Annoying., posted on Sun Dec 19 14:00:49 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

I have updated how spell casting works with respect to consumable components.

The checks for consumable components now happen up front - before the scroll is emptied (where applicable), GP is spent or components that can be used are consumed.

When specifying which components to use with the using syntax, components that cannot be consumed will generate an error message now.

When not specifying which components to use with the using syntax, components that cannot be consumed (because they are kept, worn, etc.) will not be eligible for automatic use.

Enjoy!

859 Engraving, posted on Sat Dec 11 14:53:13 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special

You can now engrave on quite a few more materials than you used to be able to.

858 Tool Holsters, posted on Fri Dec 10 22:50:45 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: General

The oiled leather thigh holsters, which would previously hold any tool, have been revamped because many tools are unrealistically large. They now look like this:

"It could sheathe a jewellers tool, drawknife, brush, file, graving tool, screwdriver or gemcutting tool."

If you previously had other things in them, and they're still there, that's normal - you just won't be able to replace them there after removing them.

853 You Call This Clean?, posted on Fri Dec 10 17:25:24 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Pet brushes are now more effective at getting muck out of the fur of the pets sold in Sto Lat. If you find a type of muck that can't be brushed out, and you think it should be, please make a bugrep with a log showing what the pet looks like with its muck on.

Keys and keyrings have been made lighter. This should not affect the difficulty of stealing them, but it will make it slightly harder to perform remember place on them.

In Xa Tain in Hong Fa has turned her printing machine off and on again, and it now actually prints words on the business cards she sells instead of leaving them blank.

The coffee seller in the Harbour Market of Ephebe now sells coffee beans and sugar cubes as well as coffee.

The stationer in the Ankh-Morpork wedding store no longer assumes that a wedding is between a bride and a groom, and instead uses the gender-neutral term "spouse-to-be". Hopefully at some point his colleagues will begin to follow his lead.

852 Hogswatch!, posted on Wed Dec 8 21:55:12 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Sur

Happy pre-Hogswatch, everyone! At some point during the next few days, the Rotational Association of Sto Lat will put up their Hogswatch tree and open up their shop, and it will officially be Hogswatchtide. The Chairman had this to say:

"I would like to take this opportunity to reassure everyone that the Hogswatch tree due to be placed in the Royal Market is perfectly safe so long as nobody of low and rash character does anything so flagrantly stupid as to poke it repeatedly. I repeat, DO NOT POKE THE HOGSWATCH TREE. It is there for happy fun times. We take no responsibility for any injuries incurred by, eg. falling decorations."

Also, the way that post-encounter presents are distributed has changed - in order to ensure fair present distribution, they are now automagically labelled for your grabbing convenience. Good little players who enter into the Hogswatch spirit and only grab their own presents won't get coal this Hogswatch!

851 What's In A Name? Part II, posted on Wed Dec 8 15:37:05 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: Special

You may now claim identifiers that someone else set if you have possession of the object:

> identify claim <object>

For shoppers who want to claim the identifiers in their newly purchased p-shop goods:

> identify claim <container>, all in <container>

Fran.

849 A Series Of Unlikely Explanations, posted on Mon Dec 6 11:02:53 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Many, many new achievements have been added (see ach list new). Also:

A bug in the All Together Now Achievement has been fixed, so it should now actually be achieveable.

Poisonings from the spiders in Shelox's lair now count towards the Your Pain, Their Thrill achievement.

The descriptions of how to attain applique-related crafting achievements have been clarified.

(Kake posting on behalf of Caw, Feanor, Fran, and Kake)

848 Horse Armour, posted on Sat Dec 4 10:21:59 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

One-third of knights on the roads will now have a horse, wearing some interesting new gear.

Horseshoes now act as armour for horses' hooves, which also means they will get damaged in combat.

Horse (and camel) zones have been tweaked so that attacks target the legs less of the time.

845 Now Look What You've Made Me Do, posted on Sun Nov 28 17:23:36 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

New options have been added for playerhouse room labels.

Grangrid, Graves, and Descendants now offer the option of matching lapels instead of grosgrain on their dinner jackets.

The creator-shaped gingerbread biscuits from Mad Wolf now correctly count towards the Gourmand achievement.

There used to be a bug that meant some phials had zero weight. This has now been fixed.

The flowers sold at the Minaret Street florist in Genua can now be braided into your hair like other flowers.

Lovers of Nordic cuisine will be pleased to know that cloudberries have been discovered on the Disc. They can be found in various forms in Mad Stoat, Bad Ass, and Brass Neck.

Also you can now eat worms. Sort of.

844 Gunboat Diplomat, posted on Thu Nov 25 17:06:36 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

Several sailing-related bugs have been fixed:

Hitting a forward current at the end of a voyage will no longer make the SS Unsinkable leap magically over the port and get stuck on land. If the current would have taken you into port, your voyage will now be correctly completed.

The difficulty of tying crates down was previously very random. It now scales with the number of crates you're trying to tie, though the overall range of difficulty remains the same. This means that people with lower skills should now be able to tie small numbers of crates more reliably, but also be less likely to succeed in tying everything at once.

Arbalests can no longer be fired by people currently wrapped in kraken tentacles (though they can still be loaded).

843 Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life's Rich Tapestry, posted on Sun Nov 21 14:00:53 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Small roundup of some recently-implemented idea reps:

Reforging a dwarf axe is now much more interesting (but not more difficult).

Clothing that stops you getting wet in the rain also now stops you getting wet (and, incidentally, cured and healed) in soothing rain.

The restaurant sampan in the southeast of the Red Triangle district has a new seafood-themed menu.

Mr Foo's paint shop in Shoo-Li now offers rainbow speckles and iridescent powder for adding to paint tins.

Several new snowthings have been added to the "make" command.

842 Keep On Keeping, posted on Wed Nov 17 16:04:58 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

I've updated, and fixed some bugs, in keep:

- The keep flag will no longer be removed when a kept item leaves your inventory accidentally.

- The keep flag now only applies to the player who set it (always).

- The put command now respects keep. You cannot put kept items into containers that you're not carrying.

- You will not fumble kept items unless there is no other choice.

Enjoy,

Fran.

841 Subtle Shift In Emphasis, posted on Sat Nov 6 13:48:09 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Am (domain pages)

The names of the jobs at the Ankh-Morpork job market are now fully gender-neutral.

840 A One-Horse Town, posted on Thu Oct 7 13:29:47 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Sur

The stable in Nowhere is now an actual stable! With a horse in it.

839 Size Isn't Everything, posted on Mon Sep 27 16:10:01 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Sur

The very long sausage staff has had a bit of a revamp. It now takes damage in combat, in order to bring it in line with the MUD's weapon standards - but to balance this, it can now be fixed by dipping it into an appropriate liquid.

(Oh, and thanks to Feanor, it is also now 122% more delicious.)

838 Pirate Day Sailing Update, posted on Sat Sep 18 20:34:12 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

The sailing leaderboard has been reset. I've also undone the xp nerf from a while ago and reduced the hp of sea monsters by about 25%.

837 What's In A Name?, posted on Thu Sep 16 18:20:31 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: Special

I have changed how the identify command works. Items you identify will now only lose their identity when someone uses the identify command again or the unidentify command. This means that identities won't be lost if you give an item to a cloud, bat or horse nor if another player handles the item.

Note that other players can overwrite or unidentify items, so only hand over your precious items to people that you trust.

Also note that identifiers used to leak to other players when an item was sold in a playershop and no longer will, so player shops selling a "component pouch" with goodies inside will no longer be such a pouch for the person buying it.

I have also fixed a bug with the adjective unidentified objects get and added an identified adjective, so the following now work (consistently):

> get identified things from bag

> get unidentified things from bag

Enjoy,

Fran.

836 Now We Try It My Way, posted on Tue Sep 14 10:34:36 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Sur

Pam Dunthrive in Bleak Prospect now offers custom-made cardigans.

835 Limivorous, Part 2, posted on Tue Aug 3 09:40:42 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

The Djelian coffee machines will now accept spices as well as coffee and water.

834 Sailing Bugfix For Followers, posted on Tue Jul 13 15:46:05 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

Fruitbats and mounts and other living followers should now be removed from the SS Unsinkable properly after the mission ends, even if they aren't following you.

833 Limivorous, posted on Wed Jun 16 15:58:18 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

The coffee machines sold in Djelibeybi no longer inexplicably lose half their contents upon brewing. However, they are now slightly more picky about the ratio of beans to water.

In addition, you can now put milk and sugar in your coffee if you dislike it black. (Sadly sugar cubes won't work for this due to coding constraints - grind 'em up first.) Oh, and if you accidentally brew your coffee too strong, there is now a way to fix that.

831 Exciting Woodwork Changes, posted on Thu May 20 13:37:58 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special and Cwc (domain pages)

I have a collection of upgrapes and interesting things for you!

* Rivings can now be sawn into shorter lengths, in units of one foot. You'll find a saw available wherever rivings are sold.
* Rivings are now region-dependent, ie. you can find different kinds of wood for sale in different areas.
* Two new woodworking pattern books have been added. You can find one in Agatea and one in Uberwald, both in shops selling woodworking supplies.

830 Partial Photic Boundary, posted on Fri May 7 18:56:13 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Am (domain pages)

Having found a new supplier of coloured glass, Seymour Convecks of Cheesemongers Yard has expanded his range of tinted sunglasses.

(If you had an existing pair of tinted sunglasses, you may find when you next log in that their colour has changed. This was an unavoidable side-effect of the change above. If you dislike the new colour, please contact a liaison to get them set back to the colour they were before.)

829 Footing The Ball, posted on Sun May 2 16:17:30 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Am (domain pages)

A new shop has opened up on the Street of Cunning Artificers.

828 Two Random Updates..., posted on Fri Apr 16 05:05:00 2021

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

Hello! A couple of updates to note:

1. The 'draw' command has been updated, and the syntax is a little different. This mostly affects drawing multiple weapons at the same time, but whether it affects you or not depends on your "options input andascomma" setting. Bottom line is if you used to use something like "draw knife and dagger into left hand and right hand" and it doesn't work now, try "draw knife,dagger into left hand and right hand".

2. Clocks and watches have been updated so that glancing at them will show the approximate time. There is also a 'glance' option on their MXP menus. This does not apply to watches that tell the time with a speaking imp (because they don't have faces). There may be some oddball watches out there that don't behave properly, so if you have a timepiece that doesn't give you the time at a glance, please file a bug report.

827 Paint The Town Red. Or Green. Black, Perhaps?, posted on Tue Apr 13 15:47:46 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

A bug with paint, causing it to forget the colour it had, has been fixed. If you bought paint in the last week and a bit it will be assigned a new random colour when it next reloads.

If you have some you really want set back to its original colour, ask me or another liaison for help.

Fran

826 Horse Changes, posted on Mon May 24 13:33:47 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

You can now "continue riding on <horse>" if your ride was interrupted by "stop riding", being attacked, or falling off your horse.

Horses will now show up at your location after a broomstick flight.

Grooming towels are now correctly put away after grooming is finished.

If your horse is attacked and set to assist you, you will assist your horse automatically (regardless of its intuition).

The rate at which pneumonia progresses has been tweaked.

You can no longer sell rental horses to horse dealers.

You can no longer put two saddles on one horse.

Horses now consider the number of rooms on each route when choosing a path to a destination.

Your horse's name is now visible when it's looked at.

Turpentine can now be found at the janitor's office in Tacticus Academy.

The message for hitting your head on a door is now sent to both the room you left and the room you arrived in.

Fixed horses forgetting they were wearing shoes after a su.

Horses now show a message when their traits change due to exercise.

Dead horses will now be taken by Death immediately after being sold, to prevent shenanigans.

Locations learned by horses are now case insensitive.

The list of locations in "ask my horse to remember" is now alphabetized.

You can now refer to horses by their name even if you're not their owner.

Horses returned to Priscilla and then bought were still marked as rentals, so they would leave after a week. This has been fixed for future returns, but existing horses that have been returned and then bought will still have this issue.

Priscilla is now named Prinscilla, because of a name overlap.

Horses will now be dried off by the blessing of Fish after passing through His passage room. Additionally, they will not get pneumonia until they leave the water.

Resurrection sickness now recovers very slowly over time.

Fixed bug where horses would roll to trample opponents once per minute instead of once per round.

You can now follow along on a ride if both of you are mounted.

The skillchecks for assessing and grooming horses are now affected by docility, like the others. If your horse has more than 60 docility, they will now be easier compared to before; if it has less, they will be harder.

Moved all the tiers of assess result down by one rank - if you could get a vague result before, you will be able to get a semi-vague result now, and if you could get a semi-vague result you will now get an accurate one. It is now impossible to get the unknown result, regardless of how ferocious your horse is. Grooming is also significantly easier than before.

Fixed bug where renaming a location would not change the routes that led to and from that location.

Tweaked trait penalties from illness - they should now be a constant penalty instead of a percentage penalty, so that low and high stats are all affected equally.

Knights in Genua now have horses, and a rare chance of carrying a special item.

Horses can no longer gain "carrying" exercise in speed and strength from worn items - only items carried using the pack saddle. This should solve the issue where it was very hard to increase intuition because horses were constantly getting speed and strength exercise from carrying their saddlebags.

Converted the stables in the Genuan Musketeers guild and the Djelian barracks into actual stables. Also, added some more stables in Ohulan-Cutash and Bes Pelargic - they'll get different descriptions later.

825 Sanctioned Parts List, posted on Sun Apr 4 18:15:52 2021

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Owners of faith rods can now examine specific slots on them in order to view their rituals without the bother of reading the entire description.

824 Horseshoes Fix, posted on Sat Apr 3 17:30:24 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Horseshoes were not protecting horses from cracked hooves as they were supposed to. This is now fixed, but old horseshoes are not affected, so you may have to buy new ones.

823 Snowhorses., posted on Thu Apr 1 13:39:47 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

You can now make snowhorses.

822 Samurai Titles., posted on Fri Mar 12 10:38:58 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

After longstanding and repeated complaints were raised about how bad some Samurai guild titles were, I have put in a load of new and different titles for them. Many are entirely new, several were changed because the title used to read along the lines of "the Keen Samurai of the Samurai" and this was ugly. Guild level ranges are not affected.

821 TPA/SFP And Major/minor Shield And Aegis No Longer Mix., posted on Thu Mar 11 18:33:51 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

As per the previous blog posts warning that this change was imminent, TPA/SFP no longer mix with Major/minor shield and holy aegis.

820 Buggy Blocking, posted on Sat Mar 6 13:43:29 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

I have fixed a bug affecting the cost of blocking with a shield. This was using the parry skill instead of the block skill. Low level block users in particular are likely to notice a difference.

Note: Most NPCs are unaffected but a few may now be improved. Approach at your own risk.

Good luck and happy hunting! 

819 Sad Dragons., posted on Fri Mar 5 19:29:06 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons has become concerned about the number of dragons being abandoned around the Disc without their owners.

Swamp dragons appear to also be saddened by being abandoned - they have recently been spotted wandering around looking for affection from their absentee owners.

P.S. Another change to swamp dragons will be coming in the next few days, which will make them actually do something vaguely useful.

817 Less Durable Tinfoil., posted on Fri Mar 5 17:27:49 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The anti scry effect of the wizard spell Kipperwald's Perlustration Prevention now has a dramatically reduced duration.

This means that instead of, for example, your KPP lasting for a twelve hours, it might last for 2.5 hours instead.[0]

[0] These numbers have been picked out of thin air purely for explanatory purposes.

816 Ye Olde Player Shoppes, posted on Fri Feb 26 20:50:08 2021

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

If you don't own a shop this post is not for you. :)

Many of you entrepreneurs out there have had some problems with stocking your shops using your usual methods. As of right now, things should be back to normal (or will be after the MUD reboots, or your shop reloads).

What's been happening is that items approved by automatic approval expressions are now, in fact, approved immediately. But! owners and helpers were not subject to approval expressions, so this led to a side effect where you couldn't put stock in your waiting list, because everything you sold was automatically approved; so now owners and helpers ARE subject to approval expressions. This can be toggled with the "expressions toggle exemptions" command.

A second side effect of all this is that nothing would ever go into the 'waiting' list anymore -- everything would go into the 'waiting unapproved' list. After talking with a few shop owners, the general consensus seems to be people like to use the 'waiting' list for items sold by the owners/helpers themselves and the 'waiting unapproved' list for items sold by customers. So this is now what happens.

tl;dr Shops should work how they used to, except that auto approval expressions should now work too

815 Meditate, posted on Thu Feb 25 14:07:49 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Meditation is now available as a stand alone command away from high altars. Although meditating to remove your divine protection is now available for use anywhere, other techniques still require the use of a high altar.

Anyone can learn the command from a temple instructor, even atheists or witches and wizards. In order for such individuals to learn the command, they will need to find an instructor that they can reach without worshipping a deity - probably either the Pishe instructor in the temple complex in Bes Pelargic or the Hat instructor in Slippery Hollow.

There is a guild level requirement. If you can't learn it, you don't have a high enough guild level.

814 Tang Bay Spawns, posted on Wed Feb 24 16:56:13 2021

Posted by: Fran
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Tang bay terrains were also not spawning npcs properly, affecting some sausage missions.

This has been fixed.

813 Beyond Insane, posted on Wed Feb 24 10:16:25 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

A new statue has been erected at the southeast end of Hypothetical Road in Ephebe.

812 Ring Of Buoyancy Fix, posted on Tue Feb 16 12:11:36 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

The bug with gold and red coral rings that made them mess up your buoyancy if you wore them into the CTF arena has been fixed.
(Note that if your buoyancy is already messed up, it will still be messed up and you will have to get a liaison (or me) to fix it.)

811 Mixing And Matching Of Faith And Magical Shields., posted on Tue Feb 9 13:57:54 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

As people are asking me this a lot, I thought I'd blog to save people the trouble :)

The recent changes to major shield that made it outer armour go hand in hand with some more changes that will be made shortly.

They haven't yet been made because I found some additional things that needed doing first.

You will soon no longer be able to combine major shield, minor shield, and holy aegis with magical impact shields (TPA and SFP) and bugshield.

Other combinations of faith and magic shields (including using major shield and CCC at the same time) will be unaffected.

You'll see another blog post when I switch this change on. Any questions that haven't been answered now should become clear :)

808 Tuna Bay Spawns, posted on Sat Feb 6 17:49:02 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

A recent change led to the Tuna bay terrains not spawning npcs properly. This has made it impossible to complete some sausage missions.

This should now be fixed and the tuna bay terrain should now be spawning properly.

807 Artefact Inquisition Fixed., posted on Sat Feb 6 12:50:59 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The ritual Artefact Inquisition appears to have been broken... possibly forever.

It should now properly show which deity bestowed a particular ritual on a rod.

806 Sto Plains Deities., posted on Sat Feb 6 12:49:51 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

You will find that some of the more esoteric Sto Plains deities (largely evidenced on Sto lat priests) now have more interesting shield messages.

805 Major/minor Shield Tweaks., posted on Fri Jan 29 21:27:52 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

So, there have been a couple of changes to faith shields. Most of these are cosmetic, one is functional.

The functional change is the major shield now counts as "outer" armour. This means it protects you before your clothes and other worn things and these will therefore get less damaged than before.

The most important of the cosmetic changes is that there is now a "high level" major shield message. Gapp's had one for a while (the "cloth of gold" message you may have seen) but now every other player deity has one as well.

Have fnu!

804 Done Dung It., posted on Fri Jan 22 08:07:29 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Twisted vine rings (obtainable through the witch spell Gammer Shorga's Clever Creeper) have been given some fertiliser.

Their resultantly lengthier tendrils can now reach from underneath gloves and other hand coverings to form the shapes of keys they have been taught to remember.

The fertiliser also appears to have improved their memories.

803 Covert-ous Of Positions., posted on Sat Jan 9 13:53:55 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

Bugs related to a player or npc's description showing up as "fighting" despite the thing they're fighting not being visible to them (ie. hiding in the same room) should now be fixed.

NPCs giving fighting chats when the thing they're fighting is in the same room but not visible to them should also now be fixed.

802 Packing Heat, posted on Thu Jan 7 18:36:50 2021

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

There have been some changes to hunter's packs.

801 Warded Items On Rituals/spell Decomposed Corpses, posted on Thu Jan 7 13:39:47 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Recent changes to fix a bug in the "get" command had the consequence that people using a corpse as part of the unquiet spirit and withering touch rituals, the feeding of creeping doom clouds, and the wizard spell Grisald's Reanimated Guardian, could get hit by all the wards on that corpse.

This should no longer be the case but with the downside that the warded items will disappear into non being.

800 Hoplites' (faulty) Perspicaciousness., posted on Thu Jan 7 13:35:47 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

I've fixed a bug in hoplites and citadel guards where they'd speak to you even if they couldn't actually see you.

Enjoy!

799 Nobleman Alignments, posted on Sun Jan 3 18:11:37 2021

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

I have tweaked the alignment values for nobleman groups in Bes Pelargic to be less extreme.

You may therefore find maintaining your alignment when fighting these specific NPCs easier :)

798 Changing Gender, posted on Fri Jan 1 19:23:10 2021

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Special

You can now change your character's gender by visiting research witch Hannah Morgenstern in Pekan Ford and asking her about potions.

NB: witches cannot take advantage of this, for lore reasons.

797 Hogswatch Needs You!, posted on Thu Dec 24 18:17:09 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Sur

In their quest for civic festivities, the citizens of Sto Lat accidentally imported a sapient pine tree from the Forest of Skund. Don't worry! It will be completely safe unless anyone does anything stupid like poke it repeatedly.

796 Changes To PK, posted on Wed Dec 23 15:04:35 2020

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

(The information in this blog post has largely been posted to the boards before, but since the boards scroll fast we replicate it here.)

Hello everyone!

After many discussions we have decided to make some significant changes to the way Playerkilling works in Discworld.

Most importantly at this moment:
* Assassins and wizards of the last order no longer have a PK requirement.
* Everyone is free to stop being PK using the command "clan leave".

However, if you do so you will not be allowed to rejoin unless explicitly invited by the leader (see below).

* Liaisons will no longer mediate in PK conflicts. Instead, an election has been started that allows PKs to elect a leader. The leader has the power to
remove people's PK status, and to invite players who previously left or were removed back in. (Invited players still have the choice whether to join or not.)

* The "clan" command can be used for leaving, joining, inviting, disbarring and participating in the election.

We understand that this will be a major change, and we are keeping an eye on how things progress, and on the election being run in a fair way.
These changes are actually part of a larger change we are working on in the way Playerkiller status works in the game. Below, I will explain the new
philosophy. Please note that this is work in progress, but you will already see references to the new system in the game as commands are being updated.

-----

The core of the change is that we are replacing the former "Playerkiller flag" by a system of clans. In principle, the idea behind this system is as follows:
* a "clan" is essentially just a collection of players with a name (like a club)
* a player can be a member of any number of clans
* if two players are a member of the same clan, then they can have PK interactions (e.g, killing, stealing, inhuming) with each other
* clans can have different policies for who can join, and for leadership

At this time, there is one permanent clan (the Playerkillers clan), with an elected leader and an open invitation policy (anyone who is old enough can
join without invitation unless they have previously left the clan). In addition, a clan is created for each Capture The Flag game and for the Roary
Pig event (and disbanded afterwards). In the future, we intend to allow players to create their own temporary clans for player-run events such as
the PK league or more raucous weddings.

To support this new system, you may notice the following smaller changes:
* options colour playerkiller now colours people that you can PK interact with; this means that for people who are not in any clan, it does nothing
* "who killers" now also refers to the people that you can PK interact with
* "who <clanname>" shows the members of a specific clan; in particular, "who playerkillers" shows the members of the Playerkillers clan (so what "who killers" used to do).

Pit.

P.S. Yes, we realise that the word "clan" is poorly chosen. This will likely be changed in the future, but no good alternative has yet presented itself.

795 Looking For Loot In All The Deads' Places, posted on Wed Dec 16 05:03:09 2020

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

1. You can now get items from containers in corpses (ie, "get thing from container in corpse").

2. While this was going on I noticed a bug where it was possible to use the "get thing out of corpse" syntax to get something without triggering wards. This has now been fixed. BE AWARE that this also applies to other ways of moving items out of corpses as well. For example, ordering your Creeping Doom to devour a corpse with a warded item will also trigger the ward.

794 Ho, Ho, Ho!, posted on Sat Dec 12 00:33:56 2020

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Sur

The city of Sto Lat is holding a municipal Hogswatch celebration, despite some traditionalist naysayers saying that it ruins the true meaning of Crueltide to have Hogswatch happen every year.

In order to further the cause of gentrification, some civic-minded gentlemen of the city have opened the Hogfather's Grotto in Frozen Alley for the season, and erected a municipal Hogswatch tree in the Royal Market for everyone's enjoyment.

793 Warning: A Fix To Over-full Vaults, posted on Fri Dec 4 22:52:19 2020

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Bing!

We have fixed a bug in vaults (and similar storage places like high priest wardrobes) which caused most of the checks on whether an item can be put in to be bypassed.

This bug not only led to rather curious situations like a complete elephant corpse fitting into a small drawer; more importantly, it also meant that people could put more items in than the MUD can load in one go -- potentially leading to items being quietly lost when the vault is opened again.

So, please be aware that if a vault is over-full (that is, when looking at it you see a line starting with "The drawer is over-full with"), you will not be able to put items back in after you take them out. Also when a vault is not overfull, items larger than 3 by 10 feet will not fit in it.

Pit.

792 Mrs Pontefract's Olde Tyme Sweete Shoppe, posted on Wed Nov 25 15:17:03 2020

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Sur

Sheepridge's own Mrs Pontefract has had a nice man from Sto Helit come in and explain to her all about marketing and (after some initial confusion) has accordingly updated her shop and her stock.

791 The Zombies Are Here, posted on Sat Oct 31 00:00:46 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The zombie bacterium event has started! It will run for the next 24 hours and end at midnight server time.

Under the new opt-in system:

Zombie NPCs will only attempt to bite opted-in players.

Zombie players can only bite opted-in players.

Soothing Rain must be performed by an opted-in player to cure zombies.

"who survivors" and "who infected" will only show opted-in players.

Enjoy!

790 The Zombies Are Coming, posted on Mon Oct 26 05:42:07 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The zombie bacterium event will happen again on October 31, Saturday! If you missed the last one, now's your chance to bite some survivors and/or purify some zombies.

However, this time the event will be opt-in: you will have to type a command to join. This means that if you do not want to participate in the event, you can completely ignore it.

More details will be announced on the 31st.

789 L'Hotel De Bricobracomanie, posted on Fri Oct 9 14:05:29 2020

Posted by: Guildenstern
Category: Sur

Esteemed antiquarian the Chevalier de Ste. Marie-Scharrone found the current political climate in Quirm difficult for unspecified reasons, and has relocated his shop & stock to Sto Lat's Hill Street for a more peaceful life.

788 Polished, posted on Fri Oct 2 07:14:35 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Borst Besensteel now accepts orders for broom polish.

(Note: Ordering through the order command gets you polish, while ordering through speaking still gets you a custom broom as before.)

787 A Brief History Lesson, posted on Fri Sep 25 14:05:23 2020

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The "history" command has received two new syntaxen.

"history channels" will show you a list of the channels you currently have access to (talker channels and clubs, and, if you happen to be a newbie, newbiehelper or creator, the corresponding channels) that have a history to read. Useful if you just logged in and want to read everything you might have missed.

"history channels since last" does the same, but won't include channels that haven't had anything said on them since the last time you used the command.

If you have mxp enabled, clicking a listed channel will show you that channel's history.

Have fnu!

Woom

786 More Good Cuppa., posted on Thu Aug 20 09:29:33 2020

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

A bug has been fixed that sometimes stopped people from successfully inhuming Wun Good Cuppa. Enjoy!

785 An Arm And A Leg, posted on Wed Aug 12 00:45:47 2020

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

You can now get bits from corpses (and bits from other bits) with swords, axes, and polearms. The part you're trying to get must be above a certain overall size, and it can't be an internal organ, a bone, or skin; so things like arms, legs, heads, etc. AND you can't be holding the corpse or bit; it has to be on the ground or some other surface.

Knives and daggers will continue to work as usual.

If you find a bit you think you should be able to get but can't, or CAN get but think you shouldn't, please file a bug report.

784 Just Clowning Around, posted on Wed Jul 8 16:41:16 2020

Posted by: Mephistotle
Category: Guilds

Ankh-Morpork Times

Saturday 18th Sektober Secundus, UC 2042

After a practical joke that lasted more than a year, the senior staff of the Fools' Guild have pulled down the set piece backgrounds blocking their new members from the majority of the guild.

This was widely regarded as "not all that funny" by the majority of outsiders, and "the strictest adherence to our tradition and respect to our institution" by the Cloistered Staff. One Fool on staff, who wishes to remain anonymous, is quoted as saying, "It's just more for me to clean up. I understand opening up to the new Fools; but why are we letting the public in?"

When prompted for comment, Doctor Whiteface was quoted as saying, "Kindly remove yourself from my office before I'm forced to call my Jolly Good Pals." No further comment was given.

P.S. Fluff Capita and Pit for their hours of help with this project. They were quite instrumental in helping me get this off the ground.

Also, fluff all your Playtesters. This is a sizable addition, and they've put in a ton of work correcting my many mistakes.

783 Giving To The Group, posted on Thu Jul 2 20:25:29 2020

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

There is now a 'groupaccept' option under 'options auto give' to control whether or not you will automatically accept things given to you by group members. 

782 Cloud Differentiation, posted on Fri Jun 26 09:39:57 2020

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

You can now refer to a Fyodor's Nimbus of Porterage cloud as "nimbus" and "carrier". Things like "look at my nimbus" or "look at my carrier cloud" will now work.

N.B. Any clouds summoned before this blog will not have been updated.

781 Panning Out, posted on Tue Jun 23 11:48:06 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

After a recent earthquake in the Copperhead Mountains, the amount of purple mineral powder found in mines has increased.

780 Never A Kindly Word., posted on Sat Jun 20 10:40:15 2020

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

Mocking can be a hit or miss affair sometimes, so I've added in some hints to help out. Witches may now mull over their targets' shortcomings with additional eye-ings. This will show the witch where they might best apply some verbal jabs.

Enjoy!

Fran.

779 Options Combat Attack_on_theft=on, posted on Tue Jun 16 16:05:37 2020

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

There is now an option (options combat attack_on_theft =on/off) that lets you automatically attack when someone tries to steal from you.

This means that you can use this option to automatically attack when something fails to steal/filch from you. The option will make you always attack someone who snatches (whether or not they succeed).

778 Hoods N' Visors, posted on Mon Jun 15 03:42:32 2020

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

Greetings!

There have been a couple small clothing and armour changes. First, all cloaks/robes/dresses that say they have a hood should now have a functioning hood. Use 'pull hood [on] <item> [forward]' and 'push hood [on] <item> [back]' to raise or lower the hood. Second, in the same vein, helmets that say the have a visor should now have a working visor. Use 'raise/lower visor on <helmet>' to move it.

I'm not sure I updated all occurrences, so if you find one of these that does not have a working hood or visor please make a bug report.

(Sorry for breaking some people's custom helmets in the process. :()

777 PK Weekend 2020, posted on Sat May 30 18:26:02 2020

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Hello everyone!

The annual PK weekend will take place on 6 and 7 June 2020. During this weekend, everyone can choose to be PK for a few days, and be back to normal afterwards.

This year's event will give you more control than the ones before. You will be able to permit specific people to fight with / steal from you, and also completely stop being PK before the end of the weekend. More details will follow closer to the time.

We ask all players who participate to keep the event fun. Griefing actions -- including permanently depriving people of their possessions -- will not be tolerated. Despite this, we still recommend that players who wish to participate prepare by vaulting items they really don't want to risk losing.

Pit.

776 Major Sacrifice, posted on Wed May 6 12:02:28 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Divine shielding granted by the sacrificial altars in Ephebe was far more powerful than originally intended. These therefore no longer grant a shield as a reward if you already have one active. This means that while you can still receive  an extremely powerful shield of the same strength as before, its duration will be limited. You cannot now stack major/minor shield on yourself and use a sacrifice to strengthen it.

775 Salty, posted on Sun Apr 12 18:31:42 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Sur

Some brush has been cleared out along the sea-facing side of the road from Ankh-Morpork to Holy Wood, making the hut on the beach much clearer from the road.

P.S. You should totally fluff Mephistotle, who helped!

774 Klein Bottle Bugfix, posted on Sun Apr 5 18:33:26 2020

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

Klein bottles no longer break when attacking unarmed since you can't attack with them at all. This should make them less annoying to use when harvesting components or casting NES in combat.

You may need to su to update any bottles already in your possession.

Fran.

773 Dead Letter Update, Part II, posted on Sun Apr 5 16:57:26 2020

Posted by: Fran
Category: Am (domain pages)

Hello all!

I have made a small tweak to the new dead letter missions. The two "only the city" letters are now a little bit easier and correspondingly pay a slightly lower reward.

Enjoy!

Fran.

772 Z-Bacterium Epidemic, posted on Thu Apr 2 12:48:10 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Reports have just come in about the outbreak of the terrifying z-bacterium that happened yesterday. Authorities claim that it is "all under control" and "not to worry". The arch-chancellor of the Unseen University has loudly disclaimed any responsibility, but comments that "Really, I'm sure people can deal with such a little thing, I don't see why you're bothering me about this. When's lunch?"

771 A More Difficult Treasure Hunt, posted on Mon Mar 9 03:59:15 2020

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

Brownbeard's treasure should now be a little harder to find.

770 Dead Letter Update, posted on Thu Mar 5 15:58:21 2020

Posted by: Fran
Category: Am (domain pages)

Hello all!

The dead letter office delivery missions have been heavily reworked. They are now better balanced across the guilds and pay rewards that are consistent with the mission system. Overall, this means that they will give less XP, but on the upside, there are more of them so you will not run into the repetition timer quite so quickly!

It is possible that the missions and rewards will be tweaked a bit more in the weeks to come (but this could go in either direction).

Fran & Pit.

768 Accounting For Death., posted on Tue Feb 4 17:30:44 2020

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

All assassins may now "check" the status of their specialisation's inhumation fund in its private and public inhumation offices. Specialisation admin will also find similar facilities at their disposal in their offices.

Fran.

767 Be On Your Guard., posted on Fri Dec 27 15:03:12 2019

Posted by: Fran
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

A bug that made it possible to slip past the guarding NPCs in the Snail has been fixed. It is now as dangerous as it should have been, so be careful.

766 Hubland Bears, posted on Fri Dec 13 14:20:29 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Stephan, the Mad Wolf furrier, has run out of hubland bear fur (for some reason, nobody supplies the stuff any more). On the bright side, there are plenty of hubland bears to be found at the Hub!

765 Need A Hand?, posted on Mon Dec 9 15:20:22 2019

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

This bugfix weekend saw a number of fixes to the spells Booch's Extremal Polymorphism and Yordon's Extremal Extension. Most notably:

* Your left and right hands don't swap anymore.

* Objects now remain held in the same hands (where possible) when you gain or lose arms.

* Two-handed objects that are held in two hands are not dropped if you lose one of those arms.

* When your arms are back to normal, you will now be holding the correct things.

If you had extra arms before these fixes you may experience some oddness until you get back to the normal set.

Fran.

764 Impossible Voyage, posted on Thu Dec 5 04:26:03 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

The Ephebian smugglers need this rush delivery on the other end of the Circle Sea in four hours, and only the smuggler fleet's fastest and least reliable ship, the dragon-powered SS Unsinkable, can make it there in time.

To make it across, four players must cooperate to steer the ship, wrangle the dragons into behaving, put out fires and repair any holes in the hull, search the storerooms for supplies to do all of the above, and perhaps even fight off a sea monster - all while contending against the ever-changing hostile weather of the ocean.

763 Sailing Release On Thursday!!, posted on Sat Nov 30 01:43:49 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Waterways (domain pages)

But which Thursday? (it's this one)

(at least one ship)

762 Knick-knacks, posted on Sat Nov 23 05:04:36 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A new shop has opened on the walkway below Dockside Walk in Ephebe. Rumours say that its proprietor, Niknax, has connections to the smugglers.

761 A Hint Regarding Custom Samurai Weapons., posted on Wed Oct 9 14:15:59 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

There is one new variant of each weapon that Bending Reed offers.

For a hint as to what patterns to try, I suggest you look at the title of the previous post :)

760 Storms Explode On High // As Rivers Bloom And Beasts Climb // Hidden By Bamboo., posted on Sun Oct 6 14:53:30 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Wan Bending Reed, the master weaponsmith in the Samurai Dojo in Bes Pelargic, has taken delivery of some bamboo and is now willing to incorporate this exciting new material into his creations.

759 Less Limited Inhumations, posted on Fri Sep 27 19:47:14 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Assassins of every specialisation used to only be able to close NPC contracts four times.

They can now close NPC contracts four times every eight months or so.

The practical result of this is that every assassin can now close any and all NPC contracts four more times. They will then have to wait a while before they can repeat them.

Assassins may therefore find some of the inhumation achievements easier to complete.

Ciao!

758 The Money Programme, posted on Wed Sep 25 05:31:01 2019

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

The 'rate' command now has an option to let you see how much the value of your money will be affected by the fee at a money changer. See 'help rate' for details.

757 Hats For Hat, posted on Fri Sep 20 16:58:14 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Forn (domain pages)

The Hat temple shop in Genua now sells a number of colourful new party berets.

756 Fixing Refractory Furniture., posted on Mon Jul 15 17:12:25 2019

Posted by: Fran
Category: General

We have fixed a bug that stopped us changing furniture after it had been bought.

The dimensions or capacity of some of your furniture might change if they were out of date. You may therefore not be able to fit everything back in that you take out.

If you notice any unusual behaviour, contact a liaison.

755 Hey! Where Do You Think You're Going?, posted on Tue Jul 9 19:51:31 2019

Posted by: Fran
Category: Guilds

Thieves (though not necessarily in the guild of the same name) will find that using unsophisticated means to procure their illicit gains are no longer guaranteed a speedy escape.

If you use snatch, you now stand a chance of having your carefully planned exit plan foiled. With enough skill you can improve your odds.

This affects both players and NPCs.

Enjoy/Beware!

754 Moving Out Of Your Ephebian Sublet., posted on Fri Jun 28 17:46:57 2019

Posted by: Fran
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

If you have been allowed to access a house in Ephebe and then get your own house, your access will no longer be immediately revoked. The Tyrant now grants one week (round-world) for you to move your belongings out.

Enjoy!

753 Player Property Party Poopers., posted on Tue May 28 15:49:27 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

Additional restrictions on the auctioning of property have been implemented:

If you win an auction for ANY type of property and fail to claim you will be unable to bid for a period of time afterwards. The length of time you are unable to bid for depends on how many times you have failed to claim.

If you claim a RENTAL property and then terminate your agreement within 7 days you will be unable to bid for a period of time afterwards. You can tell whether you will be banned from bidding by the warning given when you begin to "terminate agreement" but BEFORE you confirm. Do not confirm without reading the warning carefully.

You are unable to bid if there is a property waiting for you to claim it.

These measures have proven necessary due to abuse of the auctioning of player property and of housing in particular. Further changes will be effected if necessary.

752 Hall Of Blades, posted on Wed May 22 10:06:29 2019

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

An ancient hall of trials has been rediscovered under the Temple of the Listening Monks. Legend says that a forbidden artifact of great power lies at the end.

751 Guildtitle Command For Assassins., posted on Tue May 21 18:29:58 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Assassins of every specialisation are now able to learn and use the guildtitle command to change their guild title at will.

To learn the command, a qualifying member of any of the assassin specialisations must find Mericet (who wanders around the AM guild) and ask him to teach them.

750 Ephebian Real Estate., posted on Tue May 14 20:50:23 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Ephebian citizens are now able to bid on property in Ephebe.

Enjoy!

749 PK/NPK Playerhouse Lockpick Change, posted on Fri Apr 19 11:42:04 2019

Posted by: Ploosk
Category: General

I've made a change to how lockpicking works in regard to playerhousing.

If an NPK house has a PK allowed in it, it is now treated as a PK house for lockpicking purposes.

This doesn't change anything else - you still cannot loot phouses etc.

748 New Title: "Mx"., posted on Tue Apr 2 19:02:28 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

There is now a new default title, "Mx" available to all players. Use the command "title update" to gain access to it.

Ps. You may have to su in order for "title update" to work. Ps. Ps. Try "title update" twice if the first time doesn't do it :)

746 Hallucinations Are What You Need., posted on Sat Mar 23 16:33:57 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A strange craftsman has taken up residence in a previously unclaimed workshop on Tuvelpit road. Nobody knows why he's been eating so many orange and blue spotted mushrooms before setting chisel to wood, but, judging by the things he's been carving, he's clearly been hallucinating a lot!

P.S. This is Dji's first project as a creator. Everybody give her a big cheer!

745 A Word Of Warning, posted on Fri Mar 22 23:51:03 2019

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

Hello!

The messages about dropping stuff due to fumbling or fading strength are now coloured according to your "inventory" colour preference.

HTH! HAND!

Woom

744 Ephebian Real Estate Agency Accessible (but You Can't Bid Yet)., posted on Tue Mar 19 13:00:46 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The Ephebe real estate agency is now accessible in the Citadel.

However, you will be unable to bid on any Ephebian property for the time being.

The agency is accessible to give you a chance to have a look at Ephebian property requirements.

743 Open Days On Ephebe Houses, posted on Sun Mar 17 16:21:04 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

As some of you have already noticed, there are some player houses accessible in Ephebe now.

You will be able to bid on these when the real estate agency is put into game, which will happen in the near future.

742 Ephebe Citadel And Citizenship., posted on Sat Mar 16 19:32:47 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Most of the Ephebe Citadel is now in game.

To gain access to these areas beyond the Labyrinth, please head to the forecourt waiting room. Due to continuing
refurbishment expected to continue until at least the Year of the Dipilated Octopus, the Labyrinth must be navigated
using one of the labyrinth's guides. Ring the bell for service!

A side-effect of the Citadel being in game is, of course, that you can also now become an Ephebian Citizen.

Further announcements will be made in due course :)

741 Anti-scry Crystals, posted on Sun Feb 24 13:08:38 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Crystals imbued with the witch spell Banishing of Prying Eyes now help you to defend against a greater number of methods of external observation.

739 Holding Tight., posted on Thu Jan 24 18:49:05 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

There have been several changes to the witch spell Gammer Shorga's Helpful Undergrowth.

These have been implemented with the aim of making things fairer for a witch's victims while still giving the witch the opportunity to have their wicked way with them.

Some of the changes are as follows:

1) Stacking/merging of vines. The number of vines that can entangle a victim has been capped. A low level witch will take more casts to reach this cap than a high level one. A low level witch and a high level witch both casting on the same victim may have additional effects.

2) Cutting of vines with weapons. A number of bugs in the cutting of vines have been fixed. The number of vines removed when you cut with different sharp weapons may now be different.

3) Cutting of vines with lion paws. It is now possible to cut off vines using the claws obtained by wearing and extending lion paws.

4) Failing to cut vines. The "negative consequences" (blindness, having your weapon stolen, etc) that cutters sometimes suffer when failing to cut through vines are now more likely to occur. On the other hand, the duration of these negative effects is shorter.

5) Pulling free. It is now possible to remove some vines by trying to move. This will not be as effective as cutting with a sharp weapon.

6) Weedkiller. This is no longer as effective at withering vines.

7) You can now refer to vines according to who is entangled in them.

For example, the following will now work: "look my vines", "look fran's vines", "look celt vines".

This list should not be considered exhaustive :)

736 Sea Hag Relocation., posted on Thu Jan 24 15:25:13 2019

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

An elderly-but-spry lady has taken up residence in a hut in the Harbourwalk of Ephebe. Rumour has it she's spent most of her life living alone in a cave in one of the Ephebian-controlled islands in the Circle Sea.

Any witches visiting her in her new abode may find that she has something interesting to teach them if they possess sufficient skill.

735 Live Organ Donation, posted on Thu Dec 20 15:38:14 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Igorina has been running up a surplus of body parts in her vats. As such, she has opened up her "services" to male patients in order to not run up so much of a surplus.

734 Oplaphoros' Sexism., posted on Thu Dec 20 15:35:57 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The weapon trader Oplaphoros has received a directive from the Tyrant to no longer discriminate against women.

As such, if you fulfil his other requirements, you will be able to buy things from him.

733 An Update To Really Difficult Letter Deliveries., posted on Sat Dec 8 11:43:23 2018

Posted by: Pit
Category: Am (domain pages)

Frank, the Semior Postman in charge of the dead letter office, has changed the policies in regard to difficult customers somewhat.

He will now allow for much less time to deliver these letters, and also give a lesser reward. He hopes that this will allow a greater variety of post office epmloyees to try their hand at hunting down these difficult addresees.

Pit.

732 A Different Odour, posted on Sat Dec 1 17:15:50 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The message for stepping into stinkdamp gas in the Copperhead Mines has had a typo fix from "odor" to "odour", to be properly British. If you have a sound trigger on this message, you may wish to update it.

731 Copperhead, posted on Thu Nov 1 08:17:46 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The Copperhead trading post, as well as the Copperhead Mines, are now open to visitors.

Happy mining!

730 Birthdays, posted on Sun Oct 14 15:51:51 2018

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

The 'birthdays' command can now show you who has an upcoming birthday or who just had one recently (within +/- 14 days). Just use 'birthdays <number>' to give the window to check.

729 Rain Of No Longer Rabid Rabbits., posted on Thu Oct 11 10:34:59 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The Pishe ritual Soothing Rain now cures rabies too.

728 Musical Mishaps, posted on Sat Sep 29 16:56:45 2018

Posted by: Feanor
Category: Am (domain pages)

A prominent Musicians' Guild's member's attempt to write a song regarding her recent love experience went awry when the notes flew off the paper and took shape as Jolene. The musician is said to have secluded to Genua to avoid bumping into the walking reminder.

727 Temple Of Patina, posted on Sat Sep 22 12:46:18 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

After several years of no visitors, the trellis blocking the entrance to the Temple of Patina on the west side of the Ephebe Harbour Market has been noticed and removed.

726 Fur Real, posted on Mon Sep 10 18:19:10 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The fur lined/trimmed clothes one can order from Stephan in Mad Wolf have been changed slightly.

The descriptions have been somewhat updated, the pockets in some of the items have been enlarged, and he now offers yeti fur as one of his options.

He also will now make underwear as well as panties and loincloths.

725 It's So Bright In Here., posted on Fri Sep 7 22:53:39 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A female member of the tribe of Igors - Igorina - has opened up a women's clinic on Petulia avenue.

Although she is constantly turning away male patients, she is nevertheless rumoured to be visited frequently by the priestesses of Petulia, who reside nearby.

724 Ephebian Corruption, posted on Fri Sep 7 14:24:48 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

You may have noticed some corrupt officials/bureaucrats wandering around Ephebe.

You are now able to bribe these to improve your reputation with the authorities, so long as you're subtle about it.

723 A Change In Your Ways, posted on Fri Sep 7 14:19:56 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

As many of you have noticed, shops in Ephebe sometimes charge you different amounts depending on how much you have offended the Ephebian authorities.

Although shops still do this, they don't vary their prices quite so much. Instead they'll charge you a bit more if you've got a bad reputation, and they'll charge you more still if you've got a very bad reputation.

722 Takeaway Missions, posted on Mon Sep 3 23:41:22 2018

Posted by: Pit
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Bing!

The takeaway restaurants in Bes Pelargic have updated their employee policies, and will now award XP for completed deliveries as well as money. Takeaway missions will now also count towards mission achievements.

Pit.

721 Sausage Balancing, posted on Wed Aug 22 02:13:27 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Am (domain pages)

The sausage market has become saturated with certain varieties of sausage, leading Sam Slager to lower his payments for those types.

(The spawn rate of the Klatch terrains was higher than expected, so the missions requiring animals from there were too easy for the reward. After collecting data on how long missions were taking for a few weeks, I've lowered the values for those animals a little.)

720 Hot Stuff 2, posted on Tue Aug 21 17:54:00 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The way cooling clothing works has been made more consistent. It will now cool you down even if you're indoors, but the total amount of cooling you can receive from clothing is based on the current room temperature.

719 Klein And Fresh, posted on Sat Aug 18 17:10:19 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Guilds

The Creel Springs wizards' guild and the wizard's stall in Ephebe now stock two new, mind-bending magic items.

718 You Or Me?, posted on Fri Aug 17 21:17:34 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

There's talk of strange folks abroad.

Wandering D'reg tribes skirting the northeast edge of Al Khali and journeying deep into the desert wastes at night have aspied what looks like a small campfire at the top of a monolith in the desert.

A couple of enterprising youngsters have attempted to discover who lit them, but were driven away by the smell and fled back to their camp.

(Uncryptic version: There's a smelly tramp on the top of a big rock in the desert northeast of Al Khali. He may be persuaded to make you a unique weapon in exchange for payment.)

717 He's All Ears., posted on Thu Aug 16 22:36:27 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

Igor in the basement level laboratory in the Pseudopolis Yard watch house has come into a supply of arms and ears in addition to his ready supply of noses.

For a donation to the Widowth and Orphanth fund he may be persuaded to replace your missing parts, or to reattach a replacement that you "obtain" for him.

N.B. The exact method by which he takes his payment has changed slightly - he will take it as part of the process rather than by players donating money beforehand. He also continues to replace noses.

716 , posted on Fri Jul 6 13:39:10 2018

Posted by: Kesh
Category: Am (domain pages)

For the flooring-inclined, Jerry Jones in Sto Lat is stocking a few new woods.

715 Gemcutting Workshop Reopened, posted on Tue Jun 26 12:50:31 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The Slippery Hollow gemcutting workshop has had most of its technical difficulties resolved and is now open to the public once more.

714 Gemcutting Edge, posted on Thu Jun 7 19:15:05 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Some of the patterns in the gemmed jewellery pattern book (Making Jewellery with Gems, by L. B. N. Wiggletoes), that were removed due to being unfinished way back when Slippery Hollow was released, are now finished and unremoved.

713 Restless Obbles, posted on Sun May 27 15:15:14 2018

Posted by: Kesh
Category: Sur

In rare situations, you may find that your obbles are noisier than before.

712 Sugar Press, posted on Fri May 18 06:14:12 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Guilds

The witch cottage in Slice now has a sugar press for making loose sugar into cubes.

711 In Hot Pursuit, posted on Sat May 12 14:16:40 2018

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Bing!

Due to the discovery and subsequent fixing of a bug, you may find that pursuing has now become a little easier.

The effect should not be extreme, but may well be enough to be noticeable.

Your diligent bugfixer team.

710 New Zmp/gmcp Data, posted on Wed May 9 14:26:57 2018

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Bing!

Those of you who like to develop plugins or enjoy fiddling with client features for their own benefit may want to look into the new zmp/gmcp features:

* new commands char.login and char.info will be sent on character logins

* the room.info mapping also includes whether a room is terrain or not

* Char.Vitals has been renamed to char.vitals and now also includes alignment

Full information regarding zmp and gmcp commands is available in help zmp / help gmcp.

Please note that while we will continue to support Char.Vitals for a period to allow players to update their plugins, it will eventually be phased out.

Pit.

P.S. For all those of you who don't mess around with the more arcane MUD client features and are wondering what on earth this is about... Stuff happened! Some people will probably publish coolish plugins! Life is beautiful!

709 Beer Helmets, posted on Sat Apr 28 18:22:58 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The Hat temple shop in AM now stocks the latest in getting-drunk technology.

708 Caught Them All Again, posted on Mon Apr 9 17:10:27 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Professor Shrub's imps have all been put on the incinerator again, thanks to the adventurers that helped capture them.

707 You Call That A Knife? II., posted on Sun Apr 1 11:04:24 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

PS. As part of the selected weapon updates, I have also added two new weapons.

HAPPY HUNTING.

706 You Call That A Knife?, posted on Sun Apr 1 10:51:14 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

As I'm sure many of you are aware, some melee types (e.g. polearm, axe, misc, and flail) have been in a bad spot for a long time. This is, at least in part, due to the lack of decently-damaging, heavier weapon choices in these weapon classes.

I have therefore selected a very limited number of weapons in these melee classes and updated them.

Please note that this is a stop-gap measure intended to help some neglected melee classes until combat changes further down the line are ready :)

705 Magical Experiment Goes Wrong Again, Again, posted on Sat Mar 31 19:29:58 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Another magical experiment by the Bes Pelargic wizards has gone wrong. Your intrepid reporter isolated the head researcher responsible for the accident for an exclusive interview.

Q: Did this experiment -

A: You again!

The interview ended at this point. However, the head researcher is available in the Bes Pelargic wizards' guild again for further questions.

704 Marjorie Baxter., posted on Thu Mar 29 00:35:00 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

There is a hidden artifacts stall somewhere in Ephebe.

Happy hunting!

703 Light It Up!, posted on Wed Mar 28 19:04:26 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

After getting a few separate people to repeat the calculation that I made myself to make sure I wasn't crazy(ier), I have reduced the weight of lightable torches slightly.

They were rather too heavy for what they were, so this should be more convenient for those of you who want to carry them for whatever nefarious purpose.

702 Glorious Rainbows, posted on Wed Mar 28 18:36:27 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The Wizard spell Heezlewurst's Elemental Buffer has been changed so that it absorbs a greater amount of lightning damage.

The description of the colours that appear around the player after casting has also been tweaked, and it now gives duration feedback via the "shields" command.

701 Shinies, posted on Wed Mar 28 17:40:23 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Bing!

Rhokshial's crystals have been added to some additional places around the Discworld.

Have FNU!

700 Absentee Postgraduate Course Candidates, posted on Wed Mar 28 17:09:19 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Assassins who are absent from the Discworld for a period of 90 roundworld days will now be removed from any postgraduate courses that they were enrolled in.

Any affected players can claim back a certain amount of their course fees from the secretary in the guild.

The secretary will now also warn players about this when they enrol.

This was implemented in order to stop absentee players from adversely affecting the ability of active players to complete their lecture programmes!

699 Get Your Wood 'ere!, posted on Fri Mar 23 16:42:03 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

There's a pile of seasoned branches for your burning pleasure somewhere in the west part of Ephebe. They function just like the normal logs, but they are a bit larger and should last slightly longer.

698 EEEEEK A COCKROACH (coal Scuttle Furniture Item), posted on Fri Mar 23 16:40:36 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

For your fuel-storing pleasure, I have added a coal scuttle to one of the furniture shops in Ephebe. Although it's called a "coal scuttle", it will in fact store all fuels suitable for burning in a fireplace.

697 Goodness Gracious: Great Burning Lumps Of Coal!, posted on Fri Mar 23 16:39:32 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

You are now able to burn coal in your fireplaces.

Any old coal that you have won't work, so you'll have to refresh your supply!

If you obtain some NEW coal and find that it doesn't burn, please submit a bugrep on it and specifiy where you got it from! Likewise, if you experience any other oddities with coal or other minerals, please submit a bugrep on the mineral object and be as specific and detailed as possible!

696 And You Can Block As Well, posted on Thu Mar 22 21:07:34 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

PS. Blocking is also possible now as well.

695 Parrying While Casting/performing., posted on Thu Mar 22 21:05:47 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

Parrying while casting/performing has now been enabled. You may have to su for this to take effect.

694 Flaming Brilliant., posted on Wed Mar 21 20:21:53 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The craftsmen in the marbleworks on Contradiction Close in Ephebe have cleared out some of their old unsold stonework and started making and selling a number of fireplaces.

Rarity of some of the materials means that their stock varies. If they don't have something you fancy, you could always come back another time.

693 Lighting Up The Night., posted on Tue Mar 20 23:58:51 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

There are now unique light/extinguish commands for both witches and wizards wanting a more stylish way of interacting with their lamps.

Lamps holding lots of candles are also a lot less likely to make a room too bright to see when they're all lit. This may not be the case if you have several chandeliers of eight candles and light them all at once, though...

There is now also a helpfile for lamp objects. This explains how the default light/extinguish commands - and the new wizard/witch variants - work.

692 Bank Books, posted on Fri Mar 2 14:55:17 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Banks have a new syntax under "balance" that lets you get your account balance in a little nifty booklet.

691 Additional Pie Choices., posted on Wed Feb 21 16:08:33 2018

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Enjoy the pies, wizards!

690 First Aid Kits, posted on Sat Feb 3 14:07:13 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Rham-tat-phoon in Ephebe now sells first aid kits, in addition to his usual setting of broken legs.

689 Son Of A Rat, posted on Tue Jan 16 20:16:04 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Kart Kill Kafe on the Soake now has a new patron, Noelle Ratson.

688 New Utensils, posted on Fri Jan 5 23:35:23 2018

Posted by: Capita
Category: Guilds

Five of them!

687 Private Pianos, posted on Mon Dec 18 08:07:15 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Tired of having to leave the safety of your own home in order to get in your daily piano practice? Fiddley's Music Shop and the Guild of Assassins now sell two new pianos that you can enjoy in privacy.

686 Well I Was In The Neighbourhood, posted on Fri Nov 3 20:36:46 2017

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Well I Was In The Neighbourhood and noticed an Ankh-Morpork Architect has come out of retirement to renovate part of Water Street.

685 Ink Racks, posted on Sat Aug 5 05:53:19 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

The calligraphy shop on Brookless Lane is now in stock with a shiny new piece of furniture for ink collectors.

684 The New Get, posted on Fri Aug 4 18:02:38 2017

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

further updates to get

Bing!

The get command has been further updated. Most importantly, there are now syntaxes to get a limited number of items from multiple containers, and it is possible to get an item that is too heavy to lift out of a container.

Pit.

683 Clothes For The Dead, posted on Mon Jul 24 19:17:14 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Ghosts will now stay just as fashionable as they were before they died.

682 Sausage Delivery, posted on Sun Jul 16 19:50:38 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Am (domain pages)

Sam Slager, owner of the Long Hogmeat sausage shop, has been flooded with requests for strange and exotic sausages recently. He is hiring temporary help.

681 Shield Weights, posted on Sun Jul 9 12:23:09 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

I've made all the shields lighter, to let block users have a bigger range of viable not-too-heavy shields to choose from. While I was at it, I've also tweaked their dimensions and durability to be more in line with each other. The EFF spell is unaffected. As a one-off event, I will transfer deludes and enchantments if anyone wishes to change shields as a result.

680 Dave's Shield, posted on Sat Jul 8 21:37:08 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Ram (domain pages)

During his regular spring cleaning, Dave the Necromancer has fortuitously found his long-lost shield, backpack, and a copy of Portal-Proofing Your Lair (For Dummies).

679 Changes To Get, posted on Fri Jul 7 21:14:10 2017

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

The "get" command has received some bugfixes; it is now no longer possible to get objects inside objects inside objects inside ...

678 Catnip, posted on Sun Jul 2 15:52:46 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Catnip now does something interesting.

For related reasons, a catnip patch has appeared somewhere in Djelibeybi.

677 Refactored Quest, posted on Tue Jun 20 23:13:43 2017

Posted by: Danbala
Category: Am (domain pages)

The conditions for becoming Very, Very Lucky have changed, due to changes in society, Morporkian laws and the climate.

676 Burden Command, posted on Sat Jun 10 14:32:25 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

There is now a command to display roughly what's causing your burden.

(If your brief settings don't have it yet, a su will help.)

675 Oversized Confectionary, posted on Thu May 18 11:57:02 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Giant cakes are now for sale at Frank Gnaby's party shop (warning: one use only). They're huge!

674 Caught Them All, posted on Sat Apr 8 10:43:52 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Professor Shrub's imps have all been put on the incinerator, thanks to the adventurers that helped capture them.

673 Dangerous Waters, posted on Sun Apr 2 15:12:19 2017

Posted by: Kirves
Category: General

Once upon a time, someone intended for attack actions in water to work at 1/3 the speed they do upon land. Due to a small miscalculation on their part, attack actions were instead made to work roughly 3 times faster than they did on land.

Unfortunately, this was not noticed for many a year until some players observed some crocodiles doing what they assumed was near impossible, namely killing them.

Interestingly enough, that is what the crocodiles should have been doing all along but with players benefiting far more from the speed boost them, the poor things never stood a proper chance.

After much deliberation, it was decided that making things work at the 1/3rd speed as originally intended would be a bit too harsh. So, now players can expect those NPCs that find themselves at home in the water (and themselves) as slow as land based NPCs and players. Anyone not accustomed to living in such watery environments will suffer a slight penalty (although a certain ritual can overcome that).

672 Magical Experiment Goes Wrong, Again, posted on Sat Apr 1 04:39:02 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Another magical experiment by the Bes Pelargic wizards has gone wrong. Your intrepid reporter isolated the head researcher responsible for the accident for an exclusive interview.

Q: Did this experiment have anything to do with staves with knobs on the ends?

A: Hm? Yes, sure.

Q: What about horses - did the experiment involve riding them?

A: Of course, of course.

Q: And sailing on boats?

A: Who are you and what are you doing in here?

The interview ended at this point. However, the head researcher is available in the Bes Pelargic wizards' guild for further questions.

671 Who Nose?, posted on Sat Mar 18 08:39:07 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Am (domain pages)

The sound of loud sawing was heard from Tenth Egg Street last night.

670 Lost, Found And Lost Again?, posted on Fri Feb 24 16:04:47 2017

Posted by: Danbala
Category: Am (domain pages)

Mr N'Fund has recently developed a new technique for seal removal and from now on he is willing to take items off his register. For a fee, of course.

669 Urban Explorer Saves Pallant St General Store From Bankruptcy, posted on Sun Feb 5 14:34:47 2017

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

An urban explorer stumbled upon a quaint little general store in Pallant Street recently.

It appears the shop had always been here, but it just had never been noticed before.

The discovery has brought it some much-needed business and the owner is hopeful he can now avoid selling his last remaining family jewels.

668 Fiddly Franchises, posted on Tue Jan 31 15:00:16 2017

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Mudlib

Bing Bong!

Some issues in the Bank Franchise Fee code have been addressed. In order to simplify book-keeping, in future all monthly franchise payments will be due at 12:00 on the first of the month.

This will come into effect after the next due franchise payment is made.

Bank franchise owners seeking more information on this fix, or wishing to discuss the implications of it, should contact Borealis.

667 In Flight Security, posted on Sat Jan 28 10:13:58 2017

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Underworld

A fault in the cockpit security systems of Travelling Shops has recently been identified and resolved. Do not aggressively molest the pilot on pain of pain! You have been warned!

666 Swapping For Dummies, posted on Fri Jan 20 13:53:34 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

You can now 'swap' your whole outfit, or just particular parts of it (jewellery, armour, etc), with the mannequins and dummies from Dimitris, or place multiple things on them at once. Their capacity is also a little higher now.

665 Banking Bonus, posted on Tue Jan 17 01:32:19 2017

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Bank owners and bank franchise owners may now set expressions to control the deposit rate and the cost of opening an account. This will allow preferential (or punitive) rates to be given to players based on things such as club membership, level, guild etc.

Where a bank has an expression set, the expression will over-ride the fixed amount.

Bank deposit rate signs may temporarily be innacurate, a solution to this is on tomorrow's to do list. The functionality will become available as rooms are unloaded and updated, in some areas this may need creator intervention or shop owners will have to wait for the next reboot.

~/B

664 Priestly Pouch Performance, posted on Mon Jan 16 21:20:32 2017

Posted by: Tof
Category: Guilds

Component pouches now work as they should for priests: if you have a container identified as a component pouch, then not only will you automatically take necessary ritual items from the pouch, but they will also be returned to the pouch after the ritual has finished.

This is the same way component pouches work for magic. 

663 Chastity Belts, posted on Sun Jan 8 02:37:16 2017

Posted by: Capita
Category: Special

Talula's shop in Genua now stocks an exciting new lockpickable item, in four different difficulties. Don't lose the key.

662 More Charming Bracelets, posted on Fri Dec 30 15:54:06 2016

Posted by: Capita
Category: General

The charm shops in Genua and Djelibeybi now sell a wider variety of charm bracelets.

661 Rings And Bells, posted on Tue Dec 20 06:52:22 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Players may now use their own rings in player officiated marriages. See 'help marry' for more information.

The player officiated marriage commands are also now fully polygamy aware. As a result of this, they will also remove any no longer existent players from each particpant's spouse list.

660 Balancing Changes, posted on Fri Dec 9 19:54:28 2016

Posted by: Capita
Category: General

A jeweller's weighing balance was found in one of the dusty storerooms of the Academy of Artificers. It seems to use the obscure jeweller's unit "gems", or g, which coincidentally work out to exactly 1/450 of a pound. Since there was space in Master Weestone's workshop, it's been left in there until someone can figure out a better place to put it.

659 Koom Valley Ambushes, posted on Sun Oct 30 15:28:21 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Re-enact the famous ambushes of Koom Valley. Only available in Slippery Hollow.

658 Slippery Hollow Welcomes Careful Tourists, posted on Sun Oct 30 15:27:31 2016

Posted by: Cordwangle
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Many have heard of the headless horse rider and most have wondered how the reins are attached, but few have met this terrifying foe and lived! Upon his arrival a burst of magical energy blighted both crops and livestock, making farming in the village of Slippery Hollow all but impossible.

Inviting tourists to the site of an ongoing murderous rampage is not without risks, but the rider and his headless horse are a unique feature and we must embrace tourism as a new source of revenue now that farming has failed.

For the brave/foolish:

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch has kindly sent an investigator. If you wish to defeat the rider then please aid the investigation rather than stupidly wading into combat. Reckless actions may cost you your head!

For the careful/wise:

The rider rarely ventures indoors unless determined or angered.
Avoid the dark. He arrives after sunset and departs soon after dawn.
He rarely pursues, so please, just run away!

For all of our visitors:

Explore the bustling tourist market. Buy food, souvenirs and farmyard pets.
Learn to cut gems and incorporate then into jewellery that is as lovely as you are skilful.
Hone your archery skill for big cash prizes while helping to watch our borders.
Enjoy fine dining and lively debate at our cosy pub.
Explore our vacant houses, ready for when they become available to rent very soon.
Gingerbread recipes that will surprise you (please read the warning sign).
Will you be skilled enough to win prizes at the fairground?
Not one, but two haunted houses to tour.
The Discwide Angling and Fishing Trust – currently closed for renovation but we hope that it will reopen at some point.
Two new board games to buy.

All this and more awaits you!

On behalf of Slippery Hollow I hope that you enjoy and survive your visit.

Signed
Magistrate Flathead

657 Morporkian Carriages, posted on Sun Oct 30 15:27:14 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Explore the carriage system of Ankh Morpork in a very Meta way. Only available in Slippery Hollow.

656 Gem Cutting, posted on Sun Oct 30 15:23:41 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Jeromee in Slippery Hollow invites you to try your hand at crafting semi precious stones and metal bars into jewellery.

655 Divine Hand Weight Changes, posted on Sat Oct 15 16:46:23 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

Divine Hand has been updated to follow the changes to Remember Place and Modify Memento, as was announced at the time. These changes follow the plans as discussed on the boards before:

- only items remembered before the change to remember place are affected, and only those which (now) have a weight below 1/9 pound (50 grams)

- if you have the skills to succeed remember place on such an item, then nothing will happen

- if you do not have those skills, the item will have its weight upped to a value that you *would* be able to handle; this will still be below 50 grams

- this only happens the first time you perform divine hand on an item remembered before the change; in any subsequent divine hands, the weight will not be upped; it may, however, be lowered if your skills have improved (or, by luck, you pass a better skillcheck)

In a less technical summary: divine hand may give some extra messages now, but if the addition of a few grams to your inventory doesn't bother you, then these messages can really be ignored. :)

653 Colourful Killers, posted on Sat Oct 8 14:53:16 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

Playerkillers who wish to be on guard for others of their own kind may now set "options colour playerkiller" to a value of their choice!

652 Note For Plugin Developers, posted on Sat Oct 8 14:48:14 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

The information sent over ZMP and GMCP now includes room information, which provides a unique identifier for each room.

In addition, it is possible to request both the written map and ascii art map. Details are available in "help zmp" and "help gmcp".

(If this doesn't mean anything to you: don't worry! It's most relevant for those players who like to hack new features into their clients. :))

651 Corrected Consecrations, posted on Sat Sep 24 09:20:18 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

A long standing bug in consecration has been fixed. Previously, some consecrated items may have lost their consecration related adjectives shortly after being consecrated. Now these adjectives should be preserved, provided that the observer has recently performed see consecration.

Consecration related adjectives are things like "gappic", "consecrated", "pishite" etc that can be used as selectors in the parser.

eg: locate consecrated papers

This fix may not be fully implemented until after the next reboot.

650 Remembering Places, posted on Mon Sep 19 22:13:04 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

As previously announced on the boards, an additional weight check has been added to divine hand.

This concerns only items with a weight below 1/9 of a pound. For these, the lighter an object, the harder it is to use remember place on.

To support moving from a heavy collection to a lighter-weight one, a ritual "Modify Memento" is available to priests of all gods.

P.S. Existing items with remember places are not affected at the moment. However, to be fair to younger priests who do not already have large collections of remembered cigarette papers, such items -will- be adapted in the future.

649 Charming Bracelets, posted on Mon Sep 19 20:43:40 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Jewellery lovers may find their charm bracelets a little easier to store now: the bracelets count only as a single item towards item limits, regardless of any charms on them.

P.S. You may need to SU (with the bracelet in your inventory) for this to take effect.

648 Some Default Colours, posted on Mon Sep 19 15:37:00 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

In order to help newbies distinguish playernames from surnames/titles/NPCs, the colour options for playername and groupmember now have a default value set (other than "none").

This may also affect the colours for existing players who had not manually set these options before.

If you want to get back to your previous colour settings, just use "options colour playername = none" nad "options colour groupmember = none". :)

647 Making Souvenirs, posted on Sat Aug 13 17:57:36 2016

Posted by: Feanor
Category: Am (domain pages)

Tourists around Ankh-Morpork were seen strutting in novelty t-shirts and gazing at snowglobes. Worried citizens expressed concern regarding a possible Reaper Man reenactment, prompting the city watch to investigate. The patrol report states the cause is a newly opened souvenir shop by the Least Gate, and Sgt. Littlebottom of the forensics department wishes to assure the public of the benign nature of the snowglobes.

646 Mano Rossa Tweaks, posted on Sat Aug 13 13:46:33 2016

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

As per discussions with various members of the Mano Rossa guild, we've changed the name of their AGMs and updated their offices to reflect their new distinct titles.

We have also added a (relatively) safe room to the Mano Rossa guild, similar to the AM book room. Be warned that if you are considered Persona Non Grata by the Mano Rossa there are likely to be consequences to invading their personal space.

645 Initial Weight Changes, posted on Wed Jul 20 22:31:16 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Some players may have noticed a sudden drop in their burden. This is because many low-weight items like rings and charms have had their weight decreased in the last two weeks. Correspondingly, papers have had their weight increased, and tearing books from papers now actually affects their weight.

Berraja on Okra Avenue (Genua) has celebrated the occasion by adding a few new charms to her stock.

P.S. Many items remain whose weight will likely need adjusting. If you have such an item, and its weight has not been changed yet, you can ideareport a suitable weight using the idea command!

644 Wizardly Woes, posted on Sun Jul 3 03:55:21 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

Senior Wizard elections will now be called only when the incumbent idles out of position, resigns, or is removed by a vote of no-confidence.

643 Container And Furniture Fullness, posted on Thu Jun 30 09:06:33 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

We discovered last night that some containers were incorrectly reporting how full they were, specfically containers over 100% full were reporting as if they were practically empty.

Containers that are over 100% full will start showing as over-full as the update propogates through the system, and particularly after the next reboot.

If a container is shown as being in excess of 100% full, you should be aware that you may not be able to return to the container any items that you remove from it. This will almost definitely be the case with storage furniture, but may affect other items as well.

642 Changing Sizes, posted on Thu Jun 16 23:11:35 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

A few items in Discworld do not explicitly have dimensions. These items are assigned a default length and width on creation.

The way in which this default is calculated has changed a bit. As a result, some items may now be slightly larger.

If you believe that the dimensions of an item are wrong (in particular if it has changed, and is square), please bugreport the item in question!

P.S. For most items, this will only take effect after the next reboot.

641 Couture-al Change, posted on Thu Jun 16 21:41:44 2016

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Some changes have been made to Gapp's personal shopper. As such, Gappic followers/priests will notice some cosmetic changes to various things that depended on current fashion.

As a part of this, Gapp's passage room has been rewritten. You will need to adjust any aliases you might have for exiting :)

There will likely be some further cosmetic changes in the near future.

In particular, if you spot anything that used to change according to fashion, and it now does not do so, please let me know by tell or mudmail :)

640 Making A Splash, posted on Fri May 20 19:27:34 2016

Posted by: Kadath
Category: General

The harbourwalk and underdocks of Ephebe are known to be frequented by those who play fast and loose with the letter of the law. Recently, a pair of such individuals have reportedly gone into business - two women who have rejected the widely-held view that it is perfectly acceptable to be completely naked when swimming in the bay or walking through the streets after bathing.

These worshippers of the great God Aegadon have committed themselves to selling bespoke swimwear and a wide variety of beach towels to any who seek them out. Their shop is now open for business.

639 Colourful Options!, posted on Tue May 3 21:54:06 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

A long, long time ago, Discworld proudly supported the graphical standards of the day by implementing the full ansi spectrum of sixteen colours. Since then, graphical standards have come a long way, and for quite some time now, Discworld has supported over sixteen million colours. However, many players have not been using them.

To remedy this waste of colourful possibilities, we have supplied about 240 additional colour names. Have a read of "help colours" and go wild setting your colours to any of the options in "help colour list". :)

NOTE: many players currently have suboptimal colour settings. Make sure to use "term network" to allow your client to express a preference. If that doesn't work well, try "term xterm256". Checking "colours list" should show whether you have access to all the supported colours.

P.S. Some of the colours in the list are still undecided, as shown by them only have a hex-code in help colour list and the colours command. If you have good suggestions to name these colours, please do tell Pit. :)

P.S.2. As a consequence, the way the colour orange is displayed may have changed for some people. To get the colours you're used to back, set the relevant option to "icterine".

638 CTF Improvements, posted on Wed Apr 20 12:40:42 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

CTF should now be safe with the stored staff effect provided that the mud does not reboot during your game. Work continues to make it reboot safe for all effects, including floating shields, faith shields, bug shield and armoured skin.

Shattering relics in CTF will now adjust your alignment whilst in the arena. At the end of the game, your alignment will be reset to the value it had when entering the arena.

~/B

637 Change To "look Around", posted on Tue Apr 19 03:13:44 2016

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

If you're in hiding, and you "look around", and someone in the room notices you, you will now be brought out of hiding. It *appears* that this was always the intent, it just wasn't happening.

636 Club Houses Revealed, posted on Thu Apr 14 05:41:35 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Club members will now see the addresses of any club houses the club controls when using the '<clubname> info' command of the club badge.

635 Housing Clocks Reset, posted on Sun Mar 27 16:13:21 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

As previously announced, the periods used to determine absentee property owners and shop lease durations used by the housing agency has been realigned with the discworld calendar.

634 Tactics Response Block, posted on Sun Mar 27 12:52:28 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

For those whose primary defense is blocking, it is now possible to set your combat tactics response to block.

This has the same effect as setting your response to parrying and your parry hand to the hand holding your shield, except in that it does not matter what hand you hold the shield in. :)

Parry, dodge and neutral response still work as they always have. Thus, you don't *need* to set blocking response. The primary reason for this change was simply consistency and avoiding confusion. :)

P.S. If you are set to blocking response and find that it doesn't work as you would expect in some situations, please inform Pit!

633 Unseen Killers, posted on Tue Mar 22 10:18:35 2016

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

Members of the Last Order of the Unseen University who reach the NPK advancement cap prior to 2 days of age may now enlist as player killers in their order lounge, provided that they have reached a suitable guild level.

632 To Gather Fine Clothing, posted on Thu Mar 3 16:25:54 2016

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The proprietor of the toga shop on Philosopher's walk has finally managed to persuade the Tyrant's guards to evict the commune of philosophers that had been squatting in his shop.

After the removal of the five cart loads of empty wine bottles that had been filling the back room of the shop from floor to ceiling, he has finally re-opened for business and has started to offer a range of togas to his customers. A tailor in the back room also offers some more bespoke pieces for the more discerning client.

He has also managed to bring the level of resident philosophers to more manageable levels as they spend their time in the front of the shop, drinking and philosophising with gay abandon.

631 Berserk, posted on Sat Feb 20 15:49:19 2016

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

The berserk command has seen some internal changes. In addition, two noticeable things have been changed:

* focus now no longer works while berserking (nor will you receive the focus penalty)

* the difficulty of defending yourself from specials is a bit larger than before, and you will not be able to avoid getting hit at all (although this should not be difficult to the point of impossibility)

If you notice other ways the command has changed, please do let me know, since those may not be intended!

Pit.

630 Assassin Guildhouse Defenses., posted on Tue Jan 12 21:55:23 2016

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The existing defences for the Assassin specialisations' guildhouses have been upgraded.

All specialisations now have the ability to ban players from their grounds entirely. This is in addition to the previous ability to ban other specialisations or individuals from using guild facilities.

All specialisations have also had their guard NPCs upgraded so that bans can be better enforced.

The AM assassins also now possess stronger guard assassin NPCs. An extra feature of these is that they can also hear the noise from combat in other parts of the guild and will respond accordingly. Of the assassin specialisations, on AM assassins' guards do this as they have a lot more territory - and entry points - to cover than the other specialisations' guards. In addition, most areas of the other specialisations' guildhouses are already out of bounds to other guilds and therefore have a lessened need for this feature.

The AM assassins' private inhumation office auto-inhume has also been made harder to avoid.

I have tried to allow all specialisations to better protect themselves, but am happy to consider additional changes - particularly for the Mano Rossa, Ninja, and Hashishim - if you approach me with them.

629 Igoring Around..., posted on Tue Jan 12 07:36:52 2016

Posted by: Reality
Category: Am (domain pages)

Today, the Igor in the Fiveways Belltower found some ancient notes. On studying these notes, he found the way to remove and attach limbs that had gone a bit quantum. He may now provide this service if people ask him nicely.

627 Broadening The Mind, posted on Fri Dec 25 19:18:32 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

A new means of single-player transportation has been put into game on this rainy (for me, at least) Christmas day.

There are travel agencies in Ankh-Morpork, Djelibeybi, Ephebe, Bes Pelargic, Ohulan Cutash, and Genua.

Each agency transports you in a thematically different way, and most have quirky - and hopefully fun -features beyond the actual transportation functionality.

Typing "help here" in the room should give you all the assistance you need to use them.

A few warnings, though:

1) They only transport one player at a time. If other players (in a group, for example) wish to go to the same location, they will have to request transport from the NPC when the first player has been sent on their way.

2) They cost money - and more money than players usually charge for arcane transportation - though newbies do get a discount for a certain number of trips.

3) They are not instant, and take a short amount of time to actually transport you.

4) As they only transport one player at a time, there may at times be a queue to use their services. Note that there is not a hard-coded queue as there is for Nella's vault.

5) You need to speak their native language to a reasonable proficiency to use them, and you also need to be speaking the correct language when you attempt to interact with them too.

625 Brainiacs, posted on Fri Dec 11 23:50:46 2015

Posted by: Kirves
Category: General

Some NPCs now fight a wee bit more intelligently.

Those few NPCs that were unarmed and set to parry only should now parry unarmed. Specifically, this affects Shades trolls, Tsimo wrestlers and some Ephebe athletes. There may be others.

Some other NPCs will also parry unarmed now if they lose their weapons. A great number of NPCs are affected by this change.

Additionally, some NPCs are now slightly more careful in how they decide to attack. A great number of NPCS are also affected by this as well.

624 Avian Pets Are Birds, posted on Thu Dec 10 22:55:29 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

In a fit of existential discovery, Ducks and Chickens purchased from Mrs Puddlesocks have realised that they are also birds.

In a related event, wearable pets have realised that they are in fact pets, although deities still fail to recognise them as such.

623 XP Theft, posted on Sun Dec 6 12:57:50 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

By popular request, death and burial XP will no longer be shared by people who are not in or near the room when an NPC dies. Here, "near" means at most one room away.

What this means is that if someone runs through an area with aggressive NPCs, and the NPCs are later killed by other players, the runner will not be given XP (and the group will not lose XP for it). It also means that if you walk out of a room to reshield or heal while your groupmates continue to fight, you should ideally avoid going more than one room.

This change is meant as a simple correction to avoid accidental "XP Theft". Since it may turn out to affect some players' hunting styles more than intended, this change is a one-week trial. If, after trying it out for a few hours/days, you absolutely hate it, or if you think it's awesome, or if you find problems with it, please do let me know. :)

Pit.

622 King Verence Orders Crack-Down On Housing Fraud, posted on Thu Nov 26 22:19:39 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Ram (domain pages)

A bug that enabled allowing players in property who should not have been able to be allowed has been fixed in the Ramtops housing code. At the same time, code has been added to remove incorrectly allowed players from property allow lists. This code will be fully active after the next reboot, but may become active in some properties (leased shops and rented houses) prior to the reboot.

If you have been taking advantage of this bug to be allowed in a property that you shouldn't have been able to be allowed in, you may wish to make arrangements to recover any items you have stored in the property before you are automatically removed from the allow list. After you have been removed from the allow list, you will be reliant on the property owner to return your items.

621 Bugfix Weekend Changes, posted on Mon Nov 9 13:19:47 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Bugfix Weekend has come and gone, and your friendly creator team have fixed many bugs and implemented several ideas from our helpful, reporting playerbase!

Most noticeably:

- BP children will now acknowledge their elders in a personality-appropriate fashion.

- The furniture of the Lobster Pot restaurant in Bes Pelargic can now be used to assist in changing your 'position' in the room.

- The sailors of Bes Pelargic now have a little more swagger, and will lounge in rooms with new positions.

- Putting a single item on a table or shelf in playerhouses will now immediately make the item show up in the room description, rather than only after the room is reloaded

- Several playerhouse furniture items now have proper dimensions and material set, which likely means they are larger and therefore hold larger items (please continue to report those who don't have good appraise information when you notice them).

- Eleven new souls have been added: appreciate, bearhug, chirp, denounce, fret, lurk, miss, peck, splutter, stomp, tsk.

- There have been small changes to the souls: corrupt, fart, fonz, high5, leer, lower, kiss, nod, panic, propose.

620 Sweet And Full Of Grace, posted on Sun Nov 8 23:28:29 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Collette, a recently settled Genuan, has found her niche on the Ankhian fashion scene. She has opened a small boutique on Brookless street catering to the sartorial needs of women whose wardrobes need a little more... style than is currently on offer. Cosy and chic, the shop offers a little taste of couture but with pret-a-porter prices.

619 Classic Misdirection, posted on Sun Nov 8 06:54:53 2015

Posted by: Celt
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The pickpockets of Bes Pelargic have now become a little more grateful when receiving Agatean currency, and a little more bold in their attempts to unburden you of your valuables.

Be on guard, Unpleasant Visitors Of Our Empire.

616 Contents May Differ, posted on Sat Nov 7 14:34:46 2015

Posted by: Kake
Category: Am (domain pages)

Toomer Stationers now sells envelopes, for those who like to seal up their letters before sending them.

615 If You Can't Tie Knots.., posted on Fri Nov 6 19:38:37 2015

Posted by: Celt
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

.. tie lots!

Ever the entrepreneur, Graham Shi of Harbourside Fishing Supplies fame in Bes Pelargic is now selling lengths of high quality sailing rope at premium prices.

Citing Imperial regulations, he refuses to comment on the introduction of sailing.

614 Account Settled, posted on Thu Nov 5 11:16:21 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The smugglers under Ephebe have decided to be nice.

From now on, when they catch an enemy on their turf and kill them they will consider all debts paid.

Have fnu :)

613 A Momentary Lapse Of Sanity, posted on Tue Nov 3 21:09:06 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Commander Vimes of the AMCW has issued a statement that molestation of any member of the AMCW shall henceforth be treated as a crime, regardless of the gender of the persons involved.

He was quoted as saying it is irrelevant whether they enjoy it or not. "While they are on duty, they shall uphold the law." No further comments were issued.

611 Absolutely No You-Know-What, posted on Tue Nov 3 20:20:14 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Ridings, which over the years has fought many a duel with The Hippo for the honour of being Ankh-Morpork's horsiest street, has regained the lead in that ongoing race due to its brand new descriptions and decorations, its distinctly quaint shop and last-but-not-least its brand-new drinking house.

All this equine excellence does not mean that the You-Know-What will enter the game before Thursday. Woe.

610 Spam Spam Spam., posted on Tue Nov 3 19:58:14 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

A new option has been added, which causes you to ignore (that is, not see) chatting of items in other players' inventory.

To use it, set options output itemchatter to off.

Note: this is intended to only suppress "background noise" kinds of chats, not chats which are intended to give you information. If you feel that it causes you to miss anything important, please bugreport the item in question.

609 Unreliable Witness, posted on Sun Oct 18 23:45:34 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Rumour has it that one Mattias of the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Architects has recently completed some work along Prouts.

608 Subtle Shift In Emphasis, posted on Sat Oct 17 19:58:38 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Earlier today decorative enhancements to a small section of King's Down were unveiled by the neighbourhood committee and a representative of the esteemed Guild of Architects.

You may not have noticed these subtle changes, but stretches of Endless Street and Chrononhotonthologos Street also had improved descriptions completed in recent months.

Contributing architects to these areas were Mintus, Andrew and Quow.

607 Website Woes, posted on Sat Oct 17 17:29:48 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Web

Whilst poking at some stuff related to web blogging last night, myself and a couple of other creators managed to create a reproducible occurrence of the "wrong username on the website" error.

Following up on that today, I think (fingers crossed) that I may have eliminated one of the causes of this error. However, there may have been other causes, and I can't be certain that the change I made has resolved any of them. If you do notice these errors over the next few days it would be helpful if you would let me know, at least then I'll know that it's not fixed yet.

605 Courtroom Clerks, posted on Fri Oct 16 21:05:21 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Council

Clerks to the magistrates will now occasionally post a reminder of open cases to the relevant Magistrates board.

604 Expiration Pending, posted on Fri Oct 16 20:48:37 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The pending expiration of arms permits should now respect the observer's temporal reality setting after the permit is next loaded.

603 Moar Data, posted on Fri Oct 16 16:11:32 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Web

Creators can now blog bugfixes directly from the web interface to the error handler.

602 Beat And Nearly Feinted? Go Berserk!, posted on Thu Oct 15 16:05:26 2015

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Guilds

Feint and beat no longer work while berserked, putting them in line with other fighting commands.

From a role-play perspective, as feinting is a tactical decision requiring some amount of thought, it makes little sense for it to be available while berserking. The same applies to beat.

601 Cutting Yourself For Magic, posted on Mon Sep 14 16:44:02 2015

Posted by: Junquan
Category: Guilds

The spell Narquin's Mist of Doom now correctly interacts with Chrenedict's Corporeal Covering, just as it did with Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering.

If you try using the rubber version of the spell with NMD though, you may be delightfully surprised.

600 Shield Weights, posted on Sat Sep 12 19:57:48 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Players who use blocking as their primary defense might find themselves pleasantly surprised.

Players who fight NPCs with shields might find themselves unpleasantly surprised.

599 Ironing Out Berserking, posted on Thu Sep 10 19:11:31 2015

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Guilds

The stat loss from berserk no longer interferes with stat changes from iron gauntlets, bless and other similar things.

598 Su Shi (Not Squishi) And Fishing Supplies., posted on Sat Sep 5 11:14:43 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Morporkian businessman Graham Shi - and his Agatean wife, Su - have taken over the lease
for the harbourside fishing supply shop on the west part of Tuna Walk in Bes Pelargic.

Having already managed to push their collusive trade along the bay, the family have used these
new-found profits to revamp the adjoining building as their family restaurant, "The Lobster Pot".

A Morporkian at heart, Graham always welcomes those of ill repute.

597 Chrenedict's Corporeal Covering, posted on Sun Aug 23 19:28:58 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

A recent discovery of the original research notes of the renowned wizard Chrenedict has unearthed evidence that his famous Calcareous Covering spell was in fact merely a first attempt at a more sophisticated spell.

The Librarian of Unseen University has already replaced the spell by its finalised version, Chrenedict's Corporeal Covering.

Wizards and those who cast from scrolls should be warned that the older CCC spell will continue to work only for a short period. It is advised to replace any lingering troll skin by the new spell's protective covering.

Note: the details of the spell can be found in "help Chrenedict's Corporeal Covering". It is possible that older chalk powder might not be recognised as skin-modifying agent; however, new white mineral powder should be fine.

596 Missing Item Receipts, posted on Fri Aug 14 13:06:58 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: General

Missing item receipts have been enhanced. You may now kiss missing item receipts located in vessels using a new "kiss receipt in <vessel>" syntax.

Receipts for liquids may only be kissed if they are in a vessel which is large enough for the liquid they will become and which contains no other items.

Some new messages have been added when kissing receipts, specifically relating to receipts for liquids and receipts in vessels.

A new help file for missing item receipts has been added. If you have a receipt, you may use "help receipt" to read this file. Otherwise, use "help missing item receipt". This help file may be of assistance if your receipt is not co-operating.

No kittens were harmed by the coding of this feature.

595 Canteens, Poison Rings And Similar Wearable Liquid Containers, posted on Mon Jul 27 02:07:08 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: General

Some vessels had a potentially abusable bug whereby an unlimited number of items could be stored in them.

Such vessels now have a limited capacity for non liquid items.

This will affect inventory regeneration at log in, especially if you happen to have such a container with a large quantity of non liquid items in it.

594 Terminal Type Warning Message, posted on Sun Jul 12 19:17:20 2015

Posted by: Wodan
Category: Special

If you are getting the message:

Your terminal type is set to ansi, but your client says it can do better.

That is because your client says it supports the 256 colour mode.

For those who use ansi to get different standard colours from the default mxp ones, the
xterm256 setting will stop this message and still use those same colours.

590 New Editor Option, posted on Sun Jun 7 21:50:18 2015

Posted by: Wodan
Category: General

There is now a new option for the editor setting: web

this will give you a link to go to so you can edit the text on a web form

entering anything in the mud before you save from the web page will cancel the editor

589 Pets, posted on Tue May 26 23:51:32 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: General

Pets are not packhorses. Players who may have been using pets as packhorses might wish to ensure that anything valuable being carried by their pet(s) is not at risk of being lost if their pet(s) drop all their inventory.

588 Into The Arena, posted on Fri May 8 21:46:30 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Non-playerkillers wishing to engage in some combative action against worthy opponents may now do so in the PK arena in the Tsortean desert.

The PK rules have been amended with a "Temporary PK Status" section, explaining the limits of PK/NPK interaction in such areas.

587 Cargo Cult, posted on Sun Apr 19 20:40:34 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

One Twingo Twizy opened up a stall on Sator Square where he sells a selection of "magical trinkets".

Whether they are indeed as magical as the owner claims still requires confirmation but it can be stated with certainty that these objects are indeed trinkets.

586 Sober Counsel, posted on Tue Apr 14 23:17:21 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

A man named Sue stepped out of the rain in Ankh-Morpork.

584 Special Abilities, posted on Sun Apr 12 18:30:23 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

As part of the ongoing project to update combat, a new feature has been added: special abilities.

Players can learn a specific ability, suited to their playing style, to increase their aptitude in a specific area of combat.

A more explanation is given in "help special abilities".

Four statues with corresponding abilities have already been made available: one in the Djelibeybi harbour, one in the Sto Lat cemetery, one in Morpork and one in Genua.

Enjoy!

583 Focus, posted on Sat Apr 11 14:28:21 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Bing!

If you are using "tactics focus <zone>" to focus on a specific zone in combat, you may occasionally find yourself missing an opportunity to hit (using base rounds).

If you are currently focused as a default, you may want to turn this off, and rather only use focus when the situation calls for it.

Pit.

582 Soulhaven, posted on Thu Apr 9 22:00:39 2015

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Legitimate "Leggy" First, caretaker of the Small Gods Cemetery, would like to make it known that a section of the graveyard has been cleared to make room for a memorial in honour of the late Sir Terry Pratchett. Visiting hours have been expanded. Please be reminded that the main entrance to the cemetery is located on the Street of Cunning Artificers.

Also please do not loiter, litter or commit larceny within the grounds and respect the staff’s lunch breaks.

581 Hot Stuff, posted on Sat Apr 4 14:39:58 2015

Posted by: Woom
Category: Special

A couple of bugs have been fixed with how clothing warms you up/cools you down. You may notice some items suddenly behaving differently in this regards. Further, individual items' properties may get tweaked in the near future.

Woom

580 Bypassing Queues, posted on Fri Apr 3 17:22:54 2015

Posted by: Woom
Category: Special

You can now suppress the "Queued command" message when queuing commands using "brief queue". "verbose queue" turns them back on again.

Have fnu!

Woom

579 Bugfix Weekend!, posted on Tue Mar 31 19:50:48 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Developers

Bing!

You may have noticed a flurry of bug replies this past weekend.

This is because we have resurrected Bugfix Weekends.

Below is a list of some of the things various creators have fixed this weekend:

* Players can now set their club channels to be coloured like talker channels (that is, the entire
message rather than just the club name) by setting "options output clubcolour = full".

* When active, the wizard spell Sageroff's Sentry Summoning will now show up in "shields".

* Failing to tear pages from books should now have less confusing failure messages.

* Inhumation musical instruments can now be referred to as "musical instrument"s.

* The jail in Ohulan-Cutash now takes note of your temporal_reality option when telling you how much longer you have to serve.

* Monsieur Leverett in Genua will now describe your new custom garment before asking you to confirm that you want it.

This next one was not known by players (at least I hope not because it does not appear to have been reported and it was amusingly abusable):

* You can no longer mimic components for rituals using "nickname".

Many thanks to the creators who have spent time this weekend fixing bugs, as well as to the player who have reported them in the first place.

587 Playerlinks Updated, posted on Sat Mar 14 20:54:26 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Web

The playerlinks code has undergone a revamp.

Firstly, we've changed the link validation code so that a few valid pages that the old code was unable to validate will now be validated.

Secondly, you can apply a tag to a link. This tag can be one of: General, Crafts, Assassins, Priests, Thieves, Warriors, Witches and Wizards; and the display of links can be filtered by the tag.

All links have been tagges as 'General' initially, so you may want to go to the playerlinks page, scroll to the bottom and click on 'Add/Update links' to edit the tags for your links.

Finally, if a link you have submitted fails to validate, you will receive a warning mail informing you what the error was. Validation attempts will be attempted roughly every hour, and you will receive a second warning mail if it fails to validate 6 times in a row. After the sixth attempt, validation will only be attempted daily. If validation fails every attempt over the following 6 weeks, the link will then be removed from the list. When checking the reason for validation failures, you may wish to consult the manual for curl (google 'man curl') or a list of http response codes (google 'http response codes') to interpret the reason for failure given in the mail.

577 Pfffffffffffffffffffffhut. Ach, There Goes Another One., posted on Fri Feb 27 18:52:22 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

I was originally intending, when implementing the "seal distortion" idea, to make it suck people in once in a while when they failed.

I've found a way around the problem that stopped me from doing this initially (and people told me they thought it would be fun!), so I've added it.

In short: If you fail a distortion, you might get sucked inside!

Have MORE fnu. :)

576 Distorted Reality, posted on Thu Feb 26 18:59:22 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Wizards are now able to seal distortions shut in the Unseen University's library.

This uses your magic.spells.special skill, costs a reasonably large number of magic GP per attempt, and varies in difficulty.

Have fnu :)

575 Wonderful Websites, Lovely Links, posted on Wed Feb 25 17:23:48 2015

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Players confused as to why their submitted website links are not being validated should now find an answer in their mudmail.

An explanation of HTTP response codes can be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes.

574 Further Fiddling With The Combat Formulas, posted on Sat Feb 14 09:48:39 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

The difficulty of parrying unarmed, and parrying someone who is fighting unarmed, has changed a little.

Additionally, the speed of defending with a shield has been improved.

573 Brutal Beheadings, posted on Fri Feb 6 13:15:32 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

Bing!

Warriors who have been having trouble with behead since the changes to specials may be pleased to learn that beheadings can now be executed in a variety of styles, ranging from rather easy (for untargeted beheadings) to rather hard (for brutal beheadings). As before, the difficulty also depends on the weapon you use.

(Translation for the warrior types with 8 int: Ug! You must now say HOW to behead, or it'll be a soft whack. But it'll mostly be easier. Ugh!)

572 Rearranging Your Stats, posted on Mon Feb 2 19:45:59 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Those who seek to rearrange can now do so using the "rearrange" command rather than visiting the retrophenologist.

We do hope that this will not tempt people to rearrange lightly - remember, it will still only be a one-time decision!

571 Breakthrough In Potato Research, posted on Thu Jan 15 16:24:00 2015

Posted by: Tof
Category: Guilds

After intensive research by an unusually dedicated team at the Unseen University, the spell "Boolywog's Forbidden Pleasures" has been tweaked and now allows the caster to summon a demon with a gender of their choice.

This may be done by 'cast Boolywog's Forbidden Pleasures with the {male|female} touch".

570 Leatherworking Leathery Leather, posted on Thu Jan 15 12:36:59 2015

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Guilds

A small mathematical error in leatherworking has been fixed so that needleworking is no longer used for badly-damaged items. It should now work as how the helpfile suggests it should.

569 Mo' Memo, posted on Mon Jan 12 23:09:52 2015

Posted by: Tof
Category: Special

The memo command now allows you to control how often the memo repeats itself.

See 'syntax memo' for how to do this.

568 No, No... Stoppit. Get Out From There! Arrrrgh., posted on Sun Jan 11 18:25:16 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The witch spell Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees - better known as bees or beesargh - has undergone some changes further to the ones back in 2013:

1) Bees are easier to control than before.

2) Merging casts is slightly easier.

3) The additional GP drain per round has been removed.

Enjoy! Unless you have bees in your underwear, in which case it might not be quite so enjoyable. Unless you like that kind of thing. Ahem.

567 CCC, posted on Sun Jan 11 12:08:01 2015

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

The spell Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering has seen some changes.

Most importantly, it is no longer weak around the neck or especially vulnerable to pierce attacks.

Instead, there is always a weak point, which changes every so often.

Looking at a CCC-shielded person will tell you where they are weak, and attackers are informed when the weak zone changes.

Good luck!

566 Lost Highways, posted on Fri Jan 9 18:22:49 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Lost Highways has underdone a few changes.

1) It is now PK checked. This means that you won't fall foul of someone else's ritual if you're not both PK.

2) It should now be more possible to defeat the exit confusion - neither the priest nor the victim should have it all their own way.

565 Changes To Berserk, posted on Tue Jan 6 13:42:28 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Berserk has been changed, and should now be less painful to use - and use regularly - than it was before.

1) You can now defend against specials while berserked.

2) You now get more of a stat boost while berserked.

3) The stat loss when berserk wears off has changed, and has a much shorter duration - however, you cannot mitigate this with stat items as you could previously.

4) The cooldown period has been changed.

There are some other more minor changes too, but we'll leave you to find these out on your own :)

564 Wildswing, posted on Sun Jan 4 17:04:41 2015

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

A few improvements have been made to the Wildswing command:

- Increased the potential damage and altered how this changes as the attack continues

- Reduced the tactical penalty following the attack

- Allowed the use of 'concentrate' to attempt to have an opponent bear the brunt of the attack

- Fixed incorrect messages appearing for certain types of weapon

- Fixed erroneous failure messages

Unlike other fighting specials this remains unfocusable

563 Defend And Protect, posted on Sun Dec 28 09:40:52 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Bodyguards who defend and protect their charge will now be slightly more effective at doing so.

This counts both for players and NPCs!

You Have Been Warned.

562 New Colour Options For The 'term' Command, posted on Wed Dec 24 17:00:57 2014

Posted by: Wodan
Category: General

For those without mxp, there are two new terminal options: xterm256 (for 256 colours) and xterm16m (for 16 million colours).

Enjoy your extra colours!

561 Refreshingly Unconcerned With The Vulgar Exigencies Of Veracity, posted on Tue Dec 23 23:52:20 2014

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Trade is blossoming in the bustling dual metropolis of Ankh-Morpork and paper is cheap. Therefore you may notice a significant increase in the amount of advertising posters pasted to public or private surfaces throughout the city.

560 Messenger Of Truth, posted on Sun Dec 21 21:45:19 2014

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The recent renovation of the Post Office has driven up the demand for writing implements and stationery, and in the proper Morporkian spirit, an entrepreneur has seized the opportunity and opened a calligraphy shop. Mr Vitiolo sells various implements and is willing to take orders for custom stationery. He and his shop can be found on Brookless Lane.

559 Deity Points And Followers., posted on Tue Dec 16 21:08:14 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Followers are now able to contribute to the deity point pool through prayer. Priests' prayers are still more effective in this regard, however.

558 Thieves' Specialisation, posted on Sat Dec 13 19:39:17 2014

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

Members of the Thieves' Guild must now make the conscious decision to specialise - skill increases above a certain level will not trigger this automatically. The limits on advancement before specialisation are unchanged.

557 Prime Mover, posted on Sat Dec 13 17:50:46 2014

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The main branch of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office has undergone a major refurbishment and is now employing some new staff in the hopes that the backlog of letters in the sorting and dead letter offices might finally get delivered.

556 Meddling With The Combat Formulas, posted on Mon Dec 8 10:36:19 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Three new changes to the combat system have made their way into the game!

* Heavy weapons should now be a bit easier to use, even with strength well below the maximum.

* A bug which caused the effect of both enchantment and weapon damage to be doubled, has been fixed.

* If you focus on a fixed zone, you may now occasionally find yourself missing.

Beware that the same holds for NPCs: if there were previously any NPCs who were using a weapon they did not have the strength for, you may now find them significantly more effective. So be on your guard!

Pit.

555 Reading Unread Blogs, posted on Sun Dec 7 15:48:30 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

From now on, you can see new blog entries in the game using the "blog [new]" or "blog new <blog>" syntaxes.

This will still show you the blog if you have already seen it on the web pages, but not if you have read it using the "blog view" syntax.

554 Neutral Response, posted on Sun Dec 7 15:31:24 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Players and NPCs set to a neutral defensive response will now automatically adapt their response to the situation better.

That is, while someone set to neutral response should still both parry and dodge, against a given opponent you may now see one of the two much more often than the other. For example, when you're fighting something with a big sword while you yourself hold a tiny knife, you're probably going to be dodging instead of parrying.

It is worth noting that NPCs have *also* been adapted. In some cases, especially for unarmed NPCs, this will mean a drastic increase in effectivity. This is because originally, an unarmed NPC set to neutral would select "parry" half the time, and then decide not to defend because they were not set to parry unarmed! This last change may not be completely noticeable until the next reboot.

Also, please note that the selection mechanic does NOT take skills into account. If you have 100 levels in parry and 500 levels in dodge, don't set your response to neutral unless you particularly want to die. :)

553 Lancre Housing, posted on Thu Nov 27 09:36:39 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Ram (domain pages)

As previously anounced, holders of real estate administered by the Lancre Town Real Estate Stall will now be evicted following due warning if they also hold similar property elsewhere.

Borealis

552 Agatean Arborial Adjustment, posted on Sat Nov 22 20:45:10 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Ching Ching is pleased to announce that he will happily accept payment for the use of his woodworking facilities on Sion Street in the noble city of Bes Pelargic.

551 Capping Skills, posted on Sat Nov 22 12:36:11 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Over the years, many players have accumulated skills far beyond levels that were originally intended for players to achieve. This has a somewhat detrimental effect on certain aspects of the game, in particular playerkilling.

As such, we are introducing a new feature that will allow playerkillers to fight on a more even footing.

*** DON'T PANIC ***

The newly introduced skillcap command is strictly voluntary. It allows you to (temporarily) lower your skills to a certain cap. This will enable high-level players to participate in PK brawls and competitions without immediately dominating them.

In addition, to accomodate skillcapped tournaments, it is possible to openly advertise your skillcap.

To play, have a look at the new "skillcap" command.

Have fun!

550 Fixing Fix And Repairing Repair, posted on Thu Nov 20 01:09:21 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: General

Due to various discrepancies with fixing / repairing things, some changes are taking place. The following are some of the most significant changes:

Wooden weapons, armours, scabbards and shields can no longer be fixed in a smithy, but will need to be repaired in a woodworkshop instead.

Leather armour and scabbards will need to be leatherworked.

Bone items are currently repairable in woodworking shops, because this is less daft than fixing them in a smithy.

Stone weapons and shields should be fixable in a smithy, again because this is the least daft option at present.

Some items comprised of multiple materials may be fixable in more than one place, or not fixable at all. In the latter case, or in the event of any other issues, please nag Borealis, or ask a liaison to do so on your behalf if he isn't around to nag directly.

549 Hag Stones, posted on Sun Nov 16 15:39:29 2014

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

The chances of holding onto a hag stone after attempting to educe a spell or trick from it have been slightly improved, in particular when a certain amount of your mind-space is already taken up with other spells.

548 Remedial Changes, posted on Thu Nov 13 21:59:29 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

As per various idea reps and my own thoughts on the subject, the messages you get when healed with a hp-curing ritual (cure light wounds, cure medium wounds, cure serious wounds, and heal) are now differentiated by deity.

They also change according to how much the ritual is healing you.

There are a few other changes to messages and things as well, but I'll let you investigate those yourselves :)

547 Floating Utensils, posted on Sun Nov 9 23:19:58 2014

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

A bug in the floating defense code making certain utensils invincible has been fixed. Items that might have previously remained in excellent condition will degrade over time so witches beware! If however you notice a particular sort of item degrading very quickly please submit a report against it.

546 Charming But Irrational, posted on Sat Nov 8 13:28:27 2014

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

In a feat of transtemporal creator cooperation, Treacle Mine Road's former grubby appearance got replaced by a sligthtly more polished grubby appearance.

545 Guild Office Storage, posted on Tue Sep 23 15:09:40 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Admin offices in most guilds come with wardrobes or cabinets that the occupiers can use as storage.

Some of these (Thieves, Hashishim, Conlegium Sicariorum, Mano Rossa) previously allowed you to inadvertently lose your stored possessions if you were to resign from your position, or otherwise be removed, before you had the chance to retrieve your belongings.

This has now been changed somewhat - if you are removed from your position (and therefore lose access to your office and storage) before you have the chance to retrieve your belongings, you will be able to retrieve them by negotiating with your successor.

I repeat: Anything you leave in your office wardrobe/cabinet can be accessed by your successor when they are appointed. If you want your belongings back you will need to negotiate with them.

544 Felonious Feefs, posted on Fri Sep 19 00:57:47 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

Various NPCs in the thieves guild may take more notice of various miscreants, and summon guards or heavies more frequently than they used to. If you have upset the guild, this means that it may be harder to navigate unpunished than it was previously.

On a similar theme, all members of the guild are reminded to pay any quota fines promptly, as the above changes may make it harder to reach artan than was previously the case.

~/B

543 Arcane Appliances, posted on Thu Sep 18 21:29:46 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

Buckets are now be considered as utensils for the purposes of household guard, although in some cases it may take time for the changes concerned to propogate through the system.

Utensils which are also containers may be reluctant to act as both a container and a shield simultaneously.

~/B

542 Floater Fun, posted on Thu Sep 18 04:26:19 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

A new chat has been added to the floating defense code. Should a situation arise in combat where queued commands result in you moving between rooms in the interval between the blow that knocks your shield or utensil out of orbit and the chat informing you of this event, you should now receive a chat similar to the one below upon entering the room which you moved to. Those who use floating defenses may wish to add suitable sound or colour triggers to their clients to highlight this chat.

You realise that the Klatchian steel tower shield is no longer floating around you.

~/B

541 Lancre Real Estate, posted on Sun Aug 31 14:04:46 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Ram (domain pages)

King Verence has recently been made aware that some enterprising tenants, having acquired property within his Kingdom and related areas, have then taken up occupancy of property elsewhere.

He feels that this is against the spirit of his intent when setting rules concerning the tenancy of property in his realm and associated regions, and has now instructed that his clerks carry out an audit of properties to identify those involved and take action to return affected properties to the market.

Whilst it may take some time for the initial audits to be completed, he is hopeful that once this has been done, regular audits will be carried out on an ongoing basis.

He has been persuaded by Queen Magrat that any miscreants who the audits identify should be served with due notice before being required to vacate their properties, and has tasked the Lancre Post Office with delivering such warnings.

540 Club Houses, posted on Tue Aug 26 01:33:02 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Clubs which fail to maintain a committee of at least three seperate members will no longer be eligible to remain in their club houses. All active members of any such club will receive a warning in plenty of time to remedy the situation.

In order to prevent the eviction of a club whose members have received warning mail, the club must elect a suitable committee within the period specified in the mail.

~/B

538 Treasure Chests, posted on Fri Aug 22 21:42:24 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: Special

Following an ideareport, a new feature has entered the game for those players who like to organise events. Venture over to the magic shop in Hillshire for a look at these treasure chests, which may be buried for others to find.

P.S.1. More details are available in the help for the chests.

P.S.2. Some responsibility with this item is required, as the intention is not really to swamp the whole disc in buried treasure. Therefore, the sale is restricted to players who have one of the "Experienced Quester" or "The Happy Wanderer" achievements.

P.S.3. If you have a shovel and it doesn't work because the MUD hasn't rebooted since this post, you may need to SU with it first.

537 Guilds Of Locksmiths And Decorators Embrace Faster Travel, posted on Sun Aug 17 00:35:42 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Due to the increased amount of work that is anticipated from the expected upturn in the housing market over the coming months, certain service NPCs have agreed to follow those using arcane means of travel. Note, however, that should you attempt to lead them outside the areas in which they normally provide their services using this method, they may decide to immediately return home, without returning any fees which might have already been paid in respect of their hiring. They also know how to find their own way out of passage rooms, and will not wait all day for their customer to leave.

536 Two For A View, posted on Fri Aug 1 01:29:55 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Forn (domain pages)

The 'Saturday suite' and 'Tacticus suite' are once again available for rental in Genua.

535 Harry's Educated Imps, posted on Mon Jul 28 23:34:59 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

A recent competency test of the imps responsible for checking credentials of priests during schisms and high priest elections identified a discrepancy in the training given to the imps. This discrepancy may also have affected schism supporters. All the imps concerned have received an intensive training course, with the following results:

They will now apply the same standards to schisming priests as they use to determine eligible high priests in a high priest election.

They will also apply a similar but slightly lower requirement to the supporters of a schism.

These changes will not affect any elections that are currently in progress.

534 KFL Knives Now Forgetting To Forget Damage, posted on Fri Jul 11 21:42:59 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Guilds

A bug in KFL knives has been fixed. This means that they will no longer miraculously regenerate condition every time you su or login.

533 New Meaningless Numbers For All, posted on Fri May 23 00:10:12 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

As a related but separate activity to the previously announced work on the combat code, we're starting to look at the part that guild level plays in determining the amount of xp received in various ways. As part of this, a new command has been introduced which will calculate a theoretical level for you in 5 different categories, namely attack, defence, support, general combat and grouping. Whilst we're not going to explain how these values are calculated, which may in any way change occasionally, and we have no plans to use these numbers directly at present, they are statistically interesting to us.

When you use the command, your guild, your guild level and your 5 calculated ability indicators will be stored in a handler that can be used to generate some statistics. It would thus be useful to us if you would use this command, as the statistical data generated might enable us to determine a better mechanism than the existing one for allocation of xp from combat, both singly and when grouping.

The command is "glcl"

~/B

532 Fish'n'Chips, posted on Thu May 8 12:37:41 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Guaranteed to have the freshest seafood in Ephebe, the Seasick Sea Serpent is now opening its doors to the general public. Owned by Captain 'Mahogany Head' Mick and located on Dockside walk, be sure to say hello to the lobsters when you visit.

Also, feel free to visit the kitchen and watch the cooks in action as they prepare meals but just be sure to stay out of the back room.

PS. This was technically Kirves' newbie project (well done Kirves!), but a few other projects of his have managed to make it in game already.

528 Somewhere Over The Rainbow, posted on Tue Apr 22 03:57:06 2014

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

A new "gradient" syntax has been added to the "palette" command.

This allows you to create a nice gradient from one colour to another.

Have fnu!

Woom

527 Broomstick Flight GP Cost, posted on Mon Apr 14 13:07:02 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The reduction in the cost of broomstick flights has now been implemented.

Enjoy :)

526 Ritual GP Costs, posted on Mon Apr 14 13:06:29 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The reductions to ritual GP costs have now been implemented.

Happy testing :)

525 Confusing Constabulary, posted on Sun Apr 13 21:13:04 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

Ankh Morpork watchmen may be susceptible to some uncertainty about the identity of suspects whose facial features are concealed, which may in some cases result in suspects not being identified. However, there are always other watchmen about who will not be so easily fooled. Skills are involved, but so is something else.

~/B

524 Horses, posted on Tue Apr 1 01:27:54 2014

Posted by: Woom
Category: Special

We are pleased to announced that horses, after years in what can only be called development hell, have been given the attention they deserve.

For the time being you can have a go at them by visiting M'Bu, an enterprising young man who has set up store in Calh-Nhad, but in the future availability will spread.

Have fnu!

Woom

523 Special Scheduling, posted on Sun Mar 30 12:54:22 2014

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

As part of an ongoing project to work the snags out of the combat code, the way "specials" are scheduled has seen some changes. This should not have a very noticeable effect; however, you may find that when multiple special attacks are queued, they will execute just a bit faster (but perhaps not in the order you queued them!), and you will no longer get mysterious unarmed rounds during armed combat.

(Yes, we are aware that there are some other problems with the way combat currently works, and will look at those too. Watch this space!)

522 The Fast Track To Testing, posted on Mon Mar 24 11:53:44 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Playtesters (domain pages)

Playtesters who have previously left the domain in good standing, for example due to commitments in real life, and wish to return, may now request fast track re-entry to the domain by contacting a PT Exec.

Any such applications will be considered on their merits as always.

521 Dissolving Relationships, posted on Mon Mar 24 11:41:32 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Ankh-Morpork Lawyer's office in the Flintwick Building is now able to remove the spouse relationships of Husband and Wife even where no formal marriage has taken place. Quickie divorces are cheaper if both parties attend the lawyer's office together, or one party has been absent for a significant period.

520 Logon / Player Shops, posted on Wed Mar 19 03:44:53 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Those who have dealings with player shops may notice a new logon notification telling them which shops have royalties for them.

Edit: In slightly related news, bank master and franchise counters now show deposit fee percentages when looking at the counter.

Enjoy.

519 Real Estate Refunds (CWC), posted on Sun Mar 9 03:55:50 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

A clerical error in the Imperial Institute of Commercial and Fiscal Responsibility has been identified and rectified. As a result, the first choice bank for all refunds from the Imperial Real Estate office will now be the First Imperial Bank. His Imperial Imperiousness is sure that citizens will rest happy in the knowledge that foreign ghosts will no longer receive their rhinu by default.

518 Death's Overtime, posted on Mon Mar 3 19:45:37 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Death has noticed an alarming tendency for people to die their final deaths, and subsequently rely upon the Rite of AshKente to return - forcing him to work a considerable amount of overtime in the process.

Suffice it to say that he has become tired of all the extra unnecessary work, and has made Arrangements to ensure that his time is adequately compensated.

(Translation: As per the Frog post warning, the changes to the Rite of AshKente have now been implemented. The changes relate to consequences for the person being raised: nothing about how the rite is performed has changed. Please see "help ashkente" for further information.) 

516 Imperial Guards Drop Things, posted on Fri Feb 28 10:44:47 2014

Posted by: Osore
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

There is a new Imperial Guard trainer in the Empire and he seems to have taught the Imperial Guards not to hold onto confiscated items after death, what a great trainer he is.

515 Public Hygiene, posted on Tue Feb 18 23:26:42 2014

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The Emperor has decreed that in the interests of public hygiene, washing in designated public parks shall be permitted. Hot water and soap will not be supplied.

514 Age Is Refreshing, posted on Fri Feb 14 17:21:20 2014

Posted by: Tof
Category: Special

The 'age' command, performed on oneself, now also gives the time of your last refresh (if you've refreshed at all).

(This is what the age-related achievements count as your login date.)

513 Bursting The Bubble, posted on Thu Feb 13 16:52:28 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Death has recently noticed an alarming trend in the Discorporation and Soul-removals markets.

In order to stop a bubble developing, he has circulated a memo to the Conlegium Sicariorum, Ninja, Mano Rossa, and Hashishim guilds advising them to no longer charge a premium for their services on clients with limited lives remaining.

Unsurprisingly, his advice has been taken.

511 Blood-stained Aprons, posted on Sun Feb 9 17:44:53 2014

Posted by: Tof
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

In a return to the old-fashioned days, the deities in Ephebe are now accepting animal sacrifices at their altars throughout the city, as well as donations and inanimate offerings.

The gods are fond of such displays, and tend to reward them generously.

As with donations and offerings, being a priest or follower of another deity will not penalise your attempts at pleasing other gods.

Zevgatis has opened a stall in Ephebe's Harbour Market to provide suitable sacrificial subjects.

509 Fluffy Bunnies And Their Masters, posted on Tue Jan 21 17:59:11 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The spell Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon used to give messages about "flesh" in its damage feedback messages even when it was being cast on trees, stone palms, or trolls.

This has now been fixed.

You will find that you get slightly different messages, depending upon what species you summon demons against.

You might also find that a demon biting into someone's face can have an additional effect.

508 More Attractive Than Ever Before, posted on Tue Jan 21 17:50:24 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Greetings!

For those among you who use the spells Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear and Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon, be warned:

A greater number of metal materials than before are now considered "metallic" by these spells.

If you do happen to make a habit of holding something metallic while casting - but which didn't previously attract backfires - you might get a nasty surprise.

507 Absolutist Relativism In A Thaumotological Environment., posted on Thu Jan 16 21:15:32 2014

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The wizard spells Narglfrob's Empyrean Spear, Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon, and Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon have had their damage feedback changed.

Whereas previously they gave messages based upon absolute ranges of damage - 500-1000 HP, or 300-500 HP, for instance - they now give messages based upon the percentage of total HP the caster has removed from their victims.

This means that while you might manage to gain the highest damage message when casting NES on a rat (because that NPC has very few hitpoints), you could get a lower message on an NPC with more hitpoints.

The actual damage from these spells has not been changed at all.

506 Who New?, posted on Fri Jan 10 21:24:41 2014

Posted by: Tof
Category: Special

The 'who' command (and its brief cousin 'qwho') have had some new options added. See 'help who' for all of its new powers.

505 Goldsmithing, posted on Sat Jan 4 08:04:26 2014

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

In order for future developments to go ahead, several changes to goldsmithing (forging items in the Sto Lat Wizards' Guild) have been made.

These are:

- sculpting must now be done with the aid of a pattern book

- sculpting now uses the skill crafts.arts.sculpture for all items rather than one of two skills (cr.smithing.gold or cr.smithing.silver - these are still used in the forging of items), the bonuses needed for each pattern has been lowered to compensate

- items will only be damaged when sculpting if you fail badly rather than every time you fail

- how well other stages are done influences the overall quality of the forged item (before, only the initial forging mattered)

- the short description of items will now say "roughly forged" until it has been sufficiently refined

- value of some items may change a bit as average quality is now used in calculations rather than just the forging stage

504 Trade Surplus, posted on Fri Dec 27 19:29:39 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

A Mr. Tychenos recently got off the boat from Ephebe with his family, located suitable premises on The Soake and opened a brand new general store.

Whether his foreign business accumen will prove enough to turn this into a viable enterprise in Ankh-Morpork's challenging environment remains to be seen, but Mr. Tychenos' entrepreneurship will certainly be applauded.

503 Limiting Factor, posted on Sun Dec 15 22:33:40 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

An error has been discovered in the recording of theft of objects inside player housing in AM. This has now been fixed. The responsible clerk working at the Thieves Guild has left the city.

502 Iconographic Innovations, posted on Fri Dec 6 22:35:26 2013

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

An innovative entrepeneur, after realising that if people will pay good money for the ability to make junk, they will pay even more to bring some order back in their lives, has invented a new storage device. Although its introduction has been met with some controversy, with the High Priest of Disorganisia, Goddess of Cluttered Desk Drawers, initiating a hunger strike in protest, vendors on multiple continents have started selling these new "iconograph albums".

501 Communication History, posted on Sun Nov 17 20:51:13 2013

Posted by: Pit
Category: Am (domain pages), Cwc (domain pages), Developers, Fluffos (domain pages), Forn (domain pages), Guilds, Klatch (domain pages), Learning (domain pages), Liaison (domain pages), Playtesters (domain pages), Ram (domain pages), Special, Sur, Underworld and Waterways (domain pages)

Those whose memory fails them on occasion will be pleased to know that the functionality of the history commands "htell" and "hsoul" has been extended:

* hsoul now also includes emotes, and has an option to filter only player souls

* a new command hsay captures all says, saytos, whispers and so on

* a new command hcomm combines the communication from htell, hsoul and hsay

Enjoy!

500 Prying With Precision, posted on Sun Nov 17 17:56:32 2013

Posted by: Tof
Category: Guilds

The scope and case commands have had an overhaul so that they will be much more accurate and useful when assessing the difficulty of a potential pilfering.

Experiment and have fun!

499 Gaze And Crystal Balls, posted on Sun Nov 17 11:41:21 2013

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: General

Scrying with crystal balls and with the gaze command now removes the protection granted after having been resurrected.

498 Counting Down To Halloween, posted on Sun Oct 27 15:16:22 2013

Posted by: Osore
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Counting Down to Halloween

The Count and his close family members shall be celebrating Halloween in the Great Hall of Magpyr Castle this year and plan to do so each year from now on. The Magpyr family welcome any additional events that people wish to organise to help the party along each year, but will continue to host even if there were to be a year where no humans rallied to the cause.

In honour of the Roundworld season, the Count has spared no expense in redecorating the hall for a twelve hour period, plans to greet guests personally and guarantees that each person who arrives at his celebration will receive a personalised special gift unique to the event. There will also be chances to gain further gifts while in attendance.

The event will run from roughly midday to midnight on October 31st (GMT), although late starts or late finishes can not be entirely ruled out (so send a tough friend in first). Safety precautions to put guests at ease will be in effect during the event. While the effectiveness of these safety precautions in not guaranteed in any implied or explicit way, the Count would like to state that this is definitely not a trap.

497 Tongue Twisting, posted on Mon Oct 14 21:58:46 2013

Posted by: Tof
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

After some vigorous teacher training the Djelian Language School should be operating in a much slicker fashion.

In particular, the teachers now offer to teach the spoken and written parts of a language separately.

Also, a new teacher from Al Khali has taken up residence, and is happy to teach Klatchian to Djelian students.

496 I Blame The Parents, posted on Mon Sep 9 20:13:16 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The little rascals running amok in gangs in the neighbourhood of The Hippo and Goose Gate, whose members were in the past recognisable by the predominance of red hair colours have made friends with other kids of a rather more diverse plumage. They're now calling themselves brats, rather than gingers. Their behaviour leaves much to be desired.

495 Extended Communication, posted on Mon Sep 9 16:49:02 2013

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Ankh-Morpork guild of Town Criers will now allow you to 'fund' an existing announcement for an extended period. If you wish to fund someone elses announcement, expect to pay a premium.

494 If Your Skins Weren't Tanned Before, posted on Mon Sep 9 10:14:50 2013

Posted by: Kirves
Category: General

By popular demand from various hide buyers and players throughout the Disc, the way tanning works has been changed quite a bit.

Players will now find some things easier to tan and others more difficult. Some things will be paid slightly more money for than they used to be and others less. Dyeing is more difficult in many cases than it used to be as well.

A new command has also been added to tanning kits - "Divide" which can be used to make a skin smaller as to be easier to tan and later dye.

Another new feature is the capability to fill the kit with alternative sources other than dog muck in jars.

493 Get Your Tan(ning) In Sunny Ephebe!, posted on Mon Sep 9 09:15:28 2013

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Due to the huge demand for sandals, a new tannery has been has been opened on Impartiality Avenue in Ephebe. To keep up with the demand for raw materials, they are also purchasing tanned hides from those wishing to sell them.

492 Escort Jobs, posted on Sat Sep 7 15:56:57 2013

Posted by: Pit
Category: Am (domain pages), Klatch (domain pages), Sur and Ram (domain pages)

With the renewed opening of the gates of Ephebe, traders in valuable goods have started regularly undertaking the journey between Ephebe and Ankh-Morpork. The trip, however, is hazardous, and due to the value of their caravan, these traders will usually require the help of a combat-competent escort.

Interested parties are encouraged to wander over to the Onion Gate in Ankh-Morpork, or Tyrant's Gate in Ephebe, and enquire for more details (a room help file is also provided).

491 Moonlit Security, posted on Sun Sep 1 09:31:26 2013

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

A bug that could prevent the normal function of Security Gargoyles in the Moonlit Market has been fixed. Be careful.

490 Fauna-creation., posted on Fri Aug 30 15:45:02 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Greetings!

The River Djel is now inhabited with a greater variety of life - from crocodiles to minnows.

You might also discover that hippopotami tend to spend the day in water, and go foraging in smaller numbers on dry land in the water pastures at night.

Be careful if you do go exploring, as bull hippopotami tend to be aggressive.

489 Gods Are Open For Business In Ephebe, posted on Fri Aug 30 08:00:23 2013

Posted by: Tof
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

After months of philosophical discussion (aided by some stormy weather) the government of Ephebe has decided that the gods do, in fact, exist, and have lifted the ban on offerings to the gods.

Several altars have now been installed in the Ephebian streets and temples, all of which are happy to accept the donations and offerings of both tourists and locals.

The gods have been known to reward gifts that they approve of quite generously.

The Discworld pantheon is open-minded, and being a worshipper or, indeed, a priest, of another deity is no obstacle to seeking the favour of other deities.

488 Climbing With Care, posted on Fri Aug 23 09:17:30 2013

Posted by: Tof
Category: Special

The 'climb' command has been tweaked so that 'climb assess' will now give more useful and accurate feedback. That is, the difficulty levels reported now correspond to roughly how difficult the climb will be.

The difficulty of any climbing anywhere has not been changed. Just the judgement of that difficulty one gets using 'climb assess'.

487 Debugging Divine Hand, posted on Wed Aug 21 21:07:42 2013

Posted by: Woom
Category: Guilds

A bug has been fixed in the ritual divine hand, which was making the ritual more difficult than it was set to be.

However, the bug was also making the ritual ignore how many passengers you were taking along, and the squashing of the bug thus means that the ritual will now be more difficult the more passengers you take, as originally intended.

486 Clerical Error In Noble Families, posted on Wed Aug 14 20:22:20 2013

Posted by: Pit
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The leaders of the noble families in Bes Pelargic have discovered that their clerics have been making some systematical errors for years.

In particular, they learned that they have given out ranks to their loyal supporters when these were not yet truly earned.

Naturally, the clerics have been executed and the errors corrected. Some of their followers may see consequently a minor regression in rank within the family.

(Translation: due to a bugfix, it is possible that some players' titles in the Agatean family system have gone down. This is a one-time happening, and you should be able to earn your old title back by doing more missions!)

485 Shop Changes, posted on Mon Jul 29 22:04:11 2013

Posted by: Borealis
Category: General

There have been some minor changes to player shops, specifically relating to the auction process:

1) While a shop is on auction, the previous shop owner will be allowed in the shop.

2) While the shop is on auction, all persons on the allow list will be able to adjust prices and buy goods from the shop. This is to enable the previous owners to remove their unsold stock should they wish to do so.

3) At the end of the auction, the old allow and helper lists will be completely reset.

Hopefully this will take some of the pain out of failing to realise your shop lease is about to expire with a large and expensive amount of unsold stock which you are unable to retrieve.

Enjoy. ~/B

484 Greased Up, posted on Tue Jun 25 14:14:45 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

Greetings!

Following on from the tweaks to the difficulty, mindspace, and GP cost of the Witches' lard spell (Granny Lipintense's Layer of Lard), some extra functionality has now been added.

1) The spell will now dry you off as well as keep you dry, in most situations.

2) The line in your description will indicate how much lard you have left - the thicker the layer of lard, the longer you have until it runs out.

3) The maximum thickness (and therefore duration) is capped. Re-casting once you're already surrounded by the maximum amount of lard will have no additional effect.

There are other changes, but I'll let you investigate those for yourself.

Enjoy!

483 Tweaking The Flux Capacitor, posted on Sun Jun 16 23:28:31 2013

Posted by: Tof
Category: Special

A new "temporal reality" option has been added under options output.

This will let you change whether NPCs give durations in Discworld or Roundworld hours. The default for everyone is Roundworld hours.

Remember that 1 Roundworld hour is approximately 3 Discworld hours.

With the rather fluid nature of Time on the Disc some NPCs may take a few hours (of their choice) before they pay attention to your preferences. If after a couple of days they're still not giving times as they ought, please bugrep it.

Enjoy!

482 Additional Witch Spell Tweaks., posted on Tue Jun 4 13:13:16 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

In addition to the previously announced beesargh changes, there have been tweaks to other witch spells:

1) The witch enchantment spell, Mother Twinter's Yarrow Enchantment, has had its guild point cost reduced. Conversely, it now takes up more space in your mind.

2) The spell Granny Lipintense's Layer of Lard has been made slightly more difficult to cast. It also requires more guild points than before, and takes up more of your available mind space.

Have fun!

481 BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT, posted on Tue Jun 4 08:44:31 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Guilds

The witches' main damaging offensive spell, Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees, has been largely re-written to remove its reliance upon the fighting skill, fighting.range.thrown.

In short, your ability to damage a victim is no longer dependent upon hitting them with a gob of honey.

It is now a purely magical spell, relying upon your ability to summon and control a swarm of bees.

In addition to this:

* The skills crafts.pottery.forming.shaping and magic.methods.elemental.air have been replaced with magic.methods.mental.channeling and magic.methods.mental.cursing.

* Victims no longer try to run away from the swarm of bees.

* The guild point cost of the spell has been reduced from 75 to 60.

This is not a complete list - there are a lot more features and changes being introduced than I have mentioned.

I do offer the following pieces of advice, though:

* Be careful with the amount of honey you try to use when casting. If you use too much, you could be in for a nasty surprise.

* Be careful when trying to cast on a victim that you (or another witch) has already cast on for the same reason.

Happy bee-ing!

480 Lasting Damage, posted on Sat Jun 1 16:33:56 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Hibiscus Dunelm, proprietor of the well-known Morporkian tavern the Mended Drum has been forced to stop offering his upstairs apartments and meeting room for rent. Asked for the reasons for shutting down these fairly popular short-term accomodations he refered to an incident with a giant ball of fluff, a hardboiled egg and a thimble. When pushed he just blushed and refused to offer any further details about said incident.

479 Gonna Tan Your Hide, posted on Wed May 29 13:11:19 2013

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Guilds

Tanning kits have undergone some small revisions.

You will now find that tanning skins of smaller sizes will use less guild points than those of larger sizes and you will now receive a message stating how well you tanned a skin when you do so.

Additionally, they have been made slightly more durable and more expensive by manufacturers and retailers in anticipation of the flood of customers looking to try out these new features.

And finally, tanner's kits and the various supplies needed for dyeing hides are now available from the tannery at the Djelibeybi docks.

478 Where Am I?, posted on Tue May 28 10:15:40 2013

Posted by: Kirves
Category: Special

The paper maps that players can use to find out where they are have been redone quite a bit. They now have the potential to be far more accurate whereas before it didn't matter how much skill a player had, they just weren't accurate. Additionally, different maps will be easier to use than others depending on the area covered by the maps and how detailed they are.

A new feature is that the locations you add to them can now be erased. To do this you need to use the appropriate items of course. Another feature is that the maps now show what the locations were added with. I prefer crayons.

477 Coloured Lights, posted on Mon May 20 13:47:16 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: General

There have been a few minor changes to guildpoint lights - yellow stone rings, and the lights created using the wizard spell Turnwhistle's Effulgent Autiridescence.

A few messages have been fixed, and you can also now combine the differently coloured lights to have more than one colour showing at a time.

The additional light created by wearing multiple GP lights also now scales according to how many lights you are wearing. There will be a point now where wearing another GP light won't make you any brighter.

Have fun!

476 Roleplaying!, posted on Sat Apr 20 14:27:40 2013

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

In order to make the wonders of roleplaying mode available to those who may not, perhaps, be comfortable going all the way, roleplaying mode has seen some changes.

- "options output numbers = descriptive" will replace numbers in skills and scores by descriptive texts

- "options personal roleplaying" has been removed

- the command "roleplaying immersive" gives roughly the same functionality as the old "options personal roleplaying"

475 Ug Ogg Changes, posted on Sun Apr 7 22:55:07 2013

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

Enchantment on custom items ordered from Ug Ogg should now play nicely with Gryntard's Feathery Reliever.

Ug has also made some minor additions and improvements to his catalogue and customisation options, and will include coverage in the information provided before completing an order. An order can now be cancelled at any time, for a fraction of the full cost.

474 Talker Redux, posted on Mon Apr 1 00:29:03 2013

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

It's been brought to our attention that, despite the talker channel (Debates) being dedicated to exactly that, they almost without exception take place on (One) instead. Similarly, the conversations on (One) can be seen as one large, ongoing debate.

Therefore, we're simplifying things and merging the two channels, under the name (Debates). To ease transition, the talker commands will still work with the old name ("one"), as well as with the new one ("debates"), for one week.

Womble on!

473 No More Mr Nice Guy, posted on Wed Feb 27 19:47:00 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Shades maze muggers may be a little less indiscriminate in what they snatch. Perhaps it's the economy.

472 Shoes Galore, posted on Mon Feb 25 19:08:54 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Following information being received that Barbarians had been targetting a shopkeeper, Ulive, for her uniquely exciting footwear, the Tyrant has ordered her to tone down her dress.

As a consequence of this, another trader has spotted a gap in the market, and has taken up residence in the Dockside market, ready to fulfil your footwear-related desires.

471 Gorgeous, posted on Tue Feb 19 22:57:36 2013

Posted by: Cordwangle
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Some changes have been made to the flow of water through Lancre Gorge. Due to gnarly ground the river was formed by two horizontal waterfalls, flowing in opposed directions and creating a near-inescapable nightmare where the two met.

The river now flows correctly but please be aware that there is no longer a shallow section beneath Lancre Bridge so any corpses created by a fall into the gorge can now be washed all the way to Lancre Ness. It’s worth being aware of.

470 Enchanté, posted on Tue Feb 12 13:17:12 2013

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

If you are one of the privileged few who can see the colour octarine, you can now refer to enchanted things as "enchanted things". You can also refer to talismans as "talismans".

N.B. This will only be fully implemented once the MUD has rebooted.

Have fnu!

469 Ephebian Franchise Of Bing's Bank., posted on Fri Feb 1 00:56:27 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

As a result of the re-opening of the City of Ephebe, Bing's Bank - famously known for having branches in the city of Ankh-Morpork as well as elsewhere on the Sto Plains - has opened a branch franchise on Impartiality avenue.

You will now be able to access any funds deposited with Bing's Bank and withdraw them in local Ephebian currency.

Kind Regards,

International Business Development Manager, Bing's Bank.

468 All Dried Up In The Desert Sand, posted on Thu Jan 31 00:53:46 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Dear all,

Following the re-opening of Ephebe, the priests of the temple of Pishe in Djelibeybi have decided that enough was enough.

Trying to keep the fountains and rain clouds moist was proving a drain on their resources, and so they have decided to close down and relocate to new premises in Ephebe.

Enjoy!

467 Whoops. Is It Thursday Already?, posted on Thu Jan 31 00:04:49 2013

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Hello everyone,

It is now Thursday, and I am pleased to announce that Ephebe is now live, accessible, and ready to be explored.

This is in no way everything that Ephebe will have to offer: there will be several further releases of quests, achievements, buildings and other nifty features over the coming months.

In no particular order, I would like to thank everyone who has helped bring Ephebe into existence:

Archoplytes, Ishamael, Chilali, Loutre, Touchstone, Dasquian, Peta, Jewels, Epic, Tique, Feantur, Rags, Jub, Zadavia, Carmine, Siel, Firican, Juvhen, Hagi, Tof, Hogshine, Torcida, Kaylar, Kake, Cripsi, Kirves, Osore, Borealis, Woom, Dacrian, Maulkin, Mitsukai, Arwyn, Kaea, Wodan, Evis.

I would also like to thank all of the Playtesters for their hard work.

If I have omitted anyone, I apologise :)

Have fun!

Aristophanes.

465 Unacceptable Behaviour, posted on Tue Jan 8 23:59:01 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Sur

Taking items from carts, such as those used by delivery men in Sto Lat, will now trigger a response.

Part of this response is that this action will be considered theft. Theft has repercussions in certain locations, so be careful.

This also means a PK check has been introduced.

464 Casting Changes, posted on Tue Jan 8 23:00:47 2013

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

There have been a couple of changes to casting spells that should fix some issues with the "using" syntax of the cast command, eg "cast mother feelbright's busy bees on soldier using 10 dollops of honey" and "cast tpa on me using 1 handful of ash in backpack and shield in backpack" should now work.

In addition to this, if an item is taken from a component pouch while casting, the code will attempt to return non-consumed items to the same container after the spell has finished.

463 McSweeney Restaurant Jobs, posted on Sun Dec 30 14:32:49 2012

Posted by: Pit
Category: Am (domain pages)

The managers of McSweeney Restaurants in Ankh-Morpork and Genua have decided to open up employment to the masses. You are invited to work a shift in the kitchen, at the counter or on the cleaning staff. But be prepared: flipping burgers may just be harder than you think...

P.S. Some achievements were also added. To wit: Pressure Cooker, Mess Mcmanager, Have A Nice Day and Starry Eyed.

461 Roleplaying Command, posted on Sun Dec 23 01:33:16 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

A new command to help roleplayers find each other for RP has been added, called "roleplaying".

With it you can set an action and your location on the Disc to allow others to find you for RP scenarios.

Those who have set a roleplaying location will also show up in "who roleplayers".

460 No Fixed Abode, posted on Thu Dec 6 20:52:26 2012

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Sergeant Detritus of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has reluctantly given in to the often-repeated requests of his wife Ruby and his boss Commander Vimes to stop entering bar brawls. He has decided to turn over his post at the Mended Drum to a new splatter and now spends more of his time patroling the streets of the city. This has made at least one of the requesting parties happy.

459 Festivities, posted on Sat Dec 1 00:15:41 2012

Posted by: Osore
Category: Ram (domain pages)

At last, Frank or Festive Frank as he likes to be known has arrived in Lancre Town to sell his wares. Hope you like them!

458 Genua Job Office, posted on Sun Nov 11 14:45:48 2012

Posted by: Pit
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Bing!

Doing jobs for the Genua job office will now give XP as well as money.

You may also find that there is a somewhat larger variety in locations.

457 Prompt Promotion, posted on Tue Nov 6 20:47:41 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The command "prompt" has been added, allowing you to change your prompt. See "help prompt" for more information.

Woom

456 It's Time To Let Go..., posted on Mon Nov 5 03:18:27 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

Bing,

"let go of <thing>" now works like "unhold <thing>".

Wombles,

Woom

455 Command XP And Sharing Changes, posted on Thu Nov 1 09:57:32 2012

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

The changes to command XP and TM sharing, as announced in a previous news item, have gone in:

- command XP is being normalised: guild commands and non-guild commands will now give the same reward rate

- shared XP for commands has been removed

- TMs in groups now have a higher chance to be shared

454 Well I Was In The Neigbourhood, posted on Sun Oct 28 22:21:58 2012

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Sur

Theodor Hackett, resident of Park Lane, Sto Lat, could use some help expanding his collection of iconographs about Ankh-Morpork, jewel (of a kind) of cities, as his mobility is somewhat reduced these days.

453 Tweaks To Salesman Mission In Ohulan-Cutash, posted on Tue Oct 16 19:48:24 2012

Posted by: Thorgal
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Several changes have been made to the Salesman mission in Ohulan-Cutash:

- The necessary skill bonuses for the different mission variations have been lowered.

- It is now possible to sell several items to the same NPC in a row. However, the required skill bonus will be increased slightly with each attempt. This is tracked per player, so different players should no longer interfere with each other's sales.

- The time to complete the mission has been increased slightly.

- The amount of time an NPC will remember having purchased something from a specific player has been decreased significantly.

- A help file has been added to the general store shopkeeper, J. Smyttles, offering help with different aspects of the Salesman mission.

I want to offer a big thanks to all players and playtesters who have reported these issues and offered advice on how to tweak this mission in order to make it more enjoyable.

Feel free to keep sending in those idea reports! They make me happy!

Thanks!

452 Brief Quotas, posted on Thu Oct 11 10:18:36 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Thieves can now choose to "check/read quota brief" or "check/read receipts brief" for a more condensed summary.

451 As The Days Go By, posted on Wed Oct 3 01:17:47 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

It has been brought to our attention that our implementation of the Discworld calendar did not match canon, specifically with regards to the number of days in each month.

This has now been rectified (see "help calendar" (concepts)). As a result, a number of dates no longer exist (in particular large parts of the month of Ick), and dates that were called one thing yesterday go by a new one today. You may want to check your sources if you're relying on in-game dates for anything...

450 Limited History, posted on Tue Oct 2 19:35:23 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The htell command (and hsoul, too!) has received some new syntaxes, allowing you to show only the last n messages, or only messages within the last n hours.

Have fnu!

449 Missions For Ohulan-Cutash, posted on Mon Oct 1 17:44:44 2012

Posted by: Thorgal
Category: Ram (domain pages) and Special

Business has been going slow for J. Smyttles, shop keeper at the general store in Ohulan-Cutash. His wares are collecting dust on the shelves and he could really need some help selling them. Won't someone help this poor man out!

Furthermore, Miss Pennie Laced has moved into town. Fellow citizens of Ohulan-Cutash have reported to seeing her wandering the streets aimlessly, as if looking for something she lost. It's been made very clear to this reporter that she's definitely NOT wearing a witches' hat. And that she's certainly NOT not wearing one to avoid any suspicions. 

448 Ozzie Guntram's Glaze And Go!, posted on Fri Sep 21 10:41:44 2012

Posted by: Maulkin
Category: Sur

Having seen the recent success of the Ankh-Morpork Jobbe Market, local entrepreneur Ozzie Guntram has bought out the old pottery store in Sto Lat!

He is known as a shrewd businessman who's due to make a kiln-ing, but his friends know his eyes glaze over when it comes to actually making saucers. His orders are piling up, but he can't fulfil them in time.

Perhaps, somewhere in the disc someone may be able to plate over the cracks, and take a break from the croc(ery) pit to be able to lend him a hand...

447 Warpaint Syntax, posted on Mon Sep 17 08:55:25 2012

Posted by: Ruse
Category: Guilds

The warpaint command can now be used without specifying the paint, which will use any paint available in what you are carrying or in a container previously identified as 'component pouch'.

446 Ankh-Morpork Jobbe Market, posted on Thu Sep 13 22:02:40 2012

Posted by: Gabriel
Category: Am (domain pages)

After a brief discussion* with the Patrician, Leona Keeble has agreed to expand his job agency to aid those in Ankh-Morpork in need of meaningful employment. A manager named Mr. Werks was hand-picked by the Patrician to aid Leona in running this expanded enterprise in an efficient and orderly manner.

Mr. Werks ordered the existing Job Agency on Cheapside closed and relocated to a renovated warehouse on God Street. With a centrally located and larger building, the Job Market provides employment for all.

* Chiefly an explanation of how things should be, from the Patrician's point of view.

445 Missions!, posted on Thu Sep 13 19:31:14 2012

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Are you looking for fun? Would you like a larger variety of things to do? Do you want to earn your livelihood without stabbing people? Did you enjoy working for your family in Bes Pelargic or Genua, but thought it wasn't enough? Do you want to engage in the game, but still earn XP?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you are getting your wish! In the last year and more, following plans that have existed since the nineties, we have developed some new low-level game systems. Technical details aside, it is now a lot easier for us to create "missions", sort of mini-games, and the first you'll see of that is coming to the streets of Ankh Morpork later today.

Soon after that, you'll see some new features in Sto Lat, and then flashes of activity in the Ramtops, and then more after that! We have several brand-new things coming at you from all over the Disc in the next few weeks, and they give XP and money. You can repeat them as often as you like and you don't need to kill a thing.

HAVE FNU!

444 Slight Rebalancing, posted on Wed Sep 12 01:43:46 2012

Posted by: Cripsi
Category: Guilds

The spell Old Bellicus' Brazen Knuckles has undergone a slight rebalancing. This has resulted in a shorter maximum duration and a lower maximum damage, and the spell now stacking to a cap in a similar way to Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering.

443 Rathole Bar In Ankh-Morpork, posted on Wed Sep 5 14:41:37 2012

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: General

There was a bug in the Rathole bar in Ankh-Morpork that was causing its inhabitants not to attack properly.

This has now been fixed.

The dwarfs might be more challenging to kill now, so please take care.

442 Mummmmmmy, posted on Sat Aug 25 22:35:14 2012

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

Some doctors, looking to increase the monetisation of their skills in the current economic climate, may be willing to allow the use of their training facilities, for a fee.

441 Finger Fettling, posted on Fri Aug 24 19:48:49 2012

Posted by: Project Tracker (Borealis)
Category: Special

The finger and refer commands and finger web page have undergone a revamp. We hope that the addition of mxp and better weblinks will enhance your clicking experiences. Players will also have more visibility of ongoing development activities when viewing information for creators and domains. Please don't distract creators from their coding by asking them about obscure project names.

440 Monitor Enhancements, posted on Tue Aug 21 22:08:46 2012

Posted by: Root
Category: Special

Help Monitor shows some new options. If you last logged on before this was posted, you may need to su before the new items are displayed.

439 Messenger Of Truth, posted on Sun Aug 19 17:26:54 2012

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

As some of their members occasionally dabble in the impstomatic arts, the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Architects recently designed an iconography shop. In Nicephore Niepce they found just the man to run the place, so it was commissioned, built, officially opened (providing the attending architects with an opportunity to get drunk and snap iconographs of the more eye-pleasing passers-by) and it now awaits your business at The Ridings.

The shop's name is "Nicephore Niepce's Fashionable Iconographie Shoppe".

438 Stonemasonry, posted on Tue Aug 14 01:10:46 2012

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Special

Some inconsistencies which have come to light in the way the stone-skinned races were damaging weapons have been resolved. In most cases, your weapons should experience the same or less damage, but as a result of a couple of bugs being fixed in the process, some weapons might get damaged more when attacking some stone-skinned beings.

You have been warned, but only because I'm in a good mood today.

Borealis

437 Discovery Of Djel River Delta, posted on Sun Aug 12 21:46:08 2012

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Travellers on their way to Djelibeybi have discovered previously uncharted parts of the Djel river delta.

Several got rather over-excited and went swimming in the river - and barely escaped with their lives when the resident crocodiles took offense.

Please take care when exploring this new area.

436 Some Minor Tweaking, posted on Thu Jun 7 04:22:43 2012

Posted by: Cripsi
Category: Guilds

Targetted offensive spells may now only be cast at player targets when both caster and target are PK. Also, PK death should no longer cause priests and followers to forget rituals.

435 Divine Vestments, posted on Sat May 26 10:56:46 2012

Posted by: Root
Category: Guilds

It has come to Gapp's attention that members of his clergy have been seen wearing seriously unsophisticated armour that doesn't sit well with the God of Fine Clothing. As such, he has seen fit to grant his most devout followers a new way in which to appeal to his inherent stylish nature by beautifying the intrinsically ugly.

Religious instructors may be willing to teach those with sufficient skills inside his priesthood.

434 Language Relief, posted on Sun Apr 29 04:19:27 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Kompt de Yoyo in the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins will now teach languages to non-assassins for a small fee.

The ritual "relief" does not damage the performer any more and it no longer generates GP from the ether.

Instead a percentage of the performer's available faith GP is transferred to the target.

433 Wands, posted on Sun Apr 15 02:56:40 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Some changes to wands:

All offensive wands now have a skillcheck between the zapper and victim.

Balsa wands should backfire less.

The wand of striking can now be used to break stasis spheres (either with the zap or shatter commands).

432 Small Guilds Changes, posted on Tue Apr 10 01:36:44 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

There are some new options relating to coming back to life with the raise dead and resurrect rituals. "options auto death" can be used to allow for automatic approval of raise dead and resurrect.

If you have these options turned off and need a resurrect you can enable single players to perform the rituals on you with the new syntax of the "permit" command, which means that you do not have to allow them access to your corpse.

Witches can now mock the playing of and serenading with musical instruments.

Althea can now debate.

The wand of cancellation (black fluted wand) can no longer be zapped at non-living items that are not in your inventory (such as furniture). In addition, zapping at players is now skill-checked and PK-checked, and only items in the target's immediate inventory will be cancelled (e.g. a worn ring will be, but not a ring in a bag). The GP used has also been halved.

Knife belts can now hold tlingas and the black kimono in the ninja's guild can hold throwing stars.

AM assassins:

Lectures will now only be held for those courses that have students enrolled in them.

The Big School can be used for sparring and NPC assassins shouldn't react to fighting there (it will not be "safe" until after the next reboot). If you manage to kill an NPC there, you will still get a sanction, though.

431 Emotional Conversation, posted on Fri Apr 6 14:41:43 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: Special

When "converse"ing, prepending the text you send with a ":" will now emote/remote that text instead of saying/telling it. As long as you know how to emote/remote, of course.

430 By Request, posted on Sun Apr 1 22:50:16 2012

Posted by: Woom
Category: Special

The inform "group-request" can now be set, allowing you to see when people place group requests.

429 Irradiant, posted on Sun Apr 1 22:07:45 2012

Posted by: Borealis
Category: Am (domain pages)

Radiation has been detected in the cellar of a mansion in Ankh-Morpork. Caution is advised!

428 Safecracking Returns., posted on Sun Apr 1 11:30:30 2012

Posted by: Tavish
Category: Guilds

Kordane is once again willing to teach thieves with sufficient skill the arts of safecracking. The new crack command works with the new safes that can be found in various locations around the Disc. Most of the safes are hidden and some are well protected, so you'll need to be vigilant.

Any items removed from a safe will count as theft and dealt with in the usual manner appropriate to the location (items being retrieved that you placed in the safe yourself being exempt).

A number of new crack-based achievements have also been introduced and the help document for crack has been updated.

The old shop-based safes are not susceptible to cracking, in many locations these have already been removed. Any remaining ones will likely disappear over time.

It is possible to crack the furniture safes used for player housing, but the restrictions on player house theft mean this can only be done with the owner's assistance.

423 Pssst!, posted on Tue Mar 27 03:06:19 2012

Posted by: Tavish
Category: Special

Hints have been added to the game. There are no hints currently given outside of Pumpkin town, but over time this feature will see much greater use across the Disc. For more information see "help hints".

422 The Price Is Rite, posted on Sat Mar 17 18:26:08 2012

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Some senior Unseen University Wizards have pinned down the details of an AshkEnte ceremony after the discovery of a spell book in the depths of the library. See 'help ashkente' for a description of their findings.

As determined so far by scores of disappointed Wizards in search of the perfect roasted leg of lamb, the only request Death will consider is from a player who has died one time too many, asking to be raised from the dead.

The components required for the Rite can be found in the finest magic shops all the way from Ankh-Morpork to Hillshire. It has also been ascertained that the value of the components play a large role in how amiable Death is to granting favours.

Kudos to Ruse for coding this valuable and welcome addition to the spell library.

421 Some More Minor Changes, posted on Thu Mar 15 03:10:22 2012

Posted by: Cripsi
Category: Guilds

Forgetting a part-contemplated spell now also removes the part-contemplation, preventing you from accidentally cross-contemplating a spell you no longer know.

Mugwuddle's Muddling Mirage now stops the subject of the spell from pursuing at all. It also is now only possible to walk through a portal whilst under the effects of the spell if you actively aimed for it, however there is still no guarentee you will go the way you moved.

Special attacks now work with Old Bellicus' Brazen Knuckles.

Worstler's Advanced Metallurgical Glance now requires you to get the target blorple into your inventory to bring it in line with other components.

Banishing of Unnatural Urges can now be cast on multiple targets.

420 Benvenuti A Little Brindisi!, posted on Wed Mar 7 12:47:47 2012

Posted by: Loutre
Category: Forn (domain pages)

The recent influx of Brindisian immigrants to Genua has left many of them feeling chipper and delighted to have so many of their compatriots about that they have gathered into one street together and practically recreated Brindisi on their own. In fact, they're so nicely settled there that they rarely have to speak Morporkian at all! Well, except to tourists, naturally.

Of course, some tourists might be intrepid enough to try to learn some Brindisian for themselves. And who better to learn from than the terrifying old matriarch?

Rumour has it, what's more, that more Brindisians have been spotted Discwide lately. Some of them are carrying pumpkin dollars and muttering confusedly about wombles and brooches.

Have fun!

419 Appeasing The Gods, posted on Fri Feb 24 17:34:30 2012

Posted by: Epic
Category: Guilds

The gods have taken notice of supplicators' plights and have relaxed Their requirements. Working on the example set by Pishe, the other gods have now incorporated a financial remuneration scheme into Their operation, which will ease your way into Their congragation.

For more information, please read 'help supplication'. 

418 Oilstones, posted on Thu Feb 2 19:04:52 2012

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Thanks to Borealis you can now find oilstones (and oil) for sale in smithies throughout AM [1] to hone your sharp weapons on. "Help oilstone" when you have it in your possession for more info.

[1] Other cities to follow, probably.

417 Some Minor Changes, posted on Sat Jan 21 02:00:25 2012

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The spell "Hag's Blessing" is no longer restricted to being cast outside.

Witches can light fires in playerhouse fireplaces by glaring at them.

The ritual "wicker ward" is no longer granted by any god as it doesn't have a use now that theft from houses is prevented.

Ground hasheesh can be rolled into cigarettes.

Mano Rossa can garrote inhume with a skipping rope (and you can now actually skip with it).

Darts, arrows and the like can now be dipped and loaded into a weapon in the same command and there is no longer a requirement to have a hand free while dipping into poison (not having a hand free makes it harder, however).

416 Councilicious!, posted on Sat Jan 21 01:18:46 2012

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Thanks to Borealis for the following improvements to Councils:

- Fixed eviction, so watch out!

- Relinquish citizenship command (if the magistrates enable it)

- List banished people in citizenship room

- Check how many sponsors you have in the citizenship room

- Prettified expressions in the citizenship room

- Lord and Lady titles added for Honor Roll

- Better error messages when searching for an archived case in the court

- Punishment titles now removed correctly when case appealed

- Some council help files added / updated

- Port of closed case archive to SQL database and improved archive searches

414 Awkward Customer, posted on Sun Jan 1 22:46:23 2012

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

An awful lot of awkward red-headed children have been spotted in the neighbourhood south of Five Ways recently. Locals have reported an unease in their presence and the City Watch have increased patrols in the area to prevent crimes both from and against these ginger youngsters. Their parents have also promised to keep a close look on them.

413 Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality, posted on Sun Dec 25 18:40:33 2011

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

A long-overdue clean-up action took place in Ankh-Morpork's cattle district. So much dirt was removed from the area between Endless Street and Cockbill Street that whole new alleys were rediscovered, after previously being lost under layers of largely organic grime. One unfortunate side-effect is that it has attracted packs of highly annoying dogs.

411 Enjoy A New Fluffy Shop, And Merry Christmas!, posted on Sun Dec 25 10:35:02 2011

Posted by: Osore
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Clearly there is not enough fluff on Discworld so we at CWC have decided to give you a new fluffy shop. So head on over to Elysien Street to be the first in the Assemble an Animal Workshop. Hope you all enjoy it and Merry Christmas!!

409 Weaver Street Gets A Face Lift., posted on Tue Dec 6 02:11:10 2011

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Am (domain pages)

Those wishing to find unusual yet practical gifts for their friends and loved ones this Hogswatch may find that special something at Baguette's Custom Bag Shoppe, now situated permanently on the newly renovated Weaver Street. In addition, a young man has recently been spotted along Weaver Street offering cheap but gainful employment to those poor penniless unfortunates seen sifting through our fair city's gutters. It is our sincere hope that even the poorest among you shall be able to afford a little something for your nearest and dearest.

The City of Ankh-Morpork

Wishing You a Merry Hogswatch!

PS: Lots of kudos to Kadigan for Weaver street and Strangeloop for the occasional helping hand. I coded Baguette with creative input from Kadigan and AM Architect Elera, and the ever-knowledgeable Presto to help with the more obscure bugs (fixing them, not creating them!) Thank you for the hard work.

408 Profit Margin, posted on Sun Dec 4 18:28:09 2011

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Wanting to capitalize on the rising traffic flow from the Shambling Gate towards the Shades, two new stores have opened up on Pigsty Hill.

407 Holy Sacrifice Changes, posted on Wed Nov 30 10:53:36 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Guilds

Bing!

Following complaints from the gods about the amount of blood cluttering their temples, the ritual Holy Sacrifice has received some changes:

* the time-limit on the ritual has been removed

* you can now do all your usual commands while bleeding

* as you gain gp from the ritual, you build up an energy debt; this debt grows less over time, especially when you are on full gp

* if you have taken too much gp from your god in a short time, he (or, as the case may be, she) will grow tired, and you cannot gain gp any more

406 Website Changes, posted on Sun Nov 6 11:57:04 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Web

The website has seen some internal changes. Most users should not
notice much of this, but we hope it has increased accessibility.

If the website behaves strangely for you, try to close your browser
and/or clear your cache. If it still behaves strangely, please
bugreport the issue!

P.S. We are aware of the "seemingly logged in as a different user"
bug, and are still looking for the cause. If you can find a
reproducable way to trigger this bug, we would like to know about it! 

405 Research Student Missing, posted on Mon Oct 17 00:39:51 2011

Posted by: Cripsi
Category: Guilds

A student necromancer, in the process of trying to achieve some extra credit from his tutors, recently raised the shade of late Professor Myrandil for some advice. Myrandil, who rather ironically is not a fan of being woken from his eternal slumber [1], decided to make use of the opportunity and spend some time digging up some of his earlier projects and breathing some new life into his old work before returning to his rest.

[1] Any information as to the whereabouts of this student should be reported to the Head of the Department of Post Mortem Communications immediately.

404 Behind Closed Doors..., posted on Tue Oct 11 15:24:16 2011

Posted by: Tavish
Category: Guilds

Probing, picking and disabling of locks and traps has been updated. The general principles remain the same but you should gain more of an advantage than before by successfully probing before picking a lock or disabling a trap.

As part of the update, the skill requirements across the range of lock and trap difficulty levels has been fixed and rationalised. For this reason you may find that you're unable to pick/disable some traps that you previously could and may need to train you skills a bit more.

Tavish

403 Oh For Good Sake!, posted on Tue Sep 27 23:28:26 2011

Posted by: Osore
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Many years ago a small shop was set up somewhere near Dragon Head Square. Until now no-one has noticed this shop, but a plucky young boy and his dog made a sign and now the shop is known to all.

402 Teaching Doesn't Include Math!, posted on Sat Sep 17 18:26:24 2011

Posted by: Epic
Category: Special

The teach command should now be easier to use. Two things have changed.

a, You can now check 'teach bonus primaries'

b, There is a new syntax available: teach skill to level n, teaching you up to a certain level. If you have insufficient xp it will offer you however many levels you can afford. 

401 There Is Hope!, posted on Sun Sep 11 02:56:57 2011

Posted by: Epic
Category: Guilds

All the poor sinners on the disc can now hope for absolvement. They should contact other members of their faith for that. Those might be able to pray for the lost souls. 

400 Reporting For Duty, posted on Wed Sep 7 21:51:19 2011

Posted by: Woom
Category: Mudlib

The report commands (bug, typo, idea) have been changed to tell you the ID of any new report you make.

You can turn this notification off with the option output report_id.

399 Gammer Shorga's Clever Creeper, posted on Tue Sep 6 10:19:24 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

An expedition by a group of witches to discover the whereabouts of Gammer Shorga's cottage has been successful. It was found in the centre of what was thought to be a dense jungle, but actually turned out to be magical vines growing rampant. Granny Weatherwax was called in to tame the cheeky creepers and in the process discovered a new spell created by Gammer Shorga. She may be willing to teach it to worthy witches.

398 Warpaint And HEB, posted on Tue Sep 6 01:08:50 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The warpaint command can now be used with camouflage paint sticks (some are available in the Hunters' guild and Lancre Highland Regiment).

A few bugs have been fixed with the shield created with Heezlewurst's Elemental Buffer. It should now protect against lightning correctly, and recasting with a certain colour crystal will only increase the duration for the matching element.

As posted, all ordered wizards can now vote in any Senior Wizard election. The votes of a wizard belonging to the order counts for 5 times the vote of a wizard not in the order. Also "senior" can be used instead of the full position name when standing and seconding.

And tlinga sheathes can now be hurled from.

397 Ignore This Post, posted on Sun Aug 28 01:10:47 2011

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

If you ignore someone and give a reason, and you really want them to know
what the reason is, you can now let them know.

Set options personal ignore_explain to "on" and when they someone you are
ignoring tries to tell you something, they will be told why you are
ignoring them.

Completely independent of the new option; if you are ignoring someone for a
period of time, they will be told how much time is left if they try to send
you a tell.

396 Raising The Dead, posted on Tue Jul 26 01:26:49 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Raise dead can now only be performed on a player ghost if the priest (or other performer of the ritual) has been permitted by that player.

Also, there is a new syntax at high altars to allow you to meditate to remove divine protection.

And as a reminder...

Thieves' Guild heavies are now heavying thieves with excessive fines. Individuals with excessive fines will be treated like unlicensed thieves and will be heavied whenever they steal in AM.

395 Successful Excavation Mission In The Desert, posted on Wed Jul 13 22:51:13 2011

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

An excavation mission exploring the desert have stumbled across the ruins of an old combat arena, a structure once thought to have been lost forever under the sands. Upon hearing this news a team of enthusiastic explorers from many different nations have travelled out to help get the place back in working order.

Whilst much is still to be done, it has been reported that it is at least ready for brave warriors to engage in battle with each other in, and an open invite stands those who feel they have what it takes to become a champion.

The arena is said to lie somewhere between the two great cities of Tsort and Ephebe. A couple of Klatchian Foreign Legion Soldiers have also mentioned that they have seen it on a patrol near their camp, but forgot precisely where. It is rumoured that a travelling merchant by the name of TMTTL Dublar has also taken up residence there, hoping to sell an exotic array of fine meats to the unsuspecting crowds which he feels sure are bound to lie just around the next sand dune.

394 Discovered Diary Reveals Lost Knowledge, posted on Sat Jul 9 11:16:28 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds


Wun Hair Bunn has now completed her recent Spring cleaning of the Ninjas' guild library and it is now fully open again. Wun would like it to be known that while she was sorting through some boxes of old journals, she has stumbled across the original diary of Ishko Mendae, one of the ninjas' most celebrated poisoners. Until recently the diary had been thought lost forever, its discovery is most fortuitous and should provide interesting reading for students and graduates alike.

-- Tavish

393 Old Witch Teaching New Tricks, posted on Tue Jul 5 04:06:02 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

A recent traveller passing through Bad Ass had an unplanned trip involving Greebo, resulting in a nasty broken leg. Luckily, he was patched up by the one and only Nanny Ogg. However, as she is no fan of doing things when there are younger witches who can do all that running around for her, she has decided to pass this knowledge on to other witches, but only those who she feels know enough about the treatment of injuries.

She is also very keen on the idea that if you can't help yourself, you can't possibly help other people, and has happily agreed to break your legs if you ask her nicely.

Cripsi.

392 Words Of Wisdom, posted on Sun Jul 3 17:32:32 2011

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

There has been a heated discussion about the style of debate amongst philosophers during the past few months. The result is an Epic change to the command. Please see "help debate" for details.

390 Changes To Demon Summoning., posted on Thu Jun 30 19:18:26 2011

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: General

Greetings everyone!

There have been a number of important changes made to two wizard spells: Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon (DKDD) and Kelleflump's Irritating Demon (KID).[0]

Those of you who have used these/know things about them will be aware that a few years ago amulets (created by the spell Professor Flambardie's Grim Amulet, PFGA) were introduced. They, at this time, became compulsory components, required to cast either DKDD or KID at all.

This has now been changed.

These amulets are no longer compulsory components for the spells KID and DKDD, but do perform a protective role, which is as follows:

/* The role of amulets */

The grim amulets (created by PFGA) have a certain amount of protective power associated with them. The amount of power which each amulet possesses is determined by the skills of the caster. The amount of power which an amulet has left is indicated by its octarine message - the brighter the octarine message, the more power remains.

An amulet will, when worn, protect a caster of KID and DKDD from random backfire damage of the spell until its protective power is used up - each time it protects the caster from damage the power remaining in the amulet will be reduced. If the amulet a player is wearing runs out of power then it will break and pass the damage on to the player.

It is possible to wear two amulets at a time. Both will protect the caster from random backfire damage - if one runs out of power while protecting the caster, it will break - but the damage remaining will be buffered b the caster's other worn grim amulet. If this amulet runs out of power as well then the damage will, as per usual, be passed on to the player.

/* What damage is protected from by the amulets now? */

DKDD has always had a random element associated with it, in that there was a small chance that, even upon a successful cast of the spell, the demon will damage your target, turn around, and damage you as well. It is THIS kind of backfire damage which the amulets protect from. They will not protect from the "tears into your mind" damage which occurs when you fail the spell. They will also not protect from any possession-related damage you may incur as a result of spell failure.

To bring KID into line with DKDD, this spell (KID) also now has a random backfire element, even upon success. There is a small chance that, on a whim, the little demon you have just caused to attack a victim will turn around and attack you as well. Just as in the case of DKDD, the amulets will protect from this to the best of their ability.

/* Converting old amulets to the new system */

Finally, a brief word about old amulets. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the old system the conversion of old amulets to the new system will be somewhat haphazard. Old amulets should, on the whole, convert to the new system - but with varying degrees of success. I apologise for this, but it really couldn't be helped! If you are unfortunate enough to discover that your amulets are broken, there may be nothing that can be done for them. If they were originally created with a really low power, then they won't be very useful now, and even if they can be fixed will not provide much protection.

/* Feedback */

Broadly the same message has been posted to the Wizards guild board - and I would ask that if anybody has any issues with, comments on, or questions about the changes, please submit a report on one of the spells (an eye will be kept on them for the next couple of weeks) or the amulets themselves. It would also be helpful to try to catch me online/mail me if you could :)

Aristophanes.

[0] From here on the two spells will be referred to by their acronyms.

389 Mr Countdown Spotted On Quiz Talker Channel!, posted on Fri Jun 17 14:11:05 2011

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: General

A wordsmith has been spotted lurking around on the Quiz talker channel. You can start his game with !countdown

388 GP Useage In Ambush And Backstab, posted on Tue Jun 14 02:11:38 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The way GP is taken has changed for ambush and backstab.

Each command now takes some initially, and more is taken before each attempted hit. A 2 attempt ambush costs less than a 4.

The total cost of GP has decreased by 5 for ambush and 10 for backstab.

387 Pay Attention!, posted on Sun Jun 5 15:43:11 2011

Posted by: Gnillot
Category: General

We have recently updated 'help automation' to better reflect the intentions behind having this rule in place. In brief; it now explicetly states that actively playing without paying attention is against the rules, rather than just suggesting it by implication.

Please have a read, so you are not caught out unawares...

The Liaison Domain

385 Backstab And Ambush, posted on Thu Jun 2 00:49:55 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The way in which the number of attack attempts is calculated has changed for backstab and ambush. A skillcheck is now involved in calculating the number of hit attempts, and the properties (but not the type of weapon or specials it has) of the weapon influence how difficult this skillcheck is.

384 Further Soldiers Changes, posted on Wed Jun 1 19:45:34 2011

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A follow-up from my previous post about Djelibeybi only containing Djelian soldiers now.

You may find that the soldiers use different weapons, tactics, and are, in some circumstances, stronger than before.

Enjoy!

383 Djelian Soldiery, posted on Mon May 30 16:32:40 2011

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

There has been a mass exodus of non-resident alien soldiers from Djelibeybi.

Soldier-spotters have spied them wandering aimlessly through the desert wastes - either towards their native lands or, alternatively, towards the stomachs of any hungry desert lions which might happen to be in the vicinity.

(Translation: There are now only Djelian soldiers in Djelibeybi. )

382 Council Case Base, posted on Sun May 29 13:32:52 2011

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: Web

You can now view open cases, recently closed and closed cases for each Council area through the web site. This has been around for a while but I forgot to link it into the main Council page. Oops! (Thanks Asha for reminding me).

Taffyd

381 Sneak And Pursue, posted on Sun May 15 08:09:02 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

There have been a couple of changes made to sneaking. Firstly, moving at sneak low level attracts the same command lag as normal movement, but it takes the same GP as before. The other two levels have had a reduction in the amount of command lag caused by movement as well.

Since, while sneaking, the sneaker is concentrating on pursuing someone, he/she/it cannot be as stealthy as when not pursuing, therefore all sneaking while pursuing now acts as though moving at sneak low level, no matter what it is set at. This means that the bug where huge amounts of command lag adds up while sneaking and pursuing has been dealt with. 

380 Old Spells Taught New Tricks, posted on Fri May 13 03:29:19 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Hex has recently been employed to research ways of improving the spells "Memories of a Vicious Chicken" and "Narquin's Mist of Doom". After serveral attempts and many outputs of +++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++, it appears to have had some success. Students that have yet to master the magic arts may well find these often-overlooked spells are now more worthy of their attentions.

-- Tavish

379 Events Command, posted on Wed May 11 01:32:04 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

A new command called "events" has been added to help with the advertising of player-run events. Event organisers can use it to add an event for a particular player group (such as witches, roleplayers or all) with a start time. More details about the event can then be added in the editor. Events can be listed based on who they are for and more details can be viewed.

More information can be found in "help events".

You can choose to see informs for player-run events added with the "events" command. When "inform event" and "inform on" are used, you will get a message when a new event is added and one within an hour of an event's start time.

378 Pub For The Nostalgic, posted on Wed May 4 02:15:00 2011

Posted by: Rotas
Category: Am (domain pages)

In keeping with the style of Creator announcements being cryptic:

There is a new pub open in Ankh-Morpork on Morpork Street. There you may drink, eat and make merry. There are also a number of amusements including a very comfortable Trusty chair that's to die for and a pubquiz machine where you can test your skills for a mere AM$1.

For the nostalgic among you the Felt Ham may remind you a little of a certain round-world pub, this is intentional.

Also you can submit your own pubquiz questions at https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/~Am/secure/pubquiz.c for a chance of them appearing in the "Asking Assorted Questions Through the Use of Clockwork to Improve People's Knowledge of the World Around Them" machine.

Hang on, that wasn't cryptic at all, now they're going to take my badge from me and make me unlearn the secret handshake. Oh waily wailey.

Umm, for a (scary) fun time - ignore the Tick.

377 Moneys Of Klatch, posted on Tue May 3 01:48:45 2011

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Klatchian and Tsortean currencies can now be found in game.

Enjoy :)

376 Backstab Bugfix, posted on Wed Apr 27 15:35:39 2011

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Backstab was fixed to only recognize commands that players actually know when calculating the amount of possible backstab hits (before skill checks and caps). Ie if a weapon has slice and behead, backstab users would previously get two hits with it even though they didn't have access to behead.

Skill checks and caps remain unchanged. Further tweaking may occur.

375 Pet Peeves Poked, posted on Mon Apr 11 17:14:37 2011

Posted by: Loutre
Category: General

Sto Lat pets have received a few tweaks:

- They won't show up in your followers list, instead following you silently from room to room like fruitbats.

- They will not react individually to each of several new npcs entering the room.

- Cats who have wandered off can now be terrified or offended into running back to their owners by use of several choice souls.

- Cats previously had a bug whereby nothing could hit them in combat (lucky devils). This has now been fixed. Be aware that cats may die!

- Weights have been tweaked - they are all rather lighter now. This may reduce their max hp.

- Pet dye works again! Hooray! Sadly, no one appears to have noticed that it was broken, because you are all sensible and healthy people not addicted to dyeing your dogs bright colours.

- Peter Periwinkle has made contact with three new breeders, one of whom appears to have contacts in the fabled land of XXXX...

Have fun!

Loutre

374 Magic New Bulletin, posted on Sun Apr 10 12:06:32 2011

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds

George is once again being affected by background magic: high levels seem to be causing some of his bottles to become... strange. George is happy to hand over these Klein bottles to witches and wizards, seeing as they might be able to find a use for them.

In possibly related news, reports that spells are leaking from the books in Unseen University library have started to circulate. So far the resident wizards don't appear to have a plan of action, but the general consenus is that these energies should be captured and removed from the library before they start to cause trouble.

373 Sudden Plant Growth, posted on Sat Apr 9 08:04:03 2011

Posted by: Qna
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

It's now possible to gather ivy seeds from the Sung Estate in Bes Pelargic.

Have fun!

372 Pumpkin Town Immigration Report, posted on Wed Mar 30 14:17:44 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

A craftsman has now taken up residence in Pumpkin Town. Sadly, he finds himself unable to pass on his knowledge as he lacks a proper workshop, though if asked politely he may explain a thing or two about the crafts system on the Discworld.

371 Changes To Special Attacks, posted on Tue Mar 29 00:42:10 2011

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

For several reasons, the relationship between special attacks and weapon data has been changed.

Changes you may notice:

* The difficulty calculation for preparing specials has been changed to be based on the damage the weapon does, rather than on its weight versus your dexterity. This means that some weapons are harder and some are easier, but all are compared on the same scale.

* Specials now have a calculation determining the chances of actually landing them, making them less accurate than base rounds, but doing more damage than before.

* It is now harder to land a special on a small body part than on a large one, as with regular attacks.

* Warrior specials now deal more damage per guild point than the other specials.

* Behead may be used with axes.

370 Editorial Assistance, posted on Mon Mar 28 00:58:37 2011

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

Those of you who use the Magic editor in-game (you know who you are) will find the help files have been significantly expanded.

Those of you who don't use the Magic editor in-game (you don't know who you are) would find the help files have been significantly expanded, but you can't.

369 Tacticum Shuffle, posted on Thu Mar 24 22:53:43 2011

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

In the near future (in the next few days) we're going to be doing a little refiling in Klatch which means that any blorps, remember places, etc. for Tacticum will break.

This is just a brief warning in case anyone feels the need to create a remember place / blorp in the terrain immediately outside (which will not be affected).

You should not notice any immediate difference in Tacticum, it will just make future developments easier.

The reason for this (for those who are interested) is that until now Tacticum has been filed under a Djelibeybi folder ("/d/klatch/djel/tacticum/") whilst it is not actually part of Djelibeybi. We'll be moving it out of there to part of the country of Klatch. However the filepath for rooms are used as the unique identifier for blorples and remember places, as such when the file path changes - the remembered places will break.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but it will make developing around Klatch and Djelibeybi much easier.

UPDATED: This took place on 2 April 2011. You can now safely use remember places, blorps, etc. in Tacticum

368 Numpad Walking, posted on Wed Mar 23 13:56:05 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Web

Decafmud[1] now supports numpad walking.

If you were previously using decafmud without problems, and suddenly
it starts acting weird, you can turn it off via the Options -> Macros
menu[3].

[1] the client you get when you press the Play Now link no the website[2]
[2] unless you're using internet explorer 6 or 7
[3] and tell Pit about it so it can be fixed!

367 Thieves Misplace Fingers, posted on Sat Mar 19 04:16:51 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The "Fingers" pre-title has been removed from the list of titles granted to thieves by Kordane and other recruiters.

Instead, it is now gained through getting the "Mazda's Hero" achievement.

366 New Map Options, posted on Sat Mar 5 19:54:45 2011

Posted by: Wodan
Category: Special

There are now two new options for maps

options output map mxp

turns on or off clickable mxp links in the map (makes you walk to that room)

options output map reversecolour

turns on or off reverse map colours (needed in some clients as they use the same colour for all links)

It seems you need to turn those on before you can turn them off (even if they're already on!) this is being looked at.

365 Shelox Treasure, posted on Thu Feb 24 02:47:45 2011

Posted by: Jian
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Heroes brave enough to venture into Queen Shelox's lair may now find some incredibly rare treasure there.

364 New Command, posted on Mon Feb 21 04:25:40 2011

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

There is a simple new command called "contents" that shows the just the contents of a container without having to look at it. Credit to Yennefer for the idea report... er, 6 years ago. Although she hasn't been on in 4 years either. Anyway.

363 New Client, posted on Sat Feb 12 22:26:06 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

The default client for playing Discworld has changed to DECAFMUD, a flash- and javascript-based browser client.

Decafmud features copy/paste, multiple commands on one line and limited logging.

The old java client is still available, from https://discworld.starturtle.net/external/java/newtelnet/java_client.shtml

362 Two Ritual Changes, posted on Fri Feb 11 04:06:16 2011

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Guilds

Two small ritual changes:

Kaylar has made parch usable on items. This is particularly useful for crafts where you need to wait for items to dry.

The insect swarms summoned by creeping doom are now able to devour corpses. This makes them more dangerous to everyone around them, including the caster. The sizes have also changed, but this is a change in scale and description, rather than a change in actual power.

361 Furniture Fixes, posted on Tue Feb 8 06:48:52 2011

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

A few general fixes to furniture:

* Umbrella stands should now actually be able to hold umbrellas
* Small items that can be placed in your house (e.g. bowls and trophies)
should no longer claim that they're too heavy placed on other furniture.
* Wind chimes now respond to wind levels when placed in outside rooms like
gardens.

A few new furnitures have also been added to various shops, mostly niche items.

360 Playershop Problems, posted on Mon Feb 7 12:54:53 2011

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

Following the recent rollback, many playershops have lost their
waiting list. Don't worry, your items are not truly lost!
We are currently working on a solution to recover these lists with
minimal pain. Feel free to ask a liaison whether your shop can be
fixed, although it may take a day or two before we can (easily) do
this.

358 Wizards Suites, posted on Fri Jan 14 06:55:52 2011

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The leaseable suites available in the Sto Lat Wizards' Guild have gone back on the market.

They are no longer restricted to students - all wizards can bid on them. Non-students will have to increase their bid by a greater amount. Members of the Ancient and Truly Original Brothers of the Silver Star must increase by 30%, but those under GL 100 may bid 10% more (like student wizards). Other wizards must increase their bids by 50% unless they are under GL 100, in which case the minimum increase is 30%.

There have been some reports in the past of locks on these doors not working, but they seemed fine when tested. If there are issues with this, or if they do not go back on the market at the end of the lease, please make a bug report with any relevant details.

More of the suites will go on the market later.

357 Judge Should Now Lie Less, posted on Mon Jan 10 03:58:33 2011

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

Judge has been reworked somewhat to be more accurate in its results. Additionally, it should now take into account your skill with the weapon at hand when determining how effective it is.

356 Wildswing, posted on Fri Dec 3 06:29:14 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Warriors skilled in special weapons and a certain combat technique may find they are now able to launch a "wildswing" attack against their opponents.

Good luck.

355 Craft Binders, posted on Fri Dec 3 01:01:43 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

Craft binders have been added to stationery shops and some craft stores in AM and Sto Lat.

They can be used to store papers such as craft patterns and iconographs, and patterns/music can be used directly from them.

354 Valuable Information, posted on Tue Nov 2 01:15:23 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: Guilds

The "value" command has been given some attention:

A new syntax allows you to value things in the local currency.

Misjudging the value of something now gives a more random value rather than a fixed (but wrong) one.

Powdered gems are no longer classified as gems.

How difficult something is to value no longer depends solely on its value, but on the properties of the item.

353 Fumble Changes, posted on Tue Oct 26 01:35:32 2010

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Guilds

Fumble has been altered so that it causes the target to fumble the item to their inventory, rather than dropping it.

352 Family (and Club) Formats, posted on Sun Oct 24 11:37:36 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: General

You can now change the capitalisation of families and unelected clubs at your local club/family control room.

Thanks!

G & T

351 Pets, posted on Wed Oct 20 10:18:22 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: General

If you sadly lose a pet, these will now time out after one week (even if you are not logged on). This was always intended to be the case, however the functionality was not, well, functioning.

If you have been storing pets in your memory, you have a weeks grace from when you log on to decide if you want to resurrect them.

Thanks!

G & T

350 The Emerald Necklace, posted on Mon Oct 18 17:42:10 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

To all travellers on the Sto Lat road:

A jewel[1] of a coaching inn has reopened following refurbishment[2] on Upper Broadway, nr to the Hubwards Gate of Ankh-Morpork offering succour[3] to newly arrived travellers.

Should you wish to quench your thirst or enjoy a hearty meal stop by the Emerald Necklace now[4]!

Yrs,

Josiah H Hardepate, Public Relations Secretary of the Publicans' Guild

[1] May not actually resemble a jewel.

[2] The Thieves' Guild knicked all the tables, chairs, and crystals from the chandelier last Spune. It's taken this long to 'acquire' some new furniture. We've given up on the crystals.

[3] Please note we have no affiliation with the Guild of Seamstresses.

[4] Actual refreshment may vary.

349 Gourds, posted on Fri Oct 15 01:15:45 2010

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Gourds are great wearable liquid containers, but they were made with a built in downside that they were somewhat less efficient in terms of volume/weight compared to bottles. At some point this was revoked... it has been restored.

348 Weapon Speed Change, posted on Tue Oct 12 16:48:48 2010

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

Certain weapons were too slow because of a miscalculation in combat code. You may find that weapons that were unusably slow before are now viable.

Be warned that certain NPCs may be using such weapons too, so you may want to be careful in your usual haunts.

347 CTF Changes, posted on Mon Oct 11 23:48:07 2010

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

Hi. A few little changes for those of you who happen to play with the underwear and the stabbings.

* The racks in Capture the Flag have been completely reworked. You are no longer limited in the number of weapon racks that you may take. On the other hand, most non-weapon items are now in the utility racks, which are limited. Visit the arena and list and browse to see what went where.

* You will now receive your CTF amulet as soon as you enter the arena. This means that you can't accidentally die while preparing for your game, but better, that you get the CTF and team channels from the beginning.

* Items on the racks may be referred to by the name that they show up under when listing and browsing, e.g. "hp poison". They also come pre-identified for your convenience.

* Not all relics are Fishite.

* The 'hctf' command is now available, for those who missed talking for all the killing.

* People in the spectator gallery now hear the gong being rung.

* There is no longer a stat drop from berserk in CTF. 15 minutes was too crippling. All other effects of berserk remain the same.

* Deaths from Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees, Kamikaze something something with the rabbits and the ow, the Worm Sword and various other things should now be reported a little more accurately, as kills, at least, rather than silly deaths.

* It is now possible to get multiple items off of the racks at once, e.g. "get 3 eyes from components rack". Because of this, boxes of components have been removed.

346 Shortchanged, posted on Mon Oct 11 01:10:23 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: Mudlib

The way change is handled when paying for stuff has been changed. Now smaller denominations will always be taken before larger ones.

345 Guilds Tweaks, posted on Mon Oct 4 23:51:17 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Members of the Guilds domain have made the following changes recently:

* Gapp's low altar no longer checks whether an item is kept, as you never actually lose possession of the item.

* Pishe's pool now stops you before you toss coins in if you would not be able to buy a life.

* Incense is now burnable, including in the incense burners scattered around major temples.

* House scarves are now available in the AM Assassins' Guild.

* The tailor at the Mano Rossa now tells you how the suit looks before you need to confirm your order.

* Custom weapon makers Quoit and Wan Bending Reed now say when their items will be ready in DW time.

* Musketeers may find a more flamboyant way of getting down and leaping to action from the balcony above the courtyard.

344 Letting In The Jungle, posted on Mon Sep 27 04:31:21 2010

Posted by: Loutre
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Explorers in the wilds of Klatch have reported that the locals are losing their shyness, and that they are seeing more and more animals as they go about their way. Be warned: some are still not entirely pleased with their newfound visibility, and you may find pointy, spotty death dropping from above if you meet the eyes of certain lurking creatures who would rather remain hidden!

343 Right Hand Blog Entry, posted on Thu Sep 23 14:46:02 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: Mudlib

You can now use the hand you're holding something in as adjectives when matching items.

E.g. holding two daggers, they can be referred to as "left hand dagger" and "right dagger", etc.

(The change will not be fully in effect until after next reboot, but it should work on some objects already.)

342 Exceptional Parser Changes, posted on Tue Sep 21 22:37:57 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: Mudlib

The parser has been changed a bit, more specifically how "except" is handled.

"except" is now handled before comma, "and" and ampersand. This means that "a&b except c&d", which used to match "a and ( b except c ) and d" now matches "( a and b ) except ( c and d )".

Furthermore, matching with "except" will no longer fail if the excepted class doesn't exist. That is, rather than fail, "a except b" will match all of a if there are no b.

Have fun!

341 Changes To NPCs, posted on Sun Sep 19 06:30:10 2010

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Some NPCs will now kick and punch. It was an oversight that has now been fixed, thanks Turvity!

In addition, counts toward warrior special achievements will now only be awarded when the creature dies. Some other achievements may be changed in the future as well.

340 Support For Hashishim, posted on Sat Sep 18 10:02:09 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Members of the hashishim guild can now "ask" to be hoisted by rope into their guild, if they aren't sure about the relevant climbing skills.

-- Epic

339 Reclaim Command, posted on Fri Sep 17 19:40:01 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

Playerkillers who wish to recover items which were stolen from them
from another playerkiller's corpse can now use the "reclaim" command
to do so. Reclaiming an item does not count as theft.

338 Further CTF Updates, posted on Thu Sep 16 00:53:51 2010

Posted by: Turvity
Category: Special

Some changes for those who like murder, mayhem and underwear:

* It is now possible to block flagrunners at the pole.

* Scoring has been looked at and re-calculated so that solo kills are always worth more than group kills.

* Poisoned apples are now available in the arena.

* Visit now works within the arena.

* Sulphur blocks are now available in a package of ten.

* You may now 'request' a corpse within your team room.

* Your team room now counts as a high altar.

* It is possible to list and browse the available items from the arena entrance (one east of the boulder) without starting a game.

* The observatory now lets you check the score in a way that doesn't spam the whole room.

* There is a vendor in the arena selling fruit to throw at people playing CTF.

* People in the observatory now get the general CTF channel.

* While watching a game, you now get told about interesting spells, rituals and attacks.

337 Broomstick Slots, posted on Mon Sep 13 13:02:36 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: Guilds

A bug has been fixed in how the number of recordable slots on broomsticks is calculated.

As a result you may suddenly find yourself with fewer slots than you are used to getting. Please don't die due to this!

336 Bugfix Tweaks, posted on Mon Sep 6 12:39:55 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Members of the Guilds domain have made the following changes this Bugfix Weekend:

* Hopeful Hashishim recruits can now get an escort from the Djelian office to the Hashishim cave in order to join the illustrious guild. And once there, Hashishim can now slide down the banister from the second storey.

* Mano Rossa looking for a speedy escape from the attic can now leap out of the window, with possible splatty consequences. They are advised to hold on to their hats (new fedora available from the shop).

* High Priests and Priestess now have the option of using the pre-title His Eminence or Her Eminence.

* The cost of some faith items has been reduced and the value of faith items is now consistent when buying and selling.

* All gods now receive the ritual Artefact Inquisition.

* Bedrolls are now sold in the Hunters' shop.

Other changes:

* More items have been added to CTF.

* The level of the achievement Professional Athlete has been increased and a title has been added for Master Undresser.

* The blog command will now accept "default" in place of "recent developments", for speedier blog reading.

335 Tempting Treats For Trolls, posted on Sat Sep 4 18:55:45 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds


Trolls are no longer susceptible to the poison of poisonous apples. However, they are susceptible to poisonous minerals, particularly sulphur, cinnabar, micholite and rose quartz. Witches might find that they are also quite attracted to such unhealthy items, if they're proferred in a particularly tempting way.

Carmine

xxxxxxx

334 Groups Here, posted on Sat Aug 28 09:14:37 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Mudlib


It's now possible to use "groups here" or "group list here" to see which (if any) groups are represented in the room you're currently in.

Carmine

xxxxxxx

333 Looting Warded Items, posted on Tue Aug 24 12:52:59 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds


Taking a warded item from a corpse will now always trigger the ward, unless it is an item that you owned or a corpse you have been permitted to remove items from. The skillcheck for normal theft is unaffected.

Carmine

xxxxxxx

332 House Security, posted on Mon Aug 23 13:41:49 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

Playerhouses and commercial property belonging to playerkillers should be a little more safe now, as theft from playerhouses has been disabled.

This was done in recognition of the investment players make in playerhouses, and to make it more viable for playerkillers to run a playershop.

331 Relocation Of Remains, posted on Fri Aug 20 18:31:16 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

Playerkiller corpses have become a bit more resilient to unwanted moving.

Henceforth player corpses can not be dragged without explicit permission

from the corpse's owner, whether the owner is a PK or not.

330 CTF, posted on Fri Aug 13 01:57:48 2010

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

Due to the awesomeness that is Turvity, there have been a few changes to CTF:

* Over 50 new weapons, including a brand new category (ranged rack).

* Components for many spells, rituals and commands, missing before, have been added.

* There is now a spectator's gallery where the timid can watch games.

Let the killing begin!

329 Not Wanted On Voyage, posted on Tue Aug 10 17:07:25 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Celestial anchor has been tweaked and should now be effective against all forms of movement. To balance this, it has been made harder, and should in addition no longer have the extreme durations it had before.

328 You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here, posted on Mon Aug 9 18:47:48 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Whispers are spreading around the Djelibeybi bazaar of a new resident in the Hashishim guild - apparently an artist of some kind. Rumour has it that this rather attractive young woman has been seen deep in conversation with the Adb al Alim, though why needles and numbers would come up in the same breath is anyone's guess.

327 Guilds Tweaks, posted on Mon Aug 9 10:44:56 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The guilds domain has implemented some colourful and not so colourful ideas:

* Ink can now be added to the stove at Wee Flaudia's to make coloured candles.

* Witches' broomsticks are now able to be painted with paint and brushes available from house decoration shops (the paint used needs to be newly purchased to have the colour set properly).

* Rods can now be referred to with the ritual name when imprinted, or the imbue level.

* GPs can be fed to all summons to make them stay longer.

* Shield messages for major and minor were expanded and made more accurate.

* Resurrect now clears the effects of weather and drowning, so that the deceased won't re-decease as soon as they vivify.

326 Command Tweaks, posted on Mon Aug 9 10:40:47 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: General

Some changes to commands:

* "relationship show" will show all relationships and spouses.

* "title random" will set a random pre-title.

* The "permit" command now has a confirmation stage.

* "stop queue" will just stop command queues and not fighting, spells etc (although it still stops delayed actions such as teaching and crafts).

* "group unassist" can be used without arguments to unassist the person you are already assisting.

* The top killer on the player killer ladder can choose to display one of three titles in their 'whois' information. This is set with the "killers" command.

325 Tips Accepted, posted on Thu Jul 15 04:50:41 2010

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

For those of you in the service industry, there is now a new autoaccept option that will allow you to automatically accept just money. Check under 'options auto give'. Credit to Zexium for the idea report.

324 Bugfixing Changes, posted on Mon Jul 5 01:59:07 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The following minor changes have been made during the bugfix weekend by the guilds domain:

* Heavies should no longer bother thieves with fines less than $2.

* Cutting yourself while casting Narquin's Mist of Doom will no longer cause you to lose concentration (and NMD now cures fleas).

* The spell Finneblaugh's Thaumic Float will reduce the damage and stop the other negative effects of moving with broken legs.

* The ritual sacred fins has been fixed and now boosts the swimming bonus correctly.

* Phases of the moon have been added to the Thieves' stealth watch.

Other changes:

* Broken legs now causes a small amount of hp damage if you attempt to move with them other than through crawling.

* You can now "browse appraise" items for sale in general stores and item shops (it may take a reboot for all shops to get the updates).

323 One For The Woad, posted on Sun Jul 4 12:31:21 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The Warriors' Guild trainers have discovered their creative side, and now offer to teach recruits the ability to apply fearsome warpaint to liven things up and give their foes a bit of a scare (or possibly a laugh).

-- Ruse

322 The Annals Of Wand Research, posted on Tue Jun 29 21:46:50 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

The researchers in the Unseen University labs are proud to unveil their latest creation - the Paint Stained Wand.

Using the latest in modern wandology, they've managed to create a wand that can store paint and eject it at will. Unfortunately, due to a currently unknown cause, the ejected paint only seems to stick to other people.

Available exclusively (for now) at Hobliet the Unnecessary's Linear Tools in the Magic Emporium in Ankh-Morpork.

- Elemeno

320 Poke It With A Stick, posted on Tue Jun 29 20:32:30 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Magic wands have had a bit of an overhaul. The chances and consequences of backfires have been tweaked to take better account of skills, and the messages have been clarified a little. In addition, backfires on certain wands should now be more interesting!

319 Recharging, posted on Thu Jun 24 15:08:07 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds

To bring it in line with other actions requiring components, attempting to recharge something wizardly has changed! Now, if you attempt to recharge something and don't have enough power in your source substance, the substance will not be consumed and the guildpoints will not be used.

318 Goldsmithing Fixes, posted on Fri Jun 18 11:08:02 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

A few issues with goldsmithing have been fixed:

* value will now increase after each stage rather than just after sculpting

* you should expect to get back some of the cost of the metal bar, even if you fail

* the time taken to sculpt and polish is now more dependent on skills

In some cases this means that overall value may be reduced, but in others it may have increased.

317 The Imperial Guard Adopts A New Stance, posted on Fri Jun 18 05:49:06 2010

Posted by: Mitsukai
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The Imperial Guard stationed in Bes Pelargic has adopted a new stance when it comes to dealing with the murderous bloodsucking foreign vampire ghosts that sometimes roam the city streets.

Rather than martyrly protect the denizens it has been sworn to safeguard, the Imperial Guard will now attempt to use more tactical means to defend its wards.

Good luck! Don't die!

316 New Spell Discovered, posted on Fri Jun 18 01:44:02 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds


The Librarian has discovered a new spell, Pragi's Molten Gaze, hidden in a notebook found in a pocket of L-space. He has carefully coaxed it out and it has now taken up residence in the tome of "Begynners' Magick".

To make room for this newly discovered spell, Finneblaugh's Thaumic Float has been moved from the beginners' tome into "Invoakatyons in thee Mysterie of Wynd". As it is now knocking around with the big scary spells, it decided to toughen up and add an extra stage to itself.

315 Renovating Your House, posted on Wed Jun 16 20:38:30 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

Those players who have always wanted to turn their spare bedroom into
a library or walk-in closet will be pleased to find that they can now
do so! Playerhouse owners can use the "label" command to change the
function of a room in their house.
Note that, to avoid absurdity, only rooms with standard names can be
relabelled.

314 New Housing Development, posted on Thu Jun 10 04:37:49 2010

Posted by: Mitsukai
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Greetings honourable citizens,

Due to a recent and sudden boom in real estate, new player houses have been constructed in glorious Bes Pelargic. New properties will not immediately show up on the market, but they will be up for bid as they pass Grand Inspector Wun Thru Wall's random weekly building inspections.

Good luck!

Sincerely,

The Imperial Ministry of Housing and Urban Development

313 Bugfixing Tweaks, posted on Wed Jun 9 05:11:35 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

There have been some minor changes that may be of interest:

* A general use storage locker has been added to the ninja poison lab.

* There is now a random chance that stronger bugs (of different types) will fight and chase off weaker bugs when recasting the insect shield created with Mama Kolydina's Instant Infestation.

* Rolling pins and frying pans can now be used as weapons.

* Fruitbats can now wear magic crystals.

* The quests command now can list uncompleted/completed quests by area.

312 Artful Alternatives, posted on Mon May 31 21:35:56 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

For those using screenreaders or variable-width fonts, an option has been added to replace ascii art by a fully textual description.

This does not (yet) work for games, but signs and maps should be fine.

If you have the option turned on and still see ascii art somewhere, please bugreport it (using the bug command).

The option is: options output asciiart = off

311 Limiting Factor, posted on Sun May 30 13:06:35 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

A few inconsistencies with inventory limits have been fixed. The inventory helpfile has also been updated to clarify certain things about fumbling.

310 Written Maps, posted on Wed May 19 03:04:12 2010

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

For those of you using written maps you should find that they are now
considerably less spammy, especially in open areas such as city squares and
plazas.

309 For The Newbiehelpers..., posted on Wed May 19 03:01:48 2010

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

The hnewbiehelpers command has a new syntax. Use 'hnewbiehelpers context'
to also show the newbie channel history so you can get some idea of what
people on newbiehelpers were talking about.

308 The Fashion Police, posted on Fri May 14 22:38:59 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Dwarfish fashionista Gok'wan has been spotted wandering Ankh-Morpork. The Watch warn that he is known to be fierce, with an obsession for bangers and cinching.

307 Mean Mercenaries, posted on Wed May 12 21:22:24 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Mean mercenaries of a foreign extraction have been spotted around the fair city of Ankh-Morpork, much to residents worry and confusion. They are said to be armed and dangerous[1].

Concerned Citizens have cautioned that they are liable to do heathen foreign things, and possibly gabble away in strange languages.

In other news, the fine mean Morporkian soldiers of fortune are also apparently better equipped to fight for the glory of our fine city[2].

G & T

[1] In that they have arms

[2] Or, at least anyone with a nice sack of gold.

306 Lost And Found, posted on Tue May 11 17:11:23 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Lorst N'Fund has taken a course on Combined Engraving, Embroidering, and Otherwise Marking Any Object. As such, he will now add a small mark to any item newly registered with the Ankh-Morpork Lost Property Office, which will be obvious when you look at it.

For those of you who have already registered items, if you take them to Lorst and re-register them he will mark them for no charge.

G & T

On the behalf of the Lost Property Office, 59 2/3 Street of Cunning Artificers.

305 In With The Old, Out With The New, posted on Sun May 9 20:20:41 2010

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Some of the more elderly of you[1] may remember the Hattian guards that used to hang around by the bridge near the Assassins' guild in the north part of KLK.

They have been on Extended Leave[2] for some time, but have finally been rehabilitated.

Enjoy!

[1] Me included.

[2] They weren't very cooperative.

304 Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon, posted on Sun May 9 00:11:32 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Several changes have been made to carrier clouds:

* Your own cloud can now be referred to as "my cloud", and it can also be politely asked to do things if you prefer that to ordering it around.

* Clouds will now take account of their owner's "options auto give" settings when deciding whom to accept items from (though they will always accept items from their owner).

* The size of a cloud now gives some indication of its strength.

* A bug with asking clouds to drop/return items has been fixed.

* A couple of other little "Easter egg" idea reps have been implemented - have fun finding them!

303 Mxp Frames (map In Different Window), posted on Sat May 8 23:33:11 2010

Posted by: Wodan
Category: General

Mxp frames (see options output map look(city)) now have colour in all clients. If your client lost colour after you closed the frame window, you can fix it with the mxp command 'mxp frame Map' this command is case sensitive. For creators this makes the f flag for the find command more usable :)

302 Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering, posted on Sat May 8 02:45:55 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Some bugs have been fixed with the spell Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering where repeated casting with low skills added more layers of the chalk skin than was appropriate.

Also, the messages should now better reflect the number of new layers applied

301 Heavy Messing, posted on Fri May 7 19:46:54 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

In a response to mounting tensions among local guild officials, the Genuan Smugglers' Guild recently employed a Morporkian craftsman to install a shower cubicle for visiting members to wash away the dirt from the somewhat insalubrious journey necessary to get there.

Apparently the atmosphere inside the Guild has much improved since.

300 Guilds Minor Tweaks, posted on Fri May 7 05:59:14 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

This past bugfixing weekend the guilds domain made several small changes that may be of interest:

* Scorpion poison sacs can now be used to produce the "spider venom" poison, but are slightly weaker than spider poison glands.

* The embroidery shop in the AM Assassins' Guild now sells patterns and threads.

* A bug with crawling while following someone performing divine hand was fixed.

* A bug was fixed with the hold/worn check for divine guard and held shields should now work with it properly.

* Djelian guards should no longer disappear mysteriously.

* A new engraving book has been added to the smithy in the Sto Lat Wizards' Guild.

* Nanny Ogg's gift for foreign languages now extends to Klatchian and she will understand it when spoken.

299 Numismatological Delight, posted on Tue May 4 22:22:48 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Imps have been busy rebuilding The Pitts. It is now home to the Balancing Monk's free hospital as well as various locations of special interest to those with a background in numismatology!

- Makhar

298 Hidden Conversations, posted on Mon May 3 11:19:27 2010

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

The 'converse' command will no longer drag you out of hiding, thanks to Ishamael.

297 Qalias, posted on Mon May 3 04:24:29 2010

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

The qalias command has sprouted additional syntaxes for listing aliases by category.

296 So Much For Subtlety, posted on Sun May 2 18:20:39 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Ginormous bosoms are finally attainable without the need to spam commands - corsets can now be tightened (and loosened) either completely, or by a certain number of notches, with a single command.

295 Wanted... For Being TASTY, posted on Sun May 2 16:07:48 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Wanted posters are now edible, and come in a range of delicious flavours.

Some posters may not yet be edible, but we have a crack team updating them AS I WRITE[1].

Thanks be to Kake!

[1] Corporal Nobbs. So it may take some time. Or a reboot.

294 Lantern Lovers Light Up Your Lives!, posted on Sun May 2 16:05:00 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: General

Lanterns have been put on a diet, and as such will no longer take gallons upon gallons of oil to refuel, but rather 1/3 of a standard lantern fuel bottle.

Go forth and bring light to darkness!

G & T

293 Cute Cuddly Death Traps Of Doom (sur), posted on Tue Apr 27 14:38:08 2010

Posted by: Loutre
Category: General

Mother bears are always watching. No, really.

292 But Who's Counting?, posted on Fri Apr 16 18:22:32 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Book vandals may be pleased to know that it is now possible to "count pages in book" to see how many remain for tearing.

291 Wienrich & Boettcher's Chocolatiers, posted on Sat Apr 10 16:35:18 2010

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Wienrich & Boettcher's Chocolate shop has opened its doors on Zephire Street, offering you off-the-shelf pralines or made-to-order boxes of chocolaty goodness.

Leave some for me!

290 Steal, Snatch And Filch., posted on Sat Apr 10 01:26:55 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Steal, snatch and filch have had some minor changes to their messages and all three commands now use the same method of determining the modifier for the skillcheck based on value. Also, you will no longer be told of everything inside a container that you steal when you steal it.

289 Sand Scrubs, posted on Tue Apr 6 21:32:38 2010

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The mystics in the Oasis have been Behind the Times for a while now, and were shocked when they recieved the memo about Witches' ability to summon bugs to protect themselves in battle.

They have given the sand around the Oasis a good talking-to, and so it now has an adverse effect on any insect swarms that are in orbit of any murderous players.

(Translation: Oasis mystics' sand blasts now remove bugshield as well as TPA and major shield)

Enjoy!

288 City Guards Fail To Earn Their Keep, posted on Sun Mar 14 19:42:48 2010

Posted by: Loutre
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Due to recent economic developments around the Sto plains, there has been an unprecedented amount of vagrant movement around the roads. Consequently, major centres at the intersection of commercial routes, such as Sto Lat, seem to be experiencing a rise in groups of unsavoury types hanging around leering at people. City guards seem disinclined to intervene, and when asked to comment, one muttered something about not getting paid enough for this.

287 Attn: Apex Club (ex) Residents, posted on Sat Mar 13 21:08:54 2010

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Further to various requests, should you lapse your payments your items will now be returned in a box, rather than uncerimoniously dumped on the floor.

Of course, to avoid this entirely it is much better to keep up your payments!

Yours,

Jarvis

Apex Club Doorman

286 Shoplifting, posted on Thu Mar 4 23:55:38 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The difficulty in shoplifting some items should now better reflect the cost of the item as seen when listing.

This will most likely affect items sold in containers and the difficulty for shoplifting most other items should be unchanged.

285 Some Facts About Coffee Nostra Deaths, posted on Sun Feb 28 05:16:38 2010

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Revenant Crime Auditing has completed a study of the lifetimes of important
figures in the Coffee Nostra. Their results may be viewed at
https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/~ptoink/death_data.html
by interested parties.

Ptoink

284 Bring Me A Drink And Make It SNAPPY!, posted on Sat Feb 27 17:07:27 2010

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

And it shall be known throughout the land that new creatures have been spotted lurking near the Djel, waiting for unwary prey.

You would be wise to be on your guard when wandering in these areas.

283 HUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUGH, posted on Thu Feb 25 19:51:28 2010

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The Creator has decided that it is about time that a greater range of creatures inhabit the luscious shores of the Djel.

So let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

(Translation for those of an impatient nature: There are some new water pastures to the west of Djelibeybi on the banks of the Djel.)

282 Skills Changes!, posted on Wed Feb 24 20:42:14 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

To convenience players with screenreaders (and possibly some others as well), "skills" can now be set to show its output as a list rather than a columned tree.

To see this new output, set options output skills = list.

281 Safeguarding Sequestrated Staffs, posted on Fri Feb 19 09:07:31 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Star sapphire rings have been fixed so they now answer to "jewellery" - if you'd been relying on this bug to keep them safe when fencing, please use "keep" instead, or change your aliases.

280 Space-time Fracture, posted on Thu Feb 18 22:08:59 2010

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Due to an unhealed fracture in space-time[1] a small street has been sitting in limbo, unable to truly exist in this dimension.

Thankfully this was drawn to the attention of the Creator, and (s)he was able to put it back in its right place[2].

[1] It's probably quantum.

[2] When (s)he had come off his/her tea break, that is. There might have been chocolate hobnobs involved.

279 Tweaks To Priestly Minions, posted on Tue Feb 16 05:08:16 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

I have made some further changes to the way that priest summons work:

* All summoned minions are now accurately counted when determining the difficulty of summoning another.

* Some types of minions will take advantage of lapses in attention to try to escape or seek vengeance.

-- Turvity

278 Ritual Bug Fixes, posted on Sun Feb 14 00:05:18 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

A good number of bugs on rituals have been fixed.

* Major shield and Security Blanket now display whether a particular
performance strengthened, weakened or merely extended them.

* Security Blanket now displays duration in 'shields'

* Relief wards now transfer GPs from the thief to the victim, rather
than vice versa.

* It is harder to perform rituals on people who are in staunchly
atheistic places.

* Searing touch now, well, works.

* Dust devils have greater than 0 levels in their fighting skills.

* A bug in the limit to the number of dust devils has been fixed.

--Turvity

277 Security Sunglasses Slashed, posted on Sat Feb 13 00:49:01 2010

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Crazy Samedi's Discount Gooning has followed the Gumboni family's lead, and reduced
their sunglasses budget. They would like to assure customers (including the Genua
Casino) that although you may sometimes see the eyes of their goons, this does not
detract from the overall utility of their goonery.

276 Holy Titles, posted on Fri Feb 12 22:32:19 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds


There have been some changes made to priest titles, with a whole selection of new guild titles and suchlike. 

275 Retrophrenologists Getting Retrophrenologized!, posted on Fri Feb 12 17:04:06 2010

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: Special

We got the master retrophrenologist to adjust the bumps of the other retrophrenologists so now you don't have to wait 20 weeks in between switching stats anymore, but it'll cost you a pretty penny to have your head fiddled with sooner! Status quo has been maintained though, so if you do wait 20 weeks it'll cost the same as it did previously. It works on a sliding scale that involves the number of previous visits and the amount of days sooner they want it.

Retrophrenologists also handle rearranges now, which is more in theme (using "say rearrange"). The rearrange command will still be given to newbies (and whoever has it atm will keep it) and imparts all kinds of awesome information when used. It is taken away when the rearrange is done.

274 NPC Name Change, posted on Fri Feb 12 10:39:30 2010

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

For tax purposes, Genua's Madame Delight is now trading as Madame Demain-Matin.

Cheers,

Ptoink

273 Hired Goons Going Cheap, posted on Thu Feb 11 22:34:31 2010

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Due to budget constraints, our hired goons are having to wear cheaper
sunglasses these days. Furthermore, we don't have enough to go around,
so we ask that you show some courtesy and don't look into the eyes of
those guards without glasses.

Signed,
The Gumboni Family
Leaders in contusion-based public relations
For all your gooning needs.

272 Slim Black Briefcase, posted on Thu Feb 11 21:01:43 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds

We've added a briefcase to the AM Assassin's post-graduate shop. It locks with a combination lock, and can hold a mini-inhumation kit.

Enjoy!

271 Lightning Spells, posted on Sun Feb 7 22:10:50 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The spells Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon and Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear will soon[1] be changing to use the same method to determine whether to backfire as a result of holding certain objects.

Currently Spear will backfire if the caster is holding an object that does a pierce or sharp attack, this includes wooden objects such as wooden javelins and other non-metal items like quills. Storm Dragon currently backfires if any metal object is held. This is confusing since both spells essentially do the same thing; summon lightning.

After the change is made both spells will backfire only if a metal object is held, even if the metal object is not a weapon (for example, metal musical instruments will cause a backfire) and is not pointy/sharp.

To avoid loss of life we recommend using "unhold held things" as not all metal items respond to the adjective "metal".

For a few weeks after the change you will receive a warning the first time you attempt to cast one of these spells while holding a metal object.

[1] Within a few hours to a day.

270 Spell Components, posted on Sat Feb 6 10:04:20 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds

A bug was fixed with spells when casting with the "using" syntax meaning
that it should no longer be possible to cast a spell using components in
another player's inventory. As a side-effect of this, you may now only
use components in your room or in your own inventory. If you target a
component that is in a container of yours then it will attempt to take
the component out even if the container is not a component pouch.

269 Banishing Barrel Bugs, posted on Fri Feb 5 18:41:48 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Mudlib

Some bugs were fixed with barrels (the playerhouse furniture variant), which didn't save when they should and didn't have the right ownership checks before.

As a consequence, taking items from barrels in a playerhouse/-shop where you are not allowed will now be considered theft.

268 Syntax Syntax, posted on Thu Feb 4 15:39:32 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The "syntax" command has received a new syntax: "syntax <command> {brief|verbose}"

Using the "verbose" syntax will show you the syntaxes for the command, along with a brief explanation of what it does.

"syntax <command>" will use your verbose settings to determine whether the output will be brief or verbose. This can be toggled with the commands "brief" and "verbose".

There are still a lot of commands without syntax details, however our ambition is that eventually they'll all have them. If you come across a command without details you can bug report that command to have it rectified. "bugcheck command <command>" will tell you what to file the report on.

267 Quests Command, posted on Mon Feb 1 07:16:33 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

You can now use the "quests" command to get hints and solutions to quests in a way similar to the webpage.

266 Time To Get Rolling, posted on Thu Jan 28 15:21:53 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Guilds


The barbarians are glad to welcome Hugh and his pub to the seasonal Hublandish Barbarians' camps. You can find Hugh in the active camp (which camp site is active depends on the season), and enjoy a merry beverage or two. Hugh has also invented a dice game for you to play: just roll the die and see how much you win. Or don't win.

There is a new achievement for Hugh's dice game. Whilst we were in the mood, we also added a couple of achievements for Klondike solitaire (a set can be found in the Barbarian bar) and solitaire Mastermind. Enjoy!

265 Ribbit?, posted on Tue Jan 26 12:32:47 2010

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

It is now possible to use the "froginfo" command on other people than yourself.

Good luck!

264 Bad Spelling Brushed Up, posted on Mon Jan 25 16:52:13 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

All spells which cause damage on backfiring should now bring up the caster's HP monitor in the case of such an unfortunate incident. (Assuming said caster has the monitor option turned on, that is.) If you find one that doesn't, please bugrep it.

Please note that no additional damage has been added - it's just that the damage that was always occuring is now more apparent.

263 Royal Art Museum, posted on Sun Jan 24 04:43:29 2010

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Am (domain pages)


Sir Reynold Stitched is pleased to announce the opening of the Royal Art
Museum of Ankh-Morpork on Lower Broadway. The museum boasts galleries of
fine paintings, sculptures, tapestries and other artworks including just
the one[1] gallery dedicated to modern art. The exhibition gallery can
be found upstairs and will feature different works every few months.

Sir Reynold would also like it known that the museum features a citizens'
gallery that can be used to display handicrafts by members of the Discworld
community or other items deemed suitable for show. The curator of the
citizens' gallery is appointed by the Ankh-Morpork council and funding for
the gallery is also provided by them, although private donations are welcome
too.

1. The Patrician had Words.

262 Fighting The War On (Club) Homelessness, posted on Sat Jan 23 18:46:50 2010

Posted by: Bluius
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

A number of shiny new club houses have been made available for rent throughout the city of Bes Pelargic. They may be rented through the usual bureaucratic channels.

This blog post brought to you by the Imperial Ministry of Club Housingness

261 Brassica Overhead - Ahoy!, posted on Sun Jan 17 01:43:46 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

The priests of Sto Lat have finally managed to persuade one of their number to take up permanent residence as an instructor in Pishe's temple. Young Brassica seems quite comfortable in her new home, and hopes her sisters and brothers in Pishe won't be too tardy in coming to say hello to her.

260 Rhinu In, Rhinu Out, posted on Sat Jan 16 17:13:25 2010

Posted by: Bluius
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

The official Bes Pelargic currency exchange agency on Hook Street in Bes Pelargic has reduced its fees and has begun to accepting some additional foreign currencies for exchange.

Brought to you by the Imperial Ministry of Clear and Non-cryptic Blog Posts

258 And The Winner Isn't..., posted on Fri Jan 15 19:09:03 2010

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

The osrics 2009 have closed!

You can find the results at https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/secure/osrics/

257 Ptowels, posted on Thu Jan 14 18:02:05 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Mit-sin-bibh-khot in the Djelian Institute of Illusory Learning has recently changed towel supplier, and now stocks additional colours that are more in-theme with his sand-ridden location.

256 Rip, Tie, Cut Toy Man, posted on Wed Jan 13 17:25:04 2010

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

Custom knives from the Klatchian Foreign Legion should now behave more in line with the materials they're made of; for example, Klatchian steel knives are now more effective and more durable than cardboard knives. In addition, owners of klatchian steel knives will find they are now proud owners of Klatchian steel knives, and wielders of cardboard knives may wish to experiment with writing on their weapons.

(You may need to su for these changes to take effect.)

255 Rub A Dub Dub, posted on Sun Jan 10 17:09:30 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Special

You can now use cotton bathrobes to dry yourself with.

254 Musical Instrument Cases, posted on Sun Jan 10 15:50:08 2010

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Special

If you are a starving musical genius, you may want to consider laying out your instrument case in public to attempt to attract donations from pleased (or displeased) passers-by.

If you see someone playing with their case laid out, consider tossing some coins into it to encourage them to go on (or to stop).

253 Quills And Nicknames, posted on Tue Jan 5 18:24:19 2010

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

When you scribble on something with any writing implement (quills, pencils, fountain pens, crayons, &c.) it will now automatically expand nicknames - for instance, "scribble jpoct on paper with pen" will write the text "Jogloran's Portal of Cheaper Travel". Assuming that that was what your nickname expanded to, of course. Bear in mind that it will use the same capitalization as you originally used when adding the nickname.

This doesn't affect the "write" syntax - that will work as it did before, and not interpret nicknames.

252 'remote' Color, posted on Sun Jan 3 04:09:00 2010

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

remotes should now correctly use the color as set in 'options colour

remote' rather than being forced to magenta.

251 Klatchian Foreign Legion - Custom Knives, posted on Sat Jan 2 18:21:10 2010

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

Private Inside Leg, a skilled maker of knives, daggers, and other stabby things, has arrived in the Klatchian Foreign Legion. Please go and see him for all your painstakingly-designed-custom-knife needs, but do remember - he joined up to forget.

250 Never Enough Options, posted on Sun Dec 13 05:39:06 2009

Posted by: Presto
Category: Special

A new option has been added: options colour groupmember

Setting this option causes the names of group members to appear in your chosen color in location descriptions. This option overrides the setting for 'options colour playername'.

249 Grunefair Street Halfway Redeveloped, posted on Sun Dec 6 15:22:24 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Am (domain pages)

The eastern half of Grunefair Street, in Ankh-Morpork, has had a Redevelopment. As a result, the Jewelled Ring Shop has moved a few yards down the street, and one new shop has opened up. The architects are still working on the other half, unfortunately.

248 Nâzgul, Nazgûl, Nazguls!, posted on Fri Dec 4 12:05:30 2009

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: General and Quiz

Avid quizzers will be pleased to know that the "Nazgûl" question in the Lord of the Rings category should now respond to nazgûl, nâzgul or just plain old nazgul.

247 Long-Lasting Lanterns, posted on Thu Dec 3 12:47:31 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Am (domain pages)

Due to a technological breakthrough by some very clever dwarves, lamp oil is now six times more efficient than it was, and thus many lanterns will burn for six times as long. On the other hand, since some merchants are more traditionalist than others, not all lanterns will use the new and improved fuel. 

246 Do You Know Where Your Towel Is?, posted on Wed Dec 2 13:03:30 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

Frequent users of towels may be pleased to learn that there is now a new option for wringing them out - simply "wring towel dry". This takes a little time to complete (depending on how wet the towel is), but you only have to enter the command once and it will automatically stop you once the towel is dry.

245 Spellbooks & Escaping Spells, posted on Tue Dec 1 10:40:38 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

It's now impossible for spells to escape when remembering from a spellbook. It was really difficult, and rare, before, but it's now outright impossible.

The reason behind this change is that it Wasn't Fun. Many other things are Not Fun. Some of them will be removed from the game.

Are you Fun?

244 Discworld MUD On Twitter, posted on Fri Nov 13 15:08:12 2009

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: Special

Discworld is currently automatically syndicating all creator blog entries to twitter, accessible via the #discworldmud tag. Feel free to link your own Discworld MUD related tweets with #discworldmud. You can also follow the user "discworldmud".

If you have any ideas for future twitter integration, or have other feedback (such as "Wow, what a stupid idea!") then please mail them to me.

240 Thieves' Guild Licences, posted on Sun Nov 8 02:42:52 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Thieves can now get wearable licences from Elusive Ron. Only the higher level licences have this option, and you can choose for it to be worn as a badge or as a necklace. (say I'd like a special necklace licence please)

You can still get the special licences in non-wearable form by asking for them as you usually would. All commands can be used with necklace licences while worn, but badge licences have some limitations for commands involving reading.

239 Kick Kicking, posted on Sat Nov 7 20:01:09 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Warriors guild trainers will now teach punch and kick to suitable candidates. It may take a reboot for this change to rattle through the game.

238 Hell's Kitchen, posted on Sat Nov 7 16:17:00 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

The Hell's Kitchen achievement now gives the title 'Chef', YOU MUPPETS.

237 Scrabbling, posted on Mon Nov 2 10:18:56 2009

Posted by: Carmine
Category: Mudlib


I just wanted to let you know that I've been fixing the Scrabble boardgame to bring it more in line with roundworld rules.

The game will now end when someone plays their last tile (and there are no tiles left in the bag). Other players' remaining tiles will be deducted from their score and added to the player who went out. The game can also end if everyone passes. In this case, remaining tiles are deducted from all players' scores.

You can now discard a selection of the letters in your hand, as well as your whole hand. And you can shuffle the tiles in your hand to seek inspiration.

Blank tiles should be working properly now, and are represented by a green square on the board instead of a blank - it makes them easier to see.

Finally, if you are sulking at a handful of appalling letters, and that your opponent just played all their letters out three turns in a row, you can overturn the board in a rage.

236 Colourful Clouds, Redux, posted on Wed Oct 28 13:05:01 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

I've fixed a couple of bugs with the clouds created using Fyodor's Nimbus of Porterage. Firstly, they'll now work properly with the towels sold in wizards' reagent shops. They did work before, but they didn't notice the colours - you'd only get a boring monochrome one. Now you can have strange colourful clouds to your heart's desire, or at least whatever the shopkeepers have handy.

Secondly, they'll now always use the colour of the towel, rather than taking it from whatever you cast the spell on if it didn't happen to be the towel.

235 Abuses Of Power, posted on Sat Oct 17 12:05:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

It is no longer possible for the thieves guildmaster to disavow creators.

Drakkos

234 New Word Game, posted on Sat Oct 17 07:25:22 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

A new word game called quick categories, has been added to the games shop in AM.

It is a 2-4 player game based on listing words in DW categories, but potential is there to add your own categories.

It also counts towards the word game achievements.

233 Firefly Lake, posted on Tue Oct 13 14:07:41 2009

Posted by: Dryade
Category: Ram (domain pages)

If you go to Razorback today, go places that you've never been, or not been for a while, get your feet wet and muddy!

231 Smokebombs Changed, posted on Sat Oct 10 11:06:53 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Smokebombs have been changed to allow three poisons (in addition to the smoke) to be dispersed in gas form. They are GP sapping, hallucinogen and spider venom poisons. To be useable with bombs, they simply need to be added to smokebomb mixture.

The bombs now need to have a fuse inserted before they can be sealed and used (available in the appropriate places in the AM and ninja guilds). They can also be thrown at targets, among other changes.

Old bombs that are sealed should be automatically converted, old ones that are not sealed will need a fuse inserted.

230 Godly Furniture, posted on Mon Oct 5 01:42:58 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

To redress an imbalance between the gods, several new items of furniture can be found in the furniture shop in the Temple of Small Gods.

Fluffs to Woom for adding a special feature to the maze artwork.

229 Another Brief Note, posted on Wed Sep 30 00:00:05 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

Setting "brief exits" will now show room exits in condensed form, even if "look" is set to verbose.

228 Spam Control, posted on Tue Sep 29 22:54:43 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

A "brief" syntax has been added to the "gp" command.

227 Important!, posted on Sat Sep 12 01:14:38 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

Import can now be used to import smaller sets of aliases between alts. Either a given set of aliases, or a category of aliases.

226 Unaliasing..., posted on Fri Sep 11 23:57:33 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

...can now be done to multiple aliases at once, either by the new "category" syntax, or by separating the aliases by a space, as in "unalias bing bong bang".

225 A Helping Of Help, posted on Fri Sep 11 22:49:30 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The "help" command has been modified to hopefully be a bit more helpful when suggesting multiple matches. It might not be perfect, though, so if something looks odd, don't hesitate to file a bug report!

224 You Said *How* Many Alts??, posted on Fri Sep 11 00:30:36 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

The "60" command can now check all your registered alts at once, using the handy "60 alts" syntax.

223 Sheathing Cheating, posted on Fri Sep 11 00:19:15 2009

Posted by: Woom
Category: General

If you try to sheathe a weapon identified as "bob" (or "george", or "harry", or...), the sheathe command will now, if you don't tell it which scabbard(s) to use, give preferential treatment to scabbards identified as "bob scabbard" (or "george scabbard", or "harry scabbard", or...), and attempt these before any else.

222 Money Command, posted on Sun Sep 6 05:21:43 2009

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

After a 7 year absence, the 'money' command has regained its ability to look in containers.

221 Component Pouches Used With Rituals, posted on Mon Aug 31 11:33:49 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Rituals will now take into account containers identified as "component pouch" and will take out components (including symbols, beads etc) automatically.

More complex components, such as the alcohol used in visit, will not work this way.

220 Wizards Wanted, posted on Mon Aug 31 05:12:18 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The wizards that wander the streets of Djelibeybi have been given a bit of upgrading tlc.

While not exactly power houses, they do have more fire to their attack power (and defenses).

Enjoy!

Jewels

219 Labelling The Council As..., posted on Tue Aug 25 09:03:17 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

There are some new titles available for punishments (or other creative purposes) for use by the Djelian Magistrates.

Have Fun!

- Jewels

218 Klatchian Foreign Trading Post, posted on Tue Aug 25 08:37:42 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Just south of the Klatchian Foreign Legion is a shiny new trading post,

the latest addition to civilization in Klatch.

This is the proud work and first project to go in game from Lenna (whom we can't really call a newbie anymore).

Enjoy!

217 Laggy-San Season, posted on Sun Aug 23 23:39:26 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

Killing Laggy-San now counts towards the Lagbuster achievement

216 Belt Loops, posted on Sun Aug 23 13:39:53 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Like plumbers everywhere, you can now sheathe wrenches in a belt loop

215 String Bags And Crystals, posted on Sat Aug 22 13:29:28 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

In an effort to keep the turnover high in his shop, Mit-sin-bibh-khot will now, every restock, shuffle around the crystals in string bags that have not been purchased to ensure a steady supply of crystals in all your favourite flavours.

214 Grabbing Mit-sin-bibh-khot By The Nuggets, posted on Fri Aug 21 22:56:38 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Mit-sin-bibh-khot has now included two purple mineral nuggets in his usual stock rotation.

213 Glittering Non-skins, posted on Tue Aug 18 14:41:27 2009

Posted by: Tique
Category: Forn (domain pages)

If you've been in the (somewhat perverse) habit of applying Genuan body-glitter to, er, things that don't have skin, you'll notice that now the glitter applies to whatever it is they have instead.

"Its aura sparkles with the lustre of stars."

"His pelt sparkles with the lustre of stars."

and so forth.

212 Copycat Priests, posted on Sun Aug 16 18:09:05 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Due to popular demand[1], the rituals command has received the same categorisation (and uncategorized option) as the spells command.

[1] Well, it was only one person, but he's popular![2]

[2] Well...

211 Spellz, posted on Sun Aug 16 11:54:43 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

The 'spells' command has been altered to show the category each of your spells fall into. Those who prefered the old layout can use the 'uncategorized' syntax to get it the way it was before.

210 Nasty Old Baggages, posted on Sun Aug 16 02:15:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

The achievement 'nasty old baggage' now awards the title 'nasty', because you have to be!

208 Fiddley's Standing Ovation, posted on Tue Aug 11 23:19:08 2009

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Mr Fiddley (41) of Fiddley's Music Shop, 41b Seven Sleepers, has launched a new line of music stands, for those of you tired of trying to balance music on your nose while playing a double bass, harp, or indeed guitar.

207 Finding Remembered Places, posted on Tue Aug 11 00:11:57 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The find ritual can now be used on items remembering places to show the direction of the remembered place.

206 Quirmian Baker Selling Cakes On Goose Gate, posted on Mon Aug 10 22:51:27 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Quirmian baker and self-described genius Patrice Le Clair has recently renovated a stall on the Goose Gate market and opened it for business selling a variety of cakes.

205 Djelian Soldiers Gain More Solidarity., posted on Mon Aug 10 04:43:58 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Soldiers around Djelibeybi have had a few tweaks.

A certain bug existed, that soldiers were not inclined to jump into a fight against a player of their own nationality even when in groups.

This has been addressed so that when you attack one soldier, its mates will respond, even if you're all of the same nationality.

Happy stabbing.

204 Gogolisms, posted on Sat Aug 8 22:22:15 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Mrs Googol will now raise your broken bodies even if you are a heathen devil who can't speak proper Morporkian

203 Supplication, posted on Sat Aug 8 15:57:35 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

There is now a new 'score supplication' option that shows when you started supplicating (if ever), and how many times you have supplicated.

202 Crushing And Stabbing Your Beheaded Headses, posted on Fri Aug 7 21:00:55 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

The requirements for the epic level achievements for crush, behead and impale have been reduced from 1,000,000 to 150,000

201 Bing's Bank In Brookless Building Bonanza!, posted on Wed Aug 5 20:29:26 2009

Posted by: Gin
Category: Am (domain pages)

Bing's Bank is proud to announce the opening of its newest commercial premises on Brookless Street, where it hopes to serve a better class of customer.

200 Klatch Is Back In Black (atleast Our Odds And Ends), posted on Mon Jul 20 05:46:09 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A bunch of fixes have been applied to Klatch that should bring our code base pretty much back to the pre-roll back state (and a few enhancements).

Issues were reported with language learning from various teachers in Djelibeybi. I believe these to all be fixed now. Any further issues noted should definitely be reported.

Issues with the wearable critter pets such as butterflies should also be all restored to their previous state. As a note on pets, you can try to 'calm' your critter if you find it too spammy.

The hours of service have been extended at the mending stall in the bazaar to be open into the evening.

Also aliases have been added to exit stalls as 'leave/exit/out (of) tent/stall" throughout the bazaar.

Needles from the Klatch domain should all now properly sew things. You might have a receipt for one of them, so just kiss it to make it better.

Might be a few other positive changes before the night is through!

- Jewels

199 Kill Or Cure, posted on Sun Jul 19 15:37:53 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

In line with corpse parts, carrots which haven't been pickled can now be referred to as "uncured carrots". This also applies to all other curable food items.

198 Unnatural Cloud Colours, posted on Sat Jul 18 13:39:24 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

As per a number of recent idea reports, clouds summoned using Fyodor's Nimbus will now take on the colour of the towel used to summon them, when that colour can be algorithmically detected.

197 Red Staffin', posted on Fri Jul 17 20:21:44 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Upon invoking a red staff, it will no longer consider members of your group as valid targets. 

196 Gloomy Timber Gets Jealous Of Attention From Counting Pines, posted on Mon Jul 13 02:35:43 2009

Posted by: Dryade
Category: Ram (domain pages)

After pining away, Gloomy trees have decided to branch out.

Deciding their bark was worse than their bite, they twigged onto taking leaf of their senses.

It was a suprise for them to drop in and let us know!

Luck!

Dryade

195 Rampaging Ramtop Giants Try Something Different, posted on Sun Jul 12 15:17:41 2009

Posted by: Dryade
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Ramtop Giants have learned a few different ways of doing things... the Yeti's deny trying to teach them new tricks, however encounters do seem to be a little different.

Luck!

194 Blog Informs, posted on Sun Jul 12 11:58:20 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

There is now an inform that you can opt-into for the blog postings. Again

193 Bottles, posted on Sun Jul 12 11:44:53 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You can now shake bottles that are in your inventory to judge how full they are without having to keep them open.

192 Hlep, posted on Sun Jul 12 11:32:20 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

The help command will now accept nicknames of spells and such.

191 So You Think You Can Dance?!, posted on Sat Jul 11 10:23:58 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Come on down to the Fez club and hop on the podium. You can now try your feet at dancing or bellydancing on the big block.

Be warned without some Djelian cultural skills, you're not going to impress anyone with your belly dancing techniques.

For anyone who gets on the podium, you'll find yourself doing some new moves that will be sure to impress your friends!

190 Taking An Inventory, posted on Thu Jun 25 21:24:32 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Inventory will now show the percentage you are burdened as well as just the descriptive burden string.

189 Sto Lat Wizards' Guildhouse, posted on Thu Jun 25 14:25:16 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

By public request, the Academy of Artificers in Sto Lat now has a newbie chest like other wizards' guildhouses.

You can find it in the small side library upstairs.

188 Full Moon Market Changes, posted on Wed Jun 24 16:03:53 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Am (domain pages)

Oscar Singleton, weapons salesman at the Full Moon Market, has purchased an order book and players can now "order" an item from him and he'll have it for them to "collect" the next time he turns up at the market. Usual drill applies: one item at a time, collect it before ordering another. You'll only be able to order things he would normally stock.

If there's enough demand, the other peddlers might get them too.

In other news, Tom Grandison will now have tiger fang scabbards from time to time, and Oscar has managed to find a source for specialty poniards as well as stilettos.

186 Lost Kingdom Found. No Reward Offered., posted on Mon Jun 22 22:26:13 2009

Posted by: Evis
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Sum Tyme Aygo, the Tomb of Coojibubu became a lost kingdom, hidden in the desert. The Tomb has now been found and returned to its rightful location in the Necropolis, and with it come tasks a-plenty.

184 Dolly Sisters Watch House, posted on Sat Jun 20 15:04:08 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Dolly Sisters Section House of the City Watch has just opened.

Some oldbies might recognise it, as it used to be on Short Street in Ye Olde Ankh-Morporke from the Days of Yore.

Exploring it should be fun and rewarding!

The Watch House is functional in the same way as the Main Watch House and the Long Wall Section House are, so criminals appended in the Dolly Sisters vicinity will now serve their sentences in the local prison.

Fluffs to those mythic creators who designed the building more than a decade ago!

183 Leaping (Off) Tall Buildings In A Single Bound, posted on Sat Jun 20 13:49:21 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Guilds

The roof of the wandering witch cottage is now somewhat harder to jump off than it has been in the past. For those with insufficient training in acrobatic exertions, the more conventional method of exiting the cottage might be safer.

182 New Stalls In The Bazaar, posted on Fri Jun 19 07:43:35 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Two new stalls will be popping up in the Djelibeybi Bazaar.

A shopkeeper living a charmed life now sells a selection of Klatchian themed charms and bracelets.

A buggy stallkeeper has been collecting little critters and sells them now as wearable pets.

So the next time you're in the area, be sure to pop into a stall, you never know when you'll find something new in the bazaar!

181 A Fairy Tale Name..., posted on Mon Jun 15 07:38:37 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Awaking from a bad dream, the pretty young Sle-pingh-beuh-tei has suddenly remembered her name.

She is now the kind of girl a wee witch my fly to if she needs some fashion advice.

180 Don't Be Hatin', posted on Sun Jun 14 15:36:20 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Underworld

You can now tear up the cards of creators you don't like. But you know, don't... because we love you.

179 Additions To The Klatchian Foreign Legion, posted on Sun Jun 14 06:51:19 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

A new mess hall has been written by Vershik and added to the Klatchian Foreign Legion outpost. The sleeping area now also doubles as a hospital and may be of interest to anyone wanting to hone their firstaid skills.

178 Listen Very Carefully, I Will Say This Only Once, posted on Sat Jun 13 16:35:24 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The Listening Monks have taken careful note of the increased number of visitors coming via the new carriage routes, and decided to give their temple a bit of a spring clean.

The scriptorium and library have had a bit of an upgrape, Brother Hotpot the kitchen monk has agreed to take on some extra help, unassuming acolyte Vendible Bead has been put in charge of the new commercial branch of the temple's operations, and Abbot Lobsang has finally come out of the closet about his favourite hobby.

177 Cabbage Killer, Qu'est-ce Que C'est?, posted on Sat Jun 13 15:38:23 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

To bring them in line with sheep-shearers and other non-combat NPCs, you can no longer backstab or ambush cabbages.

176 Our Harbour Is All Flipped Out!, posted on Sat Jun 13 04:00:56 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Are you wandering around lost, aimlessly looking for the harbour?

Do not panic, its just gone south to the other side of the river...back closer to Djelibeybi where it always should have been.

Yes update your maps, hire a cartographer, buy a compass, get some directional skills...

You'll find it if you just try.

175 Feint, posted on Fri Jun 12 12:20:42 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Feint is now using tactics as the defensive skill again. Some extra limitations have been added which should help make it less powerful.

174 God Wrath For Insolent Behaviour, posted on Wed Jun 10 06:44:04 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

It's probably common sense, but don't disturb the holy cairns in Djelibeybi.

You've been warned.

Jewels

173 Real Estate Faces Reality, posted on Tue Jun 9 19:58:05 2009

Posted by: Evis
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

For days, weeks, months, years gone by, the Djelibeybi real estate office has been a law unto itself, handing out blacklists with only Put knowing how to remove them afterwards! But no more!

The Djelibeybi magistrates now hold the power to modify this list-that-isn't-white as they see fit.

172 SILENCE In The Library!, posted on Mon Jun 8 10:05:13 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

I've made some changes to the code which stops you casting spells or performing rituals in Unseen University's library. The result is that you still can't, but you can perform tricks with your yo-yo or solos on your musical instrument now.

While I was there, I installed some reading lecterns for the books to stand on, rather than just having them lying around unhygienically as they had been for years.

171 Wizard Clouds, posted on Sun Jun 7 10:36:37 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Wizards can now order clouds to change colour, so as to better distinguish their clouds when working with other wizards. Or to make sure that their outfits don't clash.

170 He's Just A Big Softie Really, posted on Sat Jun 6 23:59:08 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Greebo is getting on in years, and will now cause players to fumble a maximum of two items from their inventory should he swipe them or rub against them.

169 AFK, posted on Wed Jun 3 14:48:04 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

Skade has recently implemented the 'afk' command. Not only can you
inform people who talk you you of your afk status, you can also
write a custom message for their amusement.

Ptoink

On Behalf of Skade

168 Djelian Business Picks Up With Improved Advertising, posted on Wed Jun 3 03:31:33 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

For Crying Out Loud...

The word is out on the street. The Djelibeybi madmen have taken employment with one Djopra Phaci.

She's located in a small hut in the hood, which operates as a full service Djelian messaging operation.

If you want to list, add or delete messages for the madmen, you can do that at her hut - but for a fee.

The madmen are always still willing to take direct payments of course (and cutting out the middleman can save you money).

167 The Quick And The Saved, posted on Mon Jun 1 17:02:05 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

As hinted in my last post, there is a Second Phase to the changes. New
players no longer have to play for 30 minutes before saving. This is to
work around abusable bugs.

Cheers,

Ptoink

166 Weight Watching, posted on Mon Jun 1 16:07:20 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

The weight of _new_ players is no longer random. All new players will
begin with a weight of 80 kilos. Rearranging will affect this in the
usual way.

This change was made to remove the incentive to create a swarm of throw-away
characters, searching for a high initial number of hitpoints. Without such
swarms, we can make some other changes that we need to make to close some
abusable loopholes.

Cheers,

Ptoink

165 Makeup Remover, posted on Mon Jun 1 00:24:39 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

Some kinds of makeup were not being properly washed off by water. Now they are.

Ptoink

164 Djelibeybi Loves Learning, posted on Mon Jun 1 00:20:36 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Djelibeybi has a new language school!

Massive renovations occured, and in light of the perpetual flooding during Inundation, the main classrooms were moved upstairs to the newly added second floor.

Come to the school if you're foreign and want to learn Djelian, or to learn Ephebian and Morporkian for the locals.

Make sure you grab a snack from the vending machine in the student lounge, and return your textbook when you've passed your final exam.

163 Under Achievers, posted on Sun May 31 17:15:16 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You can now view the list of all achievements that have never been achieved, both through the web interface and through the 'list never achieved' syntax of the achievements command. 

162 My Witch Has No Nose! How Does She Smell? Cleavagelicious!, posted on Sun May 31 16:30:05 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

In the past, if you had suffered some sort of witch-related accident and ended up with no nose, and then put on and tightened a corset, when you logged off and back on again you'd find it in your inventory rather than clasping your waist and cleavage in its firm yet loving grip.

I have now surgically removed the corsets' sense of smell, and they will no longer object in this manner.

161 Fixing Up Fix, And, Er, Insert Pun On Leatherworking Here, posted on Sun May 31 14:50:22 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

You can now leatherwork things which appraise as being made of dragonhide, patent leather, suede, or snakeskin as well as just "leather".

Fixing jewellery has changed slightly - now, all the different types of gold (red gold, rose gold, and so on) will use the goldsmithing skill, as will platinum.

If you find you can't fix or leatherwork something you think you should be able to, or if it's using the wrong skill, let us know.

160 Submitting Craft Patterns And Sheet Music, posted on Thu May 28 00:38:45 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

Two new categories have been added to the "idea special" syntax, they
are "sheet_music" and "craft_patterns". These can be used to submit ideas
for new patterns for pottery, embroidery, quilting, bodging, goldsmithing
and engraving, and new sheet music for musical instruments.

If you are interested in submitting ideas, please read the appropriate
help file: "help craft patterns" or "help sheet music".

These new categories should only be used to submit idea reports for
complete patterns or music. Typos and issues with existing patterns
should be reported on the relevant items.

158 Smashable Guitars, posted on Mon May 25 00:40:11 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

Mrs. Daycoparge in the Musicians' Guild in AM now sells a decoratable guitar that

can be smashed, for all you Music With Rocks In star wannabes out there.

157 Band Aid II, posted on Sun May 24 21:06:35 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

And as a result of Popular Demand, bandaging will also automatically draw bandages from your identified component pouch as well as an identified medicine bag.

156 Band Aid, posted on Sun May 24 12:08:52 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You can now identify a container as a 'medicine bag', and have the bandage command automatically pull bandages from there. The syntax is simply 'bandage <target>'. You can also choose to bandage targets with specific bandages as before.

155 Blog Latest, posted on Sun May 24 01:36:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You can now view the latest blog on a blog using the 'blog view 'blog' latest'. Keep up to date with the news!

154 Cunning, posted on Sat May 23 22:41:02 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Mudlib

Your known languages and language skills can now be check with the "languages" command. They didn't quite make it with the rest of the people skills, but fear not - they still work exactly like they did before!

153 An Adventure For Other People, posted on Sat May 23 20:12:44 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Mudlib

The "other" tree has been split into "people" and "adventuring". This is in order to advance our agenda of making skills better categorized and defined!

The only practical effect of this should be that the points and teaching skills have been cloned, but there will be more to come in the future!

152 Colours And Combat Feedback, posted on Fri May 22 17:42:46 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You can now set the colour of the combat feedback messages - it's 'combatfeedback' for a flag, and can be done using the 'colours' command in the normal fashion. You'll need to SU to do it if you're online at the time of this being posted!

151 Combat Feedback, posted on Fri May 22 13:06:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

There's a lot of stuff going on in the combat system that you never get any kind of feedback on. Well, to go along with the modified 'you struggle to hold' message, I've added more feedback throughout the process so you can see some of the things that get taken into account in the process. You switch them on in the same way you switch on the 'struggle to hold' by using 'options combat weapon_warnings'.

Now, some caveats!

1) There's a combat option that has been added to the bug/idea/typo reporting syntax. It was switched off in the past because people used it as a generic 'Oh, I guess it's related to there'. Please, only report issues specifically related to combat with it. Doing otherwise is an excellent way of getting your report ignored.

2) No changes have been made to the combat system. All that has changed is that you can get reports on *how* the combat system is calculating your attacks.

3) The reports are slowed beyond you getting it for every instance of an modification. What happens is it checks to see if you are advantaged/disadvantaged by other factors, and then it rolls a dice to see if you get an inform. It's not supposed to give you up to the second diagnostic reports, it's only there to expose some of the hidden workings of the combat system so you can make meaningful choices about how to gear up or down.

4) If you want to make reports on this system, please do - but please don't use it as an excuse to complain about how combat works. We know there are some issues with it, but we are not at the stage where we can meaningfully change it. When we are, you'll know!

Those of you who are online at the time of me posting this will have to SU for the messages to take effect.

Regards,

Drakkos

P.S. Don't put *too* much stock into the messages you get at first - there are undoubtedly kinks that remain to be ironed out! Your reports are welcome on things that you think are being reported incorrectly.

150 Go On, Give It A Kick!, posted on Wed May 20 14:18:46 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

In order to facilitate proper disposal of any magical doors that may be surplus to requirements, you may now kick them or push them with your staves as an alternative to shoving them.

149 We Need More Stats, Stat!, posted on Wed May 20 00:44:59 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Mudlib

Picking your rearrange is one of the more permanent and important decisions on the MUD, and requires thinking about a number of factors. A large number of these are how your choice of rearrange will affect important skills. It seems bizarre, therefore, that there is no easy-access information telling you how each skill is mapped to your stats.

Well, now there is. "skills <skill> stats" will tell you the stats composition of each skill, as there is really no reason why this information should not be freely and easily available. Enjoy!

148 Celestial Timekeeping, posted on Tue May 19 19:02:58 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Those with a sufficiently high skill in other.direction (I know, but it's the best match we have) can now tell the time... to a degree... by looking at the sun and the moon. The better your skills, the more accurately you can do so. 

147 Giving Old Buffers A New Lease Of Life, posted on Tue May 19 11:07:44 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

It's been brought to my attention that Heezlewurst's Elemental Buffer has been both underused and underuseful for a while now.

Accordingly, I've halved the spell size, slightly more than halved the gp cost (because it scales drastically with more crystals), and increased the floor on the amount of damage it will protect against.

Go wild.

146 Deputy Deliverer, posted on Mon May 18 22:38:39 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

I fixed this lovely little quest that had apparently been broken for almost 7 years and reactivated it.

145 Yet More Fixes To Spells, posted on Mon May 18 14:57:18 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

Crystal balls will now be blocked by Kipperwald's Perlustration Prevention, in the same way Floron's Fabulous Mirror is.

Scolorid's Scintillating Scribbling no longer counts colour codes towards its 88 characters.

Skeleton warriors will now accept & equip weapons and armour their owner gives them, and should also follow through divine hand now.

Turnwhistle's Effulgent Autiridescence will now consume the lantern rather than the shimmering glass nugget. I've also added an extra stage, using convoking.

Kelleflump's Irritating Demon will now show the hp monitor every time it does damage to you on a backfire, or to a PK target. 

144 Hitting Too Much Harder Now That You're No Longer Hitting Less Harder Than You Should Be, posted on Mon May 18 13:16:35 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

The recent fix to the combat code had the side-effect of making almost everyone hit like a truck filled with other trucks. As such, I reduced the damage bonus that exceptional hits will do.

This is still very much a buff from the state before the fix (because you were doing less damage than a normal hit), but brings the damage back into line. I am still monitoring the situation - more adjustments may be forthcoming.

143 Some More Changes To Spells, posted on Sun May 17 20:19:48 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

Myrandil's Vicious Seizure: Previously, we got the same failure message ("An inebriated barge sailor tries to leave, but is held in place by the hands.") when they didn't have enough gp as when they failed the skillcheck. I've silenced that, so combat in fields of undead hands should be less spammy now.

Small blue lights and glowing moths will now actually stop fighting you when you get the message "You get fed up with seeing the small blue light dodge aside, so you stop fighting it." They should now be less lethal.

It should now be less possible to knock floating shields and utensils out of orbit with very weak attacks. Their vulnerability to stronger attacks remains unchanged, but note that there's still a random factor involved.

Stacklady's Morphic Resonator will no longer make you attack the newly emfroggened target. They may still decide to attack you.

Master Glimer's Amazing Glowing Thing can no longer be cast on items you're wearing. Or on the funnel you're using to cast it with.

Have fun!

Touchstone

142 Let's Stay Positive, posted on Sun May 17 17:47:23 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

This one's from Pit, who did the complicated parts.

Due to various bugs with negative floats in player shops, it is now no longer possible to withdraw from a player bank franchise if the float can not cover it. In practice, this means franchise owners will need to keep the float at a reasonable level to allow sufficient withdrawals from their bank.

If you notice other ways for the float of a commercial property to turn negative, please report them.

141 Don't Pigeon-hole Me, posted on Sun May 17 11:35:41 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: General

I've rejigged the layout of the ever-popular board summary page. You'll now find that every board has been categorised into one of a small number of categories, for your pleasure and convenience!

140 Struggling Along, posted on Sun May 17 09:49:45 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

I have changed the way the 'struggle to hold' informs work, on the grounds that they were somewhat inconsistent and did not give meaningful feedback. The message was designed to show you when you were using a weapon (or a pair of weapons) that were going to give you combat penalties.

I have broken the message away from the wielding code (because it didn't actually reflect how the combat code worked), and moved it into combat. If you want periodic warnings about your weapon weight, you can switch it on with options combat weapon_warning = on (and similarly, you can switch it off). The messages are periodic - you will get them every now and again, not constantly.

This change makes no alterations to *how* the penalties have been calculated - if you find yourself fighting with a penalty, that's a penalty you have *always* been fighting with. Absolutely no difference to your combat abilities come from this change. None at all. NONE.

Note, the fact you are working with a penalty does not mean that this is a *bad* weapon for you, it just shows you are not strong enough to get full damage out of it. It may still be your best choice - this message is not a substitute for experimenting until you find your own ideal combination of weapons and damage output.

139 Hitting Harder Than Before, posted on Sun May 17 02:00:53 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

As a result of a small fix to the combat code, you may find yourselves doing a little more damage. Previously, if you got an exceptional hit on an opponent, you did 75% of the damage instead of 150%. Now the damage for that attack is correctly calculated.

137 Caught Red Handed, posted on Sat May 16 22:22:49 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Red-hilted daggers will no longer take quite so much damage when being used

136 Nun Chucking, posted on Sat May 16 22:13:42 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

The golden dragon, plain wood and silver dragon nunchakus have been changed to no longer drain GP on use

135 Spell Changes, posted on Sat May 16 20:13:03 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

Some changes to spells:

There was a bug whereby spells wouldn't use up their reagents if you were wearing them, but would still work. Now they'll neither use them up nor work (it will give the same failure message as it does when you use something you're keeping).

Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon no longer requires you to be evil to cast it. The same spell sometimes backfires even when you succeed; your demonological amulet will now protect you from that, if worn.

Narquin's Mist of Doom can now be cast using any sharp/piercing knife, on the basis that even if it doesn't have a long enough edge to make slashing attacks you can still slice open a cooperative target.

Wungle's Great Sucking can no longer be cast on targets who do not have a heart.

The fireflies summoned by Hag's Blessing are now slightly less lethal when attacked accidentally.

In other news, Master Brimstone (in the Sto Lat Academy of Artificers) has been persuaded to relax his restrictions on how quickly you can use his recharging alcove again. Gaelen can be extremely persuasive.

Have fun!

- Touchstone

134 Feignting, posted on Sat May 16 19:44:02 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

As a result of a small technical hiccup, the defence check for the new feint has been reverted back to dodge/parry/block, but will undoubtedly change back snoo!

133 Blogging About Blogs, posted on Sat May 16 16:46:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Those you are fans of the blog can now access the text while in the game by using the 'blog' command. 

132 Feint And Abscond, posted on Sat May 16 04:09:01 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

The defense skill for "feint" has changed from dodge/parry/block to fi.sp.tactics and feints can now be done unarmed.

In addition to this, it is now possible to abscond after a feint.

131 Greetings 2 U, posted on Sun May 10 21:40:55 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Greeter Imps have received a firamentware upgrade and can now remember up to twenty chats for greeting people. They also now only express their greetings to players.

130 Combat, Briefly, posted on Sun May 10 15:43:00 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

Combat brief no longer suppresses the mention of NPCs moving aggressively towards you, since that's information you Need To Know

129 Generally Concise, posted on Sun May 10 15:29:32 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

General shops now have a 'list brief' option that gives a more compact notation for the contents of their inventory

128 Spell Fixes, posted on Sun May 10 13:28:42 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

A couple of ideas have been implemented and bugs fixed with some spells:
Using "shields" or looking at yourself/someone with a chalk skin created by
Chrenedict's Calcareous Covering now gives some indication of how many
layers are left. There has been no change in the strength etc.

A bug was fixed with sentient cabbages which means that eating several quickly won't
over-inflate the achievements progress, nor should the unpleasant side-effects be
so extreme.

The component problems with Calm Embrace of Illusionary Beauty should be fixed.
Independent Recurring Vocaliser now uses the language of the caster.

127 Achievements Syntax, posted on Sat May 9 21:28:39 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

A new syntax has been added to the achievements command - 'progress'. It shows only your progress in the specified achievement, without all the other details.

126 Moonlit Market Item Restrictions, posted on Wed May 6 00:54:10 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Am (domain pages)

The Moonlit Market peddlers have become a bit fed up with other people reselling their stock at inflated prices, and banded together.

You'll now have to wait a short while after buying something (up to five minutes) before you can buy another of the same item.

So you'll still be able to buy up items for your vaults or player-shops (or just to acquire a matched set), but it will take longer and require you to negotiate with other players who might be there instead of spamming "buy" and hoping you get in first.

125 Go On, Don't 'ave A Drink Wif Me, posted on Sun May 3 10:25:15 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Mudlib

Ignore will now be honoured when people attempt to buy drinks for you. Additionally, you can no longer be bought a drink if you have switched off your autoaccept give option. 

124 Evasion, posted on Thu Apr 30 22:41:29 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

After reading through several idea reports about how pursue works, I've added an option for you to be able to suppress your evasion.

options combat suppress_evade = on

This will stop you actually trying to escape pursuers. They get a skill check to see whether they notice they are actually being led around.

Drakkos

123 PK Ladder: More Targets!, posted on Thu Apr 30 10:05:45 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Playerkillers

A quick change: for every 10 ranks below the top ten, you'll get an extra target. So four targets for ranks 11-20, five for 21-30, and so on. This is to keep things more fluid in the lower end of the ladder while keeping things competitive higher up.

Enjoy!

121 Never Too Early To Plan For The Future, posted on Tue Apr 28 21:10:58 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Wolfgang "We put 'em six feet under" Weidendorf, the coffin maker in Uberwald's unnamed town, has made a few modifications to his coffins to let them be placed as playerhouse furniture. He's also made sure that corpses can now be hefted _out_ of them as well as in!

119 All Bazaar Exits Lead In..., posted on Mon Apr 27 07:25:14 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

A couple of minor bug fixes happened today that will make entering or exiting stalls (aka tents) in the bazaar a little more sensible. In particular you will notice the enter message is a bit nicer if you're following someone into a tent. Also you can refer to the stalls as tents..so enter stall could be enter tent. Lastly you can leave a tent with 'leave' or 'out'. Whatever your point of view it should be easier to get in or out of the stalls at the bazaar! If you previously idea'd this, consider it finally fixed!

118 Withdrawal Symptoms, posted on Mon Apr 27 02:30:28 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: General

It is now possible to specify denominations when you withdraw money from banks. This may not appear in every bank until the next reboot. The new syntax is

withdraw <amount> in <denomination>

so you could type

>withdraw 2 forins in livres

and get livres rather than forins. Note that this only works within currency regions: you can't use

> withdraw 2 forins in dollars

to bypass the money changers.

This change was requested by Hagi. May his camels never run dry.

117 Teaching, posted on Sun Apr 26 00:53:07 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Due to the excessive computational cost, it is now only possible to teach a maximum of ten levels of a time of a root skill (crafts, fighting, covert, etc, etc)

116 Ladder Refinements, posted on Sun Apr 26 00:18:25 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Playerkillers

A few tweaks to improve your PK ladder experience:

1) Being offline for more than 7 days flags you as being "inactive". Inactive people will show up on the ladder view in cyan, with [inactive] by their name.

2) Inactive people are not counted as possible targets. Therefore your three targets will be the three people ahead of you in the list, skipping over any inactives.

3) Every 24 hours, all inactive players will drop one rank until they fall off the bottom of the ladder. This means it's fine to not log on for a week or so, but for example, if you go offline for 20 days you'll drop 13 places.

4) Minor change: killers view ladder <name> will now colour the output for the person you're checking, so you can see who their targets and threats are.

110 Blue Tooth Earrings, posted on Fri Apr 24 17:46:22 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Forn (domain pages)

A really minor blog posting here, but a new item of jewellery - a blue tooth earring, has been added to the Magic Box in Genua in response to a player idea. They suggested that it would be the ultimate in talkerisable accessories, and who am I to disagree?

No-one, that's who.

Drakkos.

107 Impact Shield Colours, posted on Wed Apr 22 19:31:15 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

The colour changes that accompany impact shield absorbption were previously blocked by having on the 'brief combat' option - now they're not.

106 Democracy, posted on Wed Apr 22 01:51:08 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

Krimpal, our newest member, has introduced democracy to the black market. 

105 Greeter Imps, posted on Tue Apr 21 20:34:03 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Greeter imps have been made available as playershop furniture, available from the... uh... spulluf in the Normal Fashion. They are the latest in technomancy, incorporating multi-character memories and extensive support for language localization.

104 Quacked Out, posted on Mon Apr 20 22:41:55 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Hi,

Another simple minor achievement for Ankh-Morpork.

102 Shields For TPA/major Shield, posted on Sat Apr 18 02:08:34 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

This is a repost of the blog entry that was eaten by a bug:

Major shields and TPAs cast with any shield that is not a proper shield
(i.e. one that cannot be used in combat to block) will now be significantly
less effective than those created with a proper shield.
This was changed to address the problem of some players having access to
origami paper shields that were considerably lighter and smaller than others
available. These shields were later removed but it was not practical to remove
them from individual players.

There was already a penalty in place for using paper shields in major shield
and TPA and a bonus for using a real shield in major, and in some cases
you would have been informed of this but not in others. This new method is
fairer and will work for any other objects added in the future that are
"shields" that cannot block.

On a related note, a new small leather shield has been added to the leather
shop on the Plaza of Broken Moons in Ankh-Morpork and to several armouries
in various warrior outposts.

Edit:

Since some people have asked about it:

- Those people who were using a real shield for major shield before the
change may find it slightly less effective now. This is because before the
change a bonus was being given for real shields, nothing for pewter and
a penalty for paper shields. Since now only real shields and fake
shields are considered, the bonus is gone and instead there is only the
penalty for shields that aren't used in combat.

- Those people who were using fake shields for TPA may notice increased
effectiveness when now using real shields. This is because fake shields
were being penalised before (even though you weren't getting a message
about it). Those who were using real shields before should notice no
difference.

Also, paper shields were not the only consideration, this change also
means that if any items in the future that are described as shields are
created they won't be able to be used to create full strength TPAs/majors
unless they are proper shields.

101 Top Ten Tables, posted on Fri Apr 17 21:37:21 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

To clear up all the crazy, zany creator guilds and gods from the top ten tables, I've changed the way they are architected internally. A side effect of this is that the current values for the tables have been wiped - they'll rebuild themselves over the new few days/weeks in the normal fashion.

100 AM Achievements, posted on Fri Apr 17 16:41:24 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

A number of Achievements went live in AM a couple days ago.

Most are related to crime: "hoodlum","needs to learn the words","felt the force","vandal", "public enemy number one","renegade", "menace to society","jailbird" and "bail bonder".

Then there is also Dogbottler's Friend.

Due to some issues recently, the previous blogs were eaten and most bug/ideareport statuses about this project were reset. So give me a few days to catch up there ;)

99 Achievements Checking, posted on Fri Apr 17 16:23:08 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

There's a new syntax available on the achievements command - it's 'achievements check' and lets you check for one specific achievement. No need to wait for legacy to kick on, or for the automated checking to trigger in situations where it is delayed.

Drakkos.

98 Crystal Eggs, posted on Fri Apr 17 16:08:26 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Sur

These can now be smashed to produce thaum bombs in the same way that the crystal balls can. They produce two shards per egg.

97 Wallets, posted on Fri Apr 17 15:49:44 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Sur

The Wallet Shop in Sto Lat has been reinstated. Since we really don't know if the money container bug is gone, you would be CRAZY MAD FOOLS to use them.

Drakkos

96 Discworld Creator Manuals, posted on Fri Apr 17 15:48:08 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Repost of this, since our last few blog posts have gone missing.

There is now a new option from the 'creating' menu called 'creator manuals'. In here you will find the PDF text of four booklets on being a creator. Together, they comprise around 170,000 words, and as such you should make yourself a delicious cup of tea before cracking them open.

Drakkos

88 Polls, And The Polling Thereof, posted on Thu Apr 9 11:05:13 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

The display of the polling results through both the MUD command and the web-page has been changed so they are displayed in descending order of popularity.

Drakkos

87 LADDER, posted on Wed Apr 8 00:42:16 2009

Posted by: Dasquian
Category: Playerkillers

The idea of a PK ladder caught my interest, so I coded it. You can find all of the relevant commands through "syntax killers", and you can advance by killing any of the three people above you in the list. Enjoy!

86 Edible Crayons, posted on Mon Apr 6 21:41:05 2009

Posted by: Runtime
Category: Mudlib

Many people thought it would be a good idea to be able to eat their coloured crayons. So now you can.

85 Scented Inks, posted on Sat Apr 4 19:21:15 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

If you had any scented ink in your ink collections, it will have randomised itself into a new and exciting colour instead.

This is down to some changes I've made in the way they're coded. I know you're all going to be really disappointed, because you loved your cat urine-scented and Klatchian camel-dung scented inks, but fear not! All the scents you knew and loved will be available soon in a new all-scented-all-the-time format, wherever ink is sold. Well, many places where ink is sold.

Ink that is not scented shouldn't be affected, and things you previously dyed with scented ink won't be affected either.

84 Thaumometers, posted on Sat Apr 4 11:27:08 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Thaumometers are now able to be used by non-wizards.

83 Knock Knock Knocking Off Djeli Walls, posted on Sat Apr 4 10:26:29 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The walkway along the top of the walls of Djelibeybi have always been a bit of a precarious route, and it can get very crowded up there.

Be careful up there of anyone trying to 'knock' you off!

82 Paintable Furniture, posted on Fri Apr 3 09:34:41 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

There are now two shops that sell furniture that can be decorated with
stencils or appliques, painted (with wall paint) or polished (with beeswax).

One shop is located on Phedre Road in Ankh-Morpork and another can be found
in Mad Stoat.

Thanks to Brandi for the furniture, shop and NPC descriptions for Mad Stoat
and Chilali for the descriptions for AM.

80 Gaze And Longsight, posted on Mon Mar 30 20:09:52 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

To make Longsight and Gaze consistent with the newly consistent crystal balls and FFM, Gaze and Longsight have similarly been changed to a PK assistance check rather than a straight up PK check. Remember, usual rules on NPK/PK interactions apply!

Drakkos 

79 Floron's Fabulous Mirror, posted on Mon Mar 30 09:57:00 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

In order to make this work in a consistent way with the crystal balls, the check for this has been changed from a straight PK check to a PK assistance check.

This should not be interpreted as permission for NPKs to interfere in PK activities - we already have rules in place for that. You may think 'Ah, they'll never know when that's happening', but trust us, WE KNOW.

Drakkos.

78 Klein Bottles, posted on Sun Mar 29 11:41:32 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Aquilo has made a small change to Klein bottles; opening a bottle and releasing the spell in it will now increase background magic levels instead of giving it a chance to reform.

77 Playing With Your Balls, posted on Sat Mar 28 16:05:10 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Sur and General

Crystal balls are making a triumphant return to the game, albeit with numerous changes! For one, there are different skill checks, for another there are more skill checks, and for another still they now get distorted by high background magic. You can also smash them for Fun and Profit and access to Thaum Crystals.

Enjoy, until they need to be taken out of the game again![1]

Drakkos

[1] We've struggled to make the balls fun and balanced for years, and there's no reason to assume we've now hit the magic balance. The exact numbers involved may change without notice!

76 Bizarre Bazaar Bugs Banished, posted on Fri Mar 27 03:22:34 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Our newest Klatchian creator, Evis, has finally tracked down and squashed the annoying little bug that caused the bazaar stalls to behave in mysterious and inconsistent ways. Moving in and out of stalls should simply just work. 

75 Sweet Tooth, posted on Mon Mar 23 16:56:24 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

The previously-anonymous sweetie shop keeper in Mad Wolf has finally decided to reveal his actual name, and in celebration of this has not only started stocking a new type of sweet, but also added a little extra reward for customers who spend lots of money in his shop; the achievement to look out for is Sweet Tooth.

74 New Achievements, posted on Mon Mar 23 01:58:02 2009

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: General

Put in Master of all Guilds, Diversified and Long-term Investor.

73 Sto Lat Academy Of Artificers, posted on Sat Mar 21 22:21:21 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Guilds

The Sto Lat wizards' guild has undergone a complete renovation, becoming a centre of excellence for the study of Artifice and Craft.

There are new spells, two new crafting systems, some new magical toys, and lots of fun little things to do, from sitting in the garden over a game of chess to playing darts or billiards in the bar.

Be careful around the boiler, though, it's experimental...

This has been a long time in the writing - the project was originally begun by Devon in 2004, and nearly everything still follows her original concept and plans. Lots of people have contributed code to it, most of which has made it into game, and I'm really pleased I've been able to work on something that's been around for so long and had so much enthusiastic creative input.

72 Riverwind, posted on Sat Mar 21 22:01:40 2009

Posted by: Bluius
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Hello!

I’ve been working hard helping the citizens of OC clean up after the terrible flooding many years ago in the area.

As such we have finally managed to clear Riverwind Road (those cobbles are hard to scrub!) This means the docks can be reached, and some lovely new people can be met!

Thanks for all the help!

Noko

71 Wan Bending Reed, posted on Fri Mar 20 19:42:00 2009

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: General and Cwc (domain pages)

Wan Bending Reed has expanded his weapon making skills to include some more descriptive names for his tried and tested weapons. Functionality hasn't changed at all. Thanks to various players for the ideas, especially Elera who provided the bulk :)

70 New Achievements, posted on Thu Mar 19 20:46:26 2009

Posted by: Trilogy
Category: General

Added Maxxed Out and Almost Useful, with copious help from Drakkos :)

69 Electoral Rolls, posted on Thu Mar 19 12:06:08 2009

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: General, Council and Web

I've added the ability to view the electoral rolls through the Player Council web pages. These numbers are fairly close to "real time", but please note that the roster may include inactive, deleted or (possibly) creator/test characters.

Enjoy!

68 A Question Of Language, posted on Wed Mar 18 03:44:42 2009

Posted by: Jewels
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Djelian locals are now confirming rumours that a questionable quest has been removed from the local region. A high priest heard from a low priest who heard from a shopkeeper who heard from a customer who had heard from her daughter who had heard from her friend who had heard from her boyfriend who heard from his well travelled uncle about his recent encounter with the local language teacher. Apparently the teacher, formerly known for taking a huge interest in multilingual persons was only willing to acknowledge his obvious mastery of so many foreign languages but without his usual enthusiasm. The story is that his whole experience was questionably lackluster.

Why oh why? In the words of an old Djelian parable as found on a scroll from the tomb of a dead pharoah "what one has already achieved should not continue to be quested after." 

67 Crafts Achievements, posted on Mon Mar 16 17:47:56 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

The engraving, tanning, and dyeing achievements have been tweaked a bit - they're now more generous, in that you'll make progress towards the achievement with exceptional as well as masterwork pieces. (This is to bring them in line with the embroidery, quilting, and so on achievements, which already did this.)

Unfortunately, your past work won't count towards this any more than it already did (ie. you won't lose any progress, but you won't get a sudden jump in it) but your future progress will go more quickly.

For the avoidance of doubt, you can thank Trilogy for making it easier, and blame me for making it hard!

66 Quilting Blocks., posted on Sun Mar 15 22:47:01 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Special

You can now use the "tear" command to create quilting blocks from some clothes.

In some cases, the pattern on the material will also appear on the block, but
in others you will just get a block of the appropriate colour and material.

This will likely only apply to clothes that are newly bought or cloned.

63 Unpickability, posted on Sat Mar 14 23:32:08 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Flossette Crossweave, the tailor in Bad Ass, went on a little trip to visit her cousin the other week and learned a new embroidery trick - anything she embroiders from now on can be unpicked with the unpickers she sells in her shop. She's also a little more careful about the materials she'll agree to embroider on now. She is, however, always happy to hear your feedback if you think she's being too strict.

61 Shady Ladies, posted on Fri Mar 6 21:00:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Sur

The shady characters in Sto Lat will no longer deprive corpses of their jewellery, and will restrict themselves to taking all your monies. 

60 New Guilds Achievements, posted on Tue Mar 3 03:31:29 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Added some new achievements for Guilds.

For warriors: Bloodhound, Special, Burgeoning Bloodlust and Scary Shouter.

For priests: Connoisseur of Debris, Had Faith, Abstinence and Overprotective.

For thieves: Did the Laundry.

58 New Blog, posted on Sun Mar 1 09:18:04 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

A new blog has been added for informal commentary about the MUD - it's called, funnily enough, 'mud commentary'.

56 Reasons To Go Rambling, posted on Sun Mar 1 02:18:23 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

During a rather scandalously drunken meeting in the Goat and Bush, the (very loose and unofficial) association of Ramtops tradespeople somehow came to the agreement that people who choose to patronise their businesses should be suitably rewarded. The sole representative who managed to overcome their hangover long enough to make a statement has informed us that "Jason's Journeyman" and "Ramtops Fashion Plate" are the achievements to look out for.

55 Birthday Beats, posted on Sat Feb 28 11:23:52 2009

Posted by: Pit
Category: General

For all those who don't like cake, birthday cards, blowing out candles and everyone congratulating them, it is now possible to reset your birthday; simply use: options personal birthday = none.

Please note that it is still impossible to change your birthday more than once every 30 days, and this includes setting it to none.

54 Discworld Quiz Category, posted on Wed Feb 25 13:16:41 2009

Posted by: Taffyd
Category: General and Quiz

Kaylar has kindly worked on a new 'Discworld' category for Mr Quiz (accessible through the Quiz channel on your talker). Please give it a go and let us know how you like it!

You can start a quiz with only Discworld questions with the '!start Discworld' command.

I've also managed to track down the bug which was stopping the TV and TV/Movies (renamed now to TV & Movies for consistency) categories from working, so all you television fans can get your quiz fix now.

53 Some Achievements, posted on Mon Feb 23 12:38:21 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Some new achievements have been added to the game. They are: Bully, The Passenger, Consecrator and I Get Knocked Down.

52 About Us, posted on Mon Feb 16 15:53:01 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Web

I've added an 'about us' link to the web-page, showing when we've been mentioned in external media. If you see any other references to the MUD in somewhere interesting, drop me a line so it can be included:

https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/about/about.html

Drakkos.

51 Thief Tweaks, posted on Mon Feb 16 09:24:17 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Have been implementing some idea reports:

There are two new (hidden) rooms in the AM Thieves' Guild. One has a secret exit to
AM. Failing a climb while looking for these rooms may cause injury.

Added an NPC peddler to the Mad Stoat outpost to sell basic supplies.

49 Miscellaneous Clothes Bugfixes, posted on Mon Feb 16 01:08:50 2009

Posted by: Touchstone
Category: Special

Sadly, the Special blog isn't about cool and unusual things like player shops and horses and custom secret volcano hideaways (well, unless we have a fit of inspiration and write any) - I'm just going to use it for "things that don't fit neatly into any other domain".

In this case, it's a pile of small changes to clothes - or, at least, explanations for things you might notice and be confused by.

* The thwabs from NPCs wandering around in Djelibeybi are now thobes. This is because 'thobe' is a better representation of the Arabic. You can still refer to them as thwabs, though, so your looting aliases may still work! The associated guttrahs aren't nearly as over-valuable as they were, though.

* Silk desert cloaks no longer swing wildly between too warm and too cooling. They'll now just stop having any warming effect when it gets unusually warm in the room.

* You can no longer wear pig-faced bascinets at the same time as another helmet. That was just silly. Sorry.

* Some belts are now wearable over robes, chainmail hauberks, and so on, but still under cloaks. I haven't yet finished deciding which ones should be which, so wait a week or two before you rep saying that a particular one should or shouldn't be.

* If you wear sandals, congratulations - you can now see your stockings, toe rings, or even socks through them, instead of having them covered up.

* If you're wearing socks without shoes, and a long dress or a pair of trousers, everyone will now be able to see said socks. And the holes in them. Put some shoes on!

* Flowing silk kaftans will no longer disappear when you put on a helmet. They'll also play nicely with hats, which they didn't before.

* Some things will go over or under other things in slightly different ways from how you've been used to. It shouldn't affect any armour, apart from the aforementioned pig-faced bascinet. Also...

* If the exigencies of personal protection require you to wear a steel collar (or similar piece of hardware) then you can now cover it up with a stylish scarf.

Have fun!

48 Finders Keepers, posted on Sun Feb 15 12:03:18 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

Priest NPCs will no longer keep fumbled weapons unto thee ende of dayes. They will instead drop your precious weapons after a couple of minutes.

It will most likely take a reboot for this to fully propogate through the system.

47 Thief Meeting Room Changes, posted on Sun Feb 15 11:35:33 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

There have been a few changes in the thief chapter room in the AM Guild. Meetings can

now be ended by the thief who started it, or by Guild Admin. And up to five logs

of past meetings are now kept.

46 I Think I See The Floor In This Plan, posted on Sun Feb 15 10:34:14 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Good news for Djelian residents; Jewels has added three new characters to furbish your properties with new floorings.

Though you might want to be careful about putting carpet in if you live on the flood plain.

45 Hashishim Cliff Climbing Changes, posted on Sun Feb 15 07:16:46 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Climbing in the Hashishim cliff has now changed to the method using "climb assess".

There is now a chance of injury if you fall while climbing.

44 Temple Toys Tweaked, posted on Sat Feb 14 22:52:18 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Being a little fed up of a few things not working properly, the Monks of Cool and the Listening Monks recently called in their maintenance teams, and a couple of long-standing issues have been fixed.

Firstly, the impball table in the temple of Cool now lets you "abandon" a game, so it should no longer be possible for the table to get into a state where nobody can play. Secondly, the high score table for the Exclusive Possession board in the temple of the Listening Monks is now registering high scores again. Time to pay a visit and see if you can knock all the creators off the table!

43 Decorating The Djelian Domiciles, posted on Wed Feb 11 10:23:32 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Jewels has been busy and has not only added a bunch of new colours to the Djelian paint store, but also a new wallpaper stall to the bazaar. Next time you're in Djelibeybi during the day - check out the new designs.

If your house is below the flood level in Inundation[1], be sure to use water resistant paste!

[1] Don't worry, we won't be flooding your houses[2].

[2] Any time soon.

42 Klatch Bug Blitzing, posted on Tue Feb 10 01:36:41 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

The Klatch bug blitzing team (Jewels, Hagi, Dryade and Kake) have been doing lots of fixes here and there, here's a few of them:

* Maps should now work in the oasis

* The merchant sapphire quest should behave properly now

* You can now search in the Djelibeybi Harbour

* The Klatch webpages have had a bit of an upgrade

* A new dinnerset has been added to the Djelian silversmiths

* You can now get washed in the Ephebe Embassy in Djelibeybi

* Various changes to the Chronides Farmstead, including changes to the pottery

* Rham-pat Phoon will now also fix injured thumbs

41 Needles Mended, posted on Sun Feb 8 17:38:31 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: General

The small silver needles for mending clothing have had a small upgrape, and can now be used to mend things made out of velvet, and also things made out of hair (e.g. wigs).

Similarly, the heavy-duty needles used for leatherworking can now be used to mend things made out of suede.

Finally, a long-standing issue where the small needles would mysteriously agree to mend certain leather items has been solved; the leatherworking needle is now the one to use for all leather items.

40 AM Crimes, posted on Sun Feb 8 16:30:48 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

When you commit a crime in AM it can get added to your wrap sheet in two ways: either a watchman is present to see you commit it and he should act immediately, or a random law-abiding citizen notices it and reports it to the watch.

This does not mean there has to be an actual NPC present - it can just be one of the "people in the background". The chance of this happening is fairly small though.

This is not a completely new development as some code was already doing it. However I added it to the wanted posters and the street lamps when the posters were implemented.

39 Watchmen, posted on Sun Feb 8 16:27:31 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

I implemented some changes in the way watchmen handle arrests.

It should now be far less likely that they arrest the poor victimised NPC's instead of the evil players that are trying to kill them.

They should also be able to cooperate with each other more easily.

Do note that it will require a reboot before every watchman in the city acts this way.

38 Polling Login Inforn, posted on Sun Feb 8 10:33:04 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Hola.

Those of you who hate the login inform for the polls may now choose to suppress them through 'options output suppress_poll = on'. However, bear in mind that polling is your chance to have a say in MUD development decisions, and as such it's better for everyone if you don't switch it off 'just because'.

Drakkos

37 BP Language Institute, posted on Fri Feb 6 22:50:35 2009

Posted by: Qna
Category: Cwc (domain pages)

There have been some changes to the dictionary and exams because of the evil, evil, Ephebian capitalisation methods. The idea is not to make the exams any harder (easier for Ephebian for certain) so if these seem suddenly much harder then the bug command is your friend.

36 Puppeteer, posted on Fri Feb 6 11:33:57 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Nicholas Winston, the puppet-maker in Mad Stoat, is slowing down in his old age, and can no longer create puppets unrealistically quickly. However, old age also brings compassion, and so there's now an extra incentive for buying a deluxe puppet.

35 Polling, posted on Thu Feb 5 11:35:29 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Web and General

Sometimes, we would like to know things from the playerbase, and we don't have any way of putting simple questions across. In the spirit of addressing this, we've added a polling system to the web page (you may have to force a page refresh to see it) and to the MUD (the 'poll' command).

The current poll is just a test - please take a few minutes to try and break it before we start using it for Important Things.

Thanks,

Drakkos.

34 Djelibeybi Bazaar, posted on Tue Feb 3 22:39:54 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Hey all,

Not quite a new development, more of an ongoing one. The Djelibeybi Bazaar has been giving us some headaches of late (and of later)... there occasionally seems to be stalls which are enterable from two places at the same time (but with only one exit).

If you find such a stall and you can find Hagi, Kake, Jewels, or other keen creator online to look into it, we would be most grateful. (By the time you've bug reported and we've got round to looking at it, the problem is frequently fixed and we can't get any more info.)

Thanks,

#agi

33 Conlegium Sicariorum Renovations, posted on Tue Feb 3 22:15:41 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Changed the climbing wall in the Conlegium Sicariorum to use the climbing method
that allows climb assess to be used. This means that exits will no longer be
displayed, but there are still ways of seeing which way you can climb.

Added some Modern Art to the courtyard as well.

32 Votes And Topmudsites, posted on Tue Feb 3 16:29:52 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

This isn't really a development, just a bit of commentary. Perhaps there should be a blog for that, but there isn't (yet).

We managed to hit 3,200 votes last month - we usually hit the 2,000 mark. As a result of your diligent voting, upon the refresh of the site we hit #1 and kept it for a day and a half. Not bad when you consider the #2 MUD at the time has about double our playerbase! You guys rock.

Thank you all for your continued support of the MUD, and remember those of you who want to support us but just keep forgetting, you can switch on a reminder by using 'options output vote_reminder = on'.

Thanks!

Drakkos.

31 Refreshing And Achievements, Revisited, posted on Tue Feb 3 16:08:00 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

So, the change to restrict the spending of achievement XP based on guild level turned out to be a lot clunkier in practise than it was in theory, so I have reverted it. Sadly, this means that login and age achievements are no longer awarded upon refresh. Sad, but alas neccessary to prevent abuse. Those who have already been awarded their experience for the achievements will be grandfathered in.

Now, your login date and age achievements count from your first login, *or* your most recent refresh. Thus, they are awarded for the age of your current incarnation of the character, rather than being based on your character account.

30 Exits Command., posted on Sat Jan 31 23:11:52 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: General

A new "exits" command has been created to display obvious exits without the need to look.

This should work in most rooms.

29 Spiders Revitalised, posted on Fri Jan 30 16:22:24 2009

Posted by: Kake
Category: Ram (domain pages)

Following the discovery that the Gloomy Forest spiders really weren't pulling their weight in the poison department, we've poked and prodded them, and now they're fully venomous again. Time to stock up on anti-poison!

28 Top Criminals, posted on Wed Jan 28 21:17:46 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

I put a Most Wanted Board in the Pseudopolis Yard Watch House.

The top criminals (active players only) are listed here, as well as anyone who's been banished by the City Council.

27 Changes To Rooftops., posted on Wed Jan 28 19:54:40 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

Rooftops that use skillchecks were changed to use ot.acrobatics.vaulting and ot.acrobatics.balancing instead of rock climbing when jumping across roofs or balancing on slopes. Having some rock climbing may make the checks easier.

For members of the Conlegium Sicariorum doing the Run, this means they may need to advance a non-primary more than guild max (depending on stats). Some areas of the Run were made easier to account for this.

26 Changes For The Conlegium Sicariorum, posted on Wed Jan 28 19:46:28 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

January 21:

Added "r2" as a code for restricted books in the library. This level only allows graduate assassins and foreign colleagues to access the specified books. Moved the other codes above it up by one level.

Wrote a handler to keep track of "active" members of each house. The handler is then used to see which houses need new members. Houses low on members are more likely to have newbies assigned to them. Also gave a chance for female characters to be added to one of the male houses, if the numbers in Black Widow are three times greater than the smallest male house. Characters have the choice to join Black Widow if they still want to, though.

25 Ninja Roof Added, posted on Wed Jan 28 19:36:57 2009

Posted by: Kaylar
Category: Guilds

January 15th:

Added a roof to the Ninja guild. There are a couple of ropes leading from the guild to it, and exits from the roof to the city streets.

24 Refreshing, Achievements And Teaching, posted on Wed Jan 28 18:36:19 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

So, as is always the way, some Bad Eggs have attempted to spoil a nice thing for everyone. As is, I'm sure, open knowledge - if you refresh an old character, you'll get the achievement XP for age and login time again. This wasn't intentional behaviour (as in, it wasn't specifically designed to be like that), but I liked it and so didn't change it.

Alas, some people have been Taking Advantage of that, and so it's had to be changed a little. Now, you cannot spent achievement XP on learning from another player until you reach guild level 75. Achievement XP can be spent at the guild as before.

We will be keeping an eye on the situation, too...

EDIT, 03/02/2009: This turned out to be clunkier in practise than I would like, and so it has been changed, as outlined in a more recent announcement.

Drakkos

23 Grandfather Game, posted on Wed Jan 28 13:08:50 2009

Posted by: Pso
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Grandfather Game is angry that his son is spreading the Heathen Rules of the Game, and has started to offer players of sufficient power a chance to play The Big Game.

He awaits your pleasure in Sessifet. The fee is large, but so too is the prize...

19 Wanted Posters, posted on Mon Jan 26 21:52:40 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Wanted posters can now be found in various places in the city.

More related stuff to follow.

18 Greedier Pumpkins, posted on Mon Jan 26 18:11:08 2009

Posted by: Pit
Category: Liaison (domain pages)

The pumpkin dummy in Pumpkin Town will now only give up to 3 levels in each fighting skill "for free" (normal tms, at a much slower rate, are still possible though).

On the upside, it will also give you these three levels if you have done the fighting guild task first!

16 Mister Game, posted on Mon Jan 26 16:04:42 2009

Posted by: Pso
Category: Am (domain pages) and General

Mister Game has been added to Discworld. He can currently be found in Brother David's in Ankh-Morpork. He is the master of The Game, and you are all invited to play.

15 What's Going Down In Groove Town, posted on Mon Jan 26 12:59:59 2009

Posted by: Ptoink
Category: Forn (domain pages)

So! Domain blogs, eh? Looks like the web 2.0 bolloc^H^H^H^H^H^H fad is spreading. Still, since this forum is here, we might as well make use of it.

In that vein: Greetings from the Forn domain! I haven't decided on exactly what will be posted here, but I figured it would be good to start with an overview of what's happening. For various reasons, I'm not going into details - not least because they're subject to change. However, the broad brush strokes are as follows:

Forn is currently focussed on three areas: Genua, Krull and Llamedos. Genua currently encompasses Genua City and the village of Bois, which I'm sure you all know and... know. Krull will be a continent, with at least two cities, not to mention Cool Stuff such as the Circumfence and Over the Edge. Llamedos will be a place of druidic power and bardic songs, with flying rocks to boot (although you shouldn't boot flying rocks, lest you break toes).

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, we're rather light on available creators, and so we've had to put Llamedos on hold. Most creators are working to bring Krull into the light of day. I'm not going to say anything more about Krull, except that the vision is a fusion of steampunk and pirates.

Work on Genua is proceeding on several projects:

- Development of citizenship criteria, leading to player housing and player shops

- A method, not dissimilar to a grouped version of the Assassin's Run, of redeeming those silly sods who've gotten in over their heads with the Coffee Nostra

- Smarter NPC groups for your fighting pleasure.

- As always, fixing bugs.

So, that's probably enough for now.

Cheers,

Ptoink

Lord of Forn

12 Kissing Receipts, posted on Sat Jan 24 13:56:37 2009

Posted by: Pit
Category: General and Liaison (domain pages)

Missing item receipts can now be kissed by anyone, rather than just the original cloner as it used to be!

This follows on a recent development that made receipts try to fix themselves on every load, and will mainly affect receipts in playerhouses.

11 Coojibubu's Prizes, posted on Thu Nov 20 17:36:56 2008

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Rewards from Coojibubu's tomb (stat boosting items such as necklaces and headbands) will no longer function. We may put them back in game at some point in the future.

10 Indeh's Treasure, posted on Tue Dec 23 02:40:00 2008

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Those questers wanting to help Indeh find his treasure are now able to get extra statues (after a while). 

9 Sacrilege, posted on Sat Jan 24 11:49:40 2009

Posted by: Hagi
Category: Klatch (domain pages)

Today Klatch's first achievement was added, "Sacrilegious" in which you need to slaughter 250 Djelian cats. Here's hoping everyone knows the consequences of killing cats in Djelibeybi!

(Okay... so it was 1000 originally, but that was a bit mean.)

8 Monsieur Gabbiani Expands His Repertoire Slightly, posted on Tue Jan 20 07:23:36 2009

Posted by: Chilali
Category: General

Monsieur Gabbiani has a few new colour options available for his custom suits.

7 Calendar Command, posted on Tue Jan 20 04:30:39 2009

Posted by: Presto
Category: General

In response to a brief talker conversation the other day, the date lookup options for the 'calendar' command has been changed to allow you to specify a year. This will allow you to match real world dates with MUD dates as far back as the Beginning of Time (Hogswatchday AM year 1966) and as far ahead as the next century.

6 AM Park Terrain Tweaks, posted on Mon Jan 19 19:41:03 2009

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: Am (domain pages)

Just added some consistency, making sure roads are coloured red and journey is disabled (horrible messages here!) in all our terrains.

5 Blog RSS Feed, posted on Mon Jan 19 14:23:27 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Web

I've added an RSS feed for each of the blogs, because that's kind of cool.

4 More Than Playing, posted on Sun Jan 18 11:18:30 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Web

A new page is available on the web-pages, under the Playing->Help submenu (https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/playing/more_than_playing.html). It lists some of the opportunities available for those who wish to make a more formal contribution to the MUD. 

3 Oracle, posted on Sun Jan 18 11:16:59 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Newbiehelpers and Playtesters have been given operational access to a knowledge management system known as the Discworld Oracle (https://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/secure/oracle/oracle.c?base=Newbiehelpers). It's available under the playing menu for Newbiehelpers, and the Playtesting menu for playtesters.

This tool is part of a research project between the University of Dundee in Scotland, the University of Miami in Florida, and IBM in New York. All users of the system are part of this research project!

2 Vote Reminder, posted on Sun Jan 18 11:15:15 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Players are the life-blood of any MUD. Discworld is completely free, which means that we don't have the budget of commercial MUDs to advertise or put our name out there. One of the ways in which you as a player can help us is by voting regularly for us on the MUD portal sites.

If you want to be reminded whenever a new voting period is available, then there is a new opt-in automated reminder available - 'options output vote_reminder = on' to switch it on.

Every thirteen hours, a reminder will be printed to your screen with the voting URL. If you have MXP, the link will be clickable from within the MUD.

Your votes make a difference to the sustainability of the MUD - the more new people we get playing, the more vibrant the MUD becomes. 

1 Developer Blogs, posted on Sun Jan 18 11:11:52 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General and Web

We have added a blogging system to the game, to better serve you! The idea behind this blog is that it gives us an opportunity to announce things that are cool, but too minor for a news post. We do a lot of things, all of the time, and most of the time it never gets wider coverage than a 'fixed' reply on a bug-rep. Keep checking the blog!

Mud Commentary

628 PK Reset, posted on Sun Jan 3 21:32:30 2016

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

When we carried out a general PK reset at the start of the New Year, the natural question on everybody's lips was: why?

There are actually several reasons.

It has been more than twelve years since the last PK reset, and in that time the game has changed a great deal.

The PK community and even players themselves have changed a lot. Some people have gone PK and enjoyed it, but others have subsequently grown to dislike it. Other people left the game for years, only to be killed minutes after their return, lose all their achievement XP and leave for good after that.

In short, there were a lot of PKs around who didn't really -- or really didn't -- want to be PKs at all, and even though we can say that they signed up for this when they applied to be a player killer or joined a PK guild, they are now PK in a game -- and a PK community -- that is potentially very different to the one they joined originally.

The presence of these reluctant PKs has a negative impact upon those of you who do continue to enjoy these aspects of the game -- do you really want to kill, rob, or loot someone who gets frustrated and upset by it rather than in the spirit in which it is largely intended?

Ultimately, the PK community here can thrive only if the members of that community want to be there.

Thus, it seemed like it would be appropriate to offer these players a way to lose their PK status again. But how best to go about this?

The natural thought -- simply offering a way to leave PK -- was highly open to abuse. Somebody might get some last-minute revenge killing or looting in before permanently hiding behind an NPK status. Typical suggestions to get around this -- such as a check that a PK-going-NPK hasn't initiated any player killing for a month -- are either very hard to implement, or also abusable. And besides that, we do want this to be a one-time thing: the intention was never to create a tool for PKs to go back regularly.

Thus, the simplest idea seemed to be to do a complete reset, and to avoid abusability it was necessary to tell no one beforehand.

Originally, we intended to do this as part of the combat changes. When many things change at once, we could throw in a PK reset as people re-evaluate how they play. However, as the changes progressed, three things became clear:

* Most of the changes can be done individually, rather than as one big package;

* It's going to take a long time before we're done;

* These combat changes are highly unlikely to make people who previously enjoyed the PK game want to become NPK as one of their major purposes is to ensure that every combat playing style has strengths and weaknesses.

Thus, as we had been planning the PK reset for more than a year -- and as it really isn't related to the combat changes -- we decided we'd simply do it as a Christmas present, and due to reasons of timing it became a New Year's present instead!

Pit and Aristophanes.

593 Combat Changes 1: Playing Styles., posted on Fri Jun 12 10:54:13 2015

Posted by: Aristophanes
Category: Special

Where we're going and why.

As you will probably have noticed, there have been a number of staggered changes
to various aspects of the combat system over the past several months. This is the
first of the posts that should begin to clarify the reasons for these changes, as
well as what these changes are ultimately designed to achieve.

This first blog post is going to talk generally about one of our aims: Playing
Styles.

Playing styles.

The situation until these changes started was that there was one hugely dominant
playing style: dex-dominant melee weapons and dodge or parry as a main defence. To some
extent this is still the case as the most crucial changes are yet to occur.
This playing style is overly dominant in every guild, and there is a perception that the
dex-melee/dodge-parry build is a one-size-fits-all solution to combat on the MUD. It is
worth mentioning that this perception exists because to a great extent dex builds are
indeed "optimal" at the moment.

Aims:

1) Ensure that a wide variety of different combat playing styles are feasible and
competitive with each other, rather than there being one dominant style.

2) Ensure that each of these playing styles has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Illustrative Examples:

If you fight using daggers, you might attack quickly, but each attack might deal
less damage and might be more easily absorbed by armour.

If you fight using a two-handed mace, your special attacks might do devastating
amounts of damage and be difficult to parry, but it may be easier for your opponent
to dodge your attack as you swing.

3) Encourage guilds' distinctiveness.

We don't want to create a game where you are limited - rather than empowered - by your
guild: the fact that you can use some wizard spells without being a wizard, or some
rituals without being a priest, is one of the most enduringly popular features of the
MUD, and we have no intention of changing that.

What we do want to do is ensure that there are genuine and concrete differences between
guilds: one guild should not be demonstrably better than every other in every situation.

Guilds - like builds and playing style - should have tangible advantages and disadvantages.

Illustrative Examples:

Wizards - Powerful offensively (and against groups of opponents in particular), but
vulnerable to attack, especially when lots of opponents concentrate on them.

Assassins - Can deal lots of damage in a short period of time, but less effective in normal
melee combat. Can create tactical advantages with the effective use of poisons and other
apparatus.

Thieves - Similar to Assassins in that they can deal lots of damage to opponents in a short period
of time. They can use theft tactically with their theft commands.

Priests - Great at protecting themselves and others with their faith shields with some
support abilities from healing and the tactical effects of offensive rituals. Still
able to deal a moderate amount of damage in melee combat.

Warriors - Arguably best suited to a "tank" build where they can absorb lots of damage
with their armour and high health. A broad range of combat abilities, and with the
highest damaging special potential when using the heavier melee weapon types.

Witches - Tactical advantages through the use of headology, plus support abilities in the
form of commands and potions/teas. Unique spells such as beesargh and bugshield give them
offensive and defensive abilities, but their offensive magic in particular is more limited
than that of Wizards.

See you next time...

We've broken up this series of posts into relatively small, self-contained units.
Next week's post will continue talking about our general aims; subsequent posts will
discuss how the recent changes fit in with these broader aims.

466 But Who's Counting?, posted on Sun Jan 20 19:52:13 2013

Posted by: Thoreksken
Category: General

A lot of players occasionally file a bug or idea report. A lot of creators occasionally fix bugs. Some players file a lot of reports. Some creators frequently and actively seek out these reports in order to improve the experience of playing Discworld MUD.

But how many reports are we talking about? And how many creators are involved in closing them?

This blog will talk a little about that, taking the statistics for the past year as a starting point.

In 2012 a total of 5312 reports were filed. Roughly a quarter of these (1259) were related to projects in playtesting, leaving 4053 reports filed in game or - for a figure that's easier to understand - almost a dozen each day.

I'll briefly note that not all bugs that get fixed show up in reports - we do occasionally notice that something's wrong before it gets reported (Yes, really!) and we also have some logging functionality that helps us track down certain types of bugs. The rest of this blog will talk about the ones that were reported though.

When we take a closer look, we find out that the list of 4053 reports contains 2270 bugs, 1185 ideas, 591 typos and 7 comments. These numbers mainly tell me two things: firstly that we still have a bit of work to do to improve the quality of this game, and secondly that we are lucky to have a player base that cares enough to report issues and actively provides us with suggestions for further improvements and additions to the game.

I'd like to explicitly thank every player who's ever filed a bug report. While seeing a new one show up rarely makes me happy, without them many issues (be they major or minor) would go unnoticed, or even if we did notice the issue the additional info provided with the report often makes it easier to track down and fix the underlying cause. So please keep reporting!

So it's good news that 4053 reports were filed in the past year! Not as good though is that we only managed to close 3184 (we did close all but a few of the 1259 playtesting related reports) so we've still got a bit of work to do. Note that a fairly large proportion of those that stayed open are ideas rather than bugs or typos.

That doesn't mean we have been ignoring these reports of course. I can assure you that every report that gets filed gets read, often by multiple people. Admittedly this doesn't always result in a response. There are various reasons for this, perhaps the main one being that Discworld MUD is truly huge and quite complex, so that no single creator knows how everything works. One thing we can certainly improve in is getting each bug to the right creator and making sure that each part of the MUD has enough creators with the right skill set assigned to it. However, with a fairly fluid creator base this is not an easy thing to do.

That said I'd like to make it clear that quite a lot of us creators are involved in bug fixing in one way or another. I'll even put a number to it: last year 42(!) different creators closed at least one report. 14 of those handled more than 100 reports each. This includes creators with various levels of experience and assigned to very different projects, not just those who've been here a long time or those that can write code with their eyes closed.

While all these creators deserve credit for their efforts, there are a few that deserve a special mention. The first of these is Kaylar, 2012's Bugfixer Extraordinaire and leading the pack with 557 reports closed. That amounts to an average of 1,5 reports each day! The silver medal goes to Epic, whose achievement comes close to matching her name. Woom was not too far behind although his bug fixing work in 2012 pales compared to what he's done in the past. He is truly the Bugfixingest Creator in the history of Discworld.

I'm sure there's a lot more that you'd like to know, such as "When does a creator fix bugs?", "How exactly does she or he go about it?", "How do you decide which idea reports to deny?" and most likely also "Why is that bug report I filed still not fixed?". Perhaps I or another cre will explain some of that in a later blog post. The idea behind this one was to provide you with an idea of the amount of reports that we deal with and I hope that's been of some interest to you.

I'll close with one final statistic: just a few minutes ago report 134544 was filed. Let me spell that out for you: this is the one hundred thirty four thousand five hundred forty fourth report since we rebooted the database in 2004. How about that?

209 Guilds Feedback Solicited!, posted on Thu Aug 13 16:13:12 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Guilds

I am sure most of you recognise our own lovely Kaea. She is joining the Guilds team as our newly appointed Public Face and Ambassador to the slavering masses that make up our player base (that's you guys). This is an important role that I wanted to bring to your collective attentions so you understand how this works.

Many of the ideas that we have in our massive piles of idea-reports are large, sweeping comments about entire guilds, entire subsystems of guilds, or entire game systems. Over the years we've done a pretty mediocre job of actually responding to you all about these, and synthesizing your comments into our own development process. This is where Kaea now enters the picture!

Most of the guilds have some manner of player run structure involved. Those representatives of the guild have considerable authority over how the guild runs, but what I would like to do is increase the ability of those positions to feed into our development process. It's important here to provide a caveat - guilds development is not going to be dictated by this feedback, but it will be influenced where appropriate. Kaea is our bridge between the elected (and not so elected) representation for each of the guilds. Those guilds that have no political structure - well, Arrangements Will Be Made.

Additionally, Kaea will be keeping an active eye on the boards and other forms of player contribution with an eye to folding your less crazy comments into our ongoing, never-ending discussions about how development on Discworld should be progressing. While I don't want people drowning her in idle observations or half-considered ideas, I would like people to feel they can discuss with her their thoughts and concerns over where the game is going. It is unlikely she'll be able to give you any firm responses, at least in the short-term, but your feedback will be folded into our planning. It's important to note here that while Kaea will be making sure that we make the 'big picture' connections between all your various ideas, this is not a substitute for you making idea reports yourselves - she will not be able to pass on every detail, this a role about doing the 'joined up thinking' part.

Kaea will be actively contacting people over the coming weeks and months - I would like those of you in positions of responsibility to spend a bit of time thinking about what you'd like to say to her as the first few exchanges of this process. Kaea will be away for a while before beginning this properly, which gives you all a chance to make sure your first pieces of feedback are well thought out and representative of your views. Please don't fill her inbox with this just yet, she'll be in touch when she's ready to start processing your thoughts.

So, thanks to Kaea for taking on this role, and thanks to you all for your continued interest and contribution to the game!

185 When Does An Idea Become A Reality?, posted on Mon Jun 22 16:29:25 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

So, the Rainy Day File is something you're all becoming familiar with as we move ideas onto it. I thought I'd take a few minutes out to explain a bit about how ideas end up on the File and why we don't just code them right away.

We have many thousands of outstanding idea reports - over 7,500 at the current count. The ones that get denied right away tend to break down into several categories:

a) Incomprehensible ('well u should put the thing i see here into a line of code and make it DANCE until CHICKENS COME OUT!!!')

b) Not very useful or detailed from our perspective ('lol, fix combat lol')

c) Not in fitting with our theme ('I think we should have bazookas!')

d) Not in fitting with our game design philosophy ('I think I should have a button I press to give me ten million XP')

Of the ones we deny that don't fall into these categories, they tend to be just too much effort to code for limited benefit. We alas don't have unlimited developer time, so we need to spend it wisely. For example, we often get reports along the theme of 'There is a <thing> in this room - I think it would be cool if you could do <awesome thing> with <thing>'. The chances are, we probably agree that it would be awesome - but if it's an idea that takes an hour to develop and only five people are ever going to see the code, it's not a good allocation of time. You'll often find these denied with the keyword 'situational'. They may be cool, they may be very funny, but we just don't think people are going to notice or appreciate the time put in, and we always, always have more work than time.

Those ideas that we don't deny go onto the Rainy Day File. It's kind of a triage - we get people doing a pass over all our open idea reports, and we deny the ones that aren't suitable and then mark the rest as rainy day. Each individual idea in itself may be quite small (perhaps an hour of developer time), but it needs several magic ingredients for it to come to light:

a) It needs a creator who finds the idea interesting enough to code

b) It needs a creator who has the right combination of skills, attitude and access to code it

c) It needs a creator who has the time to devote to coding it and maintaining it.

It's tremendously unlikely that all three of those ingredients are present when your report is first read. If it is, the chances are it will be coded instantly.

Now though, when those ingredients are not present, the report can go to the rainy day file for people who are actually looking for things to do. Sometimes they will be looking for new features in a development. Sometimes they will just be at a loose end for a couple of hours and looking to do something with their time. The Rainy Day File then is a resource of 'hey, pick me' ideas that people can browse through at their leisure and implement when they tick all three of the above boxes.

Our system in the past has been to just let idea reports linger until people find them (which they often don't because people usually don't go looking). You should think then of getting an idea on the File as passing the first check for quality - there's no guarantee it will go any further, but at least you know at least one other person has read your report and thought it was consistent with our game and the right balance of time invested to game reward.

At the moment, we're doing regular passes over all our game directories to give some of you closure on the ideas you have sent in. As I said earlier, we have over 7,500 of those right now. Don't take being put on the File as a nicer way of denying your report - more reports get denied than end up on the file. The file is growing nicely, to the point where it has actually become full to bursting of great ideas that we can make use of at our leisure as our development dictates. 

122 The Rainy Day File, posted on Wed Apr 29 09:07:28 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

You guys are an inventive bunch, and we love you for that. At last count, we had about 8,000 open idea reports that had been submitted - that count gets larger every day. It only ever trends upwards.

There are several reasons for this. The first is that some ideas are too big in their scope for any one creator to be able to say 'yay' or 'nay' to. The second is that many of these ideas are good, but not directly relevant to the creator reading them, or good but nobody has the time right now, or good if combined with another idea someone else has. So these reports get left open, and what with all the other things that need to be done, you never get a reply to them.

So, in the next few weeks, you may notice a lot of reports coming back because we're going to try something new with this - you'll be getting reports back saying 'this has been added to our rainy day file'. This is a store of all the idea reports that people have seen and thought were interesting or feasible or thematic enough to make more visible to the rest of the creators. These can then feed into existing projects, projects in other domains, or just be implemented when the urge strikes someone. There's no guarantee your idea reports will get implemented, still - but they're going to be more visible to more people than they would otherwise be.

I'd like to thank you all again for the suggestions you've made. It's a shame we can't implement more of these than we do.

Regards,

Drakkos.

120 Bugfix Sunday, posted on Mon Apr 27 11:40:55 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

So, some of you will have noticed a number of bug replies yesteday. Hopefully quite a lot of you. Yesteday we ran our first day of what I hope will become a creator tradition - BUGFIX SUNDAY. The premise is simple - on sunday, we take time out from developing our current projects, and just focus on responding to the many bug, typo and idea reports that have accumulated over the years. Our last big bug crash was in 2004, and there are still reports from there in our pile.

That's not to say that bug reports haven't been dealt with before, it's just that this is the first time we've all put the same day aside to do it.

All in all, in a single day over 200 reports were dealt with, and a good number of idea reports implemented. Some of you may also have had a few denied reports sent your way - I hope that you found the explanation to be reasonable, and that a denied reponse was better than them languishing without comment or reply. They honestly do get read!

I'd like to thank you all for your reports - every fixed bug and typo increases the quality of the MUD, and you're all an important part of that. Thanks to everyone, creators and players, for their efforts!

115 Web Hosting, posted on Sat Apr 25 16:50:47 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Web

Player web-sites are one of the most important facets of a vibrant community. Many Discworld MUD sites are hosted on free servers, such as Geocities - as I'm sure you're aware, Geocities is going to close its doors soon.

As such, web-space has been put aside at the address http://discworld.imaginary-realities.com. if you want an account, just send an email (drakkos@discworld.atuin.net) or a mudmail to me (drakkos!) and I'll set it up for you. There is also a wiki there for people who just have content they want to make available but don't particularly want a web-page.

The hosting package I have is pretty generous, so if you have a need for PHP, mySQL, or a range of other things then let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Note that this is not 'official' Discworld hosting - we assume no responsility over the content or style of the pages you put in place. Think of it like your own little Geocities, but without adverts. 

81 More On Top Mud Sites, posted on Wed Apr 1 20:31:28 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

Our new voting period has begun, and last month was interesting for how often positions #2 and #3 changed. We prevailed for the majority of the month, ending at #2 with around 4500 votes, all thanks to you guys. It was hard-fought though, which added a certain spice - it's nice to see that our 'get out the vote' drive has inspired other MUDs to take an interest once more, and even nicer to see that despite Achaea's larger playerbase, we held onto our spot.

I want to thank you guys once more for your support of the MUD, and to gently and subtly remind you that if you want to ensure that we keep our position, then regular voting is the easiest way you can contribute to the long term health of the MUD. Remember there's an opt-in reminder available at 'options vote_reminder = on'!

62 Dark Domains, posted on Sat Mar 14 15:42:56 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: Sur and Underworld

It's no secret that we're shorter on creators than we have been in the past - undoubtedly due to the credit crunch[1]. As such, we're slimming down our domain structure a little bit. Sur and Underworld have been set to be 'dark' domains - they still exist, but they're hidden away so that we can better concentrate our resources on the other domains. This is one part of a larger wide-sweeping re-organisation of how we do things in Creator Land.

Remember, if any of you have harboured thoughts of being a creator, we are always on the lookout for Keen Young Minds to mould in our own images. :-D

Drakkos

[1] I hear about it all the time on the news, so I'm guessing it's to blame.

57 Top Mud Sites, posted on Sun Mar 1 09:17:31 2009

Posted by: Drakkos
Category: General

The new voting period for Top Mud Sites has begun, and we did very well last month - we were #1 for a couple of days, and dropped to #2 for the rest of the month. Considering how we normally occupy the #3 slot, this is a super improvement. MUDs #1 and #3 and considerably bigger than us, and so it is a testament to your dedication that we kept such a strong showing.

Indeed, we finished with something along the lines of 4700 votes, outpacing #3 by over a thousand!

This has direct impact on the MUD - the higher we are in the rankings, the more new players we attract, and the more sustainable the game becomes. Your support is important to us!

Thanks,

Drakkos.