Forums: Announcements

Another minor update this weekend.

Key points:

• If for some reason you have to reset a battle, it should now full clean up after itself and you should be able to start your next battle with no problems
• Fixed a bug where characters that fled from one battle weren’t showing up in the next battle.
• Added a little more color and formatting to battle logs.
• When you finish a battle, you now get an option to save the entire battle log to your personal log rather than just a summary.
• Battle screen: now has a mini map that shows the position of PCs and enemies (this mini map is draggable so feel free to move it around). In the upper right corner you can see a count of how many enemies are still alive.
• You can now watch the battle of another player in the same general area. It doesn’t show the full map, but rather a blown-up version of the mini map, along with the log file. This page will update automatically (so no need to refresh it).
• edit I forgot to mention that I changed some stuff up on the battle map for IE6 users so they actually move around the map and target things without too much trouble

If you have any weird problems during a battle, be sure to choose the new full battle log option when you finish the battle. This should help with troubleshooting in the future.

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Hey, just a quick update this time around, but here’s the details:

• Added a special “integrity check” to the battle screen, so now if any problems come up, the system will clean up after itself rather than making the player wait for me to come along and reset it
• You can now sell multiple items to NPC shops at once. It will take a few seconds to process several items, but it will go much faster than selling each item individually (thanks to nefD for the suggestion – it’s probably come up in the past, but nefD brought it up most recently).
• The loot screen now has an “auto-loot” button. What it does:
  • Sort all loot in order of highest to lowest rating
  • Starting with the selected character, make them loot the highest rated gear until they run out of room
  • Move on to the next character, loot some more, and so forth – until either everything is looted or your active party has run out of room
• You probably noticed a little window on your profile page that shows your PC’s health status and skill list. This is a Google Gadget that you can place on your personalized Google page (if you have one) or on your own website.

Note: If you have some web development skills and you want to play around with your character stats, you can find the PC data in XML format at: http://aethora.com/char_list/your_aethora_login.xml . This is the same data used for the Google Gadget.

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Hey Aethorians -

We had a big update this weekend. Three new missions went in, plus one mini-mission which has replaced the “Talk to the Captain of the Guards” mission as an intro. The next time you are in Hopitan, you’re going to find that you can’t use the north gate until you do this mini-mission – apologies, but it should be really short and easy (it starts in the Hopitan Guardhouse, in East Hopitan).

As for the other three missions, one is low-mid level and the other two are mid-level (around 50). I won’t give away any more details – I’m sure you’ll find them soon enough :)

Other changes:

• battle screen layout improvements
• some new graphics (some models and tiles, and more to come)
• Tons of new battle actions (just over 100!), some only appear at higher skill levels
• gravatar support
• improved player market: you can see a summary of other prices when you post something for sale
• Misc tab added to equipment management screen so you can actually move medkits between characters
• chat is now continent-wide instead of local to the town or area you are in

More missions are in the works, and we’ll be adding more areas very soon. We are also planning a number of new features that should start to appear in the near future.

Credits for this update, alphabetically:
Commander Saavik: mission writer, editor, location designer
Kranodor: mission writer
PenguinBob: item designer, action designer
Ranger Sheck: lead developer/designer/editor
Seeker Boltblade: model/tile/item graphics artist
Timara Klever: mission writer
Zerontanthalas: action designer, item designer, QA tester

Many thanks to our contributors! Now that we have a rhythm, Aethorians can be sure to expect updates more frequently in the future.

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Relatively small update here today. Two points:

• Hospitals now charge patients on a sliding scale, based on the level of the player (your player level is determined by your highest character’s highest skill level). For lower levels, this means the hospital is actually affordable. For higher levels, well, it means you have to spend a little more of that gold surplus you’re sitting on to use the hospital.

• Medical Kits have been introduced into the world of Hopitan. You might occasionally find one at a Vendor (such as the Hopitan Tourism Committee’s office), and you might find one among your foes once in a while. The chances of finding a kit among your defeated foes is greater if the enemies are appropriate for your level (so you higher levels, don’t expect to start farming medkits from gladiators).

Have fun!

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It’s been a while since I gave a real update on Aethora. The last couple of months have been an extremely busy time for me, and I have not been able to dedicate as much time to the game as I would like to. Nevertheless, the world of Aethora continues to get some behind the scenes updates. I can finally say, the battle builder is stable and should not cause any more problems!

Aethora needs some help to grow. As much as I love the “world creating” aspect of game development, it’s very time consuming and it takes time away from new features I could be adding to the codebase. If you have any writing, artistic, dungeon master, or other creative skills, please visit this thread.

Happy New Year, all!

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The last couple of days I have been working on some back-end updates for Aethora. Not a whole lot new that you will see as players, I’m afraid. If you noticed the site seemed to be up and down a lot in the last day or so, that was the reason. Hopefully, from here on out things will be pretty stable.

The only major visual change you might notice is the ability to change the tile size when in battle; it can be changed to “small” or “tiny”. I’m hoping these options will encourage people to try out the game on smaller devices. Personally, I just got an EeePC a couple weeks ago, and the “small” tile-size is just right for the 800×480 resolution of that sub-notebook. Even if you’re on a 1024×768 screen, you may have found things a bit cramped and the “small” tileset might be more comfortable. Standard disclaimer applies: these smaller tilesets look best in modern browsers (Firefox, IE7, Opera, probably Safari) but look like blocky crap in IE6 (but still playable).

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Hey all -

Did some messing around with the layout of the battlefield. I’ve tried to unclutter it somewhat, and I added some option links at the top of the screen so you can turn off a couple things if they annoy you. These options are set during your session – so if you set an option on one computer and then use another computer later, that option will have to be set again. The reason for this is that I believe some people regularly play from multiple computers (e.g. one at home, one at work) and those computers may have different screens sizes or whatever that make something like the target box (for example) more annoying on one screen but not another. Also, turning off these options may (slightly) improve performance on a low-end machine.

Along with the battlefield visual changes, I’ve tweaked the actual battle code a bit. You may notice some differences in the amount of damage of an attack or the strength of an effect. Most likely, if anything, you’ll notice an increase across the board. These changes mainly reinforce the idea that your skill level for an action is more important than the quality of your weapon. Of course, the weapon damage still factors into it, it’s just that the new code prevents the weapon from dominating the equation.

As always, let me know how things work. I’ve tried out the new battlefield on Firefox and IE6 and they both seem to work fine, but let me know if there are any troubles.

Thanks, and have fun!

[2 replies]   (last reply on Dec 01, 2007)

Hey everyone – I was trying to make life easier for new players and I tweaked the skill level test that determines whether or not you’re too skilled to gain more skill points (depending on your target). I tweaked it right to hell and it had quit working for levels past 20!

This happened last week, so if you’ve noticed a “stagnation” of skill levels in the past 7 days, I sincerely apologize! It’s fixed now. Thanks to elegiac for pointing out the problem.

[1 reply]   (last reply on Nov 26, 2007)

Hey all –
A couple of people had some problems with the new “Battle Builder” code where they would get stuck trying to start a new battle. These problems should be cleared up now. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience – there are some bugs that really don’t show themselves until a number of people start banging on the system.

Now for a bonus – I recently changed the movement code, and you can now walk one player past another player. No more getting blocked in by your own guys – if there is a space beyond them that you can reach, you can walk right by!

[3 replies]   (last reply on Oct 29, 2007)

Hi everyone – just wanted to let you all know a somewhat major update went in last night (late October 17th). Not too much changed visually, but a lot of performance tweaks went into the code-base. Hopefully the game will run a little snappier – maybe you’ll notice, maybe you won’t (I notice it most in battle).

I tested these changes out pretty thoroughly, but if anyone has any trouble, please let me know right away by posting in the tech support forum.

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Big changes this weekend – I’ll get right to it:

Losing Battles: You will no longer lose any equipment if a character dies. Instead, this is how defeat is handled:

• if your entire party gets wiped out, you will be returned to a “safe point” – usually (at least for now) this will be the center of the last town you visited.
• if you lose a battle but at least one character escapes by fleeing, you will not be returned to a safe point, you remain in your current location and you will lose 10% of your gold (with a maximum that scales based on your highest skill level)
• as usual, if any characters die in battle but you still manage a victory, there are no penalties

Moving in Battle: I tweaked the formula slightly so those with heavier armor aren’t quite as restricted in movement.

Active Party: From now on, you cannot place a character in your active party unless they have at least 20% of their health.

Interface Enhancements: I’ve created a new tabbed interface for both Battle screens and the Arrange Equipment screen. I think you’ll find things are much more organized and easier to use. If anyone has any problems or notices any glitches, please let me know right away.

Missions and One-time bonus reset: All current players have been rewarded the option to reset any of their missions one time. The reason for this bonus is that many players have died in battle and lost a reward. Since death no longer results in lost items, it only seems fair to give everyone another shot at re-acquiring their rewards. You can reset those missions from the Missions screen.

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Finally, they’re here: Non-player shops, for all your anti-social shopping needs. These shops will start popping up around Aethora – the first one is in East Hopitan right now.

Need to restock some basic equipment but don’t feel like wasting time with lowbie enemies and the player Market is cleaned out? Check the shop – the prices are a bit high, but the shops are conveniently open all day long!

Need to unload some gear, but hate throwing it in the trash? A non-player shop will be happy to take it off your hands for a measly few gold!

Whether you’re buying or selling, prices will always be better in the player-based Markets, but when it’s convenience you need, these non-player shops should do the trick!

[2 replies]   (last reply on Aug 29, 2007)

Hey everyone – just wanted to give a heads up that I’ve been out of town all week. I return this weekend (August 4th), so I’ll address some of the issues being talked about in the forums when I get back and have a chance to digest them all. I’m seeing a lot of great suggestions and ideas – keep it up, and thanks!

- Ranger Sheck

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If you missed the newsletter that went out via email today, you can read all about the most recent updates here:
http://docs.aethora.com/2007/7/1/july-update

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Updates! The short version:

• I increased the rate of recovery for inactive characters. It was one health point every five minutes, now it’s one point every three minutes (so from 12 an hour to 20 an hour).
• If you want to spend a little gold to get instant healing, there is a Hospital just off Hopitan Square.
• You can now change the name of any character from their equipment/details screen.
• A new mission was added! This one is a little harder than the Volum Mills Escort quest. It starts in the Industrial Plaza.

The long version with many more details can be found at the Library of Aethora. If you have time, please read it.

Thanks!

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UPDATE – see the September Announcement for details on the changes to defeat in battle.

The “fleeing” option I mentioned in the last post has been implemented. Here’s how it works:

Each character has to flee on their own. There is no option for the whole party to flee at once. In order to flee from a battle, you must move a character to the edge of the map. Once you are in a tile on the edge of a map, a Flee from Battle button will appear (next to the End Turn button). This means that some maps are easier to flee from than others, and that movement-based attacks and buffs may play a larger role in battle tactics (some enemies love to slow down your movement rate, so be careful!).

Penalties for fleeing:

• all the skill levels of the fleeing character that are over 15 will degrade by 10% (gonna hurt more at higher levels)
• the fleeing character will be reduced to 20% of the health they had when they fled (fleeing from battle doesn’t save you from having to rest a character)
• if all your characters flee (or some die and the rest flee), you will still lose the battle. If the battle is an encounter that’s part of a mission, you will most likely fail the mission (failed missions can usually be reset from the Missions menu)

Why would you want to flee?

• a fleeing character doesn’t lose any equipment
• if some characters have fled, the remaining characters can still win the battle – so if one character is getting beat up and you don’t want to lose equipment, have that one character flee
• the lower your skills are, the lower the penalty, so early on, don’t be afraid to flee from a tough fight

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UPDATE – see the September Announcement for details on the changes to defeat in battle.

Up until now, if you lost a battle, every character in your party lost their entire inventory. While I feel it’s important to have a decent “death penalty”, it’s been suggested that this particular penalty is a bit harsh. I’d like to make some changes to try to make the death penalty less frustrating, but I need to balance out something else. So here’s the deal:

• From now on, if you lose a battle, each character who dies will lose the items they have equipped (but keep the items in their inventory).
• The maximum number of items any character can now hold is 8
• If any character already has more than 8 items, they won’t lose any items, but they can’t take any new items until they trade the extra items away (or trash them, using the trash can on the Equip page)
• Now when you win a battle and you are looting items, you can jump to any character’s equipment page in case their inventory is full and you want to trash some items to make room for new loot

That should make defeat a little less frustrating, without allowing the game to become too flooded with items. However, it still kinda sucks if you have a good item equipped – especially a rare item that you obtained as a mission reward and have no way to re-acquire. Therefore, I’m working on a way to allow a character to flee the combat area without losing any equipment, but instead taking a hit to their skill points. I’ll make another announcement once the “fleeing” method is implemented.

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Hey, just a quick announcement to let you know, if you ever want to change which avatar you picked for a player, you can do so by clicking on that player’s equipment page (go to Party, and then click on equip).

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Hey, everyone. Forums are mostly working now. No, there are no smiley faces or obnoxious avatars, and for that, I apologize. You’ll have to make do without. Emoticons are supported ;)

The forums follow a kind of branching tree-format, so pay attention to what message you are replying to if you want to preserve the flow of conversation.

Some of the forums cost a small amount of gold to post to. Let’s just say that the denizens who keep the forums up and running need to pay the bills.

Also note that Private messaging is not yet functional, but will be very shortly.

- Jason

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