Forums: Announcements

Hey everyone -

Happy Holidays!

Last Autumn, the foodstuffs of Aethora turned the fork around, so to speak, and brought chaos to the lands all over the continent. They ravaged the cities and marauded the roads. Only through the bravery of the most strong-hearted adventurers were the vicious victuals, the treacherous treats, the voracious vegetables, and the foul fowl turned back, after which a most glorious feast commenced.

This year the atherflow has shifted yet again. Fortunately the fluctuations are more isolated, and rather than terrorizing the entire lands, animated foodstuffs have taken root (so to speak) in a storehouse in Hopitan.

Wading through waves of monstrous munchies, how deep can you make it into the meal-plagued storehouse?

Big thanks to Kranodor for putting this year’s event together! And as always, thanks to the other devs for testing!

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Ok, well, it’s really just the beginning of summer (and I suppose that depends on whether or not you live in the Northern Hemisphere). But anyway – it’s an update!

Here’s what to expect:

• the new battle interface – yeah – real new
• a new city in the Tiasanian Flatlands, and a new area beyond it
• a new mission
• A boatload of new actions (we’re up to 174 player-usable actions now!)
• Item descriptions – kind of a small, but nice feature – now you can hover over many items and get an actual description (instead of just a vague item name and image)
• Re-formulated action boosting (should balance across all levels better – so those skill boosting actions that seemed to lose their potency as you got higher in levels will now hold up better)
• item tables when selling stuff to a vendor are now sortable
• ability to upgrade a storage unit (and all your items will automatically transfer over from the old to the new)
• a new map (yeah, you know when you click on the “view map” link on the travel screen? that awful map I made years ago has been updated!)

The new battle interface will allow you to click on a target and then choose an action or choose an action first and then click on a target. The benefit of this feature is now you can choose actions that are area-based and click on a part of the map where there is no character, but there might be characters all around. You can also hover over an action in the list and get a glimpse of what the range of the action is and how far it can reach.

There are other features of the new interface as well. For example, you can actually see the NPCs move and attack now. The screen doesn’t completely refresh at the end of every turn like it used to, so the battles play a bit smoother.

Since this is a ton of new code, be aware that there might still be a few bugs here or there. Please let me know if you have any trouble by posting in the Tech Support/Bug Reports forum. Also, one last thing I need to mention – Internet Explorer 6 is no longer supported. It will not be able to handle the features of the battle interface. I’m sorry, there’s just no way around it. The good news is, there are lots of new browsers to choose from. Check out the list of supported browsers on the wiki.

Thanks everyone for your patience – I know it seems to take forever to get an update out sometimes. As you can see by the new battle interface, a lot of work went into this update. Thanks go to Kranodor, penguinmancerBob, Pro\/idence, his dudeness yotta, and Bron for contributing and testing.

edit: one last thing – I had to reset any battles that were currently in progress. I apologize for this if it’s inconvenienced anyone. Once in a while, the changes made in an update will cause previously-generated battles to no longer work properly. It’s pretty rare that I’ve had to do this, so again, I apologize.

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What is Pioneers’ Week?

Pioneers’ Week is the time when people all over Hopilus celebrate the anniversary of the discovery and colonization of their continent. They honor the struggle and the achievements of their forefathers, and due to this great attention to the past and its protagonists, the flow of ather itself shifts, temporarily, creating echoes of those who have lived and worked that walk around in places where they worked and acted. You can find these echoes – ghosts, as some call them, although you have been told they are rather “weak” echoes, and that there are more powerful, permanent and natural ones – all over Hopilus. All towns have some old town square or town hall where the first colonists of that town appear, and on the roads you may be challenged by others, who are remembered for traveling, and like a challenge – or who have failed, and are resentful for it.

For more information, visit the Old Townhall of Hopitan!

Many, many thanks to:
Kranodor – Lead Designer for the event
Ranger Sheck – Design and Administrative Support
Penguinmancer Bob – Testing and Quality Assurance
His Dudeness Yotta – Testing and Quality Assurance

Edit: Oh yeah – and during the event, the rate your inactive characters regenerate has been doubled!

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Aethorians! Grab your weapons and your forks – dinner is served, and it seems to think you’re on the menu!

How can you help? Each of the four cities in Hopilus have some sort of food storage facility and they are overrun with ather-infused, edible monstrosities. You may also want to be wary of travel – the three highways between the cities are reported to have some unnatural predators as well.

Hints:

• The healing rate for inactive NPCs has been tripled for this event!
• For each group of festive monsters out there, there’s a rare chance of encountering a “boss” – and each of these bosses has a chance to drop something special – so keep your eyes open.
• These creatures operate on a whole other ather wavelength – even the highest level players will probably want to seek out the lowest level festival monsters at first (in other words, try Hopitan)
• Feel free to share information with each other – this festival only lasts a week! It’s November 26th, 6pm PST, and this festival will end on December 3rd at the end of the day.
• Don’t forget to watch the Stats Board and see how high you can get your Festival skills!

Other things of note:

• Hospitals are now selling some med kits
• Some actions now have a minimum range of safe usage
• Some missions now incorporate your PCs’ names into the text. For this reason, you now have the ability to set a leader for your party from the Party Management screen as well as set the gender on any of your characters (from the character detail screen, where you can change their name or image)
• Some maps might randomly distribute obstacles such as rocks or trees – let me know if anyone has any trouble with these random distributions (like if they wall you in!)

Many thanks to Kranodor for his help in designing and testing things for this event – I could not have pulled it off without his efforts!

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A cold wind blows in from the North, crossing Hopilus and signaling the coming of Winter. The air tingles, and it feels like there’s more than just Frost in the ather. The Autumn Harvest is a time of celebration, but there is more anxiety in the air than excitement. Rumors buzz throughout the cities of Hopitan, Chaduk Haven, Tiasa’s Star, and Martis. The farmers are telling stories as they bring the fruits of their labor into town; some to be feasted upon, some to be stored for the harsh months ahead. They tell tales of vegetables that feel almost alive – radiating with a sensation of warmth, yet still cold to the touch. The beekeepers say their honey pots have a strange glow to them out of the corner of the eye, but when looking directly at them, everything seems normal. The cider has an uneven spiciness to it that even the greatest of brewers and expert tasters cannot place.

Tomorrow begins the week-long Autumn Harvest Festival, celebrated in cities across Hopilus. Preparations for festivities have been made, but doomsayers predict there will be very little cheer…

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Hey Folks – just pushed a little update through. Here are some details:

Two new Missions! I’m not giving any hints on location – but feel free to help each other out :)

Over 25 new actions! You’ll probably notice NPCs taking advantage of new actions right away. Note that some actions have a level requirement, so they might not appear unless the appropriate skill has met the required level.

New PC graphics! One our artists, Seeker Boltblade, has worked long and hard putting together some new graphics that are more consistent and better looking. All PCs have been switched over to the new images automatically. Remember, you can switch the image for any PC by going to Party Management, clicking on “Inspect”, and then clicking on “Detailed View”. Note: you may have to refresh your browser or clear your cache if the new models don’t show up right away. The new PC models all have thin black outlines.

New NPCs and items! We didn’t get as many done as I wanted to, but we added a few more roaming NPCs along with some new equipment. There’s one new group of NPCs out there now that is stronger than anything you’ve seen before…

Storage Units! Got gold to burn and too many items to hold onto? Head on over to the Warehouse District of Hopitan (just East of the Industrial Plaza) and pick up a Storage Unit. Great for stockpiling quality items while you are off adventuring! Note: access your storage unit from the Party Management screen, as if it were a PC or SPC.

Bug fixes and misc code changes:

• fix so that PCs can’t try to put items in the wrong slots on equipment screen
• fixed it so that if an action changes the movement points of the acting mob, the movement tiles will get re-rendered (and other movement tile fixes)
• added another check to the random action selection made by NPCs so they don’t use any active buffs/debuffs on a target who does not have the skill being boosted/reduced
• other small NPC AI enhancements
• fix $actor in battle logs to display correct name
• raised damage cap to 80
• “exits” box now shaped a little more like a compass for exits that have compass directions – should make travel a little easier
• MAJOR: When you reset a mission, you will automatically be teleported back to the last safe point you visited. This change was put in to prevent people from getting stuck in the middle of a mission if they reset it and they were in a location inaccessible outside of the mission.
• When one of your SPCs makes a sale in the market, now you get a message in your log.

Phew, well, I think that’s everything. Now, let me give a little shout-out to the team of contributors:

Kranodor: mission writing, NPC design, item design, action design, testing
Seeker Boltblade: artwork, artwork, artwork
Penguinmancer Bob: mission writing, item design, action design, NPC design
Draegun: artwork
Commander Saavik: general editing, feedback, and ideas
Ranger Sheck: coding, testing, editing, more coding, item design, action design

So be sure to thank our contributors – they are a great team and it’s always a pleasure working with them. I want to make note that Kranodor and Seeker Boltblade in particular poured many hours into Aethora in the last two months.

Last but not least – thanks to you all, the players! Aethora wouldn’t exist without players – we always appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Have fun, everyone!

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Hey everyone – I pushed out a new code update today, so here’s a summary

• PCs no longer have their own inventories – instead, there is a single inventory for your whole Party
• Items are equipped directly from party inventory into character weapon/armor slots
• when items are unequipped, looted, bought from a shop, or bought from the market, they go directly into the party inventory
• PCs can no longer act as vendors in the market
• Support Characters (SPCs) are in the game. You can hire up to two SPCs at the employment center south of East Hopitan.
• SPCs will be used for a variety of non-combat tasks in the future. For now, they can only be used to sell items in the market. The market pretty much works the same as it did before, except instead of using PCs out of your party to list items in the market, you use SPCs.
• SPCs have their own inventories. You can move items from your party’s inventory into an SPCs inventory and vice versa whenever an SPC is not “working”.

These changes make items and inventories much easier to work with. They also allow you to have a couple vendors without sacrificing active PCs. Since you have to buy the SPCs, it means that not just anyone can list items in the market – this is bit of a downside, but it’s a blessing in disguise because it means the market will no longer be flooded with newbie items.

Sorry, there’s no extra content in this update – more missions are coming very soon though. We also just moved to a new server for this update, and the performance should be a little better. Also, the “double/out of turn action” problem should be cleared up.

Any questions, feel free to ask!

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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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