Wyvern Ancient New Archives, 2/2001-6/2002

6/12/2002 There's a new Map Editor (version 0.3.3) that fixes numerous bugs and usability problems. (Note: it's 0.3.4 now)

6/9/2002 We discovered a nasty bug in the spell system - it wasn't using the level of the magic item (scrolls, wands, etc.) We've fixed it, and now scrolls in particular are generally much more powerful than they used to be. For instance, a scroll of Remove Curse will uncurse up to 11 items (or all of them if it's blessed).

6/6/2002 I've changed bows and other range weapons so that you can ready them and still have a melee weapon wielded. This is the first step towards making bows more useful in the game.

6/6/2002 There's a new client, version 0.4.4, where the popup menus are invoked by the right button. The left button now has the old behavior, where it drops/gets items.

6/6/2002 Legolas has opened a new Pirate Island. It has a new quest worth 15 points.

6/6/2002 Halflings have been made invisible. They're supposed to be good at hiding, and that's the only equivalent Wyvern has at the moment. They also have see-invisible equal to that of a pixie, because of their keen eyesight.

6/6/2002 The Moon Quest has moved to Alaria. There is a new quest in Newbie Town - read about it in the Adventurers Guild.

6/6/2002 The Wyvern High Score List now shows the top 250 players, 50 per page.

6/6/2002 Lanterns have been made refuelable, with oil flasks. Type "refuel lantern" to fill it with an oil flask.

6/5/2002 All the unique artifact weapons have been made more powerful. Also, the tell command has been updated to support partial name-matches.

6/4/2002 There's a new game client, version 0.4.3, that provides popup menus when you click on inventory/ground items.

6/2/2002 I've been receiving many complaints that nymphs and leprechauns sometimes don't leave corpses, so you can't get your stuff back. This is not true - they always leave corpses. Sometimes they are teleporting right as you kill them and their corpse will be somewhere else on the level, but look for it and you'll find it.

6/1/2002 Numerous people reported that magic shields weren't working (e.g. shock shield wasn't protecting from shock) - I've found and fixed the problems.

6/1/2002 Your vault has been converted into a bank balance. ATMs are available in all banks. You can use an ATM to check your balance and perform deposits and withdrawals. The value you got for your vault items was the price you'd have gotten for selling the item in a shop. It took your Merchant skill into account, but not any rings or amulets of merchant/bartering. You got full credit for items in bags and other containers. You were given full value for any gems and coins in your vault. Ask the Wizards online if you have any questions or concerns.

Oh, and the Wyvern High Score List now takes your bank balance into account. 5gp = 1xp. This shuffled players around on the list a bit, but not as much as you'd think - nobody in the top 20 changed positions at all, in fact.

6/1/2002 I've fixed the Map Editor so that it can now open and save files correctly. It also handles cut and paste. Everyone who has been trying to use the Editor: thank you for being so patient. It should work for you now. Double-check that WebStart downloads version 0.3.2 for you.

There is now a link to the Standalone Map Editor for those of you who know how to install and use it. Whenever I upload a new version of the Map Editor, I'll make sure to update the standalone version link as well. Don't ask me questions about it if you don't know how to use it - use the WebStart version instead.

6/1/2002 The game was down for maintenance from 12:45pm PDT to 2:45pm PDT today. Sorry for the inconvenience.

5/29/2002 MAJOR CHANGE:  We've turned off bank vaults, for many reasons. This weekend your character will get a diamond of value equivalent to the value of the items and money from your vault. I'm also changing the game immediately so you can give items to other players, including your own other characters.

5/27/2002 Wyvern was down all day yesterday (5/26) due to an unfortunate confluence of three separate systems all failing at the same time. My apologies - the game is back up and shouldn't have such a severe outage again any time soon.

5/23/2002 Everyone who was having trouble with the WebStart Map Editor (where you couldn't edit maps) - try again! I've uploaded a brand-new version (0.3.1) with lots of new code to fix the problems. The only remaining bug I'm aware of is that it can't currently load the built-in game maps. I'll work on a fix at some point, but you can still make your own maps with it.

5/22/2002 I've managed to reproduce the problems people are having with the WebStart version of the Map Editor. I'm working on a fix. For now, don't try to use it, since it won't work.

5/22/2002 Arioch's new Gypsy Caravan is open. It's in Minath Elion, in the city outskirts to the southwest. It's a very nice area, so you might want to pay it a visit.

In other news, some monsters have been given the level-drain ability. Don't let them touch you! This includes vampires, wraiths, liches, dracoliches and a few demons. If you lose XP by draining, you can get it back with a scroll of Restoration, available in shops. But it's expensive, so it's generally a good idea not to let it happen to you.

5/20/2002 I've fixed the security problem with the latest map editor. Thanks for the reports.

Watch out for nymphs, leprechauns and rust monsters - all of them have been given abilities like their counterparts in other games.

5/20/2002 IMPORTANT NOTE:   The Amulet of Lifesaving has been changed so that it no longer teleports you to safety. It will save your life one time, restore your HP, and disappear. The Amulet of the Phoenix does the same, but only gives 50% of your HP back. The AOLS was too powerful - anyone who had one could never die, making the game boring. Now it'll still save your life, but you have to be careful.

5/19/2002 New WebStart Map Editor (v0.3.0) - fixes a few problems, including the NullPointerException some people were getting. Of course they may get *other* exceptions, but if you send me the output I'll fix them.

5/19/2002 Klikli's Drowtown is now open. Enjoy!

5/19/2002 The Paladins Guild is open! You can find the guild on the World Map. The guild has a detailed description of the benefits in the Membership Area.

A quick FAQ:

The Paladins Guild gives you some benefits, but I will be adding more benefits and restrictions in the future (such as healing spells, and requiring you to keep your "good" alignment.)

As part of the Paladin Guild code, I implemented Melee Weapon Skills. You can train in Swords, Axes, Pole Arms, and so on. Paladins are exceptionally good with swords. I've changed Dwarves so they're very good with axes. Keep an eye out for more weapon-skills trainers coming soon.

5/18/2002 The Map Editor has been converted to use Java WebStart. This means there are no longer complicated instructions for using it. You download Java WebStart one time, and then you can click to start the Map Editor. Enjoy!

5/12/2002 There's a new Map Editor (version 0.2.5) that fixes some bugs with the Lever Editor and the Paste command.

5/07/2002 Misc bug fixes:

5/05/2002 Klikli has created two brand-new PK areas, both located conveniently outside the Newbie Village on the King's Road. One of them is for fighters only (no spells allowed). You're welcome to try them out - go in there and kill your friends! If you like them, we can make more.

5/04/2002 Thanks to Nosbig for finding a bug in dragon armor (the Red, Blue and White varieties). They weren't actually granting extra protection from fire/cold/shock. Sorry about that! It's fixed now, as of the next reboot.

Also, there's a new Map Editor (v0.2.4) - it has all the latest artwork and archetypes, as well as some new attributes in the Map Properties dialog.

Note: You have to upgrade your Java version to 1.4. For some reason, the editor doesn't work under 1.3 anymore (probably a bug in the compiler I'm using).

Finally, I've regenerated the API Documentation for the Wizards. It includes docs for new classes such as QuestPerson, QuestSolver, VoicePerson, VoiceDoor, and many others.

5/04/2002 Major change to summoning spells: you can only summon one creature at a time. You can dispel the spell if you want to summon another one.

5/04/2002 One of our players (Wandalar) has created a sortable list of the spells in Wyvern. Thanks!

5/03/2002 I upgraded the server to JDK 1.4 today, and a problem with my watchdog script prevented the server from restarting for about 2 hours. It's been fixed - sorry for the inconvenience.

4/29/2002 We've been having some problems with player killing lately. PK'ing is not allowed, even if you feel you've been wronged in some way by the other player. We have a zero-tolerance policy for PK'ing, and we've been aggressively banishing people who do it. In certain circumstances we've had to block IP addresses to keep immature players off the game.

We're working on a dedicated PK'ing area for people who like to hunt each other for fun. Mutual-consent PK'ing is allowed, although we'd prefer you don't do it in the newbie village. When we open the new PK area, it's the only place that it will be allowed.

4/16/2002 I uploaded a new version of the Map Editor today (version 0.2.3). It has a few bug fixes:

Legolas and I edited the GP and UnderCity maps - they all had hundreds of shop objects in them (instead of just one, which is what they were supposed to have). That was why they were loading slowly and "list" wasn't working properly in them. It's not really Murlana or Davanna's fault - the Map Editor let them do it. It doesn't anymore.

4/16/2002 We've been having site problems since about 6:00am April 16th, PDT. That makes almost 12 hours of downtime. It doesn't -appear- to be my game server. I rebooted it and with no load I'm still getting a lot of lag, so I think it's my ISP's problem. I've contacted them and I'll hopefully have a resolution soon.

4/15/2002 Attention Wizards and would-be Wizards: I've written up a brand-new Wizard FAQ. I encourage you to read it!

4/14/2002 Monsters and non-player characters (NPCs) will now respond to you if you talk to them normally using the "say" command. If you "say hi", it's the same as typing "chat". However, "say hi" will work up to 2 squares away from your character. All monsters and NPCs that hear you will respond. This feature should make things easier for newbies.

4/14/2002 There's a new client (version 0.4.0) - once again, I had to update the protocol for the handheld version. QuickStart and WebStart users should get it automatically.

Note: The Windows version of WebStart has a bug in it, and yesterday it wasn't downloading the new client. I've found a workaround, and it should work for you now. Sorry about that.

4/13/2002 Misc features and changes:

Our wizards are experimenting with area-building, and they occasionally make mistakes that make the server lag or crash. I'm actively working to make the server more bulletproof.

4/10/2002 Major new change: You can no longer enter the water unless you enable swimming. You only have to do this once. Type "swim" and you'll be able to go in the water. You don't need to do this if you have flying or water-walking ability.

I made this change because it's very common for new players to go out in the water accidentally and drown. It's pretty discouraging when this happens, and we've lost a fair number of potential players just from this one bad experience.

Another minor change: if you click on your character, it now sends an "apply" command. This allows you to use the mouse to enter buildings, pull levers, read signs, and so on. It's mostly a change to support the handheld client, but you may find it handy in the normal client as well.

4/07/2002 Caethra the Dark Elf has created a picture of herself. Yes, that's a magic whip. No, I can't believe it either. Amazing.

4/05/2002 There is a new game client, version 0.3.0. You must download the new version to play the game. The old one (0.2.4) is now broken because of a change I made to the network protocol to support the new PDA client.

I've verified that both the QuickStart and the WebStart versions fetch the new version automatically. If you're not sure if you have the right version, open the Help->About dialog in the client and check the version. It should be "0.3.0".

The new version has two major fixes:

I should have a version of the handheld client ready for alpha testing this weekend. Right now it only works on the Sharp Zaurus, which is the only PDA I know of that supports the PersonalJava specification. I'm sure that eventually more handhelds will support Java, including the newer Palm handhelds. In the meantime, if you want to play Wyvern on a PDA, I suggest you go buy a Zaurus. It's the coolest PDA on the market.

4/01/2002 I merged in some old logs from before the Feb 4th server crash. The Most Deaths List and Minath Arena Rankings now include results from before Feb 4th.

3/27/2002 Not much news lately, since I've been focusing mostly on the new handheld game client. It'll run on the Palm, any WinCE device (e.g. Compaq iPaq, HP Jornada), and the Sharp Zaurus, which is the PDA I own personally. The client is coming along nicely, but probably won't be ready until May or June.

3/22/2002 Banyou the Dark Elf has created a Wyvern Character Page for himself. It's pretty cool. If enough people create pages like this, I'll create a permanent link to them from the website. Maybe I'll have a competition with awards and stuff. :-)

3/17/2002Thanks to everyone who voted for Wyvern on Top Web Games - it's drawn quite a few new players. We have about 7,000 unique players who've tried Wyvern now (over 8,000 characters). I'd like to get it over 10,000, just as a personal milestone, so please vote for Wyvern if you haven't already. Thanks!

3/14/2002 The game got into a weird state today where the graphics weren't loading. It's undoubtedly due to the performance fixes I've checked in. I'll work on it ASAP.

Note: we've found the problem. One of our players actually caused the problem (typing in a command that went into an infinite loop), and then mailed us about it immediately.

3/14/2002 I fixed books of mana shield to appear in shops again (broken since beta). I made a pass through the bug list and fixed a bunch of small bugs people reported. Also, be warned: the Demon Lord and Marilith both have acid resistance now - that was a bug.

I also made vaults no-spells areas. Not sure if it actually works, but if so, you won't be able to cast spells in your vault. This is to help prevent accidents that destroy items.

3/14/2002 I've made a pretty major set of changes to the game engine to prepare for the upgrade to JDK 1.4. There are probably new bugs. Please let me know asap if you find really bad ones - mail wyvern@cabochon.com. Thanks!

3/13/2002 I'm no longer going to restore XP for people who've died by going net-dead. It's too much manual labor, and I've run into at least one case where the person wasn't 100% honest about how much they'd lost. From now on, if you're getting disconnected, consider getting a better ISP.

3/13/2002 We moved pretty quickly up to the #6 spot on Top Web Games - thanks to those of you who've voted. If you haven't, please do so: it's easy, and it will bring more people to the game, which will in turn make it more fun.

3/12/2002 We're up to #11 on Top Web Games - a few more votes and we'll be in the top 10, which makes us visible from the front page. We have hundreds of active players, so we should be able to blow away the competition. Please send in your vote - it only takes a few seconds. It's a great way to show your support for Wyvern. Thanks! -Rhialto.

3/04/2002 You can now vote for Wyvern on Top Web Games. Let's try to get Wyvern in the top 10 - I think it deserves to be there. -Rhialto

3/02/2002 I'm back from my week-long trip. Also, the coin purse bug is now fixed.

2/21/2002 There's a bug in coin purses - if you type "get all from purse", all your money will disappear. Needless to say, don't try this. I'll work on a fix ASAP. In the meantime, if you absolutely have to get money out of a coin purse, put it on the ground and then get the coins out.

The XP chart was broken for 24th and 25th level - it was off by a factor of 10. I've fixed it, and also added an entry for 26th level: 15 million XP. Wonder who will get there first?

I'll be out of town from Friday 2/22 through Wednesday 2/27. I'll log in occasionally to check in.

2/19/2002 The jar files you need for running the Map Editor are now back on the website.

2/17/2002 There's a new unsell command that lets you recover items you accidentally sell to the shop.

2/11/2002 The create-player and forgot-password forms are working again on the website.

2/09/2002 The player vaults have all been restored from Feb 5th. If you put anything in your vault between Feb 7th and Feb 9th that you really need, email me and I'll copy it back for you.

There are still a few data files that need to be restored, including the death log, the Minath Monster Arena rankings, and a few others. I'll have them fixed by Sunday night.

In other news, Legolas has created a new area called Gont Port. You can find it on the World Map. Enjoy!

2/08/2002 Wyvern is back up and playable now - it took a while to get the Java WebStart version working again. You should now be able to play using either QuickStart or WebStart, whichever you prefer.

Update: I have restored all player files from just before the server died. I'm still working on the vaults - should be done by tonight. The create-character website form is still not working, but I should have it back soon as well.

2/05/2002 The game server died and we had to replace some components. We've lost some data and we're in the process of restoring it from backup. The game will be unavailable until Thursday. We apologize for the inconvenience. -Rhialto

2/04/02 Wyvern is officially in Beta! Exactly one year ago today, Wyvern opened its doors for alpha test. After a year of playtesting, we've finally made it to Beta.

We're not going to delete or reset any characters - the game will continue as normal. We're declaring the Beta milestone because the game has been very stable and playable. Read the Beta Docs for more information.

1/31/02 Tonight I'll be reviewing a whole bunch of map submissions. Hopefully most of them will pass and we'll be able to add a bunch of new areas.

In other news, I've been receiving various requests from people who accidentally sold valuable items and wanted the items back. Please use the keep command to prevent this from happening. I have shop logs that go back approximately 3 days, so if it happens, let me know quickly and I'll get the item back to you. If it's not in the logs, I can't do it. I will start work on an 'unsell' command so you can fix mistakes like this yourself in the future.

1/28/02 Various updates, some minor, some major:

I've also begun work on a Palm Pilot and/or WinCE version of the game client, which is going to take me a few months to complete. I'll try to keep the game work up in the meantime, but most of the new content will come from our wizards (Caius, Kiz, Legolas, Astralain, Murlana and Thrain, at the moment).

1/15/02 Work has been extraordinarily busy lately for me, so I haven't been able to put any time into the game, including reading email. However, I expect to be able to catch up a bit this weekend.

1/11/02 I've received numerous complaints from well-respected players about some recent problems with Wizards and wiz characters. To deal with this problem, I'm going to remove the Wizardly powers from all our junior wizards - they will be able to upload and download maps, and that will be the extent of their power. Going forward, I will try to find one or two responsible players to promote as Wizards (not Junior Wizards), who will be allowed to help with the game administration.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and I hope this change will improve your gameplay. -Rhialto

1/7/02 Lots of people have asked to be made Wizards, but the requirements changed last September or so - you now have to create a new area for the game before you can be considered for Immortality. I've updated the web pages on the new criteria in various places.

1/4/02 I fixed the forgot-password web page; it's been broken since July 11th. If you forget your password, you can now request a new one via the web.

1/2/02 Rhialto is back from vacation! Caius D'Banisher has been running the game graciously in my absence. I checked in a few times while I was out, and the game consistently had 15 or so players - even on Christmas Day, oddly enough. I'm glad people like it!

I've done a bunch of backups, and I'm jumping back into development. Look for new features and bug fixes coming your way.

12/22/01 Last changes before my vacation:

I'll be back on January 2nd. Have fun!

12/21/01 I'm taking next week off to go snowboarding in Tahoe. I won't be logging in. Caius will be online occasionally if you have questions. I've been working on a whole bunch of game enhancements that I'll install when I get back. Have a nice holiday! -Rhialto

12/17/01 Major change for spellcasters: I increased the number of lore points you get for Lore-skill levels 6 and higher. Starting at sk-lore 5, you get 10 lore points per lore skill level. This change affected over 100 players, who got an average of 14 extra lore points from this change. (Phishnak got the most - 57 points!)

The basic problem was that spellcasters were training up in Lore just so they could get lore points to learn spells. That's not the way it's supposed to work - Lore gives you access to higher-level spells, but you shouldn't have to train up in Lore just for a few measly lore points. Spellcasters already have enough skills to worry about. This is a big win for balancing spellcasters.

12/17/01 Added new magewho and magetell commands for members of the Mages Guild.

12/17/01 I implemented the list command in shops, so you can see everything that's for sale. It sorts the output and removes duplicate items to make it easy to read. This should be a huge win for those smart shoppers out there. -R.

12/16/01 We now have Departments of Transportation in 3 cities: Alaria, Minath Elion, and Glacier Point. You can use the pay teleporters to travel directly to various destinations throughout the land.

12/16/01 I've changed the way skill training costs are computed. It's now on a sliding scale, and it's much easier now for low-level players to get the skills they need. You can read about it on the Skills Page. The changes will take effect on 12/17/01.

12/16/01 Murlana has opened up a new city, Glacier Point, in the far north. Deep beneath Glacier Point is the UnderCity, created by Davanna. Both cities are now open - enjoy!

12/15/01 I fixed the Minath Arena Viewing Balls so they show the combat messages while someone is fighting. I've placed some viewers in the taverns in all the main towns, the Zoo Bar, and a few other locations. The game driver will announce the beginning of all fights, and you can watch them from almost anywhere now.

Keep in mind that you can fight in the Minath Arena even if you're a low-level player, and still be high in the rankings, depending on how far you get. Your ranking is how far you get minus your player level, so feel free to try it out!

The viewing balls for the Alaria Player-vs-Player Arena don't show combat messages yet, but I'm working on it. -Rhialto

12/15/01 Misc new stuff:

12/15/01 The new Monster Fight Arena is open in Minath Elion! It works like this:

We'll be testing the arena out for a week, and then we'll erase all the rankings. After that, it's up to you to get to the top.

12/14/01 Caius and I have been working on a new kind of Fight Arena in Minath Elion. It will open up for testing this weekend.

12/14/01 Caius has added some new high-level maps to Magetown. Enjoy!

12/14/01 Training in a skill now depends on the level you're trying to train to. The train cost is now "per-level", so if the train cost is 1000gp per level, and you're training from level 4 to 5, it'll cost 5000gp. To go to level 6 it'd be 6000gp, and so on. I tweaked many of the training costs - some of them are cheaper and some are more expensive. The most notable change is that the Elements now cost 1000 gold per level - I think they may have been free before (oops).

12/12/01 I fixed it so if you sell a group of items, you'll get the same price as if you'd sold them each individually. For instance, if you sell 30 dragon claws, you'll get 30,000 coins instead of 1000.

I also made it so that if you're moving with the mouse, it won't queue up more than 3 moves at a time. You won't notice this most of the time, but if you accidentally move out over the water with the mouse, you can recover much more quickly now - this should help with new players getting stuck in the water.

12/12/01 I fixed a bug in the Death Ray spell - it was reversing the chances of success. Everyone's complaining about it so I'll give you the new calculation and you can see how it works. The chance of killing a monster is: 

(50% + (5 * your level in sk-death)) - (monster death resistance + monster "protection" rating + monster level)
So an 18th-level monster (such as the Huge Minotaur) has a base 18% resistance. Monsters don't have any protection unless they happen to be wearing a ring of protection. Many monsters have death resistance - all undead and most demons have 100% death resistance (or higher).

Your base chance of success is 50%, with an extra 5% added per each level you have in sk-death. So, for instance, if you are level 8 in death, you have a base 90% chance of killing a first-level monster. With sk-death of 4, you have a base 70% chance of slaying a first-level monster with no intrinsic death resistance. The spell only hits each monster ONCE, even if the spell passes through the monster with multiple squares, so you only get one shot at killing the monster.

Hopefully this will forestall any future bug reports about the spell. If you want it to work better, train in Death, and don't try to use it on super-high-level monsters unless you don't mind casting it a bunch of times. -Rhialto

12/11/01 Caius changed it so that only members of the Mages Guild may learn spells from the Mages Guild library books.

12/10/01 New rule: no loans. I didn't realize this was going on, but high-level players have been loaning money and equipment to low-level players. This makes the low-level players more powerful than they should be, so I'm putting a stop to it. However, since it wasn't technically against the rules until now, any existing loan deals are still valid. I want to be told about all of them now, though - any I'm not aware of by Tuesday will become invalid. -Rhialto

12/10/01 I tweaked (lower) the minimum level you need in order to wear the wiz cap, wiz robe and samhoc crown. I also changed the message you get so it tells you what level you need to be in order to wear the armor.

Anyone who wants a full refund for their wizard hat or wizard robe is entitled to one, because there's no way you could have gotten one without buying it yourself. Just send me mail and I'll refund you. The Samhoc Crown is different; you get them by buying them from other players, so if you want a refund, you'll have to contact that player.

In other news, changed the game so you can't die more than once in any five-second interval. This fixes the problem where hydras (and mariliths) could kill you a bunch of times in one battle. It also fixes other problems where bugs can kill you a bunch of times in a row, which we've seen happen a lot in the past.

12/09/01 Added a new refund command so you can get a full refund for an item you bought from a shop if you don't like it. Your window for receiving a refund is described in the command documentation. This command will become available on the next reboot of the game.

12/09/01 Added minimum required level to wear certain kinds of armor. For very powerful armor types, such as the Crown of Samhoc and the Wizard Hat/Wizard Robe, you have to be very high level to wear them now. There is generally no way to figure out how high-level you need to be - you just try it on and if it works, you can wear it.

12/08/01 New version of the game client available - 0.2.4. Fixes bug where the blinky text cursor wasn't showing up in the input field.

12/08/01 We need more quests. If you have an idea for a quest, preferably one with lots of thinking and problem-solving required, please send me a writeup. I'd be happy to code it, and I'll attribute it to your character. Down the road we'll have support for Wizards writing their own quests, but for now I have to code them. Send me mail! -Rhialto

12/07/01 Various bug fixes in the past few days:

Plus probably others I've forgotten as well. This of course makes an inconceivably tiny dent in the to-do list, but at least we're making progress.

12/04/01 I fixed the UnTrainer so you can untrain in Strength. Sorry for the long wait on this one.

12/03/01 The Java WebStart client is working again! Thanks to Falerin for sending me the information I needed to fix it. It still has some problems downloading some of the artwork, but I should be able to fix that soon. -Rhialto.

12/03/01 I just took a look at the idea-log for the first time in a few weeks, and *WOW* - you folks have been submitting new ideas faster than ever before! I'm copying my favorite ideas into the to-do list as fast as I can. Thanks for all the suggestions. -R.

12/02/01 I haven't added a lot of new player-visible features lately. However, I've fixed quite a few bugs in the past few days, including many that were reported by players via the "bug" command. Also, we have several new Wizards creating areas for the game, and some of the areas will be coming on line very soon (within the next week or two). Should be interesting!

11/30/01 There's a new client (0.2.2) with a "Submit a Bug Report" dialog in the Help menu. It makes it easier to type in long reports. I *may* have broken the Java WebStart client with this change, but I'll be looking into it ASAP.

11/30/01 I've brought back armor wear/remove delays. A few months ago (July 22nd, to be exact), I made wearing and removing armor instantaneous, because it was incredibly annoying for Nagas when they tried to shift shapes. However, that problem is fixed now. I'm putting armor wear/remove times back in to prevent a common abuse: giants and other fighters make aliases that take off all their armor, cast spells, then put it on again. This makes them much better spellcasters than they ought to be, and the armor wear/remove delays should make these aliases less of a nuisance. I know this will be an unpopular move, but unless somone can think of a better way to prevent the alias abuse, I'm going to keep it this way.

11/29/2001 Bluedevil has created a new Wyvern Message Board. It has various chat areas, plus a place where you can list items for sale. Of course, I need to get this feature into the game so the transaction can close even if you're not online. :-)

11/29/2001 I fixed the UnTrainer so you can untrain in the Lore skill. You have to free up enough lore points first by forgetting spells. Let me know if you find any bugs in it.

11/28/2001 Misc new stuff:

11/27/2001 Based on feedback I've gotten, I've made it so you can't group with players who are more than 5 levels lower or higher than you. This is to prevent abuses where you can get way too much XP for your level.

11/23/2001 I'm moving to a new place this weekend, so I probably won't get much new stuff done on the game. Have a nice weekend! -Rhialto

11/22/2001 Lighting model problem is fixed - thanks to everyone who reported the problem and helped me reproduce it.

I've opened up a new section of Minath Elion. See if you can find it. It's for VERY high-level players, so be careful.

11/21/2001 I made a rather large change to the lighting model for performance reasons yesterday, and as a result people have been producing clouds of darkness in maps. I'd appreciate it if someone could reproduce it reliably and show me how (email me if you can). -Rhialto

11/20/2001 New rule - you're not allowed to give an excessive amount of money or equipment to other players. It messes up the game balance, so don't do it. Read the rules if you're unclear on the concept.

11/19/2001 Check out the Wyvern High Score List

11/19/2001 Segretto has put together a Wyvern community site where you can go to chat with other players if the game is down. It also has a message board where you can post comments and ideas.

11/19/2001 New mapwho command to show you who is in the current map. There is also a maptell command to communicate with other players in your map.

I also fixed it so that you can't sell things on identify tables or anvils.

11/18/2001 I've opened the Mages Guild so you can join. It costs 100,000 gold. If you join, you get a new title, and 10 extra spell points. Humans also get a new picture. We may add other membership benefits in the future.

11/18/2001 I've created a Java WebStart version of the game client. This uses a different technology from the QuickStart version, so it may work for you if the QuickStart didn't. If you have a friend who couldn't connect to the game for some reason, please have your friend try the WebStart version. Thanks!

11/17/2001 Thrain has opened a new city - Sherwood, located to the east of Samhoc and north of Minath. Have fun!

11/17/2001 Various new fixes and stuff:

11/14/2001 Important:   I updated the Alpha Test Rules and added a new rule. Specifically, you are not allowed to kill monsters in a map that has been "claimed" by another player. Read the rule for details. If you have questions, ask me so I can clarify it.

11/13/2001 I've had many complaints from Halflings and Pixies that they aren't as powerful as other characters. This is simply not true, and the misconception is almost always due to the person playing their spellcasting character as a fighter. I've written a new Spellcasters Manual with lots of tips and hints for playing spellcaster races (Pixie, Halfling, Elf, and, if you choose, Naga).

11/13/2001 Various people have been wondering why I "punished" Grumpf and Hover by taking XP away from them, when both of them were playing by the rules (neither of them was cheating). Please understand: this was not a punishment, and I let them both keep their level and skills they'd obtained. It was an adjustment resulting from what I (and others) consider to be a bug in the game: the fact that they could gain experience without ever being in danger. Let's face it: it's a role-playing game, and experience means you've solved a difficult problem. If you can stand in front of a generator without worrying about dying, then you shouldn't be getting experience. This is fundamentally a game-balance problem, and it needs to be fixed. I haven't totally fixed it yet, but I want to get to the point where if you're not in danger from a monster, then you won't get XP from it. Also, keep in mind that this is still Alpha Test, and I can and will make adjustments to characters as needed to keep the game fair for everyone. I love having talented, experienced players like Grumpf and Hover playing the game, and I hope we contine to see them online in the coming months.

11/12/2001 Recyle bins no longer give XP for putting stuff in them. It was just too easy to abuse. They're pretty much only good for reducing clutter in the game now. It's too bad, but I was tired of watching people deposit 1 silver coin 4000 times. (I'm considering changing it just not to accept coins, though).

11/12/2001 The Big Dracolich has been given the Death Ray spell. Consider yourself warned - if you take him on, you will probably die.

Also, I made a change so that lower-level monsters give you less experience. If you're a lot higher-level than a monster you've killed, you may get little or no experience for it. This is to prevent people from standing next to generators and gaining an essentially infinite amount of experience without having to work for it. (You can still do this, but it now takes a lot longer).

In other news, Minath Elion is now open. It's not finished yet, but the people who've explored it believe it's got enough stuff in it to make it interesting. Some of the houses still need to be opened, and I need to make a Quest there, but otherwise it's reasonably playable. Check the World Map for its location.

11/11/2001 A bunch of people have asked to see my to-do list. It's now officially viewable. It's not going to be intelligible to you, for the most part - it's mostly reminders to me of things I need to fix.

For you programmer types, yes, I need to put it in a database, but it's not something I have time to do right now. Eventually I want people to be able to vote on fixes/features, to help me prioritize what things to work on. In the meantime, if you can make heads or tails of the list, be my guest. -Rhialto

11/11/2001 There is a new version of the client (0.2.0) that you MUST download before you can connect to the game again. You won't get an error message - it just won't work at all if you have an older version. It contains some changes to the network protocol, which is why it won't work.

In client version 0.2.0, you now have 3 options for chat output:

I've also fixed the bug where if you closed the chat window, the chat output wouldn't appear anymore.

The client versions are always of the form "major.minor.release" (e.g. 0.2.0). Starting with this version of the client, the server will refuse your connection if your major or minor number is too low. The release number is ignored - you can have an older release number, and it just means you're missing some optional new features.

11/10/2001 Misc new additions today:

11/9/2001 I fixed girdles so they can be worn by all players, to be consistent with the player-manual documentation. I also changed say/shout/tell to send your messages to the chat window, since people seemed to want it that way.

11/8/2001 New client (0.1.16) to fix the problem where you-hit-monster messages were going into the Chat Window. FAQ: if you're currently seeing you-hit messages in black, get the new client.

11/7/2001 I've been making a lot of tweaks to the game lately, as I'm sure you've noticed if you've been playing. I want to give you a roadmap of where we're going with all these changes, so I've written up a new game-balance document.

11/6/2001 I uploaded a new client - version 0.1.15. It has a new option called "Chat Window" (in the View menu). If you open the Chat Window, all the "shout", "say", "tell" and server messages (e.g. who enters and leaves the game) will go into that window. It's pretty rough right now, and will need some fine-tuning. Please send me your feedback and suggestions.

11/6/2001 There's now a new magic item called an "elixir pouch". You can put your potions in it, and the drink command will automatically look in the pouch. This should help reduce inventory clutter for people who carry dozens (or hundreds) of potions. The pouches should be available in shops.

I also made potions of healing and mana groupable, so you can have "potion of mana (11)" instead of a bunch of singles.

11/5/2001 I changed shops to pay full price for gems. This means you can convert between gems and coins without losing any money. Gems are now a convenient way to carry money around without all the weight. Hope you like it.

11/5/2001 I changed the Petrify spell to be Lore 11, and gave it a new reagent (dragon heart). If you used to know the Petrify spell, I took it away and gave your 8 lore points back. If you still want the spell, you'll have to re-learn it.

I also made all the trainers immune to petrification.

In other news, I fixed a bug in the find-traps spell, so it should start working again.

11/4/2001 We fixed generators so they reset after you kill the last monster from the generator. It takes at least a minute for the generator to reset; some generators take longer.

11/3/2001 The game was lagging and crashing all day today, and it turned out to be from some changes I made to the Crystal Ball. The problem is now fixed (thanks to Klasanov and Bluedevil for their help in debugging the problem), and the game should be back to its good old stable self. -Rhialto

11/2/2001 The summon-player and join-player spells now require the target player to accept joins, or they won't work. To accept joins, type "join on", and to deny them, type "join off". See the join command for details.

11/2/2001 We're making certain magic items get used up after a while, including crystal balls and portable holes. After they're used up, you can't recharge them any more.

11/1/2001 Fixed bug where you could wear 2 pair of boots and/or gloves. Note: no complaining about this one. Humanoids only have 2 hands and 2 feet, so you can't wear 4 gloves and 4 boots.

Also created an "unequip" command (synonym for "remove all").

11/1/2001 The Melee Skill changes are in effect now. If you have some points in the skill you'll notice a huge increase in your attack speed. Have fun!

10/31/2001 More good news and bad news:

10/31/2001 There was a bug in the way the Strength skill was being calculated, and we fixed it. Everyone who had the skill is affected - your strength won't be as high as it was. Sorry about that. You can untrain in the skill if you feel it's not valuable to you anymore.

10/30/2001 Good news: the infamous Dungeon Stair Bug is fixed. Special thanks to Ronbo for figuring this one out.

Not so good news: there are various problems with the spell system right now. I've been making a lot of changes under the hood to make spells more efficient, and it's broken some of them. Please email me if you find any spell bugs. Also, some spells (including the "spells" command itself) are getting disabled for some people. When this happens, email me and I'll fix it. We're looking into a better fix for it ASAP.

10/29/2001 There is a new dispel command that lets you dispel spells you've cast. Let me know if you find any problems with it. There are a few spells (e.g. area-effect spells and summoning spells) that aren't currently dispellable, but I'll work on them.

10/27/2001 I found three new crash bugs and fixed them. I don't think we're out of the woods yet - there may be a few more lurking about. However, it's my top priority to get the game back to rock-solid stability, and I expect to get there within a week.

10/26/2001 New Client - version 0.1.14. As usual, Applet users *should* get it automatically, but should double-check the Help->About dialog to make sure they have the right one. Standalone client users should definitely download it. It has a major new feature to support downloading new artwork on the fly.

10/26/2001 New Map Editor available for download (version 0.2) that fixes the problems people were seeing on starting up the editor.

10/26/2001 New game client (0.1.13) that fixes the Enter key for European keyboards. Please shift+reload the QuickStart page to force your browser to get the latest version. If you use the standalone client and have an EU keyboard, you should download the latest version. Check the Help->About dialog to see if you have the latest.

10/25/2001 The game has been crashing today for no obvious reason. I think someone is doing something unexpected that's causing it to crash, but it'll probably take me a while to figure it out. Also, my ISP has been REALLY flaky this week, and the network connection keeps disappearing completely for half an hour or more. I'm following up with them to see why this is happening. -Rhialto

10/25/2001 I fixed the Arena, finally. You can fight other players in it now. It still doesn't keep track of the fight history yet, but I'll fix that soon.

10/25/2001 At long last, the Wyvern Map Editor is available for download. The latest (v0.1.8) should work for most people, and I'll be uploading new versions of it as we discover problems.

I've created a document describing our policy for creating areas for Wyvern - please read it if you're going to make new areas.

10/24/2001 I've been working on the Map Editor, since I want to encourage people to build new areas. It should be ready by tonight or tomorrow. Check back soon.

10/22/2001 Added a new skill, Strength, which increases your carrying capacity and (if high enough) your damage when you hit. Trainer is in the Adventurers Guild.

10/21/2001 I've put in a change that will allow many more players to play the game simultaneously. The change is that maps "suspend" 15 seconds after the last player leaves, and the monsters start back up again when someone reenters.

The good news is that we should be able to support at least 50 players at a time now, maybe more. The only lag you should see is the occasional short bursts from network congestion or whatever. The bad news is that the feature may have bugs in it - please let me know if you run into situations where all the monsters stop moving.

10/21/2001 I've added a new World Map to help people find their way around the main continents.

10/20/2001 Lots of fixes and new features today:

10/19/2001 I've uploaded a new client (0.1.12) to fix the problem with the command-history list:

10/19/2001 You may have noticed a new link to the left. It lets you send me money if you like the game, using the Amazon Honor System payment method. It's totally optional, but if you are a regular player and can contribute anything at all, I would genuinely appreciate it. I may need to start making the game pay-to-play if nobody tips me.

10/19/2001 Oops, I messed up and didn't set the latest version of the standalone client to point to the actual latest version, 0.1.11. If you use the standalone client, please re-download it so you can get the keyboard fixes. If you're not sure if you have the latest, check the About Dialog. (The about dialog doesn't work in the browser-applet client, unfortunately).

10/18/2001 I made the Tornaum Quest not quite so hard - you don't have to go quite as deep into the dungeon to solve the quest. You still might want to try to solve it with a friend, though. I also raised the Mist Temple to 25 Quest Points, since it's actually proving incredibly difficult to kill all the monsters.

One minor fix for giants: they can grow "down" as well as "up" - in other words, they can be standing with a wall to the north and still grow to large size.

10/18/2001 Due to popular demand, we've made it so when you look at another player, you can now see that player's worn/wielded armor and weapons.

10/17/2001 We have added two major new features that will significantly enhance gameplay: hotkeys and multi-command macros. Read about them in the updated docs for the alias command. Please report any bugs you find in this feature using the bug command.

Note: There is a new version of the client to support this feature - browser/applet users will get it re-downloaded automatically. Standalone client users have to download the latest version, v0.1.11.

Another Note: When I put this feature out there, immediately people started having problems with certain keys, in particular the up and down arrows. This turned out to be caused by their browser caching the old version of the client. I have fixed this by renaming the client jar file in the QuickStart page, so your browser should be forced to download the new version.

If your arrow keys don't work, try to force your browser to re-download the client by clearing out all your temporary internet files (there's a menu option for it in IE), and removing cached jars from the java properties control panel setting. If you *still* have problems after all that, please send me email. (Typically the problem is that the down-arrow moves you southeast, and the up-arrow does a search).

10/15/2001 We've changed the experience award you get for mid-level and high-level monsters. You get a lot more now. Go wild!

10/15/2001 Still more spellcasting changes are on the way. We're going to change the levels of some spells, usually not by much. If you've learned a spell and its level goes up, we'll let you keep it, but if you forget it, you'll have to re-learn it at the spell's new lore level.

We're also going to increase the number of lore points you get for a given lore level, so most spellcasters will be getting a few more lore points soon.

10/15/2001 We put in various changes for spellcasters:

We also got rid of the Lore 10 rods (dragon breath, death ray), and made the Lore 10 wands significantly more expensive. They were all overpowered. We'll be changing the reagents for the death ray spell today as well.

10/14/2001 The inventory command has been changed to let you show subsets of your inventory. For example, you can type 'inv potion' to see all the potions you're carrying, or 'inv battle axe' to see all your battle axes.

10/13/2001 Good News! I found and fixed the "big" performance problem the game has been having. It no longer slows down over time - we had it running for 3 hours today with 13 players, and it was blazingly fast. There are undoubtedly still problems that can produce lag, but the major problem is fixed now.

10/13/2001 Lots of new bug fixes (including fixing rods - sorry about that!) I'm also still working on game performance issues. The game gradually slows down over a period of 2-4 hours, until it's too laggy and has to be rebooted. I've found and fixed a number of performance problems, but there are still others to be found. One thing is clear: the game can run up to 20 players with no lag at all for the first hour or so. This means if I can fix the performance degradation, the game will only need to be rebooted for bug fixes and maintenance (so maybe once a day).

10/11/2001 Thrain has created a new area - the Prison, located in Alaria. Go visit if you get a chance! Oh, and summon spells are fixed now.

10/11/2001 I've uploaded a new version of the client (0.1.10). Applet users should get it re-downloaded automatically; standalone users should download the new one. It contains some new artwork that will be appearing in new areas soon.

10/9/2001 Lots of minor tweaks and fixes. Summon spells are currently disabled until I can fix monsters to attack summoned creatures. We've made some new magic items, and there are 3 or 4 small new maps available in Alaria. We're contining to work on the performance of the game, and we're also working on new areas. Keep your eyes open for new developments!

10/8/2001 The Un-Trainer is now available, in a shrine on an island in the southwest area of the continent. It's expensive, but you can go there to un-learn skills and get skill points back.

10/7/2001 A new skill is now available. A fellow in the village bank will train you in the Merchant skill. This skill gets you better prices in shops (for both buying and selling).

10/7/2001 It's been a productive weekend. I just opened our fourth quest, created by Thrain, one of our players. Read about it in the Adventurers Guild!

10/7/2001 We've opened our third quest - Tornaum Castle. Talk to King Tornaum or read about it in the Adventurers Guild.

10/6/2001 Kiz's new quest area, the Ruins of Samhoc, is now online! Read about it in the Adventurers Guild.

10/5/2001 NOTE:  I have changed the way Dodge and Agility work. Armor of Agility used to add directly to your dodge rating, and now it adds to your dodge skill. I have also placed a cap on your dodge rating so it can never go over 90%.

What does this mean? It means people with tons and tons of Dodge (and Agility, which is now the same as Dodge) never used to take physical damage from monsters, and now they will. Be careful! You may be used to fighting monsters that were never able to hit you, and now they can.

10/5/2001 There was a 2.5-hour outage today because I stupidly forgot to restart the server watchdog. Sorry! -R.

Note: then there was another 2-hour outage, this one from my ISP inexplicably going offline. Sigh.

10/4/2001 Major bug fix: nagas can now wear and remove armor, and shift shapes, without getting screwed up.

10/4/2001 I've added a bunch of fairly minor fixes and additions lately. One major change: Kiz's new area (the Ruins of Samhoc) is opening up this weekend. It has a 10-point quest in it. What does that mean for all the potential Wizards-to-be? If your character was created before October 1, then I'll let you get away with being a Wizard just by solving the Moon Quest - when I start letting people be Wizards, that is. No ETA on when that will happen.

10/1/2001 We made some minor changes that should help the game run longer between reboots. Still no fix yet for the lag problem that occurs after the game has been up for a while.

We also improved the player-saving code. You shouldn't see that error anymore that said "there was an error saving your player. One of your items may be corrupted."

9/30/2001 We're doing some profiling of the game today, trying to find out why the lag gradually increases over time. The game may go up and down, and possibly crash (it has once already). We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you. -Rhialto and Ronbo

9/27/2001 I tried the Java upgrade, and it slowed map loading to a crawl, so I backed it out. I'll try again when I get a chance to investigate.

9/27/2001 I changed the output of the "spells" command to print more useful information about the spells you know. I'm currently working on fixing the petrify spell (and breath weapon) - it requires an upgrade to Java JDK 1.4, which I'll do pretty soon. I've had a lot of requests for new maps with monsters to kill (and gold to find), so I'll be working on some this weekend.

9/19/2001 I've finally finished up my 2-month break from the game. I'm not sure what I'm going to be working on yet, but I'll once again be adding enhancements and bug fixes for your gaming pleasure. Expect no news until 9/26 or so; I'm out of town until then. -Rhialto

9/18/2001 I removed the penalty for killing monsters that are lower level than you. Killing rats can be quite lethal, even for medium level players, so I'm giving you experience for everything you kill from now on.

9/18/2001 I've changed the Wyvern advancement system to be much more advancement-friendly. Instead of each level being double the previous level's XP, it's only 1.5x, which put our top players up to 13th through 15th level. I also made it so that getting to first level is much less of a challenge than it was before. -Rhialto

9/15/2001 I fixed the 'forget' command - you can now use it to un-learn spells you know. It will return the spell's lore points to you, so you can use them to learn other spells. -Rhialto

8/18/2001 I've been taking a much-needed break from the game. I had been working on it nearly every day for almost a year (not to mention lots of work on it for a total of 4 years), and it was taking its toll.

In any case, I'll be taking a few more weeks off. However, there is work being done on the game. Rincewind the Wizard is making a new Monkey King Quest (and a new area to go with it). Kiz the Wiz is working on the Ruins of Samhoc, along with another quest. Ronbo (not a Wizard) has been working on performance-related issues. We should have a whole slew of new features, areas and bug-fixes available by the time the holidays roll around, which isn't far away. I should be able to declare Beta test by Christmas. In the meantime, have fun playing! -Rhialto

7/27/2001 I haven't done much on the game in the past few days. Last weekend Ronbo and I spent many painful hours tracking some nasty bugs in the armor system. We fixed some big bugs, such as the one where you could wear unlimited rings, and the one where items disappear randomly from your inventory. However, in the process I broke nagas, and I haven't fixed them yet (sorry, Styx!). Kiz and I also made some changes on Monday to fix problems where our top 3-5 players were unable to be hit by Titans and other nasty monsters (although they could be killed by spellcasting monsters), so the game should be back to its normal, challenging self. I won't have time to add any new features for about a week, but we have a new quest and a large new area in the works; it should be available in 2-3 weeks.

7/17/2001 I took the server down tonight around midnight to make spellcasters more powerful. I changed four races to have better spellcasting abilities: nagas, halflings, elves and pixies. They all have more spell points, get more spell points per level, and have an extra point (pixies: 2 points) in meditation now. I hope this helps balance spellcasters, who have sort of suffered so far. Feedback is welcome.

7/16/2001 I've added two new commands - "keep" and "unkeep". They allow you to mark an item so that you can't accidentally sell it. I will be doing more inventory-management stuff this month, to help make the game easier to use.

7/13/2001 There were a few big outages today - the game ran out of memory and started chomping player files. The server was pretty much out of available memory from being up for over 2 months straight, so there was nothing left for the game server. I'll reboot the box each week to make sure this doesn't happen again.

7/11/2001 I made a bunch of changes to reorganize the way player files are stored, since we have several thousand of them and it was starting to cause problems. It's all reorganized now, and hopefully it won't cause any new bugs.

7/10/2001 I've added in a bunch of new bug fixes, including a fix for a bug that I didn't believe, even though Styx reported it several times. The bug was that if you stood on your own gravestone, monsters wouldn't attack you. It turned out to be a real bug (basically "kill styx" would sometimes match "styx's gravestone" before it matched "styx"), and it's definitely one of the weirder ones I've seen.

Speaking of weird bugs, the petrify spell doesn't work. It works fine for me at home (it creates a cool grayscale statue of the monster or player that got petrified), but not on the main game server. It turns out only to work if I have X-windows running on the server (which I don't). It's going to be tricky to solve, but hopefully I'll have a fix in place soon.

7/08/2001 I discovered today that shops were only generating level-1 armor, and nobody had told me about it. I fixed shops to generate armor of all levels. I also fixed shops to generate enchanted weapons (they never did before), and also fixed a bug where reagent pouches and certain other items weren't ever being generated in shops. Finally, I made your 'autograb' settings save across sessions, which has been a popular request.

7/07/2001 It turned out I forgot to write a bunch of code for the Naga shapes, so all this time they haven't had their normal damage, dodge, armor, etc. I went ahead and finished the code, and also added new code so that the shapes drain spell points while you're in them. Nagas should be much more interesting characters to play now.

7/04/2001 Still soliciting feedback on the level curve, although it looks like people favor it, so I'll probably do it this weekend. I fixed naga shapes to be more powerful, and also made a tweak so your experience award for killing monsters subtracts the difference in your levels first. I.e. award = (xp award) - (your level - monster level). This is so that high-level players get little or no benefit from killing low-level monsters, and low-level players get more xp for killing higher level monsters.

7/04/2001 Haven't done anything on the game since the reset. I'm going to divide the level curve by 4, so you only need 250 xp to get to level 2, 500 for 3, and so on. This should help people get the skill points they need early on and make the game a bit easier for newbies. -R.

6/30/2001 All the player files got reset today, 6/30/01 at 12:00am PDT. I reset all player ages to zero, but I kept all the player races the same. Let me know if you want to reset your race and try a new one. -Rhialto.

6/28/2001 I'm definitely going to reset all the player characters this weekend, on Friday or Saturday. Read about it here.

6/27/2001 A few pieces of news today:

6/24/2001 We had a few extended outages this weekend, each time because I forgot to restart my watchdog after rebooting the server. Sorry! I've added a reminder to the startup messages so I won't forget so easily. Also, I added a Roadmap for Beta Test, for anyone interested in what I'm actually working on right now.

6/21/2001 I got my cable modem and am connected to the internet again, so expect lots of new stuff coming soon.

6/18/2001 I finally finished moving. Amazingly, the game stayed up the whole weekend without me needing to reboot it, and then I accidentally messed it up so it was down for about 8 hours on Monday morning. It's clearly better off without me. -R.

6/14/2001 Yes, I said I was moving, and I still am, but I managed to get some new monsters into the game today. Incidentally, I've been finding still more crash bugs, and fixing them one at a time, so don't expect the server to be crash-proof for a while. At least (and at last) I have tools to debug them now.

6/12/2001 I'm still moving, and ETA for more work is 6/17. However, I got rather lucky and was able to solve the crash bug last night. The game server shouldn't lock up very often anymore. It still reboots itself every 3 hours because of gradually increasing lag, but I'll work on that ASAP. I'm also getting closer on the dungeon-stair-not-working problem. And I believe I fixed the bug where rings would disappear - let me know if it happens to you. -Rhialto

6/6/2001 I'm currently in the process of moving, so I haven't had much time to work the game lately. Kiz is working on a new race of cat-people, as well as the ruins of Samhoc, but I don't expect any major new features or bug fixes to get into the game until approximately 6/15/01. After 6/15 I'll have lots of time to work on it, though. -Rhialto

6/3/2001 Lots of new bug fixes, as always. Plus some new features:

Everyone's been sending in great bug reports - thanks very much.

5/30/2001 The Fight Arena is now open in the city Alaria. You can fight other players and get on the scoreboard. When you "die" in a fight, you don't actually die, you just lose the fight, so it's safe for you to try it out. We're still working on the ratings system - right now it only tracks wins/losses, but it will eventually rate you depending on how mismatched you were with your opponent.

5/26/2001 Added a new option to the Client: "floating inventory", in the View menu. You can pop your inventory out into a separate dialog and resize it. Try it out! Note: if you're using the standalone client, you'll want to download the latest one to get this new feature. I forgot to up the version number, so it's still 1.5.

5/23/2001 We've made a lot of enhancements to the inventory management code. You can now wield, wear, drop, get, ready, apply, eat, drink, and examine objects using the mouse, even if you have more than one object with the same name. We've fixed many bug reports from our Wyvern High Score List, all of whom should be applauded for being so patient during our alpha test. Thanks!

5/15/2001 No news is good news, I guess. Lots of people have been playing the game, pretty much all day long. We've continued to fix bugs, and everyone has been very patient and helpful. We added two important new commands: 'equip', which puts on all your armor at once, and 'adjust', which lets you move items around in your inventory. Try them out!

5/15/2001 We did the memory upgrade today at 5:30pm PDT. The game server now has a gig of memory, so it should be much more stable now. We now also boot players off who've been idle for more than 10 minutes, so you won't see as many "net-dead" players standing around the game anymore.

5/14/2001 We put in a fix for the bug where the weapon shop was lagging people playing over modems. It'll still lag a little, but it should be much more responsive than before. We'll continue to make improvements to the client/server protocol, to make life better for modem players. We're also working on a new key-binding scheme that will let you rebind every shortcut in the game, which will make spellcasting and range-firing easier for many people. Look for it later this week. Lastly, we finally put in the new item-generation code. It's turned on for weapons and treasure. You can find stuff like "sword of damage +3" lying around the dungeon. We'll add magical armor soon, as well.

5/12/2001 Thanks to all the new players who've been patiently reporting bug after bug. We've found and fixed dozens of bugs, and we're hard at work adding in all the new features everyone has asked for. Our most popular new addition: the "reply" command lets you reply to someone who told you something. Type "r whatever" to send a message to the person.

5/8/2001 The game went down again this morning - out of memory this time. We'll be doing a memory upgrade on the server later this week, which should hopefully help with the problem. We're also working on making the server more robust when it runs out of resources. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope to have this problem cured as soon as possible.

5/6/2001 We've fixed over a hundred bugs in the past week, including two crash bugs. The game should be more stable going forward. We also put the link back in to download the standalone client for people who are having trouble getting the quick-start version working.

5/2/2001 Well, we have a lot of good news:

I want to thank everyone who's patiently been playing the game with all its bugs. It will be worth it someday! :-)

5/1/2001 Wyvern has had an amazing amount of traffic lately, ever since being put on the Java Gaming site. We've had a ton of bug reports and feature requests, and we're working on all of them. We've also nearly finished a complete rewrite of the item-generation code, so you'll be able to find much more interesting armor, weapons, treasures and other objects as you play. It should be available online by 5/3 - look for an upcoming news announcement. Note: the game has been crashing pretty frequently, every few hours. We're working hard on identifying the cause(s) and fixing them.

4/26/2001 Wyvern is the featured game on Sun's new gaming site, www.javagaming.org! We're expecting a lot more traffic in the near future, and we're frantically trying to get the game ready for beta test. Keep checking back for new features and bug fixes.

4/15/2001 The game server has been up (no crashes) for over 3 weeks continuously. We've had over 1000 logins and many long hours of gameplay in the past 3 weeks, so the server should be stable enough for a beta soon. We're working on bug fixes and better treasure generation, so you can get more stuff as you play the game. Keep checking back for more features!

3/13/2001 Playing in your web browser is now the only supported way to play the game. This automatically takes care of updating the client for you when we make changes. You no longer have to worry about tricky downloads and installation instructions - just click and play!

3/4/2001 Our sincere apologies - the game server was inaccessible all weekend, and lots of people have mailed us about it. We've identified the problem, and it was a one-time event (no, not the earthquake) that should not happen again. Sorry for the outage.

3/2/2001 Lots of new enhancements and bug fixes. We've added 10 new spells, almost 100 new artifacts and magic items, new monsters, traps, maps, skills and trainers. We also rebalanced the monsters so that they're slightly tougher to kill at higher levels.

3/1/2001 Ronbo was the first person to solve the Moon Quest - congratulations!

2/20/2001 We made the "open" and "close" commands more user-friendly, in response to popular demand. The commands will now look for an appropriate door to operate on, rather than just the first door they find. You can open (or close) 2 doors next to each other by typing 'o' (or 'c') twice.

2/19/2001 We've been cranking out bug fixes and new content. Thanks for all your suggestions as you've playtested the game.

The game still has one major crash bug, in the Newbie Training Tower in Leyendia; it's hit us 3 or 4 times. The tower is currently closed. The game usually manages to stay up for half a day or so under pretty heavy load, but we're working hard to improve the server stability so you won't have to put up with outages.

2/17/2001 Added some new Trainers in the Adventurers Guild. There are Trainers being added all over town, so keep an eye out for them. We hope to have Trainers available for every skill soon.

2/16/2001 Tile bug is fixed - again

The tile bug wasn't 100% fixed - some terrain was failing to download to the client, so you'd see those little white clouds forever. Unfortunately this requires a new download of the standalone client. If you're using the Applet verson you'll get the fix automatically.

The QuickStart version should get the changes automatically.

2/4/2001 Wyvern makes Alpha!

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