2/26/99 Live From the Horse's Mouth (Or Stephen's, at least)
FYI:
There will be a live audio interview with me on Saturday, February 27 to discuss the future of The Realm. We will be covering a great many subjects, including the impact that the shutdown has for The Realm. Rest assured that Sierra On-line is fully behind The Realm and that it will be continued for as long as there are players to enjoy it. Our tentative plans are to rebuild the support staff at WON.NET. We will be releasing more information regarding our exact plans in the next week. I will be serving as a direct contact for the GMs in the interim and will do all I can to smooth the rough edges.
If you want to check out the interview, heres the information:
It will be this coming Saturday (Feb 27th) from 2:00pm to 4:00pm pacific time.
To listen you will need to make your way to www.talkspot.com. The program where I will be appearing is on the Life Channel and is called Bootdisk.
Stephen the Implementor
Pillsbury Dough Boy Dead at 71
Veteran Pillsbury spokesman, Pop N. Fresh, died yesterday of a severe yeast infection. He was 71.
Fresh was buried in one of the largest funeral ceremonies in recent years. Dozens of celebrities turned out, including Mrs. Butterworth, The California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker, and The Hostess Twinkies.
The graveside was piled high with flours as longtime friend Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who "never knew how much he was kneaded."
Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with many turnovers. He was not considered a
very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model for millions.
Fresh is survived by his second wife. They have two children and one in the oven. The funeral was held at 4:50 for about 20 minutes.
2/25/99 What's
New
****** 02/24/99 @ 01:45pm *****
Fixes for the autogive option. Hitting the button will now toggle
between accept or rejection when someone attempts to give you objects.
This command is also available by typing /give in the chat input area.
Other fixes include some corrections to dungeon re-spawning. Important!!!
Please note that there currently NO customer service department. Due to
the company re-organization and shutdown of this facility, none of the
support people remain. At this time, you are ON YOUR OWN. In addition,
NONE of the art related updates are in progress right now, due to the lack
of staffing. This includes, dungeons, guild halls, additional creatures,
regions, and items. Renewals are also in an ON HOLD status. Consider this
a transition phase. If and when Realm development is relocated, customer
service and other development areas will resume. Thank you for your patience.
And no, it wasn't my idea to go thru this :)
I don't know about you all, but I saw an "if" in there.
Makes you wonder.
Royal Court Meeting
Just a reminder, the Royal House and Round Table are to meet
this Saturday evening at 9pm EST. Don't forget your interview questions!
*smile*
2/23/99 What's
New
****** 02/21/99 @ 05:15pm *****
A memory bug which prevented the system from cleaning up houses properly
was corrected. This should help prevent crashes after extended periods
of time.
Kudos to Kat!
Congrats to KATHIRINE, who reached level 500!! WTG!
2/20/99 Mars
and Venus
What is a cat?
1. Cats do what they want.
2. They rarely listen to you.
3. They're totally unpredictable.
4. They whine when they are not happy.
5. When you want to play, they want to be alone.
6. When you want to be alone, they want to play.
7. They expect you to cater to their every whim.
8. They're moody.
9. They leave hair everywhere.
10. They drive you nuts and cost an arm and a leg.
Conclusion: They're tiny women in little fur coats.
What is a Dog?
1. Dogs lie around all day, sprawled on the most comfortable piece
of furniture in the house.
2. They can hear a package of food opening half a block away, but
don't hear you when you're in the same room.
3. They can look dumb and lovable all at the same time.
4. They growl when they are not happy.
5. When you want to play, they want to play.
6. When you want to be alone, they want to play.
7. They are great at begging.
8. They will love you forever if you rub their tummies.
9. They leave their toys everywhere.
10. They do disgusting things with their mouths and then try to
give you a kiss.
Conclusion: They're tiny men in little fur coats.
What's New
****** 02/19/99 @ 01:55pm *****
Portions of yesterdays anti-hack mechanisms finalized, tested and installed.
Streamlined some of the redirection code for the dungeon exits. Fix for
a crash bug on invalid object loading.
****** 02/18/99 @ 11:40am *****
System is now totally migrated off of Netcom (the route server), so
that point of potential failure has been eliminated. If a player hasn't
patched for awhile, they will still route from there until they receive
this update. Added yet more anti-hack mechanisms. Also, a fix for dungeon
entrance stuffing. Since there were a number of inconsiderate people attempting
to either jam or monopolize dungeon entrances, this was added. If you exit
a dungeon and the room is too crowded (+20 players/creatures), you will
be redirected to another room in the same area. Work still proceeding on
guild halls and swamp region. Another dungeon is under construction as
well.
2/16/99 Many
Happy Returns
As most of you well know, I recently had a rather irritated
dragon fire my house and I have been wandering around homeless for a time.
I have finally settled in a new home (this one with a better fire shield)
and will soon get back to the business of updating this news page.
Thanks to everyone who sent in submissions or story ideas; I will get to
them as soon as possible. *smile*
What's New
****** 02/10/99 @ 07:20pm *****
Repaired the crash bug on engraving a null string on an object.
****** 02/10/99 @ 01:10pm *****
The last of the elemental monster base classes added, the air elemental.
These require the character to have the ability to see invisible, since
they are, themselves, invisible. Also modified are the Gust Of Wind and
Sand Storm spells. Theyare more powerful, and easier to cast. They still
damage groups, but the spell is targeted on a single creature. Creatures
in proximity to that target creature take damage. A partial fix for the
autogive bug. You will be able to refuse an object handed you without crashing.
The object will be in your inventory, but if you select the refuse option,
you will then immediately drop the object. Multiple stacked objects waiting
for you to accept or reject do not work, so you must hit the Esc key to
clear those dialogs, then drop the object manually. This is a temporary
fix only. In addition, a number of new anti-hack measures added. Hopefully
this will address some forms of the lag spiking attacks. Also, characters
who are attacked will not become wanted for defending themselves. Monsters
now have 80 percent drop rate on objects as balance for fumble spell wealth
building.
****** 01/29/99 @ 05:05pm *****
Fix for a 'look at' hack that sometimes would cause a server crash
when sent certain trash. Hopefully, this will improve the game stability
over the weekend. More of the same - 06:15pm. Restored the spell casting
6:35pm.
****** 01/26/99 @ 12:35pm *****
Some important anti-hack and lag suppression mechanisms added. Please
note, this does not impact any trouble that some people are experiencing
from the NetCom, Mindspring telecom backbone problems. Also, as most are
aware the introduction of Fumble spell created unforeseen side-effect of
some specialized character types being able to equip Fuloran's Maul. It
was an incorrect calculation of max carrying capacity that caused this.
The Maul will NOT be reintroduced as a player character weapon. The weight
of the Maul was increased to prevent usage. As always, when new spells
are introduced, some tweaking is necessary. Please try to avoid exploitation
of bugs during such times. Your gaming experience will be more pleasant
and the corrections more readily completed.
****** 01/26/99 @ 04:40pm *****
New spells: Fumble, Mass Fumble, Gust of Wind, Sandstorm. Repaired
spells:Elphames Justice, Venomous Touch. Fumble defense is Amulet of Retention.
About 1 in 3 chance of success based on skill and weapon skill. Elphame
will ONLY damage opponents who are criminal. Random 1 to half health. Amulet
of Protection is defense. Gust and Sandstorm are skill modified damage
with random factor. Spell books for the new spells are ONLY available from
combat with random spellbook carrying monsters. Also a couple fixes to
help with people trying to send goofy packets and a spell scroll bar fix.
Added random spellbooks to the elemental class monsters too (upped their
treasure a little). New spells may need a little tweaking, so be patient
and let us know if they don't seem to work right in all cases. Sorry, Paladin
levels reverted. Next system start they will be ok.
