After many sleepless nights and lot of hard work, we are ready for the open testing of release 0.5, codenamed "Arcane Chrysalis" !!! The testing will occur in our second server ezpc. This means you can still play your regular characters on the main laanx server! If you want to help us test the new release, please download the new installers from the links below. You will see in your connection strings this server: ezpc. If you are not interested in testing, just continue to play the stable release on laanx, no changes are needed to your client.
Important information: * This is a pre-release! If you are not interested in testing, just wait few weeks for the final 0.5 version
* ALL ACCOUNTS present on main laanx server before 22-Nov-2009 have been migrated into ezpc for testing, so you do not have to re-create the account. Just use your current laanx login and password on ezpc. Here is a log of all changes present in this release.
* All progress you may do on the ezpc server will NOT be maintained, so you can test freely any feature without the fear of ruining your char.
* When this testing period is completed, we will upgrade the main laanx database to the new release.
* All quests (except winch access) and all pets have been wiped. This will allow to better test the new quest system, and to clean up many incorrect/bugged pets.
Please read
main site for links to torrent downloads.
If you find bugs or problems, please post them in our bug trackerSpecial Thanks:- Special thanks to the Testing, Engine and Settings teams and the Prospects: 848 reports were opened and 986 bugs were closed!
- Thanks to Xordan and Kayden for doing some massive groundwork on PlaneShift.
- Again thanks to Xordan for writing the PSLaunch launcher application that replaces PSSetup and PSUpdater.
- Thanks to Vengeance for doing some much-needed work on PAWS (PlaneShift Advanced Windowing System) and for his work on giving NPCs a voice into the world of PlaneShift.
- Thanks to Kougaro for giving us rideable mounts and various code improvements.
- Thanks to Cherppow for designing and implementing a new User Interface.
- Thanks to Weltall for fixing an enormous ammount of bugs and fulfilling many feature requests.
- Thanks to Khaki for redesigning the chat system, cleaning up and improving much of the codebase and for optimizing the network code.
- Thanks to Mr_Dave for continued work on minigames.
- Many thanks to Ravna for much needed work on the new webconsole.
New Features:- Completely changed the way the Quest system works. A window now pops up when talking to NPCs instead, which allows you to choose
dialogue options. Typing is now only required for things like answering riddles. This new system can also automatically give the NPCs
the items and money they request.
- Speaking NPCs. (At least, the NPCs for which recordings have been done will speak)
- Rideable mounts.
- Redesigned Graphical User Interface.
- A new Launcher Application, aptly named PSLaunch, that automatically detects and can apply new updates, manages settings, displays server news and launches PlaneShift.
- Visual item dropping.
- Items can now be rotated along all axes.
- Support for group vs. group duels.
- Support for bracers, belts and cloaks.
- Minigames are now possible with more than 2 players.
- Minigames now support endgame rules.
- Minigames now support progression scripts, so they can give experience, items, faction and whatnot to the winner.
- New description system: Life Events can be added dynamically based on faction points.
- NPCs will now turn to face you when you're talking to them.
- Support for building traps with the "/construct" command.
- Character descriptions can now be loaded-from/saved-to the hard drive, so you can use your own editor to write them.
- Players can now create their own chat channels with an IRC-like system.
- Alliance chat.
- Added support for per-character permissions in guilds.
- Added a guild permission for guild banking.
- The client now sends the GPU name, GPU driver version and OS name to the server. This data will be used to optimize PlaneShift.
- You can now set your own colours for entity (items, playes, NPCs, ...) labels.
- Added support for "statue" characters.
- Added Italian, French, Spanish, Portugese, Catalan, Swedish, Russian, Romanian and 1337-speak translations.
Art:- Finally entered into the shaders era!! Added first bump and specular effects on plate armors
- Fixed plenty of map glitches
- Added mounts meshes
- Added many new hair variations
- Improved the ylian male model
- Added bracers to all characters, they appear on the char when you wear those.
- Added bows art (not yet functional as weapons)
- Fixed many icons and GUI glitches
- Completely new GUI skin mode, it's much easier now to create new skins for the GUI.
- Added spells icons, to be used in spellbook (and in the future in shortcut bar)
- Added new monsters
- Added gugrontid guildhouse
Settings - Special thanks to Rizin for coordinating the shift to the new quest system (Credit here to Oomi, Valrion, and the whole settings team for pulling this off).
- Thanks to Bovek, Stelanso and PhilT for massive fixes to crafting.
- Special thanks to Steuben for his continuing (though unfinished) work toward paths for npcs.
- Added significantly increased information to the life events in character creation to make them match in game locations more closely.
- NPC Guards now react to weapons in Hydlaa
- Various rules changes to aid balance made between engine, settings and crafting teams.
- Thanks to all the prospects for doing various legwork to make the above possible.
- All settings bugs are fixed (please find new ones!)
- Tutorial rewritten completely.
Changes That Have Been Made.GMs & Devs:GMs vs. Items:- item characteristics as quality, unpickable, settingsitem and npcowned are now added to the /item GUI.
- When using /giveitem, the command output now lists the ammount given.
- /info now also lists position/angle/instance for action locations and items.
GMs vs. Players:- GM4+ can now use "/assignfaction [target] [factionname] to assign a faction to someone.
- Instead of the chat message "New petition is waiting" GMs will get "New petition from [name]".
- GMs can now see all petitions, even the claimed ones. GM5+ can unclaim petitions.
- Frozen players can no longer start or accept trades.
- Frozen clients can't challenge anymore.
- /info now also includes the ban reason for a player
- Targetting support for /set
- GM2+ can now ban/unban for up to 2 days. For GM4+ it remains the same as before.
- The command /setskill with the argument -1 now returns the base skills value and the buffed skill value.
- Usability improvements to the /inspect command.
GMs vs. NPCs:- GM2 also have access to /killnpc now.
GMs vs. Quests:- When using the /quest command you can now give a quest name as argument to limit the results.
- The questtester mode will now override all quest prerequisites.
- Quests can now be assigned: "/quest [target] assign [questname]"
- GMs can now complete the master quest of an offline player.
GMs vs. Events:- Added a new "Attackable" flag for GMs, making them attackable like NPCs are.
- GMs (GM3+) can now use "/set givekillexp" to give experience when they are killed. Use "/setkillexp" to set the ammount to be given.
- GMs can now specify the name of the "killer" when killing a player, so the message is "You have been struck by Laanx" instead of "You have been killed by a GM".
- Evaluation support for GM events.
- GMs can now award more than 65 of a "money item" at a time.
- The command "/event register range [range ammount]" now actually works to register all players within a radius to an event.
- When you morph, your description will not show your original race anymore.
Settings:- Developers have a new webconsole application on their hands to manage the servers!
- Gender, Race, Advisor Points, Known Spells, Marriage, Item Possession, Traits, Item(s) (d)Equipped, being in a Guild (plus (in)visibility) and even Guild Name can now be quest prerequisites.
- Items can now have a "settings" flag, so the Settings Dept. doesn't lose its items
- In NPC dialogue a $time variable can be used which will then change to morning/afternoon/ning etc in-game.
GMs vs. Various Stuff:- On login GMs will get a message displaying the number of waiting petitions.
- GMs can now use /setskill on pets.
- GMs can now use /admin [nothing|GMlevel] to show either the commands they can access themselves or for a specific level
- GMs can now use ItemID's in admin commands: "/teleport itemid:407 here".
- Able to /slide across instances.
- A command like "/pos area:npcs:1000:rogue" will now actually list all rogues, instead of all entities starting with the letter "r".
- Fixed a bug where deleting a petition would confuse the entire petition window.
- /info now also displays the map name of the targeted entity
- /deputize is now GM2+.
- You can now deputize up to your own level.
- More possibilities for the /deputize command.
Engine:- Update to the latest version of the Crystal Space 3D engine, resulting in the switch to a new Render Manager, much more widespread usage of shaders in PlaneShift and awesome lighting. (Great job Xordan!)
- Shaders can now be applied to equipment and characters.
- A complete rewrite of the magic and scripting system. (Great job Kayden!)
- Massive ammounts of work on a much more efficient loader and a background loader for items, maps and characters to speed the game up (Thanks again Xordan!)
- Items now use "pseudo-instancing" so 1000 apples on the Plaza won't cause as much lag anymore.
- Better speed hack detection with automated kick from server. (False positives possible, wide testing needed)
- GUI: Much more use of styles in the GUI XML files.
- It's now possible to pack GUI XML files with the GUI art itself, so you can distribute drop-in-place GUIs that don't conflict with other GUIs.
- For a GUI image you can now specify a part of the image (middle part for example) which should tile.
- Easier Translation: in psclient.cfg you can set the language to the one you want translated. Then create a directory with the same name in the /lang/ directory.
after starting and closing the client there will then be a stringtable.xml file in that directory which contains all strings to be translated.
after translation those strings will then be used in game. Distribute your translations please!
- A new network algorithm should reduce lag on connections with packet loss.
- Added initial support for "explorable" areas.
- Laid the basics for an "Eye Colour" character trait.
- Changes have been made to the collider system, so players are less likely to get stuck.
Commands:- CTRL-ALT-click on the close box of a window will reload that window from the XML file. Handy for those GUI modders!
- Double-clicking on a non-merchant NPC will now start a dialog.
- You can now specify spell power in the /cast command: "/cast 45 Life Infusion".
- New command: /emote [emotename|list] (removed /listemotes)
- Commands for the new IRC-like chat system: /join /leave and /# (shortcut of chat channel)
For example: /join ilikeplaneshift -> "ilikeplaneshift has been added with shortcut /3" -> /3 Hey folks! -> "[3: ilikeplaneshift] Talad: Hey Folks!" -> /leave 3 -> "left channel 3"
- You can now put /dequip righthand and /dequip lefthand in one shortcut, and both commands will be executed.
- New "/harvest" command.
NPCs:- NPC chat: longer messages will no more take longer to show. Instead, it will take longer until the next received chat message.
- NPCs will now use "/say" for each line of chat, instead of /say'ing a whole story at once.
- The weapons of NPCs no longer degradate in quality. This would make them increasingly weaker over time.
- When fighting multiple enemies, killing one enemy will no longer make you drop out of combat.
- NPCs should be more responsive.
- NPCs now turn faster, for that extra deadliness.
- NPCs should chase more intelligently.
- NPC chat is no longer filtered since it's trustworthy anway and could lead to some strange dialogues.
- When an NPC requests 50 trias for example, any combination of coins that adds up to 50 trias will be accepted.
Pets:- The Ring of Familiar now has to be equipped to be able to summon your familiar (pet).
- The familiar-summoning timeout is now lowered from 24 hours to 240 minutes.
- A challenge is now needed for pet vs. pet and pet vs. character attacks.
Other Quite Noteworthy Changes:- The Tutorial is no longer instanced. All new players will share the same tutorial world.
- Redesigned the system of examining other players. It now takes more skills into consideration and has better opponent descriptions.
- Increased say range by 50%.
- In the description window there will no be an editable part of your description, and a fixed description with the info from character creation.
- /report changes: system, guild and group chat is now also logged. Emotes are logged. The reported player receives no warning. Now up to 15 minutes are logged.
- The last 10 chat messages before logging off will now be shown when logging in again.
- Now you'll only be notified of buddies logging in if they are fully done loading, so you're not /tell'ing them before they can receive messages.
Various:- Mouse Move is no longer the default movement mode.
- /assist can now only be used on friendly players, so you can't use it to figure out your enemy's target.
- All active spells on a character are now cancelled on defeat and death.
- Support for dynamic slot ammount in containers. So a forge can have 40 slots and a sack 20 slots.
- Extended the say range within guildhouses.
- Guilds can now define the maximum ammount of guild points attributable.
- The tutorial tutor button will no longer appear on new characters when you've already completed the tutorial.
- Helms can how be held in the hands, when equipping they appear on your head by default of course.
- The character description window can now be resized for that easier editing when writing big stories.
- When dropping a non-usable item on your character in the inventory, it will now display a clear message it's unusable.
- You can no longer start a repair while being attacked.
- Buying/sellings items is now much more trustworthy under circumstances of heavy lag and lots of user actions.
- A player can now login even if they are already logged in. Existing connections will be overridden.
- Show the character name in the title bar of the PS window.
- Spells can now have images/icons in the spellbook.
- Weight, size and stack count are now more explicitly stated in item descriptions.
- When a player accepts your (auto)challenge, you will now see it in big letters on the screen.
- The /away message is now excluded from the auto-mute system, since those messages are always the same but aren't spam.
- Massive ammount of infrastructural changes, refactoring, redesigning, cleaning up and other stuff that's good for the future.
Bugs That Have Been Fixed:- No more !leaf crashes.
- All portals working again.
- Fixed varous bugs where the client wouldn't display the correct ammount of money.
- Fixed a bug where clicking very fast on the buy training button would cause too much PP/Tria to be removed.
- When going through a map-loading portal you now always spawn on the ground. Before it was possible to jump through a portal repeatedly to "climb" the air.
- Fixed NPCs not fighting back or chasing.
- Fixed a long-standing bug that broke transparency for chatbubbles.
- Fixed a bug where certain items would become invisible to the client with some modded inventories.
- Fixed a bug where "Last Online" in the guildwindow wasn't correct.
- Using /screenshot no longer makes your character stop auto-running.
- Fixed a bug where players could still cast spells after their death.
- Fixed a bug where you would suddenly be unable to put glyphs in a research slot until after a relog.
- Fixed a bug where quest lockout didn't always work correctly, so you could do one-time-only quests multiple times.
- You will no longer get random messages saying things like "You probably should not leave 7 Roots of Jarana here" while mining.
- Taking money from the inventory and then putting it back again will no longer result in an error message.
- Fixed a case where you would start spinning after leaving the Death Realm.
- When you're sitting down and want to attack something, you'll now stand up instead of getting up on your feet instantaniously.
- Fixed a case where items of the same kind (apples for example) wouldn't stack together, taking up much space in the inventory.
- The client will now properly detect that the server is back up in the server-selection screen.
- Fixed a bug where bad words slipped through the filter in a special case.
- Fixed a bug where stamina wouldn't regenerate if a player was encumbered from carrying too much.
- Fixed a bug where labels were unreadable on low texture settings.
- Fixed a rare bug where (when logging in) other players would see the players' email address instead of his character name.
- Fixed a bug where choosing random parent names in character creation could end you up with parents of different last names.
- Fixed a bug where the client would continue to show messages that you received training when clicking on the buy training button, even though PP had already decreased to 0.
- Fixed a bug where an NPC name wasn't properly updated on the client-side after a rename.
- Fixed a confusion of the left-right finger slots in the inventory.
- Fixed a bug where a stopped repair would prevent the repairable item from moving back to the inventory.
- Fixed a bug where the chat window would sometimes scroll irratically.
- Fixed some cases where the camera would behave abnormally.
- Massive ammount of bugs fixed, besides the ones already mentioned.
