Steel Blue

On March 3^rd 2008, PlaneShift Steel Blue has been officially released. The new version 0.4.00 has been published along with the following changelog:

0.4.00

2008

3

March

Important Note

PlaneShift stores your preferences (like window placements, logs, etc..) in a local folder. It was the PlaneShift folder before, but now it's changed. You can find the files is the user folder, depending on your OS:

• Windows: In the user home directory, usually in "Document and Setting\Username\Application Data\PlaneShift
• Linux: ~/.PlaneShift
• MacOS X: ~/Library/Application Support/PlaneShift

All options, quest notes, chat logs, and screenshots are now located there.

!!You may attempt to copy over your old options and shortcuts to the new folder, but due to many changes this can yield unexpected results!!

New Features

• Added introducing. By default your character doesn't know anyone else except NPCs. You can introduce your character to others by right-clicking and clicking introduce or by using /introduce.
• A new updater! Right now it does not have a GUI yet, but works via a console.
• Public Books. Books that are editable by anyone and thus can have multiple authors.
• You can now load books from local files or save them to local files. Now get started on those newspapers!
• Collision Detection on items. Enabled by default for guildhouses.
• Support for custom item names.
• Guildhouses will now have signposts.
• You can now precisely place items in the world. The item will appear where you release the item with your cursor.
• You can now sort the Spell Book.

Art

• A new monster has been discovered, the horrible Velnishi!
• Prepare to get lost in two underground networks of caves! The entrances may be found at unlikely places.
• Silent worshippers of the Unspoken One, a temple has been founded. Hallowed is the Flame!
• Discover Gugrontid, the rock-solid home of the Kran.
• Grass effects were removed from various maps. They will return when they can be rendered more effectively.
• More maps now use the new "Lighter2" lightmap system for creating light and shadows.
• More maps now use genmeshes instead of thingmeshes.
• Finally, a pile of dust!
• Two new staves.
• A full plate armour set for the Female Enkidukai and Male Stonebreaker.
• A full leather set for the Dermorian Female.

GUI

• A new Group Window, it's more minimalistic and displays race icons.
• An enormously huge number of changes and fixes has been done to the GUI. It looks way better now!
• Improved font scaling.
• You can now select how many PP you want to spend on a training session. Prevents RSI Wink
• Redesigned the Entity Labels system, it also uses a new font!
• The sell window now displays item names and quality, this to prevent accidental sales of crafted items.

Quests & Events

• The /quest command has been extended to give GMs much more control.
• Many changes to the quest code to solve many issues like NPCs forgetting about the player.
• When giving items to NPCs you can now give them all at once and in any order.
• You can now discard events.
• Many new books, quests and NPCs!

Movement and Combat

• NPCs that become stuck, naturally or unnaturally, will be disabled.
• Faster strafing speed.
• Many changes to mouselook to make it work better.
• When "falling off the map", players will be returned to the map they fell off.
• After using /unstick autorun will be disabled, so you don't run into that hole yet again Wink
• Guild Wars are now persistent during server restarts/crashes.
• When you are affected by Dakkru's Curse, you will not be able to use heavy swords and armour anymore. They remain equipped, but disabled.
• All weapons now have a range. To attack with a dagger you need to be closer to your target than with a claymore.
• AutoRun(R) was changed to AutoMove(R), by using ToggleRun(Left-Alt) you can switch movement in AutoMove from walking to running and vice versa. Run(Left-Shift) works like before.

Engine

• Many code cleanups.
• Various optimizations to map loading and unloading.
• Added a threaded "delayed" sql query executor for better performance.
• Many changes to the code to prevent unnecessary database queries, will increase performance.
• Added an experimental threaded DR (Dead Reckoning) manager to improve network traffic efficiency.
• Fixed many server and client crashes.
• Fixed many server and client memory leaks.
• Now using latest Crystal Space 1.2, which includes many bug fixes.

Various

• Now you can only give another character guild permissions you have yourself too, not higher.
• The pet's summoned duration is now based on your stats.
• Better anti-chatflooding measures.
• Instead of right-click you can also use ctrl-leftclick. Handy if you're on a Mac or when your right-click is broken.
• You can now only read a book if it is in your possession. You can view a description of the book instead during trading.
• If someone is on your ignore list, his chatbubbles will not be shown either.

Bugs

Bugs That Have Been Fixed

• The book window does not scroll to the bottom anymore when typing.
• Locks will not become unlocked at random anymore.
• The textures on furniture and certain swords and shields will no longer be corrupted.
• Fixed an issue where furniture would move around on its own in a guildhouse.
• Fixed an issue where you could steal items from a locked box.
• Bilinear filtering is re-enabled for the GUI, so images do not look "blocky" anymore.
• Fixed an exploit where you could sneak into a guild house.
• If you move stacks around in the furnace, the correct number of ores will now be smelted.
• Hair colours are now correctly set when removing your helmet.
• Fixed an exploit where you could abuse Dakkru's Curse to gain stats.
• The correct skin will be restored when dequipping torso armour.
• You cannot use /sit + jump to fly anymore.
• Glyphs will not become unpurified at random anymore.
• Solved an issue where you would randomly lose 1 theory point in some skills.
• Fixed a strange issue where shortcuts 100 to 103 were uneditable.
• Resolved many issues with crafting rules.
• Divorce now actually divorces both parties.
• Fixed an issue where very very large books became uneditable.
• Fixed various pet bugs like duplicate pets & bad intelligence.
• Fixed the "instant hit" combat exploit.

Known Bugs

• Users may experience bursts of lag on the Gugrontid map.
• Magical buffs and debuffs may not be removed when they expire.
• Item buffs may not be applied and removed correctly.
• The various spells that have been broken for a year, are still broken. We'll get around to it, honestly!

Many thanks to ThomPhoenix for writing this changelog.