Development Updates (2023)

January

• 01.01.23: Heralding a new year with the Dungeonmaker System! Check out the DungeonMaker Guide for more information. In lesser news, the ranges that define different layers of accumulated precipitation have been refined, and ships no longer show any accumulated precipitation on board. Also for ships, the SWAB DECK command has been added, and ship crewmate behavior has been refined.
• 01.03.23: Four new plants have been added to the world: Adelantean mossweed, northern holly, dandelions, and snowdrops. You can now forage for plants! While a plant can only be found in the wild in the climate to which it is suited, you can attempt to grow plants outside their native habitats in your garden. However, if they are very unsuited they will most likely die as they attempt to grow (there's a chance each tick.) A plant whose roots have all been harvested will die some time after. Several bug fixes and adjustments have also been made to horticulture abilities.
• 01.04.23: Performance abilities now exist in-game! There are many types of performers: dance, vocals, instruments. A new category of instrument has been added: keyboard instruments! You can play them with many of the old playing verbs, as well as a couple new ones, but you can also simply PLAY them. The skill and abilities work like those of any other performer. A CONFIG BRIEF option has been added to the game settings, so that those using screenreaders will not be audio-spammed with full room descriptions while trying to walk places quickly. You now have to move between ten rooms quickly, rather than three, in order to mechanically "burst into a run." You may still use BOLT, SPRINT, and any manual running or jogging movements for flavor (JOG EAST, for instance). You can no longer smell medium-to-low intensity scents on a person, unless you are within touching distance -- and you can't smell anything at all if you're not even at the same place in the room as they are. There is now a WEALTH command to show just the money in your coinpurse (if you want to check, but don't need all the rest of the inventory spam).
• 01.05.23: Bank tellers now tend to be actual people (that is, NPCs rather than VNPCs). There are now "journey" exits that will take quite a while to move between (think hours to days.) This will allow individuals to undertake journeys while still roleplaying on the way. The ferry between Plew-on-Sea and the Windhaven Monastery now rings a bell when it docks, and waits for longer before embarking on its trip.
• 01.08.23: You can learn the Tinkering skill through practice in any situation now. Items with durability attributes can now break and be repaired. For now, breaking happens generally in combat. Three abilities have been added to the Tinkering skill: tinker, fix, and salvage.
• 01.10.23: There is now a wandering poet on the Via Magna. Performances can be set up as either tragedy, comedy, drama, or thoughtful -- and this will change the reaction from VNPC onlookers.
• 01.11.23: Some small things about VNPC groups have been refined, and there is now a wandering minstrel at the crossroads in St. Loomis.
• 01.18.23: APPLY is now an alias for requesting a certain job title at a location. The affection an employing NPC has towards an employed PC will now be instrumental in adjusting that PC's pay. Further, jobs will now have small quests you can do in the workplace to "work" if you want to actively roleplay about it rather than considering it an off-screen chore. Some bugs with the quest system have been fixed, notably NPC ticks not firing during the waiting period and time display being skewed.
• 01.19.23: Added organizational pre-requisites for quests, and there is now a potential organizational relation to applying for jobs: gaining employment at an organization will automatically induct you to that organization at the requisite rank you applied for.
• 01.20.23: NPCs can now edit their previous cutscene posts, and cutscene posts will only show the last time they were edited rather than every time.

February

• 02.01.23: Updated to Evennia version 1.1. For players, this primarily means that you now get help file suggestions if you can't find your help file with a keyword. Several small tweaks have happened staffside, including more options in the django database web view and a new command to add or remove or check rooms on the pathfinding map. Evennia 1.0 also comes with the "tasks" command to check on ongoing delays, and script management commands have changed.
• 02.01.23:Some bugs have been addressed with ferry bell ringing, climbing with heavy loads, and guard patrol confusion when there's someone to arrest in the area who has logged out. Cohabitation between player characters can now be established with the COHABIT command. You can add also ROOMMATEs to your lodging, and in doing so grant them an extra key and rent-paying privileges. Plot notes have been reworked to show a date and whether they have been read or not, so that they will be sent as a recorded message when you log into a character. This means that all current plot notes have been cleared, and it looks a lot cooler when you view a specific plot note. Player characters can now leave each other plot notes, as long as they are cohabiting with each other, and these can contain information like: "Donna never came home last night", or "Waraqa's sleepwalking is getting worse".
• 02.02.23: There is now a command to check your current cohabitation situation (to see a list of everyone you are cohabiting with). The NOTES display has been changed, as well as how the ABILITIES command works. When checking abilities you will now get a list of abilities in each of your skills that come with abilities, and you can CHECK AB with a skill as the argument to see a more detailed list of abilities gained from that skill specifically. You will still be able to CHECK AB for individual abilities to see all of their details.
• 02.03.23: The webclient can now be connected to securely via the websocket without any need to fall back on Ajax, and the multiple lines in the account creation menu after the screenreader question have been dealt with.
• 02.05.23: Some updates have been made to the Mining skill! You can now learn mining in any ore-rich environment (most typically a mine). Builders can add ores to rooms from the RMENU. Veins and deposits of ores, minerals, or stone can be found via foraging in these areas, particularly by using FIND VEIN/DEPOSIT. If you have a pickaxe, you can then MINE.
• 02.06.23: People can now hire porters to carry things for them with the ability to ARRANGE TRANSPORT. The "quarry" ability has been added to the Mining skill. You can learn the Education skill if you're in the company of scholars (e.g., in a public library). Finally, ability lists are now alphabetically sorted.
• 02.08.23: You can now learn Smithing if you're near an anvil. Burning certain things (wood, coal) in a fire now creates ash. Coal will burn for a good while longer than wood, regardless of its weight, and it will turn to charcoal while in a fire. Vines will turn to vine charcoal. Charcoal of any kind can now be used to write with.
• 02.14.23: It is now possible to craft tools and other components for crafting with the Carpentry skill, not only furniture. Carpentry can be learned by practice if you're holding a saw. You can also now teach another person a unique design for any craft, and generic versions of crafting commands have been created that can be used for any type of craft. New abilities have been added to Smithing: "refine", to temper raw ore into ingots and otherwise manipulate mined objects into useable materials; and "forge", by which a smith can make various sorts of items out of metal with the use of hammer, anvil, and forge fire.
• 02.16.23: Perfumery, Stoneworking, and Dyeing have been added as craft skills. Custom crafting is now available with Smithing and Carpentry.
• 02.17.23: Separated Weaving into two skills: Weaving and Basketry. Added leatherworking abilities: "tan" and "fabricate". Protip: don't drink tanning solution, or you'll get the new affliction of food poisoning.
• 02.20.23: Updated some aesthetics of ability displaying, and slightly rewrote some ability descriptions to universalize grammar styles for the lists. More leatherworking base fabrications have been added, along with the capacity to design and craft custom leatherworking items. There has been a light tailoring revamp; you can now design adjustable parts in certain garments, such as hoods or veils. Carpenters can carve buttons and leatherworkers can make corded leather laces and rawhide ties to use in tailoring designs where a fastening item is needed.
• 02.21.23: Unsaved logs no longer show up when trying to make a new story development. Practice situations are set up for linguistics learning, which accordingly has the "practice" ability added. Gaining a new ability when learning a new skill will now notify you of the fact.
• 02.22.23: You can now use the self-referencing conventions of /me, /my, /mine, and /I in parentheses emotes. You can also use them in thoughts, memories, and feelings -- which now also support parentheses.

March

• 03.27.23: A massive revamp of handling is in the works, which has resulted in several features that may not be working as intended for the time being, such as: swapping and switching things in your grip, riding horses, and choking people. In other news, small fixes have been made with the aesthetics of the sky, and several small bugfixes are complete.
• 03.28.23: You can now use parentheses with the LOOK command, to produce an emote.

April

• 04.06.23: The MAGIC command will now show your base magic resistance, and there is now a HELP MAGIC file in-game. Magical skills that you have not learned will no longer show in SKILLS ALL. A few magic abilities have been added.
• 04.16.23: Exits can now be cramped, which will require use of the SQUEEZE command to get through, and travellers who are too large may just not be able to fit. Exits now can also have preconditions, such as standing on top of a rock to be able to climb up a well shaft. Lastly, there may now be special events that occur specifically after using a special exit.
• 04.17.23: You can now set the SCENE on a room to last for a long or short period, while the default is just a couple days before it expires. Colors can now be put on those "room moods" too.
• 04.24.23: Time of day has been made more cohesive, so that the lore hours correlate with the dynamic sunrise and sunset times throughout the seasons. We have added a LOOKUP/CONVERT command to easily translate Avarian dates, times, and cultural chronological conventions such as hour names. Dusk and Dawn have been added as periods that can be uniquely described in room descriptions, and all current "evening" tags have been changed to "dusk" as now evening will indicate a period of time that is fully dark but not true, deep night. Kalentoi day names are now slightly different from Sirdabi ones. Finally, the in-game help file for TIME has been updated to be more, well, helpful!
• 04.26.23: There is now a configuration option (combat_ooc) for turning off the broadcast of OOC dice rolls in combat. This defaults to off already, so if anyone wants to see the dice rolls, they will have to toggle the setting on (CONFIG COMBAT_OOC).

May

• 05.03.23: Avaria dates should now properly show up in month/day/year format. Rebalancing in a fight now allows proper emote substitution, and it also helps to drain fatigue. Obfuscated whispers now use dashes to represent the obfuscation, rather than periods (dashes will neither be read by a screenreader, if screenreader mode is on, nor cause undue capitalization).
• 05.05.23: There is now quick and easy-to-use functionality for staff (read staff-only command help RESPAWN) to use to resurrect corpses that have accidentally died. (This is not IC usage of resurrection abilities, but intended for OOC administrative mistakes.)
• 05.07.23: A dice roll number on performances will now only display if you have the combat_ooc toggle configured to be on. (Extrapolating how willing a player is to get numerical dice values thrown at them in the middle of roleplay.) Prompt indicators have been updated: if the screenreader is toggled on, roundtime-in-progress will be indicated by the word "Busy" while readiness to act will be shown by the word "Ready". General state will be mentioned, if configured to show, with "You are in good shape", "You are in middling shape", and "You are in bad shape". Many colors have been reworked for higher contrast to suit vision-impaired players, and there are now color themes that can be configured in the settings. "High contrast" will be the default theme, but the old theme is accessible via the "muted" option. It is also now possible to configure more color options, for things, tells, exits, and weather. Having the screenreader toggled on can now affect the display of some in-game objects (analyzing written works, for example, or tells in emotes). If you create a new character with the screenreader option on, the default prompt configurations will be different (to read something like "You are in good shape and ready.").

June

• 06.13.23: Added a Gnosis ability (AB CONSIDER, if you have Gnosis). Made some small website changes for the sake of accessibility. Made it so that Track erosion should be less laggy, as should the calculation of time and season for locations.
• 06.14.23: Added blowgun capabilities as a ranged attack, and resultant wound types/combat moves. (Also fixed a bug related to aiming stage requirements.)
• 06.21.23: There is now a command to combine the last two character logs: COMBINE LOGS. A few more small website tweaks have been made for the sake of accessibility. Some odd appearances may be noticed, but it's a work in progress.
• 06.23.23: The forum now has polling options. You can make a checklist or a single-choice poll with up to seven options, and while one account only gets one vote, you can change your vote.
• 06.26.23: Another caravanserai has been built in Omrazir -- the Sign of the Simurgh, along the Via Fortuna in the southeastern part of the city, is a cheaper (and somewhat more derelict) option for poorer travelers. In order to FILL a container, you must now be holding either the new container or the source countainer (ex: you're either carrying the glass, or the pitcher of lemonade). It is now possible to beget twins (fraternal or identical) -- or even triplets (very rare), and midwifery abilities have been added along with a bevy of labor complications. Raspberries can now be foraged in forests across Ruvera and the Kalentoi Empire.
• 06.30.23: You can now add forum posts to story developments. These posts would include in-character fiction, rumors, and the like -- topics made on the roleplay-relevant boards. When editing or adding new story developments, logs and relationships and everything like this will be paginated if necessary, and also ordered by most recent first. This should help make story development smoother and easier for players.

July

• 07.19.23: Lifts now exist in-game! You can ring the bell to signal the lift operator. While it is possible to jump down (either onto a lift if it is below you, or down to the bottom of the lift shaft) it is not advisable and can lead to some serious harm. You can no longer enter character creation menus on a session that is logged into a character. Fixed a bug with using pronouns while emoting. Using the POUR command now shows different messages than the FILL command. We now have a feature that recognizes playtesters, and should post automatically twice a month while awarding Presence to the top five playtesters. All past bugs, ideas, and typo reports have been incorporated to make sure to reward pre-alpha playtesters accordingly.
• 07.20.23: OOCMail sent for plot notes should now come with a timestamp. If you've already seen a dream, you won't see it again next time you log in. If you are offline for 12 hours within a day, you will gain a small stat boost. (This is to incentivize game-life balance and work against dark patterns of addiction for players who are addictively inclined.) People in the Faded Zone or other regions of the Otherland will no longer age.
• 07.22.23: Cutscenes now have a "skip to last post" button if they have more than three posts. Lazyleaf poison can now be refined through Herbalism.
• 07.23.23: Shady Arts as a skill now has its own special abilities and help file. Character Presence level can now act as a means of unlocking special abilities (such as potentially griefy criminal abilities that we'd like to make sure stay in the hands of thoughtful roleplayers).
• 07.24.23: Ropes can now be properly used to bind other characters. The STRUGGLE command can help you extricate yourself -- eventually. A new passive ability, secret-escape, has been added to the Sleight of Hand skill. This will allow someone who is tied up to sneakily untie themselves. You can no longer "block" attacks barehanded, unless you have some martial arts ability, or the attacks are also unarmed. It is possible to poison weapons and projectiles now. While weapons can hold multiple layers of poison, projectiles can only fit one at a time on the tip. Projectiles no longer constantly bounce off targets.
• 07.25.23: You can now add an interior narration (thoughts and feelings) to a cutscene, without having any text in your main post. You can now use parentheses with ACCEPT and REFUSE commands, though there are some caveats.
• 07.26.23: Removed all persistent delays as they were causing database instability issues. You should no longer have extra trouble understanding your own spoken language in a language you don't understand -- what you see will be what fluent speakers see when you speak in a language that you're not fully fluent in. Added safety tools, including xcards and a retcon system that will work on room history and player character story logs.
• 07.28.23: You can now GET THING ON BENCH if you need to, rather than only having the GET THING FROM BENCH syntax. A bug with combat has been fixed where you could slash with a stick if you were wielding a sword in the other hand.
• 07.29.23: There is now both a FAINT command and a FALL command. PC jobs can be found at the Jumana Bimaristan in Omrazir. Another type of scented item has been added: essential oils. These can be USEd similar to perfumes, but they have other uses as well. If utilized effectively with the MASSAGE command, some essential oils can have different effects.
• 07.30.23: You can now gain reputation for job-related errands found using the WORK command, and the NPCs that generate from these jobs may be capable of answering questions using ASK.

August

• 08.07.23: The look of the website has changed a little in order to implement better contrasting colors, navigation bars, and header displays for the sake of accessibility and screenreaders. This is still a work in progress and if anyone using a screenreader (or struggling with visibility in any way) comes across a difficulty, please let us know.
• 08.10.23: Presence costs have been set up for DungeonMaker building. A reference and guide link has been added to the DungeonMaker page and various bugs have been fixed with the process.
• 08.12.23: You can now make Spawner types of objects with the DungeonMaker. These will generate NPCs into the "dungeon" area until they are deactivated by various means.
• 08.15.23: Up and down levels can now be added in the DungeonMaker. This is still a work in progress.
• 08.18.23: Switched the webclient to "evelite", a new Evennia option developed by InspectorCaracal, rather than the old goldenlayout version. This new version is more customizable and simple in terms of providing a uniform experience for users. Customization is also still a work in progress!
• 08.19.23: Some contrast issues have been fixed in the DungeonMaker, and levels have been mostly finalized, though perhaps with a few remaining unfound bugs. Your plot notes, if you have a long enough list of them, should now no longer spam you all at once -- instead you can use "more" to see further. You can also now log plot notes with the LOG PLOTNOTE (number) command, so that individual plot notes can be saved and attached to story arcs.
• 08.20.23: You can now set a diagnosing difficulty when using the AFFLICT command to make custom afflictions. You can also link an affliction to a list of existing mechanical symptoms to make your character suffer! Muhahaha.... okay. Learning conditions have been added for Stealth and Street Smarts. Whispering will no longer draw VNPC attention and break stealth -- in fact, hidden emotes will never draw environmental VNPC attention while stealthed. Roleplay to your heart's content while hiding.
• 08.21.23: The webclient UI has been updated -- it's still a work-in-progress, but for now it's functional enough. You can now use the LOG SPLIT command to split a roleplaying log into two, which may help when organizing your logs or developing separate story arcs. Sleep avatars now work a little more smoothly: they do not show up on the WHO/WHERE lists, and do not give the message of "Moop departs" when quitting. Instead you'll see "Moop visibly sinks into an even deeper sleep, dead to the world." Using HUG on someone who is mutually trusted to the "loved one" degree will now no longer result in a glitch. Finally, using MASSAGE on a loved one will now also work.
• 08.22.23: Sex and gender have been revamped, along with a disguise system to manipulate gendered appearance and system pronouns. Accordingly, it is only possible for pregnancy to occur if there is both a male and female involved, or at least a hermaphrodite. There are no stat differences between sexes but bigotry or misogyny may be a real attitude of either PCs or NPCs. Currently-existing clothing has been patched, if it is gendered, and you can now add a general demeanor towards people who appear to be of a certain gender. Cutscenes now show a small alert in the list if there have been posts since your last one (as long as you are acting as the involved character on the website).
• 08.23.23: Overland journeys are now possible via caravans as well as by solo travel. HELP JOURNEY is available in-game for more information. The implementation is very simple for now but further complexity is planned for the future!
• 08.25.23: You can now SCRAMBLE in directions, as another movement verb, and this works for getting through both windows and cramped exits. You can no longer open second-story windows from outside while on the ground. Windows without windowpanes now give the correct error messaging when trying to open them. When building a window, now you can specify the other side of it. Lastly, the builder-facing RMENU should no longer throw errors when editing the room-object details of windows or other exits. Roleplay logs now log in color, and display properly on the website.
• 08.26.23: Caravans now properly leave tracks, and should camp for the night and pack up camp at appropriate times.
• 08.29.23: There is now a tab for OOC communication in cutscenes, and staff members are capable of seeing interior narratives in cutscenes now. You can now leave relationship impressions in ongoing cutscenes. When someone records an impression of your character while you're offline, you will now properly receive OOCMail regarding it.
• 08.30.23: Locks and keys for locks can be made by a person with combined skill in Smithing and Lockpicking. It is now possible to have lockable and unlockable chests, ottomans, cabinets, and other such furnishings. These can be part of lodgings as well, and would be unlocked with the same key as your lodging key. NPCs will now do a better job reacting to witnessed crimes, and can react to crimes witnessed against their organization as though it is a crime against themselves. The RECOG system has been entirely rewritten, which means that all currently existing recogs are cleared. Now, when you add new ones, you will only be recognizing that character's current persona. If that character uses a disguise to adopt a new persona, you will not recognize them until you use RECOG on their new persona.

September

• 09.02.23: The webclient will no longer keep your last command in the input box. You can now use the FALL command with adverbs (ex: fall dramatically).
• 09.07.23: You can no longer try unsuccessfully to dry a towel with itself. TOSSing items now works properly as an alternative to GIVE that does not require close range.
• 09.17.23: Construction commands are undergoing implementation, starting with INSTALL, where locks can be installed onto chests and doors.
• 09.20.23: Animals that are being ridden should no longer wander. Ridden animals should now properly depart with the rider when the rider logs out.
• 09.24.23: A calendar has been added to the website. This is a work in progress.
• 09.27.23: Languages in character generation now show a percentage of fluency, making it easier for linguists to choose additional languages. Several character generation bugs have been fixed, including the unwanted behavior of generating a new shortdesc over one you had already written if you auto-generate a long description. Finally, the look of character generation over the website has been repaired.

October

• 10.05.23: The appearance of people and animals in rooms is changed: now they show up right after the room description as more of a one-line list, and basic poses (e.g., "is standing here") are no longer displayed.

November

• 11.07.23: Fixed the malfunctioning player-recognition script for bugs/ideas/typos.
• 11.09.23: Performing NPCs will now only automatically perform their performances once per day (once for each performance in their repertoire), and will not always attempt to perform every single time they have a chance. Also, cutscene buttons have been fixed to work better in a mobile view.
• 11.10.23: Made a few tweaks to handling. Quitting the game will release any people who are held by you, and you can now carry a person in one hand if you have substantially more strength than their weight, rather than having to drag or haul them.
• 11.13.23: Dragging a heavy item together with other helpers should work properly now, without any accidental tug-of-wars. The exact location of stealthed people can no longer be seen on WHO or WHERE, and you will see an indication of your own stealth when LOOKing.
• 11.20.23: There are now metric/imperial unit toggles for weight and height in the web chargen, and a superfluous space has been removed from the auto-generated description. Heritage lists on the web chargen are now alphabetized.
• 11.29.23: Mistlight messaging has been updated, and mistlights will no longer convert burnable contents to fuel like normal fires. It should now take longer for a room to become "cracked and dry" in drought.

December

• 12.15.23: Proper dawn and dusk messaging has been added to the skybox and room view.
• 12.21.23: Public backgrounds are now specific to place, with the backgrounds written during character generation being specific to that character's land of main origin. This means that they are no longer viewable from the website, and an intrepidly curious rumormonger would need to ask around in-game and get the information from VNPCs who live in said land of main origin.
• 12.22.23: It's now possible for an account with no characters to be able to post on the forums (we realized this was important because someone might want to ask questions about lore while in character generation). Some screenreader issues have been tidied up in the account logged-in screen -- account and presence level are displayed vertically instead of horizontally for screenreaders. Also, the amount of presence to get to the next level is displayed.
• 12.25.23: The [[ https://www.songofavaria.com/webclient webclient ] should work better on mobile screens now.
• 12.26.23: Amunati has been added as an esoteric old language, but removed from chargen. There has been a heavy command refactoring, which shouldn't have much of an effect immediately, but for now you can add optional emotes onto the SQUINT/PEER group of commands (ex: squint east emote glances over eastward with a tightening of her eyes). Ideally at some point this refactor will let us make uniform the various customization methods of commands, and include those options in the help files in an organized fashion.
• 12.28.23: HELP EMOTE has been rewritten for the in-game help files. Unsupported skills are now listed in character generation.
• 12.29.23: Combat code has been substantially slimmed down and is still in the process of a gradual rewrite. In-game help files for commands will now show extra information: what emote customizations they can be used with, related files if any are recommended, and what type of command they are in the sense of the conditions required for them (for instance, if you have to be dead to use this command, or to have balance, or simply just be awake and alive). Additionally, a brand new command has been added: WEATHER HISTORY. This way you know what the weather was all day, even if you were offline, and you won't accidentally tell your friends that you were out on a nice picnic when it was icily raining all day! Finally, character generation has been fixed up a bit, with some glitches removed, some information added, and a disambiguation function added to guide users to any steps with discrepancies, should any issues exist, before being presented with a penultimate review of the character. The skill page has been rearranged to present the information there better, especially for a mobile screen. A few of the skills listed as having no function actually do have functionality by now, so that was edited too.
• 12.31.23: A "fold" is now an adjustable part that can be raised or lowered to hide one's identity in a garment. This might be applicable to things like blankets and marzuqs. SWAP and SWITCH are now commands that work (again) with handling objects.

More Updates

• Development Updates (2022)
• Development Updates (2021)