Recent Changes and Additions
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January 4, 2012
- Friday update on Saturday!
- Any item dropped by a player may not be picked up by any other player for five seconds, unless that player is an ally.
- Any item dropped by a killed mob may only be picked up by players involved in the kill (for five seconds).
- When Tavelor unengraves an item, now only the original owner can pick it up (for five seconds).
- Tavelor now makes engraving and unengraving items a priority.
- You may no longer camp in dangerous areas. If you try, you will instead attempt to sneak out of danger, which takes one minute.
- Made some server performance improvements (but this will not fix the network lag problems).
- You will now camp within a few minutes of inactivity in the recovery room.
January 27, 2012
- Friday update!
- One of the areas has been expanded.
- A new item has been added.
- When you die, you now have a good chance of recovering most items engraved with your name. However, you will still drop all gold and unengraved items.
- While you are in the recovery room after dying, you are magically protected for a few minutes.
- Fixed a problem with shopkeepers (Darklow especially) unable to craft items.
January 20, 2012
- Friday update!
- A new area has been added.
- Pet wolf names now show up on their green hit point bar when they are attacked.
- The allies text now updates properly when you ally or unally.
- The effects of speed potions no longer stack.
January 16, 2012
- Please do not grief, especially noobs. The game needs new players to stay fresh.
- Please do not use multiple characters controlled by one person while player killing. It is not fair.
- Please do not use exploits, but instead report them to support@aberoth.com.
- Thank you.
January 13, 2012
- Friday update!
- Added battle sounds.
- Built structures should now not collapse when the server is reset.
- When you drop something and someone else picks it up, you get a message telling you who picked it up.
- If you close your browser window or are disconnected from the server, your character will now begin to make camp after fifteen seconds. All normal make camp rules apply. In the past, the disconnected player was simply removed after 30 seconds.
- There may not be a Friday update for the next few weeks. I need to recharge my batteries!
January 7, 2012
- Friday update (a bit late)!
- Added sound. There is now a sound check box on the log in page.
If checked, aberoth will run with sound. There are not too many sounds yet, but I will be adding a bunch more.
If sound is enabled, you will get an applet warning. Since the sounds are so large, the need to be cached on
the PC which cannot be done with the default unsigned Java applet.
- Press '+' or '-' to increase or decrease the sound volume.
- If you log out for a long time, you will make your way back to town for the next time you log in.
- Made a slight infamy adjustment.
December 30, 2011
- Friday update!
- Added an item (not crafted).
- There is now a limit to the number of characters you can play at the same time.
- Fixed a problem where the server would report it was full when it was not.
- Clarified the messages when becoming infamous.
December 23, 2011
- Friday update!
- You now see the health of your allies and pets if you are close to them and they get wounded.
- When there is detectable a server pause, a countdown will appear at the top of the screen that shows the estimated number of seconds the pause will last. During a server pause, nothing moves and you cannot get hurt, so it is best just to wait it out.
- Fixed wolf taming (the last update broke it).
- Fixed a bug where a strap was allowed in the 4 slot traveler's belt. Belts may not hold secondary containers.
- Made some network changes that hopefully reduce lag.
December 19, 2011
- If you attack a monster or player that is stronger than you, you will see how wounded they are. Weaker monsters and players are not considered a threat, so their status is not evaluated.
December 17, 2011
- Removed getting wanted for loot stealing (too many false positives).
- Fixed a problem where a player could die after being disconnected when the server was shutting down. Now players will not be disconnected until the zone is completely stopped.
December 16, 2011
- Friday update!
- Three new items have been added (none of them are crafted).
- A new quest has been added.
- Automatic gold collection and now works on chests.
- Players can now have resistances. Say 'resistances' to see your resistances.
- NPCs will now push friendly players out of the way.
- Fixed falling off the map in Lysis's hut.
- There is now a one minute camp time when if you are infamous.
December 11, 2011
- If you are pushed while lightly sleeping, you will wake up.
- Friendly allies are now light gray instead of light blue.
- When you kill someone that gives you more than the normal amount of infamy, a message is displayed.
December 9, 2011
- Friday update!
- By default, pet wolves will now stay in your vault unless commanded to 'heel'. This should finally fix the wolf escaping problem.
- The 'heel' command can now be used to stop your wolf from attacking.
- You may now order your wolves to 'attack'. They will still only attack unfriendlies.
- If you kill too many friends (in the previous 24 hours), you will become infamous and be banned from town. Attacking players that are much lower level than you or while in town gives extra infamy.
- You may now form alliances. To form an alliance, say 'ally Name'. Both people must use this command with each other's names to enter an alliance. Names of friendly allies are blue. Names of unfriendly allies are yellow. Once allied with someone, you cannot hurt them and they cannot hurt you, no matter if you are friendly or not. Anyone can break an alliance by saying 'unally Name'. To see who you are allied with, say 'allies'.
- You may now push people out of your way by running into them. Unfriendlies will resist and cannot be pushed.
December 2, 2011
- Friday update!
- One of the areas has been expanded.
- Two new items have been added (dropped).
- Two new enemies have been added.
November 25, 2011
- Friday update!
- One of the areas has been expanded.
- A new item has been added (crafted).
- Made it harder to drop your belt by accident.
- Players can no longer become invisible forever.
November 20, 2011
- The wand of sleep now performs a light sleep. If lightly sleeping, any damage will wake you up. The satyr lullaby still causes a deep sleep.
- If you fall asleep while hiding and then try to hide again right away, you will fall asleep again very quickly.
November 18, 2011
- Friday update!
- One of the areas has been expanded.
- The default inventory is now four items instead of three. All sack capacities have also been increased by one item.
- When you use an item (like a potion) in your belt, it will now be automatically replenished from your main inventory.
- You can now open and close your sack by clicking on it. This is only a visual preference and has no effect on the sack or items inside.
- Fixed a problem Sholop had with crafting.
- Reduced some jitteryness when many players are on.
November 11, 2011
- Friday update!
- Players now start in a new, safer area after dying and when playing the game for the first time.
- Tavelor has expanded his tavern a bit.
- It is no longer possible to escape off the ledge in Darklow's shop.
- Fixed pet wolves sometimes leaving a zone even after being told to stay.
- Vendors will now craft items even if they are in a conversation.
- Retaliation attacks no longer give any wanted time.
November 4, 2011
- Friday update!
- You can now customize the look of your character. You can change your gender, handedness, hair color, skin color, and clothes color. To perform a character customization, click the 'Store' link on the main page.
- Fixed Ourik's broken door.
October 28, 2011
- Friday update!
- A new area, enemy, and item has been added to the game.
- Pets may now become untame if left in a dangerous area too long.
October 21, 2011
- Friday update!
- Three new items have been added to the game.
- Fixed a bug where sometimes NPCs took a long time to craft items.
- The spiked shield now has a shield skill requirement.
- You can now say 'stay' or 'heel' to pets to request that they stay or follow you. You may use the pet name in the command for a specific pet (e.g. "stay spot"). If no name is given, all of your pets will follow the command.
October 19, 2011
- An RSS feed has been added to the top of this updates page and to Tavelor's Journal. Subscribe to be notified of any updates made here or to Tavelor's Journal.
- From now on, I plan to release new content and feature updates on Fridays. I will make the update sometime during the day on Friday so that it will be available for the weekend. Check back here this Friday!
October 9, 2011
- Support Aberoth! There is now an online store for Aberoth. To access the store, click on the 'Store' link under game window. Anything you buy from the store will support the development and maintenance Aberoth. Currently, the only thing you can buy from the store is a bank vault upgrade.
October 4, 2011
- You can now change the font size by clicking the 'Font' links next to 'Smaller' and 'Larger' below the game window.
September 28, 2011
- You must now be unfriendly to sleep friendly players. Sleeping a friendly player now makes you wanted.
- Shields now only give the full block percent if your player is attacked from the front or from the side of the shield. If you are attacked from a different direction, there is a lower percent chance to block.
- The doors to the bank are now slightly wider.
- When using doors in town, you now appear on the right hand side (rather than the center) so that others may easily pass.
- Fixed the problem with bees flying high in the rogue den.
September 21, 2011
- Added a few in game clues for animal training.
September 20, 2011
- It is now possible to tame animals. Once you have tamed an animal, you may name it by saying 'namepet'. The 'namepet' command will assign a name to your closest unnamed pet. Pets do not camp with the player and remain in the world when the player logs out. Pets are also persistent across server restarts.
September 14, 2011
- Fixed a memory leak problem that caused the server to eventually crash.
- You can now hit NPCs that are sleeping to wake them up.
- Tavelor now only lists the people that are currently playing when you ask him 'who'. You can ask him 'recently' or 'who was' to see who has been on in the last day.
September 6, 2011
- Added a new high score page which displays the most skillful players in the game. This page is now the default when clicking the 'Champions' link on the main page.
- Players must now have at least one gold to appear on the 'Wealthiest' high score page.
September 5, 2011
- Fixed a bug where a quest could not be started by certain players.
August 31, 2011
- You can now see your current quests by saying 'quests'. Quests are listed in order of difficulty from easiest to hardest.
August 14, 2011
- Personal storage vaults are now available for purchase from Gomald.
- Added the "invite" command. Say "invite Playername", and your character will temporarily invite Playername to follow you. If you invite someone to follow you then go into your vault, and they follow you within five seconds, they will be escorted to your vault. Once they leave, they cannot re-enter your vault without another invite.
July 24, 2011
- You can now change your password by saying 'password'. There have been some rumors over the past few weeks about account hacking. I am not aware of any way to hack accounts other than password guessing. If your password is very easy to guess, you might consider changing it. Adding numbers and capital letters to your password will make it very hard to guess.
- When you say 'skills', skills are now sorted by level. Also, the skill level now has a letter after it (a-z), that indicates your progress to the next skill level.
- You can now pick up items that are under other items that you cannot pick up (in Tavelor's tavern, for example).
- You can now see when other players are camping.
July 22, 2011
- If you click on someone who is carrying your personalized items, you will recognize the items.
July 19, 2011
- When you kill a monster, you will now automatically pick up any gold it drops (if you are still close enough). Automatic pickup of gold can be enabled or disabled by saying 'autogold'.
- The first quest from Inala now recommends visiting Lysis.
- Flowers are now easier to run through.
- Experience loss from being killed by another player is now half the normal death experience loss.
- Engraving items is now a bit cheaper.
- The group experience bonus has been raised. There is now a 10% experience bonus for every additional player in a group.
May 24, 2011
- If you are holding someone else's personalized item in your inventory, a white 'P' appears next to it.
- Fixed a problem that Firefox on OS X would not log you out when the browser window was closed.
- Fixed some display issues and flickering on OS X.
May 17, 2011
- Increased healing rate 10% for all players to compensate for a recent change which suspended healing after taking damage.
- The skills entry for bind wounds now displays a more informative healing rate as opposed to a simple percentage.
- Fixed the problem that when new champions refreshed their browser, it created a new character instead of resurrecting their current character.
May 10, 2011
- Tavelor now gives a bit more information when you ask him 'who'. You can now also return beer for a refund.
- Changed the way damage is displayed. Regular hits are in (parentheses), solid hits are in [brackets], and critical hits are in {braces}. Solid and critical hits will only happen if you have a weapon skill.
- When fighting (after you take damage), your normal healing is suspended. A pink line will appear in your hit points when healing is suspended. A white line indicates normal healing is happening. Magical healing is not affected by battle.
- Made some server performance improvements.
May 2, 2011
- Tavelor now charges less to personalize your items, especially for lower level items.
April 30, 2011
- When you type something (but have not spoken yet) and leave a zone, what you typed carries to the next zone.
- When you type something and a game message appears, it no longer wipes out what you typed.
- When you begin to say something, an ellipsis appears above your head to indicate that you are going to speak.
April 28, 2011
- Items now stay exactly where they were left when the server is restarted. Before this fix, item locations changed slightly. Gold still disappears when the server is reset.
April 27, 2011
- Potions that might fail when you drink them now have an exclamation point indicator next to them in your inventory. The indicator can vary in color from greeenish to yellow to orange to red based on the likelihood of success drinking the potion. If there is no indicator, it means that your drinking skill is high enough to guarantee success. This mechanism may be used in the future for other items that have a skill recommendation or requirement.
- NPCs will now not start up conversations if they do not understand what you are saying. Also, you need to be closer to Tavelor and Darklow to start conversations with them. Hopefully these changes will reduce unwanted NPC conversations from starting.
- There is now an experience penalty for dying. If you die, all skills lose xp, and the skill that has focus suffers the biggest experience loss. The additional loss for the focused skill is the same multiplier as the advantage the focused skill has when gaining experience.
April 14, 2011
- Tavelor (writer of the journal) has opened a tavern in town. He has a few capabilities, which you can discover by saying "help" to him. One thing he can do is personalize your items if you drop them on his little table. Personalized items have your name on them, so it is a way for your character to own items. If you find someone else's item, you can drop it in the tavern. Tavelor will put it in the lost and found and no one can take it except the owner. If you die in the dungeon with personalized items and can't get them back, check the lost and found later to see if anyone returned them. He will hold them for several real days.
- If you are holding someone else's item, camping will always take 30 seconds, even in town. If you are holding someone's item and they hit you, your camp is canceled. These policies will make it impossible to steal then immediately log out.
April 13, 2011
- All skills now earn experience when they are practiced, whether they have focus or not. However, skills without focus increase at one third of the focused rate.
- You no longer lose focus when you die. There is now no death penalty aside from losing your items and restarting in town.
- Increased the bind wounds healing rate somewhat at levels greater than 10.
March 21, 2011
- Made many changes to the client to increase performance and compatibility.
February 21, 2011
- Eliminated mob fuzzyness/blurryness when the screen is scrolling.
- Reduced wolf rapid flickering.
- Increased WW item drop rate slightly.
February 19, 2011
- Shopkeepers now wait a minute before sorting or destroying items a player has dropped.
- Shopkeepers now inform the customer when additional crafting materials are no longer necessary.
February 16, 2011
- Different size clients now work correctly (the icons are scaled and not cut off).
- Made performance enhancements in the client. This should make animation smoother and reduce client lag and pauses (the 8-10 second occasional server pauses will still happen). Please let me know if you have any problems (visual artifacts, increased lag, etc).
February 14, 2011
- Added a new high value item that is somewhat rare.
February 8, 2011
- Fixed initial quest from Inala (some players could not get this quest).
- Improved NPC responsiveness, which became sluggish after yesterday's update.
February 7, 2011
- Implemented server performance enhancements to fix sluggishness caused by the addition of the new area last week.
February 3, 2011
- Removed the healer fee when you die. Instead, death causes you to lose your skill focus (no actual experience is lost). With this change, your bank account cannot go down unless you withdraw gold.
- Fixed text being cut off under the hit points bar.
February 1, 2011
- Added a new area and new items.
- Made some minor changes to the way mob AI works.
- Pricing in the shops has changed somewhat.
- Manually cleaned up some boots and clubs.
January 15, 2011
- The changes on January 13 had some internal modifications to the way combat worked. I had not intended to change the overall difficulty of mobs, but it seems that orcs became quite a bit harder. Orcs should now be back to about the same difficulty as they were before.
January 13, 2011
- The equation used to calculate skill levels has changed slightly. Some players might lose a level or two due to this change. The amount of experience each player has did not change, only the skill level calculation.
- The delay for fist and knife off-hand fighting has been reduced and the delay for shield off-hand fighting has increased.
- Players now wake up properly when hit while sleeping.
- Fixed a bug that could cause visual artifacts.
January 8, 2011
- Experience from a defeated mob is now divided between everyone involved in the fight based on damage contribution. Quest rewards are still only given to the player who strikes the final blow.
- There is a slight group bonus if more than one player is involved in a kill.
- Lysis' focus fee is now based on Life level.
- You can no longer hide when asleep, and being hit wakes you up.
- Fighting is no longer stuck if you speak while holding the 'f' key.
January 4, 2011
- Making camp now only takes three seconds in town and inside Lysis' hut.
- The main door to town has been widened a bit.
- You will now fall asleep after a few minutes of inactivity, even when hiding.
- You can make yourself sleep by saying "sleep" or "afk".
December 31, 2010
- Fixed a bug where sometimes an item (usually a shield) could fall through the floor when dropped in town.
December 21, 2010
- Players may now flip a coin in the game. To flip a coin, say "flipcoin" or "tosscoin".
December 18, 2010
- Added a new item.
- When a player makes camp in the stony field after leaving the orc lair, do not restart them right in front of the lair.
December 14, 2010
- Made it a more challenging for pkers. When an unfriendly player attacks someone, they become wanted. Wanted players have an exclamation point after their name. A player who is wanted cannot hide, make camp, or become friendly. A player becomes wanted for five seconds for hurting another player and one hundred seconds for killing another player. Wanted time is cumulative. No changes were made for friendly players.
- Added the ability for the server administrator to display a message to all users.
- Minor tweaks to the orc and rogue AI.
December 12, 2010
- Added a new item.
December 7, 2010
- Added a couple of new items.
- Gomald the banker now notifies you when he makes a payout to the healer.
- Fixed a bug that crashed the server when a player got too powerful. Thank you Illia for helping me track that one down.
December 1, 2010
- Fixed Inala not letting people switch skills.
November 27, 2010
- Players can now quick-use items in their belt by pressing 1-9 for the belt slot number. Numbers 2-8 are fixed to the slot in the belt while number 1 and 0 are special. Pressing 1 will always use the first usable item in your belt (from the left). Pressing 0 will always use the last usale item in your belt (first from the right).
- Added several new items to the game (all similar to each other).
November 23, 2010
- Fixed some orc AI problems.
November 20, 2010
- I have added the new areas and several new items to the game. I will also be adding more items to the new areas over the next week or so.
November 18, 2010
- The new areas are pretty much finished. However, I still need to add a few more items. This might take several days.
November 4, 2010
- Much progress has been made in implementing the next area, but it is not yet complete. I expect it to be ready in a week or two.
October 8, 2010
- Fixed a bug at the witch's hut where the player could fall through the floor.
- In the future, if a player falls through the floor, it will not count as death. No items or gold will be lost.
- Made a certain skill (starts with 'B') much easier to level for consistency.
October 5, 2010
- Added the "skills" command to display information about your current skills.
September 10, 2010
- Added the "hide" command. See the help page for more details.
September 3, 2010
- A new NPC has been added.
August 17, 2010
- Characters may now carry a small inventory.
- A few new items have been added.
- The mouse position no longer has to be exact when clicking on items or gold. A click one game block to any side or diagonally will work.
June 13, 2010
- It is now possible to have conversations with certain NPCs.
- The game now contains context sensitive hints.
May 16, 2010
- Players inside the game world no longer experience lag or choppiness when a new player joins.
May 5, 2010
- The AI for all computer controlled creatures has been completely rewritten. Rogues now pick up gold and equipment.
April 6, 2010
- Shift-click will now drop something (same as right click). This may be useful for one button mice.
- Rogues and other players now do not climb on top of each when in a crowd. Also, a little extra space was added between players.
April 1, 2010
- Damage that is dealt to a player character is now displayed in yellow. NPC damage is still in pink.
- Multiple lines of damage will now stack, so you can see all damage done. Also, damage will no longer wipe out your speech.
- The damage dealt changes sides so that it is more readable.
March 30, 2010
- The limit for speech is now 225 characters (up from 50). Text will automatically wrap when spoken.
- The names of unfriendly players now appear in pink. Names of friendly players still appear in white.
March 25, 2010
- Attack and defense statistics for the player are now displayed on the bottom of the screen. Higher numbers are more powerful. For attack, the first number is the attack value of your primary hand, and the number in parentheses is the attack value of your off hand.
- You may toggle display of your statistics on and off by typing the command "stats".
- When attacking to the north or south, your hand now swings inward for a better chance of hitting.
March 18, 2010
- Some modifications have been made to the controls. Now, players will always use the left mouse button to attack or pick up items. The right mouse button will now be used to unequip and drop items. This change will prevent the player from accidentally unequipping and dropping items, which was rather common in battle. The 'f' key can also be used to attack.
- Players now have a primary hand and a secondary hand. The primary hand attacks faster than the secondary hand. A picked up weapon will be wielded in any free hand, with preference given to the primary hand. Damage and defense are currently the same for both hands. However, given identical weapons, the primary hand will deal more damage over time due to its faster attack rate.
March 16, 2010
- Fixed a problem with the rogue den where sometimes equipment or players could fall off the world.
- Made the hallway in the den a bit wider to facilitate groups.
March 13, 2010
- Two new commands have been added, "unfriendly" and "friendly". By default, every player character starts out as unfriendly. When a player is unfriendly, they can hurt other player characters. If you enter the command "friendly", you will not hurt other friendly players when attacking. This is very useful when fighting together, for example. If you enter the command "unfriendly", you will be able to attack other human players, but they will also be able to attack you (even if they are friendly).
- Bees and rabbits are now much easier to hit.
February 24, 2010
- It is now possible to log out safely. Enter the command "makecamp", and your character will begin the process of logging out of Aberoth. Camp may be interrupted at any time by any key or mouse button. Once you have established camp (this currently takes thirty seconds), you will be safely logged out.
- If you do not use the "makecamp" command, closing the browser will still log you out after thirty seconds, but you may be killed during that time.
February 8, 2010
- There are now three Champion ranking pages. The "Wealthiest" page is ranked by gold, the "Most Valiant" is ranked by the number of enemies killed, and the "Most Sinister" is ranked by how many player characters and friendly human non-player characters have been killed. The counts for the "Most Valiant" and "Most Sinister" pages will start today. Clicking on the "Champions" link on the main page will display the "Wealthiest" Champions. Links to the other Champion pages are at the bottom of that page.
February 4, 2010
- The Journal of Tavelor has been written that will contain updates to the game world as seen from the perspective of Tavelor, a new citizen of Aberoth. All in game additions will be included in his journal, when appropriate. His journal can be accessed from the main page by the "Journal" link. If there are new updates to the journal since your last visit, the "Journal" link becomes "New Journal Entry!!!"
- Changes to Aberoth that are outside the game world such as UI changes, technical details, bug fixes, and command changes will still appear here.
January 29, 2010
- When additions have been made to Aberoth since the last time you visited this page, the "Updates" link on the main page becomes "New Updates!!!".
January 28, 2010
- Picking up gold and items now works correctly on Mac OS.
- Attacking straight down now works correctly.
- Shownames is now enabled by default.
- Moving from room to room in the house with a shield equipped no longer causes problems.
- Attacking while moving no longer causes excessive damage to other players.
- Added this "Recent Changes and Additions" page.