Paradox History: 2007

This page shows everything that happened in 2007.

Jul 16, 2007

• I'm back from Alice Springs and I've uploaded all changes. I've still got a week off work so expect.. umm, stuff.
• The game now has a name - "Paradox! The Musical". Why the last bit? I dunno, it amuses me. It might still change.
• Additionally, I've started work on the inventory system, and you will notice that certain opponents will now drop items after a fight. There is still a LOT of work to do to fully implement this, but you should find some serious changes happening over the next few days.
• I've revised my schedule in view of the massive amounts of work required to get to an actual release (inventory, communications, trade, and of course actual content etc.). Expect an alpha release in around 2-3 months time. After that, things should flow a bit more quickly. In the meantime, you should expect weird stuff, not the least of which being that a reset can occur at any time! No, really. Depending on what changes I need to make, I might have to wipe everything out of the database, and I won't be careful about it at this point. So, if you log on and you've got no money, stats, items etc. sorry, but that's just how it is for now.

Jul 17, 2007

• Frame sizes are now stored as cookies, so will remain if you log out or refresh the page.
• Inventory page now displays your inventory.
• Clicking "eat" on an item will.. umm.. eat the item.
• Clicking "equip" on an item will.. do nothing yet. Sorry.

Jul 18, 2007

• Well I had intended to do some more work on inventory, but wrote a basic chat interface instead.

Jul 20, 2007

• Read the new Harry Potter book. Sorry.

Jul 21, 2007

• A player's equipment can now be seen on their player information page. Unfortunately a player still needs to be logged on for you to be able to see their page. That will change.
• Items can now be equipped. That's actually a MUCH bigger deal than it sounds.
• Fixed problem with "special" characters in the chat not appearing.

Jul 22, 2007

• You can search for other players from the player information screen.
• Added progress indicator for loading pages. Still having some trouble getting it to work with POSTed forms (eg. fight, equipment).

Jul 24, 2007

• Check your inventory for something.. interesting!
• Oh noes! I sold out to the man! Er, or rather I added a "Donate" link. Nobody who's here at this stage should even THINK of donating. Unless you're rich. Or you really want to. In all seriousness though, any donations made will be put aside and used to help set up a domain name and proper hosting, and will (of course) be rewarded with a Token of Appreciation for every $10 (US) donated. But, and let me make this PERFECTLY clear, there is no requirement to donate anything at all, ever.
• Made some major changes to the underlying PHP classes which make stat calculations about 500 times easier and mean that any items you have that modify your stats now display correctly in the character pane and effect fights etc.

Jul 26, 2007

• We got mail! Fairly basic, but enough to allow sending/receiving messages. Testing now.
• Fixed a few small bugs (see the dev forum).
• Added player's local time to the player profile page.
• Changed player's last logged on to show YOUR local time. Provided I have your timezone saved in your profile (Jazzy, please advise).

Jul 28, 2007

• Added several enhancements to chat:
  • 15 minute timeout
  • System messages
  • Private messages (use /pm or /msg to send)
  • Emote messages (use /me or /em to send)
  • Clear screen (use /cls or /clear)
  • Exit (use /exit)
• Other stuff:
  • Implemented multiple select operations for mail messages. At this stage you can delete, mark as read or mark as unread. Saving messages will have to wait until there's somewhere to save them.

Jul 30, 2007

• I have completely rewritten fight.php! That's exciting to me, since the code is SO MUCH neater and easier to work with, but probably not exciting to you, since it should look exactly the same if I did it right.
• Slight, but pretty, enhancement to the progress bars in the character pane.

Jul 31, 2007

• Ooops, forgot the description text in the fight. Fixed.
• Added a few references and extended descriptive text on a few opponents.
• Spent a couple of hours drawing a town layout I have in mind. Sorry, you can't see it here just yet.

Aug 1, 2007

• Spent $100 on stuff for the game. You'll find out in a couple of days. Or at least some of you will :)
• Stupid power failures on July 31 apparently disrupted the system clock on (what I laughingly call) the "server" so times were a couple of hours out. Fixed.

Aug 2, 2007

• OK you can now save a message, and elect to keep a copy of any messages you send. The latter option is OFF by default (to save disk space) but you can turn it on with the checkbox at the bottom of a new message. I haven't got anyone online at the moment to help me test fully, but feel free to explore and let me know how it goes.

Aug 3, 2007

• The bug (below) is fixed now, and I've managed to sort out some other issues with repeated smilies and stuff in both chat and mail. Oddly, chat is failing to save ampersands (&) to the database, but mail is doing it OK, even though they both theoretically use the same code. It's too late and I'm too tired to think about it right now.
• There is a bug in the mail system which causes HTML characters to be re-evaluated every time a message is saved (eg. when changing it from read to unread, saving it, whatever). I will get onto it when we get back from house-hunting this afternoon.

Aug 26, 2007

• Hmmm, a construction site has unexpectedly appeared. And it makes me wonder. Like a bustle in a hedgerow. Whatever that is.

Aug 27, 2007

• I've been screwing around with the database. If anyone discovers weirdness, let me know.

Aug 30, 2007

• Tons and tons of stuff. See this forum post.

Sep 1, 2007

• You may have noticed that the game time has been displayed in the character pane (left side) for a week or so now, but we now also have our very own date and time system! Have fun figuring it out! The only thing I will tell you right now is that rollover will occur at game midnight. Which is at 10:00 (game time). Heh.
• Implemented "Account" page. So you can change your password, location and stuff.
• Implemented "Sell Stuff" page. See nav bar at the top of the window.

Sep 9, 2007

Lots of work done behind the scenes, including some really complicated bits and pieces, the end result of which is that various items can now be combined in different ways. There aren't a whole lot of ingredients yet (well, there are, they just don't drop anywhere yet), but there's a teaser in your consumables. And you should probably see a doctor about that.

Sep 10, 2007

• Lest We Forget
• Right, so I spent a couple of hours today flowcharting the entire Noob quest, and then another couple of hours building the entire framework. Now I just need to add all the actual content, plus create a store interface (one of the subquests requires you to buy an item somewhere), add the required opponents, non-combats and item drops, and, um, we're good to go.
• Oh, and I'll sort you out with some kind of display case and stash shortly as well.

Sep 13, 2007

• Added a "Last Adventure" link to the charpane
• Added a "Go back to XXX" link at the end of an adventure
• When a new quest is available, you will automatically be notified

Sep 16, 2007

• Added store code (yes, there's a temporary store, but it isn't very good
• Equipment power and effects are now taken into account when attacking a monster (defensive effects still to come)
• Added code to allow "special" drops and opponents, eg. if you are adventuring in a certain location and you are on a certain quest, then the opponents and what they drop is customised to suit.

Sep 18, 2007

• Ooops, I accidentally left the noob quest enabled, and it looks like some of you tried to do at least some of it. The quest has been disabled and reset, so anything you got from it is gone. Sorry.

Sep 20, 2007

• Right, the first few bits of the Noob quest are done and ready for you guys to test! No, really, I meant it this time.
• Check it out, and please let me know if I spelt anything wrong, or if you can see a way to improve it. Personally I think some pages have way too much text on them, but I dunno how to fix it.
• Anyway, go questing.

Oct 17, 2007

• It's been a while since I last updated this. We moved house on September 28, and of course there's been a bit of disruption to everything. I seem to have come by some unexpected vacation time though, so I can start working through my list of jobs.
• Right now, I'm in the process of adding content to the next stage of the noob quest. Hopefully it should be done in a couple of hours. The next bit, not the whole quest.

Oct 17, 2007

• Next bit of the noob quest ready for testing. Go see Professor von Noob.
• Well, the Noob quest is done. At least it's a first draft. Go see Professor von Noob for an update.

Oct 21, 2007

• Added reply (/r, /reply) and converse (/v, /conv) commands to chat.
• Chat stuff, like:
  • Fixed a bug with underscores in player names in private messages
  • Implemented /reply (/r) feature to reply to the last person who sent you a pm
  • Implement /conv (/v) feature to send a pm to the same person you last sent a pm to
  • Implemented "New Mail" notification alerts (if someone sends you a mail message while you're in chat, it'll tell you about it)
  • Added hyperlinks so you can click on someone's name when they say something in chat (will be expanded with a context menu soon).

Oct 22, 2007

• Implemented code for "effects". Try the Brown Cow (if you have any) to check it out. See the forum for more information.
• Bah, I so need to move these updates to the database. Soon.

Oct 29, 2007

• Moved updates to the database.
• Updates are now shown on the login page, and can be accessed in-game either by clicking the "Updates" link at the top of the page or by typing "/updates" in chat.
• Chat script now works properly with special characters.

Oct 30, 2007

• Mail now has attachments! Please test and let me know if you have any problems.
• Changes to mail system mean some sent messages you didn't think you had a copy of are back. And marked unread. Sorry.

Nov 13, 2007

• There's now a chance of critical hits during combat.

Nov 14, 2007

• New zone added. Check the outskirts of town.

Nov 18, 2007

• Every combat/non-combat adventure you spend is now tracked. Expect leaderboards and updates to player profiles.

Nov 20, 2007

• As new recipes are discovered, they can be selected from a drop-down list for future use. Expect more leaderboards.

Nov 21, 2007

• The mine now has an experimental queue so you should get the same non-combats over and over.
• The queueing system has been extended to all zones and to combat as well as non-combats. You should notice the difference.
• Background colour changes based on time of day again.

Nov 22, 2007

• I've made some changes to the rollover script so that everything happens at once, including the nightly backup. Multiple tests means multiple extra turns for you. YAY!

Nov 27, 2007

• Fixed a small bug related to stat gains. You will now get less. Sorry.
• For the sake of variety, there are a few new messages you'll see in combat.

Nov 29, 2007

• The defenc(s)e rating of your equipment now actually makes a difference in a fight. About time too.
• Ruh-Roh. You can fumble now too.

Dec 2, 2007

• The dev server is struggling. Looking into production hosting that doesn't cost the earth.
• Timezone removed from player profile for those who like to be secretive.

Dec 5, 2007

• The noob quest is the same, but all the underlying code's been redone. Let me know if anything appears to be broken.

Dec 11, 2007

• If you scroll up in chat, it shouldn't scroll down when a new message arrives until you manually scroll down again.

Dec 29, 2007

• The Elves have been kicked into shape. Christmas stockings should now be full of goodies!

Dec 31, 2007

• I made a minor change to the rollover script yesterday which effectively made the database updates not happen. Fixed for today's rollover and run manually (twice) just now.