Paradox History: 2008

This page shows everything that happened in 2008.

Jan 2, 2008

In the process of making a change to stat gain mechanics, I inadvertently put *some* of the changes into prod. Stat gains and level progression will be *odd* for a while.

Jan 7, 2008

Just uploaded some updates. If you're logged in, please refresh the page to get the latest Javascript.

Jan 16, 2008

Added (limited) avatar support

Jan 23, 2008

Just about every area has been updated to make use of new CSS files, along with some minor improvements to some areas. Let me know if I missed anything or anything is now broken.

Jan 27, 2008

We now have a domain and a new server! Please let me know if anything is broken.

Jan 29, 2008

I've made over 150 changes to various inventory management areas. All tested OK but let me know if any problems occur.

Feb 1, 2008

We have Wiki! Yaaay! Check the Misc menu in game.

Feb 5, 2008

• As you fight, you will now gain proficiency in different weapon types. Ooh, aah.
• Token Gear (TM) is now open for business in the mall! Also, the mystery is now solved! Check your inventory.

Feb 19, 2008

• Many, many updates. New Inventory Management, Showcases, several tweaks here and there. Oh and if you're saying 'Dude, where's my avatar?' check out your Profile settings.

• Hooray for auto-attack! Limited as it is. Also minor changes to inventory management and account settings. Less Hooray for those.

Feb 20, 2008

• All non-dev accounts with IDs less than 1000 have been renumbered. Let me know if there are any problems.

• Due to a MAJOR change in a couple of database tables, the Noob quest has been reset for everyone. Better go visit the Professor!

Feb 22, 2008

Rollover happened a couple of times today by *cough* accident. Sorry for the extra turns.

Feb 22, 2008

We can has Leaderboards :)

Feb 23, 2008

I really didn't want to do this, but there was no other way. All recipes acquired before I started tracking date/time have been deleted. If there are no recipes in your 'Combine Stuff' recipe list, you'll have to figure them out again.

Feb 26, 2008

Our hosting provider is having "DNS Issues". I'm told they'll be fixed within an hour.

Mar 6, 2008

Due to new content testing, the mine has been reset for the day.

Mar 9, 2008

With DST starting very soon, the time on the servers will change and I can't currently think of any reason to do anything about it. With that in mind, if you're NOT changing to DST tonight, rollover will happen an hour earlier.

Mar 11, 2008

Changes to Combine Stuff and Manage Stuff today. If you have problems, try a forced refresh of your browser (hold down Shift and click Refresh/Reload) before reporting a bug.

Apr 5, 2008

By popular demand, Paradox City has decided to switch to a standard 24-hour clock. This 20 hours in a day, 48 minutes in an hour rubbish was causing too much confusion.

Due to time changes, there are going to be two rollovers tonight. The city's timekeepers claim this is some kind of "paradox" and that this kind of behaviour is perfectly normal and nothing to be alarmed about, which is just the kind of non-linear clap-trap we've come to expect from them.

Apr 9, 2008

A whole bunch of changes have been made. Some you'll notice right away, some are slightly less obvious. As always, if there are any bugs, report them in the forums. Oh yeah, and you can now set up your own store to sell stuff to other people! Check your Inventory menu.

Apr 17, 2008

Store management interface has been upgraded. Lots of cool new stuff there. Yay!

Apr 21, 2008

Philosoraptor isn't wearing pants. Again.

Apr 22, 2008

Some pretty big changes in chat today, you may need to do a shift-refresh to get the new javascript.

Apr 26, 2008

Several more updates to chat that may require a shift-refresh to ensure you have the latest copy of everything.

Apr 28, 2008

Avatar support has been.. well, changed. Check it out, it's shiny.

May 5, 2008

Check out the new (experimental) popup chat! Just like regular chat, only poppy-uppy. Ooh. Also a few minor updates here and there.

May 9, 2008

MASSIVE refactoring work done over the past couple of days. Testing on dev, but, well, you know. Any problems with ANYTHING, please let me know.

May 12, 2008

• You can view your stash (and take stuff out) from a link in the Inventory menu.

• Eat, drink and use multiples of stuff at once with the new links. Check your consumables and miscellaneous inventory pages.

May 22, 2008

• Recent update seems to have broken... lots of things. Working on it right now!

• One very important file was corrupted during updates. Took some finding but looks ok now. Sorry about that, chief!

• Looking for Token Gear (TM)? Check your "Misc" menu.

• Moolah can now be safely stored in your Stash, away from prying eyes.

May 26, 2008

Devices can now be installed and manipulated in much the way they were intended. Still more work to be done on this, but it's a start.

Jun 2, 2008

Made some changes to the Updates system. Which you probably already know about. Also added a couple of things to Stash and Showcase pages.

Jun 3, 2008

• You can change the order of the compartments in your Stash and Showcase. About time, too.

• It's official, this is now version 0.3. WOW!

Jun 17, 2008

Just in case anyone's wondering, there are a couple of new zones being developed in dev. Which require more mechanics. Won't be much longer.

Jun 26, 2008

• Uploaded a large number of changes today, which necessitated deletion and re-uploading of pretty much everything. If anything's broken.. report a bug.

• Oh, and elemental resistance/damage now works properly. If only there were elemental monsters to fight.

Jun 27, 2008

• Just for fun, a couple of opponents in the test location have elemental alignments. They're not particularly sensible, but that's why it's a "test" location.

• Added a player search box and store search box to the character pane, because... well, you know it makes sense.

• UPDATE: This is an update! That is all.

Jul 19, 2008

• Game window should now be full width. Huzzah. Yes, I know that makes some pages look a bit ugly, but I'll get to them.

• Build number jumped suddenly from 197 to 222. Why? Not because I skipped a bunch but because I've made a lot of little changes over the past week or two, and finally got around to uploading them. They're not finished yet, not even close, but you should notice some minor things here and then. As usual, let me know if there are any bugs.

• The construction site no longer exists. In case you missed it. Still working on the overview page though. If you have ideas, post them in the forum.

• There are a couple of bugs related to auto-attack and timeouts. I'm working on them now.

• Both bugs fixed. Let me know if you find any more.

Jul 21, 2008

• First part of mail interface update uploaded. More to come later today/tomorow.

• I have bowed to pressure from the bifocal brigade and slightly increased the font size across the site. Also the updates system now shows the time and person who posted any given update. How exciting!

Jul 22, 2008

Several more layout changes. As always, tested in multiple browsers. Please report any flakiness. Don't report my flakiness, I already know I'm a flake.

Jul 24, 2008

Several tweaks and improvements to the site interface which should make the site look much sexier and consistent across browsers. See, something to appeal to geeks and non-geeks alike. Also fixed some little bugs along the way.

Jul 27, 2008

Chat now has a "/mark" command. Which presumably summons up someone called "Mark" to hold your place in chat, or something.

Aug 6, 2008

Wikilinks are now optional and are turned OFF by default. You can turn them on again through your account options page.

Aug 7, 2008

You can now choose whether to go to the main map or your overview on log in.

Aug 16, 2008

• That silly chat bug that causes multiple "XXX joined chat" messages has been fixed.

• Boo-boo B-gone strips are now usable in combat.

Aug 17, 2008

• There are a ton of new item and opponent descriptions, images and custom messages floating around. Well at least a hundred anyway. Enjoy!

• It's not *quite* done, but it's close enough. Charlie Gardens Memorial Park is now open. Feel free to check it out and report any weirdness.

• A new item has been created to reward people who report significant bugs. The first one has been awarded to Dad (#1012) for picking up a rather nasty infinite item bug. Thanks, Dad!

Aug 18, 2008

There are a couple of new things in the Park, and I fixed the Gazebo so it works as intended. Enjoy.

Aug 19, 2008

I am currently in the process of optimising the codebase (yes, I said "optimising", I'm an Aussie), which involves making a whole lot of very very small changes in a very very large number of places. I'm testing as I go, but I need to make these changes in the live environment urgently so I can't test as thoroughly as I'd like to. Please let me know if there are any bugs as a result.

Aug 22, 2008

• Small update: Avatars are now 100x100 (thumbnails 50x50). Why? Because of the high availability of 100x100 avatars and the difficulty many people are facing resizing them to the old size. Yay.

• Due to general incompetence on the part of our hosting company, there is a chance that the site could go down at ANY time. Not that you'll be able to read this if it does, but be forewarned just in case. Rest assured I'll be trying to get it back as quickly as possible.

• The game will be taken offline to move to the new server at midnight GMT. That's in about... 45 minutes. It will be back once the move is complete and DNS changes have propagated.

• The server move appears to have gone more or less flawlessly. I'm checking to make sure there are no problems, but please let me know if you find anything not working correctly as there may be permissions updates required.

Aug 23, 2008

• The "Test Fight/Demo Location" zone has officially been disabled. Don't panic, we're gonna be replacing it with something much better. Soon.

• Two new leaderboards added: Respect & Disrespect. Have fun with that.

Aug 24, 2008

• A diceroll function has been added to the chat system. Please see the wiki for usage information.

• In addition to awards, there's now another type of frivolity to display in profiles - stickers. There will very shortly be some stickers available to decorate your profiles with. Very shortly.

Aug 25, 2008

• The slingshot has had its power reduced to a much more sensible level.

• Recent issues with spontaneous database corruption leading to all kinds of weird results should now be a thing of the past. Hopefully.

Aug 26, 2008

• A number of opponents no longer drop moolah because.. well, it's absurd that they would be carrying any moolah to drop.

• A new quest has been added. I'm not going to tell you where. Have fun :)

Aug 27, 2008

• Remember those stickers I mentioned? Check your miscellaneous inventory.

• Sorry about the multiple database restarts in the last few minutes, I was just testing some performance mods. Currently showing pretty good results, too.

Aug 29, 2008

During 11th hour testing, I discovered a small problem with the intermission (rollover) script, which I corrected but of course had to test it. As a result, two intermissions today = extra turns and stuff for you. Huzzah!

Aug 31, 2008

Due to me not paying due care and attention, everyone just accidentally got a couple of hundred extra turns for today. I hope you can all forgive me :)

Sep 1, 2008

• The emoticon-related chat-scrolling bug should now be fixed.

• Some alpha launch goodies bag items are now tradeable. Go crazy.

• Internet Explorer users, your menus should no longer flicker or change colour unexpectedly. If they still are, you may need to refresh your browser window to get the latest javascript.

Sep 4, 2008

I've added support for Google's new Chrome web browser, and most things seem to be displaying fine. Occasionally, popup chat seems to not want to resize properly, but closing/reopening it fixes that. Gotta love inconsistent behaviour. I'll take a more careful look at this when time allows.

Sep 8, 2008

• New multi-channel chat system has been implemented! Chat should now be version 0.6.0 - if yours isn't, do whatever it takes to force your browser to refresh until it is (or chat won't work properly).

• We currently seem to be experiencing random periods of lag, which is almost certainly the hosting provider's fault yet again. I've logged a support ticket, but in the meantime please be patient.

Sep 9, 2008

• By popular demand, two new public chat channels have been added - mensroom and ladiesroom.

• Chat (v0.6.2) now has limited support for right-clicking player names. Provided you're not using Internet Explorer or Chrome. I'll continue to work on it.

• Right-click code has been disabled in IE and Chrome since a) it doesn't work properly (or at all) and b) it seems to be causing significant resource drains. I'll come back to it at a later date, but in the meantime - if you want right-click, use Firefox :)

Sep 10, 2008

What /mensroom? /ladiesroom huh? I don't know what you're talking about. Move along.

Sep 12, 2008

Made some changes to the right-click menu code that will hopefully improve the typing-lag people have been seeing. I say hopefully, not definitely. Anyway, update to chat 0.6.5 if you don't already have it.

Sep 15, 2008

Minor updates: Erroneous debug messages removed from chat (sorry), mail will now not display emoticons if you have the option turned off, and avatar support is no longer free. See how I smoothly tried to get that last one past you by hiding it in here? Sneaky, ain't i?

Sep 16, 2008

• Database server just had a slight hiccup. Restarted and all ok now. Sorry about that.

• Right-click menu in chat v0.6.8 now works in Google Chrome. Now to try and get it working in IE (thanks Microsoft!)

Sep 17, 2008

And Chat v0.6.9 now has the right-click menu working in Internet Explorer. Have at it!

Sep 19, 2008

• Ahoy mateys! It be talk like a pirate day today. Yarrrrr!

• I've made a change to the timezone that the game code/database operates in to match game time. Don't put too much thought into trying to work out what that means, but be aware that existing timestamps on everything that's timestamped (mail, leaderboards etc.) are now 3.5 hours out. Future timestamps will be fine.

Sep 21, 2008

There are now a couple of outfits for you to find. Go crazy :)

Sep 22, 2008

• "Firsts" leaderboards now show outfits. How exciting!

• A new store has opened up in the mall. Stock is a bit limited, but it's worth a visit.

Sep 24, 2008

Something was added. I'm not going to tell you what, you'll find it quickly enough on your own.

Sep 25, 2008

To help boost player numbers, you can now earn moolah for referring people to the game! Check out the forums for details.

Sep 28, 2008

The "bow" weapon class has been renamed to "projectile" because, seriously, since when is a slingshot a bow? Since never, that's when!

Sep 30, 2008

• Food and Drink consumption now gives a variable number of turns per item consumed.

• There's a bunch of new content. A new zone, around 50 new items, some new recipes, and other stuff. Enjoy! If you find any bugs or typos, please let me know.

Oct 1, 2008

• To everyone trying to figure out what they need to do to get into one of the new locations... you can stop, it's not quite ready yet.

• Dad (#1012) has discovered another infinite bug, this time to do with the new items, and has been given another big bug zapper. Yay Dad! Boo Gobb for repeating the exact same bug again. Big smacks.

• Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once. Don't abuse multis to get stuff you're not supposed to get. Unless you WANT to have your account disabled, in which case go for it.

Oct 3, 2008

Please join us in welcoming soaK (#13) to the official Paradox! Dev Team. YAY!

Oct 4, 2008

Today's promised content update has been postponed until there are more people around with turns left to try it out. Apparently you guys have lives to live on a Saturday night. I'm jealous :)

Oct 5, 2008

OK, the new zone I've been teasing you with for a week is now active, and there's a little something new in the town centre. Yes, they're related.

Oct 11, 2008

• Several minor updates and bugfixes have been implemented, most of which aren't worth mentioning. So I won't mention them. There are slightly nicer chat icons though.

• Several more minor updates. The only one worth mentioning is that wall messages with line breaks in them will now appear properly, rather than chopped off.

Oct 12, 2008

Chat has had a pretty decent code overhaul. Unfortunately you MAY need to force your browser to refresh (using shift-refresh, or clearing your browser's cache) to get it working properly again. Sorry about that, chief.

Oct 13, 2008

• As a result of further unexpected database jiggery-pokery, rollover was an hour late today. By way of apology, nobody will be receiving anything at all, because I seriously doubt anyone noticed.

• The player respect info page has been reorganised slightly. Will the excitement never end?

Oct 17, 2008

• A serious bug has occurred in the referral bonus processing script (thanks Sheik) and I'm working on it at the moment. In the meantime, referral bonuses are disabled, sorry.

• I've removed the toolbar from the inline chat. It just takes up far too much space. You can exit, clear and restart chat using the commands /exit, /clear and (surprisingly) /restart.

Oct 18, 2008

Channel name is no longer displayed in chat on messages from the current default channel. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Oct 19, 2008

Minor update: Player list in chat is now sorted slightly differently so that Mods appear first.

Oct 20, 2008

• More chat tweaks: To quote someone's player id and make it clickable, use (#1234) or >>1234 (replace 1234 with the correct player id, obviously). Note - this requires the latest version of chat (0.6.22 or higher) - refresh your browser to get it.

• Lag Wars Part IV: A New Hope. It is a period of civil war. Paradox spaceships, striking from... wait, wrong story. cough. ANYWAY, the logs I've been keeping have identified an issue that occurs at 10:10PM (game time) every day, resulting in about 6-7 minutes of hideous lag. I have confirmed this is nothing to do with Paradox, and have logged yet another request to the hosting provider that will hopefully save our people and restore freedom to the galaxy...

Oct 25, 2008

Two new chat channels created: "social" and "tech". Please see the forums for full details.

Oct 27, 2008

The word "resistance" in item descriptions has been changed to "damage reduction", because an OCD, ADD, D&D person told me to.

Oct 29, 2008

In today's news, the SuperMegaGoogolplex Cinema announced its grand opening, and found the option to change the capitalisation of its name. OK that was yesterday's news but still. In other, vaguely related news, Token Gear (TM) has finally found floor space in the mall, and I'm led to understand they found a big box of some.. stuff during the move. Stay tuned.

Oct 30, 2008

Looks like Candy's finally managed to unpack that box. Interesting.

Oct 31, 2008

• A small bug with the way the new token item calculates TP restores has been fixed. Thanks, sheik.

• Today is Halloween. How spooky is that?

Nov 1, 2008

There's a spooky lil sump'm in your inventory. Enjoy.

Nov 2, 2008

• So we've finally got a secure player-to-player trade system. Somewhere there was much rejoicing (YAY!). You'll find it in your Mail menu, and it should be pretty self-explanitory, although checking to make sure that's the case is very much part of alpha testing. If you find a bug, let me know through the bug report system immediately.

• Looking for the right-click "send trade" link in chat? Try refreshing your browser so that chat is at v0.6.24.

Nov 3, 2008

• Made some modifications to proficiences as follows: "Knife" class has been renamed "Blade". "Sword" class has been renamed to "Staff". "Gun" & "Projectile" weapon classes have been combined into a single "Projectile" class. Trust me, it all makes sense.