ACR Release Notes v1.86

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New Systems

  • Servers that are under significant load are now capable of adjusting the object update timers on logged in players, in order to recover performance when the server is very busy. The object update timer will now range from once every 200ms to once every 600ms, depending upon the current load of the server.
  • It is now possible to tool regions in game where swimming is possible, with correct mechanics and animations, both with and without breathable air above. Players are encouraged to use caution when going through such areas-- it is very possible to drown, and very possible to die while attempting to rescue dive.
  • When a DM attempts to open the Player List (default pressing P), they will now receive a report of players logged onto the same server. More verbose notes of its function below.
  • ALFA now provides a system for the automated crafting of magic consumable items. The player-facing documentation exists here, and the state of the documentation at the time of this rollout is copied below.

Fixed Systems

  • The chat list GUI will be more accurate when deciding whether to display /t or #t before a given character's name in the list box.
  • "Players" and "DMs" in the chat list box read "Local Players," "Remote Players," "Local DMs," and "Remote DMs" when expanded, and include the number of people in each group in parenthesis.
  • If a player logs out with the chat list expanded, that player will no longer be missing lists of remote players and DMs upon returning.
  • Our systems for detecting the Client Extender will now refresh every time a player logs in, and players can expect to more-consistently see functionality that best uses their chosen client.
  • Log file entries are now written when a PC is saved from death by the damage cap.
  • Treants are now huge, not medium, creatures.
  • Corpses now decay in 20 days, instead of 55.
  • Players who are healed from negative to positive hit points are capable of again being saved from death by the damage cap immediately.
  • Players who are struck multiple times within a flurry will be saved from death by the damage cap for that flurry, and will again be made killable during the next.
  • People who speak drow can understand both drow and elven, and vice versa.
  • Custom loading screens introduced in ACR v1.84 are again visible and functional
  • Custom loading screens introduced in ACR v1.84 are now visible to DMs who are jumping through areas by use of functionality like the chooser.
  • The spell preparation GUI associated with offline rests will no longer claim that you've created a bug when double clicked.
  • Paladins and Rangers need to be level 4 to prompt the offline resting spell preparation functionality.
  • Divine Spellcasters can no longer get a second spell preparation on their first day online.
  • NPCs who are attacking characters who are incorrectly labeled as flat-footed (either because of not being actively engaged in combat at the moment or because they have uncanny dodge) will receive a penalty to attack which will require them to roll the same number on their d20 to hit their target as if the engine had not counted them as flat-footed. This fix does not (yet) prevent sneak attacks made on characters who are incorrectly seen as flat-footed.
  • The chat commands #hideremoteplayers on and #hideremoteplayers off can be used to make the chat list GUI not display players from other servers.
  • Fatigue when resting follows the SRD guidelines: resting in medium or heavy armor will always restult in fatigue, and resting in light armor will never result in fatigue.
  • New copies of the DMFI tool will be weightless
  • Walkmesh helpers are now deleted as part of a module's startup event-- while leaving the walkmeshes they created intact. The effect of this change will be fewer objects present in any given area and fewer visual artifacts, such as red sparkles on the ground or black blocks in the air.
  • KEMO chairs will be much more adamant about restoring typical collision calculation after moving away from them. It remains an exploit to use KEMO chairs to subvert collisions, and attempting to do so outside of the context of supervised testing can expect censure.

New Models

  • Half-Elf and Drow Male heads 42, 44, 45
  • Jaeson's tapestry pack of placeables.

New Feats

  • A series of placeholder feats for skill foci in ALFA's custom skills have been added. They are presently non-functional, and only represent a place to sink the feat if it was intended to be spent as such.

Bugs: Known, But Not Fixed

  • Occasionally, a character's spell book GUI will appear empty as part of the triggering of the offline resting functionality. We believe that this is caused by a race condition (that is, the particular order of events of information received from the server relative to the particular speed at which events are processed by the client), which has proven to be rare. We, thus, have not been able to create a reliable fix for this bug, but we are aware that the downstream effects are serious. If anyone can reliably reproduce this bug, it would help enormously in getting these systems functioning well; until then, players who see a spellbook appear as inappropriately empty should relog.

1.86 Hotfix

We also resolved a few issues with this release in a hotfix, namely:

  • Bad logic in the player reports, resulting in many unnecessary invalid textures
  • An inadvertently-killed self-check in the IPC code, causing cross-server tells to function uncommonly-slowly (roughly 5x slower, in fact)
  • Some performance and logic issues on the Phat Lewt system.